Amplify and uplift: How brands can acknowledge Asian Pacific American Heritage Month on social
As an Asian American woman working in marketing, I’m conflicted about Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM).
While I like the idea celebrating the Asian and Pacific Islander community, it’s hard not to feel like APAHM is another box for organizations to tick on their laundry list of diversity milestones. That is, if they remember to acknowledge it at all.
https://twitter.com/katerinajeng/status/1383060301227069444
For brands who do push through with their APAHM plans, I’d offer this as a word of advice. APAHM is an opportunity for brands to learn about the history of a community that’s often invisibilized and recognize those whose experiences are minimized. To appropriately celebrate APAHM on social, you need to be authentic, action-oriented and recognize Asians and Pacific Islanders are not a monolith. Or just don’t say anything at all.
A time to reflect, a time to educate
APAHM was created to recognize the contributions and influence of Asian and Pacific Islanders to the history and culture of the United States. May was chosen specifically to commemorate the first Japanese citizen’s immigration to American in 1843 and to memorialize Chinese immigrants’ work on the transcontinental railroad. This year, APAHM comes at a particularly painful time, following the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes across the globe.
I don’t know, feels like Heritage Month might take on a different significance this year.
— Phil Yu (@angryasianman) April 1, 2021
