May is just around the corner and with it comes the beginning of AAPI Month. This convoluted acronym officially stands for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. However, in my experience, you’ll be hard-pressed to find many Americans, much less Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, actually celebrating an event dedicated to them. AAPI Month remains a useless holiday used to virtue signal fake acceptance of these populations as part of the “diverse” American dream.

In his last White House proclamation announcing AAPI Month, former President Joe Biden declared, “I call upon all Americans to learn more about the histories of the AA and NHPI community and to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities.” The immediate problem with labeling a month as “AAPI Month” and celebrating it is the fundamental confusion about what we should be celebrating. While Asian Americans only make up 7% of the U.S. population, Asians make up over 60% of the overall human population. That is to say, there is a hugely diverse group of cultures, languages and identities that could be grouped under the Asian category. Asia itself stretches from the pointed minarets in Istanbul to the frost-covered peak of Mount Fuji — including everything in between and then some. That is not to state the countless number of islands and cultures that make up the Pacific Islander part of AAPI. So, the question is who AAPI Month actually celebrates because there is no way all of these cultures can be celebrated from May 1to May 31.

If my friends or any of my fellow Americans wish to take a genuine interest in my culture or identity, then I welcome them to come with me to celebrate Chinese New Year in February, to eat mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival or to light lanterns for the Lantern Festival. What I do not need is for my fellow Americans to pay special attention to me as a Chinese American in May because the president told them to. I certainly do not need Uber or Target or other large corporations to suddenly pretend like they care about me because it’s that time of the year, and Asian diversity is now oddly important.

AAPI Month is just a symptom of a larger problem with some circles of society’s weird obsession with dividing cultural identities and celebrating them for no reason. In addition to proclaiming May to be AAPI Month, Biden also proclaimed May as National Foster Care Month and National Mental Health Awareness Month. June is now National Ocean Month and National Immigrant Heritage Month, while September is National Wilderness Month and National Recovery Month. We clearly have way too much to celebrate and not enough months in the year to celebrate it all. But why do we even have months dedicated to celebrating vague cultural groups? If AAPI Month is just for Americans to feel good about themselves and virtue signal to the rest of the world that we love Asians, then we might as well stop right now because it is just pointlessly selfish.

My friends who know me well know my foremost identity is an American, paired with a side of Chinese culture. I do not want to be labeled AAPI because some academic somewhere decided that is who I am. Furthermore, I do not want to be celebrated during May because I haven’t done anything yet worth being celebrated for by the whole country. AAPI is as broad and useless as having a European or Antarctica month. We need not pretend it has any more meaning than every other pointless month-long celebration. If you want to celebrate Asian Americans this May, then you should engage with an Asian American person in real life and learn about their life as well as their struggles to find their place in America.