May marks Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, which celebrates the histories of Americans hailing from across the Asian continent and from the Pacific islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. This year's theme, selected by the Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC), is "Advancing Leaders Through Innovation," which builds on the Advancing Leaders series that began in 2021 and will run through 2024. Last year's theme was Advancing Leaders through Opportunity The FAPAC encourages local and national governments to prioritize collaboration, development, diversity, transparency and inclusion through leadership training of AAPI people.
For more history and events celebrating this month, members of our staff have curated a few websites and resources below. For those of you who are avid readers or listeners, our friends and colleagues have provided some great book, movie and other recommendations reflective of AAPI culture and heritage to add to your reading and watch lists!
Voices for Healthy Kids is proud to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage month!
Book Recommendations:
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
Severance by Ling Ma
Disability Visibility by Alice Wong
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood
How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents by Jimmy O. Yang
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
Documentaries, Movies and Others:
Always Be My Maybe (on Netflix)
Love Hard (on Netflix)
Minari (on Netflix)
Tigertail (on Netflix)
The Farewell (on Hulu)
Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King (on Netflix)
Bao (a short film on Disney+)
Asian Americans (on PBS)
Kim’s Convenience (TV show on Netflix)
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (on Amazon Prime Video)
Nai Nai & Wài Pó (on YouTube)
More information on AAPI Heritage and the commemoration month: