May marks the start of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. This annual observance is a celebration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities in the United States and has been celebrated in its current form since 1992.
“The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869,” says the celebration’s official United States website. “The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.”
Defined broadly, the term “Asian/Pacific,” as is used on the U.S. site, includes “all of the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island).”
Change Matrix (CM) is proud to acknowledge this month of celebration and highlight five ways to observe Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2022 and acknowledge the greater AANHPI community.
- Tuesday, May 10 — Food for the Body and Soul: Advocating for Community through Culinary Traditions
Chef Janet Yu, owner of Hollywood East Café in Wheaton, Maryland, shares stories and prepares recipes from her home kitchen that draw upon her family’s heritage from Taishan, a village in the Guangdong Province of China. Register here.
- Tuesday, May 10 — Understanding AANHPI Mental Health Now
CM is thrilled to partner with the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association (NAAPIMHA) to host Understanding AANHPI Mental Health Now. This event will kick off NAAPIMHA’s webinar series celebrating AANHPI Heritage Month. Join CM Founding Partner Rachele Espiritu, PhD on May 10, 2022 — the first anniversary of May 10th as AANHPI Mental Health Day — at 1 pm EDT! Register now at this link.
- Thursday, May 13 — At the Crossroads: COVID-19, Racism, and Disinformation
This event is part a series dedicated to Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, hosted at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Stay tuned for the May 25 event, “Beyond #StopAsianHate.” Follow and learn more on Twitter with #AAPIatWilson. Learn about the event here.
- Download Commemorative Zoom Backgrounds
Visit this link to download Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month Zoom backgrounds by designers at the University of California, San Francisco. - Donate to Stop AAPI Hate Initiatives
Hate against Asian American Pacific Islander communities has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Stop AAPI Hate is an organization working to prevent incidents across the U.S. Learn more here.
