Huang heads Asian cultural association (ACA)

Huang and the ACA collaborate with other Asian cultural clubs to battle AAPI hate one step at a time

CARLA HAU FEATURES EDITOR

Wanting to spread Asian culture and battle AsianAmerican/Pacific Islander (AAPI) hate, Benjamin Huang started the Asian Cultural Association club. The club welcomes students from all backgrounds to experience and embrace Asian culture as a community.

“I wanted to help prevent further racist behavior towards Asians as a whole because of the systematic racism that the media fails to portray,” Huang says.

Through the ACA club, students are welcome to learn more about Asian culture. “I really hope that ACA creates a large impact in spreading AAPI hate awareness in our community [and teaches] everyone about the diverse Asian cultures,” Senior Benjamin Huang says.

To work toward this goal, Huang also teaches other students how to embrace Asian culture as a whole. In December 2022, ACA hosted a Snack Tasting Event. It was a competition where students tasted snacks within a given time limit and had to guess their snack before their opponents did. As an incentive, the club offered service hours as prizes for winning.

“I wanted to host the snack tasting event because [our members can] learn what type of Asian snacks [they] enjoy,” Huang says. “The event worked towards our club’s goal because it showed and taught the diverse culinary delicacies from different Asian cultures.”

Huang did not start this club alone. He had many friends and teachers that were supportive of this club’s concept and goal. ACA’s goal is to create a safe space for students from all backgrounds to learn about Asian culture, so the club’s advisor would have to be someone that aligned with this.

“After talking to some teachers and going over the club with them, I felt the teacher to be the most supportive of the club would be Mrs. Tran,” Huang says. “She seemed considerate and understanding of all her students regardless of background or identity.”

As for the future of the club, Huang would hope that ACA could network with other Asian cultural clubs to work towards the same goal.

“The goal for ACA as of now is to focus on spreading awareness in our community first and foremost but to also slowly network with any and all Asian cultural clubs in our area to begin working together,” Huang says.

In an effort to do so, ACA collaborated with the Dreyfoos School of the Art’s Asian Cultural Society back in late December of 2022 to host a movie night. As a community, they watched the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, which features many Asian actors and actresses.

“We chose to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once because we felt that members could learn the emotional neglect and difficulties that most first gen Asian American children experience with their immigrant parents, “ Huang says.