WETA proudly celebrates AAPI Heritage Month with a special lineup that highlights the rich culture and history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Throughout the broadcast year, the station is committed to presenting programs reflecting the diversity of our community.
Program Guide
Download a PDF of our full AAPI Heritage Month programming guide or explore specific channel offerings below.
All programs listed below will be airing on WETA PBS and WETA Metro. Check the schedule for additional information.
Lucky Chow Season 7
Saturdays at 2 p.m. on WETA PBS
Follow Luckyrice culinary festival founder Danielle Chang as she travels across America exploring the Asian food landscape, featuring many of the country’s most renowned chefs and culinary personalities.
Repeats Fridays, 11am on WETA Metro
American Masters: Waterman – Duke: Ambassador of Aloha
Thursday, May 1 at 9:30 p.m. on WETA Metro
Discover the inspiring story and considerable impact of five-time Olympic medalist Duke Kahanamoku. He shattered swimming records and globalized surfing while overcoming racism in a lifetime of personal challenges.
Repeats Sun, 5/4, 12:30 pm on WETA PBS
The Vietnam War: Things Fall Apart (January 1968-July 1968)
Saturday, May 3 at 8 p.m. on WETA PBS
Directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, the documentary is an immersive, 360-degree narrative, that tells the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never been told on film. In this episode, Americans begin to doubt Johnson's promise of "light at the end of the tunnel after seeing the violence and brutality of the Tet Offensive unfold on television..." The country is staggered by assassinations and unrest.
The Taste of Mango
Saturday, May 3 at 8 p.m. on WETA Metro
Follow three generations of women to discover the complex, ever-evolving nature of inheritance and the hurt that is entangled within familial bonds.
Finding Her Beat
Saturday, May 3 at 9:30 p.m. on WETA Metro
For thousands of years women have been locked out of Taiko drumming. Not anymore. In the dead of a Minnesota winter, Asian drumming divas smash gender roles and redefine power on their own terms. Finding Her Beat dives into the rhythms and struggles that lead to an electrifying historic performance that changes everything.
Antiques Roadshow: Celebrating Asian-Pacific Heritage
Monday, May 5 at 8 p.m. on WETA PBS
Travel with Roadshow as it turns the spotlight on incredible items with Asian and Pacific Islands origins, including a Hawaiian Kou bowl, a Gandhi presentation spinning wheel, and an 1888 Joseph Nawahi painting. Tune in to see which is valued at $250,000-$300,000.
Repeats tonight, 9 pm on WETA Metro
Dora Fugh Lee: A Life in Art
Monday, May 5 at 8:30 p.m. on WETA Metro
At four years old, Dora Fugh Lee’s grandfather encouraged her to become an artist and taught her ink painting and calligraphy. She honed her artistry studying with renowned masters over the years and is now considered one of the last Chinese literati painters.
Repeats Sat 5/10, 11pm on WETA PBS
American Masters: Tyrus Wong
Thursday, May 8 at 8 p.m. on WETA Metro
Discover the art, life, and enduring impact of Tyrus Wong, the renowned Chinese-American painter behind Bambi and Rebel Without a Cause, via new and never-before-seen interviews, movie clips, and art.
The Vietnam War: The Veneer of Civilization (June 1968-May 1969)
Saturday, May 10 at 8 p.m. on WETA PBS
After chaos roils the Democratic Convention, Nixon, promising peace, wins the presidency.
Your Serve or Mine
Saturday, May 10 at 10 p.m. on WETA PBS
In 1971 a small group of U.S. table tennis players made history, by traveling to a then-isolated China. The first Americans to legally visit in more than 20 years, they opened lines of communication that remain vital today, succeeding where diplomats had failed. The people-to-people links they established are being carried on today by a new generation of American and Chinese college students.
Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV
Thursday, May 15 at 8 p.m. on WETA Metro
See the world through the eyes of Nam June Paik, the father of video art and coiner of the term “electronic superhighway.” Born in Japan-occupied Korea, Paik went on to become a pillar of the American avant-garde and transformed modern image-making with his sculptures, films, and performances.
Great Performances: Yellow Face
Friday, May 16 at 9 p.m. on WETA PBS & Metro
Enjoy Tony winner David Henry Hwang’s comedy starring Daniel Dae Kim as an Asian American playwright who protests “yellowface” casting in the musical “Miss Saigon” only to mistakenly cast a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play.
POV: Liquor Store Dreams
Saturday, May 17 at 8 p.m. on WETA Metro
Two Korean American children of liquor store owners reconcile their own dreams with those of their immigrant parents. Along the way, they confront the complex legacies of LA's racial landscape, including the 1991 murder of Latasha Harlins and the 1992 uprisings sparked by the police beating of Rodney King, while engaged in current struggles for social and economic justice.
The Vietnam War: The History of The World April 1969-May 1970)
Saturday, May 17 at 8 p.m. on WETA PBS
Nixon withdraws troops but upon sending forces to Cambodia the antiwar movement reignites.
POV: Aurora’s Sunrise
Saturday, May 17 at 9:30 p.m. on WETA Metro
In this semi-animated documentary, POV recounts the harrowing tale of Aurora, a survivor of the 1915 Armenian genocide, who lost her family, fled slavery and after escaping to America, becomes the face of a massive humanitarian campaign.
Independent Lens: Who is Michael Jang
Monday, May 19 at 10 p.m. on WETA PBS
After decades in obscurity, artist Michael Jang uses graffiti tactics to share his previously unknown body of fine art photography with unsuspecting audiences.
Repeats Sat 5/24, 10 pm on WETA Metro
Independent Lens: Beyond Utopia
Saturday, May 24 at 8 p.m. on WETA Metro
The gripping story of families attempting to escape oppression in North Korea, reveals a world many have never seen.
The Vietnam War: A Disrespectful Loyalty (May 1970 -March 1973)
Saturday, May 24 at 8 p.m. on WETA PBS
South Vietnamese forces fighting on their own suffer a terrible defeat in Laos. After being re-elected in a landslide, Nixon strikes a peace deal with Hanoi that allows American prisoners of war tofinally to come home to a bitterly divided country.
Armed With Language
Thursday, May 29 at 10 p.m. on WETA Metro
The documentary tells the story of how a little-known military intelligence school in Minnesota played a pivotal role in ending WWII. The institution trained more than 6,000 Japanese Americans to be translators, interrogators, and Japanese military specialists. After decades of being classified, the story of their courage, sacrifice, and valor is finally being told.
The Vietnam War: The Weight of Memory (March 1973-Onward)
Saturday, May 31 at 8 p.m. on WETA PBS
Saigon falls and the war ends. Americans and Vietnamese from all sides seek reconciliation.
Stream AAPI Programs On Demand
Plague at the Golden Gate
American Experience
Discover how an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900 set off fear and anti-Asian sentiment in San Francisco. This new documentary tells the gripping story of the race against time by health officials to save the city from the deadly disease.
Fanny: The Right to Rock
Fanny: The Right to Rock
Co-founded by Filipina American and queer teenagers, Fanny is the first all women band to release an album with a major record label (Warner/Reprise, 1970). Revered by David Bowie, meet the most groundbreaking rock group you've never heard of... yet.
Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir
American Masters
The story of the author whose first novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” was published to great commercial and critical success. With the blockbuster film adaption that followed as well as additional best-selling novels, librettos, short stories and memoirs, Tan firmly established herself as one of the most prominent and respected American literary voices working today.
Breaking Through
Asian Americans
At the turn of the new millennium, the national conversation turns to immigration, race, and economic disparity. As the U.S becomes more diverse, yet more divided, a new generation of Asian Americans tackle the question, how do we as a nation move forward together?
Breaking Ground
Asian Americans
In an era of exclusion and U.S. empire, new immigrants arrive from China, India, Japan, the Philippines and beyond. Barred by anti-Asian laws they become America’s first “undocumented immigrants,” yet they build railroads, dazzle on the silver screen, and take their fight for equality to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Generation Rising
Asian Americans
During a time of war and social tumult, a young generation fights for equality in the fields, on campuses and in the culture, and claim a new identity: Asian Americans. The war’s aftermath brings new immigrants and refugees who expand the population and the definition of Asian America.
Good Americans
Asian Americans
During the Cold War years, Asian Americans are simultaneously heralded as a Model Minority and targeted as the perpetual foreigner. It is also a time of bold ambition, as Asian Americans aspire for the first time to national political office and a coming culture-quake simmers beneath the surface.
A Question of Loyalty
Asian Americans
An American-born generation straddles their country of birth and their parents’ homelands.
CORRECTION: Certain errors in a previous version of this program have been corrected, including the statement that the Core Civic South Texas Family Residential Center separates children from their families, which is not the case, and the erroneous use of a photo of a different facility.