Do you like Boba Tea? The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Club hosted their very first event, the “AAPI Boba Bash” on April 30 in the Campus Center Atrium. Club founder Jose Lorenzo Santos served bubble milk tea to 160 students who attended the Boba Bash.
AAPI is a new club on campus. More than 60 students attended the very first AAPI club meeting. The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Club at SUNY Old Westbury was created to bring unity to the diversity on campus and provide an insight into the cultures of Asian Americans.
Old Westbury is one of the most diverse campuses amongst the SUNY schools. According to our school website, there are students of all colors at OW with 27.7% identifying as white, 30.4% Hispanic, 22.7% African American, and only 11.4% identifying as Asian.
Jose Lorenzo Santos is the founder and leader of the AAPI Club. Santos is a senior biology major at Old Westbury from Glen Cove, Long Island. Family is important to Santos. “The focal point of Filipino culture is that family is the sun and everything around it… everything [revolves] around family. My grandparents live with me, we try to keep it close knit,” Santos said.
Santos didn’t feel there was enough Asian representation during his school days and past college experiences. In high school, he was surrounded by people of Italian or Hispanic descent, but hardly any people with Asian or Pacific Islander descent. So he created the club to bring people together, to explore other cultures and share their own. “I’m a transfer student as well, I’ve seen like the college atmosphere at least where I was, it didn’t really have like an Asian push as well as a Pacific Islander push,” he said. “It was more of the agenda of being proud of where I came from and wanting to share that.”
Everyone was welcome to drink boba tea at the Boba Bash and everyone is welcome to join the club, according to Santos. AAPI members don’t have to be of Asian descent. Members are from all over the world, such as Vice President Gabby who is Chinese, Secretary Amr who is Egyptian, Treasurer Mikael who is Pakistani, and Public Relations Chair Noble who is Indian.
