Explore Immigration and Asian-Pacific Heritage with PBS LearningMedia

Introduce your students to the authors, musicians, entrepreneurs, and everyday people living in America who trace their roots to Asia and the Pacific Islands. Use this special collection of digital resources to learn about their cultural heritage and to bring their unique stories into your classroom. Log in to view the full collection, or create an account. It’s free.

Grace Lin
Grades PreK-7 | Video | Personal Stories
Hear from author and illustrator Grace Lin as she explains how books have become her way of recapturing the Asian cultural heritage that she had resisted in her youth.

Hana’s Japanese Drums
Grades K-8 | Video | Cultural Heritage
Drums have played an important role in many cultures for thousands of years. In this video segment from ZOOM, a young girl named Hana talks about her interest in the art of Japanese Taiko drumming.

Faces of America Collection
Grades 2-12 | Collection | Immigration
Through this collection, students will gain a broader perspective of America’s immigrant history – both past and present – and learn what it truly means to be an American. What made America? What makes us? These two questions are at the heart of the PBS series Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

To Hawaii from Japan
Grades 4-12 | Video | Personal Stories
Find out what life was like for Japanese immigrants working in Hawaiian sugar plantations through the story of Tatsuichi Yamaguchi – the grandfather of Olympic figure skater, Kristi Yamaguchi.

Jake Shimabukuro – Life on Four Strings
Grade Levels 6-12 | Media Gallery | Personal Stories
Introduce your students to Jake Shimabukuro an inspiring and inventive musician whose virtuoso skills on the ukulele have transformed all previous notions of the instrument’s potential. Through intimate conversations, the cultural and personal influences that have shaped Shimabukuro are revealed.

Transcontinental Railroad Recruits Chinese Laborers
Grades 9-12 | Video | History of the United States
Invite students to review archival photos and interviews illustrating the role that Chinese immigrants played in the construction of the first transcontinental railroad.  In this video from American Experience,  learn about the large numbers of laborers from China who quickly grew to represent 80 percent of the workforce that built the railroad.