Making History Accessible

 This unit of Policy we focused on the legislative branch and who writes the laws. We also viewed how it overlapped with the executive and the process of how a bill becomes a law. A law can be made through many different processes, whether it is through lobbyists, everyday citizens writing to their congressmen, or through advocacy. During this unit with met with Ace Katano, a public defender in Los Angeles, to discuss hate crimes and connecting to with out class meeting with Chicago's Commission of Human Rights. In order to contextualize the person we are writing to we had to create a power map to document the people that are in support of the legislation and those who may be opposed. For our Action Project we had to find a bill that was currently making its way through the legislative branch and write to our local representatives as to why they should or should not support the bill. I chose to write a letter to Illinois Senate member Omar Aquino to advocate for him to vote in favor of HB0376, which would add Asian-American history to public school's history curriculum in the state of Illinois. 

Overall I enjoyed getting to explore the legal process of how a bill is made and how it can become a law. It was interesting to research bills that were working their way through the Illinois Senate. Funny enough when I finished my letter the Illinois Senate voted on HB0376 and Senator Aquino voted yes!