Events
Join Us for Special Upcoming Events!
2nd Annual Youth Summit
August 3, 2024 | Camp Hebron, Halifax, Pennyslvania
Asian Refugees United invites you to our 2nd Annual Youth Summit - a day filled with engaging activities, fun games, and valuable resources.
This summit is a welcoming space focused on middle school aged youth and older, to come together, share experiences, and explore ways to make a positive impact in our communities.
Whether your interests lie in storytelling, wellness, education, or simply in forging meaningful connections and building a network, this summit offers you the opportunity to participate in an enriching and empowering experience.
Don't miss out on this chance to learn, grow, and create change with us.
Register now and be part of a meaningful journey towards a brighter future!
Past Events
The event is organized by the Identity and Belonging group of ARU Camp for Emerging Leaders 2024 cohort.
For any questions about this event, please reach out to Nawal Rai. Email: nawal@asianrefugees.org
Asian Refugees United (ARU) presents: World Refugee Day Virtual Teach-in
Thursday, June 20th, 6:30-8 pm (EST) on Zoom (RSVP here)
This 90 minute Teach-in for World Refugee Day on June 20th is an event spotlighting the history, trajectory, and present-day experiences of the Bhutanese-Nepali (also known as Lhotsampa) refugee diaspora in the United States.
While led by and amplifying the voices of youth from the Bhutanese-Nepali refugee community, it is also designed as an invitation to explore and define the concept of “refugee-ness” in the community, opening discussion for questions such as: How does one become a refugee, and why? What are the geopolitical factors that create “refugee crises?” What are the structural and real distinctions that separate refugees from immigrants, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and other migrants, especially in the current political reality of people fleeing from countries most intensely impacted by the destructive consequences of climate change, war, globalization, and genocide?
In order to enrich this discussion, alongside sharing out histories and experiences pertaining to the Bhutanese-Nepali refugee diaspora, we seek to highlight speakers who have lived experience and knowledge about the pressing refugee crises of the present day, especially in regards to the 1.7 million individuals and families from Gaza who have been displaced as a result of the on-going genocide in Palestine. We want to contextualize “World Refugee Day” as not just an opportunity to passively learn about the past, but as a framework with which to take educated action about the injustices happening in the world today, and which are interconnected to and inseparable from the injustices borne by our ancestors, which continue to affect our communities today.
Our vision and desire for this event is to facilitate an open platform for people from different communities and relationalities to “refugee-ness” to connect with each other and build solidarity across cultural lines.
“MU–Connector/When the land stands alone” Performance
June 23-24, 2023 | Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, San Francisco, California
The performance explored ancestral traditions transmuted through dance, singing, drumming, and storytelling, weaving together electronic soundscapes, an altar installation, and community participation to create a communal creative ritual experience.
Built from collective community healing rituals, MU–Connector delved into our myths, ancestral land, history, and stories, while also reflecting on wounds suffered and inflicted through systemic oppression in the U.S. and our homelands.
This theater experience included performances from Asian Refugees United’s The Storytellers’ Group with Manose Singh (Mero Geet Mero Yatra: My Song My Journey), CoRazOn/CRE Cohorts, MU Ritual Drummers, and Puri Arts Collectives.
“I Hear a Butterfly”
Sunday, June 25th | Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, San Francisco, California
A series of new short films curated by us featuring our vibrant stories of migration and resilience as Asian refugees.
Film descriptions below.
Mero Geet Mero Yatra Artists Share
(11:44, Dir. Asian Refugees United Robin Grung)
Participants in Mero Geet Mero Yatra (MGMY) share their experiences of their journey from the start of the production of a theater performance piece. The performance piece revolves around the stories of displacement, identity crisis, search for a home, belonging, connection to our roots, and our hope for humanity.
The Waiting Eyes For Reunion
(16:00, dir. Parsu Adhikari)
This real life documentary that sheds light on the lives of Bhutanese refugees who are still waiting for their chance to return home. By following the lives of three generations of refugees who have been living in camps for decades, the film explores both the harsh realities of life in the camp, and the resilience of the refugees in their hopes for a better future. parsu.adhikari@gmail.com
MU–Connector/When the lands stand alone
(25:00, dir. Dohee Lee, Filmed and edited by Fox Nakai, Footage of Headlands by Carol Kim and Emily Encina, Music by Adria Otte)
This film (created 2020-2023) carries aspects of our communities' (CoRazOn, CRE Cohorts) ritual and creative art practice in decolonizing our bodies from the many oppressive systems that exist here and back on our ancestral lands. As people of the Asian diaspora, these unresolved histories of ancestral immigration continue in our bodies. With our bodies as connectors, we are learning to listen to the land and our ancestors, honoring their stories and histories woven within our lives, and finding ways to heal our stories through our bodies.
Samangut Sulmundae: The future of the disappeared
(17:00, dir. Bulwhigong, Jinoh Han, Dohee Lee, Yongye Yu)
Through the visual art of ritual performance, this film exposes the deadly destruction of the land and many sacred sites by senseless industrial development in the Jeju Islands, South Korea, and shows how to heal the earth through arts and shamanic rituals.
(Lo)Về Quê(er): Queer and Trans Việts on the Road Returning to Việt Nam
(7:40, dir. QTViệt Cafe Collective and Sunkissed Productions)
This film shares the story of the Queer & Trans Việt (QTViệt) Cafe Collective, a project of Asian Refugees United (ARU), which is a creative cultural hub dedicated to Queer and Trans Việt (QTViệt) liberation through ancestral practices, the arts, and intergenerational connection. Since 2016, the Collective has supported and organized events supporting Queer and Trans Việt art, healing, and culture in the San Francisco Bay Area.
CRE Spring 2023: Body as Land, Seed as Birth
The CRE (Connect/Reflect/Enact) program integrates body knowledge and art creation to hold space for deep reflection on wounds both suffered and inflicted through systemic oppression existing in Asian diasporas here in the US and the homeland.
This program created an individual and collective community healing ritual process together, reconnecting and relearning our ancestral land and cultures and learning how to be a good guest on the land that we are living on. Facilitators included Dohee Lee (artistic director, cultural practitioner, performer, ritualist), Corrina Gould (Huichin, Ohlone land Indigenous leader), and Sol Rhee (5 nature elements & food facilitator).
Flyer designed by Jharna Subba.
Flyer photo description: A group of about 10 Asian diasporic folks, dressed mostly in white, gather in a circle and throw white prayer flags in the air.
I Hear a Butterfly
November 12, 2022 | Berkeley, California
A film festival that featured young refugee/immigrant filmmakers in Berkeley, California.
칠성 새남굿- Chilseong SaenamGut: Ritual for Sickness
November 18-20th, 2022 | Eastside Arts Cultural Center, Oakland, California
A ritual performance by Puri Arts, CoRazOn+ARU CRE Cohorts and Ieumsae MU Ritual drummers November 18th-20th, 2022.