Public Library Of Youngstown & Mahoning County: Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Youngstown OH

12 May, 2022

4:11 PM

Description

Press release from the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County: Sara Churchill May 1st, 2022 May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. In our melting pot nation, many people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent have played an important part in U.S. history. May was chosen to celebrate them as the first documented Japanese to immigrate to the U.S. arrived May 7, 1843, and the completion of the transcontinental railroad, built by many Chinese immigrants, occurred May 10, 1869. Originally celebrated as a week-long event in 1978, it became a month-long celebration of their many accomplishments in 1992. To learn more about the creation of this national heritage celebration, see "How One Woman's Story Led to the Creation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month" from Time.com. Where do Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders come from? The easy answer is the continent of Asia and the islands of the Pacific. But, can you name them all? Happily, for us, the USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service has provided a detailed description, listing most of the countries and islands from which people identify themselves as having AAPI heritage: "An Asian American is a person having origins in any of the original peoples of East Asia, Southeast Asia, or South Asia, the Indian subcontinent (Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam). A Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander is a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Oceania. Oceania is comprised of three major island groups: Polynesia (New Zealand, Easter Island, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands and French Polynesia), Micronesia (Guam, Palau, Marianas, Wake Island, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Melanesia (Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, West Papua, and New Guinea). The term "Native Hawaiian" does not include individuals who are native to the State of Hawaii by virtue of being born there." It is important to note here that "Asian American" and "Pacific Islander" are broad terms, with "Asian American" being the one primarily used on forms. Asian American Pacific Islander covers a huge geographic region, and the many peoples within this area have their own unique cultures, languages, and traditions. Thus, people of Asian American Pacific Islander descent usually identify themselves more specifically as to where they and their ancestors came from, such as: Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Hawaiian, etc. For more about the terms Asian American and Pacific Islander, see: Where to find stories and information about Asian/Pacific Heritage? There are some great resources online to learn more about Asian/Pacific Heritage month, such as: But the library also has many online resources free for all PLYMC library cardholders to use which will find a variety of information for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, from biographies of significant individuals past & present through history and more. Library Online Resources for All Ages Biographies: Biography Reference Center has a large collection of biographies to view when you go the Biographies by Genre column and click Asian Americans as shown here: You can find Asian Americans using the Advanced Search. From the Advanced Search screen, scroll to U.S. Ethnicity and click on Asian American. And it is from this screen where you can locate biographies written for younger grades versus older by limiting results by Lexile Reading Level: History: While the library has many online resources which include history information, only one resource is devoted to history in general: History Reference Center. Searching "Asian American Pacific Islander" finds over 40 results. Among the articles found are: Just as with the Biography Reference Center, to locate the articles geared specifically for the younger grades or the older grades, use the Advanced Search and limit by the Lexile Reading Level. Looking for eBooks? eBook Collection from EBSCO has ebooks for all ages, children through adults. A keyword search for: "Asian American Pacific Islander" found 30 full text eBooks available, among them: To find results geared for the younger grades, back on the main page Browse by Category, choose Children's and Young Adult Nonfiction, then click Advanced Search and in the second search box, type: "Asian American Pacific Islander," and as this screenshot shows: An additional Juvenile Nonfiction title can be found by doing the above search, but only searching the keywords: "Asian American" which then finds: Hoopla is the library's streaming resource, providing access to eAudiobooks, eBooks, eComics, Music, Movies and TV Shows. They have a special collection for this month: Asian Pacific American Heritage Month with 35 Audiobooks, 9 eBooks, 9 Comics, 8 Movies and 1 Television show. In addition, you can find more by using the keyword search box. Searching "Asian American Pacific Islander" finds 5 titles: Searching "Asian American" finds over 8400 results, among them: With Hoopla, you can also locate some great titles for this topic by browsing the Genres & Collections for eBooks and Audiobooks, such as: Of course, the library's other main resource for eBooks and eAudiobooks is OverDrive. Here, a search for "Asian American" and limiting the search results to Nonfiction, finds over 20 titles, such as: Articles from Books, Magazines, Newspapers, Encyclopedias, & More: Explora Public Libraries, geared towards the general public of all ages, finds over 130 articles using the keyword search: "Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage." As with EBSCO's Reference Center resources noted above, Explora allows you to find articles for different ages by going to Advanced Search and limiting by Lexile Reading Level. Capstone Interactive eBooks provides both full text and read aloud access to a variety of eBooks for grades 4 to 6. There are a few relevant eBooks for Asian Pacific Heritage Month in this resource. Although, it does take some creative searching in order to locate them. I found the following selection by doing 4 different keyword searches: "Asia," "Island," "Japan," and "Pacific." Explora Primary Schools, geared towards grades K through 5, finds over 30 articles using the keyword search: "Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage." Among the articles found were: Gale in Context: Elementary is another resource for grades K through 5. Among the results found by searching "Asian American Pacific Islander," were two book articles filled with ideas on how children can learn about and celebrate this heritage month. One was geared for Level 1 for grades K-2, and the other for Level 2 for grades 3-5. It also found 7 news stories, among which were: Our final resources for grades K-5 is World Book for Kids. This online version from the well-known encyclopedia publisher has activities, illustrations, maps, and more to engage children's different learning styles. Searching "Asian Americans" finds over 30 results, among them: Explora Secondary Schools, geared towards grades 6 through 12, finds over 125 articles using the keyword search: "Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage." Among the articles found were: Gale eBooks provides full text access to a variety of reference books. Before the internet and this online resource, these would be books that were limited to in-library use only. Now, anyone with a library card from the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County and a device that connects to the internet can search and read articles from these reference books anywhere in the world. You can do a keyword search for "Asian American" to locate articles. Or, to find more relevant articles, you can use the Browse Collections and find the following books, shown under their subject collections heading: Once you click on the book cover, then you can search "Asian American" within that reference book to find many relevant articles. While Lincoln Library Online provides articles for grades K through 12, when it comes to this topic, most materials are for the middle to high school grade levels. Searching "Pacific Islander" finds many articles, the most relevant being biographies of: A search for "Asian American" finds many more biographies. Here are just a few of the many: This search also finds articles, such as: Our next resource is great for those looking for pro/con debate type articles: Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Searching "Asian American Pacific Islander" finds 4 Reference book articles, 1 Statistic resource, 2 Primary Source documents, 8 Images, 1 Video, 24 Audios, 37 Magazine articles, 204 News articles, 15 Academic Journal Articles, and 1 Website. It also links to a major topic article: Discrimination against Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Communities. The library's other resource providing multiple views on topics is: Points of View Reference Center. When working on this topic, searching "Asian American Pacific Islander" found 1 Point of View topic, over 900 Newspaper articles, 16 International Newspaper articles, 15 Magazine articles, 14 Primary Source documents, 10 Radio/TV News Transcripts, 2 Books, and 1 Academic Journal article. The main Point of View topic found was: Point: The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act Protects Everyone. From this topic, going to the Related Information box, you can click Points of View to pull up additional topics. When I did so, these were found: Similar to Gale eBooks mentioned above, Salem Online provides full text access to reference books. The best way to find relevant articles is to use the Advanced Search, search the Exact Phrase "Asian American" and limit to History, as shown: This will find over 80 articles from Decades series, Great Events in History series, and more. Looking for facts, then try World Almanac for Kids. Geared for students in grades 6-8, this features articles, videos, games, science projects, fun facts, maps, flags and more. A featured topic on the main page is: Multicultural America. Scrolling through this topic, it is subdivided into many ethnic groups, relevant for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders month are: There are also biographies of significant Asian Americans found in the column "Key People," such as: Many more biographies can be found from the main page of World Almanac for Kids, click on Topics, then scroll to Biographies, click on Multicultural, and choose Notable Asian Americans. Our final resources for this section are two World Book resources: World Book Student for grades 5-10 and World Book Advanced for grades 9-12. These multimedia online encyclopedias provide not only articles, but also maps, pictures, sounds, videos & animations, tables, resource guides and recommended websites. Both resources find similar results when searching "Asian Americans," which finds over 640 results and "Pacific Islanders" which finds over 690 results. In fact, the only difference is that World Book Student includes Special Reports. For those looking for college-level information, the library has two resources. First, there is Oxford Research Encyclopedias which provides access to full-text peer reviewed articles from 25 Oxford college-level encyclopedias. Searching "Asian American" finds over 4,000 results, among them: Searching "Pacific Islander" finds over 200 results, such as: Second, check out Very Short Introductions which has the full text to Asian American History: A Very Short Introduction by Madeline Y. Hsu. This book actually has over 150 pages, so you may want to consider it as being a fairly detailed introduction! I hope these many resources help you to learn more about the many accomplishments and contributions to U.S. History by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Sara Churchill Sara Churchill is the Digital Services Specialist and Assistant Supervisor in the Information Services Department at Main Library. A major fan of technology devices and computer research resources at work, she enjoys helping everyone learn to use their devices and the library's many online resources. She loves reading Science Fiction/Fantasy books, British cozy mysteries, True Crime and other true stories, plus a past reader of horror fiction by the likes of Stephen King and John Saul (among others). Also, she's a big fan of Sci-fi, action, horror, spaghetti westerns, and based-on-a-true story movies. Her blogs are for adults and the entire family to enjoy reading and trying out the many online resources free for PLYMC library cardholders to use. This press release was produced by the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County. The views expressed here are the author's own.