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Our AAPI Community

Throughout history, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have contributed to the growth and incredible diversity of this country; they have continually inspired generations with their resilience and creativity. Understand the long road and hurdles they've traversed to make a new life on foreign shores, and explore the many ways that Asian Americans have become integral parts of this nation's social fabric, from arts and culture to politics and governance.
Read our statement of support for the AAPI community.

More from KCET

City of Ghosts
Award-winning animator Elizabeth Ito explores L.A.'s rich, diverse history in a hybrid documentary and animated series, "City of Ghosts."
 ICE Not Welcome poster | Audrey Chan, ACLU SoCal
Amid the pandemic, ACLU SoCal's first resident artist has been responding creatively in support of civil rights.
Uncle Van Huynh's mother sews masks for the Auntie Sewing Squad. | Courtesy of Van Huynh
The Auntie Sewing Squad is a multi-generational network of 800-plus home sewers making face masks for vulnerable populations without access to them.
A volunteer delivered a supply bag under social distancing guidelines. | Sophat Phea/CCED Organizer via LAist
When the "Safer at Home" orders went into effect, there was worry for the community's seniors, a cohort that tends to shop on an as-needed basis, often on foot, in the few dozen square blocks in and around Chinatown or Lincoln Heights.
Making vegetarian bánh chưng with peanuts | Sri Panchalam
With the annual convening of the Bánh Chưng Collective, Chef Diep Tran keeps a beloved Lunar New Year culinary tradition alive to multigenerational participants.
Mister Jiu's Waverly entrance | Courtesy of Mister Jiu's featured
Much of the restaurants in SF’s original Chinatown suffer from touristy mediocrity, but Chinatown’s deep community knows the neighborhood’s narrow streets contain a wealth of under-the-radar Chinese delicacies and flavors.
Japanese American internment (featured)
On the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, the 1942 mandate that forced Japanese Americans into detention camps, an exhibition reminds viewers of the grave injustices of the past, while making parallels to political actions today.
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The idea of "closing America’s gates" got its start in xenophobic 19th-century California.
Former WWII Era Internment Camp Preserved As Manzanar National Historic Site
The immigration and citizenship laws that prevail in the 21st century United States, reflect Eurocentric racial hierarchies and help create and reproduce a white-majority nation. 
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Today, there is almost no evidence of the Japanese American community that played such an important role in the early twentieth century development of El Monte and the San Gabriel Valley.
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Isamu Noguchi, who was based on the East Coast, volunteered to be incarcerated, driven by an idealistic desire to be of service in the camps by using his skills to design and build structural improvements.
Adult art classes learning freehand brush strokes. | Dorothea Lange, War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement / National Archives  ABs10 MMD
Faced with empty horse stalls and bare barracks, Chiura Obata, along with other artists, taught over 600 professionals and amateurs art. Their work fueled a spirit of resilience in their community and helped them face an untenable situation with dignity.
Swank One at "Don't Believe the Hype"
"Don't Believe the Hype: L.A. Asian Americans in Hip Hop" examines the genre as a tool for “resistance, refuge and reinvention” to represent everything from breakdancing and graffiti to DJs and MCs.
A customer at Vicky's Nail Salon receives a manicure in Alameda, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2019.  | Alison Yin for KCET
An organization based out of a community health clinic in Oakland has pioneered the way for safer conditions for nail salon workers.
Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, STS-107 mission specialist, prepares to simulate a parachute drop into water during an emergency bailout training session in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. | Flickr/NASA Johnson/Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0)​
There have been numerous women on the ground who made NASA's journeys possible. The following women are just a fraction of the Asian Americans whose remarkable work continues to impact the investigation of worlds beyond our own.
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For decades, Asian immigrant investors have pushed boundaries of urban and economic development in Greater L.A.
Mister Jiu's Waverly entrance | Courtesy of Mister Jiu's featured
Much of the restaurants in SF’s original Chinatown suffer from touristy mediocrity, but Chinatown’s deep community knows the neighborhood’s narrow streets contain a wealth of under-the-radar Chinese delicacies and flavors.
Pho | Pho Hoa
There are many thriving Vietnamese communities in the United States which are also flourishing as culinary destinations.
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This week in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act barred immigration from China. While this marked a significant point in U.S. history when a specific group was targeted in an exclusionary immigration law, it was not the first of its kind, nor was it the la...
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It was 425 years ago on this day that the first Filipinos arrived in what is now the United States on a Spanish galleon near Morro Bay, CA -- some 33 years before Pilgrims from England arrived at Plymouth Rock.
Black and white photo of Chinese squid fishermen drying out squid in Monterey, California.
The stigmatization of Chinese immigrants as a threat to public health and safety has a long history in the United States. It emerges from an entrenched mode of racism that targets not only Chinese bodies, but Chinese air.
The working conditions of the El Monte sweatshop operation in 1995, following a raid by state and federal agencies. | Photo: Philip Bonner
Twenty years ago this month, a raid on an El Monte sweatshop holding 72 Thai laborers in captivity opened the public's eyes to how such severe labor exploitation can exist in the Land of the Free.
Ahree Lee, "Permutation" still
Ahree Lee explores the paradox of similarity and difference, demonstrating that even in a world that seems increasingly fragmented culturally, racially and economically, we are more similar than we realize.
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This week L.A. Letters examines the hip hop history in Cerritos and the unique conditions of this gateway city that have made it a springboard for the mobile DJ culture.
Judy Sugita and other Nisei Week Queen candidates at a campaign event in 1953 | Photo courtesy of Judy Sugita
Here's a photographic look back at past Queens, and how their roles have changed over the years.
A young man holds his hands up in a portrait drawn on wood by Shizu Saldamando.
Shizu Saldamando's portraits are heavily influenced by Chicano art sensibilities and her Japanese heritage. Her subjects aren't the cookie-cutter characters we see in popular culture, but real, breathing beings actively building their identity.
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A decade and half into the 21st century, 2015 serves as useful moment to consider the history of Filipinos in America's boxing history and L.A.'s role in making it all happen.
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At home in the U.S. and abroad, basketball continues to occupy a central place in Filipino American lives.
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Asian American basketball leagues have given shape to the unique histories of each ethnic group living under the flattening designation of "Asian American."
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Nori Takatani has worked at Anzen Hardware in Little Tokyo since 1954, while maintaining a winning side-career as a boxing manager.
Pho | Pho Hoa
There are many thriving Vietnamese communities in the United States which are also flourishing as culinary destinations.
Chase Valencia: LASA Unit 120
LASA co-owner, Chase Valencia, explores the centuries of multicultural influence that shaped modern-day Filipino cuisine.
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In a rare move, the House of Representatives apologizes for the 130-year-old law that prohibited many Chinese from immigrating to the United States.
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The open mic night began as a form of social activism to provide a performing space for the Asian Pacific Islander community in Los Angeles.
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Specializing in enka and J-Pop, the upstairs music section of the long-standing gift shop has struggled for years to attract customers to its extensive collection.
Human Profiling-Annex One, 2010.
Living in a melting pot, we move about our space reflecting and mirroring one another, so as natural as it is to close our eyes when we sneeze, we habitually profile one another based on a so-called "cultural" assumption.
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