This post was updated April 9 at 9:30 p.m.

Sunset Village Plaza bustled Thursday with students seeking free drinks, shop coupons and Asian snacks as the Asian Pacific Coalition hosted its annual night market.

Twenty-one student organizations – many of which represented Asian American Pacific Islander communities on campus – contributed to the event, which also included performances by musical ensembles such as Kyodo Taiko. The annual night market is hosted as a collaboration between UCLA Residential Life and representatives from the APC’s member organizations, Margia Adriano, APC’s internal assistant director, said.

The coalition hosted the night market to spread awareness about AAPI cultures to other students on campus, said Denise Zhou, APC’s external assistant director.

“We want to continue the fun tradition of not only introducing the general public – like UCLA students – to AAPI cultures but also spotlighting our member organizations as well as giving everyone a fun time, fun performances and free food,” said Zhou, a fourth-year psychology student.

The stalls hosted by cultural organizations, including the Association of Hmong Students and the Vietnamese Student Union, offered carnival games and pamphlets detailing upcoming events. Upon signing into the event, students were offered bingo cards to check off visits at each stall.

Arianna Roberts, a first-year mathematics/economics student and a member of the Mixed Student Union, said she particularly enjoyed eating samosas from the Indian Student Union’s table. Tyler Thompson, a first-year biochemistry student, said she saw students walking around with spring rolls and hoped to try them later on.

“I was excited to see a bit of each different culture and to see the snacks and activities associated with them,” Thompson said.

Roberts said the market is important to help build respect for other cultures.

“It’s important for everybody to learn and experience different cultures and to get to see other people,” Roberts said. “That way, we all respect each other as humans and learn more about each other.”

Adriano, who graduated in winter quarter, said the annual night market also highlights the APC’s collective political voice, as the diverse population of Asian students make up 30 to 40% of students on campus.

“It’s events like these that we can actually come together and show UCLA that we’re here. We’re united,” she said. “We matter, and you should think of us when you’re thinking about policy on campus.”

Adriano said the event was challenging to host because of the difficulty of coordinating between coalition members, Residential Life and different funding bodies on campus. However, they said the event’s benefits for coalition members outweighed the challenges.

“Since there’s so many organizations in our coalition, it’s hard to get everybody on the same page, but it’s a really amazing community-building event,” Adriano said. “People can come together within their own community or talk to the other orgs in the coalition.”

Adriano also said her favorite part of the night market has always been seeing the different booths, adding that the new people she met at last year’s market inspired her to serve as an organizer.

Although in recent years, the night market was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic or abruptly moved indoors to escape rainy weather, the outdoor location this year helped attract more students to the events and keep the energy level high, Adriano said.

“(The night market) was actually supposed to happen in the winter quarter like it was last year, but it got pushed,” she said. “It was a little rainy today, but it’s okay. We all were still able to come out, and people were still really hyped about the events.”

Adriano said hosting an event to celebrate cultural differences in the Asian community ultimately creates more appreciation for UCLA’s diverse student body.

“Even though we’re all categorized as Asian, we all have such different backgrounds, and we’re all so diverse,” she said. “This event is really important to showcase that and show UCLA that we’re all coming from different places. But we chose to be here, and we’re trying to find community here.”