Each May, we celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. And every year, this celebration expands our perspectives on what it means to be a part of this community.

We are familiar with the stories of the Chinese American railroad workers who blasted through the Sierra Nevada Mountains while working on the transcontinental railroad. We know about our experimental forests and the research we are conducting in Hawai’i. We recognize the roles played by our own co-workers like Hilda Kwan. We must also learn from the resources around us, like the members of our Asian Pacific American Employee Association, which was organized 30 years ago.

Part of our inaugural equity summit this March focused on what equity means: that not only does every person deserve a pair of shoes, everyone deserves shoes that fit. That’s why it is so important to listen to the stories of our colleagues. A few of your colleagues shared their stories at the summit, but these are just a few of the many, many stories highlighting the experiences of our employees. Yet at their heart, they contain a central idea: Representation matters.

How many of you grew up on shows like “Star Trek” or, more recently, watched “Fresh Off the Boat”? “Star Trek” featured George Takei as one of the only Asian Americans playing his own ethnicity on primetime television during the 1960s. Takei was also a survivor of the Japanese American internment camps of the 1940s, a story he’s shared many times over the years.

Yet, it wasn‘t until the mid-90s that a sitcom featuring a Korean-American family was on television. Starring Margaret Cho, it lasted one season. Another Asian American-centered sitcom, “Fresh Off the Boat,” would not premiere for more than 20 years. Until these two shows, Asian American characters were primarily relegated to sidekick roles or, worse, to being played by white actors in heavy make-up and exaggerated prosthetics.

While this year’s theme is “Advancing Leaders Through Innovation,” we must ensure we are not highlighting positives while ignoring the ugliness of the past. It was in the relatively recent past that Asian Americans were granted the right to vote, a right not granted to all until after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was passed. Since 2020, in particular, this month has served as a time to highlight the contributions of Asian Americans against the backdrop of a rise in hate crimes.

We are not as far removed from blaming an entire ethnic group for something beyond their control as we would believe. The stigma that began during the height of the coronavirus has not ceased. These events have been particularly intense for Asian Americans—irrespective of ethnicity, location or age—who have reported startling increases across the country in harassment, incidents of bias and discrimination, and hate crimes.

We value diversity, equity and inclusion, and that means we must continue to stand up and not be a bystander when we encounter it. I know you value your colleagues. I ask you to call out injustice when you see it. And I encourage you to acknowledge the contributions your coworkers have made, and also to seek out additional stories, because representation matters not only to specific groups, but to everyone. By learning others’ stories, we build empathy.

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