UPDATE: The Assembly Appropriations Committee chair Mark Leno has placed AB2064 into Suspension. All are encouraged to ask him to release the bill back to the floor of the Assembly. 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. AB2064 also provides curriculum inclusion specifically directed to the next cycle of the History-Social Science Framework which begins in January, 2009. 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 United States, persons rescued from the April, 1975, invasion of South Vietnam including Operation Babylift, medical personnel, and civilians associated with missionary and charitable organizations. 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 California. If they are included in Focus Groups and encouraged to apply for the CFCC through organizations such as the Amerasian Fellowship Association, ARVN veterans societies, geographical community associations, religious organizations that are outlawed and adherents persecuted in Vietnam such as the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) and Catholic parish and Protestant organizations, Overseas Women Associations, ethnic media, medical, and professional organizations, Immigrant Resettlement and Cultural Centers, Southeast Asian student and youth groups seeking memoir such as the Digital Clubhouse at History San Jose by the Assembly Appropriations Committee in your action on AB2064, the spirit as well as the letter of the AB2064 will be upheld. Thank you for your attention to this vital inclusion in the History and Social Science Framework Update for the 2009 – 2011 cycle. Sincerely, Jean Libby, editor VietAm Review http://vietamreview.blogharbor.com   more »