Events stress diversity of Asian community

From a fashion show to guest speakers, charity galas to a candlelight vigil, students at Penn have put together a host of events to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Week.

This year's theme, "Kaleidoscope: Many Cultures, One Experience," is intended to "celebrate and educate the greater University community about diverse cultures," said Johnny Wang, a Wharton senior and events chairman for the celebratory week.

Asian Pacific-American students make up 23 percent of Penn's student body.

"We have so many things in common as far as our heritage and background ... yet we are really diverse within each ethnicity," Wang said.

Last Thursday, the kickoff event took place in Houston Hall, where a variety of Asian-American performing-arts groups put on a show.

A fashion show took place Sunday at the Hall of Flags, where students modeled both traditional and modern wear from Asian-American designers.

However, the week is intended to go beyond celebrating the different cultures.

On Tuesday, APAHW, the Race Dialogue Project and the Asian Pacific Student Coalition sponsored an event at which students discussed societal relations between blacks and Asians.

Last night, author Chang-Rae Lee spoke to Penn students and faculty about his experience as a writer and read an excerpt from his most recent work, Aloft.

First-year English graduate student Adrian Khactu said he thinks that the author fit in well with the whole week.

"It's really interesting because he's a writer that can be considered Asian-American, but also a writer of our times -- a social writer and a great literary writer as well," Khactu said.

A candlelight vigil was held last night to reflect upon the hate crimes that have been committed against Asian Americans.

Pang Houa Moua, community-education manager for the Asian American Justice Center -- a civil rights group that seeks to advance the rights of Asian Americans -- spoke at the vigil about the importance of awareness of anti-Asian violence and hate-crime prevention.

"In the [Asian-American] community, so many hate crimes go unreported," Moua said.

College and Engineering senior Navin Kumar also feels these types of events are important.

"We're able to reflect on what types of hate crimes have happened to our community, what has been done about it and what we can do to prevent these types of things from occurring again in the future," Kumar said.

June Chu, director of Penn's Pan-Asian American Community House, said that the week "brings together a diverse community here at Penn and also draws attention to the fact that we are a presence on this campus."

Today, actor B.D. Wong, who plays Dr. George Huang on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, will be speaking in Huntsman Hall at 7 p.m. Tomorrow, a charity gala will be held at the Inn at Penn. Proceeds will go to Boat People SOS, an organization that attempts to assist Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.

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