Festival celebrates Asian Pacific American History Month

JONATHAN YOUNG/Daily Bruin The Nikkei Student Union Taiko group
performs a traditional Japanese drum routine at the Asian Pacific
American Heritage Month Festival Wednesday.

By Shane M. Nelson
DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR
[email protected]

De Neve Plaza was full of excitement Wednesday night as UCLA
students beat Japanese Taiko drums, danced to traditional Balinese
and Thai music, rallied support for worker rights, and recited
original spoken-word pieces in the third annual Asian Pacific
American Heritage Month Festival.

Congress designated May Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in
1992 in order to acknowledge the unique struggles, experiences and
accomplishments of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the
United States, said Cheryl Yip, director of the Asian Pacific
Coalition and a fourth-year communication studies student.

“This is how we celebrate it,” she added.

The festival serves to highlight aspects of cultural and ethnic
diversity and also educates other students about issues of concern
to the Asian American Pacific Islander community at UCLA, she
added.

Asian American and Pacific Islanders make up only 4 percent of
Americans in the United States, according to the 2000 census, but
at UCLA the percentage is much higher at nearly 40 percent.

APC is composed of 20 UCLA student groups with different
political, social, and educational goals, including the Association
of Chinese Americans, Samahang Pilipino, and the Vietnamese Student
Union, said Lizzie Cajayon, an APC programmer and Office of
Residential Life program assistant.

What unifies this diverse group is its belief in collective
action, Yip said. Currently the group is organizing support for the
formation of an ASUCLA non-student workers union to advocate for
their needs.

“ASUCLA workers are working in sweatshop
conditions,” she said. They are not paid as well as students,
receive few raises, and don’t get time off for illness.
Non-student workers are vital to the ASUCLA workforce, ensuring
continuity that student workers with erratic schedules simply
can’t provide, she added.

APC is also working toward the establishment of a diversity
requirement at UCLA, the only UC without one, said David Chung, APC
assistant director of external affairs and fourth year political
science student.

“Every person’s identity is very unique and it is
very important to understand how we are constructed,” said
Chung.

In the 26 years since APC has been at UCLA, it has established
various Asian studies language curricula such as Pilipino Tagalog
and Vietnamese, South Asian student groups, like Sangam and the
South Asian Studies Task Force, are working to add new Pilipino,
Indian, and Pakistani curriculum among others currently, Chung
said.