Asian American & Pasifika Heritage Month
By Dr. Jerald L. Adamos (jladamos@stanford.edu)
Dear Campus Partners,
We want to look ahead at the amazing events planned for the Asian American and Pasifika communities this spring. The Asian American Activities Center (A3C), Native American Cultural Center (NACC), Asian American Studies (AAS), Okada House, Pacific Islander Student Association (PISA), and Asian American Student Association (AASA), recently came together to discuss contemporary issues in the Asian American and Pasifika community on campus, nationally, and trans-nationally. With all of this in mind, we would like to announce the theme for the 2024 Asian American & Pasifika Heritage Month:
Unsettling Asian America: Amplifying Voices for Global Liberation
This year’s Asian American & Pasifika Heritage Month theme centers solidarity with ongoing movements for global liberation, inspiring us to both interrogate the limitations of “Asian America” and explore its possibilities for deepening intersectional solidarities. We intentionally adopt the term ‘Pasifika’ to recognize and honor the unique histories, culture, and political movements of Indigenous Island communities that are often silenced through aggregate terms like ‘Asian American’ or ‘Asian & Pacific Islander.’ “Asian American” has always been a strategic term–as such, we call careful attention to the harm of these monolithic labels, while also recognizing the collective power in banding together, not to reduce or equate, but to address the interconnected systems of Western imperialism, racial capitalism, and empire that enact violence on our communities.
Asian America is intertwined with Indigenous, Black, Latine, and Arab movements for liberation, and we have a responsibility to complicate and challenge narratives to build coalitions—including with Palestine and the Pacific, to co-create a new vision of freedom that unites us beyond the global systems of oppression that link our histories. Freedom, as Angela Davis has taught us, is a constant struggle. We are not free until we are all free.
Historical Context
Following a Congressional Resolution in 1978, Asian American Heritage Week was celebrated during the first 10 days of May. This timing was chosen because two important anniversaries fall during this period: the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants in the United States on May 7, 1843, and the completion of the transcontinental railroad by many Chinese laborers on May 10, 1869. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush and Congress voted to expand the celebration, and since 1992, the month of May has been designated as AAPI Heritage Month. In 2021, President Joe Biden expanded the official proclamation for the month to Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) month.
At Stanford, we are adopting the term ‘Pasifika’ and renaming the month to Asian American & Pasifika Heritage Month to recognize and honor the unique histories, culture, and political movements of Indigenous Island communities that are often silenced through aggregate terms like ‘Asian American’ or ‘Asian & Pacific Islander.’