In a diverse and ever-changing world, recognizing and celebrating different cultures respectfully and properly encourages culture positivity, understanding, and pride. Fortunately, Asian Cultural Recognition (ACR) does just that. For many students, ACR isn’t only a club, but a safe place to learn more about one’s own culture or learn more about others. Through engaging events, discussions, and many collaborations, the club has earned many students of all cultural backgrounds.

Inspired by Chino Hills High School’s ACR club, president Ashlynn Luk (11), vice president Horan (9), UCC representative Jacob Kim (12), historian Dylan Chang (10), event chair Charles Kam (10), and publicity managers Madelynn Tsai (9) and Kate Lee (9) came together to create Ayala’s version of it.

“ACR benefits because it creates an environment for Asian students to unite,” Tsai said. “This club is a way for all of us to experience each other’s cultures.”

One of the primary goals of ACR is to educate students about the vast variety of cultures throughout Asia, teaching about the uniqueness of Asian traditions. In today’s day and age, cultures around the world can often be generalized and misinterpreted, leading to misconceptions or stereotypes. However through interactive meetings, fun collaborations, and cultural events, the club provides members with bonding coalesced with entertaining activities to not only amuse, but to inform.

“Being in ACR helps me get to know the people around me and what their ethnicity is,” Chi Vu (9) said. “I could consider ACR like my family and a community because of the similarities we share.”

Meeting on the first Wednesday of every month in biology and anatomy teacher Mr. Lynus Vuong’s room at S204, members of the club walk in to see familiar and smiling faces, excited to learn about Asian culture. The club has covered a variety of Asian countries, such as Korea, Japan, and the Philippines–each country having their own unique celebration in a meeting.

The average meeting goes as follows: club members walk in to see free cultural snacks and goodies just for them with officers greeting them at the door. The screen shines with bright colors representing the country of the month. As the members pile in, the officers line up in front of the screen and start the meeting with a fun fact or an icebreaker for the club. As the meeting progresses, attendees will bond together with planned activities such as crafts or games.

“We don’t recognize just one culture, [but] we [represent] multiple,” Tsai said.

Taking a meeting where they used the Philippines as an example, the officers decided to do something special for the Christmas season. In their November meeting, the team brought paper and wooden skewers to create traditional Filipino star-shaped lanterns called “parols.” With each member making their own unique parol, they did not go unused after the meeting.

“We took the parols and used it to beautify the school by trying to hang them up around classrooms or campus,” Horan said. “It was a service hour event, and the club had tons of fun.”

Each meeting is full of fun activities for the attendees to enjoy, and no meeting was too similar to another, so attendees would expect nothing less from fun. One of their biggest meetings included their February meeting, which celebrated Korea during Valentine’s Day.

“During that time, we traced Korean letters on the cards,” Vu said. “I got to learn many traditions and aspects of Korean culture.”

With those cards, the officers sent them out to Korean families that were affected by the Los Angeles fires earlier this year to brighten their days. Their plan was a success, with many club members coming together to create as many cards as they could, to the best of their ability.

With the end of the school year nearing, the club has had a successful run for their very first year. However, the officers still have plans and ideas for future events for years to come. The club has already made its impact on campus and the community, with decorations around the school made in the club and heartfelt letters and gifts from the club’s very own club members and volunteers–but what’s next?

“We plan to expand our club in terms of more service hour events through collaborations with other clubs and organizations,” Horan said. “We want to try to have a bigger impact than what we did this year.”