“Adding more AAPI history curriculums would solidify the fact that Asians are Americans and Asians belong here,” Fedor said. “Had a lot of my classmates learned about AAPI being called ‘yellow peril’ in the past or about the Chinese Exclusion Act or the plague outbreak in San Francisco’s Chinatown — had they learned about that, maybe they would have thought back before they said these insensitive comments.”
New Jersey is slated to become the second state to mandate Asian American history as part of its public school curriculum, after Illinois did so in July. Ohio, California, New York, Florida and Connecticut have ignited similar pushes for curricula that are inclusive of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Last year, lawmakers in California passed legislation requiring ethnic studies, which focuses on Asian Americans and other racial groups, in high school.
According to California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, the lessons include dismantling the model minority myth, xenophobia, bigotry and other forms of institutional privilege.
“It presents a false narrative that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) have overcome racism and prejudice,” the lesson plan read. “Students will understand how this label for AAPIs becomes a hindrance to expanding democratic structures and support, and worst how it creates a division among the AAPI community and places a wedge between them and other oppressed groups.”