May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month– a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. This month includes community festivals, educational activities for students, and events to engage in paying tribute to the contributions generations of Asian and Pacific Islanders have made to American history, society, and culture.
According to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, there are upwards of 324,000 LGBT Asian and Pacific Islander adults in the United States. In the past, GLAAD has highlighted LGBT moments including Asian Pacific Islander families and individuals. In 2014, a series of PSAs aired featuring Asian American parents' messages of unconditional love and acceptance for their LGBT children. The ads were filmed in English, Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Hindi, Tagalog, and Laotian. The Asian Pride Project was another media platform that focused on acceptance among LGBT Asian-Americans. And in 2012, California Democrat Mark Takano made history by becoming the first openly gay person of color to be elected to Congress.
As a resource guide for the media, GLAAD also offers an Asian Pacific Islander Resource Kit to ensure more fair, accurate, and balanced reports. With this resource kit, GLAAD encourages journalists to cover API LGBT people's lives, families, accomplishments and issues in their own right, and include their perspectives in other relevant coverage. The Communities of Asian Pacific Islander Media Kit provides guidelines for coverage, terminology and contact information for API LGBT organizations for more inclusive, fair and balanced coverage of the API LGBT community.
For the month of May, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center is looking to get #APAEverywhere. Their initiative involves getting as many people involved in and aware of the importance of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month as possible. Their hashtag #APAEverywhere is to remind everyone that Asian Pacific Americans are the faces of American history – they contributed to advances in American life and fought to preserve our most cherished American values, affirming what it means to be an American citizen in the courtrooms and on the streets, on the battlefield, and in public office. Asian Pacific America is in cities and small towns, part of the nation’s highest recognitions and accolades across the arts and sciences, in athletics, cuisine, commerce, and service, and are the faces of those in search of advocacy, care, and dignity. APA is everywhere, and should be celebrated.
To get involved, you can share on social media where you have find examples of #APAEverywhere in your community during the month of May. Be sure to tag it with the hashtag #APAEverywhere.
Also, for more information about Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month and where you can attend events during May, visit asianpacificheritage.gov.