As one of the Bay Area’s stalwart Flamenco dancers, Cruz has carved out a niche in the traditional Spanish art form — becoming one of the most prolific practitioners in the East Bay where she makes her home. And yet, when it comes to heritage, Cruz’ chops aren’t Spanish at all — she was born in the Philippines. 

“It is a very curious,” she said with a pause, “I guess very unique thing to do.” 

Cruz’ life has traversed the unique since early on. She was four when her father moved the family from the Philippines to Brooklyn to take a medical job. Not long after, the family decamped to New Orleans where Cruz grew up. In a city known for gumbo and zydeco, the Cruz family instead found home ground among the city’s small Filipino community, where Cruz came to know her heritage. 

“I remember being sort of immersed in two very different cultures,” Cruz said, flanked by walls of mirrors in her Oakland dance studio, “New Orleans culture and Filipino culture.” 

It was in New Orleans that she began to discover yet another important culture – the world of dance. She took tap, jazz, ballet and a requisite New Orleans skill — baton twirling. But it wouldn’t be until later on, after she’d moved to the Bay Area to attend Cal Berkeley that she’d find her true calling. She planned to study law at Cal but a different seed was planted when her Spanish teacher showed the class a film of the opera Carmen put to Flamenco. 

“I don’t know how to describe it,” she said, “but I felt an urgency that I needed to do that.” 

She sought out Flamenco dance classes and then dove head-first to the art form. She was drawn to Flamenco’s simple yet powerful alchemy of guitar, voice and dance. The percussion of heels pummeling floor, hand claps, castanets and the dramatic gyrations of the dancers drew her in.  

As she progressed into Flamenco, more and more of her personality began to come out in her dancing. On occasion her footwork would summon the syncopated flurries of a rock drummer as she floated along with the rolling staccato accompaniment of a nylon string guitar. 

“The moments of most joy,” she said, “are those moments when I feel free in my interpretation.” 

And yet, as a Filipina woman performing a different culture’s signature art, Cruz felt a tinge of guilt. Perhaps what weighed on her most was the historical fact that Spain had occupied the Philippines for three-centuries. The other uncomfortable moments came when people would assume because she danced Flamenco Cruz she was of Latin heritage. 

“It’s very rare that people look at me and they identify me as Filipina,” she said. “It reminded me of my identity as being Filipina and how I feel doing this art form that is not mine really.” 

Cruz said the guilt comes and goes, but she carries on headfirst into a passion she loves purely. In her two decades as dancer, she performs as often as she can and now even teaches Flamenco classes from her Oakland studio. On top of that, the rhythms that percolated in her feet now permeate her entire being — as she plays drums in several bands, sometimes doing double duty as a dancer/percussionist. 

It’s almost as if Cruz had to dive into a different culture to truly find her place within her own, a melding of cultures and discovery that are hallmarks of the great melting pot. Those thoughts sometimes come to Cruz when she’s on a stage, in her traditional Flamenco clothing, with the music pulsing and a crowd’s emotions rising and twisting with her every move. 

“Those moments I’ve come to appreciate as being really unique and different every time,” Cruz said, “which in my mind is the best way to find out about yourself and who you are.” 

Some of the businesses in the neighborhood have been around for more than a century and are run by immigrant families.

In the video report above, we share the story and sacrifices of one family who is doing all they can to keep their now sixth generation family business running.

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It’s a passion that Narasimhan has nurtured since she was four years old growing up in Bangaluru and Chennai in Southern India. Her family moved often, but the dancing — a classical form of South Asian dance called bharatanatyam — always followed.  

“Everywhere I went my parents had like two duties,” Narasimhan laughed, “one was to find me a new school and they had to find me a new dance class.”  

The bharatanatyam dance is a cantata of jumps and leaps, fast movements with percussive foot stomps — emotion is conveyed with facial expressions, all on display as Narasimhan practiced in her Sunnyvale studio. 

It’s a scene that Narasimhan once thought unlikely, after parting ways with dance earlier in life to pursue higher education in India – following that path into the practical career of software developer.  

But no matter how far she waded into the world of code, it was always dance that lit up her spirit.   

“Slowly I began to realize this is what I’m meant to do,” she said. “I think I can distinctly remember that when dance is a big part of my life how happy I am.” 

Narasimhan returned to dance professionally, choreographing and performing across India. When her husband took a job in the U.S. Narasimhan brought her love of classical dance to her new home in the South Bay. 

She realized she could spread bharatanatyam exponentially if she could also teach it — which is how the garage was sacrificed for the need of a proper dance space. Several times a week, Narasimhan fills the room with groups of dance students, from elementary school kids to adults, all aspiring to learn a dramatic art form from the old country. 

The majority of her students are first or second generation Indian, seeking to embrace a piece of culture their parents grew-up with. On a recent day, Narasimhan prowled the studio keeping time on a woodblock as a group of students wearing crisp matching red blouses and baggy yellow pants followed her instructions. 

“It’s pretty important because we have a lot of festivals where you have to dance for it,” said Anika Subbiah, a South Bay elementary school student who studies dance with Narasimhan. “My mom did it too, she did the same dance.” 

The pandemic threw a wrench into Narasimhan dance momentum, with performances and travel to India cut-off —  but it also revealed a new teaching tool. With the world shut down, Narasimhan began offering virtual dance classes which proved a silver lining. The virtual world allowed her to earn a living while continuing to spread her love of dance. 

“There was a lot of learning that was happening virtually,” she said, “because suddenly you have access to a wealth of knowledge online.” 

Also during the pandemic, Narasimhan gave birth to a child — and a new arts organization called Prayukti Arts, which is a new nonprofit aimed at fostering South Asian arts in the Bay Area. 

“We’re trying to curate platforms for artists like other South Asian artists,” Narasimhan said, “and try to give them a platform not to just engage and perform but to go deeper into their art forms.” 

As she takes her own choreography and performances to a new level, Narasimhan is straddling two worlds; her native India and her adopted world in the U.S. — spreading her unique sense of dance in both. The culture of her native India is etched on her DNA – and follows her wherever she ends up. 

“The culture is just a part of me,” she said, “so I can’t separate myself from it a lot of times.”  

As she dances, or watches others dance her choreography or follow her teachings, Narasimhan is reminded of the times where she and her dancing strayed apart. It was that period of separation that revealed just how much dance meant to her. 

“I never thought that this is what I would do for a living,” she said. “I think for me I just need it to be a big part of my life.”

The 31-year-old Newark native is re-writing her own journey, finding her voice and doesn’t care what others have to say about it.

NBC Bay Area’s Audrey Asistio caught up with her when she visited her alma mater, Newark Memorial High School to meet up with some special fans.

Tiger print pants paired with a lilac-colored sweater. A fur cap topping layers of prints and solids. The neighborhood’s colorfully striking fashion sense caught the eye of Valerie Luu as she wandered through the neighborhood. 

“We wanted to understand where did they get their clothes, and how did they put together these awesome outfits,” said Luu, outfitted in a bright lemon top with matching rubber shoes.

Luu’s interest in the fashion sense of the area’s seniors soon evolved beyond simple curiosity. She and photographer Andria Lo began to visit Chinatown to stalk the area’s elders, stopping them to inquire about their stories and asking to snap a photo. 

“Our success rate is 10%,” laughed Luu, who is of Vietnamese heritage and only knew a few words of Chinese. “Most people will say ‘thank you’ which means ‘no thank you.’”

Armed with a limited Chinese vocabulary that included the phrases “nice hat,” “hello” and “I like your outfit,” Luu applied a strategy of time-plus-tenacity-plus-frequency to eventually persuade enough seniors to open a brief window into their lives and fashion sense. With their burgeoning success in San Francisco, the Luu and Lo pair expanded their cultural gatherings to Chinatowns in Oakland, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver.  

“From there we shot every month for the next seven years, and we eventually turned the collection into a book,” said Luu.

The book the pair created is called Chinatown Pretty, published by Chronicle Books. It’s a collection of photos of senior fashions mixed with a bit of wisdom and storytelling from some of the nation’s most culturally dense neighborhoods. 

“I think what captivates us at first is their style,” explained Luu. “From there we try to learn more about what they did before they retired — why they immigrated here and how they lived their lives in these urban centers.” 

It turned out the fashion was the gateway to a deeper dive into the culture of Chinatown, touching on issues of immigration, isolation, aging and relocation. Luu learned many of the elderly women in Chinatown had worked in sewing factories in China before immigrating to the U.S. She discovered some of their outfits had been re-fashioned from clothing they’d made in their professional sewing days – now touchstones of previous lives as they began anew in a foreign land. 

Among the book’s stories that emerged from the serendipitous encounters was a profile of Estelle Kelley, who was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, shuffled off to China, and returned not long after to Oakland’s Chinatown where she was raised in foster homes. Kelley went on to work as a dancer in San Francisco’s legendary Forbidden City nightclub and cabaret. She died not long after the book’s release. 

“She was in show business for all of her life,” said Kelley’s granddaughter, Kelsi Seid. “To know people were still talking about her and are still talking about her, I know that was so important to her.”  

Luu walked through San Francisco’s Portsmouth Square where a group of Chinese seniors hovered around a picnic table engaged in an intense game of cards. Luu pointed out the women wearing bucket hats — a popular accessory among the neighborhood’s seniors — and men dressed in tidy Members Only jackets paired with khaki pants. 

Luu said of all the Chinatowns profiled in the book, San Francisco’s seemed the most fashionable because the city’s persnickety weather requires multiple layers, creating the possibility for more sophisticated clothing ensembles.

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Luu paused, mouth agape, as an elderly woman strolled down Grant crowned in a large fur hat. Luu employed one of her few Chinese compliments to stop the woman and pepper her with flattery and questions, which the woman’s friend translated:  

“Wow! That’s a bold hat.” 

“The colors you have on are very good.” 

“Shopping? What are you shopping for?”

The encounter was a brief peak behind the curtain into Luu’s natural curiosity and reverence for the area’s seniors. It could also be their stories strike a chord for Luu, whose own parents came to the U.S. as refugees from Vietnam, imbuing her with an appreciation for the international wanderer. 

“Part of the reason why we started this is cause we see our grandparents in these people that we see on the streets,” she said. 

Chinatown Pretty was initially released in 2020 during the global pandemic lockdown and at a time when a series of attacks on elderly Asians left Chinatown seniors more isolated than ever before. The book’s spirit seems a balm for the dark times. 

“Sometimes they’re lonely,” said Cathie Lam of the Chinatown Community Development Center in describing the seniors profiled in the book. “I feel this really highlights them.”

Luu hopes the book will remind people to take notice of the people whom they share a swath of asphalt — and to take an interest in the senior citizens who bring generational color to a neighborhood.  

“Seniors have a lot of wisdom to impart,” Luu said. “So we try to get the fashion wisdom along with the life wisdom.” 

For more information on the book, visit chinatownpretty.com.

Now, living in Los Angeles, Ting has a special place in his heart for the Bay Area, especially when he visits his alma mater, Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco.

Ting gets personal about life, friendships and Hollywood with NBC Bay Area’s Raj Mathai. Check out the video in the player above.

“I think that having hope and optimism is what keeps us going forward. And, I’ll tell you my hope and optimism comes from seeing successes. From seeing people, folks who have come here as refugees and today are in positions of power and are leading.”

President and Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Fund Carolyn Wang Kong describes how a connection to AAPI culture is important to make progress.

It’s almost like an anchor. It helps you connect to something and remind you that you are actually part of something bigger.”

Executive Director of the Japanese Community Youth Council Jon Osaki sits down with Gia Vang to talk about the importance of connecting to one’s culture.

“I think that culture, and heritage, and history are so critical to everybody understanding who they are as a person.”

President of the Filipino American Arts Exposition Al Perez sits down with Audrey Asisito to examine the importance of showcasing Filipino art and traditions.

“Our Filipino history is not really taught in schools. So, it’s one way for us to share our traditions, our history to the next generation.”

Third State Books is the first publishing house to focus solely on Asian American and Pacific Islander voices, issues and stories. The company launched in the new year and has already lined up some well-known names.

Gia Vang has more in the video above.

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“We didn’t know what to do with all these emotions,” said Liao. “Being pissed, sad, all of it at the same time.” 

Liao and his friends would gather together in their outrage, hoisting beers and strategizing what they could do to help. Finally, they landed on the formation of a new nonprofit group called Asians Are Strong.  

The group’s first effort was to stage a pair of rallies in San Francisco, denouncing the attacks and offering self-defense demonstrations in Civic Center Plaza. But members of the group, which include a restauranteur, a tech CEO and a financial risk manager, felt they needed to do more to empower seniors. And so, Asians Are Strong self-defense classes at Chinatown’s YMCA were born. 

“I’m born and raised in San Francisco,” said Liao, who leads the classes. “We’ve dealt with racism, we’ve dealt with this stuff. Racism is not new. What was new was the attacks on our seniors and our women.” 

Twice a month, Liao and his fellow group members slip on navy-colored T-shirts emblazoned with the Asians Are Strong logo and lead a couple dozen Asian seniors through a class aimed at helping them fend off attackers. 

Liao begins each class instructing the group to scream “Stop!”– the first line of defense in an attack. Liao said the scream is not only intended to startle an attacker, but it’s also aimed at activating the seniors in a different way. 

“So we’re getting them used to using their voice,” Liao said. “We start every class with that to break the years of generational training to really start using the voice cause it goes the farthest.” 

Liao teaches his eager pupils, who range in age from 50s to 80s, how to break the grip of an assailant who has grabbed them from behind  how to block a punch or deliver a kick to the groin. Despite the heavy nature of the material, the sound of laughter reflects across the sleek floor boards of the gym’s basketball court, creating a somewhat joyful din. 

“It’s very important to really approach it in a more open, joyful way,” said Zeien Cheung, the group’s head of operations. “Empowering them in a positive kind of vibe.” 

Although some of the group had martial arts experience, none had ever taught self-defense. Liao said he wasn’t even aware of any other self-defense classes aimed at seniors. Liao and members of his group often gathered outside of classes to arrange the curriculum for future lessons.

“When all these attacks were coming up, we were looking,” Liao said. “What are self-defense tools that we could teach people? What would we do?” 

Liao said the seniors taking his classes routinely share stories of attacks – getting shoved, punched or harassed. On a recent day, one of the seniors told Liao she’d recently been pushed by a stranger.

During that class, a TV crew from the Netherlands was on hand filming for a report on the rise of Asian attacks in the United States. 

“It’s happening to our community every single day,” Liao said. “That’s trauma that is not recorded and is not talked about every single day.” 

Siaoyin Cai, a senior who lives in Chinatown, said her newly-acquired skills for protecting herself have brought her some reassurance as she walks to markets and stores around the neighborhood. 

“Coming to this class has given me self-confidence, given me the skills to protect myself and a sense of safety,” said Cai, through a translator.

The intangible of the program is that it’s also become an inter-generational connection between the elderly pupils and the 30-something instructors who are doing the training. 

“During this pandemic a lot of people got very isolated by themselves,” said Cheung. “And with these classes is kind of bridging this generational gap, that these elders feel they’re not alone. We’re here for them.”  

Liao called the classes the “silver lining” of the attacks, giving him the chance to bond with older generations from his old neighborhood. And yet, the necessity of seniors having to take self-defense classes at all, carries its own heartbreak and continually fills him with rage and frustration. 

“It comes from a lot of guilt too to be honest,” he said, his voice breaking and his eyes beginning to tear. “I felt like I should’ve done more.” 

For now, Liao and his group are at least fulfilled by the fact they’re helping equip seniors with skills to potentially protect themselves. 

On a recent day, Liao sparred with an elderly woman in a knitted sweater vest, who screamed and broke from Liao’s grip, inspiring applause from the rest of the group. 

“There’s a problem. It sucks there’s a problem,” Liao said after the class. “But we’re going to find a solution and make it better.”  

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Reporter Gia Vang features Wong and highlights her tireless work in the video above. NBC Bay Area provided Wong questions ahead of time and she used a text to speech app in the interview.

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Instead of making her exquisitely crafted nail art for a roomful of salon customers, she instead took her hand-painted nail art to the global market of e-commerce. TikTok and Instagram videos nudged her business into the next stratosphere and, voila, a sensation was born. 

“It’s very interesting what nails have become,” said Rahey, from inside her office in a Fremont industrial park. “It’s something of a cult following.” 

If nail art is a cult, then Rahey is its de facto cult leader, gaining fame for painting tiny images of movie characters, horror movie scenes and anything else someone can think up onto the face of a plastic nail – all the while assembling a dedicated crew of designers who are helping to push the burgeoning art form forward. 

Rahey, who previously worked as a software engineer in Southern California, has even turned to her engineer roots to create nail applications that morph and move with body and environmental temperatures. 

“This is what I’m obsessed with, creating as many animation or sort of hidden effects, which has become really popular,” she said.

In addition to designing custom nail sets, Rahey’s company, Pamper Nail Gallery, is regularly hired by movie studios to create nails for red carpet premiers, including Marvel’s Thor 11 and Dungeons and Dragons. Progressive Auto Insurance hired her to make a set of nails with its iconic Flo character. Rahey appreciates a challenge — there’s virtually no image she can’t fit onto a nail. 

“It’s such an interesting canvas,” Rahey said. “It’s not like a sheet of paper or just kind of a rectangular board. It’s 10 little pieces of plastic essentially and what you’re doing is you’re telling a story.” 

In the story of Rahey’s early life, there’s nothing that even hinted of the life path she would undertake. She never studied art — an aunt’s harsh review of one of her childhood paintings dashed any enthusiasm she might’ve had for the form. 

Rahey was born in Shanghai, China, moving with her family to the U.S. when she was 6 years old. It was a hard transition. 

“When I was just a little kid, barely spoke English very well,” she recalled. “I was crying every day at home because it was pretty rough on me. All I could feel back then was pure shame about who I was and my culture.” 

When she entered into the stressful career world of software engineering, she would often retreat to the bathroom, pulling out multiple bottles of nail polish to trick out her nails. It became her regular escape. 

By 2017, she’d given in to a creative calling, opening her Fremont nail salon, which emphasized artistic applications for nails. Sometimes the nail painting sessions would stretch as long as 11 hours. 

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Rahey hired others designers without any artistic experience, giving them an opportunity to blossom from within the craft as she had. Jasmine Sap began as a front desk receptionist in the salon, working her way up to becoming a lead designer in the company. 

“I’ve actually hired a lot of girls here who started with no nail art experience either,” said Sap, sitting at her desk surrounded by bottles of nail polish. “To see them grow into these amazing and capable artists really has been amazing.” 

For Rahey, something odd happened as she dove headlong into her new career: the deeper she fell into her art, interpreting images from Japanese anime and Chinese culture, the more she began to appreciate her own Chinese heritage from which she’d once strayed. 

“It really allowed me to fully kind of come full-circle with appreciating some of the cultural aspects that I was ashamed by when I was little,” Rahey said. “And most of that I think is spoken through art.” 

Rahey’s company has expanded with the exploding popularity of nail art, opening two offices in the Bay Area and another in Las Vegas. Inside her Fremont warehouse, designers sit at desks decorated with stuffed animals and Hello Kitty. One designer showed off her unique creations, a series of nails that came together to form a five-finger octopus, a larger-than-life dragonfly that sat on a nail appliqué, and a set of rattlesnake tail nails that actually rattled when shook. 

For Rahey, a look back on her own life trajectory revealed a journey where one unexpected event seemed to guide her to the next, landing at this place at the fingertip of the nail art world. 

“I just pursued, I guess, like happiness or that emotion that art evoked for me,” Rahey said. “And then it turned into something I didn’t expect.” 

There has been a lot of talk about book bans and for one Asian American children’s author who had her book banned, she used that experience to write her latest novel.

Kelly Yang, a UC Berkeley graduate, wants her book to start conversations and for young people to be “finally seen.”

Watch more in the video above.

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With a pop-up event of music, dance and cultural performances with a promise street fair events coming up this summer.

“I think it’s amazing,” said Oakland resident Peter Tubig. “I was able to learn about the different dances traditions. I think it’s been really good.”

Organizers hope the events will get people back out in the neighborhoods in San Francisco on the other side of the pandemic.

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San Francisco Mayor London Breed attended the event on Saturday.

“We talk about San Francisco as a being a global city and place of diversity and that is maintained by culture and it’s maintained by the history,” she said.

A robust month of programming is expected in the city.

“I think we are hoping there is something for everyone for different generations,” said Claudine Cheng with the APA Heritage Foundation

In his more than two decades at the helm of San Francisco’s cable cars, Lupiz has practically become as much an ambassador for the cars as they have for the city. 

“I think they just like the way I dress,” Lupiz said, punctuating the line with his typical full-body laugh. 

Dressed in his old-timey gripman hat and vest, Lupiz indeed looks like a character from the pages of San Francisco’s back story, yet it’s more likely it’s his work ethic that gets him calls from the city brass whenever they need an especially reliable hand. He’s also got a keen appreciation for cable car history. 

“I mean, how great is that I can look at a photograph of one of these things from 1930 and, ‘Oh, I was driving that last week,'” he said. 

Lupiz has something in common with the cable cars: both were born and raised in San Francisco. Lupiz grew up in the city’s Mission District, the son of a Japanese mother and a Filipino father. His parents met just after World War II when his military dad met Lupiz’s mother working in the office of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Japan. They found their way to San Francisco.

Lupiz’s mother had friends in Chinatown and would often take her son along with her, allowing him to roam while she visited friends. One day Lupiz ventured up the hill and saw his first cable car. 

“I thought, ‘Oh, that’s cool!” he remembered.   

He became a frequent visitor to the cable car barn and his interest was stoked by the crews who took him under their wing and showed him how everything worked. He made up his mind when he was 8 years old what he wanted to do with his life. 

“Little kids, you want to be an astronaut or a police officer,” Lupiz said sitting in a cable car in the barn. “I always wanted to do this.” 

But when it came time to begin his career, Lupiz talked himself out of chasing his cable car dream. He’d gotten the idea in his head that maybe it wasn’t a professional career and that he should do something serious. He ended up working in a store, confessing his unhappiness to a friend. She asked him what kind of job he’d do if he could pick anything? He wanted to drive a cable car. 

“I had to get over my own mental obstacles about not some childish fantasy,” Lupiz said. “Well, sometimes childish fantasies come true.” 

Twenty-three years ago, Lupiz joined MUNI as a bus driver. Not long after, he jumped at the chance to transfer to the cable car division where he’s been the last 21 years. It’s no small feat in a job where some 90% of candidates wash out.  

In addition to a clean safety record, Lupiz also boasts his long-standing tradition of decorating the cable cars for Christmas every year – where he applies his fastidious standards. 

“I know I’ve gotten a really good design for Christmas when I see locals turn around and say, ‘Oh, look at that,'” he noted.

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Lupiz has also taken up the mantle of diversity programs within the department and applying his decorating skills to the department’s AAPI month cable car. 

“To have the attitude not only of being a cable car operator but the whole racial equity part as well, that’s way beyond whatever I could ever explain about Val,” said Fred Butler, Assistant Division Manager of the cable car division. 

As someone with a passion for his job, Lupiz was devastated when he couldn’t do it for a year-and-a-half as the pandemic grounded the cable car fleet. Lupiz was put to work washing busses and other duties around the city which he says he was thankful for. But on the rare occasions when cable cars were taken out for practice runs, he was overjoyed to get back to the grip. When service finally resumed, he’d gained a new perspective. 

“It’s really made me appreciate even more what I have,” Lupiz said. 

Growing up Asian, Lupiz faced discrimination as a child – incidents he doesn’t like to dwell on. Instead, his mother paved his road ahead with a piece of advice.

“She always said being Asian, I would have to work harder to prove myself,” Lupiz said.

Lupiz credits that challenge with helping him rise to the ranks of the cable car division’s elite gripmen, propelled by a devout work ethic. 

On the days when the crowds are thin and the sun is shining, Lupiz sometimes imagines he’s back in the late 1800s, shepherding a car down Hyde Street hill toward the sparkling bay. He can’t help but think he’s living out his childhood dream. 

“I don’t bother playing Lotto,” he said. “I don’t do any of that. I used up all my luck.”

Tourism has been hit hard the last couple of years with the pandemic, Asian hate and an increase in robberies and vandalism.

Despite it all, the community remains resilient with shops starting to reopen and new stores opening. 

NBC Bay Area’s Janelle Wang visited Chinatown and has the full story in the video above.

“Having to be pulled away from high school and pack up everything into suitcases … and be hauled into a camp,” said Karen Leong, describing what her uncle Tatasuki Kanada endured at just 17 years old, ripped from Mt. Diablo High School and sent to an internment camp with his family during World War II.

“I was shocked knowing that people who actually attended my school had to go through something so bad,” said student Stephanie Patino. “It was just shocking.”

When the school’s ethnic studies students learned the Japanese American students never got their diplomas, they set out to change that.

“Innocent students that go here that wanted an education were stripped away from their education and sent to these camps,” said student Brandon Dominguez.

It took the students two years, writing letters and making speeches and in March, they learned their efforts paid off. Those diplomas will be issued in the names of each of the 40 students.

“I think it’s important because it gives them a chance to experience something they didn’t experience before,” said student James Hutalla.

“It’s just a small gesture really. We understand this is 80 years too late but we just wanted to tell them they matter to us and they’re part of our community,” said Ethnic Studies teacher Laura Valdez. 

Kanada’s niece and nephew will accept the diploma on their uncle’s behalf. The army veteran died in 2007.

“If he was still alive today he’d be humbled and overjoyed,” said Leong.

He and his three brothers all fought in World War II. One of them died in combat earning the Purple Heart.

“They were faithful to the country that’s why they served in the war to prove their worth as an American,” said Leong.

They say they’re grateful to kids who fought to right a wrong, getting Kanada’s diploma means everything to their family.

“I just wish he was here to get it himself,” said Leong.

Chen is the executive director of The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), which is celebrating its one-year anniversary this month.

Chen has a 30-year career in entrepreneurship, health care, community and philanthropy.

NBC Bay Area’s Janelle Wang recently sat down for a conversation with Chen. Watch the interview in the video player above.

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One of them is 14-year-old Peninsula teenager, Ashlyn So, who during the height of Asian hate, decided to use her voice and creative talent to speak up.

NBC Bay Area’s Janelle Wang has the story in the video above.

The composition titled Hope, stands as a fitting musical synopsis of Arben’s life, a Polish Jew who survived numerous Nazi concentration camps — which claimed the lives of his entire family — and took comfort in his violin during a long career in U.S. orchestras. 

For Korean American Jackson-Picht, music and friendship wove a cross-cultural connection to Arben, devoting much of her recent years to a one-woman performance paying homage to her musical mentor who died in 2017. 

“It’s such a great example of how music is a bridge across cultures,” Jackson-Picht said in the practice room of her San Jose home. “It connects humanity in a way I don’t think anything else does.” 

Jackson-Picht grew up in Santa Cruz — her first musical memories were of listening to her Korean grandmother singing Korean folk songs. She wasn’t yet 5-years-old when she started violin lessons – her memories don’t include a time when the violin wasn’t part of her life. 

She first encountered Arben at a music camp where she was struck by his rapt dedication to helping aspiring musicians. After the camp she sent a thank you card to Arben’s home in Philadelphia, where he spent 34 years as a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The letter touched-off a friendship. 

“If you’re fortunate, someone will come into your life and have a profound impact,” Jackson-Picht said. “For me that person was definitely David Arben.” 

When Jackson-Picht attended the Juilliard School of music in New York, she frequently took a Greyhound Bus to Philadelphia to study with Arben. The lessons lasted hours, followed by long strolls and meals around Philly. That’s where Arben’s life-story began to unfurl; the painful details of his time in concentration camps — how he’d narrowly avoided death when a guard plucked him last-minute from a group of camp prisoners chosen for execution – because he’d seen the boy play violin and declared a need for his virtuosity. 

“He attributes the violin and the love of his family saving his life,” Jackson-Picht said. 

The friendship endured after she returned to California and began performing professionally with organizations like the San Francisco Ballet. Fifteen years ago, when Jackson-Picht organized the Music In May chamber music festival in her hometown of Santa Cruz, she honored Arben with a newly commissioned piece by Polina Nazaykinskaya called Haim. 

During one of the performances, a pianist suggested Jackson-Picht document Arben’s story, which inspired her and her father John Jackson to write the biography Arben; David Arben’s Life of Miracles and Successes. It came out two years after Arben’s death at the age of 89. 

But Jackson-Picht’s devotion to her mentor didn’t end there. She created a one-woman performance to share Arben’s story through solo violin playing, storytelling and visual projections. 

“We took that program into schools, community centers, churches, synagogues — basically anywhere they would have us,” she said, “so we could share the life of David Arben.” 

From her practice room, flanked by a poster from one of Arben’s orchestral performances, Jackson-Picht plunged her bow into a deep musical exorcism of Hope, another Nazaykinskaya piece she commissioned for Arben. The title takes its title from one of Arben’s many sayings; “music is hope, music is peace.” 

Just as the violin became young Arben’s family following the death of his entire family in the Holocaust, Jackson-Picht became part of his familial constellation in his later years. It’s a friendship that stretched across cultural lines in the grand tradition of the great melting pot.  

“He’s such an extraordinary individual I don’t want to just reap the benefits of his life and story teaching me, inspiring me,” Jackson Picht said. “I want to share that with other people.” 

Ibarra, who grew up in the East Bay, uses her music to talk about her culture and what it was like growing up as an immigrant.

NBC Bay Area’s Marcus Washington sat down with Ibarra to learn more. You can watch the interview in the video player above.

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Miyamoto, who is Japanese and Chinese, has spent 26 years with the department.

NBC Bay Area’s Robert Handa sat down with Miyamoto to talk about his family’s history. You can watch the interview in the video player above.

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Some call the anniversary therapeutic as it offers an opportunity to help others fully understand that dark time in history.

Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay was a front line of discrimination during that time, serving as an immigration port in the early 1900s where Chinese citizens were detained before being allowed into the country or deported.

On Friday, a number of people took park in a candle-lighting and wreath-laying ceremony at the Angel Island immigration station to commemorate the anniversary.

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Rev. Norman Fong spent Friday honoring his dad, who immigrated to the U.S. during the Chinese Exclusion Act and arrived at Angel Island.

“We suffered because the Chinese Exclusion Act forced everyone to be undocumented or create some false identity in order to survive,” he said. “And then realizing that is was really racism that created this. The Chinese in America should be proud of their history, not ashamed of it, like my dad.”

Fond said he’s grateful more youth are starting to care and invest in learning about Asian American and Pacific Islander history.

He also said education and understanding are the best ways to embrace differences.

The museum reopened with a powerful exhibit on the life of Chinatown’s most famous native son, martial arts master and actor Bruce Lee, born just a block away in Chinese Hospital. 

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But following a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the museum also opened with a karate chop to its own mission statement, expanding its historical panorama to include other nationalities. 

“We took it upon ourselves,” said the museum’s new director Justin Hoover, “to reimagine what the museum could be.”    

The museum’s “reimagining” took the shape of physical changes; from expanding exhibit ceilings, to adding state-of-the-art projection equipment, to taking over an adjacent parking lot to hold community events. 

But its rebirth is also something of a spiritual transformation. 

In the days before the museum reopened in April, artists and workers were busily putting final touches on exhibits that displayed the brick building’s expanded cultural perspective. Downstairs in a lower room, an African-American artist painted a scene that included a young Black girl along side a caricature of an Asian-inspired dragon.  

Another wall featured three paintings by the first female Black Panther Tarica Lewis, depicting one of her ancestors, the legendary boxer Joe Lewis. 

“It’s a pivot toward inclusivity of non-Asians as well,” Hoover said, bounding through the exhibits in between meetings. “We’ve got a lot of African-American voices, got a lot of voices of artists of all walks of life.” 

The museum is still focused on its mission highlighting the history and experience of Chinese immigrants in Chinatown, which traces its roots back to Gold Rush times. In one room, behind glass sat a dark symbol of that immigrant story; the original 1902 document making the Chinese Exclusion Act permanent, along with the pen President Theodore Roosevelt used to sign it. 

Hoover explained how the room where the document sits, is also a place for people to practice empathy — including an instruction to write a message of “inclusivity” on a note card. 

“Who could you help? Who could you support?” Hoover said, offering suggestions. 

Visitors entering the museum will be most taken with its front and center Bruce Lee exhibit — featuring movie memorabilia, pictures, Lee’s quotes and a colorful state-of-the art light projection that bathes Lee in morphing visuals. 

One section of the exhibit focuses on the racism Lee faced throughout his career, including a list of salaries from the Green Hornet, in which Lee starred as Kato, receiving the production’s bottom salary. 

“Bruce made less than anybody on set, even the stuntmen,” Hoover said. “He was paid less than anybody yet he was the blowout star of this TV show.” 

On opening day of the exhibit, Lee’s daughter Shannon Lee toured the roomful of artifacts, as videos of her father’s movies played her father’s martial arts scenes and images of the late-actor beamed from every angle.  

“There’s a sense of wonder, there’s a sense of pride,” Lee said gazing around the room, “there’s a sense of energy, a sense of satisfaction and a sense of excitement being here.” 

The pandemic hit Chinatown hard, as businesses still struggle to recover. The long closure of the museum seemed to reflect the somber economic state of the neighborhood as its streets sat empty for more than a year. With street banners now trumpeting the Lee exhibit, there’s hope it will give a swift kick to the neighborhood’s recovery. 

“Chinatown has been disproportionally hit by the pandemic in terms of reduced business,” said activist Natassia Kwan. “And it’s super exciting to see the excitement surrounding this exhibit — bring that renewed energy to Chinatown.”   

Hoover, who was hired as director a year ago, is excited to see what the future will hold for the museum — and its role as a cultural hub for San Francisco’s famous neighborhood. 

“I feel like this museum is just an anchor in the community,” Hoover said. “People looked to it for many years to be a leader in not only education but community.” 

Hoover paused at a broken wooden sign reading “No Chinese or Dogs Allowed,” which Lee smashed in the film Fists of Fury. Likewise, visitors are now asked to write their own message of oppression on a board, and smash it with a karate chop. 

Hoover scribbled “fake news” on a board and then smashed it in two, yelling “karate chop!” as the blow was struck. 

“Come in and you can do your karate chop,” he laughed. “This is the only museum where you can break things.”   

“Don’t say that,” then-senior Alvan Cai says in Mandarin to his mother, Capri, off-camera before speaking to the filmmakers. “I don’t want people to think lowly of my dad or anything.” 

While Asian Americans who strive for top-tier colleges are stereotyped as being from wealthy, educated families, the reality more often resembles stories like Cai’s: children of working-class immigrants who grab onto the idea of higher education as a vehicle for stability in the U.S.

It’s these students whom director Debbie Lum said she hoped to humanize in her documentary, “Try Harder!,” which made its broadcast debut Monday on PBS’s Independent Lens. 

“These are the kids who can’t afford to go to private school. Families bank on that,” Lum told NBC Asian America. “It is a way for someone who didn’t have access to have a way up in society.” 

The documentary, which premiered at Sundance last year, chronicles the lives of five students during the 2016-17 school year as they embark on a grueling college admissions process.

Read the full story here on NBCNews.com

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Undaunted by that, UCSF Infectious Disease Specialist, Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, delivered the science with the added bonus of cultural understanding.

“Once I was more credible in terms of the science, I was able to infuse some other themes,” he said. “Themes of equity, understanding, tolerance to other communities.”

And thile Asian American Pacific Islander community got hate, they continued doing the things that protected not only the AAPI community, but their greater Bay Area communities as well.

A total of 75% of Californians are vaccinated, but more than 93% of the Asian population got their shots — and they can claim the highest vaccination rate among all age groups.

“That notion that we should all protect not only ourselves but our communities is something that’s really strong in Asian American communities and vaccinations having community benefit as well as individual benefit resonated with the asian American community,” said Chin-Hong.

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The doctor also said that Asian Americans didn’t have the aversion to masking that some other groups had.

While Asian American Pacific Islanders make up about 15% of California’s population, their case rate was lower, accounting for fewer than 9% of all COVID cases, and fewer than 11% of all COVID deaths.

But, Chin-Hong said the model minority notion leaves some communities out, like Filipinos and elderly Chinese people, who were hit harder by COVID.

That’s why he is still pushing for a focus on sub-populations and equity. Work he considers a privilege.

“I can’t think of any better way to use what I’ve learned throughout my life,” said Chin-Hong. “It almost seemed like everything I’ve done in my life reached a peak to really be able to utilize that during the COVID pandemic.”

The book, which is called “Yes We Will,” comes out Tuesday.

Yang wrote it not just for her children but for others to see what it possible.

NBC Bay Area’s Janelle Wang talked with Yang about the book. Check out the conversation in the video above.

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Why AAPI Heritage Matters

Stop AAPI Hate, a cooperative group comprised of the LA-based AAPI Equality Alliance, the San Francisco-based Chinese for Affirmative Action and San Francisco State University, has been tracking hate incidents against AAPI individuals since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Their latest survey was released on March 4, 2022, and recorded 10,905 hate incidents against AAPI individuals in the United States, Guam and Puerto Rico in just under two years.

The report breaks down where those incidents happened and the kinds of people they happened to, alongside first-person stories that serve as examples and policy recommendations aimed at limiting discrimination in the future.

Race was, by far, the most common reason for a discriminatory incident to occur, listed as a reason in 91.5% of the 10,905 reports. Ethnicity — the specific Asian culture an individual is a part of —Í was the second most common reason, included in 52.6% of reports. More than one reason could be selected in each report, Stop AAPI Hate said.

Of the 4,632 incidents reported in 2020 (42.5% of the total) and the 6,273 incidents reported in 2021 (57.5% of the total), a majority of the incidents occurred in California. New York, Washington, Texas and Illinois rounded out the top five states with the most reported incidents, according to the report.

Most of the incidents took place in public spaces, the report said. 31.2% of incidents took place in public streets, for example, and another 26.9% took place in businesses, serving as “the top sites of anti-AAPI hate.”

The kind of discrimination experienced in the reports ranges from denial of service and avoidance to physical assault and harassment.

Individuals reporting a hate incident could report more than one kind of discrimination at a time in each report, and 66.9% of the 10,905 individuals who sent responses to the survey said that harassment was part of the incident they were reporting.

The data in the report breaks down “harassment” into “Verbal hate speech and/or harassment,” “Behavioral” harassment such as stalking or bullying, “Gesture” harassment like a middle finger or “slanted eye gesture,” “Written” harassment like propaganda signs, and sexual harassment.

Verbal hate speech was the most common kind of harassment reported.

Physical assault and being avoided or shunned were the second most common parts of reported hate incidents, with each kind of discrimination reported in just over 16% of the 10,905 incidents.

The report also broke down the data by gender, allowing those reporting to identify whether they are male, female or non-binary.

Harassment was the most-reported kind of discrimination in all three gender groups, but AAPI women were by far the most likely group to report harassment overall, with 69.8% of reported incidents from women stating they were harassed as part of the hate incident they experienced.

Non-binary AAPI individuals were the most likely to report being shunned, with 21.4% of reports from non-binary individuals including avoidance or shunning as an element in the hate incident.

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The organization hopes that by collecting detailed data about just how common hate incidents are in the current era, they can “advance equity, justice and power by dismantling systemic racism and building a multiracial movement to end anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander hate,” according to their website.

Read the entire report here.

Korean Americans who lived through the uprising refer to the event as “Saigu,” which translates to “4-29.” April 29, 1992, was the first day of the riots, which began after a jury acquitted four white police officers in the beating of Black motorist Rodney King. Six days later, more than 50 people would be dead and 3,000 businesses destroyed or looted, nearly half of which were Korean-owned. Damages totaled about $1 billion.

“Saigu has become almost like a memorial for Korean Americans,” Connie Chung Joe, chief executive officer of Asian Americans Advancing Justice — Los Angeles, told NBC Asian America. “It’s a moment of profound sadness and loss, of feeling so targeted and so abandoned.”

Six Korean and Black organizations — including AAAJ, Los Angeles Urban League and Korean American Coalition — are hosting a peace gathering at Koreatown’s Liberty Park on Friday, bringing together recording artists and spiritual leaders to reflect on the impact of the riots on both racial groups. The musical performances from young Asian and Black artists, Joe said, are meant to draw in younger audiences who don’t learn much about the event in school.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

Ayansh Grover, 7, says he observes Hindu culture and shared with his classmates how he celebrates holidays like Diwali and Holi.

Every Tuesday, the class practices saying “hello” in a language represented by a classmate and learns more about the country where that language is spoken. Lila Cortese, 6, shares how they greeted one another by saying “annyeonghaseyo,” or “hello” in Korean, that morning.

The Skinner North Elementary students in Chicago are some of the first to go through school in an era where lessons about Asian American history are a staple of their lesson plans.

Through the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History, or TEAACH, Act, Illinois public K-12 schools must include a unit on the history of Asian Americans in Illinois and the Midwest, as well as Asian Americans’ contributions toward advancing civil rights in the U.S. Illinois became the first state to pass such a law mandating these requirements in 2021.

Since then, similar laws have passed in New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island — and the movement is growing with support from students, teachers, parents and education advocates around the country.

‘They see themselves in these stories’

Smita Garg, 42, previously taught elementary school and is a mom of two children, ages 11 and 6, in the Chicago Public Schools system. She remembers growing up Indian American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, and over time learning to celebrate and share her own multicultural heritage with others.

She didn’t know much about Asian American history even as she learned to be an educator: “Having grown up in public education in the Midwest and then learning to be a teacher in a master’s program and not having any of this background — it was jarring.” Garg says that by grad school, she began researching more about Asian American labor movements, immigration patterns, civic engagement and activism.

When the TEAACH Act passed in 2021, she joined Chicago’s chapter of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice, or AAAJ, as a volunteer to pull together curricular resources for K-12 Asian American history lessons.

The resources share ways teachers can incorporate Asian American history and cultural studies into the Illinois School Board of Education’s existing learning standards.

For example, a kindergarten teacher planning a lesson about U.S. holidays may include holidays of diverse groups and the historical figures who make those days special, while a fourth grade democracy unit could include a lesson on Larry Itliong, the Filipino American labor organizer and one of the founders of the United Farm Workers union.

And starting with the 2022-23 school year, Illinois history teachers must include lessons about the wrongful incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII, as well as the service of two Japanese American combat units, the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Infantry Regiment.

Garg says it’s important for AAPI students to see themselves reflected in textbooks as critical to the development of the U.S, and for their non-AAPI peers to recognize that as well. “History and how you connect to it — or not — offers us a sense of identity. And so without that connection, it’s not quite the same then how you view your place in this country and perhaps how others see you in it.”

As a parent seeing her Asian American children now learning this curriculum, “I love it,” she says. “They see role models, and I think that’s really important. They see themselves in these stories.”

Advocates say teaching AAPI history is key to reducing anti-Asian discrimination and violence

Organizers with the AAAJ Chicago drafted the bill language for the TEAACH Act in February 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic stalled advocacy efforts. At the same time, the need for Asian American history standards were urgently clear: Individuals reported nearly 11,500 incidents of anti-Asian hate between March 2020 and March 2022, according to data from Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition formed to address the pandemic-era spike in racialized violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

“We saw Asian American history education as one critical part of combating the rise in anti-Asian racism, and sentiment,” says Grace Pai, executive director of AAAJ Chicago. “Without understanding why Asian Americans have been blamed and scapegoated for things like the pandemic, it’s hard to stop that behavior from escalating into incidents of harassment or violence.”

Advocates say the exclusion of Asian Americans at many levels, from classroom lessons to governing bodies to movies and TV screens, renders many AAPIs invisible to the general public. Three in 10 Americans can’t identify a significant Asian American historical event or policy, according to a 2023 survey of 5,235 people by The Asian American Foundation, or TAAF.

When asked what they know about AAPI history, the No. 1 response is about Japanese incarceration during WWII, “and only about 14% of Americans across the country are even familiar with Japanese incarceration,” says Norman Chen, CEO of TAAF. “It’s such a historic and painful moment in our country’s history, so it’s really necessary that we have more of AAPI history taught in schools to learn from the past and make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes that occurred.”

Progress and pushback

More work is being done to push for AAPI history requirements in public schools: One organization, Make Us Visible, has efforts in over a dozen states. A majority of Americans, 3 in 5, think incorporating the Asian American experience into the teaching of U.S. history is important, according to the TAAF survey.

In states where these initiatives now exist, “we’ve seen students and parents share with us stories about, how for the first time in their lives when they open a textbook, they’re starting to be able to learn more about our community,” Chen says. “It’s very powerful.”

But progress to teach inclusive American history, including of marginalized groups, isn’t happening evenly. During the 2020-21 school year, nearly 900 school districts across the U.S., representing 35% of all K-12 students, were affected by local district efforts to restrict so-called “critical race theory,” or lessons that discuss issues of race or racism, according to research from UCLA and UC San Diego.

Parents, educators and advocates are “deeply concerned” about efforts to restrict inclusive history curriculum, says Pai of AAAJ Chicago. “History is history. It shouldn’t be disputed what happened or what the facts are that we should be sharing with students, but unfortunately it’s become highly politicized. It is really a disservice to our young people when we are not telling the whole truth.”

‘This is a stated need’

Once the Illinois bill was signed into law in July 2021, AAAJ Chicago developed a professional workshop and has trained over 1,300 teachers from across the state how to teach Asian American history.

The teacher trainings are invaluable to Bigelow, 36, the first-grade teacher at Skinner North. He has been a teacher for 12 years and noticed that, after a stint in Michigan and returning to Chicago, the demographic makeup of his classroom shifted over the years, and “finding resources and books that match their identities was really difficult.”

Bigelow says he was was excited to see teacher training to incorporate AAPI social studies into his classroom and approaches the learning curve with “humility and a sense that my awareness of Asian American history is limited.”

He learns from his students as they learn from him. His students Valentina Zhu and Helena Zhang, both 7, gave him practice cards to learn Chinese phrases at the beginning of the year, and Rachel Tsang, 7, encouraged him to try Duolingo, the language-learning app.

The new cultural guidelines encourage classmates to build relationships and learn from each other. “A lot of educational theory is based on how most learning is social, and you have to have relationships to learn,’ Bigelow says. “If you don’t know who people are, you can’t learn very well from them.”

Pai adds that it’s important that lessons about AAPI history and culture are embedded into overall themes within classroom curriculum. “Often Asian American history is only talked about in the context of social sciences, but you can also incorporate Asian American history into English language arts, math, or into physical sciences,” she says.

“The great thing about the TEAACH Act is that it opens the door and says, ‘This is a stated need. This is something that we have to do,'” Bigelow adds. “And it provided [a resource] for me as an educator who wants to learn and do more.”

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The new character, named TJ, was featured alongside actor Kal Penn and Ji-Young, the show’s first Asian American muppet. In his debut, TJ shared an example in which support from his family had boosted his confidence. 

“I’m learning Tagalog. It’s a language my Filipino family speaks. And I have confidence because I can always ask my lola for help when I don’t know a word,” TJ says, using the Tagalog word for grandmother.

TJ, played by voice actor and puppeteer Yinan Shentu, is the brainchild of Filipino American animator Bobby Pontillas. The animator shared in an Instagram post that the character’s look was inspired by his lifelong friends’ children, Max and Mateo. 

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

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Hana makes jewelry of miniature Vietnamese food in order to connect with her heritage.

Her detailed work features dumplings, spring rolls, bánh mì, and a bowl of phở, among many other foods.

“It’s a lot of trial and error,” Hana said on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.” “Luckily I grew up eating Vietnamese food. My dad is an amazing cook and even though I can’t cook like him, I make miniatures that look just about the same.”

Hana says she loves interacting with other Vietnamese people via social media, especially when they comment on her jewelry-making videos.

“Having that little moment, that connection with them is really special,” Hana said.

AAPI has been honored during the month of May since 1990, celebrating the achievements and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

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Wong, who is considered the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, is the fifth and final woman to be individually featured on a quarter this year.

The quarter, which will enter general circulation on Monday, will feature President George Washington on one side and Wong on the other. 

Wong, whose birth name was Wong Liu Tsong, was born in Los Angeles in 1905 to Chinese immigrants, according to IMDB. She was cast in her first role at 14 as an extra in the film “The Red Lantern” and continued to take on smaller parts until her lead role in “The Toll of the Sea” in 1922.

Wong had a substantial acting career despite the limited roles available to actors of Asian descent in Hollywood at the time and anti-miscegenation laws that prevented her from kissing any person of another race, according to the New York Historical Society Museum and Library.

Read the full story here on NBCNews.com

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While attending Gold House’s first annual Gold Gala in Los Angeles on May 21, the actor spoke about the discrimination he’s faced in the industry.

“I get it all the time,” Golding, 35, told E! News. “I’m not Asian enough. I’m not white enough. It’s just one of those things you have to accept. It’s never going to change even from the Asian side of the populace. It’s grasping on to what I believe and what I love about who I am and not really caring about others’ misconceptions. And so for me, I’m proud to be Asian, I’m proud of my British heritage and I think that’s all you can ask for in a person.”

He encouraged young actors experiencing discrimination in the industry to stay true to themselves. “You’re in a party of one at the end of the day, you know what I mean?” he continued. “Like, you shouldn’t be listening to the haters because if you have a goal, if you have a target, you should be doing anything and everything to accomplish it. And sometimes that means swallowing your ego and swallowing your pride and doing the best you can.”

Henry Golding Talks “Crazy Rich Asians 2”

Golding was honored by Gold House, a nonprofit collective of Asian and Pacific Islander leaders fighting for socioeconomic equity and more authentic representation. While accepting the award for leading man, the star — who has been the leading man in several movies like “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Last Christmas” and “Snake Eyes” — posed the following question: What is a leading man?

“Now in the traditional sense when we talk about leading men in films it is often used to describe a hero, the romantic lead, a great comic,” he told the audience, which included stars like Michelle Yeoh, Mindy Kaling, Lisa Ling, Chloe Kim, Daniel Dae Kim and Kelly Marie Tran. “But I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: That s–t’s fairly easy to accomplish, OK? You do the material justice, you be professional. You treat others the way you want to be treated, and you certainly don’t go up slapping people up on stage.”

The harder part, Golding continued, is being a leading man off screen. “This applies to all of us,” he continued. “He, she, they and them. It’s being a leading person to others: your peers, your colleagues, your friends and your family.”

And he stressed the importance of taking action. “It’s about fighting for those whose rights are diminished because of the color of their skin. It’s about changing laws and advocating for fairness. No matter your creed or sexuality,” Golding said. “It’s building platforms and companies to uplift people to break through that bamboo glass ceiling, whatever ceiling you want to call it, no matter the industry. It’s about pushing the limits of stereotype physically and mentally in all disciplines.”

At the end of his speech, Golding encouraged others to be changemakers, noting, “We all have the power to be leaders, we just have to choose to make a difference.”

According to Bain, a management consulting company, Asian workers polled in the U.S., Canada, France and four other countries feel more excluded in the workplace than any other demographic, and they often lack representation in leadership roles.

Bain’s ‘The Fabric of Belonging‘ report found that only 16% of Asian men and 20% of Asian women felt included at work. This is due to challenges with acceptance, assimilation, and stereotypes, including the belief that the AAPI community is the “model minority” and has more success than other communities of color.

Manjusha P. Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, says that increased inclusion efforts, employee resource groups and an encouraging company culture can help AAPI employees feel better supported in the workplace.

Social discrimination affects workplace morale

According to Kulkarni, concerns with workplace safety and acceptance actually start before setting foot in the office. 

“We now are increasing our interactions, perhaps at the dry cleaner when we pick up coffee, or a donut or a bagel… all those different places, unfortunately, have potential opportunities for hate and for things like refusal of service or verbal harassment,” Kulkarni tells CNBC Make It. “And I think that’s part of why a lot of employees can be wary about going back to work.”

Kulkarni says that having anti-discriminatory protocols in place is the first step.

“It’s important to have policies and protocols in place, should any discrimination happen, that are accessible and really provide opportunities for employees to voice concerns and report incidents,” she says. “HR isn’t enough because sometimes they are only there to sort of serve the organization and not the staff or employees.”

The power of inclusive programming

Kulkarni also says that having programming in place that empowers AAPI talent and employees from diverse communities can help with the transition back to office. 

“It’s important for employees to be heard. Whether it’s through the employee resource groups where people have opportunities to be their whole self, or through affinity groups where they can discuss these issues with either like-minded employees or employees who share their background as far as race, gender identity, LGBTQ status, etc.”

During the covid-19 pandemic, violence against the AAPI community increased significantly, with more than 9,000 Asian hate incidents being reported from March 2020 to June 2021. According to Kulkarni, situations like these can cause racial trauma that not only affects productivity, but also physical and mental health.

Due to this, Kulkarni believes companies should also incorporate mental health days into their culture.

“We did a survey with the American Psychologist Association, which found that of the people who reported to us that they experienced the racism and discrimination, more than 20% said that they experienced the symptoms of racial trauma. It’s very similar to PTSD, with symptoms like anxiety and depression, and can have physiological symptoms like heightened blood pressure.”

For employees wanting to support their AAPI colleagues, Kulkarni says that opening yourself up to conversation, lending a listening ear, and offering your support makes a huge impact.

“Simply going up to someone and saying, ‘hey, I heard about this thing that happened. I just want to say I’m really sorry. I’m sure that’s having an impact on you. What can I do to help?,’ goes a long way.”

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The one-hour special presented by NBC News and NBC Asian America airs at 9 p.m. ET. on NBC News Now.

Nguyen will once again meet with community and thought leaders to examine how the AAPI community is coming together amid a continued surge in violence and hate crimes.

Nguyen will sit down for an exclusive interview with NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig to discuss New York’s handling of the surge in anti-AAPI hate crimes.

Following the history-making hire of the first Asian American to officiate in the NFL, Lo van Pham also speaks with Nguyen.

Additional interviews include actor Daniel Dae Kim, NBA player Jeremy Lin, “Angry Asian Man” blogger Phil Yu, and president and co-founder of GoldHouse Bing Chen.

NBC News NOW is available on Peacock, Fubo, Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus, The Roku Channel, Tubi, Xumo, YouTube, YouTube TV and NBC News’ apps on Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV. 

The special is also available on-demand on Peacock. 

As a result, AAPIs have spurred their own communities and other leaders and industries to take action.

From local fundraisers to rallies to national legislation to systemic changes in schools, AAPIs and others are developing solutions to increase visibility and fight racism.

Here are 100 of the ways legislators, teens, artists, schools, athletes and many others nationwide have stepped up to fight hate and increased attacks.

Click here to view the full list on NBCNews.com

The bill approved unanimously by the House would establish a new commission to consider the feasibility of a new National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture. The measure now heads to the Senate.

The commission would be tasked with studying the costs involved with the proposed National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture, whether it should be considered as part of the Smithsonian Institution and possible locations in the Washington-area.

“It’s a joy to see this AAPI museum study bill arrive at this point today,” said Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., referring to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

During the floor debate, Meng said Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have shaped the nation’s history from its earliest days, from the Chinese laborers who helped build the transcontinental railroad to today’s contributions made in culture and the economy.

“Those contributions are often unheard of and simply forgotten,” she said. “It is time to change that.”

The legislation comes as visitors have flocked to the latest addition to the National Mall, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016. Plans are underway for two other museums, the National Museum of the American Latino and the Smithsonian Women’s History Museum.

Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ore., said that while he supports the bill, he has concerns he hopes will be answered about the financial and operational challenges that an additional museum to the Smithsonian’s portfolio could pose.

The commission would have 18 months to report its findings back to Congress and the president. The bill was approved without objections or the need for a roll call vote.

Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., spoke of having endured taunts about his heritage and wanting his own young sons to grow up proud of their background.

“I don’t want my kids to understand who they are through sources of hate and discrimination,” he said during the floor debate.

“I want them to feel pride,” Kim said. “Our story is not just an Asian American story, it’s an American story.”