To expose students to Asian culture in San Antonio, the Asian American Pacific Islander Studies Club (AAPI) is working to organize field trips for members of the organization. 

The field trips will be on weekends to enable busy students to enjoy the trip with no cost to their academics. The 52 AAPI members, including around 10 non-Asian students, will visit proposed field trip locations to learn more about Asian art and traditions.

“We hope that our members learn the beauty of different Asian cultures, not just one,” AAPI Vice President Allison Vu said. “They’ll gain a new perspective on what they see Asian culture as. Not as one whole group of cultures- but individually.”

Some of the new places AAPI hopes members can experience are the Asian exhibit in the San Antonio Museum of Art and the Japanese Tea Garden. 

“I’ve only been once or twice as a kid to the Japanese Tea Garden,” Vu said. “I recall being amazed and excited by all of the garden – it felt like a fever dream.”

But visiting the museum or the garden costs money that AAPI does not have. Currently, the club is in the process of trying to get approval from administration to start fundraising. 

“The first way I’d fundraise is to send home papers to ask family and friends for money to help fund our trips and meetings,” Vu said.

Raising money is crucial to fund these new activities because right now all materials for the meetings are not purchased using club funds.

“I can’t fund that myself, because most of the time it is just my cabinet funding with our own money,” AAPI President Melody Smith said. 

These personal expenses of the AAPI cabinet include buying supplies for crafts, prizes for trivia days and ingredients for cooking projects. Smith also has plans to increase the options for activities this year.

“I was thinking, if we get enough money from fundraisers—hopefully that will get approved this year—we could do a boba day where we’ll make boba tea,” Smith said.

While these smaller activities are important to exposing members to Asian cultures and keeping the club lively, the cabinet has a special hope for the field trips.

“They’ll allow our members to participate in and enjoy learning about Asian culture,” Vu said. “They’ll boost their awareness of the issues in the Asian community and the importance of it.”