As an Asian American, and as somebody of South Asian descent in particular, I belong to a group of people with some of the biggest and most diverse Muslim populations in the world. But what exactly is this holy month, and how can we use this moment to come together and celebrate our collective heritage?
To help me answer these questions, I spoke with Asna Tabassum, a sophomore studying biomedical engineering and a member of the Muslim Student Union (MSU) here at USC.
Read MoreAmidst this confusion, I came across the phrase “Model Minority Myth,” and that’s when everything started to click. A narrative that has existed for years, it touts the inherent success that Asian Americans experience in this country. . . And yet, the trope misses key aspects of the Asian American experience. It turns our community into a monolith, lumping a continent of over 40 countries into one group.
Read MoreHello! Welcome back to APASA’s Community Roadmap, an initiative where we spotlight an organization that serves the APIDA community and hear more about their mission and how we can get involved. This month, we are taking a stop at the South Asian Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing culturally and linguistically specific services and advocating for the South Asian community in Southern California.
Read MoreWe love to paint Asian America with this brush of affluence and comfort. . . It turned out, there’s a far different reality that many Asian Americans face today. While my Pakistani and Indian classmates lived in quiet towns of new money, there were people like my family, who often relied on food stamps or lived in cramped apartments to survive since coming to America . . . How is it that we ended up with such stark divides?
Read MoreHi there! Welcome back to APASA’s Community Roadmap, an initiative where we highlight an APIDA organization in the greater Los Angeles area. This month we partnered with Kaya Press to spotlight author Truong Tran and his newest book, book of the other.
Read MoreThis year, our Co-Advocacy Chairs, Melissa Tungare and Evelyn Zhang, wanted to kick off CEP by supporting our local communities where food insecurity is prevalent. The goal of APASA’s Fridge Fest was to collect food from those in the USC community, sanitize all the nonperishable and fresh goods we collected, and deliver them to and clean three different fridges around Los Angeles.
Read MoreSpirits were high and nerves were abound as APASA E-Boarders and Interns ran around TCC and Tommy’s Place trying to make everything perfect for the event. Everyone was excited to see how Got Talent would play out in-person after a year over Zoom, and equally thrilled to welcome our student performers and meet our judges.
Read MoreWe were finally able to find *the* 14 interns *chefs kiss*. Our E-Boarders welcomed them into APASA through lovely personal messages sent through social media, and the annual Santa Monica Orientation was waiting right around the corner.
Welcome to APASA’s Community Road Map, a monthly initiative where we have a conversation with an APIDA organization in the greater Los Angeles area about their mission and the community they serve. In honor of October being National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, our first stop is the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF), a service provider and shelter for survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
Read MoreAfter giving a brief introduction to how the evening might look, we turned off the lights, raised the volume, and the beautiful opening scene started playing before our eyes. Everybody was captivated by the movie, and the 1hr 37min runtime flew by in an instant.
Read MoreFull visibility of the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American experience is lacking in the US, partly the result of the spread of the monolithic misrepresentation of the APIDA community and the widespread “model minority” myth.
Read More
