Chicago City Wire

Illinois becomes the first state to legislate the inclusion of Asian-American history in public schools’ curriculum, Asian-Americans lauded the passage of the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History Act. Among them is Laura Houcque Prabhakar, a community leader with the Cambodian Association of Illinois.

Prabhakar, who is now an educator in the Illinois public education system and whose family survived the Khmer Rouge genocide is hopeful of the bill.

“I was a student and I'm now an educator in Illinois public schools,” she said. “My school experiences contributed to my career choice as an educator. Students are not educated about the racial struggles Asian Americans have faced and continue to face to this day. They also do not learn about the leadership and resilience of Asian Americans in history. As educators, it is our responsibility to seek out information and knowledge about different histories and stories of our country. To make students feel seen and heard we need to depict a more inclusive picture of history so that young Asian Americans can see themselves reflected in the school curriculum while also addressing the rising anti-Asian sentiment in our country.

Prabhakar recounted her struggles understanding her roots during her younger years.

“Growing up, the absence of Asian-American history and culture in school continually bothered me,” she recalled. “I wasn't able to learn about my own family history at home due to refugee trauma, which significantly impacted my upbringing. Because my parents lacked the resources they needed they pushed aside processing their trauma to focus on surviving in this new country while raising my brothers and me. With little sense of history to help ground my identity, I struggled with what it meant to be Asian-American.”

She relived how she grappled with being not connected to anything — a loss of identity.

“It felt like I was in two distinct worlds but didn't exactly belong in either of them,” Prabhakar stated. “I don't remember ever learning about Asian-American figures or about Southeast Asian refugees like my own family who survived the Khmer Rouge genocide. What I do remember is feeling a lack of pride in my heritage.”

Senate Bill 648 would amend the courses of study article of the School Code and would compel all public elementary and high schools to include in its curriculum a unit of instruction studying the events of Asian American history.