This past May, Kundiman again partnered with Wikimedia NYC to run a Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon for Asian American literature. We began these Edit-a-Thons in 2018 as a way to address what we saw as the incompleteness and inaccuracies of Wikipedia pages for Asian American writers. Wikimedia NYC showed us how to turn those grievances into action, and we have done at least one Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon each May in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month each year since!

This year, we took the opportunity to take our Edit-a-Thon virtual, and extend it into a two-week-long event. We held three trainings on Wikipedia editing on Zoom, started a Slack channel where anyone could ask questions, and had everyone join our Wikipedia team before editing to gauge impact. We are thrilled that so many in our community, far and wide, came out to help make a difference online!

Prior to this year's event, we had added about 42,000 words to Wikipedia at our previous four in-person events. We're so proud that this past month, our community added 45,000 words on Asian American literature to Wikipedia! This total includes 34 new pages, 128 edited articles, 8 uploaded photos, and changes that have already garnered 880,000 views. You can see the data from this year's Edit-a-Thon here. Even in times of turmoil, we are so warmed by the way our community came together as literary activists to make Asian American writers more visible online. Thank you to all who participated, and to Wikimedia NYC for making this #wikiweek possible.