By Madelyn Stone, News Staff

Students from Northeastern and other local schools took the afterHOURS stage last Saturday to support the Pan Asian American Council (PAAC), a group that oversees activities in a number of other Asian organizations on campus.

With singing, spoken word and instrumental performances, along with a goal of benefiting the non-profit Youth Empowerment Project (YEP), the showcase attracted a few dozen audience members despite the recent snowfall. Though PAAC hosts cultural activities throughout the year, this was its first fundraiser event.

“The whole point of PAAC is basically to raise Asian American awareness and help support that, and also to build student leaders,” said PAAC co-chair, Richie Huynh, a senior biology major.

The council is made up of representatives from Asian American organizations, including groups like the Vietnamese Student Association and the Delta Phi Omega sorority.

“The Pan Asian American Council is actually an umbrella organization,” said junior pharmacy major Erickson Maala, PAAC’s co-chair. “We encompass several of the Asian American student groups on campus and we have biweekly meetings. We have workshops and we throw many different events. This is actually our first fundraising event but we also do culture shows.”

YEP is a program that helps educate Asian American teens about violence prevention, community engagement and peer leadership. Huynh and Maala encouraged audience members to donate $5 to support the project.

Amy Trankiem, a Boston Latin School junior, was part of YEP’s summer project. She performed a spoken word piece at the show about stereotyped views of Asian American girls and helped explain the purpose of the fundraiser.

“First we go through a training where we learn about social injustice and then after we’re done with it we put those words into action,” Trankiem said. “We do a lot of things, like tablings, and we also do the jean patch day, and this is against sexual violence.”

A self-taught hip-hop and R&B violinist, middler business major Justin Chiou was the first of five acts to take the stage at the showcase. Chiou performed accompaniment to Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow” and “Officially Missing You” by Tamia.

Representing the Korean American Student Organization, vocalist Hannah Kim and guitarist Wil Hsie performed acoustic versions of “I Want More” from “The Little Mermaid” and “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz.

Spoken word organization FreeVerse also helped support the event, with its Director of Artistic Expression Anthony Febo performing two original pieces.
“We teach spoken word to teens and work with them to use their hardships for creativity,” Febo said.

Minh “Doppoganga” Nguyen, a sophomore music production major at Bunker Hill Community College, performed three original rap pieces for the showcase. Inspired by anime characters and modern urban life, the self-described “positive, laidback” Nguyen started rapping at 16.

“I’m a little sleepy but a little hyped up at the same time,” he said. “This is my first time performing here. So it’s kind of cool to meet some new people and have a new audience.”

Quang Le-Huynh, a sophomore pre-med student at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, performed with Northeastern sophomore international business major Olivia Nguyen for the final set. The acoustic performance included songs by Sara Bareilles and Bruno Mars.

“I’m always excited to perform,” Nguyen said. “I’m in the Vietnamese Student Association here and I know a girl who is involved with the Pan Asian American Council. We’ve done shows together for the annual Vietnamese Student Association culture show and she knew that we collaborated, so she asked me to perform for this because it’s their start-up benefit concert.”

When the show ended, sophomore pharmacy major Ivana Sitoy left with a smile.
“The show went really well,” she said. “There were a lot of good performers and a lot of good talent.”

Like Tammy Yang, a sophomore journalism major, many of the attendees “just came to support” PAAC. Part of PAAC’s reason for hosting the showcase was to gain this support.

“We’re really trying to get our name out there because not many people really know about the Pan Asian American Council,” Maala said. “Most of them just know us as the organization that puts together Celebr(ASIAN).”

PAAC was open to support for this annual Asian American culture show as well.
“Celebr(ASIAN) will be on March 17,” Huynh said. “That’s the really big event for us.”