Hello AACP Newsletter Readers.

We have some sad news to report – Florence and Mas Hongo passed away earlier this month of March, 2023. Mas passed away on March 1st and Florence a week later. Mas would have turned 103-years-old in just a few days and Florence was 94.

For those of you that are new to getting the AACP newsletter and unfamiliar with Florence and Mas Hongo, Florence was one of the founders of AACP and was the long time head of the organization. Mas was her husband and also a key member of AACP that worked tirelessly alongside of her and all of us for many years.

We chose not to do an in-depth biography for the two of them for this edition of the newsletter. I’m guessing that you may see some articles in the media on Florence and Mas in the coming days and months.

If you wish to read more about Florence and Mas, check out our series of Mas interviews we’ve transcribed for our newsletter last year and Florence’s own article about her experience of founding AACP. Here are some links to those AACP newsletter articles and a video we created of Mas in 2014.

The Beginning of Asian American Curriculum Project

Articles for the Mas interview series –

Feb 2022 – in Sacramento and the Arboga Assembly Center

April 2022 – farming, growing and selling flowers

June 2022 – growing and selling flowers continued, and the destruction of the farm from a volcano

July 2022 – Mas’ experience as Manager of the California Flower Market in San Francisco

August 2022 – Mas’ experience as a US Army soldier in post World War II Japan

Short video of Mas’ day in the town of Locke, California, in 2014

New Material on Florence and Mas

We do have some new material in this newsletter for the two of them, including an article of some of our memories of Florence and Mas along with some condolences from authors, people in the community, and friends. Check it out.

For our second article we have the last interview we did with Mas, recorded in October, 2022.

If you have some words of remembrance and condolence, we’ll include them in our next newsletter. Some of our other newsletter contributors are hoping to have their words included next month too.

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For our featured books this month, we have some books for Ramadan, half a dozen graphic novels, a new Stillwater the Zen panda children’s book, and some other great books.

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If you’re in the Oakland Area on April 27 and 28, please drop by the Oakland Marriot to check us out at the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education Conference.

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For those of you that signed up for our newsletter at the California Council for the Social Studies Conference, apologies for not having our conference book selection list on our bookshop.org page yet. I hope to have that done in the coming weeks.

To all of our new subscribers, please stick with us as we continue with our more normal featured articles in the coming month.

The AACP board and staff will continue to carry on Florence and the other founders’ mission.

Thank you to all the contributors to this newsletter, and especially to Florence and Mas who we will miss for the rest of our lives.