In June, President Joe Biden signed a bill to investigate the possible creation of a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture. The bill, proposed in 2015 by Rep. Grace Meng of New York, establishes a commission to investigate the museum’s feasibility, a precedent set during the creation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Previous legislation that led to the creation of two forthcoming Smithsonian museums dedicated to American Latinos and American women, both still very much in progress, established similar commissions. An Asian Pacific American museum is a step behind those, and any official planning, location scouting, and construction for such a museum depends on the commission’s decision.
Concerns, however, have already been raised. With dozens of ethnicities falling under the broad umbrella of Asian Pacific American, the museum runs the risk of flattening that diversity into only the most visible groups, such as East Asian Americans.
“Institutions like the Smithsonian have the power to shape our stories quite significantly,” says Thuy Vo Dang, professor of information studies at University of California, Los Angeles, former curator of the Southeast Asian Archive at the University of California, Irvine, and a nominee to serve on the commission. “We need to be very intentional in each action.”
Leaving entire ethnic groups out of a museum dedicated to Asian Pacific Americans would erase those cultures and make them feel invisible. South Asian American Digital Archive co-founder Michelle Caswell describes this phenomenon as “symbolic annihilation,” and Vo Dang tells City Paper it has been going on for decades.
“I recall feeling that way as a child watching television. I saw no one who looked like me, and I slowly grew ashamed of my language and myself,” Vo Dang says. She fears a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture that only represents certain communities could have a similar effect on Asian Pacific American museumgoers.
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The National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture commission faces the challenge of telling a complete story of a race that continues to evolve.
“The Asian American label is not fixed in stone,” says Terry K Park, founding director of Maum Consulting and a former Asian American studies professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. “And we often think of museums as fixed in stone.”
The term “Asian American” has expanded and the group that feels represented by that term has expanded over the past five decades. In 1968, student activists at the University of California, Berkeley, coined the term to politically unite various ethnic groups that had, until then, been separate. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders fell under the expanded term “Asian Pacific American” during the 1970s, and the racial category has continued inflating to include other ethnic groups that have migrated to the U.S.
“The museum has the opportunity to redefine who is Asian Pacific American, so it’s important whose stories they include and whose they don’t,” says James Zarsadiaz, director of the Yuchengco Philippine Studies Program at the University of San Francisco.
More than 25 million Asian Pacific Americans live in the U.S. today. They represent dozens of cultural backgrounds and languages. Many prefer their specific ethnic identities to the broader racial label, according to a Pew Research Center report released in August.
To ensure those people who do not see themselves as “Asian Pacific Americans” feel included, Vo Dang urges the commission to “take stock” of all the subgroups within the race and properly portray their narrative. The 12 experts City Paper consulted agree.
Even within broad, officially recognized ethnicities, there are many distinct cultural groups. For example, the broad term “Southeast Asian Americans” includes individuals from Cham, Khmer, Hmong, Iu Mien, Khmu, Lao, Taidam, Montagnard, and Vietnamese backgrounds, who are often lumped together today as a byproduct of French imperialism. Many Asian Americans hold cultural backgrounds separate from their country of origin as well. Indo-Caribbean Americans, for instance, have a history distinct from migration patterns between South Asia and the mainland United States.
Likewise, NHPI history departs from many Asian American narratives, where immigration remains a central theme (71 percent of Asian American adults present today immigrated to the U.S.). The NHPI story, on the other hand, contends with the U.S. government’s occupation of their ancestral lands.
American politics also have separated West Asian (or “Middle Eastern”) Americans from Asian Pacific Americans. Experts note that over the past 50 years, attempts to justify invasions in West Asia and pit Americans against Muslims increased the use of Middle Eastern as a substitute to West Asian.
“There are connections between the Afghan refugees of today and the Southeast Asian refugees during the Vietnam War,” Park says. “The museum can be the forefront of conversations between these newer refugees and older refugees and show how there’s still a need for that label of Asian American.”
The museum also contends with the in-group diversity among class, hometown, political affiliation, and sexuality. Depending on what is displayed, Park notes that it could show the differences between Asian Pacific Americans and challenge the stereotypical image of “straight, middle class East Asians on the West Coast.”
Asian Pacific Americans have vast disparities in income. On the whole, Asian Pacific Americans have low poverty rates, but, on average, a majority of ethnic groups within the racial category live below the poverty line, according to a 2021 Pew report.
Asian Pacific American women, who are overrepresented in the frontline, low wage workforce, have unique stories, too. Yvonne Hsu, chief policy and government affairs officer at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, calls on the museum to balance the barriers faced by women with their joys throughout its exhibits. She stresses the need to address stereotypes that portray Asian Pacific American women as domestic, submissive, deceitful, and over-sexualized.
Because there are so many distinct experiences within a single race, Asian Pacific Americans from various backgrounds must be part of planning the museum.
“We need to invite stakeholders and community leaders now, while the commission is forming, and get them as involved in the process as early as we can,” Vo Dang says. She encourages the commission to embark on a nationwide “listening tour” to get input from Asian Pacific Americans about what stories they want in this museum.
Many community leaders told City Paper about lesser-known events in Asian Pacific American history that the museum should include. Zarsadiaz highlighted medical contributions from Filipino nurses, the 1977 International Hotel strike, and the transition to suburban life. Katha Sikka, a researcher at South Asian Americans Leading Together, notes that South Asian American history would be incomplete without mention of caste oppression, the Bellingham riots, and the Asiatic Exclusion League.
Some Asian Pacific Americans, such as refugees, will likely be hesitant to talk with the institution. The commission will need to overcome a prevailing distrust of the government. To get the community’s input on the museum, Vo Dang acknowledges that the commission will reckon with legacies of government-sponsored relocations, invasive medical screenings, and withholding of aid. Many of these practices date back to the late 1800s, when government officials would interrogate, detain, and deport Asian immigrants at Angel Island Station, Ellis Island’s San Francisco counterpart.
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With the goal of showcasing the community’s diversity, cultural leaders see a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture as an opportunity to rethink what a museum can be.
“It can’t be designed in the same way as an art museum or a history museum. It needs to be a community center, where people feel belonging and understanding,” says Tim Chung, the National Building Museum’s photography collection specialist. “It should encourage people to meet Asian Americans and have discussions.”
A community center-inspired design would make everyone who visits the museum—Asian Pacific American or not—part of the story it tells. Taking the National Museum of African American History and Culture as a model, the Asian Pacific American museum could transform the concept of interactive exhibits into gathering spaces for dialogue. The museum could also be a place that invites Asian Pacific American attendees to reflect upon and contribute their own life stories to the exhibits.
Asian Pacific American visitors should feel like they can shape the exhibits, as they would at a community center. Quyen Dinh, executive director of the D.C.-based Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, suggests creating a wall where museumgoers could contribute sticky notes with their own thoughts and experiences. Sikka advocates for a program where visitors write letters to themselves for the museum archive. Displays with oral histories would tie in a variety of experiences from community members, in their own words.
The museum commission likely will not overlook an exhibit on Asian Pacific American food, an important cultural touchstone for both the community and the American public. Chung reimagines a cafeteria as an exhibit of its own, a place where strangers would gather to learn about the cultural significance of cooking and eating for Asian Pacific Americans similar to the Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe in the National Museum of the American Indian.
A dining room with large circular tables, lazy Susans, family-style dishes, and cushioned floor seating, all common in Asian Pacific American dining culture, could bring people together and encourage conversation. Dinh pictures interactive components like a samosa or spring roll-making station that would immerse people in the experience of connecting over food.
Others suggest having the museum double as an Asian Pacific American performance venue. Park sees the museum playing host to spoken-word poetry slams, hip-hop concerts, and theatrical productions, all in the name of educating diverse audiences and making Asian Pacific Americans feel at home. The commission can look to the NMAAHC, which has hosted similar events since its opening, as an example.
Still, the museum must source objects and artifacts to fill the space. Curatorial professionals worry that the Smithsonian, in filling display cases for the museum, will stop current efforts to include Asian Pacific American voices in its other locations.
In 2019, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center launched a $25 million fundraising initiative for a permanent display at an existing museum—predicted by many to be the National Museum of American History. Established in 1997, APAC draws from the Smithsonian’s existing archives and collections to put on public events, online exhibits, and educational media, all focusing on Asian Pacific American experiences. Last year, the Smithsonian estimated that its gallery would open in 2026. Now, with an entire museum in the works, the gallery’s opening—and the fate of APAC—has been called into question.
The museum, whose function overlaps with APAC, could make the center obsolete or subsume it completely. “The strength of the Center is its ability to be mobile and bring a museum experience to underserved communities virtually. I don’t want to see that undone,” says Park.
He envisions future collaborations between APAC and the museum such as podcasts, virtual events, and an app that translates exhibits into the more than 20 languages spoken among Asian Pacific Americans. These kinds of online materials could shape emerging Asian Pacific American history curricula in D.C. and beyond, according to Asian Americans Advancing Justice President and Executive Director John Yang.
Although neither the National Museum of the American Latino nor the American Women’s History Museum have their own physical buildings yet, they prioritized creating exhibits at existing Smithsonian museums. The National Museum of the American Latino unveiled the Molina Family Latino Gallery in 2021, and the American Women’s History Museum has six affiliated exhibits on display currently at the National Museum of American History. David Uy, executive director of the Chinese American Museum in D.C., encourages the Asian Pacific American museum commission to follow suit.
“I still believe there should be an Asian American wing in the National Museum of American History. Asian American history is a part of American history,” says Uy.
To source a museum in addition to the already anticipated gallery, Chung cautions against stripping Asian Pacific American influence out of D.C. museums to populate exhibits at a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture. Sikka offers an alternative: crowdsourcing objects for the museum. She envisions a type of show-and-tell exhibit where visitors bring meaningful objects and tell the story behind them. Such an exhibit could have the added benefit of uplifting Asian Pacific American mental health. As Sikka notes, when visitors relate to others who reflect on their identity, exhibits have the power to become a space of healing and affirmation.
Another challenge will be finding curators and museum professionals from all the groups within the Asian Pacific America umbrella. Both Chung and Vo Dang note that galleries, libraries, archives, and museums—all places where the commission would likely draw members from—are often predominantly White workplaces.
Limited representation of Asian Pacific Americans among curators, museum officials, and visitors could lead to possible censorship. Patricia Chu, director of Asian American Studies at George Washington University, draws a comparison to the 1994 Enola Gay controversy at the National Air and Space Museum, where political debate over nuclear weapons, treatment of the Japanese during World War II, and American patriotism resulted in the exhibit being censored, then canceled altogether. Outright censorship, or even the omission of information in an attempt to avoid hot-button issues (such as the justification of Japanese internment), would miss the point of dedicating a museum to an underrepresented group whose stories are often overlooked or whitewashed.
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Laying out the exhibits in a way that highlights all the diverse Asian Pacific American voices poses another major hurdle for the museum.
A popular proposal is to organize it by ethnic groups, like Pakistani Americans or Mongolian Americans, as a means of ensuring equal representation of all Asian Pacific American. Other experts push against this kind of ethnic breakdown, noting that it could be divisive if one group receives a larger exhibit or another is left out entirely.
“Breaking us up by ethnicity in the museum would only de-emphasize our interconnectedness and the pluralism among Asian Americans,” argues Yang.
For folks from mixed ethnic backgrounds, placing their stories in one exhibit or another erases their multicultural identity. Asian Pacific Americans have a history of identifying across ethnic groups, Vo Dang adds, which complicates an ethnicity-driven layout. She cites the example of Vietnamese refugees who chose to identify as Chinese American upon arrival, often because it was easier to integrate into an established community rather than staking out their own ethnic identity.
On a geopolitical level, an ethnic breakdown could broach sensitive issues. For instance, the separation of Tibetan American, Hong Kong American, Taiwanese American, or Uyghur American stories from broader Han Chinese American experiences could anger the Chinese government, known for denying the rights of minority groups. Where to place Kashmiri American stories presents another potential landmine.
Perhaps more simplistically, an ethnic layout would defeat the purpose of having an Asian Pacific American museum. Zarsadiaz worries breaking it down by ethnicity would lead museumgoers to flock to the exhibits of the most visible groups, like Chinese Americans, or the exhibits that most closely align with their ethnic identity. He thinks that a thematic organization by topic such as performing arts, imperialism, and everyday life would better encourage people to learn about all the diversity within Asian Pacific America and not just a few ethnic groups.
A chronological layout like the National Museum of African American History and Culture seems intuitive, but begs the question of when Asian Pacific American history begins. Should the museum start in the 1880s, when laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act banded Asian people together as a group of unwanted foreigners? Does Asian American history start earlier in the 1800s, with South Asians forcibly relocating to the Caribbean as plantation laborers? Or rather, would the creation of the Filipino fishing settlement in present-day Louisiana sometime after 1763 mark the beginning? What about the stories of Native Hawaiians whose presence predates the Declaration of Independence by centuries?
Rather than a chronology of the people, Dinh recommends a chronology of the racial label “Asian Pacific American.”
“Showing how the term Asian American evolved would be very interesting because our community vignettes have changed over time,” she says. Her layout, inspired by the National Museum of the American Indian, centers around a timeline from 1968 onward. Along the way, community spotlights of certain ethnic histories would appear at the time when that ethnicity became included under the Asian Pacific American umbrella.
Others have different ideas for organizing the museum. Hsu posed a layout divided by historic conflicts and immigration patterns. Sikka recommends a nonlinear chronology that connects historic events like the Page Act of 1875 to recent developments such as the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings. A breakdown based on geographic regions of the U.S. where Asian Pacific Americans settled is another proposal.
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Based on the timeline of the NMAAHC, a national museum for Asian Pacific Americans is many years away from opening. The commission to study the feasibility of the NMAAHC was formed in 2001 and took two years to submit their report to Congress. Official legislation authorized the museum soon after. The site was selected in 2006, the groundbreaking ceremony happened in 2012, and the museum finally opened in 2016.
The majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate are required to appoint two members to the commission, but only Sen. Chuck Schumer has announced his selections: Joanne Kwong, president of Pearl River Mart and a child of Chinese immigrants from the Philippines, and Korean American Kevin Kim, commissioner of New York City’s Small Business Services. Once the commission convenes, the members are expected to submit the final report, including a fundraising plan, within 18 months.
Congress has tasked the commission with holding a national conference to convene Asian Pacific American leaders in “life, art, history, and culture” before December 2023. At the conference, curators and community leaders will discuss their visions for the museum and start tackling all the aforementioned challenges.
If and when the museum opens its doors some years from now, Asian Pacific Americans will wander the exhibits. Hopefully many will see themselves in the stories and objects displayed, and will leave feeling like America has given them recognition, but others might leave feeling invisible, still symbolically annihilated.
What they walk away feeling will depend on who the commission decides counts as Asian Pacific American, how they first envision the museum, and how its eventual leaders choose to organize it.
Editor’s note: This post has been updated to reflect Thuy Vo Dang’s career change.