Dr. Andrew T. Guzman, USC provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs kicked off the AAPI Heritage Month event at Founders Park. He spoke in place of USC president Carol Folt, who was originally advertised to speak at the event.
“First thing I need to get out of the way is you may have noticed that I’m not Carol. But she has a pretty good excuse, which was she was up in Portland for the women’s basketball yesterday to watch our amazing women’s basketball team.”
The AAPI month event celebrated Asian heritage with boba, Hawaiian and Indian food, and a dragon show. AAPI Month is usually celebrated in May, but USC celebrates it in April before the semester ends.
Despite President Folt’s absence, the event was a success according to USC freshman Mylie Rodrigo.
“As an Asian American person myself, celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences is really important to me. This is a cool event.”
Another speaker at the event, Jaimie Lee, a member on the board of trustees, as well as the youngest Asian American Trojan on the USC alumni board provided her insight on Asian American Pacific Islander month.
“Our contributions to Trojan life are vast, and we have come so far. We can celebrate the heritage that makes us the incredibly unique, creative and powerful contributors to our 21st century society.”
Lee also touched on the importance of understanding how diverse the Asian American Pacific Islander community truly is.
“We come from over 75 different countries with 75 different languages. But for all these differences, we within our race have grown so proficient and cross-cultural in multi-ethnic fluency.”
Another USC student who attended the event, freshman Rullan Wu, also spoke highly of the event, but believes the event still has room for improvement
“I think the university is taking a good step forward in promoting DEI - diversity, equity, inclusion in the campus space, but I think they could diverge from representing mostly East Asian identities to including more obscure Asian identities that don’t get a lot of representation.”
There will be AAPI events throughout the month of April. You can check the USC event calendar for details.