Every May, we celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, as a special time to honor the cultures, influences, and contributions of Asian American sand Pacific Islanders to our communities and society as a whole. During a time in which anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination continue to rise, there's never been a more vital time to support the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
It's important to give visibility to those who have changed the world, especially people who have broken down barriers, shattered glass ceilings, and continue to fight to give equal rights and better the lives of those around them. For the AAPI communities, they've generally been overlooked in history books — which are largely full of white men, after all. But there have been so many AAPI trailblazers who have made an important mark not only on their communities but on the entire country and the world at large.
So, we're celebrating the trailblazers. The ones who didn't listen when they were told to be invisible. The people who fought against erasure and had to battle the harmful stereotypes. They deserve to be celebrated, lifted up, and we're highlighting just a fraction of those who have left an important mark on the world.
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Patsy Mink
Patsy Mink was a third-generation Japanese American who became the first Asian American woman and the first woman from a minority group to be elected to the US Congress. She joined the ranks in 1964 and throughout her life in politics and beyond, she worked to amplify the rights of women, children, and immigrants for the 40 years of her career.
Chella Man
Chella Man is raising awareness with his experience as a deaf, genderqueer, transgender Jewish person of color. He uses his platforms as a YouTube influencer, model, and artist to speak up for marginalized communities. He offers a visibility and representation in hopes it will help trans youth who may not have access.
Victoria Manalo Draves
Victoria Manalo Draves, pictured in the middle of the photo, was a competitive diver who became the first Asian American Olympic champion. She won gold metals in both springboard diving and platform diving in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. She was also named one of the two best athletes at the Games for that year.
Yuri Kochiyama
Yuri Kochiyama was an advocate for bettering the lives of Asian Americans. She pushed to have reparations for the Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II. Yuri also pushed for the US government to issue a formal apology to those who had to live through that. Her efforts succeeded and were instrumental in leading to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
Schuyler Bailar
Schuyler Bailar is an American swimmer who became the first openly transgender NCAA Division I swimmer. Not only that, but he is also the only trans male athlete to compete on the men's team in any NCAA sport. He uses his sizeable social media platform to educate and advocate for other trans people and why gender-affirming health care is vital.
Cecilia Chung
Cecilia Chung is an Asian transgender woman who is living with HIV and has dedicated her life to fight violence, stigma, and discrimination in the marginalized communities. She's been working for more than 20 years to better the lives of trans people and does this through her work with the Transgender Law Society and Positively Trans.
Daniel Akaka
Daniel Akaka was the first US Senator of Native Hawaiian descent and served in that role from 1990 to 2013. He was regarded as a champion of Native Hawaiian culture. “People tell me I have to be feisty to get my way in Congress," he said. "But that’s not my style. I use my Hawaiian abilities and the spirit of Aloha that brings people together.”
Amy Tan
Amy Tan is a literary trailblazer and her work in her 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club was praised for the portrait of an Asian American family that the community could relate to. Her story was huge for representation and visibility. In 1993, her novel was adapted into a movie and was one of the few US feature films that had an all-Asian cast. She told her personal story in American Masters in the episode "Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir," which premiered May 3, 2021, on PBS.
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Leyna Bloom
Leyna Bloom has broken through so many barriers in the fashion world and is paving the way to better the lives of the women who come up behind her. Leyna is the first trans model of color to walk the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and uses her voice to advocate for minorities. "It’s not just in the trans community. It’s in my Black community. It’s in my Asian community," she told Glamour in 2018.
Yuji Ichioka
Yuji Ichioka was a civil rights activist who founded the Asian American Political Alliance in 1968, which aimed to unite university students across the country to come together to help better the lives of Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese students. He is said to be the person who advocated to use the term "Asian American" which is noted as being instrumental to band the communities together.
Lisa Ling
Historically, it's been a challenge for women to be taken seriously in investigative journalism. It has been an even bigger barrier for Asian women. But for the past 30 years, Lisa Ling has become a prolific journalist who has trailblazed the industry for other women to come after her. She's put herself in the middle of some of the world's most dangerous places, currently hosting her own show This Is Life with Lisa Ling on CNN.
Shyamala Gopalan Harris
You can’t know who @KamalaHarris is without knowing who our mother was. Missing her terribly, but know she and the ancestors are smiling today. #BidenHarris2020 pic.twitter.com/nmWVj90pkA
— Maya Harris (@mayaharris_) August 12, 2020
Shyamala Gopalan Harris was a civil rights activist but was also a scientist who was known for her breast cancer research that sparked "many advances regarding the role of progesterone and its cellular receptor in breast biology and cancer," the Breast Cancer Action's obituary of her reads. "The world of women affected by breast cancer changed for the better because of Harris's presence in it."
She was also the mom of Vice President Kamala Harris, another trailblazer!
Anika Chebrolu
When she was 14 years old, Anika Chebrolu, who is Indian American, won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge taking home to top prize for her work that looked into the molecules that were responsible for the global pandemic. "My effort to find a lead compound to bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus this summer may appear to be a drop in the ocean, but still adds to all these efforts," she told CNN.
Bobby Balcena
#TBT Bobby Balcena 1st #FilipinoAmerican to appear in #MLB. Fondly loved in #PNW as the #Seattle #Rainiers center pic.twitter.com/DCxzG87oJr
— FANHS Seattle (@fanhs_seattle) March 24, 2016
Bobby Balcena was a professional athlete and he became the first Filipino to play in a Major League Baseball game when he stepped up to the plate for the Cincinnati Reds in 1956. While he didn't play in the big leagues for too long, he opened the door for many others to come after him in the sport.
Helen Zia
Helen Zia is an advocate for LGBTQIA+ youth as a woman in the community herself and she has tackled many issues that impact the community across the country. She's an award-winning author who played a crucial role in getting justice for the racially charged murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese draftsman who was killed in 1982. She cofounded the organization American Citizens for Justice and successfully pushed for a retrial after the men found guilty of the crime initially received no prison time.
