Asian Pacific American Heritage: Home

May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month: a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. A rather broad term, Asian/Pacific encompasses all of the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island)."

Like most commemorative months, Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month originated with Congress as ‘Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week' in May 1979. In 1992, Congress passed Public Law 102-450 which annually designated May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.

Video Source: "Celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2020." YouTube, uploaded by KaplanTestPrep, 2 May 2020.  

Text Source: Library of Congress. "About Asian/Pacific Heritage Month." Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

According to 2022 Office of Financial Management population estimates, Washington State has

• More than 800,000 people of Asian heritage
• Asians as the largest minority racial group (10.3% of the state population)
• Almost 75,000 Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders

In the 2020 U.S. Census,

• 19.9 million people identified as Asian alone
• 4.1 million people identified as Asian in combination with another race
• Approximately 690,000 people identified as Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (NHPI) alone
• Almost 900,000 identified as NHPI in combination with another race