The Donahue Gym filled with the sounds of music and dancing during the performances at the Friday, April 24, 2026, Asian Pacific Islander (API) Heritage month assembly. The event was hosted by co-presidents of the API Club, Layla Cao and Katherine Howarth, during fifth and sixth periods.<\/p>\n
Academic Choice (AC) English and former API Literature teacher Matthew Laurel, who identifies as Filipino, kicked off the assembly by sharing a story about when an administrator mistakenly assumed his ethnic identity as Latino during a job interview. Laurel revealed that he didn\u2019t correct her, and instead played along for fear of making things awkward and not getting the job. He ended his speech by giving a message to API teens, saying that they should not be afraid to take up space and correct people, or feel like their identity makes them invisible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI hadn\u2019t really thought about that interview for almost 10 years until I taught the API Lit class, and I was reminded that it\u2019s important to tell people who you are and where you come from,\u201d Laurel said, \u201cI always share myself, whatever English class I teach, but especially in a class where my identity and my history and my experiences are wrapped up in the curriculum itself. That matters more.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Laurel\u2019s speech, Cal Vietnamese Association\u2019s Lion Dance team began their performance. The Lion Dance is a traditional Chinese dance used to welcome\u00a0 the new year and bring good luck, it is also a big part of Vietnamese culture. The University of California, Berkeley students made their own music with drums and cymbals. The group had two double-person lion costumes, one red and one yellow. The lions proved to be playful and crowd-pleasing, and spent a portion of their performance going into the crowd. The group was met with loud cheers and thunderous applause from the audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rest of the assembly consisted of four other dance performances from various other API cultures. The first was from a retired BHS teaching specialist, Angela Bau. She performed a Tahitian dance called Taure\u2019are\u2019a, which means young people. After Bau, BHS students Simran Gurung and Yangky Sherpa performed a traditional Nepali dance donning Gurung dresses. According to the introduction by the API presidents, these dresses contain characteristics of people from different terrains and climates throughout the Himalayas, depicting a history of migration.<\/p>\n
Continuing the celebration, Navi Je Love, Lyric Hill, and Pheona Bun Vongphachanh performed \u201cJun Por Chhnam Thmey,\u201d which is a traditional Cambodian blessing dance meant to bring in the new year. The group wore similar dresses, distinguished by separate vibrant colors. The assembly ended with the Likha-Pilipino Folk Ensemble performing Tinikling, which is the national dance of the Philippines. The dance consists of at least two people who tap, slide, and knock bamboo poles against each other while dancers step over and around the poles in a coordinated dance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The API Heritage Month assembly showcased the rich and diverse Asian culture that BHS holds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While many love and appreciate these assemblies, they remain optional, with teachers having to take time out of their class periods to bring their classes. Adrian Altawil, a freshman physics teacher, chose to take his class to the assembly. Altawil had former students perform in the assembly and decided to go support them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just really cool seeing my students do things that wasn\u2019t for a grade (and) wasn\u2019t for any of their classes. It\u2019s just something they\u2019re passionate about, and just being able to go and support them and bring my class along with me. That was one of the main reasons why I wanted to go,\u201d Altawil said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Karl Kaku, a BHS English teacher, also brought his class to the assembly. \u201cWe pride ourselves on ethnic studies and diversity and seeing others and celebrating others and getting to know about each other. And so it\u2019s important to go to these events to walk the walk we say we\u2019re going to, and celebrate and honor the diversity on our campus,\u201d Kaku said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Donahue Gym filled with the sounds of music and dancing during the performances at the Friday, April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-308859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}