New student organization represents AAPI community

By GLORIA MIRELES-BARRERA Staff Writer

Last week, BW’s Center of Inclusion announced the new cultural organization on campus, Asian Student Alliance. The rise of antiAsian sentiment during the Covid-19 pandemic inspired ASA’s president, Elanna Su, a history major student, to create a safe place where Asian students feel comfortable and represented. In addition, ASA aims to teach the student body about the different cultures among the Asian community.

“When I got to BW, there’s a defined space for cultural organizations and there isn’t an Asian student [group],” Su said.

Su is a first-year student from Pennsylvania. She graduated from her high school as the only Asian student in a heavily populated white class.

“I’ve never had, like, horrific instances of discrimination, but coming from a community where there’s a distinct lack of Asian-American or Asian presence made me want to search for that sense of belonging,” Su said.

ASA executive members applied to become an organization in October 2022. It took them several months to be officially approved.

“The rest of the time was spent refining the charter, getting plans being approved, that kind of thing, we were approved almost two weeks ago,” Su said.

Su said organizations on campus, such as SALSA, Rotaract and Active Minds helped ASA with everything related to applying to be an organization, such as planning events, reserve places on campus and gain awareness via word of mouth or social media.

“The presidents of those organizations were pointing me in the right direction, telling me who to talk to. I liked it, it was great,” Su said.

ASA attended this Spring 2023 Involvement Fair and scheduled their first general meeting on Thursday Feb. 23 residents understand the resources that are available to them,” Santana said. “And you have to be very diverse in the way you communicate things. Not everyone has Facebook. Not everyone has Instagram. There’s just different ways to communicate with communities.”

McGrath said that the ARPA funds are a once-in-a-generation opportunity that people need to know about.

“That is the biggest thing, is just how do you make sure people know this opportunity exists?” McGrath said. “It felt like no better place than to use these one-time dollars to make sure that people knew about these opportunities.”

Santana said that if there had been something such as College Now Greater Cleveland available to her in the past, she herself would have benefitted.

“I was a mom and I had to drop out of school. So if I had some program, a one-stop shop that, at that time, not now, was gonna help me get back to school, going to help me pay back any debt when I was low income, definitely I would have gone back,” Santana said. “They’re making it easier for people to access the system.”

Cleveland City Council takes this step while Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is paused until 60 days after litigation over the matter is finished. McGrath said that when Biden’s plan was seen to be in motion, College Now was moving along with it. “There were several weeks where there was nothing but calls,” McGrath said. “And the adult learner team was just handling those and trying to sign folks up for that.”