Asian Pacific American Heritage Month is celebrated nationally during the month of May to commemorate the first immigrants who came from Japan on May 7, 1843. This month is celebrated in April at the University of Iowa and pays tribute to the contributions that generations of Asian and Pacific Islanders have made to American history, society, and culture.

2023 Theme

he theme for APAHM this year is “No Longer Invisible”. This theme was created by our friend, Jin Chang, who is also an archivist and a student at the University of Iowa. Jin has been working closely with the APACC to preserve the stories of the Asian American community within Iowa City and at the University of Iowa.  

"No Longer Invisible” is a tribute to the start of it all -- Twenty-four years ago, Dr. Dau-Shen Ju, a former counselor in the University Counseling Center, organized a talk titled, “Asian Americans: Am I Invisible?” which highlighted the lack of resources for Asian American students on campus. This presentation was the spark to Asian student organizing in 1998. The students who attended this presentation became a crucial part towards advocating for support in the AAPI community, and ultimately was the driving force towards the creation of the APACC. Without this presentation and student activism, the APACC would not be here celebrating its 20th anniversary today. 

2023 APAHM and 20th Anniversary

With this current theme, we are hosting a series of events that highlight and celebrate identities and spread awareness on social issues within the Asian and Asian American diaspora. For our 20th anniversary, we wanted to start some new events and projects including: our first APAHM Magazine, APAHM Concert, and APAHM Gala. We also wanted to celebrate our alumni through our Alumni Brunch and Panel. We will be kicking off our new events during this Alumni weekend, March 31st-April 1st.

In addition to these new events, we also will be hosting our annual series of events that center social justice, community building, and identity development. Please check out our media to find more information!

APAHM Media

To see updates about our events, as well as potential location changes and announcements, we strongly encourage you all to follow us on social media on Instagram and Facebook!

Additionally, click on this link for our Zoom backgrounds for APAHM.

APAHM and 20th Anniversary Contributions and Sponsors

Typically, the APACC APAHM Celebration is planned by the APACC Staff (one professional staff and 5-7 student staffers). With this big anniversary and institutional level event, we extended our planning to University of Iowa students, staff, and faculty, as well as all community members within Iowa City. This year is led by two Executive Directors that oversee the execution of this year’s celebration. They are supported by the MISSE team, 6 committee directors (our APACC student staff), and 10 committee members. We are extremely grateful for our APAHM planning team for their hard work and dedication during this planning process!

This celebration also would not have been possible without our amazing sponsors! These sponsors helped support us financially and through in kind donations. We are extremely grateful for these contributions, and we hope to continue collaborations with them outside of this sponsorship! Because of this sponsorship, we were able to fund our magazine, gala, concert, and alumni panel! We hope in the future we can continue these events as well.