Mountain Lake PBS is proud to celebrate AAPI Heritage this May and all year round!
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, a time to recognize the important role generations of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have had, and continue to play, in the story of our country. Originating as a week long celebration in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter, AAPI Heritage Month was later established in 1992 to mark the arrival of the first Japanese immigrant to the United States on May 7, 1843, as well as the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders come from almost 50 different countries and speak over 100 different languages and dialects. Continue below for resources to celebrate and learn about the diversity of Asian American and Pacific Islander cultures and histories, and helpful tools to engage in important conversations about race and allyship in America. View a full lineup of AAPI Heritage Month programs in our weekday Watch & Wonder block.
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Learn About AAPI History & Culture
9 Books to Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Grades PreK-3
To celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, PBS KIDS put together a list of favorite books featuring Asian characters, written by Asian authors, or illustrated by Asian artists — all chosen by kids and parents like you! Check out these heartwarming and fun tales with your family.
Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month | All About the Holidays
Grades K-5
In the United States, May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. Many people use the month to honor the accomplishments of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States while celebrating their diverse heritages.
AAPI Heritage Month | The Library of Congress
Grades K-12
A collaborative project of the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the contents of this site highlight primary documents, blog posts, videos, recordings and more related to AAPI history and culture and resources to uplift Asian and Asian American voices.
Asian Americans Collection
Grades 3-12
Asian Americans is a five-hour film series that delivers a bold, fresh perspective on a history that matters today, more than ever. As America becomes more diverse, and more divided, while facing unimaginable challenges, how do we move forward together? Told through intimate and personal lives, the series and resources in this PBS LearningMedia collection cast a new lens on U.S. history and the ongoing role that Asian Americans have played in shaping the nation’s story.
Are You “AAPI” or “Asian American”? It’s Complicated. | A People’s History of Asian America
Grades 9-12
How many A’s in AAPI? Dolly & Adrian hear from South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Islander voices to explore the pros and cons of disaggregating Asian American as a statistical category.
AAPI Leaders & Visionaries
Patsy Mink: Women Advancing Equality | Asian Americans
Grades 3-8
Throughout her life, Patsy Mink faced obstacles because she was Asian and female. But Mink did not give up her pursuit of a political career. In 1964, she was elected to Congress in her second attempt. In Congress, she co-authored Title IX, a law to ensure that no one will be discriminated against in education and federally-funded activities based on gender. In addition to working on Title IX, Mink also fought racial barriers by supporting civil rights legislation.
Amy Tan | American Masters Collection
Grades 6-12
Known for her groundbreaking debut novel The Joy Luck Club, and bestselling novels, librettos, short stories and memoirs, Amy Tan is one of the most prominent and respected literary voices working today. A global icon for Asian Americans, Tan’s work has been translated into 35 languages and gives a brave look into the humanity of her fictional and autobiographical writing alike. Learn more about Amy Tan with the American Masters collection for the film Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir.
David Chang: Korean Immigration in the 20th Century | Finding Your Roots
Grades 6-12
In this clip from Finding Your Roots, chef David Chang learns about his Korean heritage and how his maternal great-grandfather emigrated to the United States in 1920. The accompanying essay and classroom activities expand on this theme by exploring immigration and immigration laws from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Queen Lili‘uokalani | Unladylike2020
Grades 6-12
Queen Lili‘uokalani was the first sovereign queen, and the last monarch, of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. At the time of her reign, a new Hawaiian constitution imposed by white Americans had reduced the voting rights of Hawaiian citizens and much of the monarchy’s powers, transferring power to American business owners and missionaries. Learn how Lili‘uokalani fought to restore native Hawaiian rights in this video from Unladylike2020.
Martin Wong
Grades 6-12
Explore the life, work and legacy of Martin Wong, an openly gay Chinese American visual artist. Synonymous with the Lower East Side, he was equally at home with Nuyorican poets, graffiti artists, social non-conformists, and political activists. Through video, discussion questions, primary sources, and paintings, students gain a thorough understanding of who Wong was as a painter, a supporter of the arts, and as a chronicler of the Lower East Side in the 1980s and 1990s.
Allyship & Social Justice Resources
Race, Ethnicity, and Culture Collection | Sesame Street in Communities
Grades PreK-3
Sesame Street in Communities provides parents, caregivers, and family childcare providers with support to help lay the foundations for children’s healthy development. Resources in the Race, Ethnicity, and Culture collection provide tools to help think about, ask about, and talk about race with young children, develop pride in their own unique identities, and cope with difficult race-related situations and experiences. Specific resources include content to address anti-Asian racism.
8 Tips for Choosing “Good” Picture Books Featuring Diverse, BIPOC Characters
Grades PreK-5
This article from embracerace.org contains advice for choosing, and evaluating the quality of, picture books featuring BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) characters.
Resilience and Community | be/longing: Asian Americans Now
Grades 6-12
Investigate be/longing: Asian Americans Now, a series from Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and Extremism and The Serica Initiative profiling Asian Americans from AAPI communities across the country. Actor George Takei, Pulitzer Prize winner Việt Thanh Nguyễn, and others share personal stories of exclusion, striving, and belonging in America and discuss how their communities are standing up and speaking out against hate. Engage with the short videos of this series through thoughtful discussions. Then reflect on the resilience and empowerment of Asian Americans, a key theme of each story, by creating a display case design plan for a school or library.
Anti-Asian Racism: Connections in History
Grades 6-12
This collection of educational resources will help students make sense of anti-Asian racism today by connecting it with history. The materials are designed to be a flexible resource for educators and can be taught within certain time periods and historical events, or through over-arching themes.
Watch & Wonder Programming
Check out the Mountain Lake PBS Watch & Wonder block, weekdays from 1-3pm! Join us throughout May for AAPI Heritage Month as we celebrate and honor AAPI history and learn about important cultural contributions made by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Monday, May 8
2 PM: Asian Americans | Breaking Ground
Asian Americans is a five-hour film series that chronicles the contributions, and challenges of Asian Americans, the fastest-growing ethnic group in America. Personal histories and new academic research will cast a fresh lens on U.S. history and the role Asian Americans have played in it. Episode one, Breaking Ground, describes an era of exclusion and U.S. empire, as new immigrants arrive from China, India, Japan, the Philippines and beyond. Barred by anti-Asian laws they become America’s first “undocumented immigrants,” yet they build railroads, dazzle on the silver screen, and take their fight for equality to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- PBS LearningMedia: Racial Identity and American Citizenship in the Court | Asian Americans
Tuesday, May 9
2 PM: Asian Americans | A Question of Loyalty
An American-born generation straddles their country of birth and their parents’ homelands in Asia. Those loyalties are tested during World War II, when families are imprisoned in detention camps, and brothers find themselves on opposite sides of the battle lines.
- PBS LearningMedia: Civil Liberties Act of 1988 | Asian Americans
Wednesday, May 10
2 PM: Asian Americans | Good Americans
During the Cold War years, Asian Americans are simultaneously heralded as a Model Minority, and targeted as the perpetual foreigner. It is also a time of bold ambition, as Asian Americans aspire for the first time to national political office and a coming culture-quake simmers beneath the surface.
- PBS LearningMedia: The Model Minority Myth | Asian Americans
Thursday, May 11
1 PM: Asian Americans | Generation Rising
During a time of war and social tumult, a young generation fights for equality in the fields, on campuses and in the culture, and claim a new identity: Asian Americans. The war’s aftermath brings new immigrants and refugees who expand the population and the definition of Asian America.
- PBS LearningMedia: Generation Rising: Asian Americans in the Arts | Asian Americans
2 PM: Asian Americans | Breaking Through
At the turn of the new millennium, the country tackles conflicts over immigration, race, economic disparity, and a shifting world order. A new generation of Asian Americans are empowered by growing numbers and rising influence but face a reckoning of what it means to be an American in an increasingly polarized society.
- PBS LearningMedia: Tereza Lee and Undocumented Asian America | Asian Americans
Friday, May 12
2 PM: Ka Hana Kapa
Ka Hana Kapa documents the history of kapa in Hawai‘i and follows the complex process of Hawaiian kapa making from start to finish. Hawaiian kapa is one of the most beautiful art forms in the Pacific. In ancient Hawai‘i, kapa, or bark cloth made from the wauke plant (Broussonetia papyrifera), was used for clothing, bedding, the wrapping of precious iwi (ancestor’s bones), important ceremonies, and a myriad of other purposes, making it an integral part of everyday life in Hawaiian society. Ka Hana Kapa is the story of kapa making in Hawai‘i, as told by these dedicated kapa practitioners and their students, who have given new life to this intricate cultural practice.
- PBS LearningMedia: Pythagorean Theorem in Kapa Design
Tuesday, May 23
2 PM: Hawaiiana
Hawaiiana examines the enduring legacy of Winona “Aunty Nona” Beamer, a venerated educator, storyteller, composer and hula expert who dedicated her life to preserving and celebrating traditional Hawaiian culture. In her 20s, Aunty Nona formed a Hawaiian dance troupe that toured the U.S., eventually performing at Carnegie Hall and bringing the ancient art of hula to the wider public. Later, as a teacher at the Kamehameha Schools, she became a pivotal force in bringing Hawaiian culture back into the classroom, coining the term “Hawaiiana” to represent a curriculum that included the best of Hawaiian culture, history and knowledge. Weaving together archival music and dance performances with past interviews and footage of Aunty Nona and her sons Keola and Kapona Beamer, Hawaiiana offers a profile of a pioneering woman whose wisdom and life story continue to spread the message of aloha around the world.
- PBS LearningMedia: How Hula Dancers Connect Hawaii’s Past and Present | If Cities Could Dance
Thursday, May 25
1 PM: Silent Sacrifice: Stories of Japanese American Incarceration in Central California and Beyond
Valley PBS presents this two-hour documentary film based on the experience of Japanese Americans before, during and after WWII with a focus on local Assembly Centers, Merced, Fresno, Pinedale and Tulare.
- PBS LearningMedia: Prisoner in My Homeland | Mission US