AAPI Heritage Month: Introduction

AAPI Heritage Month takes place in May of each year. This month actually started in 1977 as a week to commemorate the accomplishments of Asian Americans by Congress. (The history of this designated month is an interesting one but beyond the scope of this post.) It later became a month in 1990 and the first “Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month” was enacted by President George H. W. Bush.

AAPI Heritage Month elicits mixed emotions among members of the Asian diaspora. Like other groups who are expected to be “celebrated” one month of the year, it feels like a woefully inadequate gesture for covering all the accomplishments and contributions of Asians in the US. It’s also fraught because the very accomplishments being celebrated were achieved in the face of incredible systemic racism and discrimination against Asian Americans. This contradiction has felt sharper in recent years because of the rise in anti-Asian sentiment and violence.

And yet, as an Asian American psychologist serving the AAPI community, every time this year, I feel such gratitude for this month. Not because I think it’s some sign of progress but because I connect with so many stories, ideas, organizations, and events during this time. It’s become a placeholder in my calendar for making space and giving energy for reflection and connection.

We Are More Than Our Pain

AAPI Heritage Month in 2020, 2021, and 2022 were emotionally intense for me. I myself struggled with fear and anxiety about my personal safety when out in public. In therapy, I worked with so many clients who struggled with their own challenges with anti-Asian racism because of pernicious messages related to the COVID-19 virus. May during these years were a blur of tears and anxiety and this year, I think I was ready to feel something different.

To start with, I attended the 3rd Annual Transformation 2023 Conference organized by Asian Mental Health Collective. I’ve been part of their Asian therapist directory for several months now and enjoy meeting both clients and other mental health professionals through the organization. The conference’s keynote speaker was Wesley Chan of Wong Fu Productions, a multimedia and production company who focus on storytelling for and by Asian Americans. I’d seen a couple videos from them here and there but after the conference, I took a deep dive on their YouTube channel.

What I love about their videos is that they show Asian Americans struggling with complex issues around identity and connection, without resorting to stereotypes and cliches. I wasn’t expecting to feel so moved but I felt really seen by their characters and dialogue, like the main character in “Yappie,” who starts exploring his identity after losing an important relationship and finds himself struggling to connect with others. I appreciated seeing not just this individual journey with connection but also the representation of a community that deals with so many conflicting pressures and desires. One struggle depicted is being Asian American and finding some differentiation of the self within that identity. This is something that I encounter very often with my AAPI clients and it was such a relief to see it as part of this story.

They say “laughter is medicine for the soul,” and we know laughing also releases endorphins and changes our breathing to provide more oxygen to the brain. It reduces stress and helps us take a step back from ourselves and the absurd world we live in. We’ve got to laugh to get through the trials of human existence. For those of us who identify as AAPI, we’ve got to laugh as a way of acknowledging that there’s hope even in incredibly fraught times. This year, through the comedy provided by Wong Fu Productions, I got to laugh and feel heard and seen in that laughter. This laughter also helped me hold things more lightly and settle into a more accepting, gentler space. I realized just as I am more than my pain, we as a community are more than our pain. We are more.

So another AAPI Heritage Month has come and gone. We continue our journey in spite of anti-Asian racism and intergenerational trauma. And we laugh at silly videos like the one below because resilience is not the absence of problems. Resilience is connecting to the beauty of life while seeing the problems clearly.

Reach Out for Help When You’re Ready

If you are looking for an Asian therapist, I highly recommend Asian Mental Health Collective’s Therapist Directory. On my Asian American Counseling page, there are more resources for finding a therapist. If you’d like to schedule a free consult with me, contact me.