TEAACH Act

In 2021, Advancing Justice | Chicago passed the TEAACH Act, which made Illinois the first state in the country to require Asian American history to be taught in all public schools. For the past two and a half years, we’ve offered professional development workshops and trained more than 2,600 educators!
Although our professional development offerings have now come to an end, we are excited to share an incredible new resource from The Asian American Foundation–The AAPI History Hub. This new hub builds on Advancing Justice | Chicago’s Asian American Education Resource Database, which was built by dedicated volunteers, educators, and community-based organizations in 2021 and 2022. We are grateful to the many people who sourced, vetted, and contributed curricular resources that now have a new home in the AAPI History Hub.
Please check out the Hub, share with educators, and help broaden our reach, visit www.aapihistoryhub.org/.

What is TEAACH?

With its historic passage in April 2021, the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History (TEAACH) Act amended Illinois School Code, ensuring that every public elementary and high school student in Illinois learns about the contributions of Asian Americans to the economic, cultural, social, and political development of the United States.
Beginning with the 2022-23 school year, every public elementary school and high school shall include in its curriculum a unit of instruction studying the events of Asian American history, including the history of Asian Americans in Illinois and the Midwest, as well as the contributions of Asian Americans toward advancing civil rights from the 19th century onward.
Ensuring that Asian American history is taught in our schools lays a foundation for cross-cultural education for all students in Illinois and advances racial equity.

TEAACH Act Implementation Resources

Free Resources from Other Organizations

*Created by Albert Chan, social studies teacher at Niles North and Niles West High Schools (albcha@d219.org)

Read Executive Director Grace Pai’s op-ed about TEAACH in the Education Post.

Watch Grace Pai and Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz’s segment about TEAACH on WCIA News.

About

Why do we need an Asian American history curriculum?

By ensuring that Asian American history is taught in our schools, we are laying a foundation for the future.

For Asian American students, it is a chance to learn stories that reflect their individual experiences. It also provides a framework for all students to better understand Asian American communities, experiences, and histories. This improves cross-cultural education for all students in Illinois and advances racial equity.

Thank your legislator for supporting the TEAACH Act !

See if your legislator voted yes on the TEAACH Act and send them a thank you email!

Click here to email your legislator

Acknowledgements: 

We are incredibly grateful to all of the individuals who devoted their time and expertise to creating these resources.  Our team consisted of a wide range of Asian American identities, backgrounds, and experiences — including current or former K-12 teachers, librarians, professors, education equity advocates, former Illinois public school students, and leaders from Asian American cultural institutions. Everyone shared a passion to ensure that Asian American history is not only represented, but also depicted in a thoughtful, nuanced, and inclusive way. The goal of the Curricular Resource Development team was to create an accessible resource guide that makes it easy for teachers to include Asian American history into their curricula. We hope these resources build greater understanding and empathy within our communities. 

Curricular Resource Development Team:

Albert Chan*, Maricor Chang*, Qiong Chen, Smita Garg*, Samay Gheewala, Joanne Yum Gutierrez, Youngwoon Han, Laura Ouk*, Jin-Soo Huh*, Eugenia Huang*, Esther Hurh, Cindy Joung, Ginger Leopoldo*, Jasmine Lu, Grace Pai*, Kumar Ramanathan, Vianny Saito, Dr. Anne Saw*, Tracy Sohn, Michael Takada, Sunny Trivedi, Shobhana Verma, Esther Wang, Kaoru Watanabe, Junee Yang*, Kelly Yu, Ellen Zhou 

Special thanks to our editing team (denoted with asterisks above) who put in tremendous time and effort to review and streamline all materials, and to Sylvia Tamashiro for designing the final resources. 

Lead Organization:

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago

Steering Committee Members:

Cambodian Association of Illinois ● Chinese Mutual Aid Association ● Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community (CBCAC) ● HANA Center ● Indo-American Center (IAC) ● Japanese American Citizens League Chicago (JACL) ● Japanese American Service Committee (JASC)

Supporting Organizations:

Axis Lab ● Asian American Coalition of Chicago ● Chicago History Museum ● Chicago Japanese American Historical Society ● Chicago Teachers Union ● Chinese American Museum of Chicago ● Chinese American Service League ● CIRCA-Pintig ● Equality Illinois ● Global Asian Studies Program, University of Illinois Chicago ● Hamdard Health Center ● Illinois Council for the Social Studies ● Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center ● Illinois Muslim Civic Coalition ● KAN-WIN ● Lao American Organization of Elgin ● National Association of Social Workers, IL Chapter ● Northwestern University Asian American Studies Program ● OCA Chicago ● Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education ● Vietnamese Association of Illinois (VAI)

From Our Leaders

"Having a greater social and cultural awareness of the lived experiences of Asian Americans does a lot to move forward efforts for helping students understand their identities and histories. Especially as there is a large plurality of Asian American students in Illinois, it seems only right that we take further efforts to educate and challenge our singular notions of race, ethnicity, culture, identity, gender, sexuality, politics, religion, and so much more."

- Cyril Dela Rosa