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.
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.
