Jenny Li

Chenyao Liu, A5 president and senior, introduces A5 members to the club and discusses event ideas alongside other A5 officers on Aug. 26. Chenyao said A5 is working on including more diversity in club activities.

A5, also known as Advancement of Asian Americans in Arts and Athletics, will plan more culturally diverse events this year to celebrate holidays like Holi after noticing the lack of diversity in the Asian diaspora.

“(A5’s) carrying through a lot of the initiatives that we started last year like keeping up with our social media (and) making sure that we have good content. Though, something that (A5 has) noticed last year was the lack of South Asian representation. So (A5’s) goal this year is to try to not do that again,” Chenyao Liu, A5 president and senior, said.

A5 is also working on collaborating with more clubs within and outside of CHS. 

“(A5) is working to collaborate with other groups at school and in the community to do some outreach programs, some fun community events and promoting (A5’s) mission of advancing Asians in arts and athletics,” co-sponsor of A5, Casey Danubio said.

A5’s applying new changes to the club as well such as book club, new merch and introducing new officers to the club.

“One thing that (A5’s) changed is the officers, since a lot of (the officers) graduated out last year! (A5’s) very excited about working with this new team to improve A5. (A5’s) has also been discussing creating new merch, since last year, Chloe Sun (former A5 officer) created (A5’s) first line of merch which proved to be successful,” Angela Peng, secretary and senior, said.

“(A5) also has a book club that’s going on currently. So (A5’s) reading a book and (students) can sign up to participate in discussions about that book,” Danubio said.

“A5 is a club where (A5) tries to celebrate and educate people on Asian culture on Asian culture in the Asian diaspora, so (A5) sometimes has hard conversations about intersexuality and racism, but (A5) also has fun events where we celebrate Asian holidays and our culture. (Students) definitely don’t have to be Asian to come. I know that a lot of people feel awkward because Asian is in the name (of the club) but (the goal) is to celebrate Asian culture. (Students) don’t have to be a part of that culture to learn and celebrate it with (A5),” Liu said. By Jenny Li