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Celebrate AANHPI Heritage Month
Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities have long enriched our classrooms, campuses, workplaces and neighborhoods—often in the face of exclusion, invisibility and injustice. This AANHPI Heritage Month, we honor their contributions, lift up the voices and stories of AFT members, and reaffirm our commitment to inclusion, respect and opportunity for all—even in the face of unprecedented challenges. From education to activism, AANHPI leaders are helping to build a better future.
In our publications
As the Trump administration continues to trample the rights of immigrants in this country—and nonimmigrants wonder how long it will be before they’ll be targeted too—AFT members are particularly shaken as students and faculty around them are illegally detained, stripped of their legal status and frightened by the prospect of deportation. This article reviews some of the most egregious arrests and outlines how the AFT and its affiliates are fighting back.
As Donald Trump—who has promised mass deportations—prepares to take office, immigrants in our AFT communities are worried about how new immigration policies could upend their lives and put them and their families at risk. At a teach-in Nov. 22, AFT leaders joined legal experts and undocumented students fighting for immigration reform to review the landscape and share what actions the union is taking to keep people informed of their rights and protected as much as possible.
When Lisa O’Nan was a child, she was often asked about her heritage, and it always confused her. Was she a “feather” or “dot”? Today, O’Nan discourages this kind of reduction of Native American people to a “feather” and people from India to a “dot,” urging educators to offer a richer view to children eager to learn about the people around them. For National Native American Heritage Month, O’Nan reflects on her experiences as a citizen of the Muscogee Nation and offers resources that explore true history instead of the inaccurate, diminishing stories still offered by some of our outdated educational systems.
Faculty at the University of Hawaii recently hosted a Reading Opens the World event, distributing 5,000 books in Lahaina—where last year’s wildfires devastated local families. Why are college professors distributing children’s books? They care about their communities, and they understand that childhood literacy prepares young people for higher education.
Some of Kent Wong’s finest students have been undocumented immigrants, but when he wants to hire them as assistants, he is legally prevented from doing so. Wong, who teaches labor studies and ethnic studies at the University of California-Los Angeles, is fighting alongside the CFT and other advocates to change that and secure working rights for undocumented students. “Denying job opportunities not only hurts our students and strips them of educational and economic opportunities, but it also undermines the teaching, research and public service mission of our university,” he writes in this AFT Voices blog post.
Scores of AFT leaders and members flocked to New Orleans March 28-30 for the National Association for Bilingual Education’s 53rd International Bilingual Education Conference, where our union ran no fewer than 18 workshops, headlined several featured sessions, offered a full day of parent engagement sessions and celebrated literacy with elementary school book giveaways that included author appearances and readings. The theme for the week: Bilingualism is a superpower.
When AFT member Tracy Lai was a little girl, she loved the warmth of family coming together during Chinese New Year—and the noodles and special foods were fun, too! Now Lai teaches Asian American history and believes that the more people understand cultures and traditions different from their own, the better place the world will be. In this AFT Voices post, she shares her memories of and reflections on the holiday and her hopes for the year to come.
Union leader Jessica Tang remembers growing up with no teachers who looked like her, and no Asian American or Pacific Islander history lessons in her classrooms. She hears similar stories from young people today, but also takes heart in seeing more and more AAPI people who are educators and labor leaders, and she celebrates the many resources the AFT offers to support AAPI educators and students. Read her story here.
The dream: Learning to be bilingual
When JinHui Liu was in middle school, he was embarrassed by his mother; she didn’t speak English and relied on him to translate for her. But as he learned more about “the American dream,” he realized his mother’s dream actually mirrored it: She wanted him to thrive in this new country—and to be bilingual. Read about his touching journey and his gratitude to a woman who urged him to learn and become fluent in a second language.
Highlighted members
Related AFT initiatives
Colorín Colorado celebrates Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage and History all year round with dynamic booklists, multimedia resources, and classroom activities!
Our Asian & Pacific Islander Characters & Cultures section includes books that spotlight the diversity, histories, cultures, and experiences among those who identify as Asian, Asian American, and/or Pacific Islander.