Tag: Asian Studies

Celebrating Diversity: Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May 2023)

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. We selected featured resources to celebrate the diverse and vibrant traditions and cultures of Asian American and Pacific Islanders in honor of their achievements and contributions to society.

The AAPI Heritage Month 2023 guide provides open and licensed QCL resources highlighting the AAPI people’s experiences and voices. You can find more information of interest in the Asian Studies guide. Below are a few featured resources, including facts, books, digital archives, and streaming media.

Facts about AAPI Heritage Month and Population

Image credit: We Are Here, illustration by Illi Ferandez. https://smithsonianapa.org/we-are-here/

AAPI Heritage Month coincides with “two key milestones: the arrival of the nation’s first Japanese immigrants (May 7, 1843) and Chinese workers’ pivotal role in building the transcontinental railroad (completed May 10, 1869)” (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023).

In the United States, the estimated population of Asians alone or combined in 2021 was 24 million, and the estimated population of Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders was 1.7 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023).

The visualized total population of Asian Alone (left) and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Alone (right) by State. Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau; 2017-2021 American Community Survey, 5-Year Estimates. Social Explorer prepared the visualization. 

Featured Books

Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now

Boston: Mariner Books, 2022

“RISE is a love letter to and for Asian Americans – a vivid scrapbook of voices, emotions, and memories from an era in which our culture was forged and transformed, and a way to preserve both the headlines and the intimate conversations that have shaped our community into who we are today.”

Our Missing Hearts

New York: Penguin Press, 2022

“From the number one bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere,” Our Missing Hearts is “a deeply suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear.”

You Bring the Distant Near

New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2017

“Five girls. Three generations. One great American love story. You Bring the Distant Near explores sisterhood, first loves, friendship, and the inheritance of culture – for better or worse.”

Tastes Like War : a Memoir

New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2021

“Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, TASTES LIKE WAR is a hybrid text about a daughter’s search through intimate and global history to understand herself and the cultural roots of her mother’s condition.”

Like Water

New York: New York University Press, 2022

“Bruce Lee embodies the intermixture of cultures that results from transnational flows of people, ideas, and capital.” This book highlights “Bruce Lee’s influence beyond martial arts and film” as an “Asian and Asian American icon of unimaginable stature and influence.”

Visit us to find more featured books in “Cultural Awareness Month Displays” at Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library, 3rd floor Commons.

Digital Archives and Websites

Asian American Arts Spotlight: “American artists of Asian heritage bring a combined legacy to their work, and varieties of Asian thought and spiritual practice have had a profound and lasting influence on a remarkable number of Western artists. Influence has been a two-way street between contemporary American art practice and Asian cultures, past and present.”

Tagging and Transcription for Chinese Heritage Records: “The records are a major resource for the study of Chinese immigration and Chinese American travel, trade, and social history from the late-19th to the mid-20th century. Because many documents relate to individual immigrants, they are invaluable for the study of Chinese and Chinese American family history.”

National Park Service Celebrates Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month: “Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have a rich heritage thousands of years old and have both shaped the history of the United States and had their lives dramatically influenced by moments in its history. Every May during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and throughout the year, the National Park Service and its partners share those histories and the continuing culture thriving in parks and communities today.”

Streaming Media and Broadcasting

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Collection: “The AAPI Collection features more than 230 public radio and television programs in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting from 1965 to 2019 that highlight Asian American and Pacific Islander cultures in the United States. The collection includes interviews with Asian American artists and writers.”

The Center for Asian American Media: “The Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) Collection contains 63 films that speak to the Asian experience through the lens of history.” The collection contains “a diverse array of subjects from a variety of geographic locations” and “biographies that show a glimpse into the life of young Asian Americans who struggle with identity, adversity, and overcoming complex obstacles in order to achieve their goals, and even the smallest wins in life.”

Queens College Library video collections on AAPI: Using QCL online catalog OneSearch and streaming video databases to find more video collections of interest.

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Celebrating Diversity: Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. The QC Library celebrates AAPI Heritage Month with featured resources in honor of Asian American history, culture, and contributions to social diversity. 

The AAPI Heritage Month guide features open and licensed resources, including current facts, print books, and electronic resources (eBooks, streaming media, digital archives, etc.). Below are a few of the featured resources. More information of interest may be found in the Asian Studies guide. 

AAPI Population by State 

“Per a 1997 U.S. Office of Management and Budget directive, the Asian or Pacific Islander racial category was separated into two categories: one being Asian and the other Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander.” (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022). In 2020, the estimated number of Asian alone or in combination in the United States was 24 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022). 

Asian Population Visualization
The visualized total population of Asian Alone (left) and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Alone (right) by State. Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau; 2016-2020 American Community Survey, 5-Year Estimates. The visualization was prepared with Social Explorer. 

Featured Books

Minor Feelings Book Cover

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
New York, New York: One World, 2020

“Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative–and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality will change the way you think about our world.”

Amina's Song Book Cover

Amina’s Song by Hena Khan
New York: Salaam Reads, 2021

Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Children’s Literature. “In the companion novel to the beloved and award-winning Amina’s Voice, Amina once again uses her voice to bridge the places, people, and communities she loves across continents.”

Permutations of a Self Book Cover

Permutations of a Self by Thomas V. Nguyen
College Station: Texas Review Press, 2020

“Much of the poetry comes from Nguyen’s imperfect memory of himself and others as it changes over time.” “The poetry in this manuscript is about accepting that and reconciling what it means to be part of his family.”

Asians and Pacific Islanders in American Football Book Cover

Asians and Pacific Islanders in American Football by Joel S. Franks
Lanham, Maryland: Lexington, 2018.

“This book sheds light on experiences relatively underrepresented in academic and non-academic sports history. It examines how Asian and Pacific Islander peoples used American football to maintain a sense of community while encountering racial exclusion, labor exploitation, and colonialism.”

Digital Archives

  • PBS.org: “Celebrate the month with a collection of PBS video stories that explore the history, traditions, and culture of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States.”
  • DiversityInc.com: “A new study reports that 8 in 10 Asian Americans believe they are regularly discriminated against in the United States.”
  • Stop AAPI Hate.org: Launched in March 2020, the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center “tracks and responds to hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.”

Streaming Media

  • Hmong musicians in America: “This 58-minute video tells the story of two senior musicians from Laos who play instruments and sing for various American audiences, adapting their presentations for Hmong and non-Hmong listeners of all ages.”
  • Language of a Nation: How Hawaii Became Part of the U.S., Parts 1-4: “Native Hawaiian filmmaker Conrad Lihilihi presents a four-part historical Docu-series examining the 1896 Hawaiian Language Ban from public education. This series approaches the subject by culminating in a rich and diverse panel of academics in language, history, and politics.”
  • Chinese American History: Origins of an Organic Farmer: “Hiu Newcomb, a third-generation Chinese American, is the co-owner and operator of Potomac Vegetable Farms in Vienna, Virginia. In this interview, she discusses her family’s origins in the United States and her start as an organic farmer in Virginia.”
  • FORKLIFE: Children of Sticky Rice: “FORKLIFE traces the journeys of immigrant food traditions taking root in the United States, narrated by the D.C. chefs and cooks who carried them here.”

Celebrating Diversity: Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

To celebrate Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month in May 2021, the Library is showcasing a research guide on Asian/Pacific American studies curated by our Asian Studies librarian Prof. Joan Xu, which features ebooks and other e-resources!

Some History & Background

In 1978, Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month was first declared to commemorate two important milestones in Asian/Pacific American history: the arrival in the United States of the first Japanese immigrants (May 7, 1843) and contributions of Chinese workers to the building of the transcontinental railroad, completed May 10, 1869.

Asian Americans is a term for immigrants who came from the continent of Asia, and for the modern Americans who are descended from them. Asian immigrants are diverse in their ethnicity, religion, and politics, but they share the experience of leaving their homes to come to the U. S. to make a new life, enriching it by bringing their varied cultures with them. Asian alone-or-in-combination residents in the United States are the fastest-growing race group from 2000 to 2019. The estimated number of Asian Americans in 2019 was almost 23 million (US Census Bureau and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month).

Resource Highlights!

Here are some highlights from our research guide for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month – digital archives, streaming videos, and ebooks!

Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience by Angelo N. Ancheta – New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 2006

Angelo N. Ancheta demonstrates how United States civil rights laws have been framed by a black-white model of race that typically ignores the experiences of other groups, including Asian Americans.

A Thousand Miles of Dreams by Sasha Su-Ling Welland – Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007

A Thousand Miles of Dreams is an evocative and intimate biography of two Chinese sisters who took very different paths in their quest to be independent women.

Waterman by David Davis – Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2015

Waterman is the first comprehensive biography of Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968): swimmer, surfer, Olympic gold medalist, Hawaiian icon, waterman. Long before Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz made their splashes in the pool, Kahanamoku emerged from the backwaters of Waikiki to become America’s first superstar Olympic swimmer.

Asian America book cover

Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 by Roger Daniels – Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011.

“In this important and masterful synthesis of the Chinese and Japanese experience in America, historian Roger Daniels provides a new perspective on the significance of Asian immigration to the United States.”