Occidental College Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi American Association (APIDAA) hosted their annual Lunar New Year celebration Feb. 19. Dina’s Dumpling and Stop Bye Cafe food trucks accompanied the UCLA Lion Dance troupe on the Academic Quad to celebrate the beginning of the Year of the Horse. According to Maya Johnson (sophomore), a member of the APIDAA e-board, this was the club’s fifth time hosting the celebration.
“Lunar New Year is a festival to celebrate so many different cultural traditions because it covers so many different Asian communities,” Johnson said. “Celebrating those communities through […] performances, food and different traditions […] highlight this diversity.”
According to APIDAA’s Instagram, the club formed in 2021 and hosted its first Lunar New Year celebration in 2022. Nirmala Rusli (senior), the president of APIDAA, said the e-board finds that many cultural celebrations rely heavily on student effort to put on large-scale events, such as the Lunar New Year.
“A lot of students can’t go home to celebrate the new year with their family, so having a community or a space to be able to do that is really important,” Rusli said. “I’ve grown up celebrating Chinese New Year with my family, so it’s really nostalgic to be back in that space and have the same festive nature.”
Natasha Llanto-Kharbanova (sophomore), the APIDAA secretary, said her role involved a lot of outreach to student performers, including the UCLA Lion Dancers. Llanto-Kharbanova said there were five student performances, in addition to the dancers: Claire Li (junior), Alyssa Wu (junior), Levi Lee (junior)*, Faai Srisuponvanit (junior) and Thea Fernandez (first year).
“I’ve been looking for student performers, but I feel like it’s really hard for Oxy students to put themselves out there to perform in front of a bunch of people,” Llanto-Kharbanova said.
According to Kate Malaisrie (first year), the Lunar New Year event had an abundance of good vibes, food and games.
“I am Thai myself, and even though the Lunar New Year is more of a Chinese New Year thing, I still feel so united with my fellow Asian peers,” Malaisrie said.
According to Rusli, she finds the food to be a very important part of the Lunar New Year. Rusali said her family would always eat fish to signify good luck, noodles for long life and egg rolls because they resemble gold bars.
“I’m not from LA, so having the space and comfort of there being a group of people that are similar to me or have the same cultural connection to something is really comforting,” Rusli said.
Yiran Wang (sophomore) said she is an international student from China, and said the decorations made the quad feel like a true Lunar New Year celebration.
“I love what [APIDAA] did for this event. It also shows how diverse Oxy is,” Wang said.
According to Rusli, a team of 10 e-board members organized the event. Rusli said all members of the executive board have a role to play and are part of the planning process.
“Since we do it on the quad, it takes a bit of logistical timing to make sure that we can reserve the space for three hours,” Rusli said. “It’s a long process and it’s a lot of moving parts, and a lot of people are doing a lot of work to put the event together.”
According to Johnson, Occidental provides some funding for aspects of the Lunar New Year event, but this year’s funding has been scaled back. Johnson said APIDAA has done some of its own fundraising to ensure it is able to fund every aspect of the event.
“We’re always looking for ways to expand what we can offer, and we want to do the most,” Johnson said. “A big challenge is making sure that we have the resources to execute this event to the scale that we think it deserves.”
Aidan Yin (sophomore) said he is the future marketing chair of APIDAA, and is happy with how the event panned out.
“We put a lot of effort into planning this, and we’re just glad so many people showed up,” Yin said.
Rusli said she is glad the hard work from the APIDAA executive board paid off.
“It’s really something you can’t whip out in one go,” Rusli said. “It’s a really great event. I really hope that it sticks around. Having this event holds a lot of importance and significance for the students.”
Llanto-Kharbanova said she does not personally celebrate the Lunar New Year, but found the event fun when she attended in 2025.
“We want to have the event for people who celebrate [the Lunar New Year] but also for the people who don’t celebrate it,” Llanto-Kharbanova said. “We want them to learn more, have fun and just get to know other cultures better.”
Contact Abigail Montopoli at montopoli@oxy.edu
*Levi Lee is a media editor for The Occidental
