Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month might begin in May for the rest of the United States, but in Bloomington it starts in April.
According to IU’s Asian Culture Center website, this early activity is to “to allow the entire campus and community to take part in the activities before the semester ends.” The ACC did just that Thursday, kicking off the festivities with Asianfest, a celebration of Asian and Pacific Island culture.
The event began with a street festival on Kirkwood Avenue that featured food stands, activities, games and informational booths, followed by performances inside the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.
Ethan Vu and Luu Nguyen, members of the Vietnamese Student Association at IU, came out to support a fellow member of the VSA who was performing in a fan dance later that evening.
“We're just here to support them,” Nguyen, a senior, said. “And also, there's a lot of other performances that are always usually cool. Last year, there was this guy with a sword. I forgot what his name (was), but he had a katana, and he'd do a lot of cool moves, and I really liked it.”
This was the first Asianfest for Vu, a freshman, who said that the food booths and student organizations were fun and educational.
“I didn't even know, like, those kinds of foods existed until like today, kind of thing,” Vu said, referring to the Mama Dukes Hawaiian Barbecue stand. “There's like a lot of like just like little things and everyone's culture. It's like really cool to see.”
IU juniors Linden Edwards and Yeeun Jo stopped by the booth where senior Aung Han tested participants’ chopstick skills. Edwards and Yeeun had 15 seconds to try to move six M&Ms from one bowl to another. Yeeun won, earning a snack.
By the end of the first hour of Asianfest, Han said about 50 people had attempted the chopstick challenge.
“Some people have done quite well, some people haven't,” Han said. “But they enjoyed the snacks, though.”
Han said that Asianfest was an important event to interact with the community.
“Just getting to meet everyone is really nice and like showcasing a bit of, like, Asian culture to everyone is really fun too,” Han said.
Min Min Thant, co-president of the Myanmar Student Association at IU, was there to represent the organization and inform visitors about the political situation in Myanmar, a country in south Asia formerly known as Burma.
“I'm just showcasing our culture and raising awareness about what's happening back in Burma, which is like a civil war, a coup, that needs a lot of attention,” Thant said. “But the media is not covering much right now.”
Thant joined the Myanmar Student Association as a freshman, describing it as a home away from home. Thant said Myanmar Student Association partners with the Asian Culture Center.
“You know, they give us like funding, support, basically like a safe space for us to, like, communicate about what we go through, our experiences,” Thant said.
Parnasi Bandyopadhyay, a rider from Mezcla, the La Casa Latino Cultural Center’s women’s Little 500 team, also talked about community support. She said one of Mezcla’s main goals is to bring diversity to the core IU tradition that is the Little 500 bike race.
Fittingly, “mezcla” means “mixture” in Spanish. Even though she isn’t Latina, Bandyopadhyay said the team opened its arms to her.
“Regardless of where you come from, what your ethnicity, what your race is, what you look like, there's always a home for you,” Bandyopadhyay said. “And I'm so happy I got to, to belong, like, find a familia.”
At a booth near Mezcla’s, Micaela Deogracius, outreach librarian at IU's Education Library, helped distribute bags containing materials to make koi kites, a Japanese tradition.
“We do a lot of crafts and stuff in the library,” Deogracius said. “But the koi are a symbol of strength and resilience in Japan. So, these are actually flown for Children's Day, in hopes that children will grow up to be strong and resilient.”
Congress officially established May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month in October 1992 by Public Law 102-450.
Asianfest was the opening festivity in Bloomington for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. More events, including musical performances, discussion sessions and short film showings, are scheduled on the ACC’s events calendar.
“And it's so cool because it's such a small city, but there's so much diversity here,” Thant said. “And this (Asianfest) is something that I feel like supports it and builds it.”
