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When Susan Jones asked her 9-year-old daughter what she learned on Columbus Day, her daughter replied that Columbus was an evil man because he killed Native Americans.
Jones, who immigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong as an infant, said she was taken aback. Columbus wiped out much of the Native American population with his campaign of conquest, but the mother of three questioned why teachers should be allowed to decide what is evil. Doing so divides people into oppressors and victims, which could lead her mixed children to suppress their whiteness, Jones argued.
It’s a line of thinking that has come to dominate the country this year. It also drove Jones, 40, to vote for Republican Glenn Youngkin in Virginia’s heated gubernatorial contest.
Because the state’s elections will signal the political climate ahead of the critical 2022 midterms, the governor’s race has become the focus of national attention in recent weeks. If Republicans win the state—which President Joe Biden won by 10 points in 2020—it could mean similar success in the midterms.
Terry McAuliffe (D) and Youngkin have clashed on education multiple times throughout their campaigns. Critical race theory (CRT), a concept that links racial discrimination to the nation's foundations and legal system, has turned into an increasingly partisan source of division, with Republicans seizing on CRT—which is mostly found in college curricula and not elementary or secondary education—as anti-American and anti-white.
That tension has played out in the race. McAuliffe insists CRT has never been taught in Virginia, while Youngkin claims McAuliffe supports this academic framework and promises to ban CRT in schools.
Jones gravitated to Youngkin’s approach. “[Children] just don't see color,” she said. “Unfortunately, with schools now, they want you to see color. They want you to see that segregation, that people are different based upon skin color.”
She voiced her opposition to teaching CRT in K-12 schools, adding that the more important question should be whether the child is kind, respectful, and a good citizen.
Jones argued that schools’ emphasis on race might also harm Asian Americans, who are sometimes “lumped with white people, in terms of income value, education and test scores.”
Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S. In 2000, Asian Americans made up 3.8% of Virginia’s population; that percentage jumped to 6.8% in 2019, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
Republicans and Democrats have tried appealing to voters in this expanding group through advertisements and campaign events, but it remains unclear whether Youngkin’s anti-CRT approach will clinch Asian American voters in the close race.
McAuliffe currently holds a narrow lead over Youngkin—49% to 48%—among likely voters, per a recent election survey by The Wason Center.
Ting-Yi Oei, who was born to Chinese and Dutch parents and brought up in the U.S., said Youngkin’s stance on education might be less attractive for Asian Americans, since many Asian parents come from countries where they are not directly involved in the school system.
Youngkin tweeted in September that he believes “parents should be in charge of their kids' education.”
Oei serves as the education director of 1882 Foundation, an organization that aims to broaden public awareness of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. In his view, everyone benefits from a more inclusive education, even if the curricula might add more of an emphasis to African Americans than Asian Americans when students are taught to think critically about systemic racism.
“It's important to have the different perspectives of underrepresented groups,” Oei said. “When the term [critical race theory] is thrown around, it really distracts from the more important question of trying to have a curriculum that is more complete, whole, and truthful.”
Like Oei, Virginia Delegate Mark Keam (D) believes that CRT should center on correcting racial prejudices.
“Schools should provide opportunities for students to learn how to think clearly and critically. Hear from all sides, see all perspectives, read different viewpoints, so that students can make up their own mind,” said Keam, who became the first Asian-born immigrant elected to any state-level Virginia office in 2009.
For Grace O, 44, a Korean American who came to the U.S. when she was 7, thinking critically about race is necessary in a rapidly diversifying world. Teaching such a curriculum would create a foundation for students—one they will rely on for the rest of their lives, said O, who attended an Oct. 23 rally in which former President Barack Obama campaigned with McAuliffe to mobilize voters.
People will still experience racism and discrimination outside of schools, O said. Discussing these issues in a safe, intellectual space would be better than encountering them on the street.
“[School] is actually the appropriate place … the concepts of race, discrimination and bigotry, and the roles that these things have had in American history,” O said. “It'd be debated and taught within the walls of academia … it’ll just better prepare them for life.”
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