Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month celebrates the cultures, achievements and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (“AAPI”) are an extremely broad group of more than 23 million U.S. citizens who trace their roots to more than 20 countries, in four general regions:
• East Asia (China (including Macau and Hong Kong), Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Mongolia);
• Southeast Asia (Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Philippines, and Vietnam);
• South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka); and
• The Pacific islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, including Hawaii, Guam and Samoa.
The term “Asian American” is “fundamentally political”; it was coined in the 1960s not to identify people of similar tradition or heritage but to unite a broad coalition against anti-Asian immigration restrictions.
CULTURAL CONTRIBUTIONS
Here are three significant areas of AAPI contributions to American culture:
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Some of the most iconic buildings in the U.S. were designed by Asian Americans. Chinese American Ieoh Ming (I.M.) Pei, known as one of the greatest architects ever, designed the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum and other well-known buildings (including the pyramid at the Louvre in Paris).
Other notable architects include Japanese American Minoru Yamasaki, who designed the World Trade Center, and Helen Liu Fong, who helped create the cityscape of L.A. through “Googie” architecture—a type of futurist architecture reminiscent of the “Jetsons” cartoon and influenced by car culture, jets, the Atomic Age and the Space Age.
This communication was co-authored by Leah Schleicher, Eric Choi, Kyle Rettberg and Marlon Lutfiyya. If you have any questions, please contact a member of the firm’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee.
Helen Liu Fong
Asian Americans have played a signficant role in the development of technology for online services. Indian American Sabeer Bhatia co-founded Hotmail.com, the first free web-based email service, and a precursor to Microsoft Outlook. Taiwanese American Jerry Yang co-founded the web portal Yahoo!, which has expanded to include a search engine, email and news.
Taiwanese American Steven Chen and Jawed Karim, of Bangladeshi descent, co-founded YouTube along with Chad Hurley. Karim is the first person to have uploaded a video to the site.
The New York fashion industry in the 80s and 90s featured Asian American designers such as Chinese Americans Anna Sui and Vera Wang. Contemporary designers such as Nepalese American Prabal Gurung, Indian American Bibhu Mohapatra and Korean American Carol Lim have created designs that shaped the fashion industry, inspired trends and counteracted the idea that Asian American expression is monolithic.
COLLEAGUE CORNER
We asked some of our NGE colleagues to identify their cultural background or heritage, and a favorite family tradition. Here’s what they said:
I was born in Lanzhou, a city in rural China. My dad’s side is royal Mongolian and my mom’s side is Hakka Chinese. I consider myself a “third culture kid” because I grew up in the Middle East and did not become a U.S. citizen until my junior year of undergrad!
I love spending Chinese New Year with my family because it is basically Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s combined in one holiday! We exchange red envelopes [filled with money], eat long-life noodles [which represent the wish for a long life], and do lots of cleaning to start off the year fresh!
I was born in a seaside city called Kochi in the southern state of Kerala in India. I moved to the US during junior high. My mom is from the northern part of Kerala and my dad is from the central part of the state. We speak a language called Malayalam.
My favorite holiday is called Onam. It is a harvest festival that is celebrated according to the Malayalam Calendar sometime between August to September. It symbolizes happiness and excitement among the people of Kerala. There are 10 days in this major festival, and it is one of my favorite memories of growing up in India. Onam celebrations conclude during the 10th day (Onam day) where we make a floral carpet design (Pookalam), have a big feast (Onasadya) celebrating the conclusion of the festival. I look forward to celebrating it here each year with my family.
WEB SERVICES
FASHION
Nancy Zhao Associate
Prabal Gurung
Sabeer Bhatia
Laura Mathew Business Intell & Data Analyst
Charlie Shih Associate
I am Taiwanese American. My mother’s family has lived in Taiwan for generations. On my father’s side, my grandfather fled mainland China for Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War that concluded after World War II.
One of my favorite family traditions is the Chinese Red Envelope tradition. Chinese New Year was the most important holiday my family celebrated, and my grandparents would often visit us from Taiwan during the holiday. As a kid, I looked forward to receiving the red envelopes from my family. I now enjoy giving red envelopes to younger members of my family, something I had an opportunity to do during a recent visit to Taiwan for my grandmother’s funeral.
I also enjoy the tradition of dragon boat racing. As a kid, I would watch the dragon boat races with my family. In 2017, I joined a dragon boat racing team in Chicago. Through that, I’ve participated in dragon boat races not only in the Chicago area, but throughout the country, including in Puerto Rico. Last year, I helped to found the Chicago Typhoon dragon boat racing team. We will be competing in the Dragon Boat Race for Literacy in Chicago’s Chinatown on June 24, 2023, and the Chicago International Dragon Boat Festival in Busse Woods in the northwest suburbs on July 29, 2023.
(You can read more about the Chinese Red Envelope tradition referenced by Nancy and Charlie here. You can also read two differing accounts of the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival here and here.)
PACIFIC ISLANDERS: DID YOU KNOW … ?
Pacific Islanders do not form one distinctive ethnic group. They come from various ethnicities across Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia, which are subregions of the Pacific Islands region. Native Hawaiians are the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
In the 2000 U.S. Census, Pacific Islanders had the highest proportion of people reporting more than one race. Ethnic identification may be situational: a Samoan (someone with ancestry in Samoa, a Polynesian island country) living in Hawaii may have Tongan, Maori and European ancestors and yet ultimately be identified as Hawaiian when on the U.S. mainland.
There are more than 30 Polynesian languages. The most common languages, measured by number of speakers, are Tahitian, Samoan, Tongan, Maori and Hawaiian. Vowel sounds vary across the languages. For example, the following table contains words that show how the vowels in three different languages are pronounced:
For centuries, Polynesians had no system of writing. History and traditions were relayed through songs, dance, poems and stories. Symbolic meanings embodied in carvings, knots and weaving were widely understood.
Vowel a e i o u Fijian “father” “get” “police” “most” “zoo” Tongan “can” “bet” “in” “not” “put” Tahitian “cut” “say” “police” “old” “flute”
Today, most Polynesians are Christian—Catholics and Protestants, primarily. Polynesian religion changed drastically after the arrival of European missionaries in the early nineteenth century. Prior to the missionaries’ arrival, considerable variation in religious ideas and practices existed. In Hawaii, chiefs were related to gods genealogically and were believed to possess mana, or sacred power.
TRAILBLAZERS IN SPORTS
While many are familiar with Asian Americans and Pacific Islander athletes in the sports world, other notable figures have broken barriers in the business world of sports.
Kim Ng, a graduate of the University of Chicago, became the first woman to become a general manager of a men’s team in the history of major North American sports. She was also the first female Asian American and first East Asian American general manager in MLB history, hired as the general manager of the Miami Marlins in 2020. In baseball’s Trailblazer Series, a program designed to provide playing, development and educational opportunities to girls who play baseball, Ng said “Don’t let people tell you what you can’t do . . . There’s going to be a lot of people out there who just want to judge you, and you cannot let them get into your heads.”
Erik Spoelstra, a Filipino American born in Evanston, Illinois, is head coach of the NBA’s Miami Heat. He has coached the team to two NBA championships. Spoelstra is the first Asian-American head coach in the history of the four major North American sports leagues and the first Asian-American head coach to win an NBA title. Spoelstra has said about the start of his coaching career: “I was kind of like the concierge-slashvideo coordinator my first year. I just figured I wanted them coming to me with as many different things as possible to lean on, whether it was basketball-related or not. I wanted to be the guy who they’d pick up the phone and say, ‘He’ll get it done.’”
Stephen Nelson is the first and only Asian American play-by-play announcer working for an MLB team, hired by the Los Angeles Dodgers broadcast team for the 2023 regular season. Nelson is half-Japanese through his mother, Flo Kuraoka, and attended a Japanese school in his early years. About his heritage, Nelson stated “I’m always thinking of that and wanting to carry the flag for Japanese Americans and AAPI people and minority broadcasters as a whole to let younger generations know, hey, there’s a spot for you here.”
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
In celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, PBS has curated a number of documentaries that shed light on AAPI experiences, contributions and culture. You can access them here.
National Cambodian Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial is holding a free performance on May 27, 2023 in Rogers Park to showcase the tradition and history of ancient Cambodian music.
The Chinese American Museum of Chicago has a rotating schedule of exhibits and events. Currently, its exhibit Chinese Cuisine in America: Stories, Struggles and Successes chronicles the struggles, resiliency, and entrepreneurial spirit of Chinese Americans, tying immigration history to the popularization of Chinese cuisine.
