Three hundred students, faculty, alumni and community members attended the first annual Pan-Asian Lunar New Year celebration festival — jointly sponsored by the Asian American Cultural Center and the department of Asian languages and cultures — Sunday night in the Douglass College Center.
"We hoped that through this event, we could promote inter-cultural understanding for people outside the Asian community, so that people could share in the joy of the lunar New Year, which to many Asians is the time of renewal and hope," To-Thi Bosacchi, director of the Asian American Cultural Center, said.
Bosacchi said the event aimed to document and showcase Asian and Asian-American culture and their contributions to society.
She said she was pleased that through the collaboration of different student groups and faculty, they were able to hold a successful celebration, including traditional food, costumes and music.
According to a prepared statement, the Census 2000 reported that the Asian-American population in New Jersey has increased 71 percent in the last decade.
Because customarily people assemble according to language and heritage, there are "limited opportunities for them to explore and showcase their respective rich cultural heritage, and … to work together across cultural barriers," according to the statement. Sunday night was an opportunity for such barriers to be broken.
The Rutgers Korean Cultural Association opened the celebration by playing traditional music with drums.
In addition, the evening featured an exhibition of Filipino martial arts by the Kuntaw Kali Kruzada and a traditional dance by the Rutgers Association of Philippine Students.
Members of the Chinese Student Organization's Dance Troupe performed a Ribbon Dance.
The highlight of the evening was a traditional Lion Dance by the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company. The celebration concluded with a guest performance by Stir-Friday Night, a Chicago-based young Asian-American comedy troupe. Various Asian-American student organizations displayed booths detailing their groups' culture through the use of food, music, videos and posters.
Kim Oanh, a School of Engineering junior and president of the Vietnamese Student Association, said that her group attended the event because it was important to let the community know "what [their] lives looked like."
"This is a unity with our Asian brothers and sisters. We share a common tradition and heritage, and we're here to help celebrate the New Year with the different Asian groups in Rutgers," said Rinku Patel, a Rutgers College senior and president of the Hindu Students Council.
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