AAPI Heritage Month

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which celebrates the culture, traditions and history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. The celebration was originally a week at the start of May, timed to two historic events. The first documented Japanese immigrant arrived May 7, 1843, and the transcontinental railroad was completed May 10, 1869, thanks to Chinese immigrants who made up the majority of workers laying the tracks.

Here are some other examples of notable Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) contributions:

• Peggy Negae led a legal team that vacated the conviction of Minoru Yasui, a Japanese American activist, from the 1943 Supreme Court case Yasui v. United States. Yasui intentionally violated a curfew for Japanese Americans during World War II because he believed it was unconstitutional. He was subsequently jailed and later sent to an internment camp.
• Lan Samantha Chang, a professor at the University of Iowa, is the first female and first Asian American to serve as the director of the famous Iowa Writers' Workshop.
• As the lead attorney for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Julie Su won millions of dollars in compensation for Thai workers at a California sweatshop in 1995. The workers were held captive and supervised by armed guards; were paid about 69 cents an hour; and were forced to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week, in a shocking case of modern-day slavery.
• Many tech companies were founded or co-founded by those in the AAPI community, including YouTube (Steve Chen), LinkedIn (Eric Ly), Snapchat (Bobby Murphy), Fitbit (James Park), Pinterest (Ben Silbermann), Yahoo! (Jerry Yang) and Zoom (Eric Yuan).
• Vice President Kamala Harris was the first Indian American to become a U.S. senator and is the first to hold her current office. She was also only the second Black senator ever elected. Daniel Inouye, a Medal of Honor recipient for his service in WWII, was the first Japanese American to serve in the House and Senate.

Join Veridian in celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month by immersing yourself in the rich variety of Asian cultures. That might mean trying a new cuisine or seeking out stories that are told from an Asian perspective. We know it's important to learn more about different cultures so that we can create a community where we all belong.