This week, JustArts spoke with Do Dang '15 and Catherine Cho '15, the president and vice president of Brandeis Asian-American Student Association, respectively, about the group's celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

JustArts: Would you tell us a bit about APAHM and what it means to BAASA to be celebrating it and sharing it with the Brandeis community?

Catherine Cho: APAHM stands for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and basically, it was recognized by the United States as a national celebratory month in May of 1992 officially. It's usually celebrated in May, but BAASA celebrates it in March every year because we have final exams and stuff like that. It's one of the biggest events that we do for BAASA each year, and I think it's important because it embodies everything our club stands for. Throughout the beginning of the year and throughout the whole year in general, it's hard to remember through the little events we do what our club stands for, and showcasing our heritage and our background-so I think APAHM is really the one month where we show everything to Brandeis in general.

Do Dang: Every year, we choose a specific theme to celebrate for APAHM, and this year it was identity. Last year it was "Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling," which relates more to stereotypes in general, like, we don't want to be seen as stereotypes, it's our identity, you can't really define us-just examining how we define ourselves.

CC: We, collectively as an E-Board, get to think about what we want to show for that month of APAHM. This year... we all really wanted to focus on identity and what it means to be Asian-American. So our theme this year was called "Bridging the Gap"-it's about how there is this Asian heritage that we all have, that's part of who we are, but we are also American. So bridging the gap between those two cultures was what we focused on this year.

DD: Usually it's a conflict for many Asian-Americans growing up. Like, for me, growing up-I grew up in a Vietnamese household-my parents were very busy. As I entered first grade, I was transferred to an English-speaking class and I lost my Vietnamese tongue after that; I can't speak Vietnamese anymore, I can't speak it well, I can understand it. It's trying to reconcile that disconnect after so many years.

JA: How does art and expression play a role in APAHM and conveying a message of identity?

DD: Art is identity, I think. It's how you choose to interpret yourself through some medium. It's most pronounced during our APAHM dance, it's something that we thought of in the background for that dance. We modeled it after the Asian-American identity development model, which has five stages: ethnic neutrality, content, then white identification, awakening, redirection and incorporation. That's why we had five dances with the five songs we chose to reflect those five stages.

CC: That one showcases really well how I feel like art is a medium of expression for yourself, and for just showing identity in general, and how the main performer for that night, Yuri Tag, really embodied how she uses art to express herself. 

DD: She said that first, her dance was more choreographed by other people, but then she found her own choreography.

CC: And that was really cool.

JA: Yuri Tag was a big hit at the Opening Ceremony. Can you tell us about BAASA's decision to bring her to campus?

DD: At first, we wanted to bring Mike Song, but due to some miscommunication, he was booked by some other school. Yuri Tag was another one that we wanted to get in touch with, but we couldn't, so this was fortunate for us that we could get her. She fit the bill-she has some of the same background as Mike Song, which is the Kaba Modern on [MTV's show] America's Best Dance Crew. In the description for APAHM we state that [her career] helped turn the tides for Asian-Americans to identify as [something] other than being doctors or lawyers. It helped people recognize our own identity, that we're not just these stereotypes.

CC: I was also really happy that we got her because she was a pioneer for that kind of thing, and also she was a pioneer for Asian-Americans within the dance community-like hip-hop dancing-and also for breaking into media, like showing on TV. In her early interviews for Kaba Modern, for America's Best Dance Crew, she was saying how her parents didn't initially support her dancing because it's not really like, what a stereotypical Asian parent would want their children to do. So I really think it is-as clich?(c) and cheesy as it is-inspirational... A lot of Asian-Americans look up to her for that.

JA: What was your favorite artistic moment during the Opening Ceremony and why?

DD: I really liked Yevin [Roh's] first piece, ["The Top 10 List of Messed Up Things Racists Have Said to Me Because I am a Racial Minority"]-that really got the crowd going. You could hear the snaps, like, people do relate. What he's saying is not untrue; we have experienced these moments where people ask "Where are you really from?"-these microagressions.

CC: I agree. I really liked his piece, I think that it does resonate with people. I know that I found myself nodding along and being like "yeah, you're right." He puts into words what other people normally wouldn't be able to clearly pinpoint-like what it is about things that really bother them or that are racist. Dan Tran, our keynote speaker from [sic] [the Opening Ceremony], used the word "microagressions." It's referring to little things that people do every day that you wouldn't really be able to outright point to and be like "oh, you're being racist,"-like if someone asks me where I'm from, and I say "I'm from Miami," then they say "No, where are you really from?"

DD: It makes you feel like a foreigner.

CC: Kind of. Like I was born in the States, you know. I feel like Yevin clearly put into words what you normally wouldn't be able to put into words.

*