APA Heritage Month: Who's It For?

What does it mean and why do so many not know about it?

May 2001 -- Back in the day when I had a real job--oh, say about 1986--I worked for the Seattle District Office of the Veterans Administration. One chilly February Monday, Linda, the African-American woman sitting behind me, made her mid-morning announcement alerting us that it was time for our fifteen-minute break. Among our office coworkers of half a dozen women were a Filipina immigrant, a second-generation Chinese American, the aforementioned African American, and me--a biracial Afro-Asian American. Two Caucasian women rounded out our group.

That morning, Linda added a footnote to her invitation. Since it was Black History Month, she advised us not to miss the displays and performances being presented in the auditorium of the Federal Building where our office was housed.

"Black History Month?" mumbled the white woman with the bleached blonde hair sitting next to me. Curling her upturned nose into a decided snarl, she snorted before intoning in a southern drawl, "When are they going to have a White History Month."

"White History Month," Linda shot back incredulously. "Ya'll have the whole goddamn year!"

Sadly, the white woman didn't get it. And like a lot of the dominant majority, she probably still doesn't.

Personally, I'll never know what it's like to be a part of a majority of anything. With my background, I can't even count myself as a full-time Asian-Pacific American. I happen to look Polynesian. Only when I lived in Honolulu, did I feel completely non-judged by race. Like people everywhere, Hawai'ians were curious about my ethnicity, but race is a popular topic there since nearly everyone on the islands is mixed. I wasn't offended when locals asked about my bloodline the way I was, and still am, by monoracial strangers on the mainland.

Because a large percentage of people in Hawai'i have some Asian ancestry, they don't feel a need to celebrate APA Heritage Month. It's like being Asian and living in Asia.

On the mainland it's a different story: Commemorating APA history is not only necessary to instill racial pride, but to educate others about our contributions to this country. It is imperative in proving we're just as American as anyone else. In recent months, with incidents like the downed spy jet in China and the Wen Ho Lee case, it's been reported that anti-Asian American sentiment is at an all time high. Funny, how events like those that occur in Europe are never associated with European Americans.

"How many non-Asians do you know that understand the difference between Asians and Asian Americans?" asks Greg Tuai, a Vietnamese-American, self-employed computer consultant.

"Not many," he says, answering his own question. "So folks think [APA Heritage Month] is a celebration about Asia rather than the history of Asian Americans in America."

Who's It For?

So who should celebrate APA Heritage Month anyway?

When I ask a young Filipino American driving the Metro bus I'm riding what his company does to honor the month, he doesn't hesitate.

"They never even heard of it," he tells me with a smirk. "Metro doesn't do anything at all."

Amazed, because a significant portion of Metro's riders are people of color, I question the driver about his personal life. Where does he go outside of work to celebrate then?

"Nowhere," he laughs. "Maybe...LA...but [in Seattle] they just celebrate by race group. Chinese, Vietnamese...each have their own festivals."

"The problem is that we're isolated and nationalistic," he sighs. "We Filipinos are closer to Hawai'ians and Guamanians anyway."

I wonder if there's enough focus on awareness of our accomplishments in America.

"What you know about being Asian-American depends on your generation," the driver muses.

Lamenting the lack of "a great thing, a big celebration" that would educate all Americans about Asian-American achievements, he lets me off at my stop.

Exiting, I think back to an earlier conversation with a restaurant owner from the Himalayas. When I mentioned APA month to the chef and sometimes mountain-climbing Sherpa, he told me that as a minority within a minority, he often felt left out.

"People forget that we Tibetans are Asians," he says.

He has a point. Most people tend to classify Chinese, Japanese and Koreans as Asians with a sub-category that includes Southeast Asians like Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians and Thai. Adding Pacific Islanders to the mix seems almost like an afterthought. If what the Philippines-born bus driver said was true then most islanders have little in common with so called East Asians.

In Hawai'i, I met a Maori from New Zealand. Although he considered himself a Pacific Islander, he was 180 degrees apart from the Korean, Laotian and Vietnamese I knew there. Once, at a party, I was introduced to a man from the Solomon Islands. He had the nappiest Afro this side of Harlem. On the main Solomon Island of Malaita, inhabitants have chocolate-colored skin and bright yellow hair.

Of the Polynesian groups, the indigenous Fijians alone teach that their ancestors came in long boats from Africa. Every year in Los Angeles, the Fijian community rents a booth at the African Marketplace and dispenses information to the public about their connection to Africa. Today, Fijians coexist with South Asians or East Indians who've been a part of the island for over 100 years. Both races are categorized as Asian. I have a friend in Seattle who married a Hindu from the Fijis. He never celebrates APA Heritage Month.

But even if we include all the descendants of various Asian and Pacific Islanders together, it seems we still don't have our day or, rather, month.

According to African American high school teacher Paulette Thompson, "most people aren't even aware of [APA Heritage Month]. Not even our students." Garfield High School is one of the most racially diverse schools in Seattle.

"I tell them to check through the TV newspaper listings with a fine tooth comb and set the TV," says Thompson, "because if you blink you'll miss the programming."

So where does the responsibility for recognizing APA Heritage Month belong? It seems that those with the greatest stake in having APA history honored should be the most active.

University of Washington professor Shawn Wong agrees. Following a tour of national college campuses, he discovered that "the events were all being organized by the Asian American students themselves."

Happily, Wong says, student activists are demanding more classes about APA history and culture. "If [Asian- American history] is not taught at their school, they will find it," he says.

Unfortunately, many schools prepare for graduation in May and are forced to relegate APA activities to the month of April.

Like the Metro bus driver, city employee Joanne Lee, a Chinese American, is disappointed that nothing is done about APA month at her workplace.

"Asians need to get involved and plan stuff. Otherwise it's not going to happen," she says, adding that she hasn't seen anything about it around her office.

"Not a single piece of email or nothing even remotely related to it," she grumbles. "They send different emails all the time on Black History Month and other programs, but I haven't heard anything about APA."

"I'd like to see it become a big thing," says Lee, "but I hear they're trying to have it only be an Asian week."

Beth Watanabe, a real estate agent, echoes Lee's sentiments about the need for APAs to become more involved in our own month.

"We need to be telling our own stories," she says. "I blame Asians for that (not happening) because they have resources and they have skills."

Hopefully, when those stories are finally told, people like my bleached blonde friend at the VA will have a better understanding of APA history. And, if those stories are told often enough the day will come when there will no longer be a need for APA Heritage Month. It will have become a part of the mainstream.