A Second Home: Asian Arts Initiative

“ …I started AAI when I was in 4th grade with my friend Nichole Su because she came up to me …and how she didn’t wanna go alone…I’ve been attending since I was like 10, now 17, turning 18–...AAI has been a part of my life” – Jennifer Lor, senior at YLI

“I’ve been coming since I was in 4th grade …so I was like 8 years old??” –Nichole Su senior at YLI

“I started the summer of my 7th grade, so I was like 13 years old” –Andrew Yang senior at YLI

“ …came here during the freshman year when I was like 15 years old” –Joycelline Tantoro senior at YLI

“I started coming here during the 1st year of my high school, so it’s been like almost 4 years” –Syeda Akther senior at YLI

“ …started coming to AAI freshman year during the summer” –Monica Sok junior at YLI

Within the Youth Leadership Initiative at Asian Arts Initiative, each of the students who are a part of it all have a unique story with it–each of us all starting from different timelines, reasonings, and ways of joining the program. Despite this difference, we all have one thing in common; how the Asian Arts Initiative has grown to be an essential part of our life and how it has played a key role in shaping the people we became and will continue to become – making it an integrated part of our lives as students and beyond. AAI has grown to be more than just an after-school volunteering program for us: it has become a growing community that creates this comfort, where everyone is so supportive, that provides us students with encouragement and space to be seen and heard, with teachers that make you feel like they’re always there for you, interested, and always willing to help you. The teachers and community of AAI has created a space that's very inviting for us students where we feel comfortable with expressing ourselves and makes it very easy to just be ourselves.

Asian Arts Initiative, Teacher Mehgan, Teacher Nila, Teacher Kong, Teacher Hanzi, Teacher Dani, the students, and everyone who has been a part of this community have played an important role in creating this community. The teachers have created a place where we as students feel supported and feel truly mattered. Through the role they played of being mentors and a sanctuary extending beyond the role of just being “teachers,” they’ve been people we feel like we can count on. The teachers have created this foundation at AAI us to feel truly heard. It’s a place where it's okay to cry. It's a place where we can talk about anything and feel validated; from any matters regarding school to just about anything. It's a place where we feel emphasis put on our perspective and how we feel towards things. It's become a place for us students– becoming a part of our life, our identity, and who we are as students. It's a place where we’ve grown from “ …the food I’ve eaten a lot here…metaphoracally and literally” to how it has taught us to express ourselves–putting importance to our voices being heard and being open. Monica Sok says, how it's like “coming here everyday…enjoying moments with everyone here . . . it’s like coming home to my brothers and sisters…” For many students, it’s a place of comfortable, memorable moments, with each of us sharing moments of happiness and joy, where we crack jokes and tease each other, and laugh together. Asian Arts Initiatives, the community, and the teachers have grown to be our second home despite our different backgrounds and will continue to be a place of our belonging.

Sincerely,

Syeda Akther, High School Senior attending AAI and the YLI Program

This writing piece is an intertwined reflection of the different students who are a part of the Youth Leadership Initiative program at Asian Arts Initiative. It’s based on our shared experiences of how AAI has grown and integrated into our life as students.