By Carro Hua, Co-Chair, A-VOYCE Executive Board

On Tuesday, I was walking to Park Street from the Financial District and as I was passing by Macy’s, something caught my eye. No, it was not clothes nor anything of that sort. For once, they did something out of the ordinary and something I have never seen a big corporation do before. This is the first year that I can remember where Macy’s decided to celebrate Black History Month. As I looked at the posted pictures of Obama and his achievements on one of their glass displays I smiled.

While I was happy that Macy’s was taking the initiative to educate the public about Black History Month, I cannot help but think, “When May comes, will Asian Americans have that same recognition, or will I have to wait for an Asian American to be president?”

All my life, we talked about slavery, segregation and the different struggles African Americans had to face. Whether it was Nickelodeon announcing the importance of Black History Month when I was little or the way it was embedded in my school curriculum, I grew up knowing February was an important month.

But May? I had no idea, and it is a shame to say I never knew about APIA Month until I was a sophomore in high school. I never knew the Chinese helped build the transcontinental railroad until I was a teenager. I never knew much about my own history, it had always been black or white.  In school, I read books written by African American authors explaining the difficulty of growing up as a person of color, but I never read a single book about the difficulty of being an Asian American. I feel that I have not heard enough from the African American perspective in history, regardless of the exposure, but heck, I have not heard from the Asian American perspective at all … in school… in the media … nowhere basically.

I know from the books that I read about APIA history that Asian Americans have played a significant role and that we were not in the shadows when history was playing. I know this for a fact. But besides me, who else knows? Do you know? Do my own APIA peers know of their own history? Will our future generations know?

When will it be us? When will Nickelodeon talk about APIA history on their shows? When will educators take time out in May to talk about Asian Americans? When? Do we have to wait for an APIA president to fix this problem?

Carro Hua, Boston, 18, is the Co-Chair of the A-VOYCE Executive Board and is currently a senior at Boston Latin Academy. She is Chinese and Vietnamese and speaks Vietnamese along with English. Her favorite food is spring rolls. Unlike the stereotypes, she only likes Math when she gets it and doesn’t play any instruments. Her favorite subject is Government because she likes politics. She aspires to major in Political Science/Government in college and ultimately become the U.S. President or an Asian American Studies Professor.

Tags: APIA Month, Asian Americans, youth

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