May72026

On this day in US history, a 14-year-old fisherman named Manjiro is believed to be America’s first Japanese immigrant after he arrived in the US on a whaling ship on May 7, 1843. The trip wasn’t intentional as the boat was blown off course 300 miles by a massive storm. A US whaling boat would rescue them and bring them to America. Congress would establish May, the month he arrived, as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month to honor him in 1992.