Support AAPI Children’s Authors for AAPI Heritage Month
In the United States, May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Like other ethnic pride months in the United States and elsewhere, this month is meant to highlight and celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander culture in the United States, as well as their “contributions” to so-called American history and culture.
Here at Read, Write, and Create, we like to celebrate AAPI heritage month by shinning a light on AAPI authors and storytellers. However, when it comes to defining who is an Asian-American and where exactly are the Pacific Islands, things get a little complicated and convoluted in the United States.
Who is an Asian American?
Is this an image of Asia that we collectively accept as authentic and correct?
As a writer who always centers the lives and perspectives of BIPOC people in her work, it is very important to me to get diversity and identity right. Therefore, I was properly shamed when I realized how limited I had been in my own personal definition of “Asian-American.” While scrolling through Instagram recently, I came across the account of Maya Le (@maistorybooklibrary) who made a great reel explaining who counts as “Asian American” and what precisely are the Pacific Islands according to US lawmakers. Because the United States considers Asian American a racial category, rather than a geographic category, the people who come from countries in Central Asia and Northern Asia, for example, do not get counted as Asian Americans. Instead, they are deemed white or Arab because that makes sense to somebody. I’m guessing because Central Asian people basically look European-ish, which means they can’t be racially Asian. Which begs the question of course, ‘How do you explain New Zealand being on the list of Pacific Islands?”
It’s probably best not to bang your head against the wall trying to figure out the logic behind US racial categories, and instead, look to AAPI authors and other literary activists to help us find the best books to read during AAPI Heritage Month and the other 11 months of the year as well.
AAPI Authors for the Young People in Your Life
I don’t write as much about KidLit anymore, because two of my three children are good and grown, but I still have a heart for children’s literature and I recognize how impactful and important it is for children to see themselves represented in literature from an early age. I also know that books that feature Asian American children in the United States are severely lacking, although in the last five to seven years, we have seen a marked increase of titles and authors that center the lives and experiences of Asian-American kids.
Joanna Ho is a prolific author for young people and a literary activist.
I was thrilled to interview two powerhouse Asian-American kid lit authors for my podcast – Johanna Ho and Erin Entrada Kelly - who are both prolific and thoughtful writers who center the lived experiences of Asian American kids in their books, and who also just write really amazing stories. They are also both what I consider, author-activists. One other Asian-American kid lit author I personally love is, Saadia Faruqi, author of the delightful Meet Yasmin series, amongst many others.
Here are five well-run Instagram accounts you can follow to get far more recommendations about diverse AAPI authored books for the young people in your life.
Support Asian-American Authors Beyond Asian-American Heritage Month
It goes without saying that the goal of these ethnic pride months is to give people a gentle nudge into exploring a culture outside their own. From a literary perspective, it’s an opportunity to read books by and about a culture, outside your own. The thing is, if we don’t continue reading books by AAPI authors beyond May, then the exercise is truly meaningless. My approach is to always try to diversify my reading lists throughout the year, and I use these ethnic pride months to get suggestions for books I might want to add to TBR list. Rather than thinking I should just read AAPI books in May. We should take the same approach for our kids as well, so they grow up reading diverse books as a normal course of action. Changing minds, and changing the world, one book at a time.