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Things to do this weekend in Qatar (June 6-8, 2024)

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Doha, Qatar: It s the first weekend of June and the official start of the Summer season in Qatar. Yet despite the heat, an array of events are awaitin…

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Discover all the upcoming events and festivals in Qatar. The Qatar calendar is also downloadable.

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Things to do this weekend in Qatar (May 2-4, 2024)

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Things to do this weekend in Qatar (May 2-4, 2024)

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Doha, Qatar: From carnivals to marathons, the first weekend for the month of May is packed with interesting events.

Here's a list of fun and exciting activities you can enjoy doing this weekend in and around Doha.

Baraha luxury classic cars exhibition 2024
On until May 3, 2024
From 10am to 10pm
Msheireb Downtown

Blending with Msheireb downtown's location, this second edition of Baraha luxury cars exhibition takes you on a journey between modernity, heritage, and mechanical antiques.

The exhibition showcases classic masterpieces such as the 1957 Red Chevrolet Corvette, 1970 Maserati Ghibli Coupe 4.7L,1969 Mercedes 220 SE and much more!

For more details click here!

Al Samriya Challenge 2024 May 3, 2024
Al Samriya Estate (Farm), Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Museum

This challenge is a timed-event run on a 3.3km route inside the farm. Athletes can complete as many loops as possible within the stipulated time. There will be 3 different timed events (90-min, 60-min and 30-min) for adults, one event (10-min) for juniors and an 800M race for mini kids.

Book your ticket here to join the challenge!

A unique race where competitors will race side by side to keep ahead of the Virtual Catcher Car, that takes off 30 minutes after the start at 14 km/h and steadily increases its speed until the last athletes have been caught. 100% of all donations and the entry fees go directly into spinal cord research projects.

The event is accessible via an entry fee of 28 dollars.

Register here to participate!

Arab 'Design now' Exhibition
On till May 5, 2024
M7 Msheireb

Working across themes of material and visual culture and expression, environmental and innovative use of materials, and considerations of technique, detail, pattern, and aesthetic, the exhibition highlights design excellence from across the region of the Levant, the Gulf, and North Africa.

Looking beyond a globalized or imported design language, the exhibition is a reflection on what it means to create in our region today.

To attend book your ticket here

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Qatar Animal Welfare Society (QAWS) is having an open day where everyone is welcome to attend!

There will be puppies to play with, cats to cuddle and dogs to walk. The farm animals will be waiting to see everyone and there will be lots of activities as well as merchandise and refreshments available for purchase.

The entry is free but it's recommended to bring a birthday/anniversary gift to help the rescued animals

Don't miss the big football matches of the AFC U23 Asian Cup this Friday! The two finalists Japan and Uzbekistan will play for the top spot at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium at 6:30pm.

Meanwhile Indonesia will meet Iraq for third position on Thursday at Abdullah Bin Khalifa Stadium, with the winner set to get Asia's third Olympic berth.

The losing side will face African side Guinea in a playoff for a possible fourth slot.

For match highlights and updates click here!

Qetaifan Island North Aquathlon race May 4, 2024
Meryal Waterpark

An event for men only, Aquathlon is a multi-sport 1 to 5km race that consists of swimming and the competitor concludes the race with running.

The competitor competes to finish the race as quickly as possible, including the transition stage between swimming and running.

Enjoy exploring the newest tourist Islands in Qatar by joining the Aquathlon race!

For more information click here!

Bob Marley's 'The Wailers' Concert performance May 2, 2024
Doha Golf Club

The legendary reggae band, The Wailers will be performing on May 2 at the Doha Golf Club.

"Experience the magic of The Wailers' timeless classics and incredible cuts from Bob Marley's vast musical creations in a truly unforgettable set," said the organisers Mayfair Hospitality, adding that the band will perform the entirety of the "Legend" album as part of their 40th-anniversary tour.

With this tour, the band marks another milestone this year; the release of the much-awaited biopic "Bob Marley: One Love."

For tickets click here!

This cultural event is dedicated to highlight the Palestinian culture among residents and citizens in the country and to give a glance into its rich tradition and history!

Visitors can enjoy the traditional Palestinian cuisine with delicious indigenous meals. Organised under the auspices of Palestinian Embassy in country, one could even get a chance to meet and connect with prominent Palestinian figures from all around the globe and learn about their history and interesting stories.

For more information click here!

Prepare to witness the Ramp Rush skateboarding show at the Mall of Qatar.

Skilled skateboarders will showcase their talents with impressive flips, twists, and jumps, demonstrating their creativity and mastery of the sport.

This event promises to be an engaging display of athleticism and excitement, sure to captivate audiences of all ages.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to experience the thrill of the Ramp Rush skateboarding challenge firsthand.

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Things to do this weekend in Qatar (May 2-4, 2024)

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Doha, Qatar: From carnivals to marathons, the first weekend for the month of May is packed with interesting events. Here s a list of fun and exciti...

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May Day is a May 1 celebration with a long and varied history, dating back millennia. Throughout the years, there have been many different events and festivities worldwide, most with the express purpose of welcoming in a change of season (spring in the Northern Hemisphere). In the 19th century, May Day took on a new meaning, as an International Workers' Day grew out of the 19th-century labor movement for worker's rights and an eight-hour workday in the United States. May Day 2021 will be celebrated on Saturday, May 1, 2021.

Origins of May Day: Beltane

The Celts of the British Isles believed May 1 to be the most important day of the year, when the festival of Beltane was held.

This May Day festival was thought to divide the year in half, between the light and the dark. Symbolic fire was one of the main rituals of the festival, helping to celebrate the return of life and fertility to the world.

When the Romans took over the British Isles, they brought with them their five-day celebration known as Floralia, devoted to the worship of the goddess of flowers, Flora. Taking place between April 20 and May 2, the rituals of this celebration were eventually combined with Beltane.
READ MORE: 8 Facts About the Celts
May Day Maypole Dance

Another popular tradition of May Day involves the maypole. While the exact origins of the maypole remain unknown, the annual traditions surrounding it can be traced back to medieval times, and some are still celebrated today.

Villagers would enter the woods to find a maypole that was set up for the day in small towns (or sometimes permanently in larger cities). The day's festivities involved merriment, as people would dance around the pole clad with colorful streamers and ribbons.

Historians believe the first maypole dance originated as part of a fertility ritual, where the pole symbolized male fertility and baskets and wreaths symbolized female fertility.

The maypole never really took root in America, where May Day celebrations were discouraged by the Puritans. But other forms of celebrations did find their way to the New World.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, May Basket Day was celebrated across the country, where baskets were created with flowers, candies and other treats and hung on the doors of friends, neighbors and loved ones on May 1.

What does May Day have to do with the international distress call, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday"? Nothing, as it turns out. The code was invented in 1923 by an airport radio officer in London. Challenged to come up with a word that would be easily understood by pilots and ground staff in case of an emergency, Frederick Mockford coined the word "mayday" because it sounded like "m'aider," a shortened version of the French term for " come and help me."

International Workers' Day

The connection between May Day and labor rights began in the United States. During the 19th century, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, thousands of men, women and children were dying every year from poor working conditions and long hours.

In an attempt to end these inhumane conditions, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which would later become the American Federation of Labor, or AFL) held a convention in Chicago in 1884. The FOTLU proclaimed "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886."

The following year the Knights of Labor -then America's largest labor organization-backed the proclamation as both groups encouraged workers to strike and demonstrate.

On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers (40,000 in Chicago alone) from 13,000 business walked out of their jobs across the country. In the following days, more workers joined and the number of strikers grew to almost 100,000.
READ MORE: History of the Labor Movement
Haymarket Riot

Overall, the protests were peaceful, but that all changed on May 3 where Chicago police and workers clashed at the McCormick Reaper Works. The next day a rally was planned at Haymarket Square to protest the killing and wounding of several workers by the police.

The speaker, August Spies, was winding down when a group of officers arrived to disperse the crowd. As the police advanced, an individual who was never identified threw a bomb into their ranks. Chaos ensued, and at least seven police officers and eight civilians died as a result of the violence that day.

The Haymarket Riot, also known as the Haymarket Affair, set off a national wave of repression. In August 1886, eight men labeled as anarchists were convicted in a sensational and controversial trial despite there being no solid evidence linking the defendants to the bombing. The jury was considered to be biased, with ties to big business.

Seven of the convicted men received a death sentence, and the eighth was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In the end, four of the men were hanged, one committed suicide and the remaining three were pardoned six years later.

A few years after the Haymarket Riot and subsequent trials shocked the world, a newly formed coalition of socialist and labor parties in Europe called for a demonstration to honor the "Haymarket Martyrs." In 1890, over 300,000 people protested at a May Day rally in London.

The workers' history of May 1 was eventually embraced by many governments worldwide, not just those with socialist or communist influences.
READ MORE: The Haymarket Riot: When a Protest Against Anti-Labor Police Brutality Turned Violent
May Day Today

Today, May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, but ironically it is rarely recognized in the country where it began, the United States of America.

After the 1894 Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland officially moved the U.S. celebration of Labor Day to the first Monday in September, intentionally severing ties with the international worker's celebration for fear that it would build support for communism and other radical causes.

Dwight D. Eisenhower tried to reinvent May Day in 1958, further distancing the memories of the Haymarket Riot, by declaring May 1 to be "Law Day," celebrating the place of law in the creation of the United States. May Day 2021 is on May 1, 2021.

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May Day is a May 1 celebration with a long and varied history, dating back millennia. Throughout the years, there have been many different events and festivities worldwide, most with the express purpose of welcoming in a change of season (spring in the Northern Hemisphere).

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A year after protests for racial justice swept the nation, propelling conversations on how to improve conditions for Black lives, the country is getting ready to celebrate the 158th anniversary of one of its earliest liberation moments: Juneteenth.

A portmanteau of "June" and "nineteenth," Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when a group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally learned that they were free from the institution of slavery. But, woefully, this was almost two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. As much as Juneteenth represents freedom, it also represents howemancipation was tragically delayed for enslaved people in the deepest reaches of the Confederacy.

The first Juneteenth in 1866 was celebrated with food, singing, and the reading of spirituals - and it commemorated newly freed Black peopletaking pride in their progress.Today, Juneteenth celebrations span the world, with the global diaspora adopting the day as one to recognize emancipation at large.

After being largely ignored in schools, recognition of the day has also grown in recent years, especially amid a climate seeking justice for Black lives - a Gallup poll in 2021 found most Americans now know about Juneteenth, which is now a national holiday.

As the American public continues to grapple with how to talk about slavery and its enduring consequences, the national recognition of Juneteenth is at least a start to acknowledging the harmful way America was built and the foundational contributions of the enslaved.

Setting the foundation for Juneteenth

Often referred to as the Second American Revolution, the Civil War began in 1861 between northern and southern states over slavery and economic power. A year into the war, the US Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1862, which authorized Union troops to seize Confederate property, including enslaved people. (The act also allowed the Union army to recruit Black soldiers.) Months later, on January 1, 1863, President Lincoln affirmed the aims of the act by issuing the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. The document declared that "all persons held as slaves ... are, and henceforth, shall be free."

While the proclamation legally liberated millions of enslaved people in the Confederacy, it exempted those in the Union-loyal border states of Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky. These states held Confederate sympathies and could have seceded; Lincoln exempted them from the proclamation to prevent this. A year later, in April 1864, the Senate attempted to close this loophole by passing the 13th Amendment, prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude in all states, Union and Confederate. But the amendment wouldn't be enacted by ratification until December 1865. In other words, it took two years for the emancipation of enslaved people to materialize legally.

Not to mention, the ratification happened after the Civil War had alreadyended - in April 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia. Enslaved people in Texas, meanwhile, didn't learn about their freedom until three months later. On June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger of the Union army arrived in Galveston and issued General Order No. 3 that secured the Union army's authority over Texas. The order stated the following:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, 'all slaves are free.' This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

Still, even under Order No. 3, as historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. noted, freedom wasn't automatic for Texas's 250,000 enslaved people. "On plantations, masters had to decide when and how to announce the news - or wait for a government agent to arrive - and it was not uncommon for them to delay until after the harvest," he wrote.

Emancipation came gradually for many enslaved people, the culmination of a century of American abolition efforts, North and South. And even still, the formerly enslaved were viewed as chattel that merely existed to work and produce.

Juneteenth symbolized hope - that was quickly quashed

According to Gates, newly freed Black women and men rallied around Juneteenth in the first year it was recognized, transforming it from a "day of unheeded military orders into their own annual rite."

The first Juneteenth celebration took place in 1866 in Texas with community gatherings, including sporting events, cookouts, prayers, dances, parades, and the singing of spirituals like "Many Thousands Gone" and "Go Down Moses." Some events even featured fireworks, which involved filling trees with gunpowder and setting them on fire.

At the core of the celebrations was a desire to record group gains since emancipation, "an occasion for gathering lost family members, measuring progress against freedom and inculcating rising generations with the values of self-improvement and racial uplift," Gates wrote.

Communities would read the Emancipation Proclamation as part of the tradition, which was especially significant during Reconstruction, when the holiday reinforced hope. Reconstruction (1863-1890) was a time to rebuild the Southern economy and society through the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments - which gave Black people freedom, due process, and the right to vote - Black-run Southern governments, and the work of the Freedmen's Bureau, among other efforts.

But the goals of Reconstruction were consistently countered by white supremacists. For example, Democratic Congress members awarded Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the 1876 presidential election in exchange for the withdrawal of Union troops from the South, according to historian Richard M. Valelly's The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement. After Hayes's win, leaders at the state and local levels "weakened black voting in the South by means of gerrymandering, violence, and intimidation," Valelly wrote.

Then in 1890, Mississippians drafted a white supremacist state constitution to disenfranchise local Black people; it included provisions that required people to be able to read and understand all parts of the state constitution in order to vote, according to the New York Times. This barred thousands of illiterate Black people from voting in the 1890s.

Meanwhile, the Federal Elections Bill, or Lodge Bill, to oversee Southern elections failed in the summer of 1890, effectively closing the last window for national voting rights jurisprudence for decades to come. This signaled the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow. "Once black southerners were disenfranchised by the early 1900s, the stage was set for a systematic entrenchment of white supremacist norms and public policies," Valelly wrote.

Then, and now,the symbolism and spirit behind Juneteenth remain sorely needed.

Over time, Juneteenth spread to neighboring states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and eventually to California as Black Texans moved west; it also appeared in Florida and Alabama in the early 20th centurydue to migration from Texas, wrote historian Alwyn Barr in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 4: Myths, Manners, and Memory.

Perceptions of Juneteenth have also changed over the past century. During World War I, white people and some Black people even considered it un-American, unpatriotic, and shameful "because it focused attention on a dark period in U.S. history," according to the authors of the academic article " When Peace Come: Teaching the Significance of Juneteenth."

According to Barr, Juneteenth observations declined in the 1940s during World War II but were revived in 1950 "with 70,000 black people on the Texas State Fair grounds at Dallas." The celebrations would decline again as attention went to school desegregation and the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and 1960s but picked back up in the 1970s as advocates in Texas launched the first effort to make Juneteenth an unofficial "holiday of significance ... particularly to the blacks of Texas."

On January 1, 1980, Juneteenth became a Texas state holiday after state Rep. Al Edwards put forth legislation. Since that move, individual states began commemorating Juneteenth, and 48 states and Washington, DC, currently observe it.

For more than a decade, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has introduced a resolution to recognize the historical significance of Juneteenth. In 2020, Democrats introduced a bill to make the Juneteenth a national holiday, but Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) single-handedly blocked it on the grounds that America could not afford another day off for federal workers. This year, though, the legislation passed in both the Senate and the House and was signed into law by President Biden - the day before the very first Juneteenth would be commemorated as a federal holiday.

The shift in opinions and recognition of Juneteenth

Juneteenth has been called many things over time: Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day, Juneteenth National Freedom Day, Juneteenth Independence Day, and Black Independence Day. And yet despite the many monikers, Juneteenth has faced competition from other emancipation holidays and has been unknown to many Americans - until perhaps last year, when widespread protests for racial justice coincided with the day.

In 2020, corporations pledged to be anti-racist and many recognized Juneteenth as a company holiday. Citiesalso took steps to specifically recognize Juneteenth at the municipal level. For example, Philadelphia, the site of one of the country's largest Juneteenth parades, passed an executive order designating Juneteenth as an official city holiday for 2020. "This designation of Juneteenth represents my administration's commitment to reckon with our own role in maintaining racial inequities and our understanding of the magnitude of work that lies ahead," said the city's mayor, Jim Kenney.

One reason Juneteenth's history has remained widely misunderstood, or even unknown, until recently is because it's not often taught in schools. Karlos Hill, an author and University of Oklahoma professor of African and African American studies, told Vox in 2018 that "Juneteenth as a moment in African-American history is not, to my knowledge, taught." As for history textbooks that already tend to whitewash history, "I would be willing to guess that there are few, if any, mentions of this holiday," Hill said.

In "Teaching the Significance of Juneteenth," Shennette Garrett-Scott and others wrote, "It is sometimes hard to teach small but pivotal moments in American history. Survey classes mostly allow for covering the biggest events and the most well known people." But to help students understand major moments like the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is important to teach the smaller historical milestones. To Garrett-Scott, teaching Juneteenth gives students a fuller picture of the long, enduring fight for freedom.

Another obstacle that remains for Juneteenth is the pervasive idea that it's a "Black thing," much like Kwanzaa. "It is seen as a holiday that is just observed by African Americans and is poorly understood outside of the African American community. It is perceived as being part of black culture and not 'American culture,' so to speak," Hill said.

Now,the meaning of Juneteenth is being seized more broadly by activists as an opportunity for the United States to come to terms with how slavery continues to affect the lives of all Americans today-it is something for everyone, of every race, to engage in. Stereotypes about Black people as being subhuman and lacking rationality are rooted inslavery. These harmful notions still rear themselves today as police officers disproportionately kill Black people and the health care system fails to adequately care for Black bodies. Advocates argue that the national holiday obviously wouldn't put an end to racism but would rather help foster dialogue about the trauma that has resulted from the enslavement of 4 million people for more than 250 years.

This year, Juneteenth will be celebrated as it has been for decades, with cookouts and parades as well as church gatherings and spirituals, keeping in touch with the original tradition. In 1937, formerly enslaved man Pierce Harper recalled the first Juneteenth: "When peace come they read the 'Mancipation law to the cullud people. [The freed people] spent that night singin' and shoutin'. They wasn't slaves no more."

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Juneteenth's 156th anniversary takes place on June 19, 2020. The holiday commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas. Advocates want Juneteenth to be recognized as a federal holiday.

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Together we can achieve anything

World Refugee Day 2021 focuses on the power of inclusion.

The shared experience of COVID-19 has showed us that we only succeed if we stand together. We have all had to do our part to keep each other safe and despite the challenges, refugees and displaced people have stepped up.

Given the chance, refugees will continue to contribute to a stronger, safer and more vibrant world. Therefore UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency's World Refugee Day campaign this year is calling for the greater inclusion of refugees in health systems, schools and sport. Only by working together can we recover from the pandemic.

Together we heal, learn and shine.

UN Chamber Music Society Virtual Concert in Celebration of World Refugee Day

Sunday, 20 June 2021
9:00 a.m. EST (New York Time)
4:00 p.m. EST (Mafraq, Jordan Time)
Flyer

On the occasion of World Refugee Day the UN Chamber Music Society of the UN Staff Recreation Council (UNCMS), in partnership with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), is holding a pre-recorded virtual concert, which will also be broadcasted in Jordan. Refugees and other displaced populations belong to the most marginalized and vulnerable members of society. They are particularly at risk during the time of the coronavirus disease outbreak, because they often have limited access to water, sanitation systems and health facilities.

The music programme includes music featuring Jordanian Singer Leen Alfaqih; a world premiere of the Songs of Five Continents for the UN Chamber Music Society, composed by Yuko Uébayashi; and a repertoire composed and performed by classically trained Syrian musicians.

Watch the performance live on:

Background

Every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror. There are several types of forcibly displaced persons:

Refugees

A refugee is someone who fled his or her home and country owing to "a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion", according to the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention. Many refugees are in exile to escape the effects of natural or human-made disasters.

Asylum Seekers

Asylum seekers say they are refugees and have fled their homes as refugees do, but their claim to refugee status is not yet definitively evaluated in the country to which they fled.

Internally Displaced Persons

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are people who have not crossed an international border but have moved to a different region than the one they call home within their own country.

Stateless Persons

Stateless persons do not have a recognized nationality and do not belong to any country.

Statelessness situations are usually caused by discrimination against certain groups. Their lack of identification - a citizenship certificate - can exclude them from access to important government services, including health care, education or employment.

Returnees

Returnees are former refugees who return to their own countries or regions of origin after time in exile. Returnees need continuous support and reintegration assistance to ensure that they can rebuild their lives at home.

UN Action

1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol

Refugees are among the most vulnerable people in the world. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol help protect them. They are the only global legal instruments explicitly covering the most important aspects of a refugee's life. According to their provisions, refugees deserve, as a minimum, the same standards of treatment enjoyed by other foreign nationals in a given country and, in many cases, the same treatment as nationals.

The 1951 Convention contains a number of rights and also highlights the obligations of refugees towards their host country. The cornerstone of the 1951 Convention is the principle of non-refoulement. According to this principle, a refugee should not be returned to a country where he or she faces serious threats to his or her life or freedom. This protection may not be claimed by refugees who are reasonably regarded as a danger to the security of the country, or having been convicted of a particularly serious crime, are considered a danger to the community.

The rights contained in the 1951 Convention include:

The right not to be expelled, except under certain, strictly defined conditions;

The right not to be punished for illegal entry into the territory of a contracting State;

The right to work;

The right to housing;

The right to education;

The right to public relief and assistance;

The right to freedom of religion;

The right to access the courts;

The right to freedom of movement within the territory;

The right to be issued identity and travel documents.

Some basic rights, including the right to be protected from refoulement, apply to all refugees. A refugee becomes entitled to other rights the longer they remain in the host country, which is based on the recognition that the longer they remain as refugees, the more rights they need.

Get involved!

Join us this year on World Refugee Day and support refugees across the globe to be protected and included in health care, education and sport.

Art Contest

Dreamball design contest

The theme of the 2021 art contest is "Together through sport". It sheds light on the power of sport to bring people together and create a sense of hope.

Documents

UN System Websites

Other Resources

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World Refugee Day 2021 focuses on the power of inclusion. The shared experience of COVID-19 has showed us that we only succeed if we stand together. We have all had to do our part to keep each other safe and despite the challenges, refugees and displaced people have stepped up.

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Every May we take extra time to celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month by shining a light on AANHPI experiences and filmmakers. Enjoy this selection of films, some premiering in May as well as some gems to revisit. These documentaries celebrate the light and love in our diverse AANHPI communities. We also recognize the need to face ugly truths about events of racism, xenophobia, and violence targeted towards AAPI communities. When we are honest about the past, we can begin to heal from the wounds of hate and in doing so, make a better future together.

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Celebrating AANHPI Heritage Month: Stories, Facts, History &... | PBS

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Stream documentaries and learn facts to celebrate Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian heritage.

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Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

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A New Music Compilation for Meditation, Mindfulness, and Collective Healing

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What AAPI Means, and Why AAPIHM Falls in May

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What AAPI Means, and Why AAPIHM Falls in May

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AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander. The term is used to describe a diverse and fast-growing population of 23 million Americans that include roughly 50 ethnic groups with roots in more than 40 countries. May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month (or AAPIHM for short), first created by Congress in 1992. AAPIHM falls in May because of several historical milestones, including the 1843 arrival of the first Japanese immigrants, and Chinese laborers' enormous contributions to building the transcontinental railroad, which was finished in May 1869.

As summarized by the Asian Pacific Institute for Gender-Based Violence, the federal government defines the term AAPI to include "all people of Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander ancestry who trace their origins to the countries, states, jurisdictions and/or the diasporic communities of these geographic regions." As of 2000, "Asian" and "Pacific Islander" became two separate racial categories on the U.S. Census, replacing "Asian Pacific Islander."

If you'd like to better understand the racial grouping in all of its complexity, it's crucial to know what "AAPI" means in a wider cultural sense. It's also important to note the reasons why some people who are designated as AAPI by the U.S. Census don't choose to identify as AAPI themselves.

Here's what to know about who might identify as Pacific Islander, and as Asian American, as well as a brief history of both terms.

Who Might Identify as Asian American?

The U.S. Census bureau currently defines a member of the U.S. Asian population as "a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam."

In 1968, students of Asian heritage first coined the term Asian-American in Berkeley, California, with the intent to unify their efforts for political and social recognition-and command respect. "Historically, we'd been called things like 'Oriental' and 'Asiatic,' or racial slurs," says Catherine Ceniza Choy, Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, and the author of Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History. "This ability to name oneself was really important."

Choy points out that "it's difficult to honor an 'Asian-American experience,'" given what an enormous population the category applies to. For instance, she says, "the hashtag #BrownAsiansExist is a critique of how South Asian Americans and Filipino Americans feel that their experiences are considered marginal to some East Asian-American experiences," such as those of Chinese Americans or Japanese Americans. (Further, some Filipino-Americans may identify as Pacific Islander; more on that below.)

Who Might Identify as Pacific Islander?

The Census Bureau identifies Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander (NHPI) as "a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands." This map of Micronesian, Polynesian, and Melanesian groups, courtesy of L.A-based organization Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC), reflects who is considered Pacific Islander per federal guidelines.

Some Pacific Islander community leaders take issue with the term AAPI, however. "There are native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander scholars who think it's really important to distinguish Pacific Islanders from Asian Americans, and to not lump these very diverse groups under some kind of pan-ethnic racial umbrella," Choy says. Critics argue that it has a culturally flattening effect, and one that risks, as she puts it, "the erasure of various individual ethnic groups, the diversity of languages and other parts the culture, and their different contemporary political issues."

Are Filipinos Pacific Islander?

Not per the U.S. Census Bureau. But Choy allows that "it's complicated."

"There's no one singular definition, or check-off list, to identify oneself as, let's say, Filipino." Choy explains. "Race, as a category, is dynamic-it's constructed out of our contemporary society, but also out of our history."

Whether an individual Filipino-American considers themselves Pacific Islander depends on many factors: Their age, where they themselves grew up, how their own family has self-identified in the past, and where, exactly, their descendants grew up. "There's a large presence of Filipinos in various Pacific islands like Guam, for example," she says.

Choy adds that while, say, indigenous Polynesians have their own long history of colonization by the U.S., New Zealand, France, Germany, and Chile, Filipino culture is heavily influenced by its 300 years of Spanish colonization. It's why scholar Anthony Ocampo's book is titled The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race.

Is there an AAPI "community"?

As both a second-generation Filipina American and a professor who teaches Asian American studies, Choy personally sees a lot of value in the term AAPI. "We still share similar experiences," she says, pointing in particular to the recent spike in hate crimes toward Asian Americans and those Pacific Islander heritage. While the #StopAAPIHate movement rose in reaction to racism, Choy says the activism around Stop Asian Hate is also creative: Across varied AAPI groups, "it's also creating a consciousness and a community."

"I just hope for an embrace of the multiplicity of our identities, and the intersectionality of all of our identities," Choy says, noting that there's just as much class disparity as there is ethnic variety within the AAPI population. "I think an 'AAPI community' identity can coexist with, say, a Korean American identity."

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What AAPI Means, and Why AAPIHM Falls in May

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AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander. The term is used to describe a diverse and fast-growing population of 23 million Americans that include roughly 50 ethnic groups with roots in more than 40 countries. May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month (or AAPIHM for short), first created by Congress in 1992.

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This article is part of the Asian American identity series.
Sarath Suong has often felt like the term "Asian American" doesn't really serve him.

"I was told that I am Asian American when we came here," says Suong, a Cambodian refugee who immigrated to the US as a child. "But I faced a lot of colorism, a lot of classism, and not a lot of understanding about who Southeast Asians are and how we fit into the Asian American context."

Suong and his family were among tens of thousands of refugees who fled during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, eventually settling in the Boston area. When he arrived in the US, he struggled to find his footing in a country where everyone from teachers to neighbors made him feel unwanted.

"Growing up for me, I felt so disempowered," he told Vox. "I was always wondering why people in my community were getting harassed and being thrown in jail by the police."

That experience, Suong says, seemed very different from the image of Asian Americans portrayed by the media, peers, and even some members of the community. While white writers pushed the idea of the "model minority myth" - a racist trope that suggests that all Asian Americans are successful and well-off - Suong feared for his friends' deportations and violence at the hands of cops. And as he got older and began advocating for specific resources to address the disparities faced by Southeast Asians, he felt abandoned by other Asian Americans, too.

"Trying to enter spaces with predominantly wealthy, light-skinned East Asians, there was a dismissal of us," he said.

All this has led Suong, now 40 and the head of the Southeast Asian Freedom Network, to be wary of such a sweeping category - and how it excludes some of its most vulnerable members.

While Asian American was a term established by activists in the 1960s as a means to build political power, it's also been criticized for obscuring the immense diversity among those it purports to cover, centering East Asians and preventing specific ethnic groups from getting the policy support they need. Asian Americans not only have the largest income gap of any racial group but also massive health care, education, and economic disparities that rarely get talked about.Cambodian refugees like Suong, and Southeast Asians in particular, are among those who've been overlooked: 19 percent of Cambodians live in poverty in the US, compared to 12 percent of Asian people and 15 percent of all people.

In the 1980s and '90s the classification was further broadened under the term Asian American and Pacific Islander, or AAPI, a decision that's proven contentious in itself. (In 1997, the US government disaggregated Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in its data, though the vestiges of this umbrella category remain. See: AAPI Heritage Month, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and Asian Pacific studies departments at numerous colleges.)

The term AAPI is also meant to be inclusive, but its usage - in government data, in particular - has had the opposite effect.

"AAPI is incredibly ambitious. It contends to cover and speak for some of the largest regions in the world," says Tavae Samuelu, the executive director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities. "In some ways, marginalization and erasure feel inevitable."

The terms Asian American and AAPI, in their most idealized versions, have at times historically served as a unifying banner for a wide range of communities to work together toward a common cause. They signify, too, a sense of shared experience tied to what it's like to be an immigrant, or part of a family of immigrants, and the xenophobia that different groups have encountered, a connection that's been especially apparent in the wake of recent attacks targeting Asian American people during the pandemic.

"The thing that these Asian American communities share is the experience of perhaps being viewed as outsiders," says Indiana University's Dina Okamoto. "Maybe you arrived 10 years ago, but maybe your family has also been in the US for generations. There are experiences of being othered these communities share."

But this connection can be tenuous and this label so broad that recent calls for data disaggregation and more visible recognition of the roughly 50 ethnic groups that make up the Asian diaspora have surfaced. In conversations with more than 20 people who spoke about their Asian American identities, there was a huge focus on acknowledging the different needs that various groups may have.

"Are Asian Americans one or many?" asks UC Riverside political science professor Karthick Ramakrishnan. "The answer is both."

The benefits of such a label - and who created it

The term Asian American was once a radical one.

First used by UC Berkeley student activists Emma Gee and Yuji Ichioka in 1968, "Asian American" was used to unite different communities of Asian descent in order to create a more formidable protest bloc, an approach inspired by the Black Power movement. Their strength in numbers proved more impactful than individual ethnic groups working alone, including working alongside Black and Latino students for an ethnic studies department at the college.

"There were so many Asians out there in the political demonstrations but we had no effectiveness," Ichioka has said previously in an interview with UC San Diego ethnic studies professor Yến Lê Espiritu. "Everyone was lost in the larger rally. We figured that if we rallied behind our own banner, behind an Asian American banner, we would have an effect on the larger public."

The rise of the term also helped combat the use of more derogatory language that referred to people of Asian descent. Before "Asian American" was popularized, the word "Oriental," a label that othered and exoticized those it described, was common parlance.

For many experts and organizers who spoke with Vox, that solidarity is as important now as it was back then.

"When it comes to having policy influence and exercising political power, it is absolutely essential to have an Asian American movement. Each of these groups is too small, and there are similarities," says Ramakrishnan.

In the decades since it took off, the term is now mostly seen as a demographic marker. Today, it captures about 19 million people, up 81 percent since 2000, according to a recent Pew report - and a large immigrant population; 59 percent of all Asian Americans are immigrants, including 1.4 million of whom are undocumented. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in America, currently 5.6 percent of the county's population but projected to be as much as 14 percent by 2065.

Prior to becoming a more established category, though, issues of immigration - and, relatedly, xenophobia - have historically bound Asian Americans closely with one another, serving as a common thread for such an expansive group.

We are "grounded in our history of exclusion laws and immigration bans," emphasizes Ramakrishnan. "What makes us Asian is a history of exclusion."

That history goes as far back as 1882 when Chinese immigrants were barred from becoming citizens because they were seen as competition for white workers; in 1917, Indian people were similarly barred; and by 1924, Japanese and Korean people were barred as well.

In all three cases, groups immigrated to the US as laborers and were framed as the source of economic problems, and in some cases public health ones, too. Members of ethnic groups that have more recently come to the country as refugees - including Hmong, Burmese, and Laotian people - have also faced restrictive immigration policies that have focused on deportation.

"We share ... a continued history of being scapegoated for America's ills - literally and figuratively - and never being accepted as full and equal members of society," says Karen Umemoto, the director of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA.

In recent decades, combating such "othering" has fueled solidarity.

One such instance was in 1982, when 27-year-old Vincent Chin was murdered by two white autoworkers who saw him as representing the increased competition the US was facing from Japanese manufacturers. Asian American-led protests erupted across the country and pushed the Justice Department to investigate the attack as a civil rights violation.

Currently, in the wake of a surge in anti-Asian racism during the pandemic, attacks on older people, mass shootings in Atlanta that killed six women of Asian descent, and a mass shooting in Indianapolis that killed four Sikh Americans, there's similarly been a renewed focus on pan-Asian solidarity and activism.

"It has always been anti-Asian violence that brings people together," says Espiritu. In recent months, thousands of people across the country have gathered for #StopAsianHate rallies in cities including Oakland, New York, and Philadelphia, and worked to raise awareness for nonprofits tracking hate incidents and offering support to local communities.

Ramakrishnan hopes, too, that such efforts will be inclusive of different groups within the Asian diaspora moving forward. "Just as you have South Asian leaders who are showing up to denounce incidents predominantly affecting East Asians, you also need to have East Asians showing up for South Asians and Southeast Asians as well," he says.

The experiences that Asian Americans share

There are the historical circumstances that bind Asian Americans together, and then there are the everyday experiences they share - many often driven by the "forever foreigner" stereotype.

"No matter how much I wanted to be an American, other people wouldn't see me as that," says Daniel Shinhoo Kim, 26, a conservationist based in Tacoma, Washington. "Asian stereotypes, Asian anything, are just considered a joke. The most obvious is Asian men's genitalia being smaller, people laugh at it."

The idea that people of Asian descent didn't belong to the US, or were inherently foreign to this country, has fueled tropes like the fetishization of women, the emasculation of men, and insults about people's accents, food, and appearance.

"The hypersexualization that I faced, probably as young as [when] I was 6, changes how you consider sex and sexuality," says Elim, 26, an organizer in Doraville, Georgia, who worked at her parents' anime shop as a child and dealt with men constantly telling her how much they loved Asian women - and how exotic they found them. (Some full names have been omitted to protect people's privacy.) "It made me question what it was like to be desired, and what it meant beyond being a sex object," she says.

Elim and others spoke, too, of being made to feel undesirable because of their identity.

"There was often people mimicking the racist caricatures of Indian characters they see on TV or parroting comedy skits they see or the desirability or lack thereof of Indian American women, specifically," says M., 22, a resident of Washington, DC.

Combating the idea of being "foreigners" has often meant dealing with - and pushing back on - the pressure to conform as well.

"In America, whiteness is your standardized identity. And that was amplified in the neighborhood I grew up in," says Evan, 34, a government analyst in New York City. "It feels like you're playing a role. You spend a lot of time thinking about how you come across to people. How are these white people going to judge me? In high school, I was always envious of people growing up in Asian enclaves in California or New York City. It just felt like an easier state of being."

"I think the first word I think of is 'invisible.' Aside from stereotypes of Asian women being very quiet, which I've, in my whole life, intentionally fought against, I have been thinking a lot about social situations where I just don't have any social capital," says Annie, 26, a graphic designer in New York City. "I have to compensate for that by presenting myself in a very loud way through what I wear or the way I speak. I've tried to walk more aggressively."

Such dynamics have led some Asian Americans to distance themselves from their identities when they were younger, and to embrace them more fully later in life.

"The hypersexualization that I faced, probably as young as [when] I was 6, changes how you consider sex and sexuality"

"To be completely candid, I'm more embracing of being Asian American now that I had been previously," says Melina, 40, a massage therapist in Boston, who credits a trip to Myanmar, where her family emigrated from, as an experience that changed her outlook. "That feeling of being left out, of not belonging, is something that I internalized for a long time."

It is through some of this shared pain - along with a recognition of the specific hardships that different groups have faced - that Asian Americans, too, can find solidarity with one another. Among second-generation Asian Americans, there's also a broad sense of the sacrifice that family members have made to come to the US in the first place.

"Many of us had immigrant parents, and their focus was on surviving and making a life for themselves and their families," says Jan Kang, 59, a tech executive, who spoke about how her father took a second job in the emergency room to pay for her college tuition.

"I felt like my parents sacrificed a lot," says Kang.

How we ended up with the AAPI label

In addition to grouping people of Asian descent under one racial category, the label expanded in the 1980s to include populations across the Pacific Ocean.

The term AAPI, which includes Pacific Islanders, took off prominently among academics and was used in the 1990 census as government officials weighed how to count the group, who had previously been categorized in individual boxes like "Hawaiian," "Guamanian," and "Samoan."

"Pacific Islanders were too small of a group in the mind of key decision-makers to report separately," says UCLA political science professor Paul Ong, who added that the presence of Asian Americans in Hawaii may have been one of the reasons the two were initially put together. Scholars also began using the term to refer to experiences with colonialism that both Asian countries and Pacific Islanders had had. The idea was to "combine forces, given we were less than 3 percent of the US population in those days," says Umemoto, who helped form a coalition of Asian American and Pacific Islander student groups along the West Coast.

But many Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders argued this grouping erased their specific and current struggles. Although some Pacific Islanders are immigrants, many identify as Indigenous. Pacific Islanders as a group include Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Tokelauan, Tahitian, Tongan, Guamanian, Chamorro, Mariana Islander, Saipanese, Palauan, Yapese, Chuukese, Pohnpeian, Kosraean, Marshallese, I-Kiribati, Fijian, Papua New Guinean, Solomon Islander, and Ni-Vanuatu people.

"Our race is deeply shaped by continued colonization and militarization, and they aren't necessarily key issues for the Asian American community," says Samuelu. "For many Pacific Islanders, America happened without our consent."

"Pacific Islanders always ask, 'Are you just using us in name, or do you cover us in a meaningful fashion?'"

The AAPI category also painted over inequities that existed, making it seem as though Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders were overrepresented at higher education institutions like other Asian Americans when the opposite was the case. When looking at degree attainment broken out by ethnicity, 62 percent of AAPI adults 24 and older have completed an associate's degree or higher, compared to 28 percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific islanders of the same age.

In 1997, the Office of Management and Budget - which determines the categories used by the census - officially disaggregated the group in its data collection practices, though the label is still used by the media, academics, advocacy organizations, and some government institutions. During the pandemic, for instance, Pacific Islanders have pushed back against states' decisions to group them together with Asian Americans, a move that's made it tough to discern when Pacific Islanders have had much higher rates of coronavirus cases and fatalities.

"Pacific Islanders always ask, 'Are you just using us in name, or do you cover us in a meaningful fashion?'" says Ong.

Sela Panapasa, a researcher at the University of Michigan who identifies as a Pacific Islander of Rotuman, Tongan, and Tuvalu descent, says that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders have long been invisible - something that lumping them into a larger category only exacerbated. "And who wants to be invisible, as a PI myself?" she says.

The problem with sweeping labels

It's increasingly apparent that sweeping labels have serious problems.

When it comes to the term "Asian American," there's a continual risk that it's masking the differences within communities and fueling the myth that Asian Americans are a monolithic group. For some, there's also the sense that East Asians, including groups that were part of some of the earlier waves of Asian immigrants such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans, are viewed as more synonymous with the term Asian than others.

"It erases way too many people," says Elim. "That's bullshit. We're not all the same."

Asian Americans comprise roughly 50 ethnic groups, who speak upward of 100 languages includingIndian Americans, Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Korean Americans, Japanese Americans, Pakistani Americans, Cambodian Americans, Hmong Americans, Thai Americans, Laotian Americans, Bangladeshi Americans, Burmese Americans, Nepalese Americans, Indonesian Americans, Sri Lankan Americans, Malaysian Americans, Bhutanese Americans, and Mongolian Americans - and that's just some of the diversity that exists.

There are also enormous generational, religious, class, and ideological differences among these groups, as well as huge economic disparities.

According to a report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, the income gaps among different Asian American ethnic groups are the widest of any racial group, and they are still growing. While Indian Americans have the highest median income of $100,000, for example, Burmese Americans have the lowest, at $36,000. Similarly, there are significant disparities among Asian Americans in educational attainment and health care outcomes: 94 percent of Japanese and Taiwanese Americans have graduated high school, compared to less than 66 percent of Laotian and Hmong Americans. And 22 percent of Nepalese Americans don't have health insurance compared to 6 percent of Japanese Americans.

"I think one of the biggest indicators is what did communities come to the US with. There is a big difference in the social, political, and literal capital that someone from China may have come from and refugees from Cambodia and Laos," says Quyen Dinh, executive director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center.

When policymakers simply group all Asian Americans together, none of these inequities are visible, meaning help often doesn't get to the groups that need it most.

"There has long been a problem of lumping all of the groups together, which makes Asian Americans look well-off by some measures when averaged out as a sociopolitical group," says Umemoto. "But we're a bifurcated community, with wide differences in well-being within and across ethnic groups."

The rise of the "model minority" stereotype, too, only added to the perception that all Asian Americans are broadly successful, camouflaging the struggles and diversity of many community members. And whether it's representation in community organizations or the way the media talks about Asian Americans, many people don't think the term is representative of the actual breadth of the Asian diaspora as a whole, either.

"Something I've encountered a lot growing up is the erasure of South Asians as Asian. From a young age, folks would tell me, 'Well, you're Indian, that's different from being Asian!'" says M.

There's a unique South Asian experience with "rising racism and Islamophobia" that should be acknowledged, M. says, referring to the surge in hate crimes and anti-Muslim sentiment in the wake of 9/11. "Bigotry toward our Muslim brothers and sisters translates to bigotry toward anyone brown."

For others, identifying based on their ethnicity speaks more directly to their family ties and cultural heritage, compared to a more abstract marker like "Asian American."

"My felt identity, the one that I carry around in my body, is that ... I'm a third-generation Japanese American," says University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Daryl Maeda. "There are vanishingly few people who would say they're Asian American as a felt identity. I think it's a political identity rather than a cultural one or a familial one."

This is further complicated by the fact that Asian American is an identity that's often externally imposed because of how people are racialized in the US. When people of Asian descent have been targeted in America - both in recent attacks related to the coronavirus and historically - such racism is often directed at people of many Asian ethnicities.

"We are all put in this same label even though for thousands of years we've fought wars against each other," says Shinhoo Kim, 26.

How to capture the nuances within the larger Asian American category

There's a major need to recognize individual ethnic groups, and many advocates say this begins with data.

Data disaggregation as a concept sounds complex, but in practice, it's very straightforward: In addition to gathering data about Asian Americans as a large group, the government can also gather data by ethnic group and direct other major institutions to do the same.

By doing so, policymakers would be able to better measure many of these disparities and appropriately target their responses. In the 2020 census, there is some disaggregation, though it's not enough: The survey ultimately enables people to identify as Asian American and as other ethnic categories including Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, and "other." Notably, a lot of groups are left out, including some who face the highest rates of poverty and unemployment among the Asian American diaspora, such as Cambodian, Hmong, and Bhutanese Americans. People of these backgrounds are still able to write in how they identify, which the census will report out as well.

"Our ideal solution is that all 50-plus communities have checkboxes," says Dinh, of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center.

The push for more disaggregation has extended to states, too. In Rhode Island, the All Students Count Act became law in 2017, requiring public schools to break out data on Asian American students by ethnicity - though activists are still fighting to make sure it's fully implemented. In California, too, a 2016 law required the state's public health department to disaggregate data, with the goal of providing better insurance coverage to groups that don't have it, and to better understand how illnesses affect various groups differently. Disaggregated health data has played a role in revealing how diabetes disproportionately affects Filipino Americans and South Asian Americans, for instance.

For Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, data disaggregation has been critical during the coronavirus pandemic as well. "In the aggregate, it looks like AAPI has the lowest rates of infection, but when you pull out PI, you see we're twice as, four times as, six times as likely to get the infection," says Samuelu.

In the end, such disaggregation speaks to a larger issue about being seen.

"As a young person who identifies as biracial - Khmer and Black - I always feel left out, particularly when filling out school forms, job applications, and internship opportunities," Deijah Prak Preaster, an ARISE Youth Leader, said in a 2020 report. "I am always forced to check off the 'other' box for the question on ethnicity. The feeling of not being counted or seen hurts; it makes me feel my identity does not matter."

Currently, the #StopAsianHate movement has also been an inflection point for some Asian Americans to talk about their identity more openly and weigh such questions.

"I think it's an opportunity to talk about the ways we're leveraged against each other, the way that East Asians have been used as a wedge and this shining example," says Elim. "None of these communities are monolithic, and we perpetuate a lot of violence toward each other."

That effort is integral to attempts to strengthen Asian American solidarity, experts tell Vox.

"I identify as Tamil, I identify as South Asian, I identify as Indian American, I identify as Asian American. It's not an either/or for me," says Ramakrishnan.

"People are not just one thing," echoes Espiritu. "I do identify as Asian American - it is a political identity - but I also identify as a Vietnamese refugee."

There are a lot of experiences that Asian Americans have in common - including a fight to be visible in American society and a focus on combating the systems reinforced by white supremacy. But achieving true unitymay only be possible if people within it are willing to acknowledge not only similarities but differences in need.

The label only works, Suong says, "if Asian Americans can look inward and say, 'Look, let's join together and support those who are most marginalized.' If Asian America really took care of who's vulnerable in Asian America, we'd have really strong solidarity."

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The inadequacy of the term "Asian American"

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This article is part of the Asian American identity series . Sarath Suong has often felt like the term "Asian American" doesn't really serve him. "I was told that I am Asian American when we came here," says Suong, a Cambodian refugee who immigrated to the US as a child.

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The United States has a new federal holiday. On Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that officially designates Juneteenth-observed each year on June 19-as an American holiday. As the holiday falls on a Saturday this year, federal workers will have the day off on June 18.

Known to some as the country's " second Independence Day," Juneteenth celebrates the freedom of enslaved people in the United States at the end of the Civil War. For more than 150 years, African American communities across the country have observed this holiday. (Here's why Juneteenth is a celebration of hope.)

Juneteenth has gained awareness in recent years as activists have pushed for state and federal recognition. With the signing of this bill, those efforts will finally come to fruition as Juneteenth becomes the first new federal holiday since the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

So what's the story behind Juneteenth? Here's a look at the history of the holiday and how it has been celebrated through the years.

Freedom after the Confederacy

At the stroke of midnight on January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect and declared enslaved people in the Confederacy free-on the condition that the Union won the war. The proclamation turned the war into a fight for freedom and by the end of the war 200,000 Black soldiers had joined the fight, spreading news of freedom as they fought their way through the South. (Read about the history of Juneteenth with your kids.)

Since Texas was one of the last strongholds of the South, emancipation would be a long-time coming for enslaved people in the state. Even after the last battle of the Civil War was fought in 1865-a full two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed-it is believed that many enslaved people still did not know they were free. As the story goes, some 250,000 enslaved people only learned of their freedom after Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, and announced that the president had issued a proclamation freeing them. (Explore the Underground Railroad's 'great central depot' in New York.)

On that day, Granger declared, "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor."

A celebratory day

With Granger's announcement, June 19-which would eventually come to be known as Juneteenth-became a day to celebrate the end of slavery in Texas. As newly freed Texans began moving to neighboring states, Juneteenth celebrations spread across the South and beyond.

Early Juneteenth celebrations included church services, public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, and social events like rodeos and dances. (Learn how to cook Juneteenth cookies.)

For decades, many southern Black communities were forced to celebrate Juneteenth on the outskirts of town due to racism and Jim Crow laws. To ensure they had a safe place to gather, Juneteenth groups would often collectively purchase plots of land in the city on which to celebrate. These parks were commonly named Emancipation Parks, many of which still exist today.

As the Civil Rights movement gained momentum in the '60s, Juneteenth celebrations faded. In recent years, however, Juneteenth has regained popularity and is often celebrated with food and community. It also has helped raise awareness about ongoing issues facing the African-American community, including a political fight for reparations, or compensation, to the descendants of victims of slavery.

In 1980, Texas became the first state to recognize June 19 as a state holiday, which it did with legislation. Today, Juneteenth is recognized by nearly every state, and in June 2021, the U.S. Congress has passed a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Other emancipation celebrations

Despite the holiday's resurgence in popularity, Juneteenth is still not universally known and is often confused with Emancipation Day, which is annually celebrated on April 16.

Just as Juneteenth originally celebrated freedom in Texas, Emancipation Day specifically marks the day when President Lincoln freed some 3,000 enslaved people in Washington, D.C.-a full eight months before the Emancipation Proclamation and nearly three years before those in Texas would be freed.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the status of the bill to designate Juneteenth as a federal holiday.

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Juneteenth is the newest federal holiday. Here's what it celebrates.

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The United States has a new federal holiday. On Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that officially designates Juneteenth-observed each year on June 19-as an American holiday. As the holiday falls on a Saturday this year, federal workers will have the day off on June 18.

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What is Juneteenth, and why is it important? - Karlos K. Hill and Soraya Field Fiorio