Are You “AAPI” or “Asian American”? It's Complicated. | A People's History of Asian America

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.

A People’s History of Asian America is a series of thoughtful visual essays and explainers, hosted by Emmy award-winning journalist, Dolly Li, and Asian studies scholar and professor, Adrian De Leon. Each episode offers informed and empowering perspectives, helping to break down common microaggressions and racist stereotypes through the tools of ethnic studies. This series covers what your classic American school history textbook may not.

#PBS #AAPI #StopAsianHate

Featured in our video, in order of appearance:
Kiana Taylor
Kiki Rivera
AJ Rafael
Sina Uipi
Ova Saopeng
Ariyan Kassam
Di Barbadillo
Adya Mohanty

Additional Reading:

[giladbarcelon]

Can we celebrate a distinct month just for Pacific Islanders! Apart, from Asian American! Pacific Islanders(Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian) deserve to be recognized for there identity, culture, customs, storytelling, etc;! So plz set a Month we all can celebrate the Songs and Pride of the Pacific!

[bn]

Asian!!! Leave Pacific Islanders alone and let them be their own people geez!

[lalakuma]

As someone who grew up in Southeast Asia, I'm always confused why Asians are lumped together with Pacific Islanders by Americans. I think this is very much an American (USA)-centric view because there are a lot of East & Southeast Asians in Hawaii and their cultures mix together, and because the USA broadly lumps together all their military bases in Asia and Pacific Islands regardless of the fact that these are completely different regions and cultures. In East & Southeast Asian, we almost never think of Pacific Islands as part of the same region or larger race group as us. Same thing with South Asians, Central Asians, and Middle Easterns, even though they are all technically also in Asia. So when people talk about "stop AAPI hate", I always wonder who are the people actually getting attacked. Are all sorts of Asians & Pacific Islanders actually getting attacked, or just the Asian people that are "Chinese-looking"?

[neoblood]

I do identify with being Asian American/Vietnamese American. To me, it incapsulates my experience of being of two worlds — constantly oscillating between one culture and the other, but never fully being apart of either. There will always be someone more Vietnamese than me and there will always be someone more American than me.

Do I feel ownership of this month? Not particularly, but I have noticed as I get older, the month has empowered me to seek out voices like my own and to take an active part in reaffirming or reshaping how I view myself and my identity.

Thanks for doing this video series. Keep up the good work!

[jlee]

Why are we differentiating between Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander? Is it because Hawaii is a US state (as opposed to Guam and American Samoa, which are territories)? Is it because Native Hawaiians are culturally distinct from other Pacific Islanders (but then, shouldn't we recognize the cultural differences between, say, a country in the Polynesia region and one in the Micronesia region)? The video didn't go into the reasoning behind this (for me) new development. Thanks!

[inclusiveoutsider]

Im South Asian American and I think the race should be split into two groups especially because my group is rarely, if ever represented. Even in this video, they only showed one South Asian and showed more of the other Asians that look more closely related. I think they should have got a real dark South Asian as well. South Asians are usually the faceless Asians, the ones that are never shown.

[foozballguy]

Indian married to a Middle Eastern person. We don't feel represented in any of the acronyms 🙁

[bobdelabourer]

My niece did her DNA testing and it came back Persian, Afghan, India, China, Micronesia, Micronesia...I can literally see it in her phenotype.

[oliverwilson]

In New Zealand we don't lump together Asians and Pacific Islanders, but we do have the even stranger census category of "MELAA" for "Middle Eastern / Latin American / African".

[ufa]

I love our Asians brothers and sisters but we REAL pacific islanders need our own community. We need our own voices to be heard.
Melanesians, Micronesians Polynesians. We are beautiful dark, olive and brown skin ppl ✊🏾✊🏼

[ivan_a_]

Out of all the places, I didn’t expect to see AJ Rafael here😂

[sailormyri]

Thank you for exploring all of the nuances of this identification label. Growing up, I always felt identifying myself as a Filipina American shifted a lot as I learned more of my history and history of SE Asian and Pacific Islanders around me. It feels so affirming to watch this. Thank you :)

[metalcactuarjumpman]

Asian and Pacific Islander are two very distinct groups. I dont know why theyre being group together, they have very different cultures and physiology.

[taylor_]

At this point, it’s not AAPI, its just AA. Usually in AAPI the main focus is always on Asians (which there is nothing wrong with that, they’ve had their fair share of struggles as anyone else). I just hate that both are grouped together in a single month but then the main focus is usually on one group. Plus you barely even see any pacific islanders in videos like this, the closest you’ll get are Filipinos but a majority of them consider themselves Asian anyways, so do they really count?

[notmyname]

APPI means “Poo” in Malayalam, the native language of the people in Kerala, Southern India.

[Peace_And_Love]

Big topic, but I can at least answer the question in the title. "No, I am not included in any of those letters." I'm here to learn. :)

[txiabneeb]

I too applied Asian American to myself until April of 1999 when I went to a conference in Seattle. It was there that I first met some of my Asian Americans relatives in their elements. I have since resorted back to simply being Hmong although I was born in Laos with known heritage ties to China. Thanks for this video.

-Tzianeng (TxiabnNeeb)
Hmoob Day - May 14th (May 14, 1975) Volunteer

[Eelybrecstendt]

AAPI why are they lumped together? AA is a very big continent and race of people from the Orient and South East Asia. It doesnt make sense. Pacific Island peoples/Hawaiian/Maori is separate. They make up of islands and peoples in the large Pacific Ocean i.e Polynesia Melanesia and Micronesia.

[Gilamath.]

I think that it makes more sense to talk about “Oceania” when referring to the geographic mass associated with API folks. So maybe we start using Ocianean and Native Hawai’ian, or ONH, as a more descriptive yet general term? The term would also include people like the Maori who share a cultural connection to the Pacific Islands, but are currently excluded.

Something like ONH is also more likely likely to mitigate some of the bias towards East Asians when we talk about “Asian”. I remember as a Pakistani American kid in high school, I was explicitly told multiple times that I don’t “count” as Asian. I have definitely seen a bias towards East Asians as the default Asian, while people from places less familiar to white Americans are excluded. We could still use terms like Southeast Asian or South Asian, for specificity

[swapnilkarmakar]

Why did they cut off the Middle East region from the Asian map in 1:15? Isn't Middle East also part of Asia....