Reflections on Empathy and Upstanding from a Facing History Alum

The curriculum created by Facing History & Ourselves is geared toward middle and high school students, but our learning community is not confined within school walls. From the educators who teach our content to the donors who support our work to the parents of Facing History students to the students themselves, Facing History has a lasting impact on anyone who wants to learn.

A unique benefit of being part of this learning community is watching students grow up and start applying the lessons from Facing History classrooms in the real world.

Over our nearly 50 years of educational work, we’ve had the pleasure of reconnecting with multiple generations of Facing History alumni, hearing the big and small ways in which Facing History has inspired them to engage in community, consider their actions through an ethical lens, and be an upstander.

Recently we had the chance to catch up with Emily C., a Facing History alum now in her second year of college. Pam Haas, Executive Director of Facing History & Ourselves New York, sat down with Emily to discuss the Facing History experience from her unique point-of-view and how those lessons continue to inform life after high school. Among her reflections, Emily shared how a Facing History internship helped her develop empathy and connection and how she started to explore the relation between Chinese American immigration to her own family history.

Pam Haas: As a college student, tell us a bit about yourself and your collegiate life.

Emily C: I go to Wellesley College and I'm class of '27, so I'm a sophomore right now. I'm double majoring in Economics and American Studies. And I feel like I want to explain that because a lot of people wonder, "American Studies, why specifically that?" Well, American Studies is very theory-based and also driven toward people, and very focused on how experience impacts history. And I like economics because it's very data-driven and very mathy, but it still has a social science aspect—it still has a human aspect to it.

Pam: Before Wellesley, you grew up in Great Neck, New York. What was attending high school there like alongside your experience with Facing History?

Emily: Great Neck is a predominantly very white and Asian high school, and, for me, history was not the most reflective of my demographics. Facing History was a way in which I got to learn about things that were not necessarily talked about a lot, such as genocide and the Holocaust, but we also learned how we interact with the world and how to be upstanders. And I like that because the reason why I enjoy history is because it's frustrating. This might sound really weird, but history is really frustrating to me, because it's so many things that are so preventable, but also it is so interesting to learn about why these actions happen. And because I find it frustrating, I want to do something to cause a change or to just let people know that they shouldn't repeat these mistakes. And I think that's one of the ways that Facing History has really  impacted me.

I really loved Facing History early on because Facing History at my school was very focused on experiences, not only just what we've learned, but also our own personal experiences and how they're important.

Pam: When did you take your Facing History course and what was it like? I am curious if you had any “aha moments” or if there was a lesson or reading that really opened your mind or your heart?

Emily: I took it senior year of high school. Facing History was mainly only for seniors, and I understand why. It's a lot of responsibility and it's a very heavy subject. I know Facing History offers American history content, but our course was more focused on Europe and the Holocaust. We also had a case study on Rwanda. Then toward the end we talked about economics and related topics.

There was the genocide project. We were given several events to choose from; one of them was the atomic bombing, another one was the Rape of Nanjing, and a few others. I did the Rape of Nanjing because I myself am Chinese American and in a way, my family has been affected by this history—not fully via the Rape of Nanjing, but in terms of World War II, colonization, and I wanted to learn about this to know more about the Chinese experience.

To learn the different ways in which very brutal and heart-wrenching events took place… in a way that is an aha moment because it makes you wonder, “How did we not prevent this? Why did this happen? And, how do we let this not happen again?” And to then study the history, there are more aha moments when you realize, "Oh, so all of these things led up to these tragedies.”

Pam Haas: I know you took an internship as well that was Facing History adjacent. I’d love to hear more about that.

Emily: Yes, there was an internship component with the Facing History class. A few people, including myself, got to intern at the Henry Viscardi School, a school for kids with disabilities. I was there to assist the teachers and help students do their work. One of my favorite parts about Facing History is encouraging us to do service. That was really exciting and I had a lot of fun.

It never felt stressful because I got to help people that were my age, so they were also high school seniors, also applying to college, just like me. I still talk to a lot of the students, including one the other day who said, “You never made us feel like we were our disability." She's very outspoken about her disability, and to me she's just a person. We're both the same age and we both impacted each other's lives in such a profound way. I didn't think high schoolers could have such an impact on each other. Facing History offered me this chance to experience human-to-human connection.

Pam: I'm curious what role you're actively pursuing now toward making a better future and being an upstander in the world?

Emily: So “upstander” for me has two components. There's the volunteering aspect and there's just making yourself more aware and being a lifelong learner. So there are two ways in which I'm doing that. One of them is that the summer of my freshman year of college I took a summer class that was on the Asian American experience. I got to study how my mom's immigration pattern to the new United States varied compared to other Chinese Americans and how others came over. And that's one of the ways in which I'm trying to keep myself educated. I feel like that's one way to be an upstander, asking “Where do I belong and how do I belong? Who am I and how do I fit into our history?” So that's one way.

Another way is through participation in this program on campus called the Hillary Rodham Clinton Center for Democracy. We learn about how to recognize certain patterns and behaviors and know what our strengths are and how we can play into them to change the world. There’s also a service component where we volunteer in the community.

Pam: Facing History’s Universe of Obligation exercise is a central component of the Facing History class you took—an exercise where you have concentric circles and are prompted to think about “Who's in my community? Who's further out? How do I connect my own identity to history?” and so on. How has the idea of that interconnectedness stayed with you?

Emily: A project I did a year ago that has that kind of Facing History lens was a podcast which focused on Asian American history, and the point of the podcast project was a call for action. To ask questions such as: “What do we need?” and “Why is this history important?” For me, Asian American history is vital to who I am because when I was growing up, my mom always told me stories. At the time, I didn't know how to relate to those stories necessarily—I thought history and my mom's stories ran parallel and there might not be room for them to come together. But I've started to learn now that experiences are the basis of history, and you can't have history without experience, and therefore history and my mom's stories weave in and out of each other. I began to truly understand how my mom's stories are important within my personal context, but also the larger context of history.