Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: If you really knew me if you really knew me if you really knew
[00:00:04] Speaker B: me if you really knew me, you would know.
[00:00:07] Speaker C: Hey, who are you?
[00:00:09] Speaker D: Who, me?
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Yeah, you.
[00:00:11] Speaker E: It's Monday.
[00:00:17] Speaker F: Hi, I'm Kabir, a seventh grader at Park Day School. If you really knew me, you know that I identify as an Indian American boy.
[00:00:26] Speaker D: Hi, I'm Jumi, also a seventh grader at Park Day School. If you really knew me, you would know that I identify Korean American.
[00:00:33] Speaker F: If you knew me, you'd also know that sometimes the words we use to describe ourselves don't always feel simple.
[00:00:39] Speaker D: This month, as we honor Asian American Heritage Month, we've been thinking about language. The acronyms, the labels, the identities we carry, and the ones we choose.
[00:00:49] Speaker F: You might have heard terms like Asian American, aapi, aanhpi, or apisa, but what do these actually mean to the people they're meant to represent?
Here's what some of our Park Day community members have to say.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: I usually say Taiwanese American, but sometimes, occasionally I'll say Chinese American.
And to really understand why that is, we gotta go into a whole history lesson about Taiwan and China.
[00:01:16] Speaker E: I identify myself as half Chinese, quarter Japanese, and a quarter white. Sometimes, if I want to simplify it, I just call myself Asian, probably just
[00:01:27] Speaker A: East Asian Indian, mixed race, often Asian
[00:01:32] Speaker B: American, but also Taiwanese American in some spaces, Chinese American. Those words tend to represent my identity and also tend to be a way of communicating quickly who I am. Sometimes they can be really clear in communicating in the right spaces exactly what my identity is. And in other situations, it's complicated and it doesn't quite capture the range of complexity within identities.
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Asian is using a term to say, like en masse, all these people from this gigantic geographic area.
And so it's quite generalized. And what is lost is all the specific, beautiful details from all of the different cultures.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: I usually say, like, Indian because a lot of people don't think, is India as part of Asia.
It's kind of like separate. It's its own subcontinent.
[00:02:28] Speaker F: Now back to those acronyms we mentioned.
I mostly use iPiza because that's the
[00:02:32] Speaker E: one I'm most familiar with.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: I have heard apa, Asian Pacific American used. I've heard aapi, Asian American Pacific Islander, as well as aanhpi, Asian American, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander. So all of those acronyms have been used to describe the celebrations that occur in May.
I think there are some groups that are left out of those acronyms. So, for example, in middle school we have a pisa, Asian Pacific Islander, South Asians as our middle school affinity group. And we are very deliberate in thinking about who might be included and who might be left out of some of the acronyms that have been used to describe who gets celebrated in the month of May.
[00:03:20] Speaker D: The words we use today didn't just appear, they come from history.
[00:03:24] Speaker F: In the late 1960s, during the Civil rights movement, student activists, many right here in the Bay Area, helped popularize the term Asian American. Not just as a label, but as a political identity.
[00:03:36] Speaker D: It was a way to unite people from many different countries and cultures. Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and more. To organize for racial justice and visibility.
[00:03:46] Speaker F: Before that, in the United States, many, many Asian communities were labeled by others, often in ways that were limiting or harmful.
[00:03:53] Speaker D: Choosing Asian American was about self definition, naming themselves on their own terms.
[00:03:59] Speaker F: In the decades that followed, the language continued to evolve.
[00:04:03] Speaker D: The term aapi, Asian American and Pacific Islander became more widely used in the late 20th century, especially in government, education and advocacy spaces. It aimed to build solidarity between Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, while recognizing shared experiences shaped by migration, colonization and racism.
[00:04:23] Speaker F: But over time, many people began asking who feels included in this term and who doesn't.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: Honestly speaking, I don't tend to use acronyms that much anyway. I usually just say Asian.
And that's because in the original language of Asians, we don't have all those acronyms.
[00:04:42] Speaker D: So where does that leave us?
[00:04:44] Speaker F: Maybe there isn't one perfect term. Maybe language is something we keep shaping
[00:04:51] Speaker D: in our Park Day community. You might hear different words. Aapi, Asian American, apisa, and more.
[00:04:57] Speaker F: Each one carries history and each one reflects a choice.
[00:05:01] Speaker D: And maybe that's the most important thing is making space for people to name themselves.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: I think it's important to talk about this because you can learn about stuff in your history or your family's history that you didn't know about.
[00:05:15] Speaker E: I feel like everyone wants to be represented in a more specific way.
[00:05:20] Speaker F: I think it's important to talk about this because it helps you get a sense of who you are and where you come from and your ancestry.
[00:05:26] Speaker E: Because we need to learn more about ourselves to learn about other people too.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: I mean, it's important to learn and
[00:05:35] Speaker C: no, this is important to talk about because if you only refer to Asians with that capital, A, Asians, you don't investigate further and nurture your own curiosity about all these different countries. And even with one country, there's thousands of subcultures, culture that is so rich and you just miss the opportunity to understand deeper.
[00:06:06] Speaker F: So this month and beyond, we invite you to stay curious about the words
[00:06:10] Speaker D: we use to ask to listen, to notice.
[00:06:13] Speaker F: Because identity isn't just something we label. It's something we live.
[00:06:19] Speaker D: If you're new me, you know that the way I name myself is part of my story.
