This May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to stand together with our AAPI partners and communities. We honor their stories, their identities and their experiences – whether they’re immigrants or newly arrived, or their families and lives have been deeply rooted for generations. 

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With this year’s heritage month coming during especially difficult times, we believe even more in celebrating families, neighborhoods and traditions. Even apart, we’re better together.

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Starbucks celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month - Starbucks Stories

Stories to inspire and nurture the human spirit

Starbucks Stories

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Starbucks celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Dive deeper into the unique stories and experiences of three individuals.

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Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

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When Chanel DeCorte was in elementary school, she joined a hālau – a hula dancing school – in Oahu, where she grew up. The school became like a second family to DeCorte, giving her emotional support during difficult times while teaching her to express her Pacific Islander heritage in ways that went beyond words.

For more than 20 years, DeCorte has learned and danced the stories taught by WandaMae Pa’akea Akiu, her kumu – her teacher – stories about lovers and wars, stories about honey-eating birds and never-fading flowers, stories about the ancient places and ancient chiefs.

“When I’m dancing hula, I feel proud,” says DeCorte, 28, a Starbucks store manager in Kapolei, Hawaii. “Not only are you sharing a story about your culture and where you came from and your heritage, but you’re also sharing the knowledge and values that your own kumu has taught and instilled in you.

“I’m lucky enough to hear the stories firsthand from my kumu, and her kumu before her, and everyone else who came before them.”

This May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to stand together with our AAPI partners and communities. Starbucks honors their stories, their identities and their experiences – whether they’re immigrants or newly arrived, or their families and lives have been deeply rooted for generations. With this year’s heritage month coming during especially difficult times, we believe even more in celebrating families, neighborhoods and traditions. Even apart, we’re better together.

“In the 1800s, hula wasn’t allowed to be practiced in Hawaii; you couldn’t dance hula at all,” DeCorte says. “It’s the same way with culture. If it’s not practiced or perpetuated, eventually it’ll die.”

DeCorte was the eldest of three children raised by a single teenage mother. Her mother, Christine Valdez, took on multiple jobs at the same time – at car shops, restaurants, administrative work – to make ends meet and put her kids through private school. DeCorte often helped her two younger brothers with homework, dinners and pickups.

“It was really tough, we moved all around the island,” DeCorte remembers. “There were times where we had absolutely nothing and we were sitting on the floor, and there were other times when we were more fortunate. I always had a lot of support from my grandmother.”

When DeCorte started high school, her mother, who was interested in a career in education, started college. They graduated the same year and celebrated by parking a boat on a local sandbar and eating traditional Hawaiian foods with family – poi and lau lau, pork wrapped in taro leaves then steamed in the ground. The memory brings DeCorte to tears. Valdez, who went on to obtain a master’s degree as well, has been a high-school special-education math teacher for almost 10 years.

“It was super cool to get to share that moment with my mom,” DeCorte says. “To know that we’ve struggled together and to see her doing something for herself too, it was really special.”&nbsp; &nbsp;

DeCorte started dancing hula when she was 3 or 4 years old. It became serious once she joined Akiu’s school a few years later. The school provided structure, guidance and camaraderie. She started competing in local and international events, learned the deeper meanings of the songs and trained in different styles of dancing, like the more traditional kahiko and the more modern ‘auana.

Akiu was a “second mom” who “embodies the spirit of aloha,” DeCorte says.

“There’s a true sisterhood there,” DeCorte says about what her hula dancing school has meant. “You sweat, you cry, you make implements, you really grow up with these people. This is your family and you can’t just leave your family and go to another one.”

DeCorte sees hula not only as dance, but also as a responsibility – to preserve and share the story of Hawaii and carry on the lineage started by all the teachers before her.

People have only a “small glimpse” of Hawaiian heritage, DeCorte says. Her culture is about more than grass skirts and fruity drinks, palm trees and Pearl Harbor. She also wants people to know that native Hawaiians are fighting to keep construction off Mauna Kea – the tallest mountain in the world as measured from base to peak – and she encourages the study of Pacific Islander cultures like Palau, Samoa and Tahiti.

DeCorte, who has a degree in environmental studies, also aspires to be a voice for women in corporate settings, a vision she didn’t have when she started as a Starbucks barista in 2013.&nbsp;

“A lot of the things that I do, a lot of the family that I’m close with, and the things I practice are deeply rooted in Hawaii and what Hawaii stands for,” DeCorte says. “A culture of warmth and belonging where everyone is welcome.”

Meet Chanel DeCorte: Sharing stories, preserving culture through hula - Starbucks Stories

Meet Chanel DeCorte: Sharing stories, preserving culture through hula

During Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, meet a Starbucks store manager who is a lifelong hula dancer, part of a long tradition of sharing stories and history without words.

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Sumitro Ghosh arrived in Mumbai, India, for the first time as an adult, and he remembers being overwhelmed. The noise, the activity, the action, the never-ending sound of car horns. A city with about 20 million people then, and much more crowded now. It wasn’t like anything he’d experienced before.

“It’s an explosion of your senses in every way,” Ghosh recalls. “You’re literally stunned.”

A quieter moment a little later really made him understand where he was.

Ghosh had settled into his office as the chief executive officer of Tata Starbucks – a joint venture between Tata Consumer Products and Starbucks Corporation – which owns and operates all Starbucks outlets in India. As he was walking out of the building one day, he held a door open for a group of co-workers, a simple polite gesture, he thought.

“They couldn’t walk before the ceo. They stopped dead in their tracks,” Ghosh recalls. “Hierarchy and position in India is a very big deal. There were a lot of challenges overcoming the language and cultural differences, and communicating and learning to convey what I really meant and wanted.”

For Ghosh, his three years in India, starting in 2016, were more than a work assignment. They became a pilgrimage, a chance to experience and learn about his heritage and identity for himself. Until then, India belonged mostly to his parents, Bengalis from Calcutta who immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Detroit’s suburbs, where Ghosh was born and raised.

Ghosh’s story echoes a common theme for many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), especially those who have grown up in the U.S., children of immigrant parents, who might have lost touch with their homelands.

This May, during AAPI Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to stand together with our AAPI partners and communities. Starbucks honors their stories, their identities and their experiences – whether they’re immigrants or newly arrived, or their families and lives have been deeply rooted for generations. With this year’s heritage month coming during especially difficult times, we believe even more in celebrating families, neighborhoods and traditions. Even apart, we’re better together.

‘I wanted to connect with who I am’

Ghosh’s childhood home was filled with Hindu deities, represented by metal statues and displayed on fabrics. A tanpura, a long-necked bass-like instrument from India, that his mother played and sang along to, was always in view. The smell of frying puris – small puffs of deep-fried bread – meant something delicious was coming from the kitchen. His mother, who wore a sari every day, and his father, a metallurgist by training, hosted a weekly radio show about Indian culture and local Indian events. &nbsp;

But outside the home, as a child, Ghosh wanted little to do with his culture. He remembers a girl in elementary school calling him “a burnt pork chop.” Teammates on his high school baseball team nicknamed him Gandhi. He was “always the brown guy” in a predominantly white area, he says.&nbsp;

“I wanted to be like my friends,” Ghosh says. “I felt different and I didn’t want to be different.”

After graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in advertising, he advanced through the food industry, at Little Caesar’s, Yum! Brands, Aramark and finally at Starbucks, which he joined as a regional vice president. In 2016, approaching 50 years old, Ghosh was offered a chance to work a three-year assignment at Tata Starbucks and return to India, a place he’d been just once before, when he was 3.

Ghosh, who lives in Chicago, is currently the senior vice president of Siren Retail, which manages all Starbucks Roastery and Reserve stores.

“I wanted to connect with who I am. I knew that I had lived a life assimilating to my surroundings and trying to not look directly into my Indian-ness,” Ghosh says. “To run a brand I love, in a country that means so much to me, where I would really fully understand what it means to be who I am, I felt this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

“I travelled to India because I wanted to connect with who I am. I wanted to realize what it meant to embrace my Indian heritage.”

So he moved. He lived in India with his wife, Susan, the youngest of their three children, Grace, 12 years old at the time, and Ghosh’s mother, Mita.

He learned the most from the moments of tension and culture shock. He remembers visiting Mumbai’s largest slums, expecting to feel pity for the children. Instead, he was blown away by the ingenuity, hard work and creative systems of commerce and organization. He learned the tricks for crossing busy streets. He often participated in the puja – or Hindu prayer ceremony – every time Tata Starbucks opened a new store; he had converted to Christianity in his 30s.

One of the highlights was returning to the village where his mother had grown up, Sevagram Ashram near Wardha, a little town in the state of Maharashtra. There, Gandhi had lived and created a comprehensive education plan focused on self-reliance called Nai Talim; he felt education should not be separated from work. His mother was one of the students. Her father and mother, Ghosh’s grandparents, helped as program administrators and were asked by Gandhi to help spread this education movement across India.

“You have this one perception of what India is, but once you cross the threshold into somebody’s home or business, you see the uniqueness, the warmth, the genuineness. I now have friendships and relationships for life. India is one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been,” Ghosh says. “The love, the peace and the joy that’s characteristic of the people of India is something I take pride in.

“Now, I know who I am. I know what it means to be Indian.”

‘I know who I am’: The ceo son of immigrants returns to India - Starbucks Stories

‘I know who I am’: The ceo son of immigrants returns to India

After being born and raised in Detroit to Indian parents, Sumitra Ghosh spent three years in India as the chief executive officer of Tata Starbucks where he says he learned “what it means to be Indian.”

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Chang Miao arrived in the United States, alone, at the age of 17. It was her mother’s idea: the best hope for an only daughter who grew up under China’s one-child policy, that such a move would lead to better opportunities.

“At the time, I didn’t think through what that really meant. I’d always been a pretty independent kid,” Miao recalls. “Ignorance is bliss. Not until I lived a life here, and I tried to figure out how to live on my own, did I realize how big of a decision it was.”

For Miao, the 12 years since have been about finding her way and learning who she really is – from navigating strange foods to paying her first utility bill, from settling on her Chinese name over an American one to starting a career at Starbucks, where she currently works as a senior sourcing analyst in Seattle.

Now, during the COVID-19 outbreak, and with Asian Americans <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-warns-potential-surge-hate-crimes-asian-americans/story?id=69831920">reporting more xenophobia and racism</a> because of it, Miao wants to take another step: to stand up for her culture and against stereotypes of Asian Americans as meek and quiet.

“I want to reach out to people, acknowledge what's happening&nbsp;and let them know that they're not alone in this,” Miao says. “By sharing my thoughts, I hope to provide an avenue for people to share theirs, to provide some relief and support to each other&nbsp;so that people&nbsp;can focus on taking care of the other aspects of their lives, and staying positive.

“I want to make sure our community is being heard.”

This May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, Starbucks is proud to stand together with our AAPI partners and communities. We honor their stories, their identities and their experiences – whether they’re immigrants or newly arrived, or their families and lives have been deeply rooted for generations. With this year’s heritage month coming during especially difficult times, we believe even more in celebrating families, neighborhoods and traditions. Even apart, we’re better together.

When Miao first arrived in the U.S., she started school at a community college in the Seattle area. She stayed with a host family and ate a lot more meat than she was accustomed to. She missed the taste of the vegetables back home – cucumbers that had thinner skin and corn that wasn’t as sweet. The pace of life here was slower as well.

She transferred to Washington State University, where she majored in food sciences. She started introducing herself as Isabelle, because she was looking for English names and it sounded pretty. She ditched the name after graduation, deciding it didn’t fit anymore. &nbsp;

She was withdrawn when she first came to the U.S., fearful of participating in conversations because she didn’t get the American sense of humor, unable to track small talk. When she started working at a creamery part-time in college, making cheese, she met some friendly co-workers who helped her open up.

“That experience taught me that if I don’t tell people who I am, if I don’t speak English often and get in the conversations with the people around me, I won’t be able to grow and evolve,” Miao says. “Because of that, slowly I started to learn how to best integrate my own identity and mix with the people around me, to still show who I am and share some of my cultural aspects and the wisdom of my heritage.”

Racism in the wake of COVID-19

Miao visits China once a year, usually during the fall. When she goes home, her mother often treats her to a special crispy sweet and sour pork dish called 锅包肉 (Guo Bao Rou). Her mother visits the U.S. once a year as well, during the Lunar New Year in early February. They usually make celery and pork-filled dumplings, with the skins made from scratch.

This year, though, her mother had to cut her visit short. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak that initially hit China, her mother, who works at a government medical clinic back home in Liaoning Province, felt she had to return and help.

Miao faced a double whammy of emotions. First, following news of the outbreak back home, she was panicked and concerned for family and friends. When the virus spread to the U.S. and created a global pandemic, she experienced repercussions here too.

Her boyfriend, who is ethnically Chinese, is a medical resident, and was working a rotation at a Northwest hospital, where he heard people making insensitive remarks about Chinese people and Chinese food markets. Another friend said her godson, who is Chinese, was bullied at his school in the Seattle area because of his ethnicity.

“Stories like that break my heart,” Miao says. “It made me realize it’s happening everywhere and happening to a lot of people.”

She is encouraged by how AAPI communities have stepped up, for example, by organizing drives to gather and donate masks and other personal protective equipment.

“I would encourage people to talk about these experiences, not to feel the anger but to share their stories and hopefully to inspire each other to be kind and supportive during this time,” Miao says. “This virus, this pandemic doesn’t discriminate based on race, gender or who you are. The only way we can get through this is if we work together.”

She’s also proud of how far she’s come since she left China. One barometer is her relationship with her mother, who she’s talked to almost daily since the beginning of the outbreak.

“We’re always together, no matter how far apart we are,” Miao says. “Seeing your mom being so vulnerable and showing that emotional side… I always saw her as a figure in my life who I can depend on if I’m hurt or sad. Now, her showing me that side, it’s hard to describe, it’s very different, and makes me feel a little sad. And proud that she can see me as someone she can depend on as well.”

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Chang describes a memory from her childhood in Liaoning Province in northern China, of coming in from the icy winters to a special soup cooked by her mother.

‘Not alone’: Celebrating heritage, combating COVID-19 racism - Starbucks Stories

‘Not alone’: Celebrating heritage, combating COVID-19 racism

After coming to the U.S. from China at 17, Chang Miao’s journey led her to understand who she fully is. Now, in the wake of COVID-19-fueled racism, the Starbucks senior sourcing analyst wants to stand up for her culture.

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