Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPI Heritage Month) is an annual celebration that recognizes the historical and cultural contributions of individuals and groups of Asian and Pacific Islander descent to the United States. The AAPI umbrella term includes cultures from the entire Asian continent—including East, Southeast, and South Asia—and the Pacific Islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, there were about 20.6 million people of Asian or Pacific Islander descent in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, AAPI people are a diverse and growing population that make up about 7 percent of the total U.S. population.--History
Like most commemorative months, Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month originated with Congress. In 1977, Reps. Frank Horton of New York introduced House Joint Resolution 540 to proclaim the first ten days in May as Pacific/Asian American Heritage Week. In the same year, Senator Daniel Inouye introduced a similar resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 72. Neither of these resolutions passed, so in June 1978, Rep. Horton introduced House Joint Resolution 1007. This resolution proposed that the President should “proclaim a week, which is to include the seventh and tenth of the month, during the first ten days in May of 1979 as ‘Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week.’” This joint resolution was passed by the House and then the Senate and was signed by President Jimmy Carter on October 5, 1978, to become Public Law 95-419. This law amended the original language of the bill and directed the President to issue a proclamation for the “7-day period beginning on May 4, 1979, as ‘Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week.’” During the next decade, presidents passed annual proclamations for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week until 1990, when Congress passed Public Law 101-283, which expanded the observance to a month for 1990. Then, in 1992, Congress passed Public Law 102-450, which annually designated May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. --Asian Pacific American Heritage
The Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC) is pleased to announce the theme for the May 2025 Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month: “A Legacy of Leadership and Resilience.”
In 2025, FAPAC will celebrate four decades of service to the AANHPI community. This year’s theme honors the hard work of AANHPI leaders who established a foundation for future generations to thrive and adapt to change and adversity. The 2025 AANHPI Heritage Month poster features bamboo as a symbol of strength, endurance, and resilience for its ability to withstand the harshest conditions. Bamboo’s solid foundation ensures it can bend with the wind and stand tall after the storm passes. The bamboo also acknowledges the colloquial “bamboo ceiling” and the cultural, organizational, and individual barriers that hinder advancement for AANHPIs in the workplace. --Federal Asian Pacific American Council
A rather broad term, Asian/Pacific encompasses 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). --Asian Pacific American Heritage
Since they immigrated to the United States, Asians have been met with xenophobia, racism, bias, and violence. Chinese workers were abused, robbed, and murdered in San Francisco in the 1850s. In 1854, the California Supreme Court ruled in People v. Hall that people of Asian descent could not testify against a white person in court, meaning that white people could avoid punishment for anti-Asian crimes.
During World War II, from 1942 to 1945, people of Japanese descent were incarcerated in internment camps across the nation. In 1982, Chinese American Vincent Chin was murdered by two white men in Detroit because they believed Asians were taking auto industry jobs from whites. In March 2021, a man shot and murdered six women of Asian descent at three spas in the Atlanta area. --History
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, racist and xenophobic rhetoric about the origins of the virus led to a spike in anti-Asian racism and violence, with AAPI people of all ages and cultures being verbally and physically harassed and murdered in cities across the United States. As a response to the rise in anti-Asian violence, the AAPI Equity Alliance, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University launched the Stop AAPI Hate coalition on March 19, 2020. The coalition tracks and responds to violence, hate, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and bullying of AAPI people.
In January 2021, the White House released a “Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States,” acknowledging their role in furthering xenophobic sentiments and proposing ways to prevent discrimination, harassment, bullying, and hate crimes against AAPI individuals.--History
