By Leonard Chan

Back in 2005, AACP published “Petals of the Vanda.” This was our first poetry book. In order to celebrate the release of our new book, we had our first poetry event. We called it “Kakizome in San Mateo.” Kakizome, a Japanese tradition of writing calligraphy at the beginning of the year (often the writing of poetry, such as haiku or tanka) seemed somewhat appropriate for the event since “Petals of the Vanda” was a translation of a book of tanka poetry.

After that, we held five more poetry events, mainly at the beginning of the year. We stopped having our poetry events for a long while, but I have always wanted to restart it. This January 26th, AACP will be co-hosting our 7th poetry event and we hope you can all attend it.

The theme that we have chosen for our event reflects the concerns that many in our community may be having. Are we heading towards a period where communities become even more divided and fearful of one another? Will we see more hatred against the AAPI community and others? Will masses of immigrants and their families (maybe even US citizens), be caged in immigration detention centers and deported? Will the gains that we’ve made in education, business, and government be lost?

In such fraught times we must do more to bridge the chasm and to also support those in need. Stopping hate cannot be done in isolation. At our event, AAPI poets and musicians will come together to help spread peace, love, and understanding.

For students, we especially put out a call to you to write your own poems for peace, love, and understanding, and encourage you to read them during our open microphone segment of the program. Adults are welcome to read your poetry too.

Even if you don’t write and read a poem, you’re all welcome to come and listen to our poets and special music performers Charlie Chin and his duo partner, Victor Labrador.

Here is some information about our Guests (Genny Lim, Frances Kakugawa, Brian Komei Dempster, and Charlie Chin).

By Philip Chin, Edits by Claire Yi and Leonard Chan

In 2018, AACP created a session for the Association of Asian American Studies Conference with the title Noble Deeds by Average People: Reflections on Their Possible Motives and Finding Reasons for Us All to Answer the Call.

Philip Chin of AACP was on the panel of this session and spoke on Samuel Clemens’ (Mark Twain) transformation from a slave owning racist to chronicler of injustices. Here are some of Philip’s notes.