UCLA just launched a massive AAPI textbook for the TikTok generation. And it's free

A rich trove of Asian American and Pacific Islander history lives in academic journals and university library stacks that many students don’t know how to tap into.

A new multimedia textbook developed out of UCLA's Asian American Studies Center is trying to change that.

Called Foundations and Futures, the online platform combines written chapters, archival documents and artwork with videos and podcast clips, geared at students in high school and up, along with their teachers.

“It’s the largest collection of Asian American and Pacific Islander histories in one location — free and open access for anyone with an Internet connection,” said Karen Umemoto, director of the UCLA center and one of the project’s co-editors.

The textbook officially launched this month — Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month — after some six years of development with contributions from more than 100 authors and curriculum developers from across the country.

Designed with the TikTok generation in mind, the platform is optimized for phones and tablets for easy scrolling.

“A lot of young people, of course, are really into TikTok videos and Instagram posts,” Umemoto said. “So we thought, 'Let’s leverage that.'”

Responding to invisibility 

The project was seeded in 2020 when Umemoto and co-editor and fellow UCLA professor Kelly Fong began drafting proposals chapter by chapter.

At the time, California was moving toward implementing an ethnic studies graduation requirement. The professors worried AAPI histories could still be sidelined without dedicated resources.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and a surge in anti-Asian hate incidents.

“There’s so many people who have no idea who we are, where we come from, how we got here,” Umemoto said.

The textbook grew into a $12 million project, supported through a mix of state funding, grants and private donations.

A major boost came in 2022, when the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus helped secure a $10 million state allocation.

Much of the textbook does focus on AAPI history in California, like the Filipino farmworker movement and Vietnamese refugee communities in Orange County.

But other modules cover Chinese immigrant garment workers in New York and Asian American communities in the South.

Getting into schools

Umemoto said the textbook is for anyone to use as needed, but a major goal is helping educators incorporate AAPI perspectives into existing courses.

“We’re so woefully invisible and underrepresented in educational curricula,” she said, noting that there are few teachers to instruct from lived experience. Just 2% of public school teachers in the U.S. are AAPI.

The plan is to offer everything from two-day in-person teacher workshops to national webinars in partnership with teachers unions.

Even with the project’s launch, organizers say their work continues with raising funds for teacher training, as well as outreach and operations.

The team is seeking another $5 million for the next three years.

"I'm a professor not trained in doing startups or ed tech projects, and so I didn't realize how much it would take just to keep the lights on," Umemoto said.

All the while, the team is building the textbook to 50 chapters. It's currently at 42.

Learning amid polarization

The project arrives amid charged political debates over how race and identity are taught in schools.

Umemoto acknowledged that some critics view ethnic studies as divisive, but she said the goal of the textbook is the opposite.

“We need to learn about each other’s history so that we can build an inclusive society,” she said.

For Umemoto, the work is deeply personal.

She said she grew up knowing her parents and grandparents had been forced into camps during World War II, but did not fully understand the broader history behind the incarceration of Japanese Americans until later in life.

“I grew up thinking everybody was in camp,” she said.

Ultimately, she hopes the textbook helps students better understand both themselves and one another.

“In all my years of teaching, there has not been a student who has left the classroom unchanged,” Umemoto said. “If we want to deal with the problems of polarization, we need to start in the classroom."