On Wednesday, May 3, Holy Cross celebrated Asian American Heritage Month with a special assembly coordinated by the Asian American Student Association.
The assembly began with guest speaker, Dr. Elia Femia, who is the Scientific Review Officer for the National Institute of Health Center for Scientific Review. Dr. Femia leads review meetings that conduct peer review of applications in Small Business Innovative Research. Her work has been published in well-known research journals and presented at national and international conferences. She is an entrepreneur and former adjunct assistant professor at Penn State. In her talk, Dr. Femia spoke about her journey as an Asian American.
The program included an educational slide show and presentation about popular tourist destinations in Asia, and a lighthearted video, created by the girls, about different types of Asian food. Then three musical numbers were performed: a dance performed by Sirigorn Valairuch ’18, Haley Kraus ’19, Mackenzie Blount-Rich ’20, Belane Ayelework ’19, and Janet Martins ’19 to a Korean pop or “K pop” piece; a lively solo dance performed by Ivy Peng ’19 to a second popular Korean song; and a Chinese folk song sung and played on guitar by Hugh Zhang ’17.
May was designated as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month by Congress in 1992 as a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese people to the United States in May 1843 and the completion of the transcontinental railroad in May 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.
