Some Parents And Advocates, Including Montco Residents, Want To See More AAPI Education

HARRISBURG, PA — Advocates from the Asian American and Pacific Islander community descended upon the Pennsylvania capitol recently to call for greater AAPI education in schools as a counter to a growing rise in anti-Asian sentiment in the nation.

The Pennsylvania chapter of a group called Make Us Visible led a rally in Harrisburg last week to raise awareness of anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander violence against members of that community and to call on Keystone State lawmakers to pass the AAPI History Inclusion Act, also known as Pennsylvania House Bill 1917, a move to improve Asian history curriculum in schools across the commonwealth.

The prime sponsor of that bill, Dauphin County Democratic State Rep. Patty Kim, had introduced that proposal back in the fall of 2021 after a gunman shot and killed eight people at three different massage parlors in Atlanta, Georgia in the spring of that year.

In a sponsorship memo when she first unveiled the measure, Kim said that she participated in various panels and spoke with members of the AAPI community since that time, and the takeaway was that "education should be an important part of this effort."

"My legislation would require the Department of Education to create an integrated curriculum that includes AAPI persons, history, and contributions to American society to provide AAPI-related materials to schools," Kim had stated in her sponsorship memo. "This bill would commission a study by the State Board of Education to see how school districts in Pennsylvania are teaching AAPI curriculum across the state and ensure our students are receiving robust instruction on AAPI history and social contributions."

While mostly backed by Democrats, Kim's measure has gained the support of at least one Republican — State Rep. Todd Stephens of Montgomery County, who signed on as a prime sponsor of the bill and who also attended last week's rally in Harrisburg and publicly spoke about the measure.

"I think it's really important for our students to understand and learn and appreciate, you know, what the AAPI community has contributed in so many different disciplines, whether it's music, the arts, government, military, medicine, civics in so many different areas," Stephens told 6 ABC in its coverage of the recent rally.

Stephens represents the 151st Legislative District, which covers certain parts of eastern Montgomery County.

Legislative records show that Stephens is one of 25 House members who have signed on as cosponsors to Kim's bill, a number of which are from Montgomery County and other districts in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Stephens, Kim, and others, including Make Us Visible PA parent and advocate Ji Denis Hellenbrand and Stephanie Sun, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Governor's Advisory Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs, also spoke during the recent Harrisburg rally, according to program organizers.

"The AAPI community of PA seeks to raise awareness of the rise in anti-AAPI sentiments and demonstrate to our children and elderly that they are not helpless," reads a Make Us Visible PA news release about the recent rally. "We want to show that there are concrete, bipartisan actions we can all take as a unified community to make our histories and accomplishments visible."

Other speakers at the recent Harrisburg event included Upper Moreland Township School Board member Ahmad Tamim Hasani and youth mentor and advocate Serena Nguyen, a Lower Moreland resident who is heavily involved in AAPI Montgomery County and also helped to create the group Pop the Bubble, which says it advocates for making Lower Moreland Township a "kinder and more inclusive place."

Patch spoke with Nguyen for a story last summer.

As for Kim's bill, legislative records show that it was last referred to the House Education Committee back in September 2021 where it awaits action by lawmakers.

On the same day as the publication of this story, Patch also learned that two Democratic state senators — Maria Collett of Montgomery and Bucks Counties, and Nikil Saval of Philadelphia — unveiled companion legislation in the Pennsylvania Senate that would urge schools to incorporate AAPI curriculum and materials.

"As Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month comes to an end, our work to combat centuries of bias is just beginning," Collett said in a statement.

That measure was introduced on Tuesday and now awaits action in that legislative body.

In their sponsorship memorandum, the senators pointed out that Pennsylvania ranked seventh in the nation for hate incident reports filed between March 2020 and December 2021 according to the most recent Stop AAPI Hate National Report.

"We have heard from members of the AAPI community in our districts and across the Commonwealth about the commonsense strategies we can deploy to counteract prejudice and bias in our state," Collett and Saval wrote in their joint memo. "Through these conversations, it has become quite clear that education should be an important part of this effort."