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Assembly
Appropriations Committee Members:
I am writing in strong support of AB 2064, which would require the State Board of Education to adopt textbooks and instructional materials to include instruction on the Vietnam War. Specifically to include the "Secret War" in Laos, the role of Southeast Asians in that war, and the refugee/immigrant/new American experience as a result of the war.
The adoption of Assembly Bill 1076 on February 22, 2005, on
this topic excluded the provision in the present AB 2064 for refugee/new American
experiences about the Vietnam War, including the ‘Secret War’ in
The
Timeline of Curriculum Framework and Evaluation Criteria Committee Application
and scheduled Focus Groups to advise the CFECC for the mandated State Board of
Education provision of thirty months’ notice to publishers for evaluation
criteria is imminent for the next
submission cycle. Focus groups to
solicit public input on the framework update in AB2064 are scheduled for May
and June 2008
Applications for the Curriculum Commission to draft the framework between February and June 2009 are due on September 3, 2008.
Therefore the opportunity for Southeast Asian citizens and their organizations to influence the framework in the expanded definition of the subject of the Vietnam War and immigrant/new American experience is extremely short.
In
your discussion on May 7, please include provision for inclusion of
participants in the Vietnam War who immigrated because of the war and are now
citizens of California and the United States not limited to the ‘Secret War’ in
Laos and those who provided intelligence to the U.S. military during the
unspecified period of the ‘Vietnam War.’
This should include participants in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam
(ARVN) and the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GRVN) which was allied
with the
Further, include persons who escaped the imprisonment, property confiscation, and discrimination of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as “Boat People” refugees and Orderly Departure assisted by the United Nations between 1975 and 1990, those who immigrated through the Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1988, and those who immigrated through the Humanitarian Operation (H.O.) program of prisoners of the Socialist government of Vietnam and their families beginning in 1992 and renewed by the U.S. Congress as recently as 2007
All of these are
conditions and experiences of present citizens and residents of
VietAm Review
