系列报道六 | 在反亚裔仇恨浪潮中，亚太裔美国人历史何时能纳入宾州教科书？

“It's time for a change in American history. It's time we should include [more] people so less people are getting hurt”

Yu Chen was a student in the Duncannon school district in Central Pennsylvania from 5th to 12th grade. An immigrant from China, Chen’s parents intentionally relocated to an area with a low population of Asian Americans so that Chen and his sister could learn English while being exposed to American culture. With the town’s population totaling only about 1,400 residents, only 0.62% of the population identify as Asian.

Chen recalls feeling ostracized growing up, serving as an easy target by peers and teachers for racist comments and microaggressions directed at his heritage, such as remarks about his “squinty eyes,” knowledge of math, fashion choices, and more. On more than one occasion, a white teacher has placed their hands together and bowed in front of Chen, mimicking a historical sign of respect in many Asian cultures such as China and Korea. “It’s really sad, but they didn't know that was racism. In the back of their heads they think it's a joke.”

Micah Jordan, a Filipino student from Lawrenceville, New Jersey recalls the frustrations of being left out of American history and feeling isolated in their public schools，due to almost no mention of Asian Americans in her public school history classes. “Maybe one paragraph in the textbook…only relating to colonialism and very brief.”

Shauna Zhang, Vice Principal of the Guanghua Chinese School and Director of Greater Philadelphia Chinese Culture Center, says she has witnessed this process over the years from young students at the Chinese school, the largest of its kind in the Philadelphia area. Guanghua is a weekend language school with a primarily Chinese population. With over 800 students and 50 classes taught, Zhang notices that the pressure to reject their heritage and assimilate really starts to take hold around the teenage years.. “Most of them are like a banana. They have Asian skin but in their heart they feel they are white.”

Zhang explains that the students do not want to feel different from their peers, so they adopt practices of what they determine to be acceptable to American culture such as fashion choices, language, and more. Zhang mentioned some of students remembered how they felt embarrassed by their differences at school when they were young, when classmates would poke fun at their traditional Chinese lunch that smelled and looked different from their own.

Zhang often hears similar complaints from other parents that their children are being treated differently in their public schools. While basic cultural elements such as Lunar New Year may be talked about in schools, which Philadelphia School District granted a day off for this year for the first time, she believes that more of an understanding surrounding Asian American history would help reduce bullying and stereotypes surrounding Asian students, as Asian cultural elements would become more familiar to all students. Zhang would like to see lessons about Asian American History and their contributions to American history, and, significant Asian American figures taught in schools, similar to lessons received about the Founding Fathers and European explorers.

The topic of bringing Asian American history to Pennsylvania schools strikes a cord with non-Asian students as well. Gabrielle is a college student in Pennsylvania whose parents immigrated from Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union. Growing up in the Lower Moreland school district, Gabrielle, a white woman, could not understand why her Asian peers were questioned “Are you really American?” or ridiculed for their cultures, despite similar familial backgrounds of immigration.

Gabrielle serves on the board of Make Us Visible PA and has been instrumental in bringing Asian American history to Pennsylvania schools to help her Asian friends feel less excluded.

Ultimately, advocates believe the lack of Asian American history taught in schools in Pennsylvania and elsewhere has drastically impacted the self confidence and identity of Asian students across the state. Asian American students and adults alike have felt pressured to reject their heritage in order to assimilate and lessen their isolation.

Pennsylvania House Bill 1917, which was introduced by representative Patty Kim and approved by the PA legislative Education Committee on September 27, 2021, introduces similar legislation to include AAPI history in the Commonwealth’s K-12 curriculum. The bill was recently cosponsored by Republican State Representative Todd Stephans, the sole Republican supporter of the bill along with 19 Democrats.

The bill reads, “to each school entity may offer instruction on Asian-American and Pacific Islander history and the social, political and economic contributions of members of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community. This instruction may be integrated within the social studies and language arts course of study required in accordance with State Board of Education regulations. Instruction may also be integrated into other appropriate courses of study…The curriculum under this section may include the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Pennsylvania and the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States as a whole, including the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders toward advancing civil rights from the 19th century onward.”

The “school entity” discussed in the bill would apply to public school districts, charter schools, and technical schools across the state.

Pennsylvania has over 200 state representatives in the house of representatives, many who serve on smaller committees, such as the education committee. Once a committee agrees that a bill meets standards, it is then picked up by the Speaker of the House, who brings the bill to the floor to be voted on. Then the same process with state senators.

This past January, Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation that mandates the inclusion of Asian American history in the state’s K-12 public school curriculum, making New Jersey the second state to implement this topic, following , who mandated the legislation in July, 2021.

A crucial step of Governor Murphy’s signing of a similar bill in New Jersey was to create and appoint a 21-member commission that will advise on implementation of the curriculum changes determine the curriculum change for Asian American and Pacific Islander studies. The state’s education commissioner and chair of the Executive Board of New Jersey’s President’s Council will serve on the board, and there are requirements for other members to have expertise in as well as 19 members of the public, 3 of whom must have a masters degree in Asian American studies.

Exact topics of the curriculum have not yet been determined, but the change will be implemented this coming fall for the 2022-2023 school year. In NJ, similar changes have previously been mandated for the history of Africans, African-Americans and the LGBTQ community.

In PA, unlike in heavily Democratic NJ and IL, the GOP retains a strong grip on the state house, and as a party nationally has used the guise of critical race theory to paint a negative brush over any educational mandates related to race. This means that while there is not a clear pathway for bill passage in the near future, the campaign is helping to develop awareness of the issue and capacity to implement content locally. It is also part of a national and local wave of awareness around the lack of Asian American history in schools, and its connection to anti-Asian hate and the persistence of certain Asian stereotypes such as the perpetual foreigner.

Make Us Visible PA (MUV) is a non-profit organization with 9 national chapters all pushing to get Asian American history in schools mandated in their individual states. The group’s mission is to advocate for the integration of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) history into PA’s public school curriculum, as they believe the change will build confidence in young Asian Americans’ personal identities and heritage, and reduce anti-Asian sentiment on an overall level.

One of the board members of MUV, Serena Nguyen, is a Vietnamese student in Pennsylvania. Nguyen sees the Model Minority myth as being an issue in her schooling still today. It implies that Asians “play nice with the system” and are not vocal about their mistreatment。Passing Pennsylvania Bill 1917 is vital to reverse this narrative of the model minority myth and to lessen the isolation felt by Asian American students due to the stereotypes associated with them. “Ignorance comes from lack of education, and ignorance leads to hate.”

“Ignorance comes from lack of education, and ignorance leads to hate.” says Serena Nguyen, “We are in the process of getting state representatives to cosponsor the bill, meaning they would vote yes [when it is brought to the floor].Then it would move to the senate. Ideally by the end of the house process, they will have a lot of mobility,”  It would serve Pennsylvanian legislatures to pass this bill as the number of eligible AAPI voters has grown by 33% since 2012, totaling 4% of Pennsylvania’s total voters as of 2020.

The education committee within the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is leading the pack to gather more cosponsors for this bill, with assistance from nonprofits such as Make Us Visible PA, Asian Americans United, and Pop the Bubble, with the hope it will persuade the speaker of the house to bring Bill 1917 to the house floor. The groups are regularly hosting rallies across the commonwealth to gather support and meeting with lawmakers to push this agenda forward. If the bill does not pass, the process must start over, with the education committee drafting and introducing a new bill

While state standards for public schools directly lead to testing standards, local schools and  often educators have wide latitude over content which is not included in state standards. Even when states mandate curriculum content, commitment to implementation can result in widely different classroom experiences. This makes developing content and capacity for local implementation particularly significant.

Despite an Asian American history curriculum not yet being mandated in the keystone state, many Philadelphian teachers and academic professionals are making an effort to have Asian American voices present in their classrooms. On May 25th, the School District of Philadelphia hosted an event to provide themes and resources for how to incorporate Asian American voices into middle school and high school classrooms.

Rob Buscher is another individual working hard to implement Asian American history into the lives of Pennsylvanians. Buscher is the President of the Japanese American Citizens League in Philadelphia and a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Buscher’s Japanese ancestors settled on the west coast generations ago, but their contributions to American history are often left out of history textbooks.

Growing up in suburban Connecticut, Buscher says the only mention of Asian Americans in school was a brief synopsis of Japanese American incarceration during World War II and Chinese contributions to the railroad industry. The transcontinental railroad system solely exists due to the labor of 20,000 Chinese immigrants in the mid-1800s.

One of Buscher’s recent successes has been producing a TV talk show with WHYY entitled: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: A Philadelphia Story. The 6-episode series investigates contributions of AAPI individuals to Philadelphia and the surrounding area. “We need to educate the public in ways that the K-12 curriculum just isn’t going to.” Buscher explains that the small amount of Asian American history that is shared in schools is very west coast centric, making it difficult for students elsewhere to make connections to the history.

Make Us Visible PA hosted and attended a protest in Harrisburg on May 23rd to persuade legislative officials to move forward with bringing Bill 1917 to the House floor. The group has also begun a petition to lawmakers advocating for the bill, which has gotten nearly 400 signatures so far.

The Guanghua Chinese School is also urging its 1000 parents to sign the petition, recognizing that anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States have increased by 339% in the past year. The school will also be implementing a Chinese American History course this summer and in the next school year.

As more states such as Connecticut, New York, Ohio, and Florida make pushes for a mandated Asian American history curriculum in schools, Pennsylvania legislatures have the opportunity to join them to create a more inclusive atmosphere for Asian American students.