Celebrating APIDA Heritage Month at NLU
Dear NLU Community,
This month NLU recognizes Asian Pacific-Islander and Desi American (APIDA) Heritage Month for the first time. Following a year that saw a significant spike in violence and hate crimes against members of the APIDA community, we state our resolve to cultivate a learning environment that allows all people to feel safe and seen, while highlighting the many contributions of APIDA individuals to American culture.
Chef, and Kendall College alumna, Beverly Kim was recently featured in an ABC-7 story about her efforts to shine a spotlight on the stubborn problem of anti-Asian racism. When the COVID-19 pandemic set in a year ago, Kim was struggling with the news of rising hate crimes against Asian-Americans. As the story details:
“Desperately wanting to do something to help, Kim finds inspiration again in her kitchen. The award-winning chef decided to answer the call to action with the hashtag #DoughSomething. What started as a social media campaign to raise awareness and funds for Asian Americans Advancing Justice has now turned into a national movement with nearly 100 restaurants joining the campaign.
"It's about solidarity across the board and the country, solidarity that we need to reckon with," Kim said. "This anti-Asian hate, we have to name it, we have to have time and space to grieve. For the first time, I see this really deep connection to it in our whole community, finally allowing ourselves the space to grieve and be mad and demand change, not just ask, but demand. This is not the way we should live."
Chef Kim’s activism on this issue represents the best of what we can be. We encourage you to read the full story here.
Nationally recognized among the top 25 most diverse national universities, we will work to ensure that everyone in our community is welcomed, valued, respected, and supported to fully realize their potential. By doing so, we will secure for NLU and its graduates the benefits of diverse views, talents and creativity.
To achieve this, we will be increasing students’ sense of belonging and engagement on campus by enhancing the physical campus space and student activities, including increasing the representation of students’ cultural heritage on campus and events to promote equity focused dialogue between faculty, staff, and students.
On that note, please consider attending our last upcoming event to celebrate APIDA Heritage Month, coming up next week.
APIDA Activism ft. Carissa Begonia and Shengxiao (Sole) from AARISE
May 24th @ 4:30 PM
- We invite guest speaker Carissa and Shengxiao from AARISE to speak on APIDA activism throughout history and give concrete ways that we can become better allies.
- Zoom Link:https://nl.presence.io/event/apida-activism-guest-speakers-shengxiao-and-carissa-begonia-from-aarise
Questions?
To get more information about each event, please visit nl.presence.io
If you have any questions, please contact Megan Lee, mlee57@nl.edu
