[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1844 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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119th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1844
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, Native Hawaiian, 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, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders and their
relation to current events, and the impact and contributions of Asian
Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders to the development
and enhancement of American life, United States history, literature,
the economy, politics, body of laws, and culture, and for other
purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
May 21, 2025
Ms. Hirono (for herself, Mr. Padilla, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Booker, Mr.
Gallego, and Ms. Rosen) introduced the following bill; which was read
twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
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, Native Hawaiian, 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, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders and their
relation to current events, and the impact and contributions of Asian
Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders 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 American, Native
Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander History Act of 2025''.
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, and all
of the Pacific Islands, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and
Polynesia, have unique histories that are often overlooked in
American history despite their immense contributions to our
Nation.
(3) The traditional American history curriculum for
kindergarten through grade 12 continues to be taught from a
Eurocentric point of view and excludes histories of racist
immigration laws relevant to policies today.
(4) Social studies textbooks for kindergarten through grade
12 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 with 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
economic downturns in the United States.
(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 joint resolution that was
signed into law formally apologizing for the role of the United
States 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, the first restrictive
immigration law in the United States, 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
immigrants were hired. After the Japanese were banned from
immigrating due to the Gentleman's Agreement of 1907, which
halted immigration from Japan, Filipino immigrants were hired
under 3-year contracts.
(14) Filipino farm workers helped found the farm worker
labor movement in the United States.
(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 citizens of the
United States, 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 nuclear testing conducted by the United States on
the Bikini and Enewetak Atoll of the Marshall Islands has 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, the
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 recent wars.
(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 in present day.
(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 (c)(1), by inserting ``, which shall
include Asian Pacific American history,'' after ``American
history'';
(2) 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
(3) in paragraph (1) of subsection (f)--
(A) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by
inserting ``, including 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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