Dear John,
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) heritage month, and Ms. is highlighting the urgency of remedying persistent representation disparities that impact the AAPI community, and AAPI women in particular.
Despite making up 6 percent of the population, AAPI community members make up just 0.9 percent of elected leaders. In the face of this massive disparity, the appointment of AAPI officials like Julie Su—President Biden’s nominee for labor secretary—are more important than ever.
If confirmed by the Senate, Su would be the second-ever Asian American woman to hold the position. But unfortunately, corporate interests and their lobbyists, scared of her strong pro-labor stance, are working behind closed doors to block her appointment, and a handful of Democratic Senators have yet to indicate how they’ll vote.
On Friday, the House Democratic Women’s Caucus endorsed Su and urged her confirmation “without delay,” according to a report in Politico. In the endorsement statement, DWC Chair Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) stressed that her confirmation would “represent another step towards achieving gender parity among the Secretaries on the President’s Cabinet.” There are currently only 5 women among the 15 Cabinet secretaries.
On May 3rd, Ms. participated with educators nationwide holding teach-ins as part of the Freedom to Learn National Day of Action. At every level, from kindergarten through college levels, educators organized the teach-ins to oppose the coordinated right-wing attacks on academic freedom.
To mark the day, we re-released our Critical Race Theory (CRT) series for pre-kindergarten to 12th grade and college teachers. The Journey to Justice: A Critical Race Theory Primer—a joint initiative between Ms., the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) and the Karson Institute for Race, Peace & Social Justice—includes articles, essays, lesson plans, an annotated bibliography and conversation-starters for teaching critical race theory.
As NWSA president Karsonya Wise Whitehead notes in Ms., we could not be at a more critical moment for this work. “We have witnessed our colleagues at colleges around the country being targeted or threatened,” she writes. “Women’s and gender studies departments have closed. Public libraries have been defunded. Teachers and librarians have been threatened or fired. And conversations about the historical contributions of African Americans, members of the LGBTQIA community and women have been removed from state curricula.”
This is particularly true in Florida, where last month state officials moved to expand the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, extending the prohibitions on education about LGBTQ+ topics from grades K-3 all the way through 12th grade. And just this week, the state went further, with the legislature passing a bill that will allow the state to take trans minors who receive gender affirming care away from their families.
In the face of these attacks, Whitehead calls on us to step up: “These are perilous times that call upon us to do more,” she says.
We couldn’t agree more, and hope you’ll join us.
Onward,
