The month of May is AAPI Heritage Month, and DePaul Prep got the chance to embrace it through a school-wide assembly, the first AAPI Month assembly in school history. Through forms of music, dance, and poetry performance, the AAPI Club, Chinese Honors Society, and many allies participated in the assembly on May 2.

The assembly lineup consisted of many songs, instrumental performances, and even a dragon dance at the end. Chris Corbett, a Mandarin teacher and a moderator for both the AAPI club and the National Chinese Honors Society, said that “The AAPI Club is about giving students a voice and you can imagine the assembly as a stage for them. This would hopefully lead to more understanding and respect for our Asian-American students.” The assembly’s purpose is to give the AAPI students a voice in our community and to help bring their voices to action.

Over the years, the AAPI Club has grown immensely and continues to grow.

“When we started, there were around five students in 2020 and now we have 104 students,” Corbett said.

The club means a lot for not only AAPI students, but for the school as a whole as well.

Sophomore Samantha Rodriguez feels that the club is very important because it gives herself a voice and a feeling of community.

“Just in general, having that confidence to talk to each other about our different stories and backgrounds, it really creates a sense of community to embrace each other’s differences which is especially important for our club,” she said.

Kobe Nguyen, a now graduated senior, said that “During this month of May, we are able to celebrate within our own school community about our own identities and cultural backgrounds and to share the pride that we have from those backgrounds.” This assembly, and other activities such as morning announcements related to AAPI heritage, helped to share this pride.

As for the future of the AAPI Club, Corbett and all of the student members hope for more growth.

Evelyn Engblade, a now graduated senior, says that “The AAPI community exists within DePaul and although our numbers aren’t large we are a community that is present nonetheless and should be acknowledged as such. Everyone has a desire to belong within a community and have acknowledgement and we should continue— across all groups— to celebrate the diverse communities we have here at DePaul College Prep.”