Christina Tang is one of the recipients of the 2020 T4SJ Thank-a-Teacher Award

We're delighted to share the great news that Christina Tang, ESJF’s teacher committee chair, is one of this year’s Thank-a-Teacher 4 Social Justice awardees. It was my honor to nominate her. Please keep a lookout for T4SJ’s celebration and recognition of Christina’s hard work on T4SJ’s social media platforms, website, and email blast! In her teaching, Christina draws connections between today’s issues and sidelined history, helping her students connect to the topics on a deeper level. Her lesson plans, illustrating her commitment to advancing social justice education while increasing student’s historical thinking skills, are included in ESJF’s publications.

About Christina: Since she began teaching in 2010, Christina Tang has drawn connections between today’s issues and sidelined history, helping her students connect to history and current issues on a deeper level. One sidelined historical narrative she teaches is Japanese military sexual slavery before and during WWII. She first learned about it when she was a high school student. Christina Tang kept the high school promise she made to herself: to teach her students sidelined history such as “comfort women” if she became a high school history teacher. 

She wrote lesson plans on the Japanese military sexual slavery system and on medical atrocities committed against African American males in Tuskegee for ESJF’s publications--“Comfort Women” History and Issues: Teacher Resource Guide, “Comfort Women” History and Issues: Student Resource Guide, and Medical Atrocities and Ethics. Her lesson plans clearly illustrate her commitment to advancing social justice education while increasing student’s historical thinking skills. As the teacher committee Chair at ESJF, she has facilitated workshops at T4SJ and Facing History and Ourselves since 2017 and 2018 respectively. She was one of the first two teachers in the United States to be invited to attend the first international teacher workshop, hosted by the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, on teaching the history and issues surrounding the Japanese military sexual slavery system during the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict week in June 2019 in Seoul, Korea. Christina is excited to continue her commitment to advancing educational and social justice through ESJF’s other main focus area, the history and issues surrounding Asian diaspora in the United States.