Starting with Delicious 'Wraps' and Ending with Exploding Color, Students Celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander Cultures

Each April, the College honors Asian cultures and history with a monthlong program of talks, festivities, meals, and other events. Though typically observed in May, Bowdoin shifts the celebration a month earlier to avoid conflicting with the end-of-year tumult of exams and academic events.

This year, Bowdoin's Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month included an Eid Al-Fitr dinner (which President Safa Zaki joined), a night of stand-up comedy with Sri Lankan-born comedian Sureni Weeraskekera, a Pan-Asian fashion show, and a Holi festival, to name just a few festivities.

The kickoff event in late March highlighted a food item that shows up in various forms around the world and is beloved by just about everybody-dumplings, or some kind of filling wrapped in dough that is usually fried or baked.

Students from different affinity groups volunteered to prepare their culture's version of the popular staple and got together on March 30 to share the results in a meal they informally referred to as "wrap night." The final buffet offered shumai, crab Rangoon, samosas, gyoza, lumpia, and others. "That brought people of different cultures together," Pazos commented.

Student planners also resurrected a tradition that was put on hiatus during the pandemic-the Pan-Asian Fashion Show. Student Activities set up a catwalk in Smith Union for the April 20 event.