APA hosts festival for heritage month

The Asian Pacific-American alliance festival last weekend in Wilder Bowl was a captivating testament to heritage and culture to celebrate Asian-Pacific-American Heritage Month.

The mission of the festival was to promote awareness of Asian-American issues, to continue the struggle to get Asian-American studies and ethnic studies and to share a sense of community.

This festival was the first to occur on campus because in the past, finals have interfered. To circumvent that problem this year, the group decided to hold the festival early in the month.

The Asian-Pacific-American Heritage Festival was co-sponsored by the Asian American Alliance (AAA), South Asian Student Association (SASA), and Oberlin Korean Students Association (OKSA).

Events included the spoken word group "I Was Born with Two Tongues," jazz musicians Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Manthapa, and Korean and Phillipino dance presentations on Saturday, with a speech by playwright/professor Velina Hasu Houston, on Sunday.

The spoken word group, which performed for about forty minutes in front of Wilder Bowl on the steps of Wilder, was composed of young Asian-Pacific-American poets from first-year Grace Han , a co-organizer of the Festival, says of the group, "I think they had a very good political message. I don't think people were expecting the strength they brought."

Christine Harley, first-year and organizer, said, "They said things that I really connected with. People might not have agreed with the political message, but by having people validate your existence and your right to have pride in your culture is very community building."

A technical difficulty with the sound system for Two Tongues caused the event and other Saturday events to be delayed. This could have affected the turn-out for events, in addition to the fact that when there is a call for more understanding there obviously exists a strong need for increased interest. However, Han was surprised by the diversity of students that came out to support the Festival.

Many faculty showed up to support the events, which were mostly planned out in the past month and a half. Han said, "I think people really liked it. I think it was a chance for our voice to be heard."

The APA is also planning on holding a full conference next year, and OKSA will hold a speaker series. As for the conference, Harley said, "I hope it gets bigger. I'd like to see it low up into an entire month."