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* Anna North at Vox…
When Sen. Tammy Duckworth had a miscarriage, she was worried it was her fault.
At the time, she was in the middle of a demanding Senate campaign while also serving in the House as a representative from Illinois. “Did I do something wrong?” she remembers thinking. “Was it because I’m working too hard?”
Her doctor assured her that wasn’t the case — after all, miscarriages are extremely common, happening in 10 to 20 percent of all known pregnancies, and the majority are caused by genetic abnormalities in the fetus. But that didn’t necessarily assuage what Duckworth was feeling.
“On the one hand, you’re suffering through this grief,” she told Vox. “And on the other hand, your health care providers are trying to help you deal with it by telling you it’s really not a big deal.” […]
Duckworth’s experience of miscarriage — the self-blame, the confusion, and the need to bounce right back without taking time to grieve — is all too common. […]
Now Duckworth and Pressley are introducing a similar bill in the US. The Support Through Loss Act would require employers to provide at least three days of paid leave in the event of a miscarriage, an unsuccessful IVF or other fertility procedure, a failed adoption or surrogacy, or another medical diagnosis or event that impacts pregnancy or fertility.
The bill would help people like a teacher Pressley spoke with, who left school for a doctor’s appointment, found out she was miscarrying, and had to go back and work the rest of the day. The bill is about meeting people going through pregnancy loss with “care, compassion, and support, and paid leave should be a part of that,” Pressley said. People going through this experience “should not have to worry about whether or not they will still have job security.”
* Li Zhou at Vox…
This month, Illinois became the first state in the country to require the inclusion of Asian American history in public school curriculums. While the actual impact of this law will depend a lot on implementation, its passage alone sends a significant message: that Asian American history is American history and is integral to understanding the country’s past and present.
For years, Asian American history has been virtually nonexistent in textbooks or cordoned off to a narrow section at best. Much of the framing has also sought to paint the US as a savior for Asian immigrants, glossing over people’s agency and the government’s role in imperialism and exclusion. […]
Grace Pai, the executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago, the advocacy group that first proposed the legislation, notes that its overwhelming passage — it was approved by the state House 108 to 10 — is a testament to the work of local organizers who’ve helped write the law and lobbied lawmakers on it over the past year. The victory comes as conservatives mount a national attack on critical race theory, or what is really education that scrutinizes systemic racism and highlights the importance of lessons that examine the country’s history of discriminatory policies.
By ensuring that more Asian American experiences are included in classroom lessons, the hope is that laws like this will build more understanding among students and combat damaging stereotypes that have persisted for decades.
“TEAACH is fundamentally at its core about building empathy,” Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, a lead sponsor of the bill alongside state Sen. Ram Villivalam, emphasized in a press interview. “Empathy comes from understanding, and we cannot expect to do better unless we know better. And when Asian Americans are missing from our classrooms, what fills that void are harmful stereotypes.”
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jul 20, 21 @ 12:42 pm
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These are both very good steps forward. The 3 days of grief is such an important bill as we do such a poor job at all levels of mental health assistance. And I hope the Asian bill will lead to some more intelligent, less racist future because I am sick of how little my generation progressed.
Comment by Lurker Tuesday, Jul 20, 21 @ 1:05 pm
The Asian American history curriculum needs to highlight that birthright citizenship was the result of the SCOTUS decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 concerning a child of Chinese immigrants. This ruling was a major pushback against the anti-Asian racism common at the time, and (to me anyway) seems like a bold SCOTUS decision.
Comment by cover Tuesday, Jul 20, 21 @ 2:07 pm