Long overdue: Students should be required to learn history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Following deadly attacks against people of Asian descent since at least 2021, state lawmakers want to make sure that public students across Florida learn about the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, from what happened in Japanese internment camps to the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The state House on Wednesday voted unanimously, 113-0, to require such instruction in Florida’s public schools.

The House legislation, HB 287, states that students would learn the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, including the internment camps and incarceration of Japanese-Americans as well as: “immigration, citizenship, civil rights, identity, and culture of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; and the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to American society. Instructional materials shall include the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to American society.”

That same language was included in a separate bill, HB 1537, in the state House on Wednesday, which also passed unanimously.

The Senate will need to approve the legislation well. And the original Senate version, SB 294, has somewhat different language.

It states the instruction as: “The history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, including the immigration, citizenship, civil rights, identity, and culture of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to American society. Instructional materials must include the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to American society.”

Republican State Rep. Susan Plasencia, of Orlando, a sponsor of the House legislation, but the vote was bipartisan.

She said the bill is important for many reasons, including to “make sure that our diverse stories are told and remembered. That we do not forget the horrors of communism, that we remember the dangers to our freedoms when we forget that we are all Americans.”

Under the law, Florida public schools already have required instruction in certain topics, such as “the history of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights, kindness to animals, the study of women’s and Hispanic contributions to the United States, the history of the Holocaust, and the history of African Americans.”

But state lawmakers have said that it is time to add required instruction about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as anti-Asian American hate had been increasing.

In 2021, six women of Asian descent were murdered in Atlanta when a white man targeted Asian-owned spas.

On Jan. 21, a mass shooter at Monterey Park in California took the lives of 11 people. On Jan. 23, another shooting killed seven Asian and Latino farm workers, according to the Florida Phoenix. Also in January, an 18-year-old Indiana University student was repeatedly stabbed in the head by a 56-year-old white woman while on a bus, and the school says it was because the student is Asian.

In addition, former president, Donald Trump, frequently blamed China for the virus and gave the coronavirus a racist nickname.

In July 2021, Illinois became the first state to require Asian American history be taught in public schools, according to a House legislative analysis. “Beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, every public elementary and high school in Illinois is required to include a unit of instruction on the history of Asian Americans, including their history in Illinois and the Midwest.” And in 2022, New Jersey became the second state to require such instruction.