How many of you guys know that SMU even has a Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) in the first place? Or, an Asian Council (AC)? Asian American Leadership & Educational Conference (AALEC)? East Asian Student Association? (EASA) Indian Student Association? Persian Student Society (PSS)? Bueller? Bueller?

Some of you guys might recognize me from the weekly boba tea sales on the West Bridge of Hughes Trigg. Yeah, I’m the person screaming at you to “try something new because you’re at college.” Some of you guys might also think that I, or my organization sells egg rolls and flan as well, and that’s okay.

While EASA is actually the Asian organization that sells those delicious snack items, I’m just glad you knew that an Asian(s) organization existed in the first place.

There’s been a lot of talk about on-campus diversity and minority representation or lack thereof the last couple of weeks in our student media outlets and even in the recent Student Senate race. I’m not going to touch on the subject exactly, but let me say this as a leader in the Asian organization population:

Despite the small percentages of Asians and Asian Americans on-campus, Asian organizations still exist at SMU. We work our tails off to put on outstanding programs to not only showcase our respective Asian cultures, but also to share our cultures with you and the rest of the SMU community.

We love to have non-Asians and non-Asian Americans come out to our events. One of the reasons most of our culturally-centric organizations exist is to enlighten the entire SMU community about our cultures. When the SMU community doesn’t come out to our programs or to our general meetings or doesn’t know that our organizations even exist, then in a way, we’ve failed.

But maybe the problem has been, as most problems usually stem from, a lack of communication. Maybe we haven’t been clear that our programs are open to everyone, regardless of ethnic or national origin, religion, gender, race, color, disability, or creed.

I’m here to tell you that Asian and Asian American organizations’ events and our organizations themselves are open to everyone. To prove it, I formally invite the entire SMU community to come out to any of our CelebrAsian events.

For the second year in a row, the above-named Asian organizations are celebrating in April, Asian Awareness Month, which we’ve wittily titled CelebrAsian.

There are multiple events going on each week in April. You’ve just missed a few kick off events this week, but don’t fret! Future events are:

April 7: AC’s Senses of Asia, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. in the Hughes Trigg commons

April 8: EASA’s Night Market, 6 – 11 p.m. at the flagpole area

April 14: PSS’s Tea and Pastries

April 16: VSA’s Growing Up Asian American panel, 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. in the Hughes Trigg commons

April 16: ISA’s Candlelight Vigil, 9 p.m. on the Dallas Hall lawn

April 23: AC’s Charity Fashion Show, 7 – 10 p.m. in the Hughes Trigg ballrooms

So, yeah, I’m still that person who’s yelling at you “to try something new because you’re at college.”

CelebrAsian and all the other minority events on-campus that happen almost every week are one of the great aspects of college. This will probably be the only time in your life when you can roll out of your bed, walk a few meters, and experience a different culture, mostly for free (perhaps with free Asian food!). I sincerely hope you take advantage of it.

Christy Vutam is a senior journalism major and president of SMU’s Vietnamese Student Association. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].