AAPI Heritage Month
By: Dr. Anne E. Mahady
This year, to mark the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, we are celebrating the contributions of Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islanders throughout Indiana’s history up to the present moment. From the roots of Asian American Studies in the student activist movements of the 1980s to the path-breaking work of AAPI women in Indiana politics. Though a single acronym, the term AAPI encompasses various identities, ethnicities, perspectives, and people, all of whom trace their roots to Central, Southeast, East, and West Asia, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands. Therefore, this acronym represents many flourishing and multifaceted diasporas whose members have called Indiana home.
In 1978, Jimmy Carter signed House Joint Resolution 1007, declaring the first 10 days of May Asian Pacific American Week. Then in 1992, Congress passed Public Law 102-450, officially dedicating the month of May to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) heritage. In 2021, Kamala Harris became the first Asian American Vice President of the United States. The month of May was chosen for AAPI Heritage Month because it commemorates the immigration of the first Japanese people to the United States on May 7, 1843.
Throughout its history, Indiana has been a site of struggle and potential for AAPI people. On the one hand, AAPI people have historically been targeted for acts of discrimination. Recently, state institutions have been asked to reckon with their roles in this history by acknowledging how some state colleges and universities enacted discriminatory bans on Japanese American students during World War II. In our present moment, Hoosiers are speaking out about the fact that Asian and Asian American people have faced an unprecedented level of xenophobic hostility in the US and our home state during the pandemic.
Considering this history, we must acknowledge how AAPI Hoosiers have reshaped the terrain of higher education and state politics to create more inclusive and equitable spaces where previously none existed. Through persistent activism and organizing, AAPI students established Asian American Studies as a field of inquiry and created spaces of belonging and inclusion for AAPI students on university campuses across Indiana. AAPI scholars and authors have painstakingly preserved and documented material about these events to ensure that a new generation of Hoosiers will know that AAPI people have always played a central role in the history of the state they call home.
Today, AAPI women are also driving a new wave of positive political change in Indiana. Women4Change board member, Senior Assistant Dean for Curricular and Undergraduate Affairs at Indiana University, and co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Shruti Rana, is forging a path forward. Through her scholarship as a Professor of Law at IU and public speaking, she has continued to advocate for women’s rights at the state and federal levels and across the globe. In her most recent articles, she has made critical interventions into the legal field by investigating the marginalization of AAPI scholars who study law and the global backlash to gender equality. Last year, Professor Rana joined us for our State of Women summit in November- you can review her talk on what’s needed for Hoosier women’s economic stability in Indiana.
Together, AAPI Hoosiers continue to challenge persistent forms of inequality and shape a new generation seeking to create positive and sustainable change. This month, we hope you’ll join us in celebrating AAPI Hoosiers’ achievements and standing against anti-AAPI discrimination.