You may immediately think of holidays like Mother's Day and Memorial Day when you think of the month of May, but it's important for another reason, too: It also happens to be Asian Pacific Heritage Month. According to the Library of Congress, the United States government officially began celebrating Asian and Pacific Island Americans in 1990, and May was chosen in honor of the first Japanese immigrants arriving to the US on May 7, 1843, as well as the completion of the transcontinental railroad — which was built mostly by Chinese immigrants — on May 10, 1869.
It's a good time to think about exactly how important representation is, including in Hollywood. Unfortunately, the majority of our entertainment in America still focuses on white characters and actors, but there are AAPI celebrities out there who are working hard to change that — and they're proud to share their heritage with the world.
Keep reading to find out what stars including Olivia Munn and Jason Momoa have said about how proud they are to be Asian. There's no time like the present to celebrate all of the contributions that celebrities like them have made to not just entertainment, but society in general.
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Constance Wu
After Taiwanese American Candace Wu tweeted her frustration that her show Fresh Off the Boat had been renewed, causing her to miss out on another opportunity, the backlash threw her into a huge struggle with her mental health — so big that she left social media for a while. When she came back, she shared her feelings on how the Asian American community handles mental health issues like hers.
"I was afraid of coming back on social media because I almost lost my life from it," she wrote at the time. "[Asian Americans] don't talk about mental health enough. While we're quick to celebrate representation wins, there's a lot of avoidance around the more uncomfortable issues within our community."
Sandra Oh
After scoring an Emmy nomination for her work in Killing Eve, Sandra Oh famously said, "It's an honor just to be Asian." And in an essay she penned for Literary Hub, the former Grey's Anatomy star wrote that she was excited about the representation that's finally happening for Asians in Hollywood.
"We have a new generation of storytellers coming up. We have a little bit more freedom to write and talk about what we want to write and talk about," she wrote. "We aren't as afraid it's all going to go away if we wake up. It's been thrilling for me just to have been able to be a part of that."
Jason Momoa
Jason Momoa has been famously open about how much he loves his home state of Hawaii, and his heritage has always been important to him, too. In 2019, he even addressed the United Nations about the way his homeland is being affected by climate change.
Olivia Munn
Olivia Munn is an Asian American who was born to a Vietnamese mother — a heritage that she tied into the middle name she chose for the son she shares with John Mulaney, Malcolm Hiệp. Early in 2023, she took Malcolm to Asian market H Mart for the first time, and she has also spoken out against rising anti-Asian violence in the US.
Jackie Chan
Actor and martial artist Jackie Chan, who is from Hong Kong, has openly advocated for more movies starring Chinese characters, and according to China Daily, he has said that he hopes that could encourage more people to visit and to "help foreigners to better understand a changing China."
"We have rich cultural elements that can be developed into popular movies," he said.
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Awkwafina
Little Mermaid star Awkwafina told #Legend magazine that representing her culture does come with a lot of pressure, but it's also something very important to her.
"I definitely grew up with the sense that I feel American, but I will always be Asian American," she said. "And my family's culture will always dictate my identity today. But I'm also American. So it's something that I think is interesting. I used to struggle with it, but now I think that I've really come to terms with it. It's something that empowers me at the end of the day."
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson
Dwyane "The Rock" Johnson has always spoken proudly of being Samoan, and he has incorporated his heritage into so many of the iconic roles he has played. In Hobbes and Shaw, he even spoke Samoan, which he later told the Los Angeles Times brought his mother to tears to see on the big screen.
Mindy Kaling
Mindy Kaling created the Netflix series Never Have I Ever, which centers on Indian American teenager Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) as she navigates the challenges of dating and friendship in high school. The actresses both spoke at a Teen Vogue panel in 2021 about just how important that kind of representation is.
"There's no one more attractive than a young woman of color in a writer's room in Hollywood. It's your time," Mindy told the audience.
Priyanka Chopra
Though Priyanka Chopra has admitted that she once tried to hide her Indian heritage, she has since fully and proudly embraced it, as she told Glamour.
"I don't think a lot of people understand what Indians are," she said. "And that's our fault, a little. We tend to forget our roots a bit. As kids [we think], 'If I'm too Indian, I'll be put in a box, and people will think of me as different. They'll think I'm weird, because I eat Indian food or my name is difficult to pronounce. That girl in school used to call me curry.' You're scared of those things. We're afraid of letting people see the glory of who we are."
Jon M. Chu
Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu once told Entertainment Weekly how much the movie really spoke to him and his own experiences growing up Asian.
"It's a movie that speaks to my identity as an Asian and that struggle of figuring out who I am and where I belong, and it deals with what my family went through, what my mom and my dad from mainland China [went through], so all the struggles I've experienced are in this book in a fun way, not in some sort of lecturing way," he said at the time.
Ali Wong
In her book Dear Girls, Ali Wong wrote about how thankful she is that she grew up in a family that celebrated its Chinese culture, and that she was raised around other families who shared their heritage.
"My house growing up was filled with Chinese stone carvings, screens, and rugs," she wrote, via Elle. "Every year, my family attended the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. I developed my first crushes on Asian American boys in the same Chinatown alleyway youth center where my dad hung out as a kid."
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Gemma Chan
Don't Worry Darling star Gemma Chan said in an interview with Porter that getting older comes with more opportunities to fully understand and celebrate her heritage.
"One of the nicest things about getting older has been reconnecting and feeling like I can embrace and celebrate the Asian side of my heritage," she said. "I've met so many incredible people, so many more Asians than I knew when I was growing up, in my line of work."
Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris is the daughter of both Indian and Jamaican immigrants, and at 2023's White House celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, she spoke about her own Asian heritage.
"You may find when you walk into a room that you are the only one who looks like you or has your lived experiences," she said at the event. "My message is: Walk in with your chin up, shoulders back, knowing that you are representing the voices of so many people who are proud that you're in that room. We are all in that room with you. You are not walking in that room alone."
Taika Waititi
Taika Waititi's father is Maori, and that heritage helped him push for representation while filming Thor: Ragnarok on Indigenous lands in Australia.
"It's a responsibility you have to the Indigenous people. You're coming to a country and you're bringing money into the economy and creating jobs, but I think you have an even bigger responsibility to look after the people that have less opportunities," he told Buzzfeed News.
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Chrissy Teigen
Chrissy Teigen, whose mom, Pepper, is from Thailand, admitted that while she was once embarrassed about the food her mom loved to cook, that has changed now that she's an adult.
"I used to be embarrassed of Thai food's weird smells as a little kid (especially the strong garlic scent), but now I crave all of the different Thai spices and use endless amounts of garlic in my recipes," she told People. "I've come to be proud of my heritage, instead of shying away from it."
