Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

ALA Public Programs Office

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPI Heritage Month) is an annual month-long celebration to recognize the significant contributions of individuals and groups of Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) descent to the United States.

Orange patterned image. Text overlay reads: Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

The AAPI umbrella term includes cultures from the entire Asian continent and the Pacific Islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. AAPI people have a long history in the United States spanning through the first Filipinos arriving in Louisana, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Japanese American Internment. 

Today, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. Get your library prepared to celebrate the vibrant stories of AAPI immigrants and citizens.

Do you have favorite resources that are not listed below? Please share them in the comments or email us at programminglibrarian@ala.org.

Last updated: April 15, 2024

General Information

An excellent place to start researching background information on AAPI Heritage Month is the Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month website. The website was developed by the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The website can direct you to teacher resources and a plethora of other resources such as videos and virtual exhibition collections.

Library Programming Ideas

Books and Book Lists

Teaching Resources

  • Densho preserves the stories of Japanese American incarceration during WWII. The website is full of free teaching materials and learning resources on this often under-taught part of U.S. history. 
  • The Care Package: Poems, meditations, films, and other cultural nutrients for times like this. Curated with love by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.
  • The National Museum of Asian Art's Educator Resources has printable teaching posters, lesson plans and classroom activities based on art in the museum collections.
  • Smithsonian Education offers a wide variety of resources, including Vietnamese America, Chinese American and Korean American lesson plans as well as teacher guides for Buddhism, Islamic art, and Hindu worship.
  • The National Endowment for the Humanities has a Teacher's Guide with guiding questions and resources on the Model Minority Myth, AAPI Poetry, AAPI Media and Film, and more.
  • The Library of Congress has a number of links to educational resources from its partners, including NEH’s EDSITEment Asian-Pacific Heritage pages, NARA’s Teaching with Documents series, the National Gallery of Art’s “Teaching The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology” and Teaching Edo Art in Japan,” and the National Park Service’s Asian Reflections on the American Landscape: Identifying Asian Heritage.
  • ReadWriteThink lists related classroom activities as well as lesson plans.
  • PBS shares 31 stories for 31 days of AAPI month.

Other Resources

 

Related Links