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Michael Omi (he/him/his) is Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-author, with Howard Winant, of Racial Formation in the United States (Third Edition, 2015), a groundbreaking work that transformed how we understand the social and historical forces that give race its changing meaning over time and place.

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Carnegie honors 20 ‘Great Immigrants’ in 2025, including eight from Asia

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The Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced its 2025 list of “Great Immigrants,” honoring 20 individuals who have made significant contributions to American society.

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Unleash Your Potential with OneWorld Now Leadership! Hey there, high schoolers! Are you ready to make a real impact on the world and become a...

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Centering Asian American & Pacific Islander Voices with Fishtank ELA - Fishtank Learning

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Celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with powerful texts highlighting the experiences, cultures, and contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islanders across Fishtank ELA units.

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Bring our documentaries to your school or organization. Purchase the DVD, stream from your server, or stream via GOOD DOCS. Browse Films Use our collection of documentaries to kickstart important conversations by hosting a public screening at your school or organization. Book a Screening Bring our filmmakers to your school or organization for a GOOD TALKS screening and Q&A.

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Education Leadership for Thriving Youth and Communities

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Up until 2020, Anna Wong had gone her entire adulthood in Los Angeles without ever facing blatantly racist abuse for being Asian. After COVID-19 hit, she was accosted twice in six months.

The first time, she was browsing an aisle in Bed Bath & Beyond when a white, 30-something woman suddenly yelled: "Six feet away from me, you Chinese witch!" A shaken Wong left the store, the woman still yelling after her. The second time, Wong was walking her dog when a passenger in a car-a young Hispanic man-screamed at her "Thanks for ruining the world," followed by an ethnic slur.

"The first, second year of the pandemic, I do distinctly remember thinking ... I was very nervous to go out," said Wong, who did not report the incidents to police. "Am I going to draw attention to the fact that I'm Asian?"

It seemed unfathomable she was facing such anti-Asian vitriol nearly a century after her aunt, pioneering movie star Anna May Wong, dealt with constant racial discrimination.

It was five years ago this month that pandemic-fueled abuse of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders became so frequent-reports spiked 35% from March 2020 to the end of 2021-that a reporting center was formed. Stop AAPI Hate legitimized fears of a concurrent pandemic of xenophobia. The group's data prompted national legislative action, including the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, and galvanized advocacy among young people within the Asian American community.

New concerns five years on

Five years later, Stop AAPI Hate is receiving fewer incident reports yearly but they're still happening by the hundreds and are likely an undercount. Now, those still fighting anti-Asian hate are worried it will only intensify in a political climate of immigration crackdowns, English-only mandates and bans on DEI initiatives.

During President Donald Trump's first term, many partially blamed him for framing COVID-19 with racist language. Trump said his remarks were "not racist at all." Now, there is concern not just about hate but erasure of Asian American and Pacific Islander history and culture. For example, this month the Pentagon mistakenly took down web pages honoring Japanese American servicemen.

"What's the opposite of diversity? It's segregation or re-segregation," Manjusha Kulkarni, Stop AAPI Hate co-founder, said, referring to Trump's policies so far. "They want to put us - people of color, women, LGBTQ-sort of back in our 'place,' which means not with access to jobs or housing or ability to celebrate our holidays."

The genesis of Stop AAPI

Kulkarni, executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, Cynthia Choi of Chinese for Affirmative Action, and San Francisco State University professor Russell Jeung came together in 2020 after a Los Angeles teen of Asian descent was assaulted at school. They solicited accounts of hate acts from victims, even those not legally hate crimes. They received a barrage.

"The first thing we need to know and understand is how big of a problem is this," Kulkarni said, adding that she will be eternally grateful that people responded. "That helped us to know what was going on."

Besides federal hate crimes legislation, Stop AAPI Hate's data led to the passing of three California bills. These included expanding civil rights protection in public spaces and studying hate-driven harassment on public transit. They've also attempted social media campaigns like "Spread AAPI Love," the opposite of their moniker.

Even though the pandemic has abated, their data shows racism prevails. From March 2020 to the end of 2023, Stop AAPI Hate collected over 12,000 reports though they believe it's likely an undercount. Over 700 occurred in 2023. Figures for 2024 will be released in May.

Also in 2023, an AAPI Data and Associated Press-NORC poll found a third of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders say they have experienced an act of abuse based on their race or ethnicity in the last year.

An FBI analysis from that year found out of 7,049 reported hate crime offenses motivated by race, ethnicity or ancestry, 6.6% involved anti-Asian bias. Kash Patel, the first person of color and Asian American to be agency director, talked about being subjected to racism during his confirmation hearing.

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders activated

There was a groundswell of Asian American activism after 2020, according to Stop AAPI Hate. Their 2023 report found nearly 3 in 4 Asian American and Pacific Islander adults participated in activities to reduce or resist racism.

William Diep, who was 16 in 2020, was disturbed by attacks he heard about in New York City. So he started a campaign, "Virus: Racism." He virtually gathered testimonies from young people about anti-Asian encounters. The project deeply affected him.

"I learned to stick up for people," said Diep, now a senior at Columbia University.

He wonders how advocates can navigate the current political climate and if government resources such as translations or race-based census research will be eliminated.

"I'm scared that there's no one to protect Asian Americans," Diep said. "I think Asian Americans protect each other, but I question the infrastructure that exists to protect our rights and our heritage."

Stop AAPI Hate does rely on some federal funding. Ideally, neither the government nor any other outside force will be able to dictate or hamper the organization's work.

"We hope not. I mean, we're fighting as hard as we can," Kulkarni said.

Now, the coalition's focus has expanded to include educating people about issues like birthright citizenship, cultural school curriculum and immigrants' rights. Some Asian legal U.S. residents say they are being targeted for deportation.

"I hope and strongly believe that our communities are stronger, that we're more equipped to handle the challenges of today, which are even more significant than they were in 2020," Kulkarni said. "We were built for this and our values remain the same."

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Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are still targets of hatred 5 years after pandemic surge

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Up until 2020, Anna Wong had gone her entire adulthood in Los Angeles without ever facing blatantly racist abuse for being Asian.

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In our 2024 Impact Report, Stop AAPI Hate continues to take on anti-Asian and Pacific Islander hate and discrimination amid the presidential elections.

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Brian Lock (he/him/his), MPA

Contract and Finance Specialist

Administrative Services Office

Executive Office of Resiliency and Health Security

Washington State Department of Health

Brian Lock serves as:

Policy Lead for the HAPPEN BRG

Board member and Co-Chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of South Puget Sound (APIC SPS) and the Multicultural Service Center of South Sound.

Brian also has been involved in policy and legislation that directly impact the Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Communities.

During  Brian’s  29 years in Washington State government he has worked for: Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs, Office of Financial Management (Serve WA Commission), Department of Commerce, Pierce College, and now at the Department of Health as a Contract and Finance Specialist.

Brian's contributions in public policy, budget development, writing and managing federal grants and contracts, and program development are reflected today in policy statements, education materials for legislators, coordinating meetings with local state legislative delegations and Congressional representatives.

His educational background includes having a BA in Political Science from Western Washington University and an MPA from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University with an emphasis in Public Finance. Brian was also an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Executive Fellow and Executive Development Institute (EDI) graduate.

Series Discussion will highlight:

1)          Challenges of leadership and how to make or lead for change.

2)          How do you voice and support change for better AANHPI access for better career advancement opportunities?

3)          How do express the need to see AANHPI in leadership roles ?

4)          What are some strategies of advocating and navigating the governmental legislative process?

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Next Generation Leaders Service Projects - Committee of 100

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Committee of 100 is a non-profit, membership-based American leadership organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia, healthcare, and the arts. Committee of 100 is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

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Learning Asian American history can benefit all students | Naomi Ishisaka

Feb. 24, 2025 at 10:00 am Updated Feb. 24, 2025 at 11:00 am

A visitor to The Remembrance Gallery at the 2024 State Fair in Puyallup stands in front of a photo of the Puyallup Assembly Center, which was located on the fairgrounds during World War II. More than 7,500 Japanese Americans... (Karen Ducey / The Seattle Times)More

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By

Naomi Ishisaka

Seattle Times columnist

Every time I write about topics that touch on Asian American history, I am struck by how little people know about the country’s fastest-growing major racial group.

This is not surprising because while Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander history is U.S. history, it is still largely missing in U.S. K-12 classrooms, scholar Erika Lee reported in the Organization of American Historians.

Growing up in Seattle in the ’80s and ’90s, I don’t remember learning any AANHPI history from school. Everything I did know I learned from my parents and our chosen family. It wasn’t until college and discovering books by authors like Ronald Takaki and Howard Zinn that I finally had some formal education on my own history.

Sadly, not a lot has changed in the past 30 years.

But this year, a coalition of around 60 grassroots organizations serving AANHPI communities signed on to support state Senate Bill 5574, led by Make Us Visible Washington, a local volunteer group that looks to address through education the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans. Sponsored by state Sen. T’wina Nobles and backed by a number of other senators, the legislation would require AANHPI history to be taught in K-12 social studies in Washington state by the 2029-2030 school year.

At a legislative hearing last week, about 900 people signed in to support the measure. Proponents testified to the importance of using a state statute to ensure a more complete story of our history is told.

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“Omitting AANHPI history from schools doesn’t just erase contributions, it deepens gaps in understanding and allows prejudice to grow, even in our own state,” Nobles said during the hearing.

“Education is one of the most powerful tools to combat ignorance. It also can help us to build empathy and to foster inclusion,” she said. “When students learn the full story of our state and country, they see how our histories connect and better understand the struggles and achievements that have shaped all of us.”

The bill did not make it out of committee this year, but supporters hope that next session it might make more progress.

Teaching AANHPI history does not just benefit AANHPI communities — though it absolutely does — but we all benefit when we have a more complete and accurate understanding of who we are, the challenges we have faced and those who fought for change.

That’s particularly important at a time when efforts to advance a more complete picture are under ferocious attack by the federal government and many localities.

Nobles said we need to lay these educational foundations now, to protect future generations when they experience similar challenging times.

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Make Us Visible Washington director Angelie Chong is a parent who said her own kids have yet to learn about the histories of our diverse communities.

“If students are lucky, they might hear a bit about Japanese incarceration or a bit about Chinese exclusion,” she said. “But our histories are so vast, and we’re certainly not a monolith. We have Southeast Asian Americans who have their own histories, and we’ve got Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders who have their own unique struggles and histories … And so we’re lumped together and viewed — as we saw in the pandemic — as foreign or as threats or just completely invisible.”

Chong said it was disappointing that the legislation didn’t get further this year, especially as “in this climate that we’re living in, things are just going to get worse for our communities.”

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Chong said, “With all the attacks on diversity and inclusion, we really hope that our local lawmakers could stand up and say, ‘You know, you do matter. We do care about our communities, and we believe in inclusive education.’ ”

According to the census, Washington has one of the highest populations of Asian Americans in the U.S. About 12% of the state population is AANHPI, the third-largest racial group in the state.

Bill supporter Devin Cabanilla wants to see state legislators be more responsive. “I would ask that all of our electeds become a little bit more daring, a little bit more bold in ensuring that our state, at minimum, reflects our communities,” he said.

It seems absurd that anyone should need to say that in 2025. Students should not have to testify in front of the Legislature to lobby for a curriculum that acknowledges their existence.

“We’re part of American history. This is American history. This is Washington history,” Chong said.

Naomi Ishisaka: nishisaka@seattletimes.com. Naomi Ishisaka is The Seattle Times’ assistant managing editor for diversity, inclusion and staff development. Her column on race, culture, equity and social justice appears weekly on Mondays. Follow Naomi on Threads at @nishisaka

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Profile.
Brief profiles of people and events from Asian American and Pacific Islander people's history.

Here are more than 20 Asian Americans and events of note in people's history for the curriculum and as a starting point for students to do further research.

We also recommend reading " Dear Educators, It Is Time to Fight for Asian America" by Wayne Au and Moé Yonamine in Rethinking Schools, the list of recommended titles for pre-K to 12 about Asian Americans at Social Justice Books, 11 Moments From Asian American History That You Should Know by Olivia Waxman and Paulina Cachero, and A Young Organizer's Guide to Asian American Activists by Jess Eng.

To suggest a name or event to be added to this list, email [email protected] .

Eqbal Ahmad

A Pakistani political scientist, writer, editor, and antiwar activist, Eqbal Ahmad was born in 1933 and moved to the United States in the 1950s, where he attended Princeton University, taught at Cornell University and the University of Illinois, and was a fellow at the D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies.

Ahmad has been a longtime proponent of Palestinian autonomy and was an ardent opponent of the Vietnam War. In 1971, Ahmad and six others known as the Harrisburg Seven were unsuccessfully charged with conspiracy to kidnap National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and bomb critical infrustracture. All other defendants were priests or nuns, while Ahmad described himself as the odd man out of the group.

Ahmad wrote extensively after retiring from teaching in 1997, and he passed away in 1999. Read The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad and Confronting Empire to learn more.
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Wong Kim Ark

On March 28, 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, holding that children born in the United States, even to parents not eligible to become citizens, were nonetheless citizens themselves under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants who were barred from ever becoming U.S. citizens under the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong Kim Ark was denied re-entry to the United States after a trip to China, on the grounds that the son of a Chinese national could never be a U.S. citizen. Wong sued the federal government, resulting in the Supreme Court's seminal decision that the government could not deny citizenship to anyone born in the United States. [Adapted from Asian Americans Advancing Justice and PBS's " Becoming American: The Chinese Experience."]

Read the 1882 Exclusion Act at OurDocuments.gov.
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Grace Lee Boggs

A prominent activist her entire adult life, Grace Lee Boggs (June 27, 1915 - October 5, 2015) was born in Rhode Island, the daughter of Chinese immigrants. She studied at Barnard College and Bryn Mawr, receiving her Ph.D. in 1940. Her studies in philosophy and the writings of Marx, Hegel, and Margaret Mead led not to a life in academia, but rather to a lifetime of social activism.

Lee's activism began in Chicago, where she joined the movement for tenants' rights, and then the Workers Party, a splinter group of the Socialist Workers Party. In these associations, as well as in her involvement with the 1941 March on Washington, Lee focused on marginalized groups such as women and people of color. In 1953, Lee married Black auto worker and activist James (Jimmy) Boggs and moved to Detroit, where the two continued their activism. Jimmy died in 1993.

Boggs has rejected the stereotypical radical idea that capitalist society is just something to be done away with, believing more that "you cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it."

She believed that it is by working together in small groups that positive social change can happen, not in large revolutions where one group of power simply changes position with another. With this philosophy, she and her husband founded Detroit Summer in 1992. In a YES! Magazine interview, Boggs explains, "We wanted to engage young people in community-building activities: planting community gardens, recycling waste, organizing neighborhood arts and health festivals, rehabbing houses, painting public murals. Encouraging them to exercise their Soul Power would get their cognitive juices flowing. Learning would come from practice, which has always been the best way to learn."

Boggs continued to write books and be an activist. She died in 2015 at the age of 100. [From Americans Who Tell the Truth.]

Learn more in the documentary " American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs" and from her books, Living for Change: An Autobiography and The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century.
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May Chen

In 1982, May Chen led the New York Chinatown strike of 1982, one of the largest Asian American worker strikes with about 20,000 garment factory workers marching the streets of Lower Manhattan demanding work contracts.

Chen, then affiliated with the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, was one of the strike organizers.

"The Chinatown community then had more and more small garment factories," she recalled. "And the Chinese employers thought they could play on ethnic loyalties to get the workers to turn away from the union. They were very, very badly mistaken."

Most of the protests included demands for higher wages, improved working conditions, and for management to observe the Confucian principles of fairness and respect. By many accounts, the workers won. The strike caused the employers to hold back on wage cuts and withdraw their demand that workers give up their holidays and some benefits. It paved the way for better working conditions such as hiring bilingual staff to interpret for workers and management, initiation of English-language classes, and van services for workers.
[Description by Cristina DC Pastor, from the Feet in Two Worlds website.]
Read more about Asian immigrants in the workforce at the Feet in Two Worlds website.
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Ibrahim Chowdry

"I talk for those of our men who, in factory and field, in all sections of American industry, work side by side with their fellow American workers to strengthen the industrial framework of this country."

- Ibrahim Chowdry, in a letter given for testimony during the U.S. Congressional Committee on Immigration and Naturalization hearings in 1945

Ibrahim Chowdry was a community organizer in New York, who worked across racial and religious lines to build coalitions between Bangladeshi immigrants and Puerto Rican and Black communities. Chowdry escaped a British crack down over his political activities in East Bengal and settled in New York City in the 1920s, where he and his fellow East Bengalis initiated numerous community organizations which included pooling their money to help open restaurants and small businesses, starting organizations to empower their communities, and offering social support for new immigrants who moved in.

In the book Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America, Chowdry's son and daughter, Noor and Laila, recall his impact as a community leader by helping "ex-seamen with immigration problems," "went from one New York-area hospital to the next, meeting with staff and asking them to call him whenever anyone was admitted with the surnames Meah, Ullah, Uddin, or Ali," and "Bengali countrymen would call him on the phone and he would run off. If someone was sick or if someone died, he would make their funeral arrangements." [From " Lost and Found: The Legacy of the Bangladeshi Sons of New York " by Nadia Hussain at Hyphen.com.]

Read more about the history of South Asian Americans in Vivek Bald's book, Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America.
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Silme Domingo & Gene Viernes

In 1981 the labor leaders Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes were gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Domingo and Viernes were Filipino American activists and fishing cannery Local 37 union members who were involved in union reform and fighting for workers' rights.

In an effort to address the discrimination and segregation towards Filipinos that had been going on for decades in the Alaskan seafood industry, organizers needed proof. Domingo and a partner posed as students from the University of Washington's School of Fisheries and requested to document the canneries for a project. Instead, they gathered evidence of discrimination.

On Nov. 28, 1973, the Alaska Cannery Workers' Association (ACWA, which Domingo and Viernes helped found) filed a class action lawsuit against several Alaskan fish companies, including one of the largest, the New England Fish Co. (NEFCO). It was the first time such an enormous seasonal migratory labor force was represented in a significant way with more than 700 plaintiffs in all. ACWA won a multi-million dollar settlement, and as a result NEFCO filed for bankruptcy.

Initially, the murders appeared to be retributions for reform efforts within Local 37 that threatened entrenched interests. But after a wide-ranging legal investigation launched by family, friends, and community groups, in 1989 a federal jury found that former Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos conspired to silence political opponents in the U.S. that resulted in the murders of Domingo and Viernes. The conspiracy involved the Marcos government, the president of Local 37, and a network of Marcos' intelligence agents that operated within the United States since 1973, monitoring and harassing Marcos' opponents in the United States. [From " The 'Cannery Murders' of 1981 still haunt local labor activists" and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.]

Learn more in the book Remembering Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes: The Legacy of Filipino American Labor Activism by Ron Chew and the documentary One Generation's Time: The Legacy of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes.

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Frank S. Emi and Draft Resisters

Frank Emi, a grocer from Los Angeles and Japanese-American, was an activist during World War II. He was a leading figure of the Fair Play Committee, an ad hoc group that protested the drafting of Japanese Americans during World War II, and served an 18 months sentence for refusing the draft.

From the Densho Encyclopedia:

On March 25, 1944, U.S. Marshals arrested twelve young men at Heart Mountain who were no-shows for their draft physicals but that did not put an end to resistance. As dozens more refused to report, Emi and two other FPC leaders attempted to walk out of camp without a pass to prove that they were indeed prisoners. In all, sixty-three Heart Mountain resisters were found guilty on one count each of draft evasion and sentenced to federal prison...

Convicted of conspiracy to violate the Selective Service Act, Emi served 18 months in a federal penitentiary.

Emi later explained: "I could not believe that the government could actually put us in camp, strip us of everything . . . and then order us into the military as if nothing had happened."

He added, "We could either tuck our tails between our legs like dogs or stand up like free men and fight for justice. Some of us chose the latter. We were going to resist."

Learn more about Frank Emi's interrogation while incarcerated in Wyoming.

Executive Order 9066

On Feb. 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 was issued by President Franklin Roosevelt. It authorized the incarceration (internment) of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent. About 122,000 people were sent to concentration camps. Many of their homes, businesses, and farms were confiscated.

We refer to the internment as incarceration. This choice of language is recommended by the Densho Encyclopedia, because "One of the strategies employed by the federal government to sell the forced removal and confinement of Japanese American from the West Coast during World War II was the use of euphemistic terms that masked the true nature of what was being done." Read their full statement, Do words matter?

Learn more about the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in our This Day in History entry for Feb. 19.

Gidra

During its 1969 to 1974 run, Gidra chronicled the dramatic changes in the Asian American community, and was itself a catalyst for many of these changes.

The roots of Gidra stem from a group of students at UCLA who approached the administration about starting an Asian American community newspaper in 1969. Rebuffed, the five each kicked in $100 to produce their own paper. Tracy Okida came up with the name, which came from a giant three-headed dragon from Japanese monster movies of the 1960s. Initially based at the newly formed Asian American Studies Center at UCLA, Gidra helped define the terms of the Asian American Movement for many and covered the fight for ethnic studies on college campuses, along with rising activism in Asian American communities. Though pan Asian American in its orientation, it was largely a Sansei enterprise with three-quarters or more of the staff being Japanese American. As the publication evolved and moved off campus to an office in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles, its scope broadened to encompass an Asian American perspective on the international anti-imperialist movement, linking the war in Vietnam to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to other movements in Asia including Okinawa, the Philippines, and Korea. [From the Densho website.]

Continue reading about the history of Gidra newspaper by Brian Niiya, Densho Content Director.

View the online archives at the Densho Digital Repository.
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The International Hotel Struggle

On August 4, 1977, after battling eviction for over nine years, the community of mostly Filipino and Chinese low-income senior tenants of the International Hotel (I-Hotel) was brought to a violent end in the early morning hours. At around 4 a.m., over 300 riot-equipped police and sheriff's deputies, cordoned off the surrounding streets, encircled the hotel, and began to forcefully evict the residents. De Guzman, then the president of the International Hotel Tenants Association, described what happened:

Once the police and sheriffs got into the building, they broke into the tenants' rooms. Then they started breaking things up, stealing, taking what the manongs [Filipino males] had, broke the toilets that way there were no toilet facilities, so the tenants could never return.

Outside, more than 2,000 community activists and protesters created a human barricade trying to prevent the eviction. Shouting "We won't move!" I-Hotel defenders-that included not only Filipinos but other Asian Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, student activists, religious groups and organizations, gays and lesbians, leftists, and community activists - lined up nine rows deep as the police started their frontal assault. The police were brutalizing people outside in front of the hotel, said De Guzman. They would run their horses up front and hit people with their clubs. They just tore people up, hitting them on the head, and jabbing them with nightsticks.

The building was eventually sold with plans to build a parking garage. However, the lot remained empty, and in 2005 a new International Hotel - now on the register of historic buildings - was built containing 105 low-income apartments for senior housing, thanks to the ongoing activism and advocating for fair housing. [Adapted from James Sobredo's " The Battle for the International Hotel" and " I-Hotel Eviction Summary " posted on FoundSF.org.]

Read more at ShelterForce and Manilatown Heritage Foundation's " International Hotel's Final Victory [PDF]".

Browse lessons on housing and displacement.
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Larry Itliong

Born in San Nicolas, Pangasinan in 1913, Larry Itliong immigrated to the United States in 1929 and worked as a laborer and farmhand in several states including Washington, Alaska, Montana, South Dakota, and California. During his time in Alaska, he earned the nickname "Seven Fingers" after losing three of his fingers in an accident at the cannery where he worked. Seeing the plight of his fellow Filipinos and immigrants who were mistreated and paid poorly, Itliong joined strikes and helped set up labor unions including one in Alaska.

On September 8, 1965, Larry Itliong, a member of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, called a strike against the Delano, California, grape growers in order to demand salaries equivalent to the federal minimum wage and the right to form their own union. Led by Itliong, more than one thousand Filipino workers walked out of their grape farms to picket, however, farmers replaced them with Mexican workers. As fellow striker Andy Imutan recalls, "There was no unity between the Mexicans and the Filipinos. The growers were very successful in dividing us and creating conflict between the two races. Larry Itliong and I decided to take action by seeing Cesar Chavez, the leader of the National Farm Workers Association. We met to come up with a plan that would be beneficial for everyone, including the Mexican workers."

A week after the strike, they were joined by the Mexican-dominated National Farm Workers led by Cesar Chavez. The two groups merged together to create the United Farm Workers Union, with Cesar Chavez as director and Larry Itliong as assistant director. This strike would be known as the Delano Grape Strike of 1965 and would last five years.

Watch a remembrance clip from Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

Since 2015, October 25 in California is known as Larry Itliong Day.

Learn more about Larry Itliong in the documentary "The Delano Manongs" and in the NPR news report, " Grapes of Wrath: The Forgotten Filipinos Who Led a Farmworker Revolution."
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Fred Korematsu

Fred Korematsu (Jan. 30, 1919-Mar. 30, 2005), a U.S. citizen and the son of Japanese immigrants, had refused to evacuate when President Roosevelt ordered the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during WWII. Korematsu, age 23, was arrested, convicted, and sent to the Topaz Internment Camp in Utah. Persuaded by Ernest Besig, then executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, Korematsu filed a case on June 12, 1942. The premise of the lawsuit was that Korematsu's constitutional rights had been violated and he had suffered racial discrimination. However, the court ruled against Korematsu and he was sentenced to five years probation. Determined to pursue his cause, Korematsu filed an appeal with Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and, later, to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1944, in Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled against him, and confirmed that the denial of civil liberties based on race and national origin was legal.

In 1983, Prof. Peter Irons, a legal historian, together with researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, discovered key documents that government intelligence agencies had hidden from the Supreme Court in 1944. The documents consistently showed that Japanese Americans had committed no acts of treason to justify mass incarceration. With this new evidence, a pro-bono legal team that included the Asian Law Caucus re-opened Korematsu's 40-year-old case on the basis of government misconduct. On November 10, 1983, Korematsu's conviction was overturned in a federal court in San Francisco. It was a pivotal moment in civil rights history. [From the Fred T. Korematsu Institute website and Of Civil Wrongs and Rights website.]

On Jan. 30, 2011, the state of California celebrated Fred Korematsu Day, the first day named after an Asian American in the United States, now recognized by six states.

Learn more about the case and additional resources on the Japanese incarceration.
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Yuri Kochiyama

Yuri Kochiyama (May 19, 1921 - June 1, 2014) was a tireless political activist who dedicated her life to contributing to social change through her participation in social justice and human rights movements.

She was born and raised in San Pedro, California. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, her father, just out of surgery, was arrested and detained in a hospital. "He was the only Japanese in that hospital," Kochiyama recalls, "so they hung a sheet around him that said, 'Prisoner of War.'" He died shortly thereafter. In 1943, under President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, Kochiyama and her family were sent to a concentration camp in Jerome, Arkansas, for two years. This experience and her father's death made Kochiyama highly aware of governmental abuses and would forever bond her to those engaged in political struggles. After being released, she moved to New York and married Bill Kochiyama, veteran of the all-Japanese American 442nd combat unit of the U.S. Army.

Kochiyama's activism started in Harlem in the early 1960s, where she participated in the Asian American, Black, and Third World movements for civil and human rights, ethnic studies, and against the war in Vietnam. She was a fixture in support movements involving organizations such as the Young Lords and the Harlem Community for Self Defense. As founder of Asian Americans for Action, she also sought to build a more political Asian American movement that would link itself to the struggle for Black liberation. "Racism has placed all ethnic peoples in similar positions of oppression poverty and marginalization." In 1963, she met Malcolm X. Their friendship and political alliance changed her life and outlook. She joined his group, the Organization for Afro-American Unity, to work for racial justice and human rights. Yuri was present on the day he was tragically shot and killed in 1965. In the Life magazine article "Death of Malcolm X," she can be seen crouched in the background, cradling Malcolm X's head.

In the 1980s, Kochiyama worked in the redress and reparations movement for Japanese-Americans along with her husband Bill. Support for political prisoners - African American, Puerto Rican, Native American, Asian American, and progressive whites - has been a consistent thread in her work. [From Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Women of Hope: Asian Americans.]

Learn more about Kochiyama in:

Watch this remembrance clip from Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
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Kiyoshi Kuromiya

Born in the Heart Mountain, Wyoming, incarceration camp in 1943, Kiyoshi Kuromiya (May 9, 1943 - May 10, 2000) was a lifelong activist participating in several movements including civil rights, protesting the Vietnam War, LGBT rights, and AIDS/HIV advocacy.

In 1968, as an architecture student at the Univ. of Pennsylvania, he and some friends held a demonstration against the use of napalm in Vietnam by announcing that a dog would be burned alive with napalm in front of the university library. Thousands turned up to protest, only to be handed a leaflet reading: "Congratulations on your anti-napalm protest. You saved the life of a dog. Now, how about saving the lives of tens of thousands of people in Vietnam."

Kuromiya spent the spring and summer of 1965 in the South fighting for civil rights, and became friends with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When King was assassinated, Kuromiya helped take care of the King children.

Kuromiya participated with the Gay Pioneers in the first organized gay and lesbian civil rights demonstrations, " the Annual Reminders," held at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell each Fourth of July from 1965 to 1969. He was one of the founders of Gay Liberation Front-Philadelphia and served as an openly gay delegate to the Black Panther Convention that endorsed the gay liberation struggle. Diagnosed with AIDS in 1989, Kuromiya became a self-taught expert on the disease, operating under the mantra "information is power." He founded the Critical Path Project, which provided resources to people living with HIV and AIDS, including a newsletter, a library and a 24-hour phone line. [Adapted from LGBT History Month, NBC News, and ACT UP-New York.]

Learn more about Kuromiya in this remembrance video by friend Alfredo Sosa.
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Corky Lee

For nearly fifty years, Corky Lee documented the lives of Asian Pacific Americans at work, at leisure, and as activists. Born in Queens, New York, to Chinese immigrants, Lee grew up seeing very few people who looked like him or shared his family's culture and he grew into awareness of how this harmed Asian Americans living in the United States. His photography became a corrective to narratives that erased Asian Americans and a journalistic record of political activism.

Lee died in early 2021 from complications due to COVID-19. In an obituary, Vulture writers Ming Lin and Alexandra Tatarsky describe his activism and rise to prominence in the 1970s:

One of the earliest pictures he sold was an image of a bloodied Chinese American man named Peter Yew, who was beaten by police after trying to intervene in their assault on a Chinese teenager. It ended up on the front page of the New York Post in 1975, and 2,500 Chinatown residents marched on City Hall in protest of police brutality. Lee would show up at protests against the Vietnam War or the construction of a jail, or join picket lines with Chinatown workers protesting their exploitative employers. Rallying fellow artists and activists he met, he helped found influential community groups and collectives, including Basement Workshop.

Learn more about Corky Lee's photography in an exhibition review from 2013 and in the New York Times' series "Those We've Lost."

Martha and Berda Lum

At the start of the school semester in September 1924, Chinese-American sisters Martha and Berda Lum were barred from attending their local middle school in Rosedale, Mississippi, and their exclusion set off a lawsuit that challenged (unsuccessfully) the "separate but equal" doctrine. Their parents, Katherine Lum and Jeu Gong Lum, were determined that their children would receive the best education available and appealed this restriction all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Three years later, on Nov. 21, 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state's rights and Plessy v. Ferguson applied to Asian American students, or as the court said, students of the "yellow race."

See this story's This Day in History post for related resources and more.

Patsy Mink

Congresswoman Patsy Mink (December 6, 1927 - September 28, 2002) was the first Asian American woman elected to Congress, and ran 18 political campaigns since 1956. Through it all, Mink has consistently taken moral stands on behalf of Asian Americans, women, and children-even at potential risk to her political career.

She attended the University of Nebraska and discovered that the "International House" dormitory where she was placed was designated solely for students of color because they were not allowed to live in the regular dorms. She protested and rallied the support of students, parents, and university trustees. Within months, the policy of segregated housing was abolished.

Mink originally planned to attend medical school, but her 25 applications were rejected because medical schools were all male. Instead, she went to the University of Chicago law school, married John Francis Mink, and had a daughter, Wendy. The family returned to Hawaii after Mink's graduation, when in 1953, she became the first Japanese American woman admitted to the practice law in Hawaii. However, she could not find work as women were expected to be full-time mothers. Determined to practice law, Mink set up her own law office.

In 1956, she ran for the House of Representatives, won, and established herself as an independent voice. On her very first day, she offered a resolution protesting British nuclear testing in the South Pacific; the resolution passed.

Mink was selected to speak at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. In her speech to the convention, she stated, "If to believe in freedom and equality is to be a radical, then I am a radical."

During her 12-year congressional tenure, she consistently voted for a progressive agenda. She introduced the first comprehensive Early Childhood Education Act (later vetoed by President Richard Nixon), authored the Women's Educational Equity Act, criticized the Vietnam War, and spoke out against the secret bombing of Southeast Asia. In 1972, Mink played a key role in the enactment of Title IX of the Higher Education Act Amendments, which prohibited gender discrimination by federally-funded institutions. This legislation has been an important factor in ensuring equity for women in all educational programs, particularly school sports.

Mink was concerned about a woman's movement that focuses too much on middle-class white women. "The 'glass ceiling' is an upper-class glass ceiling for those aspiring to be bank presidents and executives, not those who can never rise above the minimum wage. The majority of people working at minimum-wage jobs in the United States are women. That's the glass ceiling I am committed to doing something about." [From Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Women of Hope: Asian Americans.]

Learn more about Mink in the documentary Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority. Trailer:
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Peter Yew/Police Brutality Protests, 1975

In April 1975, Peter Yew, a young Chinese-American living in New York City's Chinatown, asked police to stop beating a 15-year-old whom they had stopped for a traffic violation. For his concern, Yew was savagely beaten right on the spot, taken back to the police station, stripped, beaten again and arrested on charges of resisting arrest and assault on a police officer.

His beating was the last straw as 15,000 Chinatown community members took to the streets to fight back against police attacks and brutality against their community. Virtually every shop and factory in Chinatown was closed on May 19th for the demonstration and signs reading "Closed to Protest Police Brutality" were put in windows and on doors. The community united around demands for the dismissal of all charges against Yew, an end to discrimination of the Chinese community, and an end to discrimination in employment, housing, education, health, and all other social services for all minorities and working people.

A week before the May 19th demo, several thousand people had marched on City Hall under an action sponsored by the Asian Americans for Equal Employment (AAFEE), raising demands similar to those raised at the May 19th action. The local business community and establishment refused to publicize or endorse the AAFEE action. A week later, the Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) called the May 19th action, bringing out old and young in one of the most united and militant actions ever taken by Chinatown residents. Although the CCBA tried to keep demands focused just on Peter Yew, the people of Chinatown clearly saw the broader issues, the fact that police repression was coming down in communities all across the U.S. This was shown by the slogans raised such as "Fight Police Brutality, Fight all Oppression!"

When the cops attacked the march, the people responded immediately and fought back. As the police tried to drag off one of the demonstrators, others in the march jumped the cops and fought them tooth and nail. When two of the people were arrested and taken to the police station, the crowd surrounded the station and secured the release of their friends. [From Vietnam Veterans Against the War.]
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Ai-Jen Poo

When Poo started organizing domestic workers in 2000, many thought she was taking on an impossible task. Domestic workers were too dispersed, spread out over too many homes. Even Poo had described the world of domestic work as the "Wild West." Poo's first big breakthrough with the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) happened on July 1, 2010, when the New York state legislature passed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. The bill legitimated domestic workers and gave them the same lawful rights as any other employee, such as vacation time and overtime pay. Though the bill was considered a major victory, the NDWA did not stop there, expanding operations to include 17 cities and 11 states.

Read more about the NDWA here: www.domesticworkers.org.
[Description from Americans Who Tell the Truth website.] Back to Top

Jung Sai Garment Workers Strike, 1974

On July 15, 1974, workers at the Jung Sai factory (manufacturers of popular teen clothing brand Esprit de Corps) in San Francisco went on strike after Frankie Ma, a union activist, was fired for "unsatisfactory work." Workers at Jung Sai endured appalling conditions: they earned $2 per hour and their work days often stretched to ten hours with few breaks, and no overtime pay. They had just voted in the union and saw this firing as an act of retaliation. The workers - most of them middle-aged Chinese immigrant women-protested the firing and unfair labor practices, and demanded better working conditions and the right to organize. This united body of immigrant workers inspired popular support from community, student, and working-class populations throughout the San Francisco Bay area.

Their interaction with hundreds of Asian-American activists and supporters became an important turning point for Asian-American activism in the San Francisco Bay Area. The strike lasted six months and encouraged further immigrant activism, energizing a grassroots movement among Chinese immigrant workers facing similar unfair labor practices. After the plant closed down, claiming bankruptcy, the workers brought a suit before the National Relations Labor Board and won nearly 10 years later.
[Adapted from The Asian American Movement, FoundSF.org, Rethinking the Asian American Movement, and "Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality (1971-1982)." Back to Top

Rinku Sen

"I learned a lot about how human beings change, about the sense of worth that has to be activated in order for people to demand more out of society, and the sense of connection that has to be activated for people to stand up together and for each other."

Rinku Sen is the president and executive director of Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation, and the publisher of the award-winning news site Colorlines. As a racial justice activist and community organizer, Sen's leadership at Race Forward has generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes, including the Drop the I-Word campaign aimed at media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as "illegal." This resulted in the Associated Press, USA Today, L.A. Times, and many more dropping the i-word, affecting millions of readers every day.

Born in India, her family moved to upstate New York when she was five. Some of Sen's earliest recollections of life in India were tinged by race, Sen told NBC News. "One of my earliest memories was of being in the bath scrubbing myself when I was four-ish, trying to get as light as my cousin, whose mother is Dutch," she said.

Sen started her organizing career as a student activist at Brown University, fighting race, gender, and class discrimination on campuses. Majoring in Women's Studies and receiving a Master's degree in Journalism, Sen has written extensively about the race and gender dimensions of community organizing and is the author of Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization. [Adapted from Race Forward, NBC News, and Stir It Up.]

Learn more about Sen and the work of Race Forward at raceforward.org.
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Ronald Takaki

Ronald Toshiyuki Takaki (April 12, 1939 - May 26, 2009) was the author and editor of more than 20 books, including Strangers From a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (1989) and A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993).

Takaki established UC Berkeley's PhD program in ethnic studies, the first of its kind in the nation. "Ron Takaki elevated and popularized the study of America's multiracial past and present like no other scholar, and in doing so had an indelible impact on a generation of students and researchers across the nation and world," according to Don T. Nakanishi, director of UCLA's Asian American Studies Center.

Born in Honolulu on April 12, 1939, he was the grandson of a Japanese immigrant who went to Hawaii in 1886 to work in the sugar cane fields. After his father died, Takaki, who was seven, was raised by his mother and Chinese stepfather. He attended the College of Wooster in Ohio, where he was one of two Asian Americans on campus. This experience gave him a new awareness of himself as an ethnic American. Takaki recalled in a 2000 Lincoln Journal Star interview that one of his professors "asked me how long I'd been in this country, where did I learn to speak English. I told him I was from Hawaii and he says, 'But how long have you been in this country?' I guess I didn't look American."

Takaki went on to earn a master's degree in 1962, and a Ph.D. in history in 1967 from UC Berkeley, where he became drawn to campus activism, including the Free Speech Movement. "I was born intellectually and politically in Berkeley in the '60s," he told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter in 2003.

In 1966, he was hired to teach UCLA's first Black history course in the wake of the explosive Watts riots. When a student in the Black history class asked him which revolutionary tools he could teach them, Takaki replied: "We're going to study the history of the U.S. as it relates to African Americans. We're going to strengthen our critical thinking skills and our writing skills. These can be revolutionary tools if we make them so."

In 1971, Takaki returned to UC Berkeley as the Department of Ethnic Studies' first full-time teacher. He became wildly popular, filling auditoriums with hundreds of students hungry for perspectives on the struggles of America's minority groups. Takaki served as chair of ethnic studies from 1975-77, and in the mid-1980s established at UC Berkeley the nation's first doctorate program in ethnic studies. He then turned his attention to ensuring that each student satisfy an American Cultures requirement to graduate. He was a vigorous proponent of multicultural education and a vocal opponent of Proposition 209, the 1996 California ballot initiative that rolled back affirmative action policies in state-funded institutions. [From Los Angeles Times and UC Berkeley News.]

Learn more about Ronald Takaki.
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Philip Vera Cruz

'The movement should be the most important thing. ... The movement must go beyond its leaders."

Philip Vera Cruz (December 25, 1904 - June 12, 1994), a Filipino immigrant, worked in the midwest then moved to California in 1943 becoming a farm worker. He joined the Agricultural Worker Organizing Committee (AWOC) and soon became a leader in farm worker's rights. In 1965, he was an active force in the AWOC decision to strike against grape growers in Delano, California. The strike and boycott soon won the support of Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers of America, and led to the eventual merging of the two groups to form the United Farm Workers. Vera Cruz was elected a vice president of the union, a position he held until he left the union in protest in 1977. Cruz also formed the Farm Workers Credit Union and created Agbayani Village, a retirement community for older farm workers.

Throughout his career Vera Cruz worked for migrant and farm worker rights, and was active in the Asian American, especially Filipino, rights movement and community.

Vera Cruz once wrote, "Leadership, I feel, is only incidental to the movement. The movement should be the most important thing. If the leader becomes the most important part of the movement, then you don't have a movement after the leader is gone. The movement must go beyond its leaders. It must be something that is continuous, with goals and ideals that the leadership can build on." [Adapted from the Walter P. Ruether Library biography.]

Watch this remembrance clip from Asian Americans Advancing Justice:

AAPI Civil Rights Heroes - Philip Vera Cruz from Advancing Justice - ALC on Vimeo.
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Ngo Vinh Long

Ngo Vinh Long (April 10, 1944 - October 12, 2022) was a Vietnamese American historian, lifelong activist, and author of the 1973 book Before the Revolution: The Vietnamese Peasants Under the French.

Born in the Mekong Delta, he fought U.S. involvement in Vietnam at an early age. He emigrated from Vietnam in 1964 to attend Harvard University, where he studied under Henry Kissinger and Samuel Huntington. Vinh Long helped create the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars and the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (now Critical Asian Studies) in the late 1960s, and was a professor of history at the University of Maine from 1985 to 2022.
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Yick Wo v. Hopkins

On May 10, 1886, Lee Yick won a Supreme Court case that ensured that all people -citizens and non-citizens - had equal protection under the law.

Lee Yick and Wo Lee, Chinese immigrants, ran laundries in San Francisco. In 1880, San Francisco passed a law requiring a permit for laundries housed in wooden buildings as they were more vulnerable to fires. Of the 320 laundries in San Francisco, 310 were in wooden buildings, and most of them - 240 - were owned by Chinese persons. Not one Chinese laundry applicant was issued a permit. When Sheriff Hopkins tried to arrest Yick and Lee for not having a permit, they refused to pay the $10 fine, and were jailed. Each sued, arguing that the fine and discriminatory enforcement of the ordinance violated their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Their cases, compiled under the name Yick Wo v. Hopkins, was argued at the Supreme Court in 1886 (Yick Wo was the name of the laundry that Lee Yick ran).

In an unanimous opinion authored by Justice T. Stanley Matthews, the court concluded that, despite the impartial wording of the law, its biased enforcement violated the Equal Protection Clause. According to the court, even if the law is impartial on its face, "if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand." The kind of biased enforcement experienced by the plaintiffs, the court concluded, amounted to "a practical denial by the state of that equal protection of the law" and therefore violated the provision of the 14th Amendment. [Adapted from PBS's " The Strange Case of the Chinese Laundry," and Oyez.org.]
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Merle Woo

In 1982, Merle Woo challenged UC Berkeley after being fired from her job as a lecturer in Asian American Studies/Ethnic Studies (AAS). Woo, a member of the Freedom Socialist Party, Radical Women, an open lesbian, and a renowned poet, was fired after criticizing the increasing conservatism of tenure-track faculty in UC's Asian American Studies Department. Her 1982 federal and state lawsuits charged the university with discrimination based on race, sex, political ideology, and sexual orientation. As Woo explained in a news release, "They fired me because I was visible. I took my protected free speech rights seriously, spoke out against the imminent death of Ethnic Studies, spoke out about who I am, totally and fully and with dignity." Woo's supporters included Angela Davis, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Barbara Smith, Congressman Ron Dellums, Gloria Steinem, and Mitsuye Yamada.

Woo won the free speech/multi-discrimination case against UC Berkeley and was reinstated in 1984, only to be fired again in 1986. In 1989, she won a union arbitration against UC Berkeley. [Adapted from Proud Heritage: People, Issues, and Documents of the LGBT Experience, Freedom Socialist: Voice of Revolutionary Feminism, and The Merle Woo Project Prize.]
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Helen Zia

A feminist and antiwar activist during the Vietnam War, Helen Zia is now an author, an outspoken proponent of LGBTQ rights, and a former journalist. Zia cofounded American Citizens for Justice following her coverage of the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit.

As described on her website,

The daughter of immigrants from China, Helen has been outspoken on issues ranging from human rights and peace to women's rights and countering hate violence and homophobia. She is featured in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, Who Killed Vincent Chin? and was profiled in Bill Moyers' PBS series, Becoming American: The Chinese Experience. In 2008 Helen was a Torchbearer in San Francisco for the Beijing Olympics amid great controversy; in 2010, she was a witness in the federal marriage equality case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Find more resources for the classroom and key events in history below.

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Asian Americans in the People's History of the United States

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Profile. Brief profiles of people and events from Asian American and Pacific Islander people's history.

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We focus our impact across initiatives in anti-Asian hate, education, narrative change, and resources and representation.

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Our Resources page is a comprehensive hub for researchers, policymakers, advocates, and the general public interested in advancing AANHPI communities. Explore verified research, historical context, thought leadership, and interactive data analysis tools that address anti-Asian hate, promote education, change narratives, and ultimately create a more inclusive, equitable future for all.

Join us in our mission to foster belonging and safety for all AANHPI individuals in the United States.

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We focus our impact across initiatives in anti-Asian hate, education, narrative change, and resources and representation.

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TEAACH Field Guide & Executive Summary | TAAF

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Creating a roadmap to standardize AAPI history in all 50 states

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AAPI Lesson Plans & Educational Resources for K-12 Teachers

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The AAPI History Hub provides K–12 educators with Lesson Plans, Books, Films, and more ready to integrate into your teaching and classrooms.

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Lights, Camera, AANHPI!: A Creative Development Directory | TAAF

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Lights, Camera, AANHPI!: A Creative Development Directory

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Dr Mimi Tang:  “There is a tendency for us to seek perfection before we speak”

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Representation Matters Representation matters! Our community has a rich heritage and history. The HAPPEN BRG collective consists of over 100 countries and islands. This can make it difficult to know what is HAPPENing in every community across the state that we proudly represent. We encourage members to share information to spread the word and educate ourselves about our collective culture. HAPPEN represents: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Cyprus, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen, Western Melanesia (the Bismarck Archipelago and other islands directly east of New Guinea, Bougainville and Buka Island, and the Solomon Islands), Eastern Melanesia (the Santa Cruz Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Fiji), the Subtropical islands in the Australia/New Zealand region (Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island), Micronesia (the Bonin Islands and Volcano Islands, Marcus Island, the Northern Marianas, the Southern Marianas, the Caroline Islands, Nauru and Banaba, Wake Island, the Marshall Islands, and the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati)), Central Polynesia (Johnston Atoll, the Phoenix Islands, the Line Islands, Howland Island, Baker Island, Jarvis Island, Malden Island and Starbuck Island, Tuvalu, Tokelau and the Northern Cook Islands (Pukapuka, Nassau, Rakahanga, Manihiki, Penrhyn, Suwarrow and Palmerston)), Western Polynesia (Tonga, Samoa, Wallis and Futuna, Niue), Eastern Polynesia (the rest of the Cook Islands, the Austral Islands, the Society Islands, the Tuamotu Archipelago and the Pitcairn Islands, Easter Island and Salas y Gómez, the Marquesas Islands), Northern Polynesia (the Hawaiian Islands), Oceanic islands of the Eastern Pacific (The Revillagigedo Islands, Cocos Island and Malpelo Island, Clipperton Island, the Galápagos Islands, the Desventuradas Islands, the Juan Fernández Islands), Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu.

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Co-Chair

Position Description

As a first-generation Vietnamese refugee, Thanh V. Tran knows the pains experienced by othering, prejudice, and bias and has a passion to empower others to find their voices when advocating for fair, equitable treatment and authentic representation. He is a HAPPEN Co-chair and an ally for all marginalized communities that intersect as a bridge builder in our shared common interests. As an Asian American, he realizes his own privilege & disenfranchisement in our social construct and envision members speaking truth to power regarding the marginalization and bias that we as ANHPI experience WITHIN and outside of our communities to truly unify & heal.

Thanh is an inclusive servant leader with core strengths in public speaking, logistical analysis, group communication and facilitation that has helped other groups arrive authentically when engaging in conversations with diverse perspectives and lived experiences. As he has stated, “Our ANHPI communities are no different with over 80+ diverse ethnicities, languages, cultures as none of our lived experiences are monolithic. I’m hopeful this BRG will be the space to celebrate our diverse thought and truths as we organize and mobilize towards equality for all.”

Mentorship Lead

Position Description  |  Committee  |  Contact

Aloha everyone! Kennly Asato (she/they) has been re-elected to the Mentorship Committee Lead position. Kennly currently serves as the Deputy Assistant Director for the Housing Division at the Washington State Department of Commerce. She believes that she would not be where she is today without mentors' guidance and provided her with advice over the years. Kennly has worked in state government for the last 12 years and have created internship, fellowship, and mentoring programs at two state agencies. In 2023, Kennly launched HAPPEN's mentorship program with our amazing mentorship committee. Kennly has also mentored several fellow state employees during her time with the state. Kennly is passionate about continuing to develop and grow a flourishing mentorship program for us in our BRG.

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DENISE ROSS

Workplace Culture and Development Manager

Workplace Culture Program/Human Resource Services

Legacy Ex-Officio Member and current HAPPEN Co-Sponsor

Denise Ross (she/her) is the Workplace Culture and Development Manager at the Puget Sound Partnership. She leads the cabinet agency in creating more human-focused employee experiences grounded in belonging and inclusion. Denise holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management and has been a public servant since 2011. She is one of the founders of HAPPEN, along with Nicholas Vann and other leaders, who helped transform a group of three passionate state employees into an official business resource group with hundreds of HAPPEN members now advancing that mission.

Denise grew up in the Pacific Northwest in a multi-generational home infused with proud Japanese culture, food, and values of honor and respect. She is a Japanese American (Nisei Generation) and the daughter and granddaughter of Issei Generation immigrants. She also has ancestry roots from the island of O'ahu, including a grandfather born and raised there who witnessed the infamous bombing of the 1941 Pearl Harbor from a coconut tree. He later proudly served in the US Army for over 20 years and then retired as a Washington state employee after 21 years of service.

Some of Denise’s passions include awareness for early detection of breast cancer screening, supporting veterans, spreading domestic violence awareness, and social justice. I am proud and honored that I can continue a role in HAPPEN’s legacy.

Katrina Radach

Katrina Radach (she/her) is an active member of HAPPEN and the manager of the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program (PSEMP) at the Puget Sound Partnership. She leads a team of staff in bridging science with community and management needs, and she is deeply involved in mentoring recent graduates, helping them gain valuable job experiences and develop their skills. Katrina has a background in hiring, interviewing, coaching, mentoring, and supporting staff in their professional growth.

Navigating her own mixed identity as the daughter of a Japanese immigrant mother and a white father, Katrina has experienced the navigation and complexities related to being mixed-race, privilege, othering, and the challenges of code-switching.

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https://nwasianweekly.com/2025/03/bill-for-asian-american-history-in-school-cut-down-in-committee/

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Bill for Asian American History in school cut down in committee

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State Senate Bill 5574, a bill which would require Asian American & Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders (AANHPI) history to be taught in K-12 social studies in Washington state by the 2029-2030 …

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*HAPPEN L&CD Series was moved May 28 from May 19 due AAANHPI Celebration Event!

This meeting will have 2 areas of focus:

1) Please watch video https://abc7ny.com/aapi-town-hall-asian-american-pacific-islander-heritage-month/13267027/ ahead of meeting (it is about an hour) Please be prepared to share your thoughts as we will debrief and discuss on May 28, 2025 from 1:00-2:00.

*Zoom link will remain the same.

2) Please note that I am part of pilot project out of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center referred to Foundations and Futures, The Foundations and Futures project: Digital Multimedia Textbook Featuring Narratives and Histories from Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and I will be using some of the prompt curricula from the UCLA pilot to facilitate the video 'Not Your Model Minority: Shattering the Myth.'

*These are the prompts:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pRINVVLeTPPJpJQ5KgIT4trSDep19fLh7nYmpRjXel8/edit#slide=id.p

Looking forward to our HAPPEN share of perspectives.

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NEW YORK (WABC) -- CeFaan Kim hosted and moderated 'Not Your Model Minority: Shattering the Myth,' a town hall marking Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.

The town hall streamed live on Wednesday, May 31, at 2 p.m. right here at ABC7NY.com and our ABC7NY app on Roku, FireTV, Apple TV and Android TV.

The event featured panelists who discussed a range of topics including mental health, hate crimes and poverty, in addition to a conversation on the controversial jail set to be built in Chinatown.

The common denominator for each topic was mental health and how each of these topics are affecting the community's mental health.

Get to know the panelists:
Joo Han - Deputy Director of Asian American Federation
Joo Han is the deputy director at the Asian American Federation (AAF), an umbrella leadership organization that represents the collective voice of 70 community-based organizations serving 1.3 million Asian Americans, the fastest-growing population in New York City.

Learn more about AAF at its website.
Jan Lee - Neighbors United Below Canal (NUBC)
Jan Lee is a third generation Chinatown resident. For 18 years he owned a home furnishings business in the heart of historic Chinatown on Mott Street. His family has owned various businesses in the community from a hand laundry to dry cleaner, coffee shop and a gift store.

Learn more about NUBC at its website.
Noel Quintana - Hate Crime Victim
Noel Quintana is a Filipino American non-profit worker who has been vocal about combating Asian hate after surviving a violent hate crime in February 2021.
Shinhee Han - senior psychotherapist of New York School University's counseling services
Shinhee Han, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist who works at the New School University's Counseling Services and in a private practice in New York City. Her practice is predominately committed to Asian Americans and people of color.

Learn more about Han's work at the New School at its website.
Liz Kari - President of AAP(I Belong), daughter of hate crime victim
Elizabeth Kari (Liz), the daughter of immigrants, was born and raised in the Western suburbs of Chicago, she moved to New York City to pursue a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from New York University. She has been in the fashion industry for 13 years. On March 29, 2021, Elizabeth's mom, Vilma, was brutally attacked in NYC while walking to church. The footage of the incident garnered international attention not only for the vicious attack but also for the unresponsiveness of the main bystanders in the video. Elizabeth was inspired to create a nonprofit platform called AAP(I belong).

Learn more about AAP(I Belong) at its website.
Christopher Marte - Councilman for District 1
Christopher Marte was born and raised on the Lower East Side, where his father owned a bodega and his mother worked in a garment factory before becoming a home attendant. When he wasn't stacking cans, he attended local public schools and after-school programs. Eventually, his father's store had to close down because of rent hikes, and Christopher started to see the community he loved get torn apart by luxury development and corrupt politicians. CMarte co-founded two community gardens in NYCHA and volunteered at the Bowery Mission in order to give back to the community that raised him. In 2021, Christopher won the City Council election and now serves as District 1's City Council Member.

Learn more about Marte's professional work on the City Council website.
More mental health resources for the AAPI community:
Asian Mental Health Collective
Bridges Mental Health
Asians Do Therapy
New York Coalition for Asian American Mental Health
Asians for Mental Heatlh RELATED | Columbia students create card game in honor of AAPI month
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not your model minority shattering the myth

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asian american pacific islander heritage month

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'Not Your Model Minority: Shattering the Myth,' an AAPI Town Hall

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CeFaan Kim hosted and moderated 'Not Your Model Minority: Shattering the Myth,' a town hall marking Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.

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NEW YORK (WABC) -- CeFaan Kim hosted and moderated 'Not Your Model Minority: Shattering the Myth,' a town hall marking Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.

The town hall streamed live on Wednesday, May 31, at 2 p.m. right here at ABC7NY.com and our ABC7NY app on Roku, FireTV, Apple TV and Android TV.

The event featured panelists who discussed a range of topics including mental health, hate crimes and poverty, in addition to a conversation on the controversial jail set to be built in Chinatown.

The common denominator for each topic was mental health and how each of these topics are affecting the community's mental health.

Get to know the panelists:
Joo Han - Deputy Director of Asian American Federation
Joo Han is the deputy director at the Asian American Federation (AAF), an umbrella leadership organization that represents the collective voice of 70 community-based organizations serving 1.3 million Asian Americans, the fastest-growing population in New York City.

Learn more about AAF at its website.
Jan Lee - Neighbors United Below Canal (NUBC)
Jan Lee is a third generation Chinatown resident. For 18 years he owned a home furnishings business in the heart of historic Chinatown on Mott Street. His family has owned various businesses in the community from a hand laundry to dry cleaner, coffee shop and a gift store.

Learn more about NUBC at its website.
Noel Quintana - Hate Crime Victim
Noel Quintana is a Filipino American non-profit worker who has been vocal about combating Asian hate after surviving a violent hate crime in February 2021.
Shinhee Han - senior psychotherapist of New York School University's counseling services
Shinhee Han, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist who works at the New School University's Counseling Services and in a private practice in New York City. Her practice is predominately committed to Asian Americans and people of color.

Learn more about Han's work at the New School at its website.
Liz Kari - President of AAP(I Belong), daughter of hate crime victim
Elizabeth Kari (Liz), the daughter of immigrants, was born and raised in the Western suburbs of Chicago, she moved to New York City to pursue a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from New York University. She has been in the fashion industry for 13 years. On March 29, 2021, Elizabeth's mom, Vilma, was brutally attacked in NYC while walking to church. The footage of the incident garnered international attention not only for the vicious attack but also for the unresponsiveness of the main bystanders in the video. Elizabeth was inspired to create a nonprofit platform called AAP(I belong).

Learn more about AAP(I Belong) at its website.
Christopher Marte - Councilman for District 1
Christopher Marte was born and raised on the Lower East Side, where his father owned a bodega and his mother worked in a garment factory before becoming a home attendant. When he wasn't stacking cans, he attended local public schools and after-school programs. Eventually, his father's store had to close down because of rent hikes, and Christopher started to see the community he loved get torn apart by luxury development and corrupt politicians. CMarte co-founded two community gardens in NYCHA and volunteered at the Bowery Mission in order to give back to the community that raised him. In 2021, Christopher won the City Council election and now serves as District 1's City Council Member.

Learn more about Marte's professional work on the City Council website.
More mental health resources for the AAPI community:
Asian Mental Health Collective
Bridges Mental Health
Asians Do Therapy
New York Coalition for Asian American Mental Health
Asians for Mental Heatlh RELATED | Columbia students create card game in honor of AAPI month
----------

* Get Eyewitness News Delivered

* Follow us on YouTube

* More local news

* Send us a news tip

* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts

Submit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News

Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
not your model minority shattering the myth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
asian american pacific islander heritage month

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Not Your Model Minority: Shattering the Myth,' an AAPI Town Hall

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CeFaan Kim hosted and moderated 'Not Your Model Minority: Shattering the Myth,' a town hall marking Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.

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3.19.25 HAPPEN Leadership Dev Presentation

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Know & Be Prepared to Assert Your Rights

Now more than before, it is imperative we know our rights. All people in the United States, regardless of immigration status, have certain rights and protections under the U.S. Constitution, particularly the Fourth & Fifth Amendments.

The Fourth Amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The Fifth Amendment states: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The Know Your Rights Red Cards were created to help people assert their rights and defend themselves against constitutional violations. Knowing and asserting rights can make a huge difference in many situations, such as when ICE agents go to a home. Red cards provide critical information on how to assert these rights, along with an explanation to ICE agents that the individual is indeed asserting their rights.

The cards are available for purchase, translated into several languages, and are free to non-profits and public defenders.

Here are some resources:

Community Resources - Stop AAPI Hate

Immigrants

Police Interactions

Protests, Marches, and Demonstrations

Worker

Misinformation & Disinformation (guidelines, fact checks, trainings)

Mental health (access, trainings/events, emergencies, general information)

Public Safety

Legal Support

Rapid Response Programs

Voter Education

Home | American Civil Liberties Union

NAACP | Leading the Fight to End Racial Inequality

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Spread AAPI Love | AAPI Heritage Month 2024

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Black & Asian Perspectives: Shatter the Divide

How Do We Acknowledge the Solidarity and the Divide?

The Office of Equity is excited to host another amazing webinar series as part of our Equity Learning Series. This series will feature speaker Jolene Jang who will create a collaborative environment to discuss Black and Asian Perspectives.

Join us for an impactful session where we kick off with a fireside chat with our Director Megan Matthews and Asian American Ambassador Jolene Jang as they lead a raw and unfiltered discussion on the current challenges facing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). We'll explore the importance of solidarity, understanding, and mutual support between Black and Asian American communities. This meeting aims to model the openness and vulnerability we wish to see in our organization and beyond.

Topics:

Embracing Authenticity and Identity: Discover how your history, culture, and identity shape who you are and why bringing your whole self to the table is essential.

Leading with Vulnerability: Understand the power of vulnerability in leadership and how it fosters acceptance and unity among diverse groups.

Black and Asian Solidarity: Learn from historical examples of Black and Asian solidarity, exploring commonalities and shared struggles to build stronger alliances.

Seats are limited to 500 attendees so register today!

January 15, 2025 – 10am – 12pm: Fireside Chat with Office of Equity Director Megan Matthews and Speaker Jolene Jang

Click to register for January 15, 2025: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sdOytqj0qHdyQ1wvf3cnF0yxAmTkfQSye

Speak Up: Your Voice Matters - A Communication Confidence Coaching Series for Asian Americans (AA-NH-PI)

Following the fireside chat, Jolene will be hosting three AANHPI coaching workshops. We invite you to join our communication confidence coaching series tailored specifically for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders. This program is designed to help you overcome barriers, be heard, and be seen personally and professionally. Sign up elevate your confidence, showcase your value, and realize that people want to hear from you. This series will provide practical strategies, empowering exercises, and supportive community interactions to foster a more confident and outspoken you.

Please plan on attending all coaching sessions. Seats are limited to 50 attendees, so register today!

Click to register for all three sessions: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIpduCvrzovHtDb0ensOrK0OjCyR7ZMWEO1

AANHPI Coaching PT 1- February 12th 10-12pm

AANHPI Coaching PT 2- February 26th 10-12pm

AANHPI Coaching PT 3- March 12th 10-12pm

Let’s start the crucial work of talking, learning, and coming together to create a unified front for equity and inclusion.

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Washington leads on equitable, inclusive hiring

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While some states have eliminated degree requirements and tried to implement skill-based hiring, no state has gone as far to advance…

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Building Personal Power: AAPI Women in Leadership

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According to a recent McKinsey & Company study, Asian American employees are less likely to be promoted to management- and executive-level positions, with advancement gaps most evident for Asian American women. Sue Ann Hong, President and CEO of the Center for Asian Pacific American Women (CAPAW), joins host Tetiana Anderson to discuss efforts to expand leadership opportunities for AAPI women. Hong states that “CAPAW invests in AANHPI women and women of color to build personal power and to fight systemic racism for a more equitable future.”

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Jenn Nguyen (she/her) LICSW

Director of Washington State Employee Assistance Program

Washington State Department of Enterprise Services

*The Washington EAP provides confidential mental health and wellness supports to Washington state public service employees and their families for over 50 years.

HAPPEN is fortunate to have the Director of Washington Employee Assistance Programs share about the confidential mental health and wellness support services that are provided to state public service employees and their families. Jenn will address the importance of self-care during this time of uncertainty and will also share her journey of resilience by the ‘reclaiming of her origin story’ and how the process has built pathways of leadership roles as a: Washington state public servant for 16 years, licensed mental health professional, and Diversity and Equity consultant and trainer with a private practice located in south King County.