Bay Area AAPI Heritage Month Celebrations

AAPI Heritage Month in the Bay Area is not one big parade with one set time and one finish line. It’s more like a distributed festival — libraries, parks, museums, cultural groups, and neighborhood nonprofits all running their own pieces of the month. That matters because the Bay Area’s Asian American and Pacific Islander communities are huge, varied, and rooted in different neighborhoods, so a single flagship event would miss the point. This year, San Francisco’s APA Heritage Foundation has turned that reality into an actual public calendar with 100-plus events across May, and the Peninsula has its own parallel lineup. ### What’s actually happening this week? In San Francisco, the official celebration guide shows a packed mid-May run: “One Family’s Story from Crystal City, Texas Internment Camp” and a screening of *Rabbit in the Moon* on May 11 at the Main Library, origami on May 12 in Excelsior, a Richmond Neighborhood Center APA Heritage Month celebration and a reception honoring Bruce Lee’s legacy on May 13, then larger public events on May 16 like the Southeast Asian Songkran Festival at Fulton Plaza and Oakland Asian Cultural Center’s 5th Annual Indonesian Bazaar. (apasf.org) ### Who’s organizing the San Francisco side? The hub is the APA Heritage Foundation’s 2026 celebration guide. The foundation’s site frames the month as a citywide program, not a single-ticket festival, and calls out major anchors like CAAMFest, the Asian Art Museum’s talks and performances, SF Public Library programming, Chow Fun food events, and the United States of Asian America Festival. Basically, the foundation is doing the connective tissue work — one place where people can see what’s happening across institutions that usually market separately. (apasf.org) ### Is this mostly performances and festivals? Not really — that’s the useful surprise. Some events are classic public-facing celebrations, but a lot of the month is hands-on and educational. San Mateo County Libraries, for example, is running workshops on ikebana, Baybayin art, Chinese dance, Filipino martial arts, kukui nut and shell lei making, and Chinese ink painting on teacups. That mix matters because it turns heritage month from “watch a show” into “learn a practice.” (apasf.org) ### What’s happening on the Peninsula? The Peninsula isn’t just tagging along. Filoli is doing a monthlong AAPI program with a bonsai exhibit running May 1 through May 31, short daily talks, and a deeper “Bonsai Day” on May 17 with demos, tours, and workshops. Earlier in the month, San Mateo hosted a free AAPI Heritage Celebration in Central Park with live demonstrations, food vendors, arts and crafts, and community booths. So the geography here stretches well beyond San Francisco proper. (smcl.org) ### What were the biggest early-May events? One standout was the “Our Heritage 5K” on May 9, a free family run from Japantown to Portsmouth Square in Chinatown. The route passed more than 20 historic AAPI landmarks, with performances at the start and a finishers’ festival at the end. That format is clever — part race, part history lesson, part public visibility campaign. ### Why does the calendar feel so fragmented? (filoli.org) Because “AAPI” is an umbrella, not one culture. A month that includes Japanese bonsai, Filipino martial arts, Southeast Asian New Year celebrations, Chinese American history talks, and Indonesian bazaar programming is supposed to feel plural. The fragmentation is the design. The Bay Area version of the month works by letting different communities stay specific while still showing up under one banner. ### So what should readers take from this? (asiansarestrong.org) Treat AAPI Heritage Month here less like a headline event and more like a live map of Bay Area institutions. If you want the broadest snapshot, San Francisco’s official guide is the main switchboard. But the real story is how many local groups are using May to turn heritage into something public, neighborhood-scaled, and easy to join. (apasf.org)