Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2025

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Discover two acclaimed Sri Lankan novels: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida and A Passage North

New Year, New Reads: Celebrating Sri Lankan Literary Voice

Celebrate the Sinhalese New Year (usually April 13 or 14) with these excellent books!

This Asian American & Pacific Islander (AA & PI) Heritage Month, we honor the cultures, traditions, and contributions of AA & PI communities at UC Berkeley and beyond.

The term “AA & PI” historically has been used to encompass more than 50 different ethnic groups – including 24.7 million Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

Task Forces and Advisory Bodies

Research, Centers, and Departments

Faculty and Staff Resources

Student Resources

AA & PI Wellness Guide

From University Health Services

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Berkeley Life Blog

Members of PAHC after their new member orientation meeting.

Meet the Pilipino Association for Health Careers (PAHC) Org

via Berkeley Life

UC Berkeley students in NSU 2022

Meet Nikkei Student Union

via Berkeley Life

A collage of AA & PI student activities - CalPerformances performance, a student org gathering, taiko drumming, a lion dance

Cal’s AA&PI Community

via Berkeley Life

Articles/Profiles

beautiful maganda

Centering Philippine and Filipinx American Histories

via Bancroft Library

An elder's forum in Washington state that was one of many community listening and sharing sessions Berkeley researchers conducted.

The complex story of how the pandemic impacted the Asian American diaspora

via Berkeley News

With smiles and support, staff from the Asian Pacific American Systemwide Alliance (APASA) and the Filipinx Faculty and Staff Association (FFSA) greeted attendees as they entered Alumni House.

Highlighting Excellence: Building AA & PI Futures at Berkeley

Kelvin Chan teaching Cantonese 3A.

Donors rally to expand East Asian languages, reflect California’s linguistic diversity

via Berkeley Inspire

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka book cover

New Year, New Reads: Celebrating Sri Lankan Literary Voices

via Berkeley Library

Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2025

Celebrate the voices and experiences of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders with this book list from the UC Berkeley Library

via Berkeley Library

Supervisor Betty Duong

Asian American Studies alumna shares her journey from UC Berkeley student government to Santa Clara County supervisor

via Letters & Science

Asian American & Pacific Islander (AA & PI) Thriving Initiatives

AA & PI Thriving Initiatives exist to foster a more inclusive campus climate for students, staff, and faculty from Asian American, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, South Asian, Southwest Asian, and North African backgrounds.

Asian American History at Berkeley

UC Berkeley's AANAPISI designation

Policies & Guidelines

Fostering equity and belonging for Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian students

UC Berkeley is in its second year AANAPISI Designation and this year our University was awarded its first AANAPISI (Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions)* federal grant, marking a historic moment in our commitment to equity and transformation. Receiving this highly competitive, five-year grant, is a significant advancement forward, as it will enhance resources and opportunities for our campus — especially our Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian students — elevating their campus experience and fostering a greater sense of belonging at Cal. Recent examples of this include the Oceans Manifesting And Organizing CHange (OMAOCh) and Southeast Asian Students for OrgaNizing (SEASON) conferences.

Read more about the grant.

New Asian American and Pacific Islander Transpacific Futures Faculty Cluster

Periodically, UC Berkeley allocates new senate faculty positions in a series of “clusters” intended to accelerate the acquisition of academic strength in new areas and to create interdisciplinary synergy across multiple departments and schools. The Asian American and Pacific Islander Transpacific Futures cluster, hiring in 2025, aims to place UC Berkeley at the forefront of transpacific research to understand the formation of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities within the US-Asia-Pacific dynamic, the continued growth and diversification of Asian American and Pacific Islander populations in the U.S., and the challenges and opportunities of their political, economic, and social inclusion. Participating units include Ethnic studies, Geography, Education and Public Health.

Honoring the Legacy of Secretary Norman Mineta ('53)

Honoring the Legacy of Norman Mineta

This Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we honor the incredible legacy of the late Secretary Norman Y. Mineta. As a child, he was interned with his family and thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II. After graduating from Haas (BS '53), Mineta joined the U.S. Army and served as an intelligence officer in Japan and Korea. Continuing a path he started in high school and on the San Jose Human Relations Commission, Mineta broke racial barriers for Asian Americans in becoming mayor of San Jose, Calif. in 1971, the first Asian American to become mayor of a major American city. Elected to Congress in 1974, he became popular with voters and served 10 terms; San Jose’s airport was renamed Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport in 2001 in his honor. Mineta became the first Asian American to become a federal cabinet secretary under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and, after 9/11, he guided the creation of the Transportation Security Administration. In 2007, Mineta was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor. Continue the Mineta family legacy by supporting Asian American & Asian Diaspora Studies

Topics

Events

AAPI Leadership Panel 5/21 WED 12PM-1:30PM ZOOM Event Join Us in Learning More About our Senior APPI Leaders at UC Berkeley!

  • May 21, 2025 from 12:00-1:30pm via Zoom. APASA AAPI Leadership Panel. Moderated by Em Huang, Director of LGBTQ+ Advancement and Equity in the Gender Equity Resource Center. Featuring panelists: Ankita Rakhe, Associate Dean of Students, Student Engagement; Audrey Thomas, Director of Data & Institution Research; Cory Vu, Associate Vice Chancellor of Health and Wellbeing; and Sunny Lee, Associate Vice Chancellor & Dean of Students.

past as present APA religions, renewal and collective care APARRI 2025 june 10 to 12 2025 at UC Berkeley

Faculty

Philip Kan Gotanda with pine trees as the background

Philip Kan Gotanda

Over the last four decades, playwright Philip Kan Gotanda has been instrumental in bringing stories of Asians in the United States to mainstream American theater. Mr. Gotanda has specialized in the Japanese American family, writing a cycle of works in theater, film and opera chronicling their story from the early 1900s to the present.  Mr. Gotanda's newest work, the opera, Both Eyes Open, created with composer Max Giteck Duykers, investigates the interior life of a nisei farmer who upon his self-inflicted death, revisits the events of his life. Mr. Gotanda holds a law degree from UC Law SF and studied pottery in Japan with the late Hiroshi Seto.  Mr. Gotanda is a respected independent filmmaker. His film, Life Tastes Good, was an official selection for the Sundance Film Festival.  Mr. Gotanda is a professor with the Department of Theater Dance and Performance Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.

Scholarly work:

1. Both Eyes Open opera (composer Max Giteck Duykers, librettist Philip Kan Gotanda, 2022)

2. Body of Eyes (score by Shinji Eshima, text by Philip Kan Gotanda, 2019)

3. The Wash (written by Philip Kan Gotanda, 2013)

4. Life Taste Good (directed by Philip Kan Gotand, Life Tastes Good Productions, 1999)

5. Drinking Tea (directed by Philip Kan Gotand, Joe Ozu Productions, 1996

Abigail De Kosnik headshot

Abigail De Kosnik

Abigail De Kosnik is an Associate Professor at University of California, Berkeley in the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. She researches digital culture, film and television, fandom, and piracy. De Kosnik’s bookRogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom was published by MIT Press in 2016. She is Filipina American.

Scholarly works:

1. “#CancelColbert: Popular Outrage, Divo Citizenship, and Digital Political Performativity.” In #identity: Hashtagging Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Nation, edited by Abigail De Kosnik and Keith Feldman. 2019.

2. “Relationshipping Nations: Philippines/U.S. Fan Art and Fan Fiction.”Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol. 9 (in special issue on “Fans of Color, Fandoms of Color,” edited by Abigail De Kosnik and andré carrington). 2019.

3. “Filipinos’ Forced Fandom of U.S. Media: Protests against The Daily Show and Desperate Housewives as Bids for Cultural Citizenship.”  In The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, edited by Melissa A. Click and Suzanne Scott (Routledge).  2018.

5. “Perfect Covers: Filipino Musical Mimicry and Transmedia Performance.” 

6. Verge: Studies in Global Asias, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 2017), pp. 137-161.  2017.

7. “The Mask of Fu Manchu, Son of Sinbad, and Star Wars IV: A New   Hope: Techno-Orientalist Cinema as an Mnemotechnics of 20th Century U.S.-Asian Conflicts.”  In Techno-Orientalism: Science Fiction History, Literature, Media, edited by David S. Roh, Betsy Huang, and Greta Niu (Rutgers University Press). 2015.

Long Le-Khac

Long Le-Khac

Long Le-Khac is the son of Vietnamese refugees. He is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at University of California, Berkeley. His research and teaching focus on culture and literature, the relations between Asian Americans and Latinxs, race and the environment, and digital approaches to the study of culture. His book Giving Form to an Asian and Latinx America was published by Stanford University Press in 2020.

Selected Scholarly Works:

“#BLM Insurgent Discourse, White Structures of Feeling, and the Fate of the 2020 ‘Racial Awakening,’” with Richard Jean So and Maria Antoniak, New Literary History, 53, no. 4 / 54, no. 1 (June 2023): 667-692.

“The Asian American Literature We’ve Constructed,” with Kate Hao, Post45 no. 7/Journal of Cultural Analytics no. 4 (April 2021): 146-179.

“Narrating the Transnational: Refugee Routes, Communities of Shared Fate, and Transnarrative Form.”MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the U.S. 43, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 106-128.

“Bildungsroman Hermeneutics in the Post-Civil Rights Era.”American Literature 90, no. 1 (March 2018): 141-170.

“A Quantitative Literary History of 2,958 Nineteenth-Century British Novels: The Semantic Cohort Method,” with Ryan Heuser. Pamphlets of the Stanford Literary Lab, 2012.

Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez

Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez

Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez examines cultures of imperialism, with a focus on the U.S. and its colonial territories and interventions in Asia and the Pacific. She explores how race, Indigeneity, gender, and sexuality intersect and operate in the cultural terrains of empire. She examines how empire operates through and in a register of intimacy, particularly through the production of consent and hospitality upon which it relies. Currently, she is working on a project about hospitality and its discontents. 

Scholarly works:

Bangtan Remixed (co-editor with Patty Ahn, Michelle Cho, Rani Neutill, Mimi Thi Nguyen, and Yutian Wong, Duke 2024)

Empire's Mistress, Starring Isabel Rosario Cooper (Duke 2021) Honorable Mention for History 2023, Association for Asian American Studies

Empire’s Mistress, author’s conversation with Theo Gonzalves, part of the Better Tomorrow Speaker Series (University of Hawai'i Mānoa March 11th, 2021)

Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai'i (co-editor with Hōkūlani K. Aikau, Duke 2019) - now anchors a book series with Duke University Press and also inspired an open source ibook in collaboration with the University of Hawai‘i’s Center for Pacific Islands Studies (in development)

Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawai'i and the Philippines (Duke 2013) Best book in Cultural Studies 2015, Association for Asian American Studies