Last week, from March 19-26, Tulane’s Asian-American Student Union hosted CelebrAsian Week.

“CelebrAsian week is a week where we celebrate what it means to be an Asian American on Tulane’s campus and in America,” AASU secretary Tanvi Telukunta said. “We just try to do events everyday and foster the AASU community, highlight specific cultures, talk about identity. It really is just about celebrating and giving us a space and a time to celebrate Asian culture because that gets overlooked a lot in our lives and in America.”

The week started out with a DIY tote bag event, followed by a Zoom call with Steven Lim, the creator and host of BuzzFeed’s show “Worth It.” The event consisted of an identity discussion followed by a meet and greet, where students got to ask him any questions, topics varying from his journey to what makes him proud to be Asian American.

“He basically talked about his journey and how he and why he thinks it is important to have Asian American representation in media and pop culture, and like the struggles he has faced being an Asian American in media and the difficulties of being asked to represent your entire race,” Telukunta said. 

The other events included Wednesdays with the O: Spicy Ramen Homage, a Zoom call with Phil Wang and Jenn Le from Wong Fu Productions, and a co-programming event with Tulane’s Black Student Union. 

“Normally, we do co-programming events with the Asian organizations on campus, but this time we had a co-programming event with tBSU which was really fun,” Telukunta said. “We had food from Black and Asian-owned restaurants around campus, and we had people send in TikTok dances, and we all watched them and voted on our favorite dances.”

Telukunta highlighted how this week was extra important due to the recent attacks on the Asian American community in the U.S. 

“Because we had identity discussions, the recent attacks on the Asian American community were a big part of what we talked about and what Steven Lim talked about,” Telukunta said. “Obviously, it was a really rough time for everyone, and it just highlighted the fact that violence against Asian Americans is not talked about, it’s overlooked, it’s very much minimized in American media, and this emphasized the importance of having people like Steven Lim and Wong Fu productions, who are there to put the Asian American voice out there. It was just nice to be in so many groups and have so many events with people that understand exactly where we are coming from and the struggles we face and have a space to talk about all of that with people who completely understand.”