ABA's Impact: Confronting anti-Asian bias through civics education
(Photo by John O'Brien / ABA Journal)
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic created a wave of anti-Asian harassment in the United States. The number of incidents increased so sharply that in May 2021, President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law with a special emphasis on protecting Asian Americans.
The nonprofit organization Stop AAPI Hate catalogued 12,255 reported incidents of racial bias, verbal harassment or physical attacks against Asian Americans from 2020 to 2023.
Wendy Shiba spoke in favor of Resolution 401 at the 2022 ABA Annual Meeting.“We were reeling from the actual incidents being reported, very graphic depictions,” Wendy Shiba, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association delegate to the ABA House of Delegates, says. “I looked at the woman on the news who was literally physically attacked and I realized, she looks like me, right? In terms of stature, age, gray hair. And I realized that I may not be safe.”
At the ABA Annual Meeting in August 2022, the House was presented with a proposal to address the root causes of the bias: Resolution 401.
ABA Secretary Martin Dang is the first Asian American to be an officer of the association.“To tackle anti-Asian bias, hate crimes and harmful stereotypes, Americans need to be educated,” says ABA Secretary Martin Dang.
Resolution 401 proposed that schools “develop K-12 curricula that includes the history and experiences of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.” It was co-sponsored by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, the Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities, the Standing Committee on Public Education, the National Native American Bar Association, the Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, the Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice and the Section of State and Local Government Law.
“History is stories,” Matthew Archer-Beck of the National Native American Bar Association told the House in 2022. “Who is included in our stories matters. We must tell the stories of all Americans. By doing so, we create a shared identity, a connection to place and national culture.”
The House approved the resolution, and it became ABA policy.
“When the House of Delegates comes together and represents the community of lawyers in America, what they’re saying is that this is what we think our ethics requires of us, and this is what we, the American people, should be thinking and doing,” Makalika Naholowa’a, executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, says. “So it matters.”
The ABA’s Resolution and Impact Review Committee produced the video below chronicling the Resolution 401 efforts, including the legislation that has since resulted.
