The Cultural Society is Proud to present the Asian American and Pacific Islander History Museum through three different venues and in three different phases.
The idea of an AAPI History Museum was conceived at the peak of the pandemic to counteract AAPI-Hate. We saw the need to educate people about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, our culture, history, and diasporas so people could discern the misinformation spread about us. Please scroll to the bottom to read about the background of this museum.
AAPI History Museum Website
Phase 1: When we first conceived the concept of the AAPI History Museum, we didn’t know how we were going to make it happen. The only thing that we knew was to get the information out to the public as soon as we could. That’s why we rolled out our website with the AAPI history as soon as we could. Because we had many “techie experts” in our team, the cost of creating a website with the AAPI history was the easiest for us. So, we rolled out the website in the summer of 2023 without knowing if we would get funding to create a museum in the future. The website’s URL is https://aapihistorymuseum.org (Please bookmark this site for your convenience!)
The AAPI History Museum website is a dynamic website equipped with a multi-lingual translation tool. This tool can translate the website content into 16 different languages [Chinese, English, Filipino, French, German, Hmong, Indonesian, Japanese, Khmer (the language for the Cambodian people), Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Nepali, Spanish, Thai, and Vietnamese.] Just click on the upper left corner with the flag which corresponds with the nation of the language that you want it to translate the content into. It is very easy to use.
AAPI Mobile History Museum is here!
Phase 2: The AAPI Mobile History Museum was preceded by a prototype funded by the RI Humanities, which was shown to the public on November 1, 2023. With the donation of an anonymous donor, we received the funding to purchase the trailer for the mobile museum in May 2024. The decoration on the body of the trailer was funded by a grant from ACT (Art, Culture, and Tourism of the City of Providence). We unveiled this mobile museum when we celebrated the AAPI Heritage Month on May 6, 2024. With sponsorships from several organizations along with a private donor, we received enough funding to celebrate the AAPI Heritage Month on May 6, 2024, showcasing the portraits- art of the past 12 AAPI Activists in the AAPI Heritage Month celebration in May 2024. Please see the picture of our distinguished-looking mobile museum below. You can see the details of the 2024 AAPI Heritage Month celebration here.
The sides of the trailer feature portraits of twelve Asian American activists who changed history. The circles capitulate their quotes as decoration and a reminder of their remarkable sayings. The Mobile Museum is available for booking. Please click here to access the form.
AAPI History Museum in Providence, RI
Phase 3: We received a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation in June 2024. This grant is meant to build capacity for the AAPI History Museum. Under Founder Salomon’s prudent leadership, she was able to find a leased space in the “Knowledge District,” which was known as the Jewelry District in the past, to build a brick-and-mortar AAPI History Museum with some exhibits that will be open to the public in January 2025. Ms. Salomon will continue to seek additional funding to expand the exhibits of the AAPI Museum in Providence, RI. Nevertheless, the approach to building this AAPI History Museum is to show our exhibits as we work to increase its expansion. We are not waiting untill the entire museum is completed to open to the public. What the public needs is to learn the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as soon as possible because education eliminates racism and AAPI Hate. This Museum will make a tremendous impact on our community and region.
The brick-and-mortar AAPI History is being designed right now. The Museum is looking to be opened to the public in January 2025.
Background of this museum...
In the middle of the global pandemic years, incidents and hate crimes against Asian Americans were at their highest in 2021. Using the healing power of art, we organized the community together to create a public art titled “Uniting AAPI Community for Change” in the hope to unite AAPI community voices against systemic racism and to increase and strengthen AAPI presence in Rhode Island at the end of 2022. This process gave us the impetus to create a more permanent project that can transform people’s minds and perspectives of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders within and through an educational process, the concept of an AAPI History Museum was born!
Would you like to help us with this Museum's growth and expansion?
To build a complete and state-of-the-art AAPI History Museum that meets the demands of the present times and to uncover many hidden histories that have been pushed aside and overlooked by mainstream Americans will take a lot of resources. We need all of your help! Please contribute to our cause, especially if you are an Asian American and/or a Pacific Islander. For non-Asian Americans and non-Pacific Islanders, this museum will unlock the histories that are related to your histories that you would not be aware of until you learn them. We are all related when we go far back into our shared history of origin!
You can help by volunteering at our Organization or donating to our cause. Thank you in advance for your consideration!