The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) was founded in 1981 by a few Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) journalists who felt a need to support one another and to encourage more Asian American and Pacific Islanders to pursue journalism at a time when there were few Asian American and Pacific Islander faces in the media. AAJA owes its founding to the vision of a small group of Los Angeles journalists. They included Tritia Toyota and Frank Kwan of KNBC-TV News; Bill Sing, Nancy Yoshihara and David Kishiyama of the Los Angeles Times; and, Dwight Chuman of Rafu Shimpo, a local Japanese American Newspaper. AAJA's expansion into a truly national organization took off in 1985 with the formation of additional chapters.

As a non-profit educational organization with more than 1,500 members in 21 chapters across the U.S. and Asia, AAJA's largest membership bases are generally concentrated in metropolitan areas on the West Coast (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle), East Coast (New York City and Washington, D.C.) and Mid-West (Chicago). Members are also organized in other areas throughout the U.S. (Arizona, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, New England, North Carolina, Philadelphia, Portland, Sacramento, Texas, and San Diego).

In addition, AAJA has a growing number of members working throughout Asia -- in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangladesh, which underscores the rapid growth of media properties in Asia and points the way to future expansion of the organization. Close to one-third of AAJA's members are students, attesting to the organization's emphasis on bringing young people into the news business. AAJA has also relied on leadership in the community and Asian-language media.