Allan Luke - Personal History

Personal History

Allan Luke is a second-generation Chinese-American, nephew of Hollywood actor Keye Luke, who grew up in Echo Park, outside of L.A.'s Chinatown. In 1973, he moved to Canada to attend Simon Fraser University. He later married German-born Carmen Luke and they had a daughter. Carmen Luke went on to publish major work on feminism, sociology and media literacy. When his daughter was in primary school, he worked as a substitute teacher in the primary schools of Fraser Valley. He studied primary education with Kieran Egan. In 1975, Jonathan Kozol, who had just published The Night is Dark and I am Far From Home, came to SFU as a guest lecturer. He introduced Luke to the works of Paulo Freire, including Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Luke describes this as a life-changing event.

Luke initially had difficulty finding a job as a primary teacher, which he believes was due to prejudice against Asian people still prevalent in Canada at the time. In Armstrong, British Columbia, he was hired at a rural secondary school teaching English, drama, and Spanish. When the first wave of Vietnamese immigrants arrived in Canada in 1976, he was asked to teach ESL, although he had no training or background in ESL at the time.

Luke worked toward his Ph.D. in Sociology of Literacy, which was a new field. At the time, literacy was thought to be a cognitive and psycholinguistic process that had little to do with social factors, including class, race, and identity. He was supervised by Suzanne DeCastell, a Canadian philosopher of education and literacy scholar. As he reached the end of his Ph.D., he received a job offer from James Cook University in Australia. He moved there with his wife and daughter in 1984 and became the first non-white professor on faculty. Luke taught reading/language arts methods and was assigned to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher education program. Indigenous Australians had only recently acquired rights and many were entering higher education for the first time (see History of Indigenous Australians). Luke taught the first generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers and Ph.D.s.