Asian American Pacific-Islander Heritage Month is celebrated throughout May to honor and celebrate the impact of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in their shared history.
Seniors Janelle “Nene” Cate Cruz and Vincent Luu, presidents of Del Mars’ Asian Pacific Islander Student Union, share their experiences running the club and with AAPI Heritage Month.
Both members first joined the club during their freshman year. They were interested in involving themselves with the school’s Asian community.
“I wanted to be a part of the Asian community at Del Mar because growing up, like my schools, had very few Asians in my grade, like I went to a predominantly white elementary school,” Cruz said.
Despite being active in the club for all four years, Cruz and Luu only became president and vice president this year, with the two being the only club members to apply for the positions.
“I wanted to take a leadership role in APSU because last year, the club was gonna get disbanded if, like, there wasn’t anybody to take the role,” Luu said. “And I wanted to take leadership just to, like, have control over the club and like to plan our own events. And I think me and Nene have built a really strong club with, like, a lot of people, and a lot of events, so I’m really proud of that.”
“Within the Asian diaspora of California, there’s a lot of like, things that unite the different cultures, even though that like, Vincent’s Chinese and I’m Filipino, they relate in our experience of being Asian,” said Cruz. “So that’s why I think, like APSU is a good club because it not only unifies people of the same nationality, but, like the overall, like Asian ethnicity.”
APSU has organized many events in and out of school, consisting of volunteering, fundraisers, potluck dinners, and field trips.
“We had like a big field trip where we took about, like 30 to 40 kids up to San Francisco to explore Chinatown,” said Luu. “So there’s a lot of organization there. It was, like, a pretty big event, it was pretty successful.”
“Yeah, and I think seeing them like, participating and enjoying our stuff is, like, the most fulfilling thing, even when there’s so much stress that goes behind the planning of it,” said Cruz. “Like, everybody loved our field trip, even though there was so much paperwork that had to be done and so many, like, different jobs people had. But I think it’s most fulfilling seeing, like, everybody in the club happy.”
Cruz touches on the importance of AAPI Heritage Month for those in the community, saying, “I think Asians, like, they’ve been a model minority for so long, and they’ve had a lot of these stereotypes pushed onto them, like we’re good at this and this, but we’re like bad at this… but I think that like fully being able to show off, like our culture kind of shuts down the negative stereotypes of being a model minority.”
Cruz discusses the steps they’re taking to prepare the club for next year after they graduate.
“We’ve left them a lot of support and we’ve been planning to like, make sure the club continues,” said Cruz. “We appointed underclassmen, we appointed juniors in our executive board, so that, like, they have the experience to keep the club going. Yeah, so we hope that they still have, like, that passion.”
To end the year, APSU plans to have one final potluck hang-out with all their club members.
