APASA’s APAHF Extravaganza ✨
APASA’s APAHF Extravaganza, as told from the perspective of Kendal Win and Cody Chen, our APASA interns.
Amid the pressure of midterms and the rush of navigating the never-ending crowds of USC tours, what better way to unwind and destress than by taking a moment to reflect on your roots with APASA’s APAHF Extravaganza?
What is APAHF, you ask? Well, it stands for Asian Pacific American Heritage Festival, a month filled with events hosted by APASA and our lovely member organizations to spread awareness of and advocate for APIDA issues. To mark the beginning of APAHF and the exciting programming to come, APASA planned to take to Tommy Trojan and invite students to celebrate their heritage, identities, and stories through APAHF Extravaganza.
In line with our programming director Yusuf’s theme for this year, “Plant Your Roots,” and his vision for Extravaganza, we decided to create an interactive poster board for our fellow Trojans to share what makes them who they are—answering questions such as “what brings you comfort?” and “how do you define your roots?” to pin petals to the sunflowers we had set up in preparation. Once participants finished pinning their answers to a flower, they were given seeds to plant at home.
On the day of the event, we set up shop next to our favorite statue, ready in anticipation of seeing the board come to life. Throughout the day, we were supported by many friendly faces, and it was so rewarding to meet everyone who stopped by. Although the day was quite windy (you should’ve seen the fountain!), interacting with you all warmed us, and we loved hearing from the community. When reading the petals, it was heartening to see all of the diverse and unique answers left with us and equally great to see some shared backgrounds and, just in general, the beautiful experiences people come from.
As it came time for Extravaganza to come to its close, the once bare flowers blossomed with the pink, blue, and yellow petals that held students’ answers to our questions, illustrating the beauty of our identities and the power of our stories.
Now that APAHF has officially been kicked off and with all of the programming our member organizations have been planning, get ready for a month filled with more opportunities to join us in celebrating our roots in culture, heritage, identities, and stories.
A huge thank you to the wonderful people who took the time to share a part of themselves with us. We can’t wait to see you all throughout the rest of APAHF!
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Kendal and Cody