Note: Shadnan Asraf is a President of Asian Club.

After a year and a half, Asian Club has officially returned to CRLS in-person. Like previous years, members are encouraged to stop by on Wednesdays at 3:05 PM in Room 2215 to eat snacks and chill. However, this year, the leadership of Asian Club has recognized the need for an Asian activist group at CRLS. To accommodate this need, Asian Club will now encourage members to not only learn about the impact of Asian hate, but to also play a role in Asian activism at CRLS.

Asian Club Co-Vice President Lucas Cannistraro ’22 told the Register Forum, “In the past, Asian Club has been a fun club about appreciating Asian culture. However, the recent surge in Asian hate crimes over the past year has shown us not only the importance of activism, but how little members of our community know about the challenges faced by Asian-Americans,” he continued, “By shifting to a model for our club [that] includes activism, as well as fun, we hope to educate our community on the issue of Asian hate.”

In past years, you could often walk into Asian club and find members making dumplings, playing ping pong, and watching Asian movies. This side of Asian Club is still valued by many, including member Owen Van Bever ’22 who told the RF, “Asian Club is a place to hang out with my friends and take a break from what is going on around me.” Members who only wish to participate in the fun side of the club will be free to do so.

However, the leadership team also feels obligated, as the only cultural group for Asian students, to focus on activism.

With this new goal, Asian Club has partnered with the Black Student Union and Latinx Club for a joint student DESKS discussion, which will be held with the topic of visibility of people of color. The event, scheduled for November 17th, 2021, will ask members of each club to consider to what extent minority groups support each other.

In preparation for the discussion, Asian Club is pushing its members to recognize the many countries that make up the continent of Asia. The “Underrepresented Countries Project,” led by co-Vice President Matthew Liu ’22, encourages members to research Asian countries that they feel are underrepresented in American discourse. Liu told the Register Forum, “This project will promote equity when it comes to the coverage of every Asian country, and will also provide a floor for members to speak about personal connections they have to these countries.”

Even with new changes coming to Asian Club, Co-President Yonas Aschale ’22 reminded the Register Forum that “Asian Club strives to celebrate Asian culture in a fun and exciting environment so that students from all backgrounds can share these experiences, and by having this initial engagement, we can inform the same students about issues like AAPI [Asian American and Pacifican Islander] hate, and Asian discrimination in the US. It’s this balance that makes Asian Club, Asian Club.”

This piece also appears in our November 2021 print edition.