The partnered implementation of the Chinese government organization Hanban’s Confucius Classroom at Cedarlane Middle School in the Hacienda la Puente Unified School District has caused a year long controversy which has lead to an effort to recall the school board members as well as a community counter-effort to stop the recall. I’m happy to update now that the recall effort has officially been abandoned.
Although the opponents to the program claim no racist intentions, they openly made groundless accusations that the majority Asian American board members accepted bribes including “booze and women” from the Chinese government and called them communist agents trying to brainwash our children to make America subservient to China. School Board President Jay Chen was even accused of being a “Communist Emperor” and local Asian American high school students who came to speak were called “Red Guard”.
Being a member of the community and former HLPUSD student and teacher, I reported on my own eye-witness account of this McCarthy-istic “communist” witch-hunt. Also, as one of the community activists that spoke out against this ridiculous and abusive treatment of our elected public officials, we hope of course that this signals the end of the “controversy”. These ignorant individuals clearly tried to use the students of our school district as political pawns for their own misguided agendas to drive a wedge between the U.S. and China, sensationalize up anti-sino sentiments, and spread xenophobic Tea Party perspectives. If they should continue their efforts, our voices will be loud and clear, ready to speak out against them again.
