My thoughts on Asian-American history being included in US public school curricula

I read a CNN report about Illinois being the first state to require public schools to teach Asian-American history in an effort to make education more inclusive in the USA. Honestly, I was shocked to find out that Asian-American history is not more commonly taught in schools because Asian-Americans have contributed significantly towards defining what the USA has become. But then, why should I be surprised? The recent attacks against Americans of Asian descent (whose perpetrators have been emboldened by racist rhetoric trumpeted on social media by he-who-must-not-be-allowed-to-tweet) indicate how unaware Americans are about events that transpired in the past that moulded what used to be a socio-political experiment into the world's biggest economy.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/09/us/asian-american-history-illinois-trnd/index.html

Anyway, I find that including the histories of Asian-Americans into the social studies curricula of public schools will be a significant step towards enlightenment (and hopefully correcting racist beliefs in the country). How are they going to approach this discourse on Asian-American history? What stories are they going to emphasise? How will these narratives fit in the macro-view of world history?  

What makes an individual an Asian-American?

At first glance, anyone can say that an Asian-American is anyone of Asian descent who is a US citizen. Do immigrants who became US citizens count? Or does the term "Asian-American" only refer to individuals born in the USA and are citizens by birthright? Does the distinction even matter?

Then there's the question of how "Asians" are defined. When I was at the Asian Art Museum in 2018, there was an exhibit that posited that there isn't a definition of "Asian" in the cultural sense because the continent is so vast and the cultures of people living in it are diverse. It is difficult to find a cultural theme or characteristic that unifies all peoples of the continent. Apparently, it is more appropriate to specify the Asian ethnic group or nationality. 

Okay, so if it is difficult to define who an Asian is in a cultural sense, it probably is best to define him/her based on his/her geographical roots. This then raises the question: How is Asia defined or delineated from the rest of the continents? The Pacific and Indian Oceans certainly define the borders with Oceania and Antarctica. The European boundaries may be a bit more tricky to define though. For instance, the Bosporus divides Turkey: Thrace is European while Anatolia (Asia Minor) is Asian. Meanwhile, Russia is certainly part of Europe but most of the country lies north of Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan; so is this part of Russia considered Asia (culturally speaking)? The Jewish diaspora has been ongoing for centuries, with generations of people migrating to Europe and eventually the USA. Given the disconnect from Israel, which became a modern geographical concept only in 1948, are the migrant Jews actually European or are they still considered Asians? 

To clarify the Asian definition, the US Census Bureau currently defines Asian-Americans as people whose origins can be traced to Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and East Asia. On the other hand, Asian-Americans from the western Asian region are categorised separately (e.g., Middle East Americans).

Defining Asians is quite complex and whoever is developing the curricula on Asian-American has to get this right because being Asian is at the heart of this history lesson.

Which Asian-American narratives should be included in the curricula?

If the US government will not mandate or recommend a standardised curriculum on Asian-American history, I think that each state will have to determine which is relevant to its own history. I checked out California's ethnic studies curriculum for K–12 (because I live there) and learned that it covers selected experiences and narratives of Chinese, Hmong, Filipino, Cambodian, Korean, Vietnamese, Lao, Indian, and Japanese peoples. The diversity is expected because California has a population comprised of a steadily growing proportion of Asians (at 15% in 2018). Chinese, Indian, and Filipino stories would probably dominate the curriculum because these ethnicities are the biggest groups of Asian-Americans in the state. It's also probably easy to hash out historical narratives of Asian-Americans in New York, Washington, Florida, Virginia, New Jersey, Hawaii (where the majority of the population is of Asian descent), Massachusetts, Illinois, and Texas because they form a significant proportion of the states' populations. However, some states may have more trouble finding narratives relevant to them because the Asian-American population is so small (e.g., West Virginia, Wyoming, Mississippi). Perhaps, it is best to find a uniform set of stories to tell across states so that schoolchildren will have standard knowledge of Asian-American contributions to US history.

In terms of narrative themes, how are schools supposed to choose which ones to discuss? Certainly, any mention of the Civil Rights Movement will have to include the United Farm Workers; discussion on World War II (and Pearl Harbour) will have to discuss the Japanese internment camps; lessons on the Vietnam War should include the humanitarian crisis of the Vietnamese boat people. What about the historical contexts of the transformation of the USA from colonised to coloniser and its impact on Asian diaspora?

Again, a lot of topics to cover; many of which may be too complex for children and need to be simplified.

How do these narratives weave into the complexities of world history and current events?

One thing that I liked about how history was taught to me in high school and college was the emphasis on looking at the bigger picture. We were given a lot of details about events that transpired in Philippine and Asian history but by my senior year in high school, these were all put in the context of what was going on around the world. I quickly learned that history doesn't happen in a vacuum and many events are direct or indirect consequences of what's going on on the other side of the planet. In this case, how would educators ensure that American students appreciate such big picture perspectives? 

I believe that reducing racism anywhere in the world relies heavily upon teaching this very important concept to students. By inculcating a big-picture mindset in young minds, students think less about race superiority because they understand what being an American means more.

Tough questions and a tall order, I know. I hope that educators really think about their Asian-American history lesson plans because they are moulding young people's belief systems and views of the world.