Inside the walls of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS), the energy was palpable on Friday as the school’s Pan-Asian Club kicked off its annual Asian-American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month assembly. The event, open to the entire school, filled the Fitzgerald Theater with students, faculty and community members for two 75-minute sessions.
“It’s wonderful to see so many students showcase the range of talents across Asia and be celebrated for it! It serves as a reminder of how far we’ve come as a society,” said Ellen Lee, Sheltered English Immersion Math Teacher at CRLS. She added that “By taking traditional roots and mixing them with modern music and dance, the performers showed that culture isn’t just something we inherit.”
The event was a powerful showcase of cultural pride (disclosure: I was one of the student organizers). It was also a great reminder of how much talent lives within our very own Cambridge community.
Both 75-minute sessions featured the same program: seven performances, a cultural Jeopardy game and five speeches, including one from Cambridge City Councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler. From the rhythmic precision of K-pop choreography to moving student speeches, the stage stayed busy. The audience got a front-row seat to how the younger generation is blending deeply rooted traditions with our daily life in Cambridge. “Our lives have been shaped by rich ingredients of thousands of years of culture and heritage, yet our parents and grandparents immigrated here to add something new to the recipe,” said Min Jae Kuo, who gave one of the speeches.
An inspirational speaker
Cambridge City Councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, a major inspiration to many students of Asian descent in the audience, took the stage to share his experience growing up as a mixed-race Wasian (Asian and White) student, at a time when “Wasian” was not a widely used term.
He spoke about navigating questions of belonging, visibility, and self-definition, especially within the context of immigrant communities and cultural identity, saying “There is no typical Asian American experience.”
William Wei, a senior at CRLS, said he was struck that Sobrinho-Wheeler’s reflections “were so sincere and personal.”
Sobrinho-Wheeler also reflected on his involvement in civic life as a public servant, and on his community work, which is focused on immigrant advocacy and civic engagement, where he uses his experiences to support and uplift diverse communities.
“I liked Jivan’s message about how so much of identity is what is projected onto you, so you really have to know who you are,” said Joel Patterson, a math teacher at CRLS.
Capturing the Essence
This was definitely not just another assembly at school. It felt like a deliberate claim of space. In a school where roughly 13.2% of the student body identifies as Asian, the event carried particular significance in centering those voices and experiences. CRLS Pan-Asian Club leadership (seniors Isaiah Sippel and Radhapriya Thakur, junior Jackson Lam and sophomores Claire Zou and Zachary Cash ’28), guided by faculty advisors Helen Shin (Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) Math Teacher) and Jenny Chung (History Instructional Coach) spent weeks coordinating the event.
Lam said the goal was clear: “I aimed to honor my roots without making it feel like a history textbook come to life.”
One of the highlights of the sessions was the duet by Acadia and Min Jae Kuo. The crowd reacted with soft “awww” moments throughout the performance, clearly moved by their last performance together on stage. The auditorium filled with warm applause, and you could feel the energy and appreciation even from the back row.
This time, the focus on the assembly wasn’t on explaining traditions to an outside audience. It was just about sharing authentic joy with one another.
“We truly enjoyed the performances and students’ testimonials about their personal cultural experiences-they were so powerful,” said Anna Considine, instructional aide to CRLS’s English Language Learners.
Lily Rayman-Read, a history teacher at the school, said “This was one of the best assemblies in CRLS history.”
Local Roots, Broader Connections
The assemblies serve as preludes to the culminating event of AAPI Heritage Month, the Cambridge and Somerville Asian Festival, which starts May 30 at 12:30 at the Somerville Growing Center and on May 31 will continue at 2 p.m. May 31 at the King Open School and Cambridge Street Upper School cafeteria. The festival represents a broader bridge between student life and the local neighborhood.
Organizers are expecting a massive turnout, building on substantial previous attendance. The Somerville festival will include a Union Square Asian Market Walking Tour for all ages, a market scavenger hunt and dyeing and decorating grocery tote bags with Asian kitchen spices, sample teas and Asian snacks.
The Cambridge festival will feature mehndi (traditional South Asian henna body art), diwa painting (decorating small oil lamps used in South Asian celebrations), a community mural and coloring station, writing your name in Japanese, Mahjong, a mobile story time, food and snacks, karaoke, badminton, a showing of the movie “K-pop Demon Hunter” and student civic projects. Expect the same high-energy atmosphere from the high school auditorium moving out into our entire community.
For Cambridge, events like these are crucial. They prove that heritage is not just something you read about in a history book. It is actively lived, remixed, and celebrated in real-time.
Looking Ahead
With the assembly concluded, organizers hope the conversations it sparked about identity and representation at CRLS will continue beyond AAPI Heritage Month. The upcoming Cambridge Asian Festival offers another opportunity for the community to celebrate Asian American culture and visibility.
With another successful assembly in the books and a festival on the horizon, the Cambridge Pan-Asian community has set a vibrant tone for the next upcoming weekend ahead. It is rooted in history, but completely defined by the youth of today.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.