It’s May (not to be confused with the month), it’s just how I introduce myself. Aside from May being my name, it also happens to be Mother’s Day, my mom’s birthday month, AND Asian American and Pacific Islander History Month! I was tasked with hitting a home run with bases loaded – hopefully by the end of the article, I’ve hit my grand slam. 

I don’t know if this was true to other kids growing up, but it was so hard to know what to get my mom for Mother’s Day, aside from the typical items such as flowers, candy, and home made arts and crafts. Now compounded with the fact that my mother’s birthday is two weeks after, my siblings and I (mostly me) had to figure out what to get her, it was hard! Be that as it may, I somehow landed on candles because I swear she mentioned before that she loves candles. I remember each year we would try to find more creative ways to fall into that theme. One year we bought her a dolphin shaped candle (her favorite animal), another year, a cascading emerald glass wind chime that had a spot for a tealight candle (thinking back, not sure how logical this was). All that is to say, I’ve never seen my mom light a candle once – don’t worry, I caught on in my twenties!

Nowadays, my mom only wants quality time with us, so I’ve been finding ways to have her experience some of her firsts. As an immigrant mother raising five kids on her own in St. Petersburg, Florida, I didn’t realize how many of my  experiences were things my mom never had the chance to experience herself. Some of her firsts were …

A cross country road trip to San Diego for my graduation – we started in the South, to the Pacific Northwest, and all the way down to Southern California (with her first grandkitty in tow, shoutout Ndiza)… 

She experienced snow for the first time in Hokkaido, Japan…

And in 2021, she cast her first ballot in the Florida elections! 

This is only a short snippet of her history here as an Asian-American mother. I am looking forward to making more history with her and continuing to do so in her honor. One of the ways I’ve had the opportunity to do so is through my work at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, where it is our mission to mobilize and build power to create social, political, and economic change so that AAPI women and girls can have full agency over our lives, our families, and our communities. 

I’ve been honored to have the chance to organize the community I grew up in, the community who supported my mom, and the community for future generations of AAPI Floridians. One of the exciting opportunities we have coming up is partnering with the City of St. Petersburg to host the first ever festival Honoring Asian American & Pacific Islander (HAAPI) community members in the city. It will be a night of celebration with cultural performances, activities, and food in Downtown St. Petersburg on Saturday, May 31st. I hope you can join my mom and I as we experience this first together! 

P.S. I’ve never played baseball, the only grand slam I’ve actually hit was at Denny’s 🙂