The Asian Festival fosters community and celebration
The Asian Festival brought the Lunar New Year to Mesa Community College for its fifth and largest year of celebrating the diverse cultures and traditions of Asia as the organizers now set their sights on expanding beyond just the two days of festivities.
Each year the festival features dances, music, traditional performances and vendors from a wide range of cultures such as Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam all coming together to showcase their different traditions. The event organizers expressed that the festival is just as much a celebration of community and unity as the Lunar New Year is.
“We are more towards giving awareness of culture and harmony within people,” said Winnie Kho Kaplan, Honorary Consul of Malaysia in Arizona as well as the main advisor and organizer of the event. “Come together, eat together, celebrate together. That’s what the festival is all about.”
Originally started as a grassroots event organized in partnership with the City of Mesa to launch the signage of the Asian District, the Asian Festival has grown into the largest pan-Asian festival in Arizona. Keeping up the momentum of this explosive growth, the non-profit which hosts the festival now seeks to uplift the community even outside of their annual celebration.
Founder and President of the Asian Festival Steve Kaplan, the China Airlines Chairman Kao Shing-Hawng, and Honorary Consul of Malaysia Winnie Kho Kaplan promote the new raffle at the Asian Festival where winners will be given tickets for a round trip to Asia. (Photo courtesy of Asian Festival)
“Serving the public, not just communication, but more active programs is what we’d like to do,” said Steve Kaplan, founder and president of the Asian Festival non-profit organization.
“As we grow, we want to be able to have an ongoing scholarship that depends upon our ability to fundraise and everything,” he explained.
They also expressed interest in starting up other academic initiatives outside of just a scholarship. One idea they had was a cultural-exchange program where students can go stay overseas during their summer holiday to learn more about different cultures and their languages.
These aims are well within sight, as the nonprofit already works alongside the Thunderbird School of Global Management with their 100 Million Learners Global Initiative where they assist in distributing information internationally in order to help foster the next generation of leaders. “It’s a big thing that we can help to groom the youth and the future,” said Winnie Kaplan.
The non-profit’s interest in expansion doesn’t lie solely with developing and teaching the next generation. They also wish to support and bring awareness to others who seek to establish their own grassroot events or festivals.
“There’s a lot of specific groups, whether it’s an ethnic group or a country group that have community here, but they stay within themselves and sometimes they have dreams of reaching out,” said Steve Kaplan.
“They want to attract people through their own festivals, so we want to build a communication that facilitates that,” he said. “We don’t want to play politics or anything like that, but we do want to bridge that gap and bring these cultures in.”
As the Asian Festival grows in size and they gain access to more resources, they also grow in what services and programs they are able to provide. However, none of that is possible without help from the community.
“It takes people who really want to participate and volunteer,” Steve Kaplan explained, “no matter what you do we can find something that fits in.”
The biggest contribution, though, is also the simplest one. “Show up and enjoy the festival,” said Winnie Kaplan, “that’s most important for them, they will always remember.”
