May is Asian American - Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month – we join this celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The United States Department of Agriculture Conservation Services shares, "AAPI Heritage commemoration was first proposed in 1977 to observe the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States (May 7, 1843), and the completion of the transcontinental railroad, constructed mainly by Chinese immigrant workers (May 10, 1869). In 1978, President Carter made it an annual week-long event and President George H.W. Bush extended the proclamation to include the entire month of May."
"An Asian American is a person having origins in any of the original peoples of East Asia, Southeast Asia, or South Asia, the Indian subcontinent (Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam). A Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander is a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Oceania. Oceania is comprised of three major island groups: Polynesia (New Zealand, Easter Island, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands and French Polynesia), Micronesia (Guam, Palau, Marianas, Wake Island, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Melanesia (Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, West Papua, and New Guinea). " We are #PalmyraProud of our families of Asian American & Pacific Islander descent.
More information from the Library of Congress here.