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New York Asian American History Bill [1]

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Date: 2022-08-24

In 1942, Dorothea Lange photographed these first-graders in San Francisco pledging allegiance to the United States flag.

A group of New York State Asian American legislators, their allies, and community advocacy groups are pushing for a law (Senate Bill S6359A) to require teaching about Asian American history in the state’s public schools. State Senator John Liu argues that teaching students about the Asian American experience would help stop violence against Asian American individuals and communities. The group Stop AAPI Hate estimates there were over 11,500 attacks on Asian Americans in the United States during the first two years of the pandemic. In New York City, there were more anti-Asian hate crimes than any other city in the country. Asians and Asian Americans were 8.58% of the population of New York State in 2020 and 14.29% in New York City.

At a recent rally in the Bayside neighborhood of Queens, a community with a large Asian American population, the Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke in support of the legislation and the importance of building alliances between Asian American and African American communities. Jackson declared “We must fight ignorance, hatred, fear, and violence. One leads to the other.” State Assembly member Ron Kim added, "declining social conditions that is the root of the violence and hatred that pits communities of color like Asians and Blacks against each other. The system in front of us, they want us to fight. They want us to hate each other. They want us to be pitted against each other. And it is us, the next generation, to fight through that."

Currently, only Illinois and New Jersey mandate the teaching of Asian American history in K-12 schools. In Illinois, the new curriculum, adds a unit focusing on Asian Americans in Illinois and the Midwest. In addition to additions to the New Jersey curriculum, the state's Department of Education established a Commission for Asian American Heritage. Both the Illinois and New Jersey curriculum mandates go into effect in the 2022-2023 school year. When he signed the New Jersey legislation, Governor Phil Murphy argued "By teaching students about the history and heritage of our AAPI community, we can ensure that the diversity of our state is reflected in our curriculum and create a more tolerant and knowledgeable future for New Jersey.

Since 1997, New York State has required that students learn about human rights issues, specifically the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s and the right of people to food, the World War II era European Holocaust and the right of people to life, and slavery and the Underground Railroad and the might of people to freedom. No specific groups are mentioned, however, the three topics discuss the experiences of the Irish, Jews, and African Americans. At a minimum, the Japanese internment without trial in the western United States during World War II and the right of people to justice fits within this framework. The Asian American experience also lends itself to a comparative examination of immigration and immigrant groups in the past and present. Senate Bill S6359A, if approved, would instruct the State Department of Education to develop and distribute appropriate curriculum material for different grade levels.

In May 2022, the New York City Department of Education announced that it would include more material on Asian-American history and culture in its K-12 curriculum. The broad range of topics are expected to include the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1883, the history of immigrant workers who helped build the nation’s railroad system including the first trans-continental railroad completed in 1869, and the establishment of Asian American communities in New York City. A pilot program starts in fall 2022 and should be in all New York City schools by spring 2024. Approximately 17% of New York’s public school students have Asian heritage.

Since 1965, the United States has large new immigrant populations from China, Korea, the Philippines, Southeast and Southwest Asia, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Each group has its own history in the United States, however all have faced stereotypes and discrimination and been stereotyped.

Despite decades of prejudice, Asian Americans have major contributions to life in the United States. They include Vice-President Kamala Harris whose mother was an immigrant from India, Eric S. Yuan, the CEO of Zoom, Steven Chen, co-founder of YouTube, Nobel Prize winning scientists Chen Ning Yang and T. D. Lee, physicist Chien-Shiung Wu who worked on the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bomb, U.S. Senators Daniel Inouye (Dem-HI) and Tammy Duckworth (Dem-Ill), film director Ang Lee, astronaut Kalpana Chawla, architect I. M. Pei, authors Maxine Hong Kingston, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Amy Tan, athletes Tiger Woods, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Michelle Kwan, musician Yo-Yo Ma, and actors Sandra Oh, Lucy Liu, Haing Somnang Ngor, George Takei (Mr. Sulu), and Bruce Lee.

Follow Alan Singer on twitter at https://twitter.com/AlanJSinger1

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/24/2118575/-New-York-Asian-American-History-Bill

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