How the Movement for K-12 AAPI History Can Be Saved
An open letter to AAPI advocates
The grassroots movement for inclusion of Asian American and Pacific Islander history in our public schools has been a beacon of hope to the AAPI community. Despite progress made, we now find ourselves at great risk because of an organization called Make Us Visible National, which is jeopardizing our movement’s future with values and tactics that are hurting AAPIs and other marginalized communities. Most recently, Make Us Visible National pushed through a sanitized version of AAPI history in Florida against a backdrop of alien land laws, LGBTQIA+ erasure in schools, and the banning of AP African American history. As it has sought to assume top-down control of this work, Make Us Visible National has also directed state-level AAPI advocates to focus only on the positive aspects of AAPI history and forbid use of language from a list that includes terms such as “equity,” “anti-racism,” and “social justice.¹”
As grassroots advocates, academics, and even former board members of MUV National, we can no longer be silent. The movement for inclusive education means too much to cede control to an organization whose values and relationship to the truth have proven so dubious. Local organizers who may be susceptible to believing MUV National’s promises should consider the example of New Jersey.
In May 2021, a coalition of parents, educators, and students in Illinois, led by Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago, helped to pass the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History (TEAACH) Act, legislation that would require K-12 public schools to teach Asian American history beginning in the 2022–23 school year. In New Jersey, a grassroots coalition formed in March 2021 with the aim of passing similar legislation. The coalition came together under the name “Make Us Visible New Jersey,” a slogan borrowed from earlier grassroots efforts to include AAPI history in Connecticut’s K-8 model curriculum and K-12 social studies content standards. Through the tireless efforts of over 60 local organizations in New Jersey, the second AAPI history mandate in the nation was signed into law in January 2022, taking effect, like that of Illinois, in the 2022–23 school year. New Jersey’s victory showed that Illinois’ TEAACH Act was not just a one-off, but the beginning of a movement, and was the subject of national media attention.
In 2022, after New Jersey’s success, Make Us Visible National’s leaders moved to trademark the “Make Us Visible” slogan and use this gatekeeping position to direct and take credit for others’ work². Without any active mandates or substantive work supporting implementation for which it could legitimately claim credit, it falsely represented itself as having directed independent efforts in states including New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, according to Mike Keo, a founding board member of Make Us Visible National. Other troubling fabrications by Make Us Visible National have not stood up to the most basic fact-checking. They claimed to have a chapter in Rhode Island, for example, despite having no local champions or connection to the AAPI studies bill that legislators passed there. In Virginia, MUV National undermined an existing education equity campaign led by Hamkae Center, a local AAPI organization, sidestepping the local organizing strategy by attempting to work directly with Virginia’s anti-equity governor, and told parents they had the support of Virginia’s Asian American Advisory Board, only for these parents to learn the “support” had amounted to an introductory phone call. MUV National’s Policy Director similarly claimed endorsement by a locally respected leader in Boston–a leader who, when contacted, expressed a negative opinion of MUV National.
Furthermore, in late 2022, Make Us Visible National distributed a list of words that its “chapters” were no longer allowed to use. Leaders of previously independent state-level movements were forbidden to post about other issues affecting the AAPI community, such as data disaggregation³. If these restrictions were driven by MUV National’s hunger to claim “victory” at any price in red and purple states, this strategy reached its self-destructive climax in Florida, where MUV National enthusiastically accepted a few lines adding AAPI history to an education statute from the same hands that also banned AP African American history and wrote draconian anti-transgender laws. How can AAPI history be taught without mention of the wave of anti-Asian racism that inspired this bill, or the Civil Rights movement that paved the way for Asian immigrants to come to the U.S.⁴? What would AAPI history be without including the leadership of LGBTQ+ AAPI trailblazers such as Helen Zia and Dan Choi⁵? A generous endorsement by a local NAACP chapter has not been enough to wipe out the shame and concern of the wider AAPI advocacy community. Leaders from national organizations including the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans and Stop AAPI Hate have felt compelled to speak out against the way MUV National has allowed itself to be used as a wedge against other communities, communities to whom we are indebted and whose ongoing partnership and solidarity is crucial to the passage and successful implementation of any K-12 AAPI history mandate.
The list of advocates who have fled or steered clear of Make Us Visible National continues to grow. An early Make Us Visible National chapter in Georgia broke with them to become Asian American Voices for Education. Most recently, MUV National took issue with not being credited for implementation work led by Jason Chang, founding director of Make Us Visible Connecticut (MUV-CT) and a widely respected professor of Asian American studies at the University of Connecticut. After a call in which MUV National’s Policy Director called Professor Chang “selfish” and threatened to remove him as director of MUV-CT, the board of MUV-CT voted unanimously to part ways with MUV National.
Other organizations appear to be practicing a form of quiet quitting; Make Us Visible New Jersey social media has been dormant since mid-May, and in its last newsletter, its board members announced the formation of an independent organization named The E Pluribus Unum Project whose inaugural event will be a teacher conference on Black and Asian American solidarity. Asian American individuals and organizations in North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Wisconsin have reached out to share their negative interactions with MUV National, which include making condescending remarks and scheduling legislative meetings without coordinating or sharing information with local organizers. A former Make Us Visible National supporter said, “I would never have joined MUV if I knew they would compromise AAPI representation through omission of ‘trauma-centered stories’ and narratives related to racial equity.”
A Path Forward
The grassroots organizers, parents and families who show up to advance AAPI curriculum advocacy out of love and hope for our shared future should never be censored, subjected to hostile communications, or forced to subordinate themselves to an exploitative national organization that bans mention of “ethnic studies” and data disaggregation. If the movement for K-12 AAPI studies is going to survive, it needs to be returned to the people who best know their local conditions, communities, and resources.
Established leaders who wish to help nurture and accelerate this work could follow Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago’s example of offering support that is based in trust and responsive to local needs. Since 2021, Advancing Justice | Chicago has supported AAPI organizations in other Midwest states in their efforts to pass education equity bills or advocate for AAPI curriculum inclusion in ways that center multiracial coalition building and solidarity. The purpose of this support is to build local power and capacity in deep, long-term partnership with leaders on-the-ground in those states. Advocating for an AAPI curriculum bill is not the singular goal, but rather a tool to build progressive power in the AAPI community. It is not only possible, but essential, to approach education equity work in deep solidarity with other marginalized communities, even in red and purple states. We must build, nurture, and deepen relationships with organizations rooted in other communities, rather than race to secure our own victories at the cost of future partnerships and collective wins.
To that end, we call on resources to be directed to:
- The many local community groups who are doing legislative advocacy on the ground, yet are being sidelined by a monopolistic view of what success looks like.
- Implementation efforts in Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and elsewhere by independent organizers and institutions that are not affiliated with Make Us Visible National. A law is only as good as its implementation. Meaningful implementation requires tireless on-the-ground, district-by-district outreach.
- Coalition-building between AAPI communities and other marginalized groups that builds true lasting solidarity and not just shallow, temporary alliances on one-off issues. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. When we show up for others, they will show up for us. Our histories and our futures are tied to one another.
Finally, we call on Make Us Visible National to stop claiming credit for others’ work, respect and defer to local leadership–including existing AAPI advocacy organizations and grassroots leaders–and practice multiracial solidarity as a core value and guiding principle.
*We invite everyone who shares our concerns and hopes for this movement to sign on to this letter.*
We support a better path forward for the K-12 AAPI history movement:
Co-Authors
Mike Keo, Founding Board Member, Make Us Visible National
Amber Reed, President, AAPI Montclair
Signatories
Jason Chang, Director, Make Us Visible Connecticut
Jenny (JHD) Heikkila Díaz, Make Us Visible Connecticut
Quan Tran, Make Us Visible Connecticut
Weonhee Anne Shin, Executive Director, Asian American Voices for Education
Sohyun An, Education Resources & Curriculum Co-Director, Asian American Voices for Education
Theresa Alviar-Martin, Co-Director of Education, Asian American Voices for Education
Sookyung Oh, Hamkae Center
Grace Pai, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago
Jona Hilario, Co-Director, OPAWL — Building AAPI Feminist Leadership
Sharon Kim, Core Member, OPAWL — Building AAPI Feminist Leadership
Tessa Xuan, Co-Director, OPAWL — Building AAPI Feminist Leadership
Tony DelaRosa, CoFounder, NYC Men Teach Asian American Teacher Initiative
Ron Rapatalo
Caroline Fan, President and Founder, Missouri Asian American Youth Foundation
Mohit Mehta, Assistant Director, Center for Asian American Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Jung Kim, Professor of Literacy & Co-Chair of Department of Education, Lewis University
Nancy Dribin
Betina Hsieh, Professor of Teacher Education, Affiliate Professor of Asian American Studies, California State University Long Beach
Renee Tajima-Peña, Professor & Filmmaker, UCLA
Estella Owoimaha-Church, Ethnic Studies Educator, Liberated Ethnic Studies MCC
Regina Tsang, Co-Executive Director, Rising Voices
Jasmine Rivera, Co-Executive Director, Rising Voices
Chu Ly, Assistant Professor, Framingham State University
Immigrant History Initiative
Karishma Desai, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University-Graduate School of Education
Cathlin Goulding, Co-Director, YURI Education Project
Roland Sintos Coloma, Professor, Wayne State University
Angela Chen, Midwest Director, NEA Asian and Pacific Islander Caucus
Eunice Ho, Educator, Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium
Liz Kleinrock, Teach and Transform
Anna Pegler-Gordon, Professor, Michigan State University
Theodore Chao, Associate Professor, The Ohio State University
[Add your name to this letter.]
Footnotes
[1] The full list of words banned by MUV National: “anti-bias, anti-racist, colonialism, critical race theory, decolonization, ethnic studies, equity, intersectionality, marginalization, microaggressions, patriarchy, reparations, racialization, racial justice, restorative justice, settler colonialism, social justice, structural racism, trigger warning, white fragility, white oppression, white privilege, woke.”
[2] For details, see the recent social media post by Mike Keo, a founding Make Us Visible National board member.
[3] A post by MUV-NJ leader Dr. Kani Ilangovan to the NJ AAPI Organizers Facebook group on July 6, 2022 read: “Hi everyone, you may have noticed that we have taken down all mention of the data disaggregation bill from MUVNJ social media. Even though MUVNJ board members are very much in support of this legislation because it makes our communities needs and strengths more visible, we were formally requested by Make Us Visible National to remove all mention of the data disaggregation bill from our social media and future newsletters.”
[4] The Individual Freedom Act, colloquially known as “Stop W.O.K.E.,” severely limits the ways in which educators can discuss race and gender.
[5] The Parental Rights in Education Act, also referred to as “Don’t Say Gay,” effectively prohibits any curriculum, classroom materials, or discussion that touches on LGBTQ+ identities.
