Introduction: Raya and the Last Dragon and our South East Asia Study

This year, Disney released their first (Warrior) Princess movie that takes place in a fictional land inspired by South East Asia (SEA). It is a story of a young woman in a divided, dystopian nation on a quest to overcome the dark forces that plague her land by bringing back the last dragon. Along the way, she learns how to overcome her distrust of people to unite the divided lands. While some movie-goers are up in arms about the lack of actors from actual south east asian countries or the pan-cultural representation of using all of SEA as inspiration for the movie instead of being true to one culture being represented, others are excited about the chance to see aspects of their culture depicted on the big screen.

We watched Raya and the Last Dragon shortly after it was released and my girls (5 yo and 2 yo) loved it. Looking back, it might have been more appropriate to wait until they were a little older to watch it, but we paused the movie at tense parts and discussed what was happening and they really enjoyed it. While they have an interest in all things Raya now, we decided to turn that passion about a fictional story into a real life exploration of South East Asia as part of our homeschooling. I structured this study as first an introduction to South East Asia followed by days doing activities that reflect specific aspects of the movies. Below are different activities we did as part of this study. If you are interested in following along, I hope that you find something inspiring.