New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island passed bills in 2022 requiring schools to teach Asian-American history. With the work of Make Us Visible, Massachusetts (MA) could be next.

Make Us Visible is a nationwide organization working to increase Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) representation in the school curriculum. The organization recently opened a chapter in MA and the one at the high school consists of ten members.

The students’ most recent activity was to write postcards to state representatives informing them about the MA chapter of Make Us Visible and encouraging them to support the AAPI curriculum in schools across the state.

The group is shifting their focus on smaller scale change through the curriculum. However, senior Lila Yoon, a member of Make Us Visible, is hopeful now that they are expanding their efforts from the high school to across MA to create more systemic change.

Yoon said it is sometimes difficult to remember that their small efforts amount to a much bigger picture. They said they understand that what they are doing impacts people outside of Brookline as well.

“I wanted to move beyond BHS, and while the work here at BHS is equally important to me, the idea [of increasing representation in curriculum] was born from ‘let’s do this statewide,’ then shrunk down to just BHS, and now, it’s kind of expanding again,” Yoon said. “It’s really powerful for me to see that the effort that we’ve put in on a schoolwide level can now become statewide to help bring that representation to other communities as well.”

Junior Kevin Asir is currently helping to write a bill to make it a requirement for schools in MA to teach AAPI history. According to Asir, however, they have run into some challenges with this.

“[The MA Congress] does not pose bills that they know won’t pass. The odds of the bill being widely enough liked to be set forth is way too low and so we have to wait another two years and make our own local efforts to expand the curriculum, which is kind of frustrating,” Asir said. “We want more systemic change, but I guess it can’t happen for a while.”

Junior Anuj Majumder is also working on a bill with Asir. He said that he believes inclusivity for all different backgrounds is something that is lacking at the Public Schools of Brookline (PSB).

“Throughout my experience in elementary and middle school history classes, I didn’t really feel that I was connected to what we were learning. I didn’t see myself in any of the stories that we were told,” Majumder said.

Majumder said he wishes students in the PSB learned more about AAPI history, so more students would be able to see each other’s history and their stories represented in what they were learning about.

“When people feel left out, they don’t really feel connected to the community. I feel that we should be more inclusive,” Majumder said. “We pride ourselves to be the most liberal town and in the most liberal state, but we don’t go the extra mile to include everyone.”

Asir said that a diverse curriculum not only makes students of color feel more comfortable, but also more interested in what they are learning.

“I never really had a teacher of color or learned about [representation in the school curriculum] until last year. When I had Ms. Siver and Mr. Wang, who are both minorities, I felt a more profound connection to them. I think that the same can be said if there’s AAPI representation in the curriculum,” Asir said. “Kids could actually feel connected to what they’re learning and therefore they’d learn better, they’d be better students and they’d be more active.”

Member of Make Us Visible and senior Vi Lee said that they felt like they were not represented in the school’s curriculum. They therefore said that there are gaps present within the knowledge of Asian-American history in the town, which led them to do their own research on this history.

“I think [attending] Brookline Public Schools and not having [AAPI] representation has been kind of detrimental. It wasn’t until this year when I took Asian American studies that I really learned a ton about Asian Americans,” Lee said. “I’ve had to do a lot of research on my own. This then leads to a gap in understanding of how Asian Americans fit into society.”

Yoon said that so many hate crimes that occur at the high school are based on ignorance. By increasing representation of AAPI curriculum in schools through Make Us Visible, they said it will be a way to dispel that ignorance for the high school and create a better environment for all students.

“By increasing AAPI representation in the curriculum and saying ‘here’s the history of these people and this diaspora,’ can help to make others more well educated,” Yoon said. “This therefore will lead [students] to be less ignorant and less prone to creating these hateful environments that harm the students that exist here.”