APASA’s annual Cultural Art Expo, as told from the perspective of two of our interns, Kylie Meng-Lin and Anjali Suthahar.

Cultural Arts Expo (CAE) is an annual APASA event seeking to embrace and share various APIDA artists and their respective artistic talents to the USC community. But organizing the event definitely wasn’t an easy task—complicated by a sudden postponement two weeks prior to the event and a rush to update artists, rearrange scheduling and cancellations, and reestablish a new event date. As the new date, April 4th, slowly creeped closer, internal logistics began to finalize. However, underlying the bustling excitement for APASA’s Cultural Arts Expo return after a two-year pandemic was an uncomfortable uncertainty: how many students would come to the event on a Monday night?

Anticipation filled the room as our APASA assembly scurried around the TCC ballroom setting up check-in tables, food tables, and settling in our artistic guests and performers. Meanwhile, our other members were designated outside, guiding guests and inviting passing students to the event. With CAE set to open its doors at 6:45, lines began to crowd the outside space of the TCC basement prior, amusing our check-in workers. As the chatter of conversations began to crescendo and the patter of hundreds of footsteps echoed off the wooden floorboards, the weight within our assembly’s hearts slowly eased. A lively atmosphere of students could be seen scaling the tables arranged on the rim of the ballroom. And soon, darkness engulfed the room and our emcees, Sophia Lu and Yusuf Rahman, trailed along the stage, opening the event with warm smiles.

Often, the one dimensional view of APIDA peoples under the model minority myth has created barriers in their artistic exploration, but over time, these communities have worked and resisted in order to form spaces for APIDA artists. And this spirit was continued in CAE, as we explored how the creativity of APIDA individuals contribute to building community.

The night began with performances from student artists at USC. From the musical stylings of three-time returning performer Vietta, to a jaw-dropping magic act by Jeffrey Lee—involving catching cards with CHOPSTICKS—the opening of CAE stood out strong. Next, Trogons—the first and only East Asian A Capppella group at USC staging songs in Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Korean, and English—took the stage, singing their astonishing two arrangements of Korean musician SHAUN’s “웨이백홈 (Way Back Home)” and Chinese Singer Wei Li An’s “还是会 (I Still Came Back).” Finishing the event off was Asli Baat—USC’s premier competitive South Asian Fusion A Cappella team mashing up Bollywood hits, English pop, and South Asian and Western Culture—with their renditions of Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever”, Brittney Spears’ “Toxic”, and “Yeh Mera Dil”.

With our emcees closing off the performances with their tumultuous humor, a 15 minute intermission went underway, allowing detailed instructions of the second half of the event to be announced and hungry college students to line up quickly for their Onigiris. As APASA eboard members handed out food from Jichan’s Onigiri, attendees grouped together, socializing as they ate.

CAE’s theme for the 2021-2022 school year was “Redefining Community.” So as booth mingling commenced, attendees visited booths while reflecting on the role of community in their lives. Booths ranged from Sheela Yuan, who featured her art prints and facilitated keychain making, to the APASA Interns’ display of “Pin Your Pride”, their intern class project on the APAHF theme of ‘Proud to Be’.

APASA’s External Booth focused on educating guests about housing insecurity and gentrification in Chinatown, inflicted by USC’s Lusk Center executive committee board member Jerome Fink and his partner Victoria Vu. CAE added 35 petition signatures to the already 1200+ signatures gather by USC’s Student Coalition for Asian Pacific Empowerment (SCAPE), gathering students who condemn Fink and Vu for their manipulation of the internal resident systems (plumbing, electricity, safety, etc.) in order to forcefully evict Chinatown tenants for their own materialistic gains.

A large favorite of the night was “Be The Match”, an organization that manages the most diverse bone marrow registry in the world, providing patients access to over 39 million donors around the world. Among bone marrow donations, there is a significant lack of donors for people of color, including APIDA communities. At CAE, Be The Match helped educate and register attendees in the bone marrow registry, taking a step towards strengthening health resources for marginalized communities. Moreover, they sought donors for a dear friend at USC. If you didn’t get a chance, but are still interested in participating, please check out Be The Match’s website to get registered!

Another popular booth was Sweaty Pigeon Jewelry, an LA based jewelry project founded by An Nguyen, a Narrative Studies student at USC. Visiting the booth, guests could learn about An and her sister’s creative process making the jewelry, such as their use of watch faces in necklaces and rings. Sweaty Pigeon Jewelry has been worn by people like Rico Nasty (as seen on her Tiny Desk Concert with NPR) and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan on the cover of Teen Vogue. Attendees could buy Ann’s jewelry at the booth, and so can you, on Sweaty Pigeon’s website!

As the night came to a close, attendees left with goodies, prints, and pamphlets in hand, and we hope with memories of an incredible night as well. As APASA E-boarders and interns crammed into the photo booth, we were all overjoyed by the event’s success. But of course, this beautiful array of performances and artwork would not have been possible without Evelyn Zhang, Melissa Tungare, and Leon Zha, who spent months in preparation so that an in-person CAE would breathe with life and energy. Fueled by the spirit of personal interaction, creation and appreciation of art, passion for activism, and the unbelievable talent of our performers and artists, Cultural Art Expo 2022 was a meaningful experience for all who attended!