Resources and Partnerships

For many historic sites and resources in APIA communities in the US, the connection between a building and its significance to APIA heritage has been hard to find. So identifying these places, documenting their history, and making decisions about how to protect them is an important way to ensure that the history of APIAs is not entirely lost but remembered, reclaimed, and preserved. Preservation efforts require both partnerships and resources to help support and preserve our historic resources.  

Board of Directors

Bill Watanabe (Chair)

Los Angeles, CA

 

Karen Kai (Vice Chair)

San Francisco, CA

 

Lisa Hasegawa (Secretary)

Los Angeles, CA

 

Munson A. Kwok, PhD (Treasurer)

Los Angeles, CA

​

Michelle Magalong (Executive Director)

Los Angeles, CA

 

Tejpaul Bainiwal

Stockton, CA

 

Sojin Kim, PhD

Washington, DC

 

Alan Kumamoto

Los Angeles, CA

 

Dawn Mabalon, PhD (in memoriam)

San Francisco, CA

 

Christina Park

Los Angeles, CA

 

Joseph Quinata

Hagatna, Guam

​

 

Our Partner Organzations

(partial list)



• Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

• Asian Pacific Islander Preserve America Neighborhoods

• Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program

• California Historical Society of Southern California

• Chinese American Citizens Alliance

• Chinese American Citizens Alliance Los Angeles

• California State Parks Foundation

• Chinatown Business Improvement District (Los Angeles)

• Chinatown Service Center

• Chinese American Museum

• Chinese Historical Society of America

• Chinese Historical Society of Southern California

• El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument

• Form follows Function Media

• Guam Preservation Trust

• Historic Wintersburg Preservation Task Force

• Historypin

• Iolani Palace

• Isleton Brannan Andrus Historical Society

• Japanese American Citizens League

• Japanese American Community Leadership Council

• Japanese American National Museum

• Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California

• Little Manila Foundation

• Little Tokyo Historical Society

• Little Tokyo Service Center

• Los Angeles Conservancy

• Manilatown Heritage Foundation

• National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development

• National Japanese American Historical Society

• Nihonmachi Little Friends

• OCA - Asian Pacific American Advocates

• Preserving California’s Japantowns

• Save Our Chinatown Committee, Riverside

• Search to Involve Pilipino Americans

• South Asian American Digital Archive

• Stockton Gurdwara Centennial Celebration

• Terminal Island Monument

• Thai Community Development Corporation

• Visual Communications

• Wing Luke Museum

 

 

Our Partners



• Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

• National Center for Preservation Technology and Training

• National Parks Conservation Association

• National Park Service

• National Trust for Historic Preservation

• Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

• White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Resources



Check out these resources related to Asian and Pacific Islander heritage from the National Park Service:

​

• A Brief Glimpse: Asian American Pacific Islander National Historic Landmarks Theme Study

• Finding a Path Forward: Asian American Pacific Islander National Historic Landmarks Theme Study

• Asian Reflections on the American Landscape: Identifying and Interpreting Asian Heritage

• Find Your Place: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

• Historic Preservation from the Ground Up: The Harada House 

​

State and local preservation agencies have also produced guiding documents on Asian and Pacific Islander Americans:

​

• Chinese American in Riverside: Historic Context Statement

• City of Los Angeles Asian American Historic Context Statement

• City of Riverside Japanese American Context Statement

• City of San Francisco Japantown Context Statement

• Making a Place in the Beehive State: A Literature Review and Preliminary
  Identification of Asian and Pacific
  Islander Heritage Sites in Utah,
  1865–1970 (and appendices)

Recommended Reading



Learn more about Asian Pacific American Heritage through these publications.

 

Baluyut, Pearlie Rose S. 1998. A Glorious History, A Golden Legacy: The Making of a Filipino American Identity and Community. Ameriasia Journal 24(3): 193-216.

 

Benmayor, R. 2010. Contested Memories of Place: Representations of Salinas’ Chinatown. The Oral History Review 2010, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 225– 234

 

Burton, JF, MM Farrell, FB Lord, and RW Lord. 2002. Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

 

California Office of Historic Preservation. 1988. Five Views: An Ethnic Historic Site Survey for California, (Five Views contains valuable information on the experience of Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans in California.) 

 

Chang, Sucheng Chan. 1991. Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Immigrant Heritage of America Series). Woodbridge, CT: Twayne Publishers.

 

Chin. Doug. 2001. Seattle’s International District: The Making of a Pan-Asian American Community. Seattle, WA: International Examiner Press.

 

Cultural Resource Management Magazine:

- Preservation in the Pacific Basin. CRM. Volume 19, Number 3. Washington, DC: 1996.

- Approaches to Heritage: Hawai'ian and Pacific Perspectives on Preservation. CRM. Volume 19, Number 8. Washington, DC: 1996.

- Another View From Hawai'i. CRM. Volume 21, Number 8. Washington, DC: 1998- Pacific Preservation. CRM. Volume 24, Number 1. Washington, DC: 2001.

 

Durbow, Gail and Donna Graves. 2004. Sento at Sixth and Main” Preserving Landmarks of Japanese American History. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books.

 

Gupta-Carlson, Himanee. 2003.“Staking a Claim on American-ness: Hindu Temples in the United States” in Jane Iwamura and Paul Spickard, eds. Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America, Routledge, pp. 193-208.

 

Habal, Estella. 2007. San Francisco's International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

 

Hou, J. 2004. Preserving for multiple publics: contesting views of urban conservation in Seattle’s international district. City & Time 1 (1): 3.

 

Jenks, Hillary. 2008. Urban space, ethnic community, and national belonging: the political landscape of memory in Little Tokyo. GeoJournal 73:231–244

 

Lin, Jan. 1998. Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic Enclave, Global Change. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

- 2008. Los Angeles Chinatown: Tourism, Gentrification, and the Rise of an Ethnic Growth Machine. Amerasia Journal 34:3 (2008): 110-126.

- 2011. The Power of Urban Ethnic Places: Cultural Heritage and Community Life (The Metropolis and Modern Life). New York: Routledge.

 

Mabalon, Dawn. 2006. “Losing Little Manila: Race and Redevelopment in Filipina/o Stockton, California” In Positively No Filipinos Allowed: Building Community and Discourse. Eds Antonio Tiongson, Jr., EV Gutierrez, and RV Gutierrez. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

- 2013. Little Manila is in the Heart. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

 

National Park Service:

- 1999. Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites.

- 2001. Report to the President, Japanese-American Internment Sites Preservation.

-2005. Asian Reflections on The American Landscape: Identifying and Interpreting Asian Heritage.

 

Park, K and Leong, R. 2008. How Do Asian Americans Create Places? From Background to Foreground. Amerasia Journal 34:3 (2008): vii-xiv.

 

Saito, LT. 2009. From “Blighted” to “Historic”: Race, Economic Development, and Historic Preservation in San Diego, California. Urban Affairs Review 45(2): 166- 187.

 

Salomon, LR. 1998.‘“No Evictions: We Won’t Move!’ The Struggle to Save the I- Hotel,” Roots of Justice: Stories of Organizing in Communities of Color. Berkeley: Chardon Press: 93-104.

 

Smith, Anita and KL Jones. 2008. Cultural Landscapes of the Pacific Islands: ICOMOS Thematic Study. United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

 

Tatsuno, Sheridan. 1971. The Political and Economic Effects of Urban Renewal on Ethnic Communities: A Case Study of San Francisco’s Japantown. Amerasia Journal 1:1 (33-51). Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press.

 

Washington State University - Vancouver. Chinese Americans in the Columbia River Basin: Historical Overview.