Asian groups come together for celebrations

May marks the official Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, but campus and community organizations are pooling their resources to gives students a chance to celebrate the event early.\nThe Asian Culture Center, which coordinates most of the events, joined forces with the Indian, Singapore, Japanese, Thai and Hong Kong student associations to schedule presentations, films and other cultural activities to celebrate the month.\nMelanie Castillo-Cullather, director of the Asian Culture Center, said campus has been eager to hold events starting in March or April so more people can participate in the activities.\n"We want to make sure \nstudents get the opportunity to celebrate," Castillo-Cullather said.\nThe celebration kicked off with the 13th annual Taste of Asia held Sunday, which attracted more than 700 people, said Althea Acosta, secretary of the Asian American Association.\nThe celebration will start at a 3 p.m. reception at the University Club in the Indiana Memorial Union. Mayor Mark Kruzan will present a proclamation acknowledging APA Heritage Month, Castillo-Cullather said.\nOther activities include a Classical Indian dance demonstration and concert, the annual Holi Festival, Asian Fest, IU Go Game Competition, Singapore Night and Thai Night, just to name a few.\nMian Pinijsakkul, Thai Student Association President, said the Thai Night celebration is the biggest event of the year for the group.\n"The purpose of the event is to promote Thailand and diversity on campus to Indiana University \nstudents, faculty and the people who are interested in learning about Thailand," Pinijsakkul said.\nPerformances, exhibitions and games will be headlining the celebration and exemplifying Thai culture, including a Thai traditional parade, traditional and modern dances, boxing and musicians.\nApril will also mark the first ever Korea Night, sponsored by the Korean Undergraduate Student Associations and Korean Student Association. Moosup Lee, vice president of Korean Undergraduate Student Association, said the event will involve traditional dance, such as a fan dance, marital arts and modern pop dance, with performance by the IU Korean Band. \n"The unique thing about Korea Night is we are trying to have Americans involved in our performance," Lee said. "We have Americans doing the Tae Kwon Do and fan dance. The IU break dance team will perform the Korean pop dance."\nKUSA decided to organize the event after seeing the success of other student groups, Lee said. The group organized the event, bringing together many of the events Korean groups had planned on a smaller scale.\n"We hope that Korea Night will become a big event where we could unite all the Koreans in Indiana," Lee said.\nThe cooperation and planning of all the student groups recognizes the similarities, but also the differences in the type of Asian Pacific American groups on campus, Castillo-Cullather said.\n"We planned different kinds of events because we want to show diversity within the Asian Pacific community," she said. "We want to show in the community there are difference backgrounds with different stories ... engage with other students and form \nfriendships." \nFor a full list of events, including times and venues, please visit the Asian Culture Center Web site at www.indiana.edu/~acc.