Daisy Han Tackles Racism in America’s Schools

by Debra Lau Whelan

There was a time when Daisy Han would never dream of using her real name. It was too weird, too hard to pronounce, and none of the kids she grew up with in the San Francisco Bay Area had such exotic first names.

“My Korean name is Heyjin,” she says. “And I would feel shame when my parents or family would call me that in public.”

Han had a good reason. Even though she was the first American-born member of her family, she always felt like an outsider here. It was a feeling, she says, that started as far back as kindergarten, when her mother dropped her off for her first day of school.

“It was a traumatic transition,” says Han, who was raised by her grandparents and spoke very little English at the time. ”I still remember to this day crying so hard that my teeth were chattering, and my brain felt like it was rattling in my skull.”

To make matters worse, Han says that as she watched her mother staring back at her from outside the classroom window and sobbing even harder, the teacher did something unimaginable. She crouched down and said, “Don’t worry my little China doll,” and started making silly faces, including pulling her eyes into slants, in an effort to make the five-year-old laugh.

Looking back, Han says, the experience taught her about the dangers of racism in American schools and how it harmed children of color like herself.

“In that moment, I learned I had to be as white as possible,” she says. “I had to sacrifice a lot of my ethnic identity, a lot of my familial relationship, and my native language in order to be successful. And I resolved to create a learning environment where children could bring their full selves.”

And Han did just that. In 2017, after a 14-year career as a teacher and principal, she launched Embracing Equity, a social change organization designed to revamp K-12 education by training teachers and administrators how to create and reinforce inclusive teaching in the classroom--first by identifying and analyzing racist behaviors and then by unlearning and avoiding them.

The completely online curriculum, created by Han and a team of fellow students from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, started as a 10-week program involving direct coaching with individual teachers and has evolved into customized levels of training with school districts, school leaders, and educational organizations based on “what they need and where they want to go.” The leaders of those institutions can now sign up for a year-long residency program that will teach them how to identify inequity, build empathy, enact change, and hold staff accountable through “equity audits,” which include data collection and reporting back on goals and achievements. This ensures that daily conversations about racism are also “built into our teaching” and not just during Black History Month or when a tragedy like the murder of George Floyd takes place.

Now in its fifth year, the Austin, TX-based nonprofit has reached more than 2,000 educators in 47 states, in addition to Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and 19 countries, which is impressive considering Embracing Equity’s reach is mainly by word-of-mouth, and that the organization operates with a staff of only 20, mostly women of color, who are trained in-house in ways to help educators “dismantle systemic oppression” in schools, both at the individual and institutional levels.

Han hopes that by 2030 Embracing Equity will serve one million children through its programming and that anti-racist training will be mandatory in the national board certification process for teachers. Although a growing number of states explicitly advise teachers to take professional development courses in cultural competency, Han says only two--Connecticut and Maryland--require such training as part of teacher certification. Han hopes that arming teachers with these tools also will help elevate the profession and bring along the respect it deserves.

Born in San Jose, California, Han grew up in a progressive, white neighborhood and was drawn to justice and fairness from a young age. “Witnessing my parents struggle as immigrants made me incredibly sensitive and observant of the ways in which systemic racism impacts our daily lives.”

Yet, it wasn’t until Han signed up for a freshman ethnic studies class at the University of California, Berkeley, that she finally experienced a classroom that celebrated ethnic differences and taught students to be proud of them. That’s when she decided to become a teacher.

“I realized the illness of racism that I’d been coping with my whole life was not a personal failure,” she says. “Instead, society was sick. We’re held to the standards that make white characteristics superior and the characteristics of people of the global majority inferior.”

Han abandoned her pre-law studies, majored in ethnic studies at Berkeley, and went on to study Montessori education at Saint Mary’s College of California. During the years she spent teaching in California and Hawaii, she realized that educators like herself “needed and deserved better training” in ways that nurtured children’s differences and helped them reach their full potential. But she couldn’t do it alone.

Han returned for a second master’s degree in 2017--this time at the Harvard Graduate School of Education--to focus on equity in the classroom. From there, she shifted to the nonprofit world to work on education reform, joining the Wildflower Foundation, which supports a network of Montessori schools. While there, Han launched a free online pilot program that eventually led to Embracing Equity.

“I wrote a blog post asking if there were folks who wanted to learn more about white supremacy culture, how it shows up in our classroom, how it shows up in the way we teach, and how we can actually be a part of the solution in creating a more fair and equitable world,” she says.

Han had hoped for 30 sign-ups. Instead, she got 300.

“The momentum was there,” she says, explaining that the overwhelming response coincided with the election of Donald Trump, whose long history of racism followed him to the White House. “I was hearing from people all around the country that we needed this. Teachers were saying, ‘Wow, I’ve done a lot of harm in the field, and I didn’t even realize it.”

While many factors contribute to the nation’s achievement gap, teachers with implicit biases--for example, those who discipline and expel Black students more than their white counterparts or who make kids like Han feel like perpetual foreigners--rob children of educational achievement. “I had to learn coping mechanisms to help me survive and be resilient and successful through school,” says Han, explaining that the microaggressions she experienced were like “1,000 paper cuts a day.” In fact, discrimination due to ethnicity, nationality, language ability, accent, or immigration status leads to lower student academic motivation, negative attitudes about school, increased high school dropout rates, and even post-traumatic stress disorder, says a 2015 study by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to improve immigration and integration.

The need to train teachers in race equity and inclusion is more urgent now than ever, Han says, given the nation’s rapidly shifting demographics. White students nationwide comprised 22.6 million in 2020, compared to 26.6 million kids who identified as Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and/or two or more races, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

“There are more students of color now than there are white students, yet over 80 percent of our K through 12 teachers are white,” Han says, explaining that this disproportionate ratio has led to a lot of tensions that are equivalent to educational “malpractice.”

“We operate on the premise that we live in a racist society, so inevitably we’ve absorbed these racist messages.” Han says. “If you don’t even recognize the racism, then you’re not even seeing your own bias. So if you don’t accept that premise, then Embracing Equity is not for you.”

The organization’s in-your-face approach has already made an impact. Close to 90 percent of participants--from newbies to 25-year veterans--say they’re better equipped to talk about their role “in perpetuating or resisting systemic racism” and all participants in the leadership residency report implementing what they’ve learned within three months, Han says. An overwhelming majority also say the course has transformed them and that they’re more prepared to combat anti-racist practices because they see the world through a more critical lens.

Program participant Nicole H., describes Embracing Equity as a space to “learn, unlearn, grow, heal, and develop the tools needed to… uproot and dismantle white supremacy.”

Still, Han understands this work requires patience, understanding, and forgiveness--and that it’s a lifelong journey of learning and unlearning.

“Our programming is very much focused on internal healing,” she says, explaining that educators must first recognize their own biases and racist behaviors in order to effect change. “There’s a lot of fear built up around racism, [so] it’s recognizing that you can break these patterns and develop news skills. We need to accept that we’re human, and we make mistakes. Mistakes are a part of learning, and the only way to get better is to confront them.”

And now Han’s making sure that history doesn’t repeat itself, especially when it comes to her own child, who’s about to enter preschool.

“It’s full circle now because I have a toddler,” she says. “I’m not only dealing with the fear of her contracting COVID, I’m also navigating so much of my own fear and anxiety about the anti-Asian racism she might have to confront.”

That’s why she’s building an Embracing Equity lab school in Dripping Springs, TX, in a location she chose as an “act of defiance” against the restrictive critical race theory legislation that went into effect in her state last year.

With an estimated startup cost of $300,000, the Montessori preschool will initially launch as a full, Spanish-immersion program with one classroom housing 25 students, ages two to six. It will be staffed with three master’s-level teachers who’ve gone through Embracing Equity’s anti-racism training.

As a woman of color heading a social justice organization, Han says she wants other Asians to see that they can be part of the solution.

“We as a community need to come together to address anti-blackness and have solidarity across ethnic and racial lines,” she says.

And what about her Korean name, Heyjin? She now proudly includes it in her bio, both in English and Hangul.