Celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2025 at the Smithsonian

The Smithsonian will celebrate the role that Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders have played in American culture. AANHPI Heritage Month this May features interactive events, family activities and film screenings. All programs are free; some require preregistration. A full schedule is available on the website.

Events

IlluminAsia: Arts and Culture Festival
National Museum of Asian Art
May 2025
Commemorate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with the National Museum of Asian Art’s annual IlluminAsia Festival. Throughout the month of May, visitors can celebrate, learn, reflect and foster connections through Asian arts and cultures. IlluminAsia programs run throughout the month of May; a full schedule is available on the museum’s website.

Bank of America is the founding sponsor of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art “IlluminAsia” Arts and Culture Festival.

Children’s Book Fair
Saturday, May 3
National Museum of Asian Art 
Noon–3 p.m.
This family day features book readings, drawing demonstrations, crafts and giveaways from well-known authors and illustrators. Books purchased in the museum store will be signed by the authors. Docents in the galleries will set up activities for children such as finding patterns in the Peacock Room and drawing their own precious object inspired by a Chinese treasure cabinet. Advance registration is recommended.

Asia After Dark—Poetry, Comedy, Music
Freer Gallery of Art, Freer Courtyard
Friday, May 9
5 p.m.–9:30 p.m.
This after-hours program has everything from spoken word and poetry to comedy and music performances.

• 6 p.m.–8 p.m.: Poetry/Spoken Word/Comedy
• 8:30 p.m.–9:15 p.m.: Wrizzards performance (a Filipino multi-genre musical collective of independent artists from Washington, D.C., region)

Registration is recommended.

Sightlines Exhibition Tour and In-Gallery Activities
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Saturday, May 10
Noon–3 p.m.
The museum will have a guided tour of “Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond,” an exhibition by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center that showcases the contributions of Asian Americans to Washington, D.C. Activities include creating personal artwork inspired by maps and monuments related to the exhibition.

Reflection, Resilience, Reimagination: 50 Years of Southeast Asian American Journeys
Smithsonian American Art Museum’s McEvoy Auditorium
Saturday, May 10
3:45 p.m.–6 p.m.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and the resulting displacement of millions of people from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Those who settled in the U.S. have made enduring contributions to American society over these 50 years. Organized by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and Southeast Asian American community organizations, the program includes screenings of short films and selected excepts from longer films, followed by an intergenerational panel discussion with filmmakers, artists and community leaders. Preregistration is required for free tickets.

History as Mixtape: Theo Gonzalves and Jeff Chang on Asian American Experiences
National Museum of Asian Art Museum/Freer Gallery’s Meyer Auditorium
Thursday, May 15
7 p.m.–9 p.m.
Drawing from the book Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects, historians Theo Gonzalves and Jeff Chang reimagine history as a living playlist—a “mixtape.” According to Gonzalves, editor of 101 Objects, this playlist is one where “protest and poetry blend with family heirlooms” as a mic gets passed to those often left out of history. Sojin Kim of the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage will moderate the session. Advance registration is recommended.

Exhibitions

“Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond”
Asian Pacific American Center in the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Open now; continues through Nov. 30
“Sightlines” considers Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown as both a geographical focal point and a historical nexus, inviting audiences to take a closer look into Asian Americans’ contributions to the cultural and built environment of the nation’s capital. “Sightlines” is presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

“Tuan Andrew Nguyen: The Island” 
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Open now; continues through June 8
Nguyen’s video work “The Island” (2017), recently acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is shown for the first time with “Bidong Spirit I,” a sculpted headdress the artist created for the film. The piece includes dialogue in English and Vietnamese, with translation subtitles throughout. All gallery interpretation is bilingual, including the open captions for audio accessibility.

“Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi and Miné Okubo”
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Open now; continues through Aug. 17
Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi and Miné Okubo were critically acclaimed American artists of Japanese descent who had decades-long careers but remained underrecognized in 20th-century art history. By tracing the artistic development of Hayakawa, Hibi and Okubo before, during and after World War II, the exhibition offers the first nuanced and in-depth view of how each developed a distinct painting style and continued to explore and experiment with new artistic expression.

A curator talk about Hibi’s work is scheduled for Wednesday, May 21, at 5:30 p.m. in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Preregistration is recommended.

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