AAPI Assembly

The AAPI Assembly

MJ Selwood ('28)

  “Respecting our Roots and Forging our Future.” This was the theme of the 2025 Asian American and Pacific Islander  (AAPI) Assembly, portrayed beautifully through their speeches, art, and games. The club gave us a look at traditions, both old and new, of the many Asian cultures as well as showing us what AAPI month was really about. 

The assembly kicked off with a prayer of the Our Father in Korean, offered by Delaney Park and Harrison Han. Afterwards they introduced the executive board: President Maia Olivia Cerezo, Vice President Jason Wan, Treasurer Nivit Jaithum, and Secretaries Cathy Nguyen and Kuba Wan.  The board talked about the theme and how they designed the assembly on how Asian culture has grown and changed over the years. 

The Assembly was fun and engaging, highlighting several different aspects of Asian culture.  The club began with a fashion show where they showed off the different garments of clothing worn for special events in countries like Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines. Next the audience had a quick look at  the club's families talking about their favorite traditions such as Lunar New Year, Holi, and the Mid Autumn Festival. They explained how these traditions brought them closer to their culture and how much fun they had while celebrating. 

An O’Connell Assembly wouldn’t be the same without some fun and competitive games. One of these games was a board breaking challenge where each of the grades had to break different amounts of wooden boards, showcasing the contributions to martial arts that the Asian culture has given the world. A couple other games focused a lot more on food; this included the Dalgona cookie game, inspired by the show Squid Games,and the Spicy Ramen Challenge where participants were asked questions while trying to not suffer from the spicy noodles. These games helped show how Asian culture has a very big emphasis on different kinds of food, but also the influence it has had on pop culture; these are both well known challenges from T.V. shows and Tiktok. Finally there was a karaoke competition between the 4 grades and their teachers. Karaoke is  very prevalent in countries like China, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. It is a way that people who live in these countries socialize and this popular pastime can be found at many large gatherings. 

Dances were also a major part of this assembly and viewers saw 3 spectacular performances. The first was Tinikling, a dance which originated in the Philippines,  more commonly known as the dance in which people jump over sticks held by friends. After this we saw a beautiful Vietnamese umbrella dance. Finally, the dance that focused on the current dances of Asia was a fun collection of different K-pop dances. 

The AAPI Assembly this year was a show of amazing talent and hard work. At the end of the assembly all of the seniors in the club were given leis to signify the family that had grown in this club. The club very clearly thought deeply about their theme and the assembly was a beautiful and excellent example of Asian culture over time.