BATTLING ‘IGNORANCE’
As hate crimes rise, schools roll out Asian-American history plan
The city Education Department will teach Asian-American history in all 1,600 public schools to combat the “ignorance” and prejudice that fueled a COVID-19 surge in anti-Asian hate crimes, the agency announced Thursday.
“One of the ways we combat racism and hate … is by teaching and learning about each other’s stories and histories,” Schools Chancellor David Banks said. “We are not the other, we are all New Yorkers, we are all Americans.”
The curriculum will cover a wide array of topics, from the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the history of immigrant workers who helped build the nation’s railroads but weren’t allowed to ride them, to the establishment of the Bengali community in Harlem, Banks said. The lessons will be integrated into history classes, and will be piloted for select schools and grades this fall before expanding citywide by spring 2024, the Education Department detailed.
The announcement follows years of lobbying from Asian-American elected officials and advocates, who have argued that their stories have been left out of the version of history taught in most city classrooms.
“Asian-Americans have been scapegoats for a lot of things over our entire history,” said state Sen. John Liu (D-Queens), the sponsor of a bill that would require every school in the state to teach Asian-American history.
“The reason we get blamed and therefore hated and attacked is because of ignorance,” he added. “There is still an ongoing lack of knowledge of what Asian-Americans are. We’re either model minorities or perpetual foreigners.”
That scapegoating and prejudice came to a head during the COVID-19 pandemic, Liu said, when Asian-Americans in the city and across the country faced a dramatic spike in hate crimes and assaults.
Asian students have felt the effects of those attacks acutely.
“It’s terrifying not knowing what could happen to me at any second and not being able to trust people in my own neighborhood,” said Kimberly Ling, a 13-year-old student at Conselyea Prep middle school in Brooklyn. Ling said she was recently approached by a stranger on the street who pulled down his mask and purposely coughed on her.
Banks said the new curriculum is “especially important” in light of the surging hate crimes. The new academic content will be part of a larger initiative launched by former Mayor de Blasio to produce a “universal” and culturally relevant curriculum for all city kids using $200 million in federal stimulus funds.
Progress on the universal curriculum has been slow, however, with a recent report from Comptroller Brad Lander finding that as of March, the Education Department had spent only $17 million of the $200 million allotted for the effort.
Banks said there are also plans expand the teaching of LGBTQ and Black history in city schools.
Liu, the sponsor the bill to mandate Asian-American history statewide, said he’s heard some criticism in Albany equating his proposal to “Critical Race Theory” — a charge he firmly rejected.
“I’m not trying to divide anybody, I want to be American,” Liu said.
Including the stories of Asian-American students in the curriculum isn’t the only barrier to making them feel truly represented in city schools, Banks acknowledged.
While 17% of city students are Asian, only 7% of teachers and 5% of school administrators are Asian, according to the most recent DOE data.
“Diversifying the teaching corps is a critical component of the work we’re doing,” Banks said.