 So it's a great privilege now to introduce Chancellor Banks. Thank you, Lucius. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for sharing your story, Michaela, and all the young people who just demonstrated their talent, their brilliance, their confidence. I'm always amazed when I see young people who are able to stand up in front of a crowd like this and perform. It is not easy. And the ones who seem to have the most confidence are the smallest ones that you see, right? Aren't they amazing? Give them another big, big, big round of applause. They were fantastic. We think about the stories of all the important Asian Americans who helped to build our nation, but whose names may still be missing from the history books. That's what Michaela was talking about. And can we have another round of applause for the teachers and all of those who helped to make this happen working with their young people every single day? Their principals, their teachers, their art teachers, their music teachers, thank you so much. Your pieces remind us that music, dance, and the spoken word do not just spark our imaginations, but they build bridges between cultures. We're thrilled to have Mayor Adams with us here today, and you'll hear from him shortly. And a warm welcome also to Senator John Lu and the other elected officials who are joining us today. Thank you so much for being here. And to everyone that's joining us here at Tweed today, this is truly a great day for our students, our families, our educators. When I came down here just a mile around before the program started and somebody whispered to me, you know, this is a really historic moment. We've never had this kind of gathering at Tweed. And I'm thrilled to be here as your chancellor as we begin to just usher in a new era in this place and a strong message that we have for all of our students and for New York City. Now that quote by JFK to McKellar shared that history is not something dead and over. It is always alive, always growing, always unfinished. It goes to the heart of what we're doing here today. This sentiment is especially relevant today as we gather to celebrate the contributions of our Asian American and Pacific Islander students and families whose voices and stories have not been told for far too long. Well, that changes today. It's my pleasure to announce that our new hidden voices, Asian American and Pacific Islanders in the United States, a curriculum that honors all that our Asian American and Pacific Islander students and families contribute daily to our school communities and city. This, absolutely. Look at these beautiful, Mr. May, I don't know if you can see them or Senator, if you can see these young people, you'll see them when you come over here in just a moment. But they gave the biggest round of applause because they are the full on embodiment of everything that we're talking about here today. This new curriculum is a milestone in our ongoing support to AAPI students and families in our public schools and communities. And it's an integral part of our effort to lift the voices of all of our students. This curriculum will cover stories from numerous AAPI figures and a multitude of communities who have left their mark on this country. The lives of significant figures, such as Anadipa N. Joshay, the first woman of Indian ancestry to be a doctor of Western medicine. Patsy Mink, the first Asian American woman elected to Congress. And Helen Zia, Chinese American journalist and activist for Asian American and LGBTQ rights. This is just to name a few. Stories about the 1763 Filipino settlement in present day Louisiana. The development of Bengali communities in Harlem at the turn of the 20th century, people don't know anything about this history. And the contributions of countless other AAPI communities and figures. We want each child to be heard and seen for who they are, to feel deep in their bones, that they are respected and important. And know that their teachers and school communities value their past and present experiences as well as their dreams for the future. With the new AAPI guide we're announcing today, our students will learn about and honor the many people often hidden from the traditional historical record who have shaped and continued to shape our history and identity. This marks the third phase of the Hidden Voices project and is a companion to the DOE's robust Passport to Social Studies curriculum. And this has been so well received by our teachers and students. Our initial AAPI guide will include riveting individual portraits in the vein of those Mikaela shared so students can learn about their history, culture and contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islanders in this nation. And understand that everyone's stories deserve to be heard. We'll also feature material to support teachers in integrating these resources within the themes and narratives taught in our classrooms. And I want to thank our teachers for embracing this important work. We'll be piloting this set of resources in social studies and literacy many units for all grade bands beginning in the fall. And after we receive teacher feedback, we'll launch a more fully developed curriculum in the fall of 2024. This curriculum truly is a step forward for all of our students as it will highlight the Asian American and Pacific Islander experience. It represents our ongoing commitment to the beauty and diversity of our school communities. This is especially important in light of the most recent and ongoing hate crimes and violence against members of our AAPI community, which we simply must not tolerate in our city or our schools. And one of the ways we combat racism and hate, and the mayor talks about this all the time, is by teaching and learning about each other's stories and histories. We are not the other. We are all New Yorkers. We are all Americans. By reexamining and renewing our understanding of American history, true American history, and by identifying and celebrating what we all have in common with each other, both as Americans and as New Yorkers. This curriculum is a continuation of the work that we've already done, including the LGBTQ plus curriculum, the Black Studies curriculum. And we're also currently working on the Middle Eastern North African curriculum, the Latin X history, and students affected through the American with Disabilities Act, a deeper understanding of Jewish culture and history. We are working on all of this. I wanna thank our Deputy Chancellor, Caroline Kintana and her team, who are doing this good work each and every day. And so before I close, I just wanna say a quick thank you to the many scholars and stakeholders who have put countless hours into developing these resources, which will benefit all of our students. Thank you again for supporting this important work. And now, it's my pleasure to pass this on to the great Mayor of the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams. I've known John Liu, the Senator for many years. And I remember having him talk about these things. Just as we celebrated the presidency of Obama, although the country celebrated on a whole, African Americans had a special feeling about breaking down that barrier. And when I spoke with John Liu over and over again, and watched him push back on the stereotypes, on the hidden hate, on the violence, you know, we want to believe that what the AAPI community has gone through started the last few years. That is just not true. You had Chinese Americans that built the railroad system and was not allowed to ride on those same trains. We had men and women from different parts of the AAPI community that treat children were treated differently. I just wanted to just come up here with John and just tell him thank you, thank you. History, history has not been kind to the hidden voices. And I know sometimes we are overwhelmed by the various headlines of the day. And we lose sight over how far we're coming as a city. What we are doing, you're going to hear so often in this administration, the first time ever, the first time ever, the first time ever, that is what we're doing. We are looking at historic barriers and taking them down. First time ever dyslexia screening, the first time ever creating scholarship funds, the first time ever leaning into parents that need childcare, first time ever expanding on earned income tax credit that has not been expanded on 20 years. The first time ever having this hidden voice conversation. You're going to hear that over and over and over again because those of us who are biblical know this is a Matthew 21 and 12 moment. Jesus went into the temple and saw them doing wrong. He didn't stay there. He turned the table over. I became mayor to turn the table over. I didn't come mayor to sit in here and watch the same over actions happen. And we do it by what this chancellor says often. We listen. We listen. This agenda is not Eric Adams' agenda. This is not Chancellor Banks' agenda. This is the agenda from the people. We are listening to the people and enacting what the people are saying. And so the mission is clear. On so many fronts, the job is awesome. But there's not one day when I'm overwhelmed, not one. Because clarity of message and mission and leading with your heart and creating the right partnerships with people who have led with their heart and willing to put themselves in harm's way to make this city what it ought to be. This is the greatest time to be a New Yorker. The greatest time to be a mayor, a senator, a teacher, a school crossing guard, a police officer, a firefighter. This is our moment. This is our moment. And today we are saying this is the greatest time to be a student. Not only are these babies, these scholars, not only are they going to benefit, there's nothing more tragic than a Caribbean student sitting next to an AAPI student not knowing the rich history of that student. There's nothing more tragic than a child from Dominican Republic sitting next to a person from the continent of Africa and not know their history. It's tragic when our babies are academically smart and not emotionally intelligent and don't develop the full personhood of who they ought to be. That's tragic. That's not education. That's a robotic system that produces robot. We're not. We're producing scholars, leaders, emotionally intelligent, future leaders of this city and of this country. That's what this is doing today. We need to say thank you to John and the others that brought this forward because our children are just becoming smarter and wiser because of this moment. So we have a lot of work to do. But every time I go to a school building, the question mark of can we do it turn into an exclamation point of yes we can do it because I have never met a more dedicated and committed group of people who just love children. You just love children. And I know as I watched this brother here holding his baby behind us rocking up. I know all of you held your stomachs with what happened in Texas. I know that. I know all of you who are educators thought about those babies. I know that. And you have my promise and commitment. Keep the city safe because you can't educate if you're worrying about the safety of your babies and scholars. That's what this battle is about. That's why we're doing this. That is why we're moving this city forward. And so on behalf of New Yorkers, we wanna say thank you to the chancellor for taking this right step. We wanna thank you to all the members of the AAPI community who never gave up, never surrendered. You knew where you were on the right path. You accomplished a historical goal today. And that's my general thank you. But my personal thank you is to my friend, my fellow colleague, John Lu. Thank you, John. Say a few words. It's hard to follow what Mayor Adams has told us. This is a mayor who really understands communities, both from being a lifelong New Yorker and on the campaign trail for many years, really digging deep into all the communities that make New York. And he's absolutely right. This anti-Asian hate that we've seen so much of, it didn't just happen the last couple of years. It's been happening ever since the beginning of this country, ever since the first Asian Americans arrived at our shores. But there's no question that there has been a direct correlation between the current onslaught of anti-Asian hate and the COVID-19 crisis. They go hand in hand. Why is that? Because Asian Americans have been scapegoats for a lot of things over our entire history, whether it be economic recession, international warfare, global pandemic, we get blamed. And the reason we get blamed and therefore hated and attacked is because of ignorance. It's easy to blame people that you don't know or you don't understand. And there is still an ongoing lack of knowledge of what Asian Americans are. We're either model minorities or perpetual foreigners or worse yet, yellow peril. People don't know what the AAPI community is about. In fact, last year, nearly 3,000 American adults were surveyed. They were asked a simple question. Name an Asian American. And 42% of these nearly 3,000 American survey could not name a single Asian American. And of the remaining 58% who could name somebody, the most common answer was Jackie Chan. Yeah, I think Jackie Chan's a little goofy, but I like his movies. But he's from Hong Kong. He's not Asian American. And the second most common response was Bruce Lee. I am a Bruce Lee fan. Rest his soul. He's been dead for 30 years. People do not know the Asian American community and therefore it's so easy for people to blame us and then to hate us and then to attack us. And you see the viciousness by which some of those attacks were perpetrated. We've all seen the videos. That's why it's important to teach our young children, our future leaders and everybody in our state and by extension our nation, what the AAPI experience has been about so that we can really be seen as fellow Americans, fellow human beings even. We have a bill in the state legislature that would codify a mandate to teach AAPI history in every school in the state of New York. And I wanna thank many of the community leaders and activists here as well as students and teachers who have been part of pushing that legislative agenda. But it's not easy. You would think it should be a slam dunk. We have critics in Albany who say we're trying to be divisive by teaching this history. They marginalize it or demonize it as critical race theory. I wanna say very clearly that when I immigrated here, I'm not trying to divide anybody. I wanna be American. When I immigrated here at the age of five, I thought I was gonna be American. It wasn't long thereafter that I found out in the schools as well as in the streets that I was somehow different. I didn't stand up and say I wanna be different. Everybody else said I'm different. I'm Asian or whether you're a member of another racial minority, we are not the ones who saying that we are this or that. It's other people. The same people who marginalize our efforts as critical race theory, it's what they have done to us. So in order for us to overcome this difference that has been imposed on us, we need to teach our experience. We're still working on that state legislation, but Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks, they're not waiting for us to their credit. They've seized upon the opportunity and the need at this point in history to teach AAPI history. They're rolling it out in our public school system. And they're rolling out in, I've seen some of the curriculum. It's terrific as far as I can see. And it's just a start. And one of the things that is so great about it is that they're not creating an Asian-American course or a special class in Asian-American history. No, that's not what we're talking about because what we need is Asian-American history and experience to be fully integrated into the curricula, into the syllabus that we are teaching, that we are teaching our young people so that it's not just Asian-American history, indeed, it's American history. That is the whole point of it. So I thank you, Mayor, for your insight and your initiative and just basic care for the AAPI community. Thank you, Chancellor Banks, for leading your team and making this a reality. I wanna thank my friend and former city council education committee chair, Mark Triger. Thank you, Mark, for your efforts as well as many of the community organizations here. I'm gonna forget some of them, but I wanna thank Make Us Visible, which is conducting a national campaign. I wanna thank the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Coalition for Asian-American Children and Families, the Asian-American Federation. I wanna thank my hero and my mentor, one of our regents in the New York State Board of Regents, Judith Chin. Judith, thank you so much. And finally, and also, I wanna acknowledge my city council members. I see we have Linda Lee, we have Sandra Ong. I know I saw Shaker Krishnan. Shaker, as in salt and pepper. Shaker Krishnan, don't get it wrong. And I think there are other members here, but they, when I started in the city council, there was only one AAPI member. Now there are five and a half AAPI members. You are strong caucus brothers and sisters. And lastly, I just wanna give a quick shout out to our brother here, Lucius Young, Chancellor Banks. Lucius was a, wow, they really like Lucius. He was a star principal in Flushing, PS163, where he championed, among many things, dual language programs. Thank you so much. I am just so happy today, but I know there's still work to be done, and we will do it together. Thank you. We're not finished with the program. Just one more moment. We got this new grade, that's right. We got this new grade, that's right. We have, we have members of our city council are offering up brief remarks. So without further ado, council member Linda Lee, would you please come? Council member Lee. All right. Hi, everyone. No, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Trust me, I have an eight-year-old and a three-year-old, I get it. Hi, good afternoon, everyone. My name is Linda Lee from City Council District 23, all the way out in Eastern Queens. I just wanna say a special thank you to Chancellor Banks, as well as Mayor Adams, because I will say this much. It is an incredibly heartwarming thing to see you all be so open to listen to us and what our needs are in each of our districts and for taking the time to really have these open dialogues and conversations. So I just wanted to thank you so much for inviting us and having this event. As a public school parent, as a social worker, someone who led a nonprofit organization, many of the leaders who are here, as well as the chair of the mental health committee on the city council, I will say that I wanna, on behalf of all those things, I just wanna say a shout out to all the teachers, the administrators, the principals. I just wanna give you guys a round of applause for all the work you've been doing. The past few years have not been easy and we have a lot of work to do, especially on the city council side, around mental health and our schools. And thank you to Senator John Lu because you know what, it is so important to see faces like his in public service and in government and myself, as well as Julie Won, we are the first Korean-Americans ever elected to city council, which is crazy to think about. And as mentioned, there are six Asian-Americans for the very first time ever on city council and I think it is so important for students, our communities to see faces like ours in public service and in leadership. And one thing I learned in serving the community as a nonprofit organizer is that it is important to have that seat at the table, that voice at the table and we will continue to fight on behalf of our communities. And I just wanna thank everyone so much because this curriculum is going to teach our students at a very young age that they are not the others, that we're not a monolith and I have one of the second highest percentage of Asian-Americans in my district in Eastern Queens and we are so diverse and speak so many languages and this should be seen as a strength, not something that divides us. And so I look forward to working with each and every one of you to make sure that this is successful. So thank you. Thank you. And finally also from city council, council member, Shekha Krishna. Good afternoon everyone. Salam aleikum, namaste. My name is Shekha Krishnan. I'm the council member from Jackson Heights, Elmer's Queens. And I first wanna say, seeing students today dressed up, wearing a kurta, playing the harmonium, clothes that I wore, instruments that I played growing up but never brought into school. They didn't think, didn't feel comfortable bringing it to school to see them here today performing in front of the chancellor and all of you is so powerful. And that's why I give them a big round of applause. Thank you all so much. It was amazing. And to be here to witness it as the first Indian American ever elected to the city council in the history of New York City makes me especially proud. The truth is for over a century, our Asian American communities have been a critical piece of the fabric of our country and of our city. Raising our families here, contributing to the vibrancy and beauty and beautiful cultures of New York City and of the United States. But we haven't always been welcomed or celebrated. And in fact, that invisibilization, our absence from our school curriculum here in New York, our lack of representation up till this point in government, especially at the city level, and our overall invisibilization of our voices, of our communities in the decisions that government has been making about our communities, it's part of the reason why, it's part of what has fueled all of the hate that we are experiencing today. And so when we talk about culturally responsive education, this is what we are talking about. And so I want to thank Chancellor Banks, Mayor Adams, for being so committed to making sure the stories of our communities are told in our textbooks in our curriculum. Now, my children, South Asian boys can see themselves in the material they learn, can hear and listen to stories about their cultures in schools, and can have the opportunities that we didn't have growing up to see ourselves in our academic material and in our own education in our public schools. This is also a moment where we recommit to the work ahead of us too, in every respect, in our school system, whether it's studying the lives of Fred Korematsu, Vincent Chin, or as Chancellor Banks said, studying the story of Bengali Harlem, whether it's reading the works, the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, or the books by Minjin Lee, or whether it's expanding dual language and bilingualism in our schools, especially in our Asian American languages. Two, in the more symbolically, but importantly significant way, especially as a South Asian, to seeing Diwali as a school holiday in our public school system here in New York City. To celebrate a holiday that we all celebrate in our South Asian communities, but could never celebrate as public school students. And of course, to continuing that work outside of education, to our larger society, to voting more resources and services for mental health issues, to ensure that mental health resources are in our languages, are in our cultures. That's the work that I know we're all committed to, especially my elected colleagues, whether in here in the DOE, or our elected colleagues in government, like State Senator John Lu, council member and mental health chair, Linda Lee, council member Sandra Ong, and all of our AAPI council members, part of this historic class of representation. Today is a day to reflect and to recommit to that work. And we're here to do that together. So thank you all so much, Daniela. I had one oversight, I'm so sorry. And before, because I know the kids are, they're really good when I think about sitting for so long. So, and I know you gotta get ready to go home, but two more minutes, please welcome council member Ong, please, our final council member. Good afternoon, I'm city council member Sandra Ong, representing District 20, the largest AAPI community of all the New York City council districts. I wanna first thank the educators and parents for the job you do, it's not easy. You kids are amazing. And you know what, I see some leaders. I see some future leaders right here in this room. I wanna thank Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks for making a reality, including AAPI history in our New York City curriculum. Thank you for listening to the calls of the Asian-American community, the elected officials. And also I just wanna share this, this is actually a very personal moment for me. As someone who grew up in the New York City public schools, I remember going through the textbooks and going, where am I? It's really disheartening going through textbooks and looking for someone that looks like me and not seeing them there. So thank you for doing this today. And I look forward to all of you. And next step is getting sent to lose Bill Pass in the New York State Legislature so we can make this reality in the state. And of course, of getting it passed to Congresswoman Grace Meng's bill so we can make this reality nationwide. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody. And to all the students, they can get ready, I guess, if they're gonna start to move them out now. Now's the time. I think the press wanted to ask a few questions. I'm not sure if that's what you still wanted to do or not. But just know that it may be a noisy background as the students start to make their way as they got to start to make their way home. Congressperson Grace Meng was also very, very excited about this announcement. Couldn't join us today, but pledged her full support. So with that, I don't know you want me. Where's the council member? Is she here? Okay, I understand that the chair of the Education Committee at City Council, Rita Joseph is here somewhere. I just want to give her a big shout out. There she is. I didn't see you. Good to see you. Absolutely, thank you. Well, we don't direct the curriculum at charter schools, but this is across all the New York City public schools. But we certainly, any curricula that we develop is always open to charter schools or any other schools who are seeking to use it for sure. Picture it this way. Mosaic essentially is almost like an umbrella. And it has lots of different pieces that are under it and that are connected to it. Some of which had started prior to our administration coming in and there are other pieces that we're continuing to develop that might not have even originally been a part of the mosaic, but we see it all as part of the mosaic. It's a large fabric of culturally responsive education with varying curriculum. So our deputy chancellor, if she's here, could respond to that. But our goal is to roll this out across many schools. This September, but the full-on curriculum will happen as a result of the work that we do and what we learn throughout this particular school year. But the question is very specifically about how many schools for this September our deputy chancellor. Was a question, how many schools for this September will have a pilot? So we have to still make those decisions and we'll be working with different superintendencies and districts to make that decision in terms of what it looks like to pilot and what grades we'll pilot. But this is, it'll be integrated into the passport curriculum that as you know is already across our schools. And so it won't be very difficult to do that work. We just wanna make sure that we can check it out and have teachers give us feedback, have principals, some of whom are in the room, give us feedback so that we can build it out and have it ready for you by 2023. Hey, chancellor. So another aspect of representation is staff in the schools. And I was just looking at some of the numbers and only 7% of teachers are Asian compared to 17% of students. So I'm curious, will this come alongside any efforts to recruit more Asian staff members, teachers? How do you look at that? Yeah, I'm glad that you raised that. The question was really around, the teaching force is only, Asians only represent 7% of our teaching core. And we're certainly gonna be working in that way. This was kind of like the priority for us really kind of laying out the curriculum. But diversifying our teaching core is a critical component of the work that we're doing. There are a lot of things that we think that we have to do but get incredible messengers as well who can help us to get the word out about needing more teachers of Asian descent is critical. And it's not just Asian students but teachers but it's also Latinx teachers, more African-American teachers. We have to fully diversify our teaching force across New York City. That is a huge part of the work that we're working on. Absolutely. Yeah, but I don't think it had anything to do with Merrill accountability. I think the Asian community, particularly led by people like Senator Jarlou and others but has been on the forefront for this issue for quite some time. And I don't know that it has anything much to do. We certainly don't connect it to having anything to do with Merrill accountability. And well, in the sense of, yes, this is an administration that is built on listening. And I think you can speak to any members of the city council. You can talk to members across the state legislature and you can talk to community leaders and parents from the moment that we have gotten here. We have engaged, we have listened and we have done everything that we can to try to build a teaching and learning experience for all of our schools that is reflective of what our communities want. And so all the efforts that we've been doing have been because we have been listening. The dyslexia initiative that we rolled out, the gifted and talented expansion, all of the efforts that we've been making have been made as a result of us listening to our elected officials, to our community leaders, to our teachers, to our students. We're listening, that's what the mayor said, and that's what we're committed to doing. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, Chancellor. Thank you.