In After School, Angela Chen unpacks the culture of after school tutoring centers in predominantly East Asian communities in the San Gabriel Valley, CA. Known as buxiban in Chinese, hagwon in Korean, and juku in Japanese, these after schools are referred to colloquially as cram schools and by scholars as shadow education. But in the US, after schools also provide essential childcare services to busy parents, many of whom are new immigrants. Despite the outsize role they play in Asian American communities, the general public knows very little about them. Through autobiographical texts, photographs, and xeroxed collages, Chen recounts how her parents, new immigrants from Taiwan, began their after school business and considers the relationship between this educational ecosystem and the myth of American meritocracy.

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9781962365086