Asian Americans are the fastest-growing demographic group in the U.S., and the question of belonging and identity is more critical than ever among the AAPI community. Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in Asian representation in mainstream media, and Asian Americans have also flourished as poets, writers, directors, fashion designers, architects, visual artists and more. The creative offerings of Asian Americans aren’t just accepted, but celebrated.

In Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM), we aim to highlight the history, heritage, and contributions of the community, with the stories from API artists and activists. Keep clicking to read about some of the inspiring leaders in the API community, and how they’ve helped define what it means to be Asian American.

The artist behind the hub's colorful illustrations this year is Loe Lee, an award-winning illustrator, designer, and muralist from New York City who combines whimsical themes with everyday scenes. Having spent her childhood in Chinatown, she continues to partner with local community groups to bring art and aid to the neighborhood.

"I wanted to celebrate the diversity of API cultures that exist in America without grouping them beneath one moniker. As a result, I illustrated different API communities and elements coming together for each scene. This appears most notably in the header image, where I created a unique creature comprised of numerous symbols found in Asian and Pacific Islander art."

"These elements include the hibiscus, mountain ridges and cherry blossoms, sampaguitas and water buffalo horns, elephant tusks and lotuses, and so much more. Ultimately, I wanted to showcase our communities coming together, while at the same time featuring the unique characteristics of the cultures that live here."

Learn about the Abstract Expressionist artist, Bernice Bing, who is finally getting her due. Bing was a leading figure in the San Francisco arts and queer communities, and was deeply influenced by Zen Buddhism and Chinese calligraphy.

Explore Kelly Akashi: Formations at the San José Museum of Art. The LA-born artist is known for her materially hybrid works, combining mediums like photo, glassblowing, bronze casting, and stone carving, creating work that explores her family's internmentment experience.

Find inspiration in reading shortlist curated by the Asia Art Archive in America. Read think pieces, conversations, prose, and poetry work that highlight decades of Asian American and Asian Diasporic movement work, and celebrate API women of today, yesterday and the future.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month is celebrated annually in May in the United States to highlight the history, heritage, and contributions of Asian Pacific American communities. Home to 48 countries, Asia is the largest and most populous continent. 

Over 20 million people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent live in the United States totaling about 6 percent of the U.S. population, representing a wealth and diversity of cultures and experiences within the United States. 

Read on to discover what Asian Pacific American Heritage Month means to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen. 

GA&C: What does it mean to you to be an Asian American? How would you define the term “Asian American”?

Viet: So to claim being an Asian American gestures at this history of exclusion and of being racially targeted at different times in American history. It’s a way for Asian Americans to turn a negative stigma into something positive - something they can organize themselves around, as the politics or as a culture. 

Viet: Now that being said, I think identities can sometimes trap us, not just racial minorities, but for other kinds of people as well. And that it’s important to have multiple identities because most of us do experience ourselves as different people in different kinds of circumstances. 

Viet: So I’m happy to be called an Asian American, but sometimes I’m a Vietnamese American. Sometimes, I’m an American. An Asian American identity is necessary, but it's not our only option. 

GA&C: The identity “Asian Pacific American”  is inclusive of so many different cultures, celebrated together every May. Could you share your thoughts on - individual identities and collective identities?

Viet: I think that Asian Americans will forever be wavering between a unity of identity, calling ourselves Asian American, and an incoherence of identity, acknowledging that Asian Americans encompass literally dozens of ethnicities and languages, for example. 

Viet: That’s the wonderful thing about the United States, that all these people can be considered American, to rather than simply try to eliminate all those differences and sand over all the rough edges, we should be embracing that. Asian Americans, then, because of their drive, both, to call themselves one thing , but their embrace of all of their differences, is our, in fact, embodiment of what American culture is supposed to be about.  

GA&C: Google Arts & Culture has worked with Center of Asian American Media to bring their collection on the platform for APAHM 2020 - you are featured in their exhibition “Asian American Storytellers” and quoted “I was born in Vietnam but made in America."  Could you elaborate on this? 

Viet: I’ve said that I was born In Vietnam but made in America because I think it’s a good description both of myself but also of many other immigrants and refugees who’ve come to this country - born elsewhere, but made here. Made here by American culture, by American politics, by American history. 

Viet: They have made themselves into Asian Americans, a term and a population that didn’t exist before Asian Americans came up with it on their own. 

Viet: The making part is so crucial, because it allows us to think about how we don’t have to settle for what we’ve been given or who we are at any given stage either as individuals or as part of communities. 

Viet: We make new communities, and we can make this country into both a better place and a country that lives up to its ideal.