Two years ago, Qiong Chen started commemorating Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month in her classes at Westinghouse College Prep on Chicago’s West Side.

The Chinese language teacher at the mostly Black and Latino high school said it was shortly after the Atlanta spa shootings that left eight people dead — six of them Asian women.

“That was like a big attack for me emotionally,” Chen said. “And I shared my feeling with the students. We started to have a discussion about why this is happening and what’s the impact and how can we stop it.”

Since then, Chen and her classes have watched documentaries, done research projects and even read books about Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) history to nearby elementary school students.

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This year, the Westinghouse students also put together an assembly of dance, song and other performances.

And it wasn’t just one K-pop piece after another, either.

“They had diverse performances like Indian dance, Japanese anime cosplay, Chinese umbrella dance, Hawaiian dance,” Chen said. “They have a strong awareness to include all AAPI culture, instead of only focusing on East Asian culture, because that’s a stereotype that a lot of people have.”

Chen says her school has been supportive and excited about AAPI month, but she hasn’t heard anything from her employer: Chicago Public Schools.

“I do hope that CPS can do more and do better,” Chen said.

Chicago Public Schools did not immediately respond to WBEZ’s request for comment. The chief education officer, Bogdana Chkoumbova, acknowledged the event at a board of education meeting last week, but teachers said they haven’t gotten any communication about it.

Chen added that the Chicago Teachers Union acknowledged the month in an email to its members. “CTU this year is the first year to celebrate the AAPI community, so I think that’s a really good start,” she said, adding that the union also invited her to give a talk on how to incorporate AAPI history into curricula and activities.

AAPI Heritage Month has been around officially for more than 30 years. But in Chicagoland, some members of the community say the month has been forgotten — or ignored — by their organizations, unlike other commemorative periods such as Women’s History Month in March or Black History Month in February. Some schools and companies have mentioned it in an email or two, but others have missed the month altogether. At many organizations, it’s the employees or students — not the leadership — spearheading AAPI month efforts.

Members of the AAPI community say the silence contributes to their feeling of invisibility and does not address the many challenges Asian Americans still face in society, especially amid a recent rise in anti-Asian attacks across the country.

University of Chicago Laboratory Schools high school junior Zara Baig said the administration at her private school had not highlighted AAPI heritage in the past month.

Baig, who is president of Lab School’s Asian Students Association, organized an after-school event with help from some teachers and staff, including food and music from Asian countries. The group also prepared games and belatedly celebrated the Hindu festival of Holi.

Baig said that, while it would behoove institutions to acknowledge the fastest-growing demographic in Chicago and the U.S., “nothing really has started from top down; it’s always bottom up.”

Baig also said some organizations lack the representation needed to nudge others along.

“If there’s… not an AAPI member in that top area of the institution, why would they think about that in the first place?” she said.

At Molson Coors Beverage Company, headquartered in Chicago, diverse leadership has been helpful.

Chief Strategy Officer Rahul Goyal is the executive sponsor for the corporation’s Asian Resource Group – one of the initiatives of the beer maker’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategies.

He said Molson Coors marked AAPI Heritage Month this year with internal company blog posts spotlighting Asian employees. Goyal added that the company also organizes outings and learning opportunities throughout the year and that these efforts are important for employees.

“There’s a lot of people within different parts of the business that want a little bit of acknowledgement that the company cares,” he said. “They want to … look around and say, ‘Are there people like me? Will somebody understand what I have been through or what my circumstances are?’”

Ginger Leopoldo, executive director of CIRCA-Pintig, a group that uses theater to tell stories about the immigrant communities, said a different organization she works for celebrated Constitution Day last September but has not commemorated AAPI Heritage Month.

“May is graduation, May is like the end of a fiscal year possibly; maybe it’s just the time of year,” Leopoldo said, venturing some guesses as to why AAPI Heritage Month feels like the forgotten month every year.

She added, “Plus we’re in the Midwest — maybe the West Coast might have more things established,” given the larger Asian populations there.

Still, Leopoldo said the acknowledgement and celebration of AAPI heritage is important, especially for young people.

“Growing up in Chicago Public Schools at age 10, the only thing [I learned] about Filipinos [was that] they’re barbarians that need to be civilized,” Leopoldo said. “That’s what we are in our history books.” As a young Filipina, she added, she didn’t want to have much to do with her culture.

Leopoldo said silence during AAPI Heritage Month adds to Asian Americans feeling like the “perpetual foreigner.”

“We feel that we don’t belong,” she said. “Subconsciously — however strong and proud we are — that still affects us.”

Leopoldo is hopeful that Illinois’ Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History (TEAACH) Act, signed into law last year, will help raise awareness about AAPI communities and their history in the U.S. The law, which requires Asian American history be taught in K-12 schools, takes full effect this fall.

And next year, Leopoldo said, organizations should not just expect or ask their AAPI employees or students to organize programming for AAPI Heritage Month. Rather, they should partner with existing “groups that are already doing the work.”

Recently, a group of parents at Skinner North Classical School reached out to CIRCA-Pintig to lead some theater workshops as part of AAPI Heritage Month.

After the program concluded with kids performing four plays about the Filipino immigrant experience, Leopoldo got some feedback from the students.

One comment from a fourth grader, a Filipino student, read:

“We should have more assemblies like this to let other races feel as proud and as belonging as I did that day. I learned that I am more amazing and special than I thought.”

Esther Yoon-Ji Kang is a reporter on WBEZ’s Race, Class and Communities desk. Follow her on Twitter @estheryjkang.