Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
Asian-Pacific American Heritage month was established in 1990 to celebrate and recognize the contributions of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. May marks the anniversay of the first Japanese immigrant's arrival in the United States (1843), and the month the transcontinental railroad was completed (1869.) This Asian Pacific American Heritage Month collection highlights texts, primary sources, lesson plans and videos to promote awareness about Asian culture, history, religions, art, geography and philosophies.
Please note that the files in this collection cannot be downloaded from WeTeachNYC because they link out to an external site.
Included Resources
The Asia for Educators website shares resources for students and teachers of all levels. Find professional development resources (such as video presentations by faculty) as well as lesson plans, timelines, maps and other resources to use directly with students. Provided by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University.
This online exhibit illuminates the aftermath of Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt ten weeks after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Under Executive Order 9066, nearly 75,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry were taken into custody and another 45,000 Japanese nationals living in the United States were incarcerated. This exhibit shares artifacts and primary resources from families who were forced into internment camps. Topics explored include the long-standing Anti-Asian prejudice before the Order was signed, and the experience of Japanese-Americans thereafter. Teachers can navigate through the exhibit using the menu on the left. Created by the Smithsonian.
"When immigration is taught in schools, students usually learn about Ellis Island and Europeans arriving in the Northeast. Less often do they learn about immigrants from other continents..." Noreen Nassem Rodriguez wrote this article, "Teaching about Angel Island through Historical Empathy and Poetry" about a lesson on Angel Island she developed for a third/fourth grade class, also adaptable to other grades.
Asian immigrants—the Chinese in particular—came to America via the immigration station at Angel Island. For more resources to teach about Angel Island, including a lesson on how the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 affected Chinese immigration to the United States, visit this site: https://www.aiisf.org/education/resources/curriculum-guide
A series of curated articles or background reading to offer context on Asian culture, history, religions and philosophies, education systems, and more. Provided by The Asia Society.
Densho is a Japanese term meaning “to pass on to the next generation,” or to leave a legacy. Densho’s mission is to preserve the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II, before their memories are extinguished. The Densho digital archive shares primary sources that document the Japanese American experience from immigration in the early 1900s through redress in the 1980s with a strong focus on the World War II mass incarceration. The archive contains thousands of historic photographs, documents, newspapers, letters, visual histories, and over 1,700 hours of recorded, fully transcribed video interviews. For ease of navigation, interviews and images are indexed by topic, location and chronology, and can be searched using keywords. These firsthand accounts, coupled with historical images and teacher resources, can be used to explore principles of democracy, and promote equal justice for all.