History of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month has been observed as a month-long celebration since 1992. Following American bicentennial celebrations in 1976, former congressional staffer Jeanie Jew started lobbying members of Congress to formally recognize the contributions of Asian and Pacific Islanders peoples to America. Jeanie Jew herself was the great-granddaughter of a Chinese immigrant that helped build the transcontinental railroad and wanted a period of reflection and celebration for her ancestors and the ancestors of many others. In 1978, President Carter designated the first 10 days of May as “Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week.” May was chosen to commemorate two crucial dates in AAPI history: it commemorates the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants to America on May 7, 1843, and the May 10, 1869 completion of the transcontinental railroad largely built by Chinese laborers. Varied efforts to extend “Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week” to a month continued until 1992 when Congress passed a law designating May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.
Photograph of Third World Liberation Front protest at University of California, Berkeley. Among other demands, student protestors called for including the histories of people of color in the college curriculum. These protests resulted in the creation of the first Asian American Studies programs at both UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Image credit; "Third World Liberation Front (TWLF)," Cornell University's Asian American Media blog. https://blogs.cornell.edu/asianammedia/2018/12/07/third-world-liberation-front-twlf/