Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Heritage Month is celebrated in May to honor the history and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans to the United States. May was chosen to memorialize the first Japanese immigrants to the United States on May 7, 1843 and to recognize the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869 where a majority of the workers were Chinese immigrants.

AAPI includes cultures from the entire Asian continent (East, Southeast and South Asia) and the Pacific Islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia, (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia), and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island).