The Value of Diversity: A Poetic Celebration of Asian Heritage Month 

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Originally published in TEACH Magazine, May/June 2022 Issue

By Leighton Suen

When I was a student in high school, I never saw myself in any of the books I read. In fact, I don’t recall reading a single work by an Asian or Asian American author.

It was only when I went to college and specifically took an Asian American Literature class that I began to discover books by authors from that region. Stories set in many countries all over Asia—from China and Japan in East Asia, to Uzbekistan in Central Asia, to Vietnam in Southeast Asia—captured my imagination and filled a literary void I didn’t know I had.

Today, I am a dual-licensed ELA and ENL teacher at Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, NY, where I’ve taught for the past six years. The school has about 3,400 students and almost 35 percent of them are Asian. Despite this relatively large percentage, when I first started teaching there, I was surprised to see that no books by Asian or Asian American authors were being taught. It seemed not much had changed since the days when I was a student.

Fortunately, here in New York City, there has been a recent push for more culturally diverse books and curriculum. In the spring of 2019, my former assistant principal and I came up with the idea of creating English elective courses that would reflect the identities of our students.

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Leighton Suen is in his sixth year as a dual-licensed ENL/ELA teacher at Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, NY. He received his Master’s in TESOL from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2016.

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Leighton Suen
Leighton Suen
Leighton Suen is in his sixth year as a dual-licensed ENL/ELA teacher at Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, NY. He received his Master’s in TESOL from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2016.

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