One Sunday, Two Parades: AAPI Takes Sixth Avenue, Nepal Day Madison

On the bright, just short of scorching Sunday of May 17, two different Asian parades took to the streets of Manhattan simultaneously. That the larger of the two events, the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Parade on Sixth Avenue, nominally includes the participants of the Nepal Day Parade on Madison hints at the day’s abundant intrigues.

For parade lovers, the recognition that the AAPI event and the parade celebrating the people of an Asian nation were assembling only two avenues and six blocks away from each other—the AAPI was headquartered on the west side of Sixth Avenue and 44th Street, the Nepal Day at Madison Avenue and 38th Street—was an irresistible call to attend both.

Now in its fifth year, the AAPI Parade is both a known quantity and something of a puzzle. The event’s organizer is Better Chinatown USA, the same Centre Street, Manhattan-based group that also runs the Lunar New Year Firecracker Ceremony in Sara D. Roosevelt Park, and Lunar New Year Parade that began on Bayard Street.

As at the latter event, one highlight of the AAPI Parade was observing Better Chinatown’s Executive Director Steven Tin play ringmaster to the forces he was gathering, a task that required a certain amount of cajoling, yelling, and exhortations like, “Get your ass over here, Leroy!”

Among the witnesses to Tin’s brisk if sometimes brusque efficiency were myriad co-workers and volunteers, the press (most of whom were Chinese), dragon dancers and the invited guests, again mostly Chinese. There were some exceptions, however, including a trio of New York politicians: Council Member Gale Brewer, retiring State Senator Brian Kavanagh, and former Comptroller Brad Lander.

Lander, who is presently campaigning to unseat incumbent Congressman Dan Goldman in a district that includes both Manhattan Chinatown and the Brooklyn Chinatown in Sunset Park, has attended all three Tin-organized events this year.

Unlike Mayor Eric Adams, who made a great show of attending last year’s parade, and had a close, sometimes controversial, relationship with Chinese power brokers via his advisor Winnie Greco, Mayor Zohran Mamdani skipped the event. Nor was anyone from his administration visible, if they were present. This isn’t the anti-parades slight it might first appear: Hizzoner did attend the Lunar New Year Parade, and more recently, he came out on a rainy Saturday for the April 25 Sikh Day Parade on Madison Avenue.

That the AAPI Parade is a largely Chinese affair under a different banner was evident both by its participants and the relatively sparse crowds.

What was jam packed was extraordinary, however. Filling the blocks of West 44th and 45th Streets between Sixth and Fifth Avenues was a car show organized by Stan Yeung of Queens, and Daikoku NYC, the car club he founded devoted to custom Japanese cars. Though Yeueng is himself Chinese-American, his club’s name honors the Daikoko Parking Area, outside of Tokyo, an iconic locale for Japanese car meet-ups. A recent feature in Motor Trend magazine details Yeung’s quest to turn his passion into a positive, community-friendly, non-profit organization.

Judging by the dense crowds admiring the hundreds of cars and their multi-ethnic owners—who would also be the highlight of the parade’s standard line of march of police, floats, dancers etc.—Yeung’s work has proven a stunning success.

Celebrating Nepal Day on Madison Avenue

One of the standout events on Manhattan’s ethnic celebrations calendar, the Nepal Day Parade deserves more attention than it receives. Foremost is the beauty and affability of the Nepalese people—no parade organizers or attendees are more friendly. Second is the difficult position the Nepalese immigrants find themselves in, as their Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which began in 2015, was terminated by thee Trump Administration in August 2025.

Mindful of this possibility, both Senator Charles Schumer and Mayor Adams attended last year’s Nepal Day Parade, after having earlier attended the start of the Israeli Day Parade. Donning a traditional Nepalese hat, Schumer exclaimed, “Namaste! I think the Nepalese community is one of the greatest communities New York has. I have always worked to get more Nepalese into New York, fighting for TPS when tragedy befell your homeland, many Nepalese came here and stayed and became great citizens.”

No politicians attended this year’s event save one: Somnath Chimire, a Nepalese man running against incumbent Steven Raga in the Democratic primary for State Assembly District 30 in Queens. “Hire an Assembly Member who works for you,” Chimire’s campaign card reads.

Ongoing questions about the Trump administration’s revocation of Nepalese TPS were framed by the red white and blue flags proudly borne by parade attendees: one, the two cojoined triangles of Nepal, the other the stars and stripes of Old Glory.

Seemingly unbothered by the political inattention, the gathered Nepalese marched, danced and pushing a rolling Hindu shrine down to the parade’s end adjacent Madison Square Park— where more festivities followed. Namaste!