We don't really talk about how much of an impact Asians have had on America itself.

Like, they immigrated into the US and they helped build so much of what America is today and yet nobody talks about that you know we're part of America too. This is your the Burn, a podcast about the people, ideas and politics that are driving the Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign and the movement to secure a dignified life for everyone living in this country.

My name is Brianna Joy Gray, coming to you from campaign headquarters in Washington, D.C.

This week, for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month,

we focus in on some of the issues relevant to Asian American voters, including

our round table of AAPI rock stars from Bernie HQ.

I also talk to author and activist Arjun Sethi about the Trump era epidemic of hate crimes and to

Christine Chen of Asian Pacific Islander American vote about the growing power of

Asian American voters. Now I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't realize May was AAPI Heritage

Month. It was even news to some of our AAPI panel. I think that sometimes we ourselves don't get hyped up about our own months or whatever. I don't think we even created this. I don't even know who created this month because I didn't know it was this month. That was DeSine, a video producer for the Bernie Sanders campaign,

who is of Bangladeshi descent.

Now, she's obviously being a little tongue in cheek.

But her joke made me wonder, what are the origins of AAPI Heritage Month?

Well it began in 1977 as Asian American Pacific Islander Week

when Norman Manetta, the first Japanese American mayor of a

major US city, San Jose, co-founder of the Asian American Pacific Islander

Caucus and longest running Secretary of Commerce introduced the resolution in the House.

And why May?

Well, the first people from Japan to immigrate to the U.S. arrived on May 7th, 1843.

And the Transcontinental Railroad,

which was famously built predominantly

with the labor of Chinese immigrants,

...