Throughout Seattle Pacific University, students are given many different opportunities to come together and be a part of larger communities. Among the groups and clubs that are offered across campus, there are many that bring students together through celebrating culture and heritage, among those is SPU’s Vietnamese Students Association.
Second-year nursing student and event coordinator of VSA, Aileena Ngo, explained that VSA is just as much about bringing Vietnamese students together as it is educating anyone willing to explore Vietnamese culture
“I would describe VSA as being all about celebrating Vietnamese culture as well as Vietnamese information,” Ngo said. “A big part of the club is definitely connecting other Vietnamese students here with each other, but it’s open to everybody. You definitely don’t have to be Vietnamese to come over and join.”
When it comes to the activities and events that go on during a VSA meeting, there are countless different possibilities as to what might happen when things get started. As Ngo explained, VSA provides many different opportunities students can enjoy when it comes to ways to appreciate Vietnamese culture.
“We try and make all of the meetings mainly about culture, and there are a lot of different ways we do that,” Ngo said. “There are some meetings where we introduce students to certain foods or maybe teach them a type of dance or something. We try to set up events like that for a lot of the meetings that we do to help spread the culture.”
Another big part of VSA is collaboration with other groups around campus that also celebrate different cultures from around the world. As fourth-year physical science student and VSA President Tiffany Phan explained, collaborating with clubs throughout campus to work on events has been a big focus for the year.
“We’ve been working a lot with other groups this year so we can work together on events and other things for later this year,” Phan said. “We also plan on working a lot with [the Pacific Islanders Club of Cultural Arts] as well for API (Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month) month in May so we can plan something together. We definitely want to explore how we can collaborate and work together for some events in the school year.”
As for events planned later in the school year, VSA plans to collaborate not only with clubs across SPU, but also with other colleges. Second-year international marketing student and VSA food chair Henry Nguyen described some of the larger-scale projects that VSA has in the works.
“One of the largest events we have coming up is the Turkey Bowl,” Nguyen said. “It’s a large event where students from schools like Washington State and the University of Washington come together and play ultimate frisbee. That’s one of the bigger events that we’re gonna be a part of.”
Alongside statewide college get-togethers, Nguyen also spoke about VSA’s involvement with longstanding events at SPU, including the annual Hello-Fest which they plan to be a part of once again this year.
“We’re looking forward to the Hello-Fest, where cultural clubs at SPU get together and help spread the culture,” Nguyen said. “I think that’s the biggest goal we have with the events and activities we do as a club, mainly to help spread the culture and bring a lot of students together by doing that, so that’s what I hope we’ll be doing there too.”
VSA is dedicated to helping students find a community through Vietnamese culture and heritage one club meeting or event at a time. This year, members and leaders are hoping to collaborate with other groups across SPU to spread the celebration to as many people as possible. As Phan stated, a big desire for this year is to work together and make VSA’s events as big and successful as they’ve ever been.
“One of our biggest goals is to make our Lunar New Year event much larger this year,” Phan said. “We’ve been working together a lot with tons of different students and we want to keep working with other groups and make our events really great and successful for everybody this year.”
VSA meets on Mondays at 6 p.m. in the Emerson Hall lobby.To keep up to date with VSA’s meetings and events, follow @vsa.spu on Instagram.
