Asian Pacific Heritage

Asian-Pacific Heritage Month 2011

For Asian Pacific Heritage Month 2011, the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education website celebrates 31 individuals. One for each day of May.

The lives of these Americans are worthy of celebration and further study, which our short profiles hope to encourage. The women and men included are writers, editors, journalists, publishers, trailblazers and change makers. They remind us of the rich contributions Asian-Pacific Americans make and have made in the world of words.

This is by no means a definitive or exhaustive listing. It's a starting point for learning, comment & discussion during Asian Pacific Heritage Month - May, 2011 when our nation pays a little more attention to issues of diversity. Be heard. Tell us what you think & what we can learn!

You can also visit this year's feature here: Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month 2012 - A collaboration between the Asian American Journalists Association and the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

May 1, 2011
Carlos Bulosan
Carlos arrived in Seattle on July 22, 1930 at the age of seventeen, traveling by ship from the Philippines . With only three years of education, Carlos spoke little English and had barely any money left. Carlos become a self-educated and prolific... more »
May 2, 2011
Jeff Chang
Jeff Chang is an American journalist and music critic on hip hop music and culture. His 2005 book, Can't Stop Won't Stop, which chronicles the early hip hop scene, won an American Book Award in 2005. Chang's new book, Who We Be: The Colorization of... more »
May 3, 2011
Sewell Chan
Sewell Chan, the son of immigrants from China and Hong Kong, grew up in Flushing, Queens and attended New York City public schools and Hunter College High School. His father is a taxi cab driver. He graduated from Harvard College in 1998 and won a... more »
May 4, 2011
Christine Chen
Christine Chen is an American journalist who has been an anchor and reporter for several U.S. television news networks. She is an Emmy Award winner, and is presently the managing partner of Chen Communications, a marketing communications consulting... more »
May 5, 2011
Stanford Chen
Stanford Chen was a California-born city boy who was introduced to journalism by working on his high school newspaper. In Portland, Stan helped form the Oregon Asian American Journalists Association chapter in 1985, and he spent many hours doing... more »
May 6, 2011
Sam Chu Lin
Sam Chu Lin was an American journalist born in Greenville, Mississippi. In the 1960s, he was one of the first Asian Americans to appear on both radio and (in 1968) television, eventually working for all four major broadcast networks. During his... more »
May 7, 2011
Connie Chung
Connie Chung was a Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in the early 1970s, during the Watergate political scandal. On June 1, 1993, she became the second woman to co-anchor a major network's national... more »
May 8, 2011
Ann Curry
Ann Curry is an American television news journalist who, from June 2011, will co-anchor on NBC's morning television program Today.  Curry was born in Guam to Bob Curry, of French, Irish, Dutch descent from Pueblo, Colorado, and Hiroe Nagase,... more »
May 10, 2011
Veronica De La Cruz
Veronica De La Cruz is a Filipino American television anchor formerly with CNN.  She currently appears on both NBC and MSNBC, primarily anchoring NBC's Early Today show and MSNBC's First Look. As an anchor and correspondent, De La Cruz served... more »
May 11, 2011
Cheryl Diaz Meyer
Cheryl Diaz Meyer was born and raised in the Philippines and immigrated with her family to Minnesota in 1981. Having grown up in a variety of countries during her youth, Diaz Meyer is conversant in German, French, Spanish, Tagalog and Bikol (... more »