Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month
May is Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month – a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States.
Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Heritage Month is a celebration of Asians, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) encompasses people from all over the Asian continent, India, and the Pacific islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese immigrants to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.
- The Library of Congress: Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month The Library of Congress, 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 join in paying tribute to the generations of Asian and Pacific Islanders who have enriched America's history and are instrumental in its future success.
- LUC CDI APIDA CelebrationThe event will take place on Sunday, May 7th at 4:30pm in the Mundelein Auditorium, on Lakeshore Campus. All student must register in order to participate.
Want resources for standing against anti-Asian hate? Here are several, compiled by Asian American organizations in Chicago and across the nation.
- STOP AAPI HATE In response to the alarming escalation in xenophobia and bigotry resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University launched the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center on March 19, 2020. The center tracks and responds to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.
- Tools and Resources to Address Anti-Asian Bias from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign In response to the alarmingly rapid increase in anti-Asian bias, harassment, and violence, U of I gathered some tools and resources for students, faculty, staff, and community members to use.
- National Indo-American Museum The NATIONAL INDO-AMERICAN MUSEUM builds bridges across generations and connects cultures through the diverse, colorful stories of all Indian Americans.
- Indian American Cultural Association (IACA) IACA is a not for profit organization promoting cultural and social integration of both Indian and American culture helping building a stronger community.
- Chicago Japanese American Historical Society The CJAHS is a volunteer, non profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to preserving and presenting the history of the Japanese American community in Chicago. Through museum collaborations, historical research, and conservation, they aim to preserve the Japanese American legacy in Chicago.
- Chinese American Museum of Chicago The museum building, formerly the Quong Yick Co., is located in Chicago’s Chinatown, at 238 West 23rd Street in Chicago. The Museum opened to the public on May 21, 2005. After a devastating fire in September of 2008, the Museum was closed for renovation and reopened in 2010.
- Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago The Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago is a cultural institution whose mission is to collect, record and preserve artifacts and documents of history of the Filipino Americans of metropolitan Chicago; and to educate about Filipino American history and Philippine heritage.
- Korean Cultural Center of Chicago The Korean-American population in the Midwest is growing, as well as the number of people from all backgrounds who are interested in Korean culture. It was for this reason that the Korean Cultural Center of Chicago (KCCOC) was established: to provide a physical facility where everyone in the Midwest can show their interest in and promote Korean heritage.
- National Cambodian Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial The Museum & Memorial is the only museum of its kind in the US, which dedicates its programs and activities to the Cambodian genocide awareness and social justice, advocacy for genocide survivors and their families, healing arts, and youth leadership development in social justice.
Check out this selection of local performing arts venues and film festivals!
- Asian American Showcase The Foundation for Asian American Independent Media (FAAIM) is an organization that celebrates emerging Asian American creative talent. We accomplish this by hosting various events including the annual Asian American Showcase in Chicago, and supporting artists in building a grassroots audience for their work.
- Asian Pop-Up Cinema Our vision is to foster an appreciation for diverse Asian cultures through film. We endeavor to execute this vision through our mission that is dedicated to: Cultivating an interest in and understanding of Asian cultures. Connecting the Asian film industry with local students, educators, and film professionals. Promoting Chicago as a destination for international visitors.
- Chicago South Asian Film Festival The Chicago South Asian Film Festival’s mission is to advance diversity in Chicagoland through cinema, conversation and culture.
- Silk Road Rising Silk Road Rising is a community-centered art-making and arts service organization rooted in Pan-Asian, North African, and Muslim experiences.
- Stir-Friday Night! Stir-Friday Night! is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit theater company that was founded in 1995. Based in Chicago, Illinois, we are one of the nation’s premier Asian-American comedy troupes. Having worked with such renowned companies such as The Second City and iO (formerly known as Improv Olympic), Stir-Friday Night! has become a fixture in Chicago’s comedy scene.
Desis in the House by
She sports a nose-ring and duppata (a scarf worn by South Asian women) along with the latest fashion in slinky club wear; he's decked out in Tommy gear. Their moves on the crowded dance floor, blending Indian film dance with break-dancing, attract no particular attention. They are just two of the hundreds of hip young people who flock to the desi (i.e., South Asian) party scene that flourishes in the Big Apple. New York City, long the destination for immigrants and migrants, today is home to the largest Indian American population in the United States. Coming of age in a city remarkable for its diversity and cultural innovation, Indian American and other South Asian youth draw on their ethnic traditions and the city's resources to create a vibrant subculture. Some of the city's hottest clubs host regular bhangra parties, weekly events where young South Asians congregate to dance to music that mixes rap beats with Hindi film music, bhangra (North Indian and Pakistani in origin), reggae, techno, and other popular styles. Many of these young people also are active in community and campus organizations that stage performances of "ethnic cultures." In this book Sunaina Maira explores the world of second-generation Indian American youth to learn how they manage the contradictions of gender roles and sexuality, how they handle their "model minority" status and expectations for class mobility in a society that still racializes everyone in terms of black or white. Maira's deft analysis illuminates the ways in which these young people bridge ethnic authenticity and American "cool."
Call Number: Online & F128.9.E2 M35 2002ISBN: 9781439906736Publication Date: 2012-06-20
Importing Care, Faithful Service by
Every year thousands of foreign-born Filipino and Indian nurses immigrate to the United States. Despite being well trained and desperately needed, they enter the country at a time, not unlike the past, when the American social and political climate is once again increasingly unwelcoming to them as immigrants. Drawing on rich ethnographic and survey data, collected over a four-year period, this study explores the role Catholicism plays in shaping the professional and community lives of foreign-born Filipino and Indian American nurses in the face of these challenges, while working at a Veterans hospital. Their stories provide unique insights into the often-unseen roles race, religion and gender play in the daily lives of new immigrants employed in American healthcare. In many ways, these nurses find themselves foreign in more ways than just their nativity. Seeing nursing as a religious calling, they care for their patients, both at the hospital and in the wider community, with a sense of divine purpose but must also confront the cultural tensions and disconnects between how they were raised and trained in another country and the legal separation of church and state. How they cope with and engage these tensions and disconnects plays an important role in not only shaping how they see themselves as Catholic nurses but their place in the new American story.
Call Number: RT86.3 .C46 2022ISBN: 9781978826335Publication Date: 2022-06-17
Emerging Voices by
The images of South Asian women - submissive, docile, exotic - that are created and perpetuated by society and the media, attempt to define and limit the boundaries of identity formation for South Asian women in the West. With a lively mix of academic social science and personal narratives, this book shows how these women are now forging new paths for themselves and redefining these boundaries.
Call Number: E184.E2 E64 1999ISBN: 0761992952Publication Date: 1999-04-12
A History of Asian American Theatre by Call Number: PN2270.A75 L44 2006ISBN: 9780521850513Publication Date: 2006-10-12
If You See Me, Don't Say Hi by
In eleven sharp, surprising stories, Neel Patel gives voice to our most deeply held stereotypes and then slowly undermines them. His characters, almost all of who are first-generation Indian Americans, subvert our expectations that they will sit quietly by. We meet two brothers caught in an elaborate web of envy and loathing; a young gay man who becomes involved with an older man whose secret he could never guess; three women who almost gleefully throw off the pleasant agreeability society asks of them; and, in the final pair of linked stories, a young couple struggling against the devastating force of community gossip.
Call Number: PS3616.A86648 A6 2018 & Online AccessISBN: 9781250183194Publication Date: 2018-07-10
Our Voices, Our Histories by
An innovative anthology showcasing Asian American and Pacific Islander women's histories Our Voices, Our Histories brings together thirty-five Asian American and Pacific Islander authors in a single volume to explore the historical experiences, perspectives, and actions of Asian American and Pacific Islander women in the United States and beyond. This volume is unique in exploring Asian American and Pacific Islander women's lives along local, transnational, and global dimensions. The contributions present new research on diverse aspects of Asian American and Pacific Islander women's history, from the politics of language, to the role of food, to experiences as adoptees, mixed race, and second generation, while acknowledging shared experiences as women of color in the United States. Our Voices, Our Histories showcases how new approaches in US history, Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, and Women's and Gender studies inform research on Asian American and Pacific Islander women. Attending to the collective voices of the women themselves, the volume seeks to transform current understandings of Asian American and Pacific Islander women's histories.
Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 9781479821105Publication Date: 2020-03-10
Dear America: Young Readers' Edition by
Jose Antonio Vargas was only twelve years old when he was brought to the United States from the Philippines to live with his grandparents. He didn't know it, but he was sent to the U.S. illegally. When he applied for a learner's permit, he learned the truth, and he spent the next almost twenty years keeping his immigration status a secret. Hiding in plain sight, he was writing for some of the most prestigious news organizations in the country. Only after publicly admitting his undocumented status--risking his career and personal safety--was Vargas able to live his truth. This book asks questions including, How do you define who is an American? How do we decide who gets to be a citizen? What happens to those who enter the U.S. without documentation? By telling his personal story and presenting facts without easy answers, Jose Antonio Vargas sheds light on an issue that couldn't be more relevant.
ISBN: 9780062914590Publication Date: 2019-03-05
Homeland Elegies by
"A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home. Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one--least of all himself--in the process.
Call Number: PS3601.K53 H66 2020ISBN: 9780316496421Publication Date: 2020-09-15
The School for Good Mothers by Call Number: Popular Reading Collection PS3603.H35577 S36 2022ISBN: 9781982156121Publication Date: 2022-01-04
Honor by
THE JANUARY 2022 REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK "In the way A Thousand Splendid Suns told of Afghanistan's women, Thrity Umrigar tells a story of India with the intimacy of one who knows the many facets of a land both modern and ancient, awash in contradictions." --Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours In this riveting and immersive novel, bestselling author Thrity Umrigar tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide. Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena--a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man--Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one's own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita's own past. While Meena's fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her. In this tender and evocative novel about love, hope, familial devotion, betrayal, and sacrifice, Thrity Umrigar shows us two courageous women trying to navigate how to be true to their homelands and themselves at the same time.
Call Number: Online & Popular Reading Collection ; PS3621.M75 H66 2022ISBN: 9781643752174Publication Date: 2022-01-04
No One Can Pronounce My Name by
"In a suburb outside Cleveland, a community of Indian Americans has settled into lives that straddle the divide between Eastern and Western cultures. For some, America is a bewildering and alienating place where coworkers can't pronounce your name but will eagerly repeat the Sanskrit phrases from their yoga class. Harit, a lonely Indian immigrant in his mid-forties, lives with his mother who can no longer function after the death of Harit's sister, Swati. In a misguided attempt to keep both himself and his mother sane, Harit has taken to dressing up in a sari every night to pass himself off as his sister. Meanwhile, Ranjana, also an Indian immigrant in her mid-forties, has just seen her only child, Prashant, off to college. Worried that her husband has begun an affair, she seeks solace by writing paranormal romances in secret. When Harit and Ranjana's paths cross, they begin a strange yet necessary friendship that brings to light their own passions and fears"
Call Number: PS3619.A8228 N63 2017ISBN: 9781250112118Publication Date: 2017-05-02
Asian American Poetry by Call Number: PS591 .A76 A83 2004ISBN: 0252071743Publication Date: 2004-05-24
Mad Honey Symposium by Call Number: PS3613.A623 A6 2014ISBN: 9781938584060Publication Date: 2014-05-06
Born Confused by Call Number: Lewis Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) PZ7.D44885 Bo 2002ISBN: 0439357624Publication Date: 2002-10-01
Red Butterfly by Call Number: Lewis Library Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) PZ7.5.S67 Re 2015
Take Me Out to the Yakyu by Call Number: Lewis Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) PZ7 .M5492 Tak 2013
The Nian Monster by Call Number: Lewis Library Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) PZ7.1.W3645 Ni 2016
Pashmina by Call Number: Lewis Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) PZ7.7.C415 Pas 2017ISBN: 9781626720879Publication Date: 2017-10-03
Never Fall Down by Call Number: Lewis Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) PZ7 .M13679 Nev 2012
Made in China by Call Number: Lewis Curriculum Library (6th Floor) PZ7 .O28 Mad 2008
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