August 2022 Edition

Sunday, August 21, 2022

BRAVO! A New Chapter of SOE! 

CAPA's 21^st annual Splendor of the East (SOE) was held on August 6^th at Stoney Creek Metro Park.

The purpose of the SOE is to engage the Asian Pacific American community and the community at large through a cultural event that features the AAPI diaspora.

The event was a huge success. CAPA's mission is to unite the Asian Pacific American community and the community at large through culture, education and community service and we did that extremely well through this event. The event was free to the public and for the first time in the history of the SOE, we had a huge audience comprising the community-at-large, compared to years past when the audience has been primarily composed of the board, sponsors and performers' families.

This event truly brought the spirit of the SOE and the spirit of CAPA to the community at large and helped in our mission of broadening our reach both through the choice of location and the decision to make the event free of cost, with the help of our generous sponsors, of course.

Safety was top of mind as we planned this event - our first in-person event since the pandemic - and we felt that having an outdoor event would help us facilitate bringing large groups of people together, without anyone feeling compelled to wear a mask or otherwise feel uncomfortable. We have heard so much amazing feedback on this that we will definitely consider keeping this event free and outdoors in the future.

The committees that worked on this were extremely responsible in managing costs and we accomplished all of this at a 28% lower outlay than in previous years, even with the extravagant and lavish VIP reception for our honored guests and sponsors.

An event of this size is not without its challenges. While we can never account for Michigan construction and traffic that caused a slight delay in getting our VIP reception refreshments started, next year, we will definitely need to look into securing a covered area for our audience to enjoy the performance in the shade.

Challenges notwithstanding, CAPA is extremely proud to have been able to bring the SOE to such a large audience and to help spread a little more awareness of the beautiful cultural diversity of our community.

CAPA first inner circle meeting on June 29^th at PACCM.

Anshi Pacha

CAPA Youth Chair

I joined the competitive sailing community when I was thirteen, though my father had already started teaching me how to sail when I was eight. That was when he bought me a tiny, little Optimus dingy I named the Nereid. I wish I could say that I took to it like a fish to water; but unfortunately, with the amount of capsizing I did in the first few years, I spent more time in the water, like a fish, than I did on my boat. Despite how much I loved sailing, I never got good at skippering. Yet, when one of my friends from school said that he needed a crew to compete in a team, I figured I might have better luck letting someone else do the steering. 

Though he quit by the end of that summer, I kept on with a new partner. And while I was better at crewing than at skippering, we never in our three years of sailing together placed at any races. Luckily, our sailing team prioritized the love of sailing over a love of winning, so our competitive ranking never alienated us. 

My new skipper became my only friend in the entire race circuit, so when he left the team to play golf, the glaring lack of people who looked like me, and to whom I could relate, became evident. In the entire circuit, I saw maybe two other Asian people, and within the yacht club that we practiced at, in all my 3 years there, I met one other person of color. It’s difficult to put into words the frustration that I felt when I recognized how separated I really was from these spaces that I grew up in. I never paid attention to the inherent elitism of the sport because it didn’t impact me. I was lucky enough not to be impacted by its classism, and when you spend 8 hours a week on a boat with someone, you either find ways to relate to them or you spend your summer in uncomfortable silence. But as soon as I was left on my own to make friends outside of forced proximity, I had a series of revelations that led me to the confused state that I still remain in. Why do sports like sailing remain so… painfully white? 

I understand their classism. I don’t like it, but I understand it. The cost to buy and maintain a boat for competitive purposes is exorbitant at best, and naturally excludes people that can’t afford it. I’m certain that there are ways that the system could be changed, but that’s not the purpose of this article. I thought that that would be why, but Indians are the highest earning ethnic group in the US and I only ever saw one other Indian person while on the race circuit. 

So far, I’ve tried to end these articles with a tidbit about what could be done. So naturally, I wish that I could provide a concrete answer or a solution to my question, but the best that I have is just… general racism sucks. It’s internalized into basically every institution, and while I’d love to see more people that look like me or come from similar backgrounds, I just don’t know how that’s going to be fixed. 

SAVE YOUR DATE

Saturday, November 19

6pm - 9pm

CAPA plans to continue our Taste of Asia series, but today, we want you to SAVE THE DATE for a very special CAPA event - TASTE of ASIA in person and FREEEEEEE, thanks to our amazing sponsor - DTE.