Club Feature: Asian Student Association
Club meetings are already challenging enough to organize with COVID-19 restrictions — in-person meetings, while allowed, are subject to restrictions by the administration in the name of health and safety, and clubs that are able to meet in-person find that their usual slew of activities and events are heavily restricted.
These struggles are especially true for multicultural clubs on campus like the Asian Student Association (ASA). The Colby Echo sat down with Liya Yang `23 to discover more about how ASA is adjusting to being on campus in the midst of the pandemic.
Yang is the communications chair for ASA. Her roles and responsibilities include sending out club emails, maintaining the roster for the board members, and conducting internal and external communications between the club, alumni and faculty.
“When we need to reach out to people, I’m the person to do so,” Yang explained. “As the communications chair I’m supposed to be developing creative communication and marketing strategies for events.”
In the past, ASA has put on several events promoting Asian culture and interconnectedness on campus.
For example, the month of May is APHAN, or Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. During this month, ASA typically brings in speakers of APHAN heritage and hosts events to celebrate.
Unfortunately, due to the College closing its doors prematurely last spring, ASA was unable to put on their usual in-person celebrations, but they are hopeful that they will be able to do it again this spring semester.
Another event that ASA has hosted in the past is Night Market, hosted in Foss.
“It’s a whole day where different clubs and local Waterville vendors come in and students have the opportunity to try different cultural foods,” Yang said. “It’s a full-on cultural immersion. It was supposed to be on for last spring, but it got shut down as well.”
The ongoing pandemic has changed a lot of these events, since serving food or inviting outside speakers have been either discouraged or banned by the administration in order to mitigate the spread of the virus. As a result, ASA has had to be creative with the events they have hosted this year.
“Because of COVID-19, it’s obviously been really hard for us to get our events approved,” Yang said. “Early in the year we really struggled with making sure that the Campus Life Department was able to approve our events because they took a really long time, so that’s been a challenge for us. But eventually we were able to have a few events.
We had a pumpkin carving event for Halloween, and then we also had one for mid-autumn festival where we did kite-flying,” Yang went on to explain. “We also have a mentor-mentee program which has its own exclusive events, like a make-your-own shoe event.”
Yang explained her perspective on the ASA’s mission at Colby now.
“We’re basically an alliance and trying to build solidarity based on common experiences of students especially of Asian descent. We’re here to build a community and cultivate a deeper understanding of our identities through our events,” Yang said. “We’re at a liberal arts college in Maine, and that makes it really hard for us to find people of the same identity. I know a lot of people might feel lost on campus, and that’s why ASA is here, to foster a community you can feel safe and comfortable in.”
~Hae-Jung Kim `24
