May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, which is a time to recognize and celebrate the contributions of Asians and Pacific Islanders to American culture.
As a rather broad term, Asian/Pacific encompasses the entire Asian continent, as well as the:
- Pacific islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands);
- Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia); and
- Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island).
History
Like most commemorative months, Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month was established by Congress. In 1977, Frank Horton of New York presented House Joint Resolution 540, which declared the first ten days of May as Pacific/Asian American Heritage Week.
Senate Joint Resolution 72 was proposed by Senator Daniel Inouye in the same year and was a comparable resolution. However, neither was passed.
Representative Horton submitted House Joint Resolution 1007 in June 1978. As part of this resolution, the President was asked to “proclaim a week, which is to include the seventh and tenth days of the month, during the first ten days of May 1979 as ‘Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week.’
This joint resolution was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and it became Public Law 95-419 on October 5, 1978, and was signed by President Jimmy Carter. The original language of the bill was changed, and the President was directed to issue a proclamation designating the “seven-day period commencing on May 4, 1979, as “Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week.”
The presidents of the United States issued annual proclamations for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week until 1990 when Congress passed Public Law 101-283, which extended the observance to one month beginning with the 1990 Presidential Inauguration.
Afterwards, in 1992, Congress passed Public Law 102-450, which established May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month every year thereafter.
The month of May was chosen to honor the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants in the United States on May 7, 1843, as well as the celebration of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who lay the rails were Chinese immigrants.
Commemorative observations is a thorough inventory of Public Laws, Presidential Proclamations, and congressional resolutions pertaining to Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month compiled by the Law Library of Congress.
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