Asa Daniels, senior staff writer
Last Saturday, Berry College’s Asian-American Pacific Islander group (AAPI) hosted a Lunar New Year event in the Krannert Ballroom. The event featured a presentation about the Lunar New Year holiday and the many different variations of the celebration across Asia and the Pacific Islands. It also featured dumplings and Chinese paper cutting.
Sophomore Allie Brock, who attended the event, said that she was happy to participate in the celebrations because it gave her a strong sense of community with those around her, building upon her prior experiences with her family.
“My parents try their best to imitate real, traditional Chinese New Year for me,” Brock said. “Of course, sometimes I do feel left out of the other more traditional events, but being here and celebrating with other adoptees and people who come from more traditional backgrounds of China or Korea, or even in India, I feel very included and, this is probably one of the best celebrations of the Chinese New Year that I’ve ever had.”
Sophomore Shekinah Duthie, event coordinator for AAPI, said that the group is planning to focus on events this semester as a way to provide community for students who come from varying Asian backgrounds.
“We do have a lot of adopted Asian American students and oftentimes it’s hard for them to connect with their own identity, because they have a lot of different struggles by having American parents and just not really having biological role models to look up to,” Duthie said. “There’s also 100% Asians, like myself, and then, you also have Asian Americans with Asian parents, and it just a nice event [and] a nice place to kind of connect and touch base and just really discuss what it’s like to have these experiences and how to share them the best, healthy way you can, especially with the rise in Asian hate that’s been going on in America.”
Duthie added that the interest meeting from last semester is guiding the group in terms of their planning. They took that opportunity to learn what the campus was expecting from the group in terms of programs and objectives.
Club member, Sarah Agullo, freshman, said that she is hoping that the group will also educate general Berry students and address the issue of the indistinguishable Asian, where people from different groups in Asia are mistaken for one another.
“More exposure to Asian culture to the Berry community will not only broaden their views of the world, but reinforce the significance of Asian identities here,” Agullo said.
AAPI president, Sage Martin, sophomore, said that in the future they hope to hold more events discussing issues that people who are of Asian and Pacific Islander heritages face, as well as having a panel at some point during the semester. She hopes that the group will not only show the distinguishing elements of different Asian and Pacific Islander cultures, but also bring a sense of unity for all of the people involved.
“There are so many different identities, it’s such a big chunk of the world, [and] we want to recognize that we are different and it’s very diverse, but everyone is welcome here, regardless of what their background is – we need to spread knowledge about these different kinds of backgrounds and that we’re all united by this, being Asian,” Martin said.
With regards to challenges facing the group, Martin said that the biggest is managing to find a time for members to meet, given their busy schedules as Berry students.
Duthie added that another challenge is helping to convince allies to join meetings, as their involvement plays a critical role in helping Asian American and Pacific Islander people find community and support through their struggles.
“Allyship is very important and it’s not disrespectful,” Duthie said. “We’re very welcoming and, in fact, it’s heartwarming to know that people want to learn about our culture and want to kind of help us in this journey, because, sometimes it can be quite isolating, and certain struggles that certain POC people go through, you can never really get empathy from someone who doesn’t also go through it, but you can get sympathy.”
Martin said that her ultimate goal is for people to have a positive experience with the group and enjoy their time with the community.
“I’m just so happy that people, [can come] and have fun – to know that people got something out of the club, even if it’s one person, that’s my goal,” Martin said.