Hello AACP Newsletter Subscribers.

How was your AAPI Heritage Month? Did you get to watch or listen to any interesting AAPI programming on your local PBS channel, NPR radio station, or anywhere else? Did you get to read that AAPI related book you’ve been dying to read? Did you go to or participate in any AAPI Heritage Month related celebrations or events?

We have one last AAPI Heritage Month related thing for you to read this month - our newsletter.

At the CCSS conference, someone who worked at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, asked me for information on AAPIs in early American history. I hope the email I sent you and this newsletter fulfills what you were looking for.

Our first article is a short interview with author Jean Barman and a review of her fascinating book “Leaving Paradise: Indigenous Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, 1787-1898.” This is a must read for anyone interested in AAPI history.

Our second article is an abridged article written by one of our editors, Philip Chin, for the Chinese American Heroes website (not currently available) back in 2015. This article is more evidence that AAPIs have been a part of American History from the beginning.

Last month, we featured many books that highlighted the achievements of individual Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. With this month’s articles we were hoping to cover some AAPIs as a group or to cover lesser known AAPIs. There aren’t that many stories about the contributions of everyday AAPIs to American history. Although their stories may have been lost to history, their contributions to America may have been just as significant or more than the individuals that may have been featured in other programming.

The creators of AAPI Heritage Month wanted to show that we were and are a part of America and not the forever foreigners. That’s why my pet peeve regarding AAPI Heritage Month programming has been for a long time the emphasis on Asian culture or shows on things in or about Asia.

Don’t get me wrong, I think learning about Asian and Pacific Islander culture and history is important and fine, but AAPI Heritage Month is the time for us to learn about our place in America and American history. If you forget the point of this message, just remember that the month’s name used to be Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, with an emphasis on “American.” If you forget, I’ll probably remind you again next year when we send out our AAPI heritage month newsletter :).

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On to other things I’d like to highlight about this month’s newsletter -

For our featured books we have some books for LGBTQ Pride Month (June). Someone at last month’s APAHE Conference asked me if I had any recommendations for AAPI related LGBTQ books. Sorry, I didn’t have a ready answer for you then - hope you like our LGBTQ selection. For the rest of you, were you aware that LGBTQ books are some the most banned books in America? LGBTQs are a part of America too and banning these books is hopefully not going to curtail their hard earned freedoms.

For our other books, there are a number of outstanding children’s books including Joanna Ho’s latest call “One Day.” Board member Angela Zhao particularly liked “Love Makes a Garden Grow.”

One of the children’s books (that I should have featured last month, because it’s on an individual) is about famed AAPI rock climber Ashima Shiraishi called “How to Solve a Problem.”

We’ve also included a few books on festivals. Thank you author Elaine Russell for sending us a copy of your book “Thai Celebration.”

There’s also a book called “Our Double Fifth Celebration” which covers three different festivals – the Dragon Boat Festival, Children’s Day (as celebrated in Japan), and Dano (a Korean celebration).

The Dragon Boat Festival and Dano are coming up on June 22. So don’t forget to eat a zongzi, or hop on a seesaw or swing.

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If you haven’t heard already, the memorial service for Florence and Mas Hongo, two of the most important people to AACP, is at the Sneider & Sullivan & O’Connell’s Funeral Home, on June 24, 11am. Come and share your memories and hear others as we commiserate and celebrate their lives.

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Hey, we just got invited to two events that we use to regularly go to before the pandemic.

The Asian American Alliance of Marin is holding their AAPI Heritage Celebration at a new venue – the Multicultural Center of Marin (709 Fifth Ave., San Rafael, CA).

We’ll also be participating at the San Mateo Buddhist Temple’s Bazaar. Note that we’ll be starting the book sales on Saturday a little late because we’ll be at the Florence and Mas Hongo memorial service.

Please come to these events. We hope to see you all there.

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That’s about it for this month.

Thank you very much Jean Barman for answer some of our questions.

Thank you Philip for your article and help with this month’s newsletter. Thanks Susan for the edits.