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Edmonds-Woodway High School senior Scarlett Luo joined several members of the Seattle nonprofit Make Us Visible Washington in testifying before the State Senate Wednesday about SB 5574. The bill would require Washington school districts to include Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Latino American and Black American history in K-12 social studies courses. If passed, the requirement would be implemented in the 2029-30 school year.
The bill was introduced during the 2025 legislative session but was not moved forward, according to Luo.
Luo highlighted before the Senate the murder of Chinese American Vincent Chin, who was killed in 1982 in Detroit, Michigan, by two white men with a baseball bat because of his race.
“Unless we teach the stories like that of Chin and our long history in this state and country, we will continue to be seen as threats or foreign,” Luo said. “It is also a disservice to the Black, Indigenous and people-of-color students who have to seek extra resources to learn about their history.
This is condoning the cultural ignorance in school communities and ignoring the communities that make up over 30% of Washington state’s population.”
Luo told My Neighborhood News Group that Make Us Visible Washington spearheaded and drafted SB 5574 with input from many stakeholders, including the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), educators, community organizations, parents and students. Sen. T’wina Nobles (D-Tacoma) is the prime sponsor with 14 additional co-sponsors, including Sen. Marko Liias (D-Edmonds) and Sen. Nikki Torres (R-Yakima).
“This matters to the public school system because history shouldn’t be Eurocentric,” said Luo, who serves on the Edmonds School Board’s Student Advisory Committee.
During the hearing, Nobles said that SB 5574 “reflects the challenging budget environment we are in and carries a lower fiscal note than the bill that was introduced last year.” The measure would ensure students have a “more complete historical education,” she said.
“This bill requires school districts through their regular curriculum review cycles to include instruction on these histories within existing social studies courses,” Nobles said. “This bill aligns its instruction, abides state learning standards and builds on existing ethnic studies resources rather than replacing or duplicating them.”
According to Early Learning & K-12 Education Staff Coordinator/Counsel Ailiey Kato, the 2026 version of SB5574 removes provisions requiring OSPI to adopt learning standards and an advisory committee. It also includes Latino and Black American histories.
“The American identity shouldn’t be racially homogenous because diversity is what makes this country so beautiful,” Luo said during the testimony. “I’m tired of being silenced. The time to act and ensure our stories are part of social studies curriculums in Washington is now.”
The full public hearing can be viewed on the Washington State Legislature website, starting at 47:00.
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