heritage & inheritance

May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month – a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Let us hope it does not activate or aggravate more Asian hate crimes as it did in March - which ironically was Women's History Month. 

advocating against Asian bigotry & discrimination

“What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.”

―THE TEMPLE OF THE GOLDEN PAVILION

(金閣寺, Kinkaku-ji) 1956 by Yukio Mishima

A rather broad term, Asian/Pacific encompasses all of the Asian continent and the Pacific islands.  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). 

Many of these islands sacrificed and suffered major losses during both world wars, when occupied by US forces and troops. Most lost their pristine paradise and have yet to recover from the experience. 

crazy & true

The first Asians documented in the Americas arrived in 1587 when Filipinos landed in California. The Philippines was an American possession from 1898 to 1946. The next group of Asians documented as early as 1635 in what would be the United States were Indians in Jamestown. In 1778, the first Chinese arrived in Hawaii, reaching what would eventually be the United States. 

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

numbers don't lie

Our guess? Massive guilt by way of showy celebration rather than true reparation. There you have it, yet another white washed American history for us folks. 

When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.