FAIRFIELD, CA., — Two heavy foot-traffic points of the Solano College Fairfield campus were both bustling with student engagement and artistic creativity on Wednesday, Feb. 4; with the Asian American Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Student Achievement Program’s (AANHPI SAP) Arts & Crafts Lunar New Year event underway in front of the clocktower, while the Solano College Student Voice Coalition simultaneously held their Chalked Truths: Immigrants Belong Here event at the quad on campus.
The arts & crafts event was a part of AANHPI SAP’s larger celebration of the Lunar New Year, which started with the annual sprouting of the wishing trees at the Vallejo, Vacaville and Fairfield campuses and will cap off with a potluck on Feb. 17 in the Faculty Lounge.
With the Solano College clock towering over their table, AANHPI SAP Student Leadership interns Kalena Gordon and Kairi Soungpanya and the program’s co-coordinator Leila Nazareno greeted any intrigued student who approached them with a multitude of watercolor paints, pipe cleaners and stacks of origami paper.
The AANHPI SAP chose the clocktower location based precisely on the perceived increased chance of student-interaction according to Gordon, who happened to be in the middle of bending a pipe cleaner for a lantern.
“We just also wanted it to act like kind of a pass-by activity, something to de-stress [students] in between classes,” Gordon said.
“If people needed, they could take the supplies to go and do it at home, if they’re busy. I know right now people are going to classes and they may have only a few minutes,”
Gordon believes that events like arts & crafts and the wishing trees are “a simple way to bring awareness and bring recognition to this holiday,”
“I know, historically, [the Lunar New Year] hasn’t been really celebrated throughout the college,” she explained.
“Students who celebrate this holiday are represented and they have a place where we also want to help students feel…seen,”
Despite the physical distance between these two events, there might be a smaller gap in rhetorical distance than initially understood. This idea of increasing representation and admiration for groups — undocumented people and Lunar New Year celebrators — whose attendees and advisors both feel they don’t receive too much of either, was found in both the arts & crafts table and the Chalked Truths event.
The main takeaway of such a coincidence, according to Vice President of the Associated Students of Solano College, Angelika — who was managing the event outside of her VP role — was that “Solano is for immigrants,”
“Having two art events going on…representing immigrants, like AANHPI immigrants, and also advocating for immigrant rights is really big.”
Angelika also made sure to explain that the synchronicity of planning an event on the same day as the AANHPI SAP was not intended or meant in any malicious way towards the program she was once part of.
“I didn’t intend for [the Chalked Truths event] to be overlapping with AANHPI. It was something spontaneous on our end because we wanted something to act now with all the news going on in the United States,” she said.
“I formally apologize for [the] overlapping with the AANHPI community, I love ya’ll […] I still love you guys,”
Chalk-wielding participants, such as mother Elizabeth Padilla-Martinez, also had clear direction in their messaging, sidewalk or not.
“It is really important […] to participate in things like this […] for me, it’s important to use my voice and to speak for those that are not able to,” Martinez explained.
“My kids, they get scared of things that are going on. I also come from immigrant parents and I know what it’s like to be separated, you know, from your family,”
These experiences have only cemented her belief in speaking out.
“Staying silent is complicity as well.” Martinez stated.
