Many Stories, One Legacy: Celebrating Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Every May, the United States pauses to recognize and celebrate the profound contributions of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, a constellation of communities that together represent more than 50 distinct ethnic groups, over 100 languages, and thousands of years of rich, interwoven histories. Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month is not simply a calendar observance. It is an invitation: to listen, to learn, and to honor the full, complex humanity of people whose stories have too often been pushed to the margins of the American narrative.
A History Worth Knowing
The roots of this month stretch back to 1977, when Congressman Frank Horton of New York and Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, himself a decorated Japanese American World War II veteran, first introduced legislation to establish a national week of recognition. It took more than a decade of advocacy before President George H.W. Bush signed it into a full month-long observance in 1992. The month of May was chosen deliberately: it marks two historic milestones, the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869, a feat built in large part by the labor of Chinese immigrants whose names history largely forgot. Those silences in the historical record are part of what this month asks us to confront. AANHPI communities have been building, shaping, and defending America since its earliest days, and yet their contributions have often been overlooked, distorted, or erased entirely.
The Breadth of a Community
One of the most important things to understand about AANHPI Heritage Month is that the communities it celebrates are extraordinarily diverse. Encompassing people with roots across East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Hawaii, the AANHPI umbrella includes Vietnamese Americans and Bangladeshi Americans, Samoan and Tongan communities, Hmong and Cambodian refugees, third-generation Japanese Americans, and countless others whose experiences diverge sharply from one another. This diversity matters because treating AANHPI communities as a monolith erases real differences in economic circumstance, immigration history, cultural tradition, and political need. Certain Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander populations, for instance, are among the most likely to be undercounted in Census data, a gap that directly affects funding, political representation, and access to resources. Heritage Month is a chance to insist on that specificity: to see each community clearly, rather than collapsing everyone into a single, flattened image.
Resilience in the Face of Adversity
Celebrating AANHPI Heritage Month also means being honest about the challenges these communities continue to face. The surge in anti-Asian hate incidents that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic was a painful reminder that discrimination and scapegoating remain very real threats. But the history of anti-Asian bias in America stretches much further back — through the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and generations of immigration restrictions designed to keep Asian people out of the country entirely. This year’s official theme, “Power in Unity: Strengthening Communities Together”, designated by the Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC), speaks directly to that legacy and to this moment. It is a call to recognize that AANHPI communities are strongest when they stand together: sharing resources, lifting one another’s voices, and building bridges across the many distinct cultures, languages, and histories that fall under the AANHPI umbrella. It honors the trailblazers who came before, figures like Susan Ahn Cuddy, the first Korean American woman to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II; Senator Tammy Duckworth, the first Thai American elected to the U.S. Senate; and Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the first Filipina American to lead California’s highest court, while reminding us that their legacy is not finished. It lives in the collective action happening right now.
Why Visibility Still Matters
A 2021 report found that Asian American histories are often missing from K–12 school curricula, meaning many students grow up with little understanding of AANHPI contributions to the country they live in. When communities are invisible in classrooms, textbooks, and public narratives, the cost is real for AANHPI children who don’t see themselves reflected in the stories their society tells, and for all Americans who are left with an incomplete picture of their own history. AANHPI Heritage Month is a corrective. It is a moment for schools, companies, civic organizations, and families to actively seek out AANHPI voices, to read AANHPI authors, watch AANHPI filmmakers, support AANHPI-owned businesses, and engage with the community organizations doing critical work year-round. Representation is not a box to check in May and forget in June. But May is a powerful starting point.
How To Show Up This Month
Meaningful celebration goes beyond putting up a poster or posting on social media. Here are some ways to engage more deeply this AANHPI Heritage Month:
- Learn something new. Seek out books, films, podcasts, and documentaries created by AANHPI artists and storytellers. The breadth of work being produced today, from literary fiction to documentary journalism to independent film, is extraordinary.
- Support AANHPI organizations. Hundreds of grassroots nonprofits are working every day on issues ranging from anti-hate advocacy to mental health access to educational equity. Find one doing work that resonates with you and consider contributing your time or resources.
- Amplify AANHPI voices in your workplace. If you’re in a position to do so, advocate for AANHPI representation in leadership, hiring, and programming. AANHPI Heritage Month is an opportunity to start conversations that should continue all year long.
- Use the tools that exist. Organizations like The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) have developed practical resources to help individuals, companies, and communities celebrate meaningfully and take informed action.
Power in Unity
This year’s official theme, “Power in Unity: Strengthening Communities Together”, names something that has always been true about the AANHPI community: its greatest strength is collective. The AANHPI umbrella encompasses communities with vastly different histories, languages, and needs, and yet they have repeatedly found common cause, building coalitions, amplifying one another’s voices, and advocating together for a more just and equitable America. That same spirit is an invitation outward, to allies, neighbors, and fellow Americans of all backgrounds. Unity across difference is not just an AANHPI value; it is a cornerstone of what a healthy, pluralistic democracy looks like in practice. Honoring AANHPI heritage is not a niche act of cultural appreciation. It is part of the larger, ongoing project of understanding who America actually is: a nation built by many hands, shaped by many traditions, and made stronger when every one of its communities is seen, celebrated, and heard. This May, lean into the theme. Find your community, strengthen your connections, and take the time to listen across difference. The stories are there, extraordinary, varied, and entirely worth knowing.
