Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month and this site showcases historic properties listed in the National Register and National Park units highlighting important aspects of the Asian and Pacific experience in America. Join the National Register in commemorating just a few of the places where Asian and Pacific people have made history.

Garnier Building (Chinese American Museum), one of the National Register listed properties featured for Asian-Pacific Heritage Month Photo courtesy of Chinese American Museum

Garnier Building (Chinese American Museum) in the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District
Los Angeles, California

Portland Buddhist Church
Portland, Oregon

Kyoto Gardens of Honolulu Memorial Park
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

Immigrants arriving at the Angel Island Immigration Station, c. 1916--one of the sites higlighted in our Early History of the California Coast travel itineary Photo courtesy of California State Parks

Travel Itineraries

Learn more about the Angel Island Immigration Station, featured in both our Early History of the California Coast travel itinerary and our 1999 Asian-Pacific Heritage Month feature.

Visit Seattle's International District (Chinatown), which combines Asian and Western architectural traditions into a uniquely American neighborhood.

Teaching with Historic Places

This program offers a series of award-winning lesson plans that use places listed in the National Register to enliven the study of history, social studies, and geography. TwHP has ready-to-use lesson plans, available for free downloading, that examine important aspects of Asian-Pacific history.

Locke and Walnut Grove: Havens for Early Asian Immigrants in California
Understand the experience of early Asian immigrants and the obstacles they encountered as they struggled to make a living and find a place in American society.

The War Relocation Centers of World War II: When Fear Was Stronger than Justice
Learn what led the U.S. government to confine nearly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry to relocation centers in remote areas of the country during World War II.

Manzanar National Historic Site, the featured park for Asian-Pacific Heritage Month NPS Photograph, Manzanar National Historic Site

Asian American Heritage
Manzanar National Historic Site
(Featured Park)

Minidoka Internment National Monument
Jun Fujita Cabin at Voyageurs National Park (Past Featured Park)
Pacific Islander Heritage
Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park ( Past Featured Park)
American Memorial Park
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
Kalaupapa National Historical Park
National Park of American Samoa
Puuhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park
Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site
War in the Pacific National Historical Park

Presidential Proclamation: Asian Pacific American Heritiage Month 2004

Asian Pacific American Heritage Council was formed in 1979 to bring existing Asian Pacific ethnic organizations together.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Association was formed in 1992 to promote awareness and increase understanding of the Asian American culture and its diversity through education and celebration.

Federal Asian Pacific American Heritage Council was formed in 1985 to promote equal opportunity and cultural diversity for Asian Pacific American in the Federal and Washington, D.C. government.

Chinese American Museum is the first such museum in Southern California dedicated to the Chinese American experience and history in this region.

Five Views: An Ethnic Historic Site Survey for California, is a publication of the California Parks and Recreation Department, which contains valuable information on the experience of Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans in the state.

Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites
In 1942, almost 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced from their homes in California, western Oregon and Washington, and southern Arizona in the single largest forced relocation in U.S. history. Many would spend the next 3 years in one of ten "relocation centers" across the country run by the newly-formed War Relocation Authority (WRA). This report provides an overview of the physical remains left at the sites of the Japanese American relocation. The main focus is on the architectural remnants, the archeological features, and the artifacts remaining at the relocation centers where Japanese Americans were held during World War II.

"CRM" is the flagship publication of the NPs Cultural Resources Stewardship and Partnership Programs and contains articles on the full range of cultural resources management and preservation topics. The following issues deal directly with questions regarding Asian and Pacific Islands cultural resources.

Pacific Preservation
Another View from Hawai'i
Approaches to Heritage: Hawaiian and Pacific Perspectives on Preservation
Preservation in the Pacific Basin
Diversity and Cultural Resources

National Register Information System
Since its inception in 1966, nearly 76,000 properties have been listed in the National Register. Together these files hold information on nearly one million individual resources--buildings, sites, districts, structures, and objects--and therefore provide a link to the country's heritage at the national, state, and local levels. Search by name, location, agency, or theme to locate National Register properties associated with Asian-Pacific history.

Library of Congress:
Built in America (HABS/HAER)
The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States through a comprehensive range of building types and engineering technologies, including sites related to Asian-Pacific history and culture. Searches on keywords like "Japanese," "Chinese," or "World War II" will provide information on an array of associated sites. Most of the site records have publication-quality drawings, photographs and historical data. Of special interest are the following properties: the Chee Kung Tong Society in Hawaii, the Joe Shoong Chinese School, and the Chinese Joss House in California.

Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar
In 1943, Ansel Adams (1902-1984), America's best-known photographer, documented the Manzanar War Relocation Center. Adams's Manzanar work is a departure from his signature style of landscape photography, and includes not only numerous portraits, but also views of daily life, agricultural scenes, and sports and leisure activities.

California Office of Historic Preservation preserves and enhances California's irreplaceable historic heritage as a matter of public interest so that its vital legacy of cultural, educational, recreational, aesthetic, economic, social and environmental benefits will be maintained and enriched for present and future generations.

Hawaii State Historic Preservation Division works to preserve and sustain reminders of earlier times which link the past to the present.

Oregon State Historic Preservation Office administer programs for the protection of the state's significant historic and prehistoric resources

Asian-Pacific Heritage Month 2003, 2002, 2001 (special Micronesia feature), 2000, and 1999
For more information about Asian-Pacific properties listed in the National Register, please visit these past Asian-Pacific Heritage Month features.

Garnier Building (Chinese American Museum) | Portland Buddhist Church
Kyoto Gardens of Honolulu Memorial Park | Manzanar National Historic Site

National Register Home
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