US legislators, students push for K-12 Asian American studies
The year of anti-Asian violence has led students and teachers to advocate for reexamining how Asian American studies and history are taught in public school
By Annie Ma / AP, CHARLOTTE, North Carolina
When the Asian American Student Union at a Connecticut high school organized a Zoom call following the killing of six Asian women in Atlanta, senior Lily Feng thought maybe 10 or 15 classmates would attend. When she logged on, more than 50 people from her school were online. By the call’s end, nearly 100 people had joined.
Seeing her peers at Farmington High School turn out for the conversation one piece of a student-led effort to explore Asian American identity issues made her realize how much they wanted to listen and learn about a topic that is often absent from the curriculum.
After the tragic killing of six Asian women in Atlanta, students are asking for mandatory Asian heritage instruction in the classroom. Illinois is poised to become the first state to require public schools to teach Asian American studies.