With anti-Asian hate on the rise in the U.S, schools can’t afford to fail another generation of students. They deserve to know the true story of America.

Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, a professor of elementary social studies at Iowa State University, who has helped create K-8 Asian American studies curriculums for public schools, said Asian Americans receive the least attention in school curriculum and mainstream textbooks compared to other racial and ethnic groups. A 2010 analysis of 28 introductory U.S. history textbooks confirms the data. Tokyo researcher Okiyoshi Takeda found Asian American leaders came up in just 15% of the texts, and fewer than 3% described them as heroes, nation-builders or “change agents.”

In the rare instances Asian Americans were included, they were typically depicted as “victims” or “contributors” to white society. The descriptions help mold the myths of Asian Americans as both model minority and forever foreign; as outsiders, once barred from immigrating to the U.S, and as compliant laborers, helping to build railroads for wealthy, white passengers.

This is what’s packaged and taught to students — if, that is, Asian Americans are mentioned at all. Still, my teachers failed to mention the Immigration Act of 1924, which banned immigration from Asia, or its subsequent 1965 reversal, which brought a wave of refugees, including my dad and uncle, into the country.

Asian American history should not be seen as just a minor footnote. If schools taught history that is reflective of the centuries-long struggle of Asians in America — people would realize the recent groundswell of hate is not a new phenomenon. “There’s a lot of shock and disbelief of ‘This is not who we are,’” Rodríguez told me. “But this is exactly who we have always been.”

Read the full article about Asian-American history by Kayla Huynh at Chalkbeat Chicago.