We recognized Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month by highlighting a journalist, article, fun fact, or resource each day of the month. As May draws to a close, we’re compiling everything here in one article. Whether you missed a day or just want to revisit the information, we hope this serves as a great resource for you!
Resources
This is a great place to start if you’re looking to become more involved in the AANHPI journalism community. For tips on how you can bring diverse perspectives to your own business stories, check out this overview of a recent panel discussion.
Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA)
AAJA is a professional organization that was founded in 1981 with the aim of increasing visibility and representation of AAPI journalists in newsroom leadership positions and ensuring more equitable and accurate coverage of APPI individuals and issues. The AAJA offers many resources and opportunities, like an annual conference. They also have task forces to highlight “the work of specific journalists or topics often missed by the larger media ecosystem,” including a Muslim American Task Force and a Pacific Islander Task Force.
South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA)
SAJA represents over 1000 journalists across the U.S. and Canada and has the aim of improving the coverage of South Asia since 1994. The non-profit organization serves its members with a network of training, inspiration, and support. Over the years, SAJA has given out more than $400,000 in scholarships and fellowships, awarded outstanding reporting in numerous categories, and held countless professional development events for its members.
AAPI Women’s Equal Pay Day
The National Committee on Pay Equity created Equal Pay Day in 1996 to bring awareness to the gap between men’s and women’s wages. This year AANHPI Women’s Equal Pay Day was observed on April 7, which “symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. Because the wage gap is wider for women of color, multiple dates exist corresponding with women belonging to different racial/ethnic groups.”
Business Publications
- Pacific Business News
- Pacific Business News is one of 43 local business journals owned by American City Business Journals. Pacific Business News is based in Honolulu, Hawaii and covers a range of local business stories, from technology and tourism to local businesses and real estate.
- The Asian Business Review
- The Asian Business Review is a “regional magazine serving Asia’s dynamic business community,” with coverage including all areas of business, such as manufacturing, travel, the economy, and more. The Asian Business Review provides both opinion and analysis of how current events shape the business world.
- Islands Business (IB)
- Islands Business is the flagship publication of the Fiji-owned company Front Page Pte Limited. As “the premier publishing group in the Pacific Islands region,” IB has subscribers across the region and beyond, including in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Japan, the U.S, and in Europe. They cover news in the region as well as businesses and events.
Journalists to watch
These business journalists are doing great reporting, with many having won awards from AAJA, SAJA or SABEW.
- Pia Sarkar | LinkedIn | X
- Sarkar is the deputy global business editor for The Associated Press and serves on the AP’s stylebook committee and its award-winning race & ethnicity team. Sarker has previously edited and reported for several media outlets, including The American Lawyer and the San Francisco Chronicle. She is a current board member of the South Asian Journalists Association and is the newly elected President of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW).
- Ben Goggin | LinkedIn | X | BlueSky
- As the Deputy Technology Editor at NBC News, Goggin oversees a team of reporters. His own reporting focuses on child safety online, internet subcultures, and online extremism. He was awarded by the Asian American Journalists Association for his investigation into child exploitation on the Amazon-owned app Wickr. The free version of the app closed down following his reporting.
- Rosalie Chan | X
- As a technology reporter for Business Insider’s Big Tech team, Chan covers Amazon, Google, Facebook, and other large tech companies. Some of her reporting topics have included cloud computing, open source, and enterprise tech. She was awarded for her continuous coverage on sexism and sexual harassment in Silicon Slopes and her investigation into the coding boot camp Holberton School.
- Divya Karthikeyan | LinkedIn | X
- Originally from India, Karthikeyan is an audio and web reporter who likes to “tell stories about power, the people who benefit from it, and the communities left behind.” She has reported for national and international publications alike and most recently reported for Louisville Public Media. While there, she covered a shelter pilot program, affordable housing projects, and the challenges faced by food-insecure residents. She is also a former board member and Secretary of the South Asian Journalists Association.
- Maya Srikrishnan | LinkedIn | X
- Srikrishnan is an award-winning investigative journalist based in San Diego, California. Her work has focused on issues of justice and equity and has included immigration, housing, education, and many other topics. She was awarded by the Asian American Journalists Association for her investigative look into the way states choose to collect tax debts and how it connects to economic inequality.
- Allana Akhtar | X | Website
- Akhtar has covered a range of topics from health and science to retail and culture, at various publications including Business Insider, USAToday, and Fortune Magazine. She is currently an MBA student at NYU, specializing in media management and strategy, and the treasurer of the South Asian Journalists Association.
- Brian X. Chen | LinkedIn | X | BlueSky
- Chen is the lead consumer technology writer for The New York Times and writes a weekly column, “Tech Fix.” He’s been covering the tech industry for 15 years and has focused on the erosion of privacy in the digital surveillance era, the impact of AI on work, and the inability to hear dialogue in streaming shows. His 2011 book, “Always On,” discusses how the smartphone has transformed business and culture.
- Madeline Nguyen | LinkedIn | X | Website
- Nguyen is an investigative reporter, currently completing her master’s in investigative journalism at Arizona State University. She has explored a variety of topics related to business and health and has been published in USA Today, Fast Company, and the Arizona Republic, to name a few. Nguyen has also won numerous awards for her reporting, including from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing.
Articles
These articles cover a range of topics from lists of AANHPI-owned businesses to support to how the current administration’s tariffs are impacting Asian grocers.
- “‘Over-mentored and underfunded’: The biggest challenges facing AAPI women-owned businesses” – CNBC
- Quote highlight: “Of the $800 billion in federal dollars given to small business owners through the federal Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic, only $7.7 million went to AAPI-owned businesses.”
- “People are sharing their favorite Pacific-Islander-owned businesses that you should absolutely shop at” – Buzzfeed
- Quote highlight: “From apparel to accessories to skincare to stationery, these Pacific Islander-owned businesses might turn into your go-tos.”
- “AAPI small businesses face familiar challenges—and some unique ones” – U.S Chamber of Congress
- Quote highlight: “The AAPI business community stands out for its focus on science, tech, engineering and math (STEM) education, its high education rates overall (69% of AAPIs ages 25-54 have a bachelor’s degree), and its buying power ($1.6 trillion per year).”
- “201+ AAPI-owned businesses to support in 2025 and beyond” – NBC News
- Quote highlight: “There is still a need for a store that centers the Asian American experience… As the community grows and evolves, there are more people who can contribute to the movement”
- “Fast fashion has a problem with co-opting South Asian design” – Elle
- Quote highlight: “In fashion, there’s a fine line between borrowing and stealing. The key difference being, acknowledgement.”
- “How Japanese anime became the world’s most bankable genre” – Hollywood Reporter
- Quote highlight: “We’re seeing more and more appetite for anime throughout all demos, in all countries… It’s increasingly becoming a borderless form of mass entertainment.”
- “’Every day, every single customer’: Tariffs hit close to home inside Asian grocers” – NPR
- Quote highlight: “These businesses depend heavily on imported goods for their inventories of affordable ingredients and flavors. They are a lifeline to the immigrant communities they serve, reminding many customers of home and providing options outside the usual supermarket experience.”
- “Can Nintendo’s new console propel it to even greater heights?” – The Economist
- Quote highlight: “As greater computing power leads to diminishing improvements to the gaming experience, Nintendo is betting that consumers are willing to trade processing oomph for portability and price.”
Facts to think about
We shared a variety of fun facts and interesting statistics throughout the month, which have been compiled here.
- According to the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals, the AANHPI community includes approximately 100 languages and 50 ethnic groups. It’s reported that about “16.6 million AAPI individuals live in the U.S., making up about 5% of the population – a number expected to grow to almost 10% by 2050.”
- In 2022, there were over 650,000 Asian-owned businesses in the U.S. About 22% of these were in the Accommodation and Food Services sector, and overall, “Asian-owned businesses had the largest estimated receipts ($1.2 trillion) among minority race groups.”
- In the 2020 Census, 20.6 million people identified as Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander alone (not in combination with another race), making up 6.2% of the U.S. population. In three states, #AANHPI individuals made up 10% or more of the population: California, Hawaii, and New Jersey.
- South Korean music, including K-pop, has soared in global popularity in recent years. According to a Morgan Stanley report, the combined revenue of the four largest Korean music agencies tripled to nearly $3 billion USD between 2019 and 2023. Equity analyst Seyon Park stated, “We see a long runway for K-pop to grow and expand its share in this market and, more broadly, in the $130 billion global music industry.”
- Moana 2 was one of the highest-grossing films in 2024 and recently surpassed $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales, becoming the fourth film from Walt Disney Animation to do so. The others are Frozen, Frozen II, and Zootopia.
- The term “Asian American” was coined in 1968. The following year, five UCLA students created what is considered to be one of the first Asian American newspapers: Gidra. Though the paper ran for just five years, it was widely circulated and deeply influential, becoming known as the “voice of the Asian American experience.” In 2019, students launched Gidra Media to pay tribute to the original.
Your AANHPI Heritage Month reading list
There are many great books out there. Here are a handful of recommendations to add to your reading list.
- Intersections: A journalistic history of Asian Pacific America
- Published by the Asian American Journalists Association, this book chronicles AAPI history through pivotal events where AAPI journalists played crucial roles. Chapters range from the LA Uprisings to the murder of Vincent Chin to the Maui wildfires of 2023.
- The making of Asian America
- Written by Erika Lee, this book tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present day.
- Garden of the world: Asian immigrants and the making of agriculture in California’s Santa Clara Valley
- Written by Cecilia Tsu, this book tells the intertwined histories of the Santa Clara Valley’s agricultural past and the Asian immigrants who cultivated the land during the region’s peak decades of horticultural production. The overlapping waves of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants fundamentally altered the agricultural economy as well as white residents’ ideas about race, gender, and what it means to be an American farmer.
- Minor feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
- Written by Cathy Park Hong, this collection of essays is part memoir and part cultural criticism, and brings together the author’s theory of “minor feelings.” These “minor feelings” occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality and throughout the book the author traces her relationship to the English language, shame, depression, poetry, and female friendship.
- Stuck: Why Asian Americans don’t reach the top of the corporate ladder
- This book by Margaret Chin describes the “bamboo ceiling” in the workplace, where Asian Americans lose out on leadership positions and upward mobility due to racial and ethnic inequalities. This book sheds light on real lived experiences that hold professionals back, including an unfair lack of trust from coworkers, and an absence of role models, sponsors, and mentors.
- The color of success: Asian Americans and the origins of the model minority
- This 2015 book by Ellen D. Wu tells the transformation of Asians in the United States from the “yellow peril” to “model minorities” – a group of people lauded as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and exemplars of traditional family values. Wu weaves together a mix of perspectives to provide a view of racial reform and the contradictions of national belonging in the civil rights era and reveals that this process has profound implications for how Americans understand race, opportunity, and nationhood.
- Brotopia: Breaking up the boys’ club of Silicon Valley
- Written by Emily Chang, this book is a roadmap to fixing the Silicon Valley culture that is so toxic and sexist to women. Chang exposes the flawed logic in common excuses for why tech has long suffered the pipeline problem and shows how bias is coded into AI, internet troll culture, and the reliance on pattern recognition harms everyone.
- My life in full: Work, family, and our future
- Written by Indra Nooyi, the first woman of color and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company, this book looks at the business practices of Pepsi Corporation. The book includes the author’s own thinking as she waded through corporate resistance to steer the company toward healthier products and a reimagined environmental profile, and what she learned along the way.
- Dear America: Notes of an undocumented citizen
- Written by Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was born in the Philippines and brought to the U.S. illegally as a 12-year-old. For years, Vargas hid in plain sight, writing for some of the most prestigious news organizations in the country. This book is a transformative argument about migration and citizenship, and an exploration on what it means to be home when the country you call your home doesn’t consider you one of its own.
- Interior Chinatown
- This novel turned television series by Charles Yu is a deeply personal story about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.
