Header: On May 11th, 2022 AASA designed a day for the Upper School to celebrate AAPI month by planning Asian- cultured related activities.
The month of May is Asian American Pacific Islander Month. This year, AASA came up with multiple activities to celebrate this occasion with the GA community. On May 11th, AASA began the celebration with an advisory Kahoot during Community Time. Through this activity, the student body was able to come together and learn about different Asian chefs, actors, and researchers.
After that, the Upper School students went out to the quad, where AASA set up a carnival for the Upper School students and faculty. The carnival contained various activities, such as JianZi, paper airplanes, marble games, group jump roping, origami, and a Dalgona cookie station. The students could win tickets from these stations and redeem them for Asian-themed prizes, such as hi-chews, ramen noodles, Pocky sticks, and JianZi. The carnival was extremely successful, and students had a great time celebrating. Angie Wang ‘24 said she “thought that having a wide array of games was a fun way to introduce people to different aspects of Asian culture.”
Mr. Na and Mrs. Tsai, the faculty advisors of AASA, were also thrilled with the planning of the AASA carnival. Tsai said she enjoyed “seeing the Asian students help out and embrace their culture.” She then added how it was great to see so many students learning about Asian heritage, celebrities, and achievements. Na and Tsai spoke on how the main goal of this day was to shine a light on Asian excellence and to encourage students to learn more about Asian achievements, whether it was through games or research.
Damon Sun ‘23, one of the leaders of AASA, said that he “wanted to educate the other school about Asian Excellency and also have some fun at the same time.” Na was the most thrilled about having the opportunity to educate the Upper School faculty and students about Asian heritage. He said that the “Kahoot was mainly there to bridge the gap on what the students had researched.” Mr. Na then added that “the timing was very good because students did not have to wear masks and could just enjoy the day we planned for them.”
Students really enjoyed the day that was set up for them by AASA. Olivia Krey ‘24 “thought it was really exciting to see GA community to learn about Asian culture.” Stella Lee ‘23, another student AASA leader, said, “just seeing everyone try different foods from different cultures just felt like the Asian-American community was really visible and that people were appreciating [the culture].”
The AAPI celebrations are not only limited to that day. AASA club leaders, Stella Lee ‘23, Lana Karpf ‘23, Damon Sun ‘23, and Aayush Kevadia ‘23, are coming up with ideas for how to continue the education about Asian heritage. Sun says, “besides organizing events and making sure our culture is represented in the Upper School… the best way [to spread the culture], in my opinion, is maybe record more podcasts, have it more frequent than it currently is.”
On Wednesday, May 18th, 2022, AASA also hosted a poetry reading where Sam Wang ‘23, Melinda Shen ‘24, Damon Sun, and Ms. Nidhi McVicar read poems that related to their Asian heritage. Lee said “that they wanted to do that because there are a lot of Asian and Asian-American authors writing in literature; especially writing that has been translated is much different than westernized literature.” AASA also encourages students to bring ideas to meetings about how they can improve their celebrations. Tsai says that, “the Confucious classroom will be the meeting place for all students to share their ideas.”
The AASA leaders were able to pull off an incredible day with only two weeks of time. Lee felt that, “the amount of responsibility and things that go into that is really actually a lot and [they] didn’t realize that going into it.” Next year, AASA hopes to start planning earlier because they want to incorporate the multitude of Asian cultures better. Tsai said that they “will be doing more research, so they can represent all of Asian heritage.” However, in such a short amount of time, AASA was able to put together a fun, yet educational celebration for students to learn about Asian culture, celebrities, and achievements.