Connections Across Contexts

A multilingual student, Larry, responded to the discussion question in his native language, Mandarin (which I speak) and said that he believed the Boston Massacre wasn’t a massacre because the number of deaths did not reach the scale of his definition of a massacre like what happened in the Nanjing Massacre. I was excited by Larry’s connection to a different historical event that he knew about. Moreover, the fact that he’d responded so confidently in Mandarin meant that our classroom culture was strong, allowing students to participate in discussion in whatever language they felt most comfortable with. I rephrased his comment and translated it from Mandarin to English, so everyone in the class would know what he said. I was worried that some students might not know what happened during the Nanjing Massacre, when Japanese soldiers killed 200,000 to 300,000 innocent Chinese civilians and soldiers. I didn’t want students to be confused, like they missed something in the reading. Although 27 out of the 28 students in the class are Asian Americans whose families came from China, most of them were born in the United States and spoke English as their first language. 

After translating his comment, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I wanted Larry to feel heard and the class to understand his important comment connecting two historical events. I knew that letting students discuss more context about the Nanjing Massacre would enrich the discussion, but I was afraid that going too deep into the Nanjing Massacre would take away the class focus on the Boston Massacre. I thought about asking Larry or other students to share what they know about the Nanjing Massacre. It might be helpful to talk a little bit more about the Nanjing Massacre so every student would see how the two massacres are different from each other. But, this would take time—we only had seven minutes left in class, and we’d barely even begun exploring the documents related to the Boston Massacre.