Asian American Heritage Month is almost half over. It’s our opportunity to educate those not in our communities about our histories and personal experiences. We have the opportunity to share and bond over personal experiences. We can do it any other time of the year, too – I regularly enjoy posting APIA-related news on Facebook/Twitter – but May is an especially opportune time because it’s the time when all of our APIA communities can set aside to come together.

So when I was flipping through the tv guide on Xfinity and saw the green banner declaring “Asian American Heritage Month special,” I was intrigued. What did they have on there? I knew Who made the films and music and cartoons in that special? Where did they come from? I saw the banner a bunch of times, and didn’t click on it with the remote because I thought, like everything on Xfinity, you had to pay for it. So I ignored it, and continued flipping through the guide hoping to find something good to watch in my small breaks from studying.

Then Friday night, I was hanging out with one of my friends who saw the banner, and he clicked on it. And lo-and-behold, there was actual APIA substance on there – “Lt. Watada,” the documentary on Ehren Watada (I’ve met his dad, and he’s so cool), and “Aoki,” a documentary on Richard Aoki, a civil rights activist. There biographies on prominent APIA in our mainstream media, too.

That was pretty cool, I thought, Xfinity is doing something right. They’re looking for the stories about Asian Americans, those who identify as such, those who were born in the US. Those who are continually put in the category of “forever foreigner” because some people might not be able to understand that we aren’t all immigrants, that some of us were actually born in the US – these were some of our stories.

Then my friend found gold: music videos from Korea and Japan. We went through Super Junior, G-Dragon, BigBang, and T-ARA. 

And then I asked myself, “What about the APIA artists? Where are they in this?” I get that Kpop (and Jpop, too) is a really big business right now – you’re starting to see groups like Wonder Girls come over to the US to try to build an English-speaking fan base, and everyone I know (well, everyone I know in my age group) knows of or listens to Kpop. Some of us have SuJu on our workout playlists, some of us listen to it when we just want to turn our brains off (I don’t understand Korean, so this works out perfectly when I run).

But here’s the thing: even though it’s popular, Kpop on Xfinity still contributes to the idea that Asians, and APIAs, will always be foreigners, that we’ll never belong, that we’ll never assimilate, that everything we do will be “exotic.” It’s just the exact opposite of stories that “Aoki” or “Lt. Watada” share. For those who aren’t in or involved with the APIA community, I fear that the “forever foreigner” myth will only become stronger because there’s so much more Asian media that’s mainstream (that’s being transported to the US) than Asian American media that’s mainstream (in the US).

So while I’m grateful for the burgeoning presence of Asians and Asian Americans in mainstream media (John Cho, Kal Penn, Harry Shum Jr., Jenna Ushkowitz, apl.de.ap, B.D. Wong, Far East Movement – just to name a few), I would also like to caution everyone, APIA or not, to make the effort to be aware that “Asian” isn’t synonymous with “foreigner.” Even if it seems as if we get a lot of our entertainment from overseas sources, APIAs do exists, and we’re creating stories. Some of our families have been here for generations, some of us are the first generation to be born in the US, and, yes, some of us immigrated here. And it’s not knowing the difference that’s important – it’s knowing enough to not assume that we’re all recent immigrants that’s important.