May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

The month of May marks Asian Pacific Heritage Month, which celebrates the histories of Americans hailing from the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.

According to the 2020 Census, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are among the fastest growing populations in the United States. This month of recognition celebrates the vast cultural contributions and unique journey of Asian Pacific Americans in the United States. So, why was May selected as the month to honor the cultural contributions of Asian Pacific Americans? It’s based on two significant events in American history.

On May 7, 1843, 14-year-old Nakahama Manjiro was the first Japanese national to set foot on American soil. Months earlier, Manjiro and a small crew set out on a routine fishing trip from their Japanese coastal village, but were cast adrift in a violent storm that washed them up on a desert island 300 miles away. Five months later, a whaling ship from New Bedford, Massachusetts, miraculously found the boys and delivered them safely in Honolulu. Manjiro accompanied the captain back to Massachusetts. 

After spending some time in America, Manjiro returned to Japan where, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities, he was named a samurai and worked as a political emissary to the West. Twenty years later, Japanese immigrants began arriving in the Hawaiian Islands, later relocating to California, Washington and Oregon.

The mid to late 1860s was marked by a major infrastructure project in the United States, the Transcontinental Railroad. According to the National Park Service, more than 11,000 Chinese immigrants were employed by the Central Pacific Railroad out of Sacramento, California. Some sources estimate this number could be as high as 15,000 to 20,000. A crew of mostly Chinese workers laid 10 miles of railroad track in one day, a record yet to be beaten. The project was completed on May 10, 1869, also known as “Golden Spike Day,” where a ceremonial 17.6-carat gold spike was driven to connect the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. The contributions of the Chinese labor force were instrumental in the completion of the railroad project and fundamental to the development of the American west. 

It would take Congress more than 120 years to officially designate May as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in 1992.

CALLING WESTERVILLE HOME

Asian Pacific Americans who have called Westerville home have also made significant contributions to our collective history. With help from the Westerville History Museum, we are highlighting a few of those stories HERE.