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May: Celebrating APAHM

This past month, we celebrated Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM), recognizing the accomplishments of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. A rather broad term, Asian Pacific encompasses people with ancestry from the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. At Expedia Group, we want to bring the world within reach for all people, and our employees in North America engaged in weekly themes of Celebrations, Food, Cultural Dance and Asian Americans.

The Asian Community at Expedia Group (ACE) Inclusion Resource Group with members from Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, and Las Vegas, hosted the month’s events and activities. Due to the unique COVID-19 situation, all events and activities took place virtually. But that didn’t prevent our employees from actively engaging in various virtual sessions such as Thai cooking, Bollywood dancing, Tai Chi and so much more.

We also were able to “visit” the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle led by Rahul Gupta via a virtual Zoom tour.
  • Mango sticky rice (Khao Niaow Ma Muang); photo provided by Quenita Fry
  • Grilled pork skewers; photo provided by Mike Srivathanakul
Like in many other cultures, food is a very important piece of Asian Pacific American culture, and our employees enjoyed learning to make a Thai mango dessert as well as moo ping (Thai-style grilled pork skewers).
  • Priyanka led the Bollywood dance session.
  • Laura DeCook learns Bollywood while her cat watches.
  • Tracey teaches EG how to waack.
Celebrations and dances are also another beautiful aspect of the culture. Expedia Group employees learned to dance Bollywood style taught by EG’s Priyanka Ayaggari.
Tracey Wong from Seattle’s Malicious Allure​ taught folks about waacking, which is a form of street dance created in the LGBT clubs of Los Angeles during the 1970’s disco era.
  • Yijiao teaches EG how to practice Tai Chi.
  • Eli Saad explains “The Art of War.”
Employees also learned Tai Chi from instructor Yijiao Hong of Chinese WuShu Academy and listened to fellow colleague Eli Saad explain Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.”

How else did you celebrate APAHM?

“As one of the members of Atlanta ACE chapter, we are planning to do a month-long celebration with a different theme each week.” – Ishrat Mahmud, Market Associate, Atlanta

“My plans included watching BTS music videos with family and finally getting around to watching Parasite with my husband. As a 1.5 generation Asian American, I’m so glad my kids have more instances of representation in TV, movies, books, music, etc. I look forward to being able to celebrate with them within the larger Asian Pacific American community next year.” – Ana Shaughnessy, Senior Technical Product Manager, Seattle

“I celebrated by eating a lot of Asian foods.” – Thomas Kim, Visual Communications Lead & Art Direction, Seattle

“I worked from home and made face masks for health workers.” – Ray Kil, Cruise Consultant/T3, Las Vegas

“I made a more conscious effort in explaining the “story” when sharing and enjoying Korean culture.” – Esther Yi, Associate Market Manager, Atlanta

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