60 Fun Facts About AAPI Heritage

In which month is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month observed in the United States?

It began as a ten-day week in 1978, was stretched to a full month in 1990 and formally designated in 1992.

What event on May 10, 1869 is one of the two reasons May was chosen for the heritage month?

The golden spike was driven at Promontory Summit on a line built largely with Chinese labour.

The first Japanese immigrant, Nakahama Manjirō, arrived in the US on May 7 of which year?

He was a shipwrecked teenage fisherman rescued by a New England whaling captain who took him home to Massachusetts.

Which president signed the 1978 joint resolution creating the original Asian-Pacific Heritage Week?

The idea came from congressional staffer Jeanie Jew; Frank Horton and Norman Mineta introduced the House resolution.

Which president signed the 1990 bill extending the heritage week to a full month?

May was officially designated Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month two years later.

The first Asians documented in the Americas arrived in 1587 in California. Where were they from?

The Philippines later became a US possession from 1898 to 1946.

How was teenage fisherman Manjirō rescued in 1841 before becoming the first Japanese person in the US?

Captain William Whitfield of the John Howland took 'John Mung' back to Massachusetts and enrolled him in school.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was signed by which president?

It was the first major US law to bar an entire national group from immigrating, and it stayed on the books for six decades.

In what year was the Chinese Exclusion Act finally repealed?

The repeal, passed while China was a wartime ally, allowed just 105 Chinese immigrants a year.

Which 1898 Supreme Court case established that a child born in the US to Chinese parents was a citizen?

It was the first Supreme Court ruling on children born in the US to alien parents, and it still anchors birthright citizenship.

The 1923 Supreme Court case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind denied naturalisation to which group?

Thind, a WWI Army veteran, argued he was 'Caucasian'; the court ruled he did not meet the definition of a 'white person'.

Executive Order 9066, which led to the incarceration of Japanese Americans, was signed in which year?

Two-thirds of the roughly 125,000 people displaced were US citizens.

Roughly how many people were displaced under Executive Order 9066?

Far more Asian Americans were interned than German or Italian Americans, both in total and proportionally.

Who defied the internment order, lost his 1944 Supreme Court case, and was vindicated decades later?

His conviction was overturned in 1983 after evidence emerged that the government had withheld information from the courts.

Which president gave the internment resister who lost his 1944 Supreme Court case the Medal of Freedom in 1998?

Clinton placed his name alongside Plessy, Brown and Parks in the country's 'constant search for justice'.

Which president signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, apologising for internment and paying reparations?

A 1983 commission report titled Personal Justice Denied had recommended $20,000 for each surviving detainee.

What was the 1983 federal commission report condemning the internment as unjust titled?

It found the incarceration was motivated by racism and xenophobia rather than military necessity.

Who was the first Asian American elected to the US Congress, taking his House seat in 1957?

Born in Punjab, he was also the first Sikh and first Indian American in Congress and only became a citizen in 1949.

Who was the first Asian American US senator, elected from the 50th state in 1959?

The son of a Cantonese sugar-plantation worker, he remains the only Republican senator Hawaii has ever sent to Washington.

Patsy Mink was the first woman of color in Congress. Which landmark law did she co-author?

It bans gender discrimination in federally funded education; she had been rejected by all 12 medical schools she applied to.

Senator Daniel Inouye lost his right arm serving in which famed WWII unit?

He served in the Senate from 1963 until his death in 2012 and never lost an election in 58 years.

Which airport was renamed in Daniel Inouye's memory?

He was the second-longest-serving senator in US history and a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.

Who became the first Asian American vice president of the United States in 2021?

Of Indian and Jamaican parentage, she was also the first woman and first African American in the office.

Who was the first Asian American woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, as Labor Secretary in 2001?

Born in Taipei, she later served as Transportation Secretary and is married to Senator Mitch McConnell.

Norman Mineta, the first East Asian American cabinet secretary, had earlier been mayor of which city?

He served in the cabinets of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; San Jose's airport now bears his name.

Activist Yuri Kochiyama was famously photographed cradling which dying leader in 1965?

She had been interned at Jerome, Arkansas, during the war and later worked with Black nationalist groups in Harlem.

Larry Itliong led Filipino farmworkers out on strike in 1965 against which crop's producers?

Cesar Chavez's mostly Mexican union joined a week later, and the two merged into the United Farm Workers.

How long did the Delano grape strike last?

A consumer boycott of non-union grapes forced a collective bargaining agreement in July 1970.

What was Larry Itliong's nickname?

He immigrated at 15 with a sixth-grade education and organised cannery workers in Alaska before California's fields.

Native Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku won Olympic gold in which event at Stockholm in 1912?

He collected five Olympic medals across three Games and did more than anyone to popularise surfing worldwide.

Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American in space, died aboard which shuttle?

The Hawaiian-born astronaut had flown on Discovery in 1985 before the January 1986 disaster.

Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-born woman in space, was lost aboard which shuttle in 2003?

She flew twice, in 1997 and 2003, conducting microgravity experiments on both missions.

Michelle Kwan, the most decorated US figure skater, later became ambassador to which country?

She won five world titles and nine US championships, plus Olympic silver in 1998 and bronze in 2002.

Which fashion designer, famous for bridal gowns, first pursued a career in figure skating?

She worked at Vogue and Ralph Lauren before opening her bridal boutique in 1990.

Who is considered the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood?

She appeared in The Toll of the Sea (1922), one of the first colour films, and was voted the world's best-dressed woman in 1934.

Bruce Lee, born in the city by the bay in 1940, founded which hybrid martial arts philosophy?

He trained in Wing Chun under Ip Man in Hong Kong before moving to Seattle in 1959.

The station that detained Asian arrivals from 1910 to 1940 sat on an island in which bay?

Detainees carved poems into the wooden walls; more than 200 have been recovered.

How did detainees at that island station famously express their frustration?

About 100,000 Chinese and 85,000 Japanese immigrants passed through the station.

Which railroad's roadbed, bridges and tunnels were built mainly by thousands of Chinese workers?

They were often called 'Celestials' at the time; the two lines met at Promontory Summit in 1869.

Which 1965 law abolished the national-origins quota system that shut out Asian immigrants?

Signed by Lyndon Johnson, it was based on a draft John F. Kennedy sent to Congress in 1963.

Vincent Chin, whose 1982 killing galvanised Asian American activism, was beaten to death near which city?

His attackers, an auto-plant supervisor and a laid-off autoworker, assumed he was Japanese amid 'Japan bashing'; they served no prison time.

Wataru Misaka broke the colour barrier in professional basketball in 1947, playing for which team?

The 5-foot-7 guard had won the 1944 NCAA title and 1947 NIT with Utah, with two years in the Army in between.

Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian Best Actress Oscar winner for which 2022 film?

The film won seven Oscars including Best Picture and a Supporting Actor award for Ke Huy Quan.

How many Academy Awards did the 2022 multiverse film starring Michelle Yeoh win?

It took Best Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay and Film Editing.

Chloé Zhao became the second woman ever to win the Best Director Oscar for which film?

She was also the first woman of colour to win the award.

Taiwanese director Ang Lee's first English-language film was which 1995 adaptation?

He went on to win Best Director Oscars for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi.

Which president's 2009 Proclamation 8369 formally recognised May as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month?

Joe Biden's 2021 proclamation added 'Native Hawaiian' to the name.

Which two senators introduced the 1977 Senate bill for an Asian-Pacific Heritage Week?

Representatives Frank Horton and Norman Mineta had introduced the House version a month earlier.

The first Chinese people to reach what is now the United States arrived in 1778. Where?

Japanese arrivals followed in Hawaii in 1806 and the first Koreans reached the US in 1884.

Diver Sammy Lee, the first Asian American man to win US Olympic gold, triumphed at which Games?

He won platform gold and springboard bronze, then became the first man to defend the platform title.

Kristi Yamaguchi became the first Asian American to win Winter Olympic gold in which year?

She was also a two-time World champion in 1991 and 1992.

Amy Tan is best known for which 1989 novel, filmed in 1993?

The book follows four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters in San Francisco.

I. M. Pei's controversial early-1980s glass pyramid was designed for which museum?

He won the Pritzker Prize, architecture's 'Nobel', in 1983 while the Paris project was still under way.

Maya Lin won the Vietnam Veterans Memorial design competition in 1981 while still what?

She has described the memorial itself as an earthwork.

Physicist Chien-Shiung Wu's famous experiment proved that what is not conserved?

Nicknamed the 'First Lady of Physics' and the 'Chinese Marie Curie', she was overlooked when the Nobel went to the theorists.

Jerry Yang co-founded which internet company after studying electrical engineering at Stanford?

He completed both a bachelor's and a master's degree there in four years.

Haing S. Ngor won an Oscar for his acting debut as journalist Dith Pran in which 1984 film?

He was the first actor of Asian descent to win the supporting award and only the second amateur to win an Oscar.

Senator Tammy Duckworth lost both legs in 2004 when what was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade?

Born in Bangkok and raised in Honolulu, she became the first Thai American woman elected to Congress.

Sunisa Lee, the 2020 Olympic all-around gymnastics champion, was the first Olympian from which community?

She added all-around and uneven bars bronzes at the 2024 Paris Games.

How old was Chloe Kim when she became the youngest woman to win Olympic snowboarding gold in 2018?

She defended her halfpipe title in Beijing in 2022, the first woman to win two halfpipe golds.