Celebrating Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

In celebration of AANHPI Heritage Month, FOX 29 introduces amazing individuals in the Greater Philadelphia area.

PHILADELPHIA - FOX 29 is celebrating Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month this year by highlighting some amazing stories in the Greater Philadelphia Area.

Trauma to triumph:

We sit down with Julie Henning, a retired Souderton Area School District Math teacher who’s also a public speaker and author of "A Rose in a Ditch". The memoir depicts Henning’s life story as a child of mixed-race and the hardships she experienced growing up in South Korea.

Then as a teenager, Henning eventually moved to Pennsylvania to live with her new "mother" Pearl S. Buck, the Nobel Prize-winning author of "The Good Earth", which transformed her life trajectory.

Dragon Boat team wins titles:

Every week, a group of South Philly youth are training and paddling together on a dragon boat. The Discovery Pathways Youth Dragon Boat team just launched about a year ago and have already surpassed expectations by winning titles and medals at major races.

Now, a few of the teens have even earned a spot on Team USA to compete at the World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Germany this July. The community started this gofundme campaign to help support this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

H4T dance cover group:

Over the past decade, K-Pop’s popularity around the globe has reached a fever pitch. Devoted fans are joining dance cover groups and filming videos just like their favorite K-Pop idols.

We get to know Philadelphia’s very own H4T, which stands for Hope 4 Tomorrow. This dance cover group is comprised mostly of high school and college students in Philadelphia who are passionate about Korean pop music. Turns out, they’re also a flourishing community that feels like a second family to its members.