APIDA Month! Notes & Resources

Image from NYC Schools

With May in full swing, it is Asian American Pacific Islander Month! I had the opportunity to speak at University of Chicago regarding the APIDA identity, belonging, and what it means to matter in this moment. With the keynote, I shared* a lot of different slides and information, so wanted to provide them here too. ​

But before I continue, I know that there are a lot of different acronyms that get used during this month-- I even used two different ones already! So here are some notes about terminology (and check out this resource to learn more): 

• AAPI = Asian American (and) Pacific Islander. This is the most commonly used term outside of Asian American. The PI is an explicit inclusion given that despite being part of the Asian continent, the Pacific Islands are overlooks or not typically considered when thinking about Asian Americans
• APIDA = Asian, Pacific Island, Desi Americans. This is similar to AAPI but like the ways that the PI is explicit, the D for Desi Americans is to explicitly name South Asians who similarly might be overlooked, as historically (and reinforced by media) Asian Americans are often viewed as light-skin Asians (think Crazy Rich Asians, the book or movie), or East Asians (from Japan, Korea, or China). 

AAPI/APIDA Heritage Month was established by Jimmy Carter in 1978 (read more about its history here, which also includes a TON of links to learn more). The month, like other heritage months emphasize the need to understand and appreciate the history of minoritized groups in the U.S. (and often includes cultural events). 

​As part of my keynote, I offered some statistics and histories regarding APIDAs in the U.S., under a "how did we get here," where here is both tied to the U.S. and also tied to the Midwest and Chicago in particular. So in no specific order, here are some of the resources I referenced. (As a note, some of these are also resources I referenced in my 2021 statement & resources for deeper learning, following the Atlanta shooting, which you can read here).

• One of the best history books about APIDAs in the U.S. is Dr. Erika Lee's The Making of Asian America which helped inform PBS's "Asian Americans" series. I've also appreciated Time's pivotal APIDA moments to know.
• The Pew Research Center has several different reports that they've produced, including Key facts about Asian Americans (like how APIDA population has more than doubled from 2000 to 2023); where APIDA origin groups live in the U.S. (which for some states, was surprising to me!); as well as how APIDAs experience discrimination (ranging from the model minority myth, to being treated as a perpetual foreigner).

Within the larger research or information about APIDAs, the focus tends to be on the coasts (West and East), which make sense to some degree given immigration patterns and representations. And, in wanting to tailor this talk to the geographic space, here's some additional Midwest, Illinois, and Chicago-specific APIDA notes & resources too: 

• Again, Dr. Erika Lee coming out with another piece, specifically about her reflections regarding Asian American Studies in the Midwest
• For a fun fact, Illinois became the first state to require learning about APIDA history in all public schools through passing the TEAACH Act in 2021 (the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History). Learn more about it here. 
• The AAPI History Hub has some really amazing resources regarding the different Asian American ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago and their evolutions. They also include not only articles about how different ethnic enclaves have shifted and their histories too, but also activity ideas like mapping neighborhoods and creating comparative studies. 
• Likewise, the Field Museum has some really great AANHPI Stories and Connections, related to the TEAACH Act to help round out some of this education with, as they note on their site "Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities, cultural organizations, and educators"
• While not quite Chicago, Evanston (a suburb north of) has a really great series about the past 100 years of overlooked history about APIDAs in this area and the Midwest. 

And, as the history of APIDAs in the U.S. is rooted in the interwoven stories of migration, displacement, imperialism, and coloniality--all of which we are also seeing in realtime through ICE, please consider ways to fight against ICE. I have a separate post about this with additional resources (which you can find here), and in Illinois specifically, you can learn more from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights. 

*Author's note about timing: I am technically posting this prior to the keynote (which is May 7th) so that folx can find this page and the resources immediately after the keynote ends, but I'm writing it in past tense because for the majority of folx, the keynote is in the past.