Netflix is launching an Asian American hub to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month.
Titled ‘Celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander Stories’, Netflix’s collection features films and series showcasing AAPI talent.
Kim’s Convenience, Always Be My Maybe, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Never Have I Ever and more are among the available titles.
The hub also highlights AAPI behind-the-camera talent, API stories for families, Asian comedy icons, Asian and Pacific Islander Hollywood stars, and culture and food across Asia and the Pacific Islands.
A video campaign also released along with the hub featuring Daniel Dae Kim, Ashley Park, Ramona Young, Lana Condor, Justin H. Min, Ronny Chieng, Tan France, Jimmy O. Yang, Leah Lewis, Jessie Mei Li, Jo Koy and Punam Patel.
France, Condor, Koy, Margaret Cho, Naomi Osaka and Ken Jeong will additionally be featured on billboards across the country, with quotes from each of them.
“Showing just one of us isn’t diversity,” reads the billboard featuring Queer Eye’s France.
Netflix will partner with non-profit Act to Change to sponsor the third annual national AAPI Day Against Bullying and Hate on 18 May as part of hte campaign.
“I think for the few other Asians and Asian Americans in my school, I could feel us all trying to figure out how best to be accepted by the majority white world around us,” said Netflix documentary and indie film head Lisa Nishimura.
“In the classroom, Asians were contextualized primarily as wartime opposition, and never as contributors to the fabric of this country,” wrote Nishimura. “As such, my classmates and I longed not to be seen as the ‘other’, so I’m ashamed now to admit that we didn’t band together. Instead, I believe we may have distanced from one another in an attempt to somehow dilute our Asian-ness.”
She hopes Netflix’s campaign will “inspire more storytellers to define their stories on their terms.”
In other film news, UK Asian celebrities are backing the #StopAsianHate campaign to combat racism.
