Submitted article
Linda Matsumoto, a District 65 educator since 2013, is the first Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) to win the Illinois Education Association (IEA) Reg Weaver Human and Civil Rights Award. The award is given annually to honor Weaver, a former IEA and National Education Association president who dedicated his teaching career to advance social justice so countless students would receive an equitable education. The IEA has 135,000 active members across Illinois.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Matsumoto recognized that our society was at an inflection point and to mitigate the rising tide of anti-Asian hate in our country since the pandemic began in 2020, she joined the growing movement to support inclusive history mandates. She created the IEA’s first diversity and cultural competency workshop for Illinois educators at the 2021 Summer Leadership Academy that focused on AAPI history and culture. She told her story from an authentic voice and shared her lived experiences to make AAPI history more relatable.
Matsumoto was also selected for the inaugural ISBE TEAACH Leaders cohort to help school districts throughout the State implement the TEAACH Act that was passed in 2021 that mandates a unit of AAPI history be taught in all public K-12 schools in Illinois, to offset the alarming rise in anti-Asian hate crimes since the pandemic began.
She has steadily increased the visibility for the AAPI educational community during local DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) professional development workshops she’s presented and at the State and National workshops she’s led on “Countering Asian American Stereotypes.”
“DEI efforts tend to focus only on black and brown issues, but DEIB encompasses more than that binary approach,” Matsumoto says. “It’s important for all perspectives from other marginalized groups to be represented in matters that impact educational policy and decisions.”
Matsumoto says she is honored to receive the award and is dedicating the recognition to the collective community of overlooked, hardworking AAPI educators in the state.