A member of the Arizona House of Representatives is introducing legislation meant to teach Arizona’s K-12 students the ills of communism.
“This is very personal to me, as someone who has survived a communist war,” said State Rep. Quang Nguyen (R-District 1) in a Tuesday press release. “I have lost very close family members to the evil ideology of communism. I know what it feels to lose a nation to communism and that’s why I do not want my fellow Arizonans to ever go through what I have. It is up to us to ensure that future generations have an honest understanding of what communism truly is and the horrors it has produced for mankind. Otherwise, it is likely to be repeated. The victims and survivors of communism deserve to have their voice heard.”
Nguyen is a refugee whose family fled from communism in Vietnam and who says he “first came to America as a war refugee with a small bag of clothes on his back.”
The legislation would require the State Board of Education (SBE) to re-write the state’s social studies standards to include” comparative discussion of political ideologies that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy.”
House Majority Leader Ben Toma (R-District 22) will co-sponsor the legislation. His family is Romanian, and fled from that country when communists were in power there.
“I believe in America and its cornerstone principles of liberty, freedom, and democracy,” Toma said in the release. “I also believe that we have a solemn obligation to prepare today’s students to be tomorrow’s leaders. This legislation strengthens a student’s foundation in civic literacy and understanding of what makes our nation exceptional, and how it stands in stark contrast to dangerous ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism, that would have our founding principles erased from history.”
The legislation will be introduced while parents, lawmakers and interest groups around the country battle Critical Race Theory (CRT), a left-wing ideology that has become pervasive nationwide, and is centered around the idea that America is a fundamentally racist and unequal nation.
That issue was a hot topic in local and statewide elections in 2021, and figures to be a hotbed issue in 2022.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Quang Nguyen”by Quang Nguyen.
