Board Members: Michelle Magalong, Christina Park, and Bill Watanabe join the Rancho Cucamonga Historical Society and other local advocacy groups to save the Chinatown House, one of the last surviving examples of historic Chinese worker housing in the region.
MISSION
APIAHiP is the only national organization dedicated to protecting historic places and cultural resources significant to Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.
We achieve this by:
(1) cultivating an information-sharing network to connect and support local communities and their historic preservation efforts;
(2) offering educational programs and strategic or technical services that enable communities to preserve their heritage through a place-based ethic;
(3) advocating to increase public and private resources and lower barriers for historic preservation at local, state, and national levels.
Left to Right: Founder & Chair: Bill Watanabe; first full-time Executive Director: Huy Pham; & first volunteer Executive Director & now Past President: Michelle Magalong at Isamu Noguchi Plaza, Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, CA - Labor Day, 2023
HISTORY
APIAHiP was formed in 2007 when Asian and Pacific Islander American leaders noticed a lack of representation at state and national professional convenings on historic preservation and heritage conservation. With this gap, those founding members developed an API Caucus at the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual conference that quickly evolved into Asian and Pacific Islander Americans in Historic Preservation or “APIAHiP” within the next few years.
In June 2010, APIAHiP developed and hosted the first Asian Pacific Islander American National Historic Preservation Forum in San Francisco, California. This Forum brought together for the first time Asian and Pacific Islander Americans across the United States and its territories to share various issues and approaches to recognizing, preserving, and celebrating the places that best tell the stories of not only our diaspora but also our shared heritage. Through the next decade, APIAHiP successfully convene six National Forums.
In October 2018, before our fifth biennial Forum, APIAHiP obtained 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and officially registered as a nonprofit organization out of Los Angeles, California.
By September 2023, with generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place program, APIAHiP was empowered to hire full-time staff for the first time ever to carry on the mission and legacy set forth by its founders, board members, volunteers, supporters, and partners from around the world.
Today, APIAHiP is a multi-generational, pan-ethnic, and interdisciplinary community of preservationists, urban planners, historians, educators, activists, and advocates who share the common goal of elevating Asian and Pacific Islander American history and heritage through a place-based ethic.