Teaching Asian Pacific American History Act
Bill: S.4275 | Sponsor: Sen. Hirono, Mazie K. (D-HI)
Policy area: Education

Summary:
Teaching Asian Pacific American History Act
This bill requires entities (e.g., institutions of higher education, libraries, and museums), in order to be eligible for certain grants administered by the Department of Education (ED), to include Asian Pacific American history in their teaching of American history. It also requires Asian Pacific American history to be included in tests administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Specifically, the bill mandates the inclusion of Asian Pacific American history as a required component of American history for such entities to be eligible for American History and Civics Academies' competitive grants. These grants support the establishment of (1) Presidential Academies for Teachers of American History and Civics, which offer workshops to teachers of American history and civics to strengthen their knowledge and prepare them to teach in these subjects; and (2) Congressional Academies for Students of American History and Civics, which support high school students in developing an understanding of these subjects. (Currently, Asian Pacific American history is not a required component of American history for either academy.)
In addition, ED must give priority to grant applicants that align their activities with programs and resources of the Smithsonian Institution's Asian Pacific American Center.
The bill also requires the inclusion of Asian Pacific American history in tests administered by the NAEP, which measures student academic achievement in various subjects.

To authorize the Secretary of Education to award grants to eligible 
entities to carry out educational programs that include the history of 
   peoples of Asian and Pacific Islander descent in the settling and 
 founding of America, the social, economic, and political environments 
that led to the development of discriminatory laws targeting Asians and 
Pacific Islanders and their relation to current events, and the impact 
and contributions of Asian Americans to the development and enhancement 
   of American life, United States history, literature, the economy, 
      politics, body of laws, and culture, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Teaching Asian Pacific American 
History Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) The United States has benefitted from the integral role 
        Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have played in our 
        Nation's history and contributions to the world.
            (2) The Pacific Island Territories of Guam, American Samoa, 
        and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have 
        unique histories that are often overlooked in American history 
        despite their immense contributions to our Nation.
            (3) The traditional American K-12 curriculum continues to 
        be taught from a Eurocentric point of view and exclude 
        histories of racist immigration laws relevant to policies 
        today.
            (4) K-12 social studies textbooks poorly represent Asian 
        Americans and Pacific Islanders, overlook the diversity within 
        those communities, and print images of Asian Americans and 
        Pacific Islanders in stereotypical roles.
            (5) The Federal Government, through support for educational 
        activities of national museums established under Federal law, 
        can assist teachers in efforts to incorporate historically 
        accurate instruction on the comprehensive history of Asian 
        Americans and Pacific Islanders and assist students in their 
        exploration of Asian Pacific American history as an integral 
        part of American history.
            (6) The history of America's system of immigration is rife 
        with racism, embedded in goals of hiring workers to work for 
        cheaper wages and labor in heinous working conditions.
            (7) Congress has continuously passed anti-Asian laws as the 
        result of the scapegoating of Asian immigrant laborers for the 
        United States economic downturns.
            (8) The history of South Asian Americans in the United 
        States dates back to the late 1700s.
            (9) The history of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders 
        in what is now considered to be the United States predates the 
        founding of our Nation.
            (10) In 1993, Congress passed a resolution that was signed 
        into law formally apologizing for the United States role in the 
        illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, which resulted in 
        the suppression of the inherent sovereignty of the Native 
        Hawaiian people.
            (11) Twelve thousand Chinese laborers worked in atrocious 
        conditions to build the Transcontinental Railroad, many dying 
        from harsh weather conditions and the dangers of handling 
        explosives.
            (12) The Page Act of 1875 was the United States first 
        restrictive immigration law, which sought to prevent the entry 
        of Asian women perceived as immoral or suspected of 
        prostitution.
            (13) After the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned Chinese 
        immigrants from immigrating to the United States, Japanese were 
        hired. After the Japanese were banned from immigrating due to 
        the Gentleman's Agreement of 1907, which halted immigration 
        from Japan, Filipinos were hired under 3-year contracts.
            (14) Filipino farm workers helped found the farm worker 
        labor movement.
            (15) The Immigration Act of 1917 restricted immigration to 
        the United States by barring immigration from the Asia-Pacific 
        zone.
            (16) The Immigration Act of 1924 set a national origin 
        quota to deter immigration.
            (17) President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 
        authorized the incarceration of more than 120,000 persons of 
        Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, 
        based solely on race.
            (18) Beginning in 1954, the United States displaced more 
        than 3,000,000 refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam due to 
        covert and overt United States military operations in Southeast 
        Asia.
            (19) The Immigration Act of 1965 made family unification 
        and skills-based migration the bedrock principle of immigration 
        to the United States.
            (20) The United States-conducted nuclear testing on the 
        Bikini and Enewetak Atoll of the Marshall Islands made parts of 
        the island nation uninhabitable and caused forced migration and 
        health complications that still impact the community today.
            (21) The United States ratified a Compact of Free 
        Association with the Federated States of Micronesia, Republic 
        of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau enabling 
        citizens of these Pacific Island nations to legally migrate to 
        the United States visa-free while the United States retains 
        certain strategic military rights over their territorial 
        waters.
            (22) In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the Refugee Act 
        of 1980 helped more than 500,000 Southeast Asians gain 
        permanent resident status in the United States within the first 
        decade of its passage.
            (23) The Pacific Islander community represents the largest 
        concentration of any ethnic group enlisted in the United States 
        military, as well as representing the highest numbers of 
        casualties in the current wars on terror.
            (24) The ``model minority'' myth perpetuates the stigma of 
        Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners, and such stereotypes 
        are used to pit minority groups against one another.
            (25) The pattern of hate crimes and hate incidents directed 
        at Asians and Asian Americans has repeated itself throughout 
        history.
            (26) Asian-American and African-American histories of 
        fighting against oppression and racism are intertwined, from 
        the Black Power Movement of the 1960s that birthed the Asian 
        American Movement to civil rights protests today.
            (27) Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and their allies 
        continue to fight discrimination, racial prejudice, hate 
        crimes, scapegoating, structural racism, economic inequities, 
        and benign and overt omission of the integral role they played 
        in the development of this Nation.

SEC. 3. AMERICAN HISTORY AND CIVICS EDUCATION.

    (a) Program Authorized.--Section 2231(a) of the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6661(a)) is amended--
            (1) in the matter preceding paragraph (1), by inserting ``, 
        which shall include Asian Pacific American history,'' after 
        ``American history''; and
            (2) in paragraph (2)--
                    (A) by inserting ``which shall include Asian 
                Pacific American history,'' after ``American 
                history,''; and
                    (B) by inserting ``, which shall include Asian 
                Pacific American history'' after ``traditional American 
                history''.
    (b) Presidential and Congressional Academies for American History 
and Civics.--Section 2232 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6662) is amended--
            (1) in subsection (a)--
                    (A) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``, which shall 
                include Asian Pacific American history,'' after 
                ``American History''; and
                    (B) in paragraph (2), by inserting ``, which shall 
                include Asian Pacific American history,'' after 
                ``American History'';
            (2) in subsection (c)(1), by inserting ``, which shall 
        include Asian Pacific American history,'' after ``American 
        history'';
            (3) in subsection (e)--
                    (A) in paragraph (1)--
                            (i) in the matter preceding subparagraph 
                        (A), by inserting ``, which shall include Asian 
                        Pacific American history,'' after ``American 
                        history'';
                            (ii) in subparagraph (A)--
                                    (I) by inserting ``, which shall 
                                include Asian Pacific American 
                                history,'' after ``teachers of American 
                                history''; and
                                    (II) by inserting ``, which shall 
                                include Asian Pacific American 
                                history,'' after ``subjects of American 
                                history''; and
                            (iii) in subparagraph (B), by inserting ``, 
                        which shall include Asian Pacific American 
                        history,'' after ``American history'';
                    (B) in paragraph (2), by inserting ``, which shall 
                include Asian Pacific American history,'' after 
                ``American history''; and
                    (C) in paragraph (4), by inserting ``, and with the 
                Smithsonian Institution's Asian Pacific American Center 
                to provide programs and resources for educators and 
                students'' after ``National Parks''; and
            (4) in subsection (f)(1)--
                    (A) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by 
                inserting ``, which shall include Asian Pacific 
                American history,'' after ``American history'';
                    (B) in subparagraph (A), by inserting ``, which 
                shall include Asian Pacific American history,'' after 
                ``American history''; and
                    (C) in subparagraph (B), by inserting ``, which 
                shall include Asian Pacific American history,'' after 
                ``American history''.
    (c) National Activities.--Section 2233 of the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6663) is amended--
            (1) in subsection (a), by inserting ``which shall include 
        Asian Pacific American history,'' after ``American history,''; 
        and
            (2) in subsection (b)--
                    (A) in the matter preceding paragraph (1), by 
                inserting ``which shall include Asian Pacific American 
                history,'' after ``American history,''; and
                    (B) in paragraph (1)(A), by inserting ``which shall 
                include Asian Pacific American history,'' after 
                ``American history,''.
    (d) National Assessment of Educational Progress.--Section 
303(b)(2)(D) of the National Assessment of Educational Progress 
Authorization Act (20 U.S.C. 9622(b)(2)(D)) is amended by inserting 
``(which shall include Asian Pacific American history)'' after 
``history''.
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