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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Little breaking news, by the way, some of you know that Donald Trump was scheduled to testify and did appear before Attorney General Letitia James's office today in connection with the real estate fraud investigation that's been going on in New York. Now Trump has released a statement saying he invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer the AG's questions. We'll have more details on that and the news around the top of the hour, but Trump releasing a statement saying he invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer AG Letitia James's questions at that under-oath testimony today.

New York State Senator John Liu of Northeast Queens is in the news right now for a few reasons. One is that he took the unusual step of publicly posting the audio of a racist voicemail that he received full of expletives and telling him to go back to China, nevermind Lou was born in Taiwan, but he decided to tweet rather than delete the voicemail to draw attention to anti-Asian hate as a way to fight it.

He also held a rally in Queens last week, promoting the idea of requiring Asian American history to be taught in schools statewide as a way to fight hate. Mayor Adams, some of you know, has already announced that AAPI history, Asian American History will be taught in the city schools beginning this fall, Liu wants its statewide. Senator Liu, who many of you will remember was the New York City comptroller while Michael Bloomberg was mayor is also in the news as Chair of the State Education Committee, urging Governor Hochul to sign the bill the legislature passed in June, that would require smaller class sizes in the public schools.

They passed that bill June, a couple of months ago now, but the governor has not yet signed or vetoed the bill. Mayor Adams, by the way, opposes the smaller class size bill without more state aid to pay for all those extra teachers and classrooms, he says it would require, the mayor calls it an unfunded mandate. We'll talk about reducing class size and how to pay for it, and we'll talk about how to fight anti-Asian hate crimes and just public displays of hate, which began to surge in 2020 and more with New York State Senator and Education Committee Chair, John Liu. Senator, always good to have you on, welcome back to WNYC.

Senator John Liu: Thanks for having me, Brian. I suppose we got to pack the agenda. I'm looking for the next couple of hours with you on the radio.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to go to about 3:30, 3:45, I think.

Senator John Liu: That's totally fine with me.

Brian Lehrer: Then we'll have a late lunch outdoor dining. We're not going to play the tape of the racist voicemail you got, because we don't think it's our place to spread that kind of thing even to denounce it, but as the target, you had the right to release it. Would you characterize the message any way you want, and tell us why you took it public?

Senator John Liu: It was a very ins tent vitriolic and expletive-laden voicemail that I got, you mentioned some of it, lots of F-bums in there. It is another example of anti-Asian hate that we have seen the last couple of years. This particular caller I think was triggered by some remarks I made about requiring teachers and basically most people to have vaccinations against COVID. He didn't agree with that. I know that lots of people don't agree with it, but he's not the first person to use that disagreement as a trigger point to launch this kind of racist tirade against me or my staff.

What was actually surprising to me in the aftermath of my tweet is that so many people seem to be surprised, whereas it's actually not that extraordinary. We've gotten lots of messages in recent years, in the 20 years that I've been in public service, I've had at least if not more than my share of these kinds of incidents, whether they be voicemails, or emails, or in-person confrontations, it comes with the job.

This time I did decide to tweet it because I've been preaching to people, Asian Americans as well as anybody who's faced hate and racism to call it out whenever it happens, don't just let it slide, don't pretend it didn't happen, and don't be ashamed of it because you didn't do anything wrong. We call it out, and while we may not be able to stop all these kinds of incidents and bigotry in general, I think by calling it out, we minimize or lessen the probability and intensity of future incidents.

Brian Lehrer: Our reluctance to re-air something like that, to play hate speech, or also to repeat lies and disinformation that people spread except on rare occasion, when we feel we have to say something because it's having such an impact is based partly on the notion that even as many people would be repulsed by the hate speech, or as many people would learn about disinformation that's going around and have it fact-checked, many people, unfortunately, will also be drawn to it and share it, and it can become even more widespread and do even more damage than if we ignored it. Are you concerned at all about that in releasing the voicemail?

Senator John Liu: I think these last couple of years coincident with the global pandemic, we have seen a preponderance of not only voice and sound recordings, but videos that have been shared both on social media, as well as the mainstream news media. This is actually very mild by comparison. Again, I think it's important not to let these incidents slide.

I encourage, again, all my fellow Asian Americans and anybody else who has faced hate, it's not just been Asian Americans, to post these kinds of videos, to share with the world what you have to go through. I understand what you're saying that we don't want to spread this, or we don't want this to become something that attracts people, but on the other hand, people have to understand that this happens and we don't do anybody-- There's no service done by sweeping things under the rug or even simply ignoring these incidents.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us about your proposal to have Asian American history taught routinely in the schools in New York State. Is it as specific as to say how or in what grades? What's in that proposal?

Senator John Liu: My proposal legislation requires the State Education Department to basically promulgate materials curricula to school districts throughout the state. It comes, unfortunately, in the face of this anti-Asian hate that you and I have been speaking about. I do believe that the root cause of racism and bigotry is ignorance and fear, fear from this global pandemic that has killed millions, ignorance because it's just a lot easier to blame and attack people that you just don't know whole lot about.

Unfortunately, to this day and age, there's still very little known about Asian Americans. Last year, there was a study conducted of 2000 Americans, the question simply was, can you name an Asian American? A whopping 42% of these 2000 Americans could not name a single Asian American. Those that weren't able to name one person named, the most popular choice was Jackie Chan, who is I suppose he's a little bit goofy for my taste, but his movies are fine, but the guy from Hong Kong, he's not Asian American. Then the second most common response was Bruce Lee.

Brian Lehrer: Wait, if he's from Hong Kong, doesn't that make you Asian American? Oh, you mean because he is not American?

Senator John Liu: That's right. An Asian American, not an Asian person. There's a very big distinction here. It's just easy to blame people and to attack them whether it be verbally or even physically over these last couple of years for this global pandemic that those actions empowered or fermented by the former president himself, who where Trump continuously called it, the China virus or made a new anti-Asian slur, the Kung flu out of this global crisis that we were all dealing with.

Attacks against Asian Americans really, really skyrocketed in the last couple of years. I do believe that it's important to teach our kids and future generations about what the Asian American experience has been, how much we've contributed to this country in the last 150 years, so that we can be seen as Americans also, in fact, humans, so that we don't face these attacks and attacks with such viciousness.

What's known about Asian Americans is either where the model minority missed, or this perpetual foreigner that oftentimes becomes a yellow color, it's just those are the stereotypes and in the absence of better teaching in our schools, we will never overcome those stereotypes. I saw an American history book recently being used in public schools in New York. It's got the same references to the completion of the transcontinental railroad by Chinese immigrants, the imprisonment of Japanese Americans by the US government during World War II. Those are the same references that-

Brian Lehrer: That's all I think I learned in school and I grew up in the district.

Senator John Liu: Precisely and nothing's changed even though Asian Americans have made a lot more progress. It's important to teach not just Asian American kids, but all kids and future generations so we can truly cut down on the amount of hate that we have faced in these last couple of years.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, to digress since you brought up and I had forgotten about Trump actually coining a new racist slur for the coronavirus, not just China virus which is bad enough, but Kong flu, oh, my God.

Senator John Liu: Kong flu. That's right.

Brian Lehrer: Did you see that Trump testifying under oath today to the New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and I mentioned earlier that he took the fifth, we'll have a short segment on that explaining that after you. He also tweeted before the appearance that he was appearing before the racist attorney general, which A, has nothing to do with his real estate fraud investigation, and B, seems to be his way of inflaming his white supremacist base, just like with Kong flu, by saying, "Hey, this attorney general is Black." Any comment?

Senator John Liu: I have completely given up on this individual, and I hope that the attorney general goes after him with everything she's got. I hope other law enforcement goes after him as well.

Brian Lehrer: As long as they really got stuff, right?

Senator John Liu: I think they do.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some calls and tweets for State Senator John Liu of Queens, chairman of the State Senate Education Committee on class size, which we'll get to on teaching Asian American history on how to deal with anti-Asian hate speech in your own life perhaps after Senator Liu drew attention last week to a racist voicemail he got. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. All right, let's talk about class size.

The legislature passed a bill in June requiring no more than 20 students per class in K-3, 23 students per class in grades 4-8, 25 students per class in the high school grades. Those would be significant reductions. It's 34 max in high school now so down to 25 is really a change. The governor still hasn't either signed or vetoed the bill, two months later. What do you make of the lengthy delay?

Senator John Liu: Well, there's no delay and I'll get into that in a second, but I do want to mention that my responsibility in the State Senate, which I'm privileged to serve in is chairperson of the New York City Education Committee, the State Senate has a standing committee on New York City Education. I am also a member of the larger education committee, which is chaired by my colleague, Senator Shelley Mayer from Yonkers.

Brian Lehrer: Okay. I stand corrected because I did say you were chair of the State Education Committee, you're Chair of the New York City Education Committee within the State Senate.

Senator John Liu: That's correct, the larger education committee deals with all education issues statewide including the 900-plus districts that we have throughout the state. The New York City Education Committee is focused on the largest school system in the country and certainly in New York State and that would be the New York City Department of Education.

Brian Lehrer: It's so saying once in a while that there's nothing like it with a million kids in the district, of course, it needs its own committee in the State Senate. There's nothing like it in any city. I mean, Chicago doesn't come close, Los Angeles doesn't come close because of the way that the technical city lines are drawn there. There's nothing remotely like a million students in one district anywhere else in the country. That has unique challenges.

Senator John Liu: There are some very large districts because like, for example, the LA school district is not simply within the City of Los Angeles, which itself has I think about, I believe two or 3 million people. It's like the LA county unified school district. That district is a very large district, but New York City certainly is the largest city school district by far in the country so you're right along those lines.

There are lots of issues. The issues that we deal with in New York City are myriad in proportion to not only the vastness of our population but the diversity of our school-age kids. You mentioned that there's been a two-month delay. The way the legislative process works as you are familiar with, Brian, is that we pass laws during our normal legislative session that runs from January through June. Then the governor, whether it be this governor or her predecessors, by the end of the legislative session, we typically pass close to 1,000 sometimes more than 1,000 bills.

When we send the governor the bills, she, or he, as the case may be, has 10 days to veto the bill otherwise it becomes law. As a matter of tradition and courtesy, the legislature doesn't send the governor all thousand or several hundred bills at a time for them to then take action on within the next 10 days. The tradition and the courtesy is that we allow the governor to call for the bill.

The governor typically does that over the next six months prior to the end of the year which it has to be done by. The governor has still hundreds of bills including my class size bill that she has to call and then we will send it to her and then she'll have 10 days to take action. I expect that she-- I don't see how she wouldn't approve this bill, given that it was passed nearly unanimously by both the Senate where the vote was 59 to three and the assembly where the vote was 147 to two.

Brian Lehrer: Well, Mayor Adams opposes the bill, as because he says it's a big, expensive unfunded mandate that will require so many more teachers and so many more classrooms and school buildings to have that many more classes per grade. He says, "Hey, you all in the state legislature if this is your mandate, you have to pay past state funding to pay for it." Does he have a point?

Senator John Liu: Unfortunately, no. I don't begrudge our new mayor for not necessarily having the historical perspective on this. This is a problem that at least his two predecessors have had to grapple with. Class sizes in New York City are substantially larger than the rest of the state. That cannot allow to stand. Why? Because excessive class sizes preclude kids from getting a sound basic education. That was one of the main tenants of what you may recall to be the campaign for fiscal equity, where parent plaintiffs sued the State of New York for not providing their kids with a sound basic education.

That was started in New York City and it's primarily focused at least beginning, at least initially on New York City. After years, I think over a decade of lawsuits and litigation, the state's highest court ruled in 2006 that the parents were right that their kids were not getting a sound basic education. What was needed to provide these kids with a sound basic education was substantially increased state funding for public schools in New York.

Brian Lehrer: That finally passed.

Senator John Liu: For many, there was a phase-in that was scheduled, but that phase-in was derailed by the great recession a dozen years ago because of severe budget cuts. It went all derails and then at some point, Governor Cuomo decided that, "Oh, you know what? We're done with it we're not doing anymore." For years, the schools in New York State were short $4 billion. As you mentioned, we have finally fulfilled by this coming April full funding of that court-mandated school aid called foundation aid. Along with that though, has to be an upholding of what the court rule that money was necessary for. That is basically a sound basic education.

Brian Lehrer: You're saying that requires those class sizes?

Senator John Liu: That requires that we not have an excessively large class

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you a question about an alternative that some people have brought up on the show. Some education experts say you can do this cheaper by having team teaching rather than smaller classes. That would still mean more teachers in that expense, and it would still reduce the student-teacher ratio but it wouldn't require so much new physical plant expansion. Do you have an opinion about that?

Senator John Liu: I do. Physical plant I think what you mean by that is more schools and more classrooms, I don't think we can get around the idea of more schools and more classrooms. Team teaching, that can be considered at least on an interim basis, while we get the physical infrastructure up and running. By the way, my class size bill does have a five-year phasing, so it's plenty of time for the city and the Department of Education to acquire the capacity and the space, as well as the teachers in order to limit the class sizes.

Again, excessively large class sizes, this is somewhat intuitive. It takes away from a teacher's ability to get through to all of the children in that classroom. We need to do this to bring New York City class sizes in line with the rest of the state and indeed, the nation. Right now, as you mentioned, there are lots of classes that have 34 kids, that's too many. I'm a teacher myself.

I know that once you get past a certain amount, you lose the bottom end of the class population, and you also lose the top end because you got to aim towards somewhere in the middle or a little bit above the middle. We want to get better education, and the courts ruled this. That's the point. It's not my definition of what a sound basic education is. In the court rulings, they said that sound basic education was being denied to New York City school kids because of several different factors. The first and foremost of which was that class sizes were excessively large.

Brian Lehrer: Then it's going to take even more money than the bill that was passed with the increased education funding under that lawsuit that we were talking about. It's going to take even more money than the legislature has already allocated, right?

Senator John Liu: Actually, by the Chancellor and the mayor's own estimates, it will cost anywhere from five hundred to a billion dollars a year to bring those class sizes down in line with the rest of the state, which is required by my bill. However, the additional foundation aid that we're sending to the city beginning this coming April 2023, that is $1.6 billion every year more than what the city [unintelligible 00:22:56]

Brian Lehrer: All right, so you're saying there's already allocated enough to cover it.

Senator John Liu: Yes. I'm almost thinking that maybe we made a mistake by pre-funding it as opposed to legislating it and then following up with the funding.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are a New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org. Talking to State Senator John Liu of Queens about a few things. His bill which Governor Hochul will soon have a 10-day window opening on to sign or not to reduce class size in the New York City public schools.

We're talking about his proposal also to mandate Asian American history be taught in schools statewide and we're also talking about the racist video that he got from presumably a constituent or a racist voicemail I should say that he released in a Twitter video because he wanted the world to hear it. We're getting a call on that from Ron in Manhattan. Ron, you're on with Senator John Liu. Hi, there.

Ron: Hi, Brian. Hi, Senator Liu. I feel that you're correct in wanting to air the audio and by the same logic or token, I have always resented the fact that the violence of an aftermath of gun shootings was never televised. I would also make the point that if you remember, certainly I do, I'm 73, that the anti-Vietnam War, a lot of what ignited that movement was the fact that these images were shown on television at the time. I think there needs to be a real visceral reaction to these things for anything to happen, and maybe in the same way to your audio. I'm not sure, but I'll take my answer offline. Thanks very much.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks, Ron. Senator?

Senator John Liu: I think the example the videos of violence and shootings, first and foremost, I think there's a deference and respect for the family of victims, or the victims themselves if they survived and so we have to be sensitive to that. Then just airing these horrific videos, nowadays in the age of the internet, there's almost no bounce to what we see nowadays.

They may not be on broadcast or widely publicly accepted broadcast, but people still see these kinds of videos so we do have to have a discussion about that. I do want to say that the voicemail that I played on my tweet comes nowhere near that kind of violence. [unintelligible 00:26:05] I don't know what the noun is for something so heinous, it is a voicemail that is illustrative of the kinds of hate that my community has been faced with.

Brian Lehrer: I saw at that rally in Queens last week that you had for including Asian American history. You said there are opponents who think that there should not be this kind of legislative requirement. There are even people who liken this to critical race theory. You had Jesse Jackson at that rally with you of all anti-racist dignitaries, so what's the critical race theory analogy there?

Senator John Liu: I was very honored to have Rev. Jesse Jackson come all the way to Bayside, Queens to support this bill and we did have a rally for the requirement to teach Asian American history. By the way, other people have had it too, Senator Anna Kaplan had it just about a couple of months ago, very successful rally. These rallies in support of teaching Asian American history have been happening for the last many months. What I would say, I chose the wrong word actually, to be quite honest. I did say opponents liken it to critical race theory, what I meant was opponents marginalize it or derided as critical race theory.

Critical Race Theory is not a curriculum, my understanding is really a legal term. What opponents would say is that it's teaching Asian American history or African American history or history of primarily non-majority groups, minority communities may have the effect of causing division, even division within classrooms. I'm not with those people who deride my bill as fostering critical race theory. What we want is to have our public school kids see history, understand history through different lenses.

Oftentimes, the lenses that American history has been taught through has been very similar majority view lenses. African American activists, some of my colleagues have brought up the example of how some of our American history textbooks have referred to slaves as immigrants. That's the kind of, to put it mildly, lack of sensitivity or understanding of what really happened in American history.

Same thing with Asian American history, people talk about the killing of Vincent Chin some 40 years ago as a horrific killing by two auto workers who were laid off, beat this Chinese American guy to death with baseball bats blaming him for the ascent of Japanese auto companies. Missing the point that the government response was, I would argue far worse than the killing by these two men. The government response being to fine these two mens $3,000 for clubbing a worker to death. That was really a rally crying for Asian Americans all throughout the country to say that we need a much stronger voice.

Brian Lehrer: Rachel in Brooklyn who says she's a public school history teacher. Rachel, you're on WNYC with John Liu. Hello?

Rachel: Hi. I'm very sympathetic to the idea that there's pervasive racism against Asian Americans as there is against so many people in this country, but I think that mandating a particular history or which would lead to mandating a particular curriculum is off the mark and falls under the general strategy of that identity politics has taken in our country where every wrong is matched with a recompensatory and I would even say reactionary right of that wrong. I think as a social studies teacher, as a parent of two kids who've gone through the New York City public school system, there's a lot to teach in social studies including just basic skills like reading and analysis.

These are things that teachers are routinely assessed on that have nothing to do actually with the content. There's an incredible amount already that teachers are struggling to get into the year. In a year of American history education, which kids have to have in I believe fourth grade, seventh grade, and 11th grade, to isolate one group and a curriculum associated with that I think is overly ambitious.

I specifically want to challenge Senator Liu, who I remember from running a very admirable mayoral campaign and with whom I have a lot of agreement. When you say, "Oh, my gosh, the books are writing about the internment of Japanese Americans or the use of horribly paid labor amongst Chinese immigrants to build railroads." What's wrong with that?

Brian Lehrer: Well, he said that's all they're writing about, but Senator Liu put a lot on the table there

Senator John Liu: [laughs] I appreciate this. I believe this teacher understands perspective. Right there in the example that you gave, the Japanese Americans, and I don't think they were the only Asian Americans that were rounded up during World War II. They were stripped of their properties. They were rounded up, they were put in prison camps and somehow we call them internment camps. That's a perspective that I'm not sure how that came to be. That's a perspective that if we had Asian American perspective in the teaching of that history, that would be a change right there.

The completion of the transcontinental railroad, one common photograph that marks the completion of that railroad is a whole bunch of people standing on the ground in front of two locomotives and a lot of other workers on the locomotive posing for this picture that's used in American history textbooks, but guess what? There's not a single Chinese face or Asian face in that photograph. They are pretty much all white faces. That's yet another example of a perspective of history that is not truly capturing and therefore, not truly teaching our kids what actually happened in history. Those are just two examples.

There's many, many more. The point here is that you can't on the one hand say that, "Oh, we understand the need to teach that every group has had a part of history." Some of it has been a struggle, but on the other hand, we're afraid there are some compensatory consequences from teaching this. We shouldn't be afraid of teaching what the truth was. The truth is no question colored by the lens through which that truth or that history has been seen. We need to capture as many of those lenses as possible.

Brian Lehrer: We just have a minute left, but I guess the challenge and Rachel, thank you for your call is-

Senator John Liu: Thank you, Rachel.

Brian Lehrer: -how to incorporate legitimate history as well as literature. This isn't just for history classes really, but all things that represent the many groups in our city, the many groups in our country without it becoming divisive in its own way. This is your history, this is your history, this is your history, this is their history, and actually, bringing people more together because there does seem to be the backlash maybe as exemplified by that caller or that caller is concerned about.

Senator John Liu: This is why I don't seek to have legislation that is very specific about what exactly needs to be taught. We want to leave it up to education professionals and academics. There are many Asian American scholars who have the material, the background, and the arguments about how to properly teach all the kids in our public schools. Just like there are African American scholars. There are scholars of Latinx history. We need to include all of this, but we can't simply say that, "Oh, there's not enough time in the day, or we don't know how to do this, or by teaching this material, things could be divisive." We need to teach the truth as it is, however pretty or however ugly it has been.

Brian Lehrer: New York State Senator, John Liu, from Northeast Queens among other things Chair of the New York City Education Committee in the State Senate. Senator, let's see, we've gotten through some smaller class size conversations, some racist voicemail to you and what you did with it, conversation, some teaching Asian American history in the school. You said it would take till 3:30 and we got it out by [crosstalk] 12 minutes after eleven o'clock. [laughs]

Senator John Liu: We've only set this stage. These are just teasers. There's much more to dive deeply into on all of those topics.

Brian Lehrer: Absolutely. We always appreciate when you come on, Senator Liu, thanks a lot.

Senator John Liu: Thanks for having me.

 

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