¶ Understanding the AAPI Acronym
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Welcome to Inheriting from LAS Studios and the NPR Network. Our show is about Asian American and Pacific Islander history and families, where the past is personal. I'm your host, Emily Kuang.
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Asian Americans represent people from the continent of Asia, while Pacific Islanders represent indigenous people from across the Pacific Ocean, specifically the regions of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. And yet, somehow, the term Asian American and Pacific Islander has become one under the acronym AAPI. And it somehow represents us all. And this episode was born entirely out of questions we had as a team about the usefulness of the term AAPS.
at least through the census, we haven't been Asian American Sid Gallon there since two thousand.
But the AAPI term is still kicking around.
It's still there. And so we have to ask ourselves, like, why is that?
Someone really equipped for this conversation is Safa Aina, who has worked with Pacific Islander communities and examined the use of the term AAPI for decades. Sefa is the eighth of nine children, born to parents from the U.S. Territory of American Samoa. He's currently the Associate Dean and Director of the Draper Center for Community Partnerships at Pomona College.
Seth has been a community organizer. He has taught classes in contemporary Pacific Islander studies. He was even a part of President Barack Obama's White House initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. So yeah, the man has walked the walk. And he's here to help us think through this question. How did Asian American and Pacific Islander get lumped into one umbrella label anyway? Why did it happen? And what purpose does this term serve now?
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¶ Pacific Islander Identity and Activism
Safa, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, thank you for having me.
When it comes to your own racial and ethnic identity, what words do you use to describe yourself? And why?
Well, first and foremost, I call myself Samoan. That's the primary cultural and ethnic identity that I have. You know, it wasn't until college that I started to sort of understand more broadly, you know, that we fall under the category Pacific Island, you know, and and met. non some ones who who were able to find just community with each other. And then, you know, as we got more politically active, we we started to hear the term Asian Pacific Islanders.
Who was the first person who taught you the term Pacific Islander and w how did you decide to start using it yourself?
I probably think it was the folks that I when I joined the Pacific Islander Students Association at UCLA.
Yeah, you were like, These are my people right here.
Oh that's I'm telling you, man. I know it's like a forty thousand people on that campus. You know, we're right there in Los Angeles, which is one of the main clubs of Pacific Islander community and outside of the islands. You know, I was wearing my eel lava lava just to like, man, who where is everybody? You know, it's like I wasn't finding anybody. So for the first time I met someone, I was getting my financial aid check.
you know, and then I saw somebody, they hollered out and then we uh connected. She was a grad student at the time and she was like, oh there's others and she invited me to a barbecue and yeah, no, no seriously, it was this like that. you know, I just wanted to hang out. I wanted to be with my folks. You know, I was yeah, really kinda yearning for that. Mm-hmm. But they were all like very serious group of Pacific Islander folks. And it was a very serious time on campus. You know, there was a
Hunger strike for Chicano Studies, uh Prop two oh nine was starting to bubble up, you know, and all these things I was not aware of, but I was learning about'em. Well. It went from like me just hanging out to me like listening and and saying, wow, okay, that makes sense. So it really was those folks, right? Like Yeah. Being able to read like how Nani K. Trask, for example, who's native Hawaiian, and being able to resonate with her idea of nationalism as a Pacific Islander as a native Hawaiian.
And asking myself that question is like as a Samoan, where where do I stand, you know, in terms of independence and where do I stand in terms of colonialism? And so that identity as a uh Pacific Islander you know, of moving away from just being sound started to grow in that space.
So you're saying Pacific Islander started out as a barbecue invitation. Quickly realized it was like politically supercharged. It could do work in the world. And you have been a Pacific Islander.
¶ AAPI Term: Complexities and Purpose
advocate and educator and gatherer for decades now. So I'm wondering what do you think of the term AAPI? What work does that word do in the world from where you
It's done a bunch of things. You know, it's it's not a perfect term. It's a term that was, you know, used in a in a larger narrative within American society to hit one racial group against another. Internally, we do have our players who, you know, have not always been good stewards of of community.
who've not really, you know, been very conscious of who's in the room and who's not in the room. But my own experience has been different. You know, I got my first job out of college was working at the Asian American Study Center at UCLA. And if you know anything about that place it was sort of the crossroads. Like it was the only place in the country that had a postgraduate Asian American studies degree conferring program. And so everybody was coming through that, you know.
I was learning from people like Don Akenishi, Yuri Kochiyama, and they never s pushed Asian American or Pacific Islander on me. They just asked me, you know, what are you gonna do for your community? And I've always felt empowered through them. like serve the people, serve my people. And I took that to mean my Pacific Islander community.
Coming up, Sefa and I break down the history of the term AAPI. We hear about how lumping Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders into one big category has led to erasure and resource. prosperity, and how that had deadly consequences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We were labeled in in some places as Asian Americans and Valender, we were invisible. It was the recipe for a disaster for our community.
That's after the break on inheriting.
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Hey everyone, this is Emily Kuang, host of Inheriting. My guest is academic advisor and community organizer, Safa An. who's about to tell us a story I've long wanted to hear. Where did the term AAPI even come from? The thing I think I wanna do with you to serve our communities'cause people are lost. People are stuck. They don't know what to do with these labels. They don't maybe
know each other. And that's what this show is trying to be. It's trying to get people to know each other. And I was wondering if you could help me like snap this umbrella term in half. Like break the umbrella. Let's look at what Asian American is and let's look at what Pacific Islander is.
¶ Historical Roots of Asian American Identity
I always thought the term Asian American came from these like U C Berkeley activists, Emma G and Yuji Ichioka and it was very much out of the civil rights movement and the black power movement and this need to like unify all these different ethnic groups, Asian American. Is that like the history as you understand it? Where did the term Asian American come?
Yuji it was a dear friend of mine and one of the people that mentored me when I started at UCLA. Yeah, he was like five doors down from the end. When you start Asian American, it was a political identity. when you said it, you meant I am progressive, I take ownership of this title. So there was an empowerment when they said it, when when they meant it. You know, but this became sort of a
A category for counting people. The census is a way for the government to keep track of who's in the country, and the important part of that is the ability to divide up resources. Right. And so the more people you have, the more resources you're gonna get, the more elected officials you're gonna, the more tax dollars you're gonna get. So being visible or invisible within the census is important because then you're not gonna be counted. So Pacific Islanders have always had this weird sort of
Relationship with the United States because we don't have one status with the United States. We're not just immigrants. You know, some of us are immigrants, like Kegeans and Tongians, some of us are U.S. national. Um, we were born under the territory of American Samoa and and Guam and Hawaii when it was a protectorate and not a state. So it's it's a lot of mixed identities. And so there was a push for Pacific Islanders to be counted separately, to be counted in some ways as indigenous.
When did this energy to define the Pacific Islander movement begin? I understand it kind of started with native Hawaiians. Can you tell me about that time?
Yeah, so the Pacific Islander movement, at least how I experienced it, happened a lot around the seven It definitely was something that was pushed and really kind of made visible by the Hawaiian Renaissance, which happened in the sixties and the seventies with the rebirth of their language, with the rebirth of their navigation and the reclamation of their lands, especially, you know, places like Cahot Lave.
you know, places that were used by military to practice, you know, war games and things like that. There was a rebirth and you're starting to see a lot of food of that. A lot of these kids who who grew up as native Hawaiians now, you know, they speak the language that was erased or eradicated from them. And so there was a lot of that sort of coming into identity and coming into power. So they really led the way in terms of
fighting for recognition, fighting for visibility and things like that. I mean, I don't wanna idealize it. Obviously they're still disenfranchised, they're still displaced. But it was really that energy with the native Hawaiian Renaissance that really kinda politicizes, at least, you know, the the the Pacific Islanders who grow up in the US to really kinda think about that. Also what's happening is we're growing up in urban places in the US, you know, so the folks who are living here and
Compton and Carson and San Francisco. We're growing up in black and brown neighborhoods. You know, we're growing up next to Black Panthers. We're growing up next to Brown Berets. We're growing up next to Chicano movements. You know, I grew up not too far from Chicano Park. You know what I mean? We we're learning
from their elders, like what it means to to fight back, you know, what what it means to have an identity. You know, with the native Hawaiian movement, a lot of that energy comes from being indigenous. Here in the States it really was an infectious part of what was going on in low income communities everywhere, you know, the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, you know, it was exploding everywhere and we were just along for the ride, you know, we were trying to
grow up with it. And so for when I came along in the nineties, we were really just trying to create roots.
¶ AAPI's Persistence, Disaggregation Challenges
So growing up in the nineties, you brought up the US Census earlier. Do you remember when this term, when the two halves of this umbrella became the umbrella? Asian American and Pacific Islander A-A-P-I, like When do you remember that word kicking around? And what did you think of it at the time?
It came around the in the eighties and I and yeah, I wasn't really conscious of it. The other thing that was happening at that time in the eighties was was the build up. of nonprofits. Yeah. And so when you start to build communities around this terminology, Asian American Citigala, you also start to build up things that fund those kinds of things, right? So the structures start to get set up to support these things, right?
But then of course the federal government disaggregated Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and its data starting in like nineteen ninety-seven.
Yeah. So by the time the two thousand census comes around Pacific Islander is separate from Asian American, the infrastructure that was built to support that is still there. You know, so like we haven't been at least through the census, we haven't been Asian American Civic Islander plus two thousand.
Right. There's a category that's native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders.
It's still
But the AAPI term is still kicking around.
It's still there. And so it's like, so we have to ask ourselves like, why is that? And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that when it was built. all these other constructs were built around it to support it. Now part of extricating that is it has to become part of the the plan to help the specific islander community.
you know, stand up. You know, I I've talked quite a bit about parallel structures. There's the Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum. We should have a Pacific Islander Health Forum. There's a Asian Pacific Islander American scholars, you know, or is it Pacific Islander scholars? You know, and until we can get our own, I'm bound to participate. But I think the question I constantly ask folks is that, you know, the census corrected itself in two thousand.
Right. You know, at some point our supporting infrastructure actually has to follow suit.
Why haven't nonprofits? change their names to be Asian American or Pacific Islander if that's primarily the communities that they serve. Why hasn't this data been disaggregated in more places?
I think it's a double-edged sword, to be honest with you. You know, w without those larger numbers, we are lost.
MUERIMIMADA
we're a small community, Pacific Islanders. We would become statistically, you know, insignificant to folks who make political decisions. And it's unfortunate. But the numbers end up playing a big part. We don't have the same kind of access that we have when we're in coalition with one another. There are a lot of things that we share in common. There are a lot of things that even if we don't share in common, we should stand in solidarity with one another.
you know, maybe I'm too old and maybe young people need to come and take us to the next level. Like my dream is that we create our own spaces, we create our own parallel structures and you know we stand shoulder to shoulder with Asian American groups. It's not an antagonistic thing. I I would want it to be parallel and and supportive in the same ways that we are supportive of
African American communities, Native American communities, Latinx communities. This is about empowering people of color in this country.
¶ COVID-19's Impact on Pacific Islanders
From where you sit, working closely for so many years with Pacific Islanders. What has been the impact of combining AANPI on the Pacific Islander community?
I feel like in the places where I've been in, I've been able to leverage that category. in ways that have helped to grow a Pacific Islander presence, but it's not always been the case. When COVID hit in twenty twenty, A lot of Sync Islander leaders just really started to attack this issue at the county level, at the regional level. And Riverside County specifically was not disaggregated.
Asian from Pacific Islanders. So they weren't able to see that COVID was disproportionately affecting us and killing us. Like they just couldn't see it because, you know, when you lump our numbers together, it didn't seem like it was the kind of you know emergency that it would be once you disaggregate it. And so we had several meetings with with the county.
Saying, hey, you you gotta take a better look at this. They finally got to the point where like, okay, we're gonna start to separate the data, but then even though the the average person's understanding of what is Pacific Island or what is not Pacific Islander were off.
And then we figured out that there were Filipinos who were marking that and so we were saying, why don't you create a separate box for Filipinos? You know, because you know, Filipinos have always kind of like um I'm my Pacific Islander, am I Asian American, why don't they have their own box? And statistically, we were labeled in in some places as Asian American St. Islander, we were invisible.
And then, you know, it's one thing to get the statistics right and the data right, but then you have to adjust the services around that too. Then you know, and so that even took a while. And that wasn't just a riverside story. That's a story that's happening around the country. And because COVID was so harmful to our community, my my brother died of COVID.
We had all the comorbidities. We were essential workers. It was the recipe for a disaster for our community. Yeah. It's like, look, you you need to fund Pacific Islander stuff because this is killing us.
These might be words, but they are a matter of life and death when it comes to where money flows and resources and support. Like that's a real health equity issue between our communities.
¶ Self-Knowledge for Pacific Islander Youth
Very quite literally. I mean it was that bad.
It's so interesting that the birth of these terms came from a desire to find some commonality, but it's led to erasure too. And so I guess what would you say to young Pacific Islanders?
Yeah.
Who are trying to figure out who they are, given the inheritance of this term? They didn't choose Pacific Islander or AAPI, but it's nonetheless like what we use now.
I'd say you start with yourself. Always start with yourself. You know, knowledge is power. If you have no sense of self, if you have no sense of who you are and what your people went through and what your culture is about, if you don't know yourself.
then you're not gonna be able to relate to other people, other Pacific Islanders. If you don't understand colonialism within the context of your own family's history, how can you understand it within the context of of Native Americans in the in the US? How can you understand displacement if you don't understand it from your own context. But once you do understand it for yourself, then you get it. So like for me when I was in college, It because I I I was so connected to learning for myself.
The best classes that I took, because there were no PI studies classes, were black studies classes or Chicano study classes, because I could identify with that. I could identify with racism, with white supremacy. I know that felt like in my context.
So I would say to young people, young Sikhalaners, like know yourself, know your community, you know, and it can't be a reactionary thing. You're not building community in reaction to who the other people are. It's never about that. It's always about you. Center yourself. You fight because you love who you are, not because you hate what people are doing.
¶ Centering Margins in AAPI Spaces
Coming up, we look to the future of Asian American and Pacific Islander solidarity. Safa and I discuss what that could look like, and how having a better understanding of one another could transform the AAPI acronym itself.
It was empowering to see that it was the margins. It was like the Cambodians, the Filipinos, the Samoans. It was like they were all in the mix. And it was like, man, they circles look different when the margins are in the
That is after the break on inheriting.
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You are listening to Inheriting. I'm Emily Kwan. This episode, I have been talking with Safaina, who has thought so deeply about whether we should use the term AAPI at all and ways to address the marginalization of Pacific IP. Have you ever had a personal experience where you really felt like the two groups being under one AAPI was fruitful for you? And can you tell that story?
Yeah. So I'm part of this group called Apathi, the Asian Pacific Americans in higher ed. And I was going to that conference back in like the m late nineties and Man, it was like a graveyard. It was like dead and it was very East Asian centric and you know, I was going more or less out of an obligation to some of the elders there. And one of the elders hit me up out of the blue about five or six years ago. And I went, I was just like totally bracing myself for another boring ass old school like
But it was not that at all. And it was like so many Pacific Islanders there. There were so many young people there. There were so many young Southeast Asian kids there. This energy was off the hook. There was a DJ in there. The flavor was different. I mean, it was lid in there and and I was shook. To me it was empowering to see that it was the margins. It was like the Cambodians.
The Filipinos, the Samoines, it was like they were all in the mix and it was like, Man, the API circles look different when the margins are in the center, you know what I mean? Whoa. Yeah, it looked way different.
¶ Intentional Language for Equitable Representation
The AAPI circles look different when the margins are in the center.
Yeah, totally. And I was just like so I couldn't stop smiling. I couldn't wait to tell people. I was like, man, this conference was lit. You know, and and I I have Sylvia colleagues who don't think Apahe is doing enough. And I think in some levels, yeah, that they're right. I know that when it comes to being marginalized under that term, we're not the only ones. It's not just ethnic groups that are marginalized. You queer groups are marginalized.
religious groups are marginalized. Now that you're seeing all the Middle Eastern, North African folks who consider themselves West Asian, you know, where is their voice within our community? Right.
Other folks I've talked to who work in Pacific Islander spaces in the arts, in activism, you know, they they bring up how within the NHP I term native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders There's an over representation of Polynesians. All language is made up, but even within this made up word.
Yeah.
is a center and a margin.
There is, there is. That's a psalm one. I know that. I know that.
Because you you're considered Polynesian yourself.
Yeah, yeah. I mean and and I can sit here and say, Well, it's because, you know, we we were one of the colonies of the US, you know, so our relationship with the United States goes back over a hundred years. We were the first to migrate. You know, you could say those things, right? But it doesn't make it right. It's the same way JAs can say, well, you know, we came in the 1800s. Chinese can say, well, we built those railroads.
Whereas, you know, Southeast Asians came post Vietnam, you know, so it's like you can say those things but it's like, well, but we gotta make space and make room for these other communities and That's what it is. That's why I'm like, you know what, man, we ain't the only one.
Safa, you've been in this work for so long. And you're looking at a younger generation that's doing it now. And when you think about the future, what would it look like to move the margins to the center within this massive, not adequately described group of people?
When I was working i in in the White House that wasn't just for me to talk about Pacific Islanders. I was talking about Hmong, Yan, Cambodians. So when you're in these places of influence. Man, you you gotta bring this into the room. You know what I'm saying? Don't just be in there for yourself. You know, talk for the people who can't talk, you know, who want to be there. Be very mindful that.
There's a very limited spotlight on us. If you have that moment, if you have those places that you have access to, whether it's a boardroom or a funding space, you're like, you know what? You should really know about this community.
The world we live in now does use the term AAPI in some spaces. How do you think it should be used? Just like right now in this day and
You know, I think when it comes to API I think it's too quick to use the initials. I think people should just say it out. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. When you're intentional about saying it out, then I think you're giving each of those categories Acknowledgement, be very intentional and deliberate about saying those things. When you say APIs, it's a loaded term, obviously.
I think one of the easiest things you can do is just say the whole thing. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's not that hard, you know.
And by extension, if Pacific Islanders aren't featured, showcased, funded, whatever it be, you shouldn't say Pacific Islander. You should just say Asian American.
And that's fine. Yeah. Because there's there are Asian American groups who have funded us. You know what I mean? They they didn't call themselves. The Gallonda. You know, so it's like I actually don't care what you call yourself, man. If you write a check, shit, I'm down. You know what I mean?
I imagine there's a lot of young Asian Americans listening to this conversation, perhaps Asian American organizers or nonprofit leaders right now. What advice do you have for Asian Americans to more authentically Build relationships with Pacific Islander communities to make that PI part equal and differentiated from the Asian American.
I've probably trained like five times more Asian American students than I've trained Pacific Islanders just because of the nature of college admissions and things like that. So, you know, I've I've always led and and I've been conscious. Of being a Pacific Islander leader in front of Asian American kids. Too many times these AAPI spaces were led by Asian American kids.
So part of understanding the the ways this community can expand is that you're being led by me. You know what I mean? I know there's tons of Asian American kids who are out there who know what the struggle is like, you know, because they know me. They call me mentor. They call me teacher. So
I'm proud of that. I'm happy about that. You know, because they're gonna be leaders too. And when they lead they're gonna be like, well shit, my mentor was Sephira. That's what happens when the margins move to the Senate. Yeah. There's a saying in Salmo and uh Lealatua that means
The path to leadership is through service. That's what this is about. It's about serving the people. You know, this AAPI term. This term means nothing. You gotta give it meaning. It means what you make it mean. Otherwise it's just a fucking category. You know what I'm saying? So if you're out there and you're wondering which you know, be authentic. Otherwise they're just words, you know what I'm saying? Right. If we're really about it. You know, then be about it, you know, but don't posture
Be a person of action, not of rhetoric.
¶ Federal Push for Data Disaggregation
Be a personal action. Yeah, exactly.
Cepha Ina, it's been really fantastic to talk to you.
All right. Well I had a blast. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thanks again to Sefa Aina, the Associate Dean and Director of the Draper Center for Community Partnerships at Pomona College. Since we taped this episode, there has been a bit of a federal push to disaggregate data and better serve Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Federal agencies collecting data are now required to differentiate within these groups.
That is a recent directive from the White House's Office of Management and Budget, which is pushing for agencies to update their forms, say social security card applications, with more detailed choices. So those applying can describe themselves in more accurate terms, and this data can shape more equitable policy. To learn more about the history of the term AAPI, check out our website laas.com/slash inheriting and our digital resource guide.
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Inheriting is entirely funded by supporters like you. If you found meaning in this episode and want to hear future seasons of the show and more Pacific Islander stories, donate right now at oleas.com/slash inheriting and click the orange button to help us make season two. Something Really special is going on right now. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar, thanks to Jee He and Peter Ha. Please help us tell. Thank you so much.
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Inheriting is hosted, reported, and co created by me, Emily Kuang. The show is a production of LAS Studios and distributed by the NPR. Anjali Sastri Kurbachek is the senior producer of the first. And co-creator of the show. This episode was produced and sound designed by Minju Park. James Chow is also a producer on the show.
Sarah Sarrison is our senior editor. Catherine Mailhouse is our executive producer and director of content development at LAS Studios. Shayna Naomi Krokmall is our vice president. Mixing and Engineering by Donald Paw. Original theme music composition by E. Scott Kelly. Jens Campbell's our production coordinator. Fact-checking by Caitlin Antonios. Our intern is Tony Morales. Podcast Tile Art by Christina Chalk.
Visuals by Samant Hernandez. Social media and video by Christine Malixi and Josh Latona. Extra gratitude to researcher Alfred Flores. As well as Fran Lujan of the Pacific Islander Ethnic Art Museum in Long Beach. If you've never been, I highly encourage. Major support for inheriting is provided by Jeehee and Peter Ha and Cathay Bank, as well as many more who gave specifically to inheriting.
Thank you so much. This podcast is also supported by Gordon and Donna Crawford, who believe quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live.
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