The Asian Pacific American Student Achievement Action Group (APASAAG) appears to be an in-house Asian-American Student Group at Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). For four years now, it has sponsored a poster art contest for K-12 students at MCPS. Other co-sponsors of the contest are noted as:
the MCPS Department of Partnerships, the Calvin J. Li Memorial Foundation, the Chinese American Parents Association of Montgomery County, the Chinese Cultural and Community Service Center, the Lead for Future Academy, the Association of Vietnamese Americans and the Montgomery County Progressive Asian American Network.
Having the Montgomery County “Progressive Asian American Network” as a co-sponsor is interesting, as we shall soon see. The “Progressive Asian American Network” says it tries to “raise the visibility of Asian Americans, to collectivize and lift up progressive voices.”
A judge panel then picks the winners and an awards ceremony will be held May 31, 2023 at the Carver Educational Services Center (CESC) Auditorium in the evening.
As CleanSlateMoCo.com has reported on previously, there seems to be a disturbing lionization and overt whitewashing about the historical facts surrounding a Maoist and Shining Path (Peru) apologist / activist named Yuri Kochiyama going on in pockets of the school system.
Last year, the following was awarded 1st place for the High School level entries. What on earth is being taught in MCPS about this woman and one-time Osama Bin Laden “admirer”? Are all the facts being taught about Kochiyama’s history and past associations? It appears not. This kid seems to think this person is on-par with Martin Luther King, Jr.
This entry, as an art piece, has some interesting concepts and the layering / collage effect seems well done. But was this entry, even just on an “art and design” level, that much better then the 2nd place finisher, last year? Or did political ideology once again infect a MoCo / MCPS “contest” or curriculum?
It gets arguably worse and more glaringly corrupt if we look at a “winner” from 2020 in the Middle School division (see screen shot below). Again, this is a criticism of what is being “taught” at MCPS, not the art itself. Kids are being indoctrinated about this woman without all of the facts, and it is perpetuating an anti-American bias as well as just general ignorance. Someone can indeed be anti-war without praising Osama Bin Laden (lifted from Dylan Matthews at Vox.com, 5/19/2016):
To be clear, this is Kochiyama defending bin Laden — who, besides being a mass murderer, was a vicious misogynist and hardly the brave anti-imperial class traitor Kochiyama fancies him as — against other leftists who correctly noted that you can oppose American imperialism without allying or supporting violent jihadism.
Thankfully, none of the winning poster art entries for this year (2023) appear to spotlight or ridiculously lionize Kochiyama. Instead, in a refreshing twist, the winning entry appears to be a pro-American Naval Officer named Susan Ahn Cuddy.
What is being taught at MCPS about Kochiyama? And does this kid-glove treatment extend to Mao Zedong? Fidel Castro? Other communists?
Parents have a right to know what is being taught about historical figures. History is important, as is accuracy – particularly about recent historical figures where we have more then enough primary source documentation to paint a full and accurate picture about what communist ideologues believed and how they brought about their totalitarian societies.
More to come.
