Lincoln School 2022 Lunar New Year Art Contest Gallery
2022-02-03 - 2022-03-31
Please enjoy the art submissions to Lincoln School’s 2022 Lunar New Year student art contest presented by Wa Sung Service Club, Golden Dragon Project, Lincoln School, and Oakland Asian Cultural Center.
About Lincoln Elementary School
About Wa Sung Service Club
Submitted Entries

2022 Virtual Community Night Market
2022-02-05 - 2022-04-16
Click this banner to enter a virtual “one-stop-shop” marketplace, in the form of an online directory features, Oakland/Bay Area-based and Oakland values-inspired businesses and creatives from AAPI-owned and AAPI-ally restaurants and small businesses, including BIPOC businesses and artists. The directory is open from February 5, 2022 – April 16, 2022.

About the Virtual Community Night Market
The Virtual Community Night Market (Night Market) is a virtual “one-stop-shop” marketplace featuring Oakland/Bay Area-based and Oakland values-inspired businesses and creatives from AAPI-owned and AAPI-ally restaurants and small businesses, including BIPOC businesses and artists. The Virtual Community Night Market will serve as an online directory. Vendors will be featured daily on OACC’s social media and weekly on OACC’s e-newsletter.
To participate as a virtual vendor, please fill out this google form by March 31st. There is a $30 vendor booth fee associated with the application. We will accept and approve applications on a rolling basis even after VCNM begins. The final deadline to apply to join VCNM is Thursday, March 31, 2022.
Types of vendor booths we’re listing:

Artist Alley (e.g. artists and artworks)
Community (e.g. community orgs, schools, professional services)
Eats & Drinks (e.g. restaurants, bars, food & drinks)
Shop (e.g. retail)

OACC 2022 Asian Pacific New Year Celebration
2022-02-05 - 2022-04-16 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
In recognition of the diversity of new year’s festivities across the Asian Pacific region, OACC presents a hybrid celebration of Asian Pacific New Year traditions featuring in-person and virtual content for audiences of all ages during February and April 2022.

In February, OACC celebrated Lunar New Year, the Year of the Tiger, with 3 days of virtual content and an in-person festival on February 6th highlighting Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and other cultural traditions and artforms connected to the Lunar New Year holiday. In April, OACC will celebrate South and Southeast Asian New Year’s such as Songkran, Vaisakhi, and more with exciting online content and another in-person festival. In addition to these activities, OACC is excited to revive its Virtual Community Night Market for the second year in a row to feature an even more expansive offering of BIPOC-centered partners, community organizations, and small businesses.
Schedule of Events:

South & Southeast Asian New Year

Saturday, April 9: Virtual Kick-Off with Dance & Music
Sunday, April 10: Virtual Stories & Cultural Presentations
Friday, April 15: Virtual Food & Art Demos
Saturday: April 16 (11am-3pm): In-person Celebration at OACC (masks & ID+vaccination record required)

Live Performances:

12:30PM: Balinese Dance and Music featuring Kompiang Davies
1:00PM: Kathak (Indian classical dance) Performance featuring Leela Youth Academy

Launching AAPI Community Map Challenges!

Cut Fruit Collective’s Oakland AAPI Small Biz Map Challenge (Click link for participation details)
Vibemap’s Have You Eaten Yet Challenge (Click link for participation details)

Lunar New Year Celebration (February 5-6 & 11-12, 2022. Access the virtual content playlist here.

Enjoy virtual and in-person vendor and community booth marketplaces, cultural demos, storytelling, artistic performances. OACC’s Asian Pacific New Year Celebration will also launch a BRAND-NEW COMMUNITY MAP in partnership with Cut Fruit Collective! Explore AAPI sites throughout Oakland! Pick up your physical map at OACC’s April 16th celebration AND/OR download Vibemap’s app to participate in their map challenge. Visit locations and win prizes!

Set your alarm notification! Our virtual kick-off will begin streaming at 12 noon on Saturday, April 9th. Watch it here or on OACC’s YouTube channel.
This video will be available starting at 12pm Pacific on Saturday, April 9, 2022. Having trouble accessing the video? Trying refreshing this page after the release date or go to OACC’s YouTube channel.
This video will be available starting at 12pm Pacific on Saturday, April 9, 2022. Having trouble accessing the video? Trying refreshing this page after the release date or go to OACC’s YouTube channel.
This video will be available starting at 12pm Pacific on Sunday, April 10, 2022. Having trouble accessing the video? Trying refreshing this page after the release date or go to OACC’s YouTube channel.
This video will be available starting at 12pm Pacific on Sunday, April 10, 2022. Having trouble accessing the video? Trying refreshing this page after the release date or go to OACC’s YouTube channel.
This video will be available starting at 12pm Pacific on Sunday, April 10, 2022. Having trouble accessing the video? Trying refreshing this page after the release date or go to OACC’s YouTube channel.
This video will be available starting at 12pm Pacific on Sunday, April 10, 2022. Having trouble accessing the video? Trying refreshing this page after the release date or go to OACC’s YouTube channel.
This video will be available starting at 12pm Pacific on Friday, April 15, 2022. Having trouble accessing the video? Trying refreshing this page after the release date or go to OACC’s YouTube channel.
This video will be available starting at 12pm Pacific on Friday, April 15, 2022. Having trouble accessing the video? Trying refreshing this page after the release date or go to OACC’s YouTube channel.
This video will be available starting at 12pm Pacific on Friday, April 15, 2022. Having trouble accessing the video? Trying refreshing this page after the release date or go to OACC’s YouTube channel.
Download the Laap Recipe by Christy Innouvong

2022 Virtual Community Night Market is OPEN!

The Virtual Community Night Market (Night Market) is a virtual “one-stop-shop” marketplace featuring Oakland/Bay Area-based and Oakland values-inspired businesses and creatives from AAPI-owned and AAPI-ally restaurants and small businesses, including BIPOC businesses and artists. The Virtual Community Night Market will serve as an online directory. Vendors will be featured daily on OACC’s social media and weekly on OACC’s e-newsletter.
Types of vendor booths we’re listing:

Artist Alley (e.g. artists and artworks)
Community (e.g. community orgs, schools, professional services)
Eats & Drinks (e.g. restaurants, bars, food & drinks)
Shop (e.g. retail)

Special thanks to our New Year Celebration sponsors who helped make our programming possible:

Claudine Cheng

Family Bridges

Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council

ARTogether

Nikki Fortunato Bas

Friends of Lincoln Square Park

Mustard Square

Learn about the Oakland 2045 General Plan
The City of Oakland is updating the General Plan for the first time since the 1990’s. This plan represents Oakland’s equitable vision and policies for housing, transportation, parks, transportation, and environmental justice for the next 20-30 years. Share your thoughts at bit.ly/ogpzineq to inform the policies of the General Plan.

自上世紀 90 年代以來，奧克蘭市首次更新了總體規劃。該計劃代表了奧克蘭未來 20-30 年在住房、交通、公園、運輸和環境正義方面的公平願景及政策。請移步 bit.ly/ogpzineq 分享您的看法，了解總體規劃政策。
The Oakland Asian Cultural Center is proud to be a member of the Deeply Rooted Collaborative, the Community Consultant Team that will work with the City of Oakland and Technical Consultant on the Oakland 2045 General Plan. The Deeply Rooted Collaborative, which includes EastSide Arts Alliance, Just Cities Institute, and Urban Strategies Council. Partners include: Black Cultural Zone, The Village, Malonga Arts Residents Association, Oakland Asian Cultural Center Association, House/Full of Blackwomen, Lao Family Community Development, Inc., CURY J, and The Unity Council.

Book Talk: Chinese Children's Hats with Terri Wong
2022-02-12 13:00 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Enjoy a colorful, festive virtual talk with multi-talented Chinese American artist Terri Wong. Seven years ago, she started restoring, collecting and actually wearing antique Chinese clothing. From an estate sale, she purchased 10 Chinese children’s hats and was so enamored with them that she started collecting them. She currently owns 161 of them and recently self-published a book on Chinese Children’s Hats.
Terri will be talking about all of her hats and their symbolism. These hats were originally made only as head protection, but they gradually became whimsical and colorful and part of folk art as Chinese mothers started making their children’s hats in the shape of animals, birds and boats. There was a tradition for children to wear these fanciful hats during festivals such as the Lunar New Year and Autumn Moon Festival.
This event was livestreamed on OACC’s YouTube channel. Donations are greatly appreciated and will support programs. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

About the Author
Terri Wong is a Chinese American artist born and raised in San Francisco who has worked in many artistic fields for the past 45 years. She started as an opera singer in the opera chorus for three years; then switched to honing her skills as a fiber artist, making custom knitwear and hats, and restoring antique clothing for a client to sell in his retail store, online store and monthly auctions. At the young age of 60, she was one of ten women featured in Rizzoli’s “Art of Dressing.”

Book Talk: "We Hereby Refuse": The Bay Area Allies
2022-02-13 15:00 - 16:30 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
For this year’s Day of Remembrance, Frank Abe, writer of WE HEREBY REFUSE: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration, will be joined in conversation with Kathleen Purcell, daughter of Mitsuye Endo’s attorney James Purcell; Wayne Collins Jr., the son of Hiroshi Kashiwagi’s attorney Wayne Collins; and Sadako Kashiwagi, Hiroshi Kashiwagi’s wife. Our moderator, Darren Murata of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, will also engage Frank Abe in conversation about the craft of creating words and drawings around the stories of folks involved in the fight for civil liberties in the midst of wartime fervor.
Purchase the book at Eastwind Books of Berkeley.
Sponsored by Eastwind Books of Berkeley and Oakland Asian Cultural Center.

"Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust" Virtual Screening and Talk
2022-02-18 18:00 - 20:00
Join us on the eve of the 80th anniversary of Day of Remembrance for a virtual screening of acclaimed documentary, MANZANAR, DIVERTED: WHEN WATER BECOMES DUST, followed by a live dialogue with the filmmaker and special guests. From the majestic peaks of the snow-capped Sierras to the parched valley of Payahuunadü, “the land of flowing water,” MANZANAR, DIVERTED: WHEN WATER BECOMES DUST poetically weaves together memories of intergenerational women. Native Americans, Japanese-American WWII incarcerees and environmentalists form an unexpected alliance to defend their land and water from Los Angeles. Among its many accolades, this film world premiered at the 2021 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and was featured as the Centerpiece Film at CAAMFEST where it also received Honorable Mention. It was nominated for Best Music Score in the IDA Documentary Awards. Directed and produced by Ann Kaneko. Produced by Jin Yoo-Kim. Run time: 84 minutes. Learn more about the film at: https://www.manzanardiverted.com/.
The event is presented with support from the Center for Asian America Media.
Donations are greatly appreciated and will support programs. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

About the Speakers

ANN KANEKO (director/producer/editor/cinematographer) is known for her personal films that weave her intimate aesthetic with the intricacies of political reality. She is an Emmy winner, and her work has screened internationally and been broadcast on PBS. She has been commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Endowment and the Skirball Cultural Center. Her credits include A FLICKER IN ETERNITY, based on Stanley Hayami’s diary; AGAINST THE GRAIN: AN ARTIST’S SURVIVAL GUIDE TO PERU, highlighting Peruvian political artists; and 100% HUMAN HAIR, a musical for the AFI Directing Workshop for Women. Fluent in Japanese and Spanish, Kaneko has been a Fulbright and Japan Foundation Artist fellow. She is a member of New Day Films, a distribution cooperative. She has an MFA from UCLA, teaches at Pitzer College and is the artist mentor for VC’s Armed with a Camera Fellowship.

JIN YOO-KIM (producer & impact producer) is a Korean Bolivian American independent film producer. She co-produced A WOMAN’S WORK: THE NFL’S CHEERLEADER PROBLEM (dir. Yu Gu, Tribeca ‘19), and K-TOWN ’92 (dir. Grace Lee). She is currently developing her first food docuseries, co-writing a feature comedy, and developing a feature documentary about SPAM. She is a 2020-21 Sundance Creative Producers Fellow, a 2020 Film Independent x CNN Original Series Docuseries Intensive Fellow, and a 2020 Film Independent Doc Lab fellow. She pitched at Big Sky Pitch at Big Sky Film Festival 2020, and was a 2017 Firelight Media Impact Producing Fellow. She received her MFA in Film from USC and a BA in Psychology and Cinema & Media Studies from Wellesley College.

KATHY BANCROFT, Mono, Shoshone and Paiute, is the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and the Indian Child Welfare Act Representative for the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Tribe. She attended Stanford University, Ft. Lewis College and Montana State University, where she studied organic chemistry (MS), cell biology and neuroscience (PhD). She works with the Alabama Hills Stewardship Board to seek protection of tribal lands. She is on the Cultural Resources Task Force for the Owens Lake Dust Mitigation Project and the Owens Lake Master Project Advisory Group. She works with groups to fight the destruction of native sacred places.

Celebrating Our HeART-filled Heritage: Sri Vidya Dance School
2022-03-19 16:00 - 17:30 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
**RECORDING WILL ONLY BE ACCESSIBLE TILL MARCH 24, 2022**

Sri Vidya Dance School in collaboration with the amazing dancers of the Bay Area present “Panchabhoota Linga”. Lord Shiva is part of the Hindu trinity. The other being Lord Brahma (the creator) and Lord Vishnu (the protector). Lord Shiva’s role is to destroy the universe to recreate it. The Shiva Linga is an abstract yet a very strong representation of Lord Shiva as an emblem of the generative power of Nature.
The Hindu culture of India dwells in the strong connection of the five elements in nature and how it represents itself with the Shiva Linga. The five elements of Earth, fire, water, air and space manifest themselves in the various Shiva Temples of India as a form of the Shiva Linga.
In our presentation, using the medium of the Classical dance form from North and South India, the manifestation of the five elements while representing Lord Shiva will come alive. Using the texts from various ancient scriptures written in praise of Lord Shiva, a blend of musical notes with rhythm and lyrics along with the beautiful dance movements of the five elements of Lord Shiva will mesmerize the audience. The classical dance forms portrayed are Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, Odissi and Mohiniattam which showcase the major dance forms from all over the country of India.

The performance will be followed by an interactive dance workshop.

FEATURED ARTISTS

Smt. Samidha Satyam is a prominent exponent of Guru Padmabhushan Sri Dr. Vempati Chinna Satyam and Sri Jai Kishore Mosalikanti. She is an accomplished young artist who has done Masters in English literature and dance and given performances in India, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and several countries in Europe and has toured several other countries all over the world. After moving to the Bay Area, Guru Smt.Samidha Satyam started Sanskaar School of Dance in 2008 to advance the art of Kuchipudi dance to aspiring students. She has performed and is currently performing in various prestigious festivals and organizations in USA and gives holistic Training to her disciples and brings out the best in them. The institute imparts training to hundreds of students. Many students have performed their rangapravesams and are performing as solo dancers. She was felicitated and awarded the title “TRIBHUVANADITYAVARMA, voN” by Global Natya festival, Angkor Wat, Cambodia. She was recently awarded the title “NRITYA CHOODAMANI” by Hanuman temple authorities, Bay Area, CA.

Bhairavi Nedungadi is an artist trained in Bharatanatyam and Mohiniyattam. She hails from a family of artists, her grandfather Late Vasu Nedungadi, a Krishnanattam artist who performed ‘Krishnavesham’ at Guruvayoor temple, Kerala and her father Late Padmanabhan Nedungadi, secretary of Kathakali club, Thrissur, worked to promote Kathakali art form and artists. His deeds to promote Kathakali have inspired Bhairavi to do her part to bring awareness and appreciation to one of the graceful classical dance forms of Kerala-Mohiniyattam. Senior Disciple of Guru Padmashree Kalamandalam Kshemavathi, Bhairavi has been learning dance from the age of four. She began learning from Guru Kalamandalam Sudha and presented her formal solo debut performance, the Arangetram, in Guruvayoor, India at the age of 14 under the guidance of Guru Kshemavathi. After her Rangapravesha, she continued her rigorous training in Mohiniyattam under Guru Kshemavathi. It is her continued passion to learn and she is undergoing advanced training in Mohiniyattam under the tutelage of Dr Neena Prasad for the past 5 years. Bhairavi has performed to diverse audiences in India and US across multiple festivals. Classical dance has always been an integral part of Bhairavi’s life. She is the founder of Sreepadmam School of Dance, a classical dance institute based in Fremont, CA and the school imparts training to students in Mohiniyattam and Bharatanatyam. Bhairavi holds a Master’s degree in Structural Engineering and she is currently working as an IT professional.

Anupama Srivastava is a dancer, performer, teacher, and choreographer of the North Indian Classical Kathak dance and the Founder and Artistic Director of InSyncKathak Dance School based in Fremont, CA. She is a disciple of the world renowned Kathak Maestro, Padmashri and Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee Guru Shovana Narayan, disciple of Padma Vibhushan Pandit Birju Maharaj ji. Anupama uses the North Indian Classical Kathak Dance form as a creative medium to promote physical, mental, social, cultural, interpersonal and spiritual enrichment. Anupama is an energetic and enthusiastic Guru and provides Kathak education and training to about 80 students. In nine short years since its inception, InSyncKathak has over 150 performances and 40 awards to its credit. Anupama’s choreographic works have been presented at dance festivals and concerts in the US, Canada, and India, including Asavari’s Continuing Traditions Festival, International Lalit Arpan Festival and Continuing Traditions Festival by Guru Shovana Narayan and Ministry of Art and Culture, Government of India, San Francisco Movement Arts Festival, PUSHfest, Oakland Dance Festival, Toronto International Youth Dance Festival, Asia Society Houston, Philadelphia Ganesh Festival, SOHARA Dallas, Republic Day and Pravasi Diwas celebrations by the San Francisco Indian Consulate, Yuva Bharati, Kala Sangha, Livermore Temple, among several others. In 2015, she organized a nine-city “Guru Shovana Narayan USA Tour” across Texas, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and California, and won critical acclaim for this effort. Anupama has also produced collaborative work with musicians and dancers of different genres. A keen educator of this classical Indian dance form, Anupama holds lecture-demonstrations and workshops regularly for InSyncKathak students and also at UC Santa Cruz. As a Master Artist, Anupama with Apprentice Dr. Anjali Sahay received a 2021-22 Apprenticeship in Folk and Traditional Arts from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Under Anupama’s tutelage, her student and daughter Reva Srivastava became a National YoungArts Finalist Winner in the World Dance category for 2022. Anupama holds a BS in E&C Engineering from BIT Sindri, India, and MS in Electrical Engineering from San Jose State University. After an eighteen year career as a Hardware Engineer in the Silicon Valley, she made her passion for dancing her full time career, and splits her time between family, dance, writing, hiking, and yoga.

Smt. Akila Rao started learning Bharatanatyam at the age of 7 under Sri Pasumarthy Ramalinga Sastry who hails from the town of Kuchipudi and also learnt Bharatanatyam from Smt. Rukmini Devi Arundale, a renowned Bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer and founder of the Kalakshetra Foundation in Chennai. Over the last 30 years, Smt. Akila has performed in numerous ballets and performed in notable sabhas in Chennai and other cities across the world. Smt. Akila was fortunate to continue learning a variety of dance compositions from renowned Gurus including The Dhananjayans, The Charis and other experienced teachers from the Kalakshetra bani. In addition to learning dance, she also learnt Indian classical music from D. Seshachari, one of the famed Hyderabad Brothers. During her brief stay in Malaysia, she was fortunate to perform at various programs with renowned dancer/choreographer Ajith Bhaskaran Das and his troupe. She has collaborated with numerous charitable organizations in the US and performed for cultural events for fundraising and to spread the value of this great ancient art. Along with her dance career, Smt. Akila Rao is a senior project manager at Stanford Hospitals and Clinics. Smt. Akila lives in Cupertino, CA and continues to train and teach students of all ages. Smt. Akila Rao continues to learn the art form under experienced teachers from the Kalakshetra Bani (Smt Viraja and Sri Shyamjith Kiran). The goal is to impart the life values of self-respect, discipline and traditions, and most importantly, carry the passion for dance throughout their lifetime.

Guru Bidisha Mohanty is the Founder & Artistic Director of Indraadhanush-Center for Excellence, located in the California Bay Area. She is a disciple of Guru Sri Durga Charan Ranbir, an Odissi maestro. Bidisha has completed her Master’s (Bhaskar) in Odissi dance from Pracheen Kala Kendra, Chandigarh and is a Gold medalist in this dance form. She is a software engineer by profession. Bidisha is also a performing artist in Doordarshan, India and has been the recipient of Junior & Senior scholarships from Center for Cultural Resources & Training, Ministry of Tourism & Culture, India. Bidisha imparts dance lessons to various age groups in Classical Odissi, Bollywood & Folk dances and has participated in various premier cultural events internationally as a performer and choreographer. Many of her students are established dancers now and has own several awards in various competitions inside and outside of the Bay area. She conducts lecture-demos & workshops and has been associated with different organizations to promote Odissi dance and take it to the next level.

MUSIC COMPOSITION TEAM

Snigdha Venkataramani is an accomplished Carnatic vocalist and has undergone training under various senior teachers for over two decades, prominent among them being veteran vocalists Padmabhushan Guru Nookala Chinna Satyanarayana, Sh. K. Vageesh and Smt. K. Sudha, Smt. Sarada Subramanian and Guru Smt Radhakrishna. She is currently training under the internationally-acclaimed vocal duo – Sh. K.N. Shashikiran and Chitravina P. Ganesh, popularly known as the Carnatica Brothers. She received the Junior Scholarship from the Center for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT), Government of India, and is a graded artist of the All India Radio, New Delhi. She has released two music albums – “SAMARPANAM”, of Carnatic music compositions and “NATYA MANJARI”, which comprises a repertoire for Bharatanatyam dance. Snigdha is also an established Bharatanatyam dancer having trained under Padma Bhushan Dr. Saroja Vaidyanathan. Snigdha is a popular vocalist for dance having performed with several senior Dance Gurus and promising young performers. She is highly sought after for composing musical scores for dance productions. Snigdha imparts training in Carnatic vocal and Bharatanatyam in Fremont, CA and is the artistic director of Laya Dhwani Academy of Performing Arts. Her students have won prizes in National and Regional competitions including the Cleveland Tyagaraja Aradhana, Sangeet Samrat, Papanasam Sivan Academy and Saptami Nationals.

Prakash Rao began his mridangam training in 1977 under Late Sri K. Sudarshanaacharyulu of Hyderabad and vocal training simultaneously under Sri D. Seshachary of the Hyderabad Brothers fame. Sri Sudarshanaacharyulu was a senior disciple of Sri Kolanka Venkatarajulu, a famous mridangam exponent in Andhra Pradesh. Since 1982, Prakash has had the honor and privilege to train under one of the greatest exponents of mridangam, Late Sangeetha Kalanidhi Kalai Maamani Sri Vellore G. Ramabhadran. Prakash has also received advanced training in improving the clarity and precision of his technique on the mridangam from Sangeetha Kalanidhi Sri Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman, Late Sri Kanjira V. Nagarajan and Sri Palghat T. R. Rajamani, son of the legendary Sri Palghat T. S. Mani Iyer. Prakash first ascended the stage in 1980, and has since performed in over 2500 concerts, dance programs and lecture/demonstrations in India and the US. Prakash has been in the US since 1987 and in NJ since 1990 is the most senior mridangist in NJ. He lives in New Jersey with his physician wife, Dr. Bhavani Prakash, an accomplished musician herself, and two sons, both performing musicians in their own right. Together with his wife, Prakash conducts concerts and lecture/demonstrations under the banner of Anandabhairavi. Bhavani teaches vocal music, veena and flute, and Prakash teaches mridangam and vocal music at their home in Scotch Plains, NJ.

Sadha Parasuraman is a Guru in Vedic scriptures (Yajur Veda). Sadha started learning Yajur Veda under Mahopadyaya Sri.Jambunatha Ganapatigal in Chennai, then in Chidambaram at the Nataraja temple through Sri.Ratnasabapathy deekshitar . He continued his advanced learning of Padam, kramam, ghanam and bhAshyam under Sri. Lakshmana Sastry.
Sadha teaches Veda along with his senior students for the past 17 years at the Svadharma Veda Patashala in Phoenix, AZ that he started under the auspices of the achAryas of the Kanchi Mutt.

Srinivas Saripalle is a Tabla artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has accompanied and played with several noted artists and performed solo. He started learning Tabla from Lt Pt. Ashok Mukherjee disciple of Lt Pt Samta Prasad of Benares. He continues to study under Pandit Swapan Chaudhury at the Ali Akbar College of Music. He also teaches Tabla to budding and aspiring students.

Tanjavur R. Kesavan is a renowned percussionist and a Nattuvangam Artiste in the field of performing arts. Kesavan has illustrious lineage and belongs to a family dedicated to music for four generations. His artistry and consistent technical perfection have made him a leading Mridangam artiste in New Delhi. Kesavan’s fine musical instincts were imbibed from his great family lineage and traditions of his Guru Parampara. He started learning at a very early age. He has promoted and projected promising students and has imparted to many of them the art of Mridangam. He has conducted Arangetrams of many of his disciples. Kesavan can play other percussion instruments like Dolu (Thavil), Kanjeera, Pakhawaj with the same felicity and ease. Kesavan has gained acclaim as a proficient accompanist for scores of renowned senior dancers like Yamini Krishnamurthy, Sonal Mansingh, Vyjayantimala Bali, Saroja Vaidyanathan, Swapna Sundari, Leela Samson, Geeta Chandran and many more in the last two decades both in India and abroad.
His style of accompaniment is vibrant and energetic. Kesavan is well known for his spontaneity, fine artistry, and deft fingering techniques. Kesavan learned this divine art of Mridangam under the tutelage of Guru. Tanjavur Shri T.K.Lakshmana Naidu. Kesavan has inherited music and fine arts from his family of musical stalwarts. Apart from programmes in India, Kesavan has also toured abroad to more than 75 countries like South and East Africa, East Europe, North, and East Asia, Middle East, USA, UAE, and more. Some of the titles he has received include “SANGEETH BHUSHAN” conferred on him at the international theater festival, Cuttack Orissa; “Mridanga Chakravarti” a title from the SUNAINA lndradhanush, Art festival New Delhi and “VAADYA RATNA” at Bharat Sanskrit Utsav, Vardhaman (West Bengal)

About Sri Vidya Dance School

About the Series
“Celebrating Our HeART-filled Heritage” champions local Asian and Asian Pacific Islander performing artists, with the goal of providing a platform for accomplished local performing artists and exposing our diverse community in the East Bay to compelling, culturally relevant artists and performances that inspire intergenerational and cross-cultural exchange. The performing arts series is supported in part by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund.
Donations are appreciated and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Oakland Ballet's Dancing Moons Festival
2022-03-24 - 2022-03-26
Oakland Ballet Presents Dancing Moons Festival
Oakland Ballet Company’s 2021-22 Season continues next month with its first-ever celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander choreographers, the Dancing Moons Festival in collaboration with the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. The company will premiere new works by Phil Chan, Megan and Shannon Kurashige, Michael Lowe, and Caili Quan. The festival’s program will also include the West Coast premiere of Chan’s Ballet de Porcelaines or The Teapot Prince, recently commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
At Oakland Asian Cultural Center – Oakland

Thursday, March 24th at 7:30pm
Friday, March 25th at 7:30pm
Saturday, March 26th at 2:30pm and 7:30pm

At the Bankhead Theatre – Livermore

Friday, April 1st at 8pm
Saturday, April 2nd at 8pm

LEARN MORE HERE

Credits-
Photos: All by John Hefti
2 dancers – Paunika Jones and Lawrence Chen
Group – Oakland Ballet Company Dancers

Housing!
2022-03-26 - 2022-04-24 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
In partnership with the Class Conscious Photographers and A Working Lens, the Oakland Asian Cultural Center will display the 2022 edition of “Housing!” featuring Bay Area photographers in our front windows.
Community Reception: in-person at OACC on Sunday, April 3, 2022 from 4-6pm Pacific
In summer 2021, the Class Conscious Photographers, an activist photographer group, held an open call for photography that reflected on our times on the broad topic of “housing.” Submissions included content featuring 1) housing of all types, especially where there is a social message, 2) people living with daily housing issues , including living in tents, RVs, on sidewalks and out of door including living in tents, RVs, on sidewalks and out of doors, 3) governmental and state responses to housing issues, and 4) protests over housing, gentrification, evictions, and housing policies. Housing! debuted as an outdoor exhibition on boards hung on fences facing the sidewalks along and near International Boulevard and 23rd Avenue in East Oakland.
Featured photographers:
Andres Alvarez
Brooke Anderson
David Bacon
Susana Barron
Slobodan Dimitrov
Glenda Drew and Jesse Drew
Najib Joe Hakim
Sharat Lin
Luís Enrique Morales
Eric Nomburg
John Novak
Ron Orlando
Tracy Perkins
Yesica Prado
Edward Ramirez
John Urquiza
Joyce Xi
OACC’s 2022 display is mostly visible from outdoors. Indoor access is possible by appointment only (email programs@oacc.cc).
Photo Credit: David Bacon

Textures of Remembrance: Vietnamese Artists and Writers Reflect on the Vietnamese Diaspora
2022-04-15 - 2022-06-10 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Curated by the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN), “Textures of Remembrance: Vietnamese Artists and Writers Reflect on the Vietnamese Diaspora” presents an intimate perspective of this diasporic experience. The creative pieces showcased here reflect our community’s range of thoughts and emotions. These narratives texturize the Vietnamese diasporic experience, in which refugees are not objects of rescue but instead subjects of artistic and political transformation.
“Textures of Remembrance” evolved from the stories collected from emerging writers and artists shared on DVAN’s online publication diaCRITICS. In 2019, editor Dao Strom launched “(Re-)membering April 30th” as a call for submissions for the diasporic community to reflect on the historic day in terms of both the past and the present. Today, this exhibition builds upon these reflections by drawing upon the following themes: Memory and Trauma, Roots and Belonging, War, and Refuge.
Image Credits:

Left: Work from Between Tower and Sea series, 2019 by Paul Bonnell
Center: Recollecting Home, 2019 by Malery Nguyen. Digitally printed photographs & xylene transferred text on handmade banana leaf paper.
Right: Textures of my Father, 2021 by Terri Trang Lê

“Textures of Remembrance” is a traveling exhibit created in partnership between Exhibit Envoy, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network and Oakland Asian Cultural Center. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and California Arts Council, a state agency with a mission to strengthen arts, culture, and creative expression as the tools to cultivate a better California for all. Visit calhum.org and arts.ca.gov.

Oakland AAPI Small Biz Map Challenge
2022-04-16 - 2022-06-04
In celebration of the first statewide Queer and Transgender Asian and Pacific Islander (QTAPI) Week, we are extending our Map Challenge redemption period thru Saturday, June 4th! Schedule of QTAPI Week events HERE.
Oakland, have you eaten yet? We’ve partnered with Cut Fruit Collective (CFC) and Vibemap to create an Oakland AAPI Small Food Business collectible map, and we’re challenging you to try and support as many as you can going into AAPI Heritage Month through May. Fill your belly, support our AAPI small businesses, and redeem for commemorative prizes!
HOW IT WORKS

Get the map from OACC in Oakland Chinatown (388 9th St, Suite 290, Oakland)!
Spend $10+ at a participating restaurant and show a receipt to redeem one of five postcards designed by AAPI artists
Participants can also download Vibemap and follow the challenge through the app
Prizes can be redeemed at OACC Wed – Sat, 12 – 5 PM between April 16 – June 4 (extended!)

HOW TO REDEEM FOR PRIZES

Each person who can provide an eligible receipt for a business listed in the CFC map OR Vibemap‘s Have You Eaten Yet Challenge Badge is eligible for one postcard (minimum $10 purchase).
Receipts can be physical or digital, but must show the business name and be time stamped sometime within 4/16~5/31.
Each person can receive up to 5 postcards (if they provide five different receipts).
It is preferred for 1 receipt to apply to 1 person.
Receipts can be applied to multiple individuals IF: it shows at least $10 spent per person AND if all members accompany the receipt holder for prize redemption (ex: a receipt shows 3 boba drinks. If all 3 ppl show up with the receipt to vouch for their drinks, this receipt can count as eligible towards all 3 ppl).

THE PRIZES
Collect five commemorative postcard prints (1 per receipt) designed by AAPI artists. The theme reflects the artists’ favorite cultural celebrations. Meet the artists!

Celebrating Our HeART-filled Heritage: Hip Hop For Change Workshop
2022-04-23 13:30 - 15:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Using Hip Hop as a lens for solidarity, this interdisciplinary workshop will go through the history of Afro-Asian solidarity, exploring historical examples of cross cultural unity from the Cold War to the 2020 #BlackLivesMatter Movement and #StopAsianHate protests. Part two of the workshop will focus on Diversity & Inclusion, with interactive Hip Hop activities such as beatmaking and song writing as a means of valuing multiculturalism and tolerance. The presentation will be hosted by Hip Hop For Change’s very own Education Director, Marlon Richardson (aka Unlearn The World) and Stephanie Liem.

FEATURED ARTISTS

Marlon Richardson (he/him/his)

Marlon, AKA UnLearn The World, is an EmCee, Producer, Actor, Writer, Activist, and Hip Hop Educator. Having been raised and groomed in the Culture, Music, and Movement of Hip Hop, UnLearn has toured internationally and has released several mixtapes and albums over 20 years in the music industry. As the Education Director of Hip Hop For Change, UnLearn has developed curriculum, facilitated assemblies, workshops, conferences, and multi-week classes on all the elements of Hip Hop as well as training dozens of new Hip Hop educators in classroom management, dynamic mindfulness, and trauma-informed care. He is also Director and host of Return Of The Cypher, as well as the Vice President of the All Tribes San Francisco Chapter of Zulu Nation.

Stephanie Liem (she/her/hers)
Stephanie is an educator and former Director of Communications at Hip Hop For Change. She is a Chinese-Indonesian, Asian American activist whose activism revolves around building Afro-Asian solidarity and challenging the Model Minority Myth. Through her work with Hip Hop For Change, she speaks at schools, panel events, and companies on the importance of allyship and multiracial coalition building. She received her BA from UC Berkeley, with a degree in Global Studies, concentrating in Peace & Conflict in Asia. As an academic, her research revolves around ethnic conflict, human rights, and international governance. Stephanie is currently pursuing her Masters degree in Public Policy at the University of Southern California.

About Hip Hop For Change
About the Series
“Celebrating Our HeART-filled Heritage” champions local Asian and Asian Pacific Islander performing artists, with the goal of providing a platform for accomplished local performing artists and exposing our diverse community in the East Bay to compelling, culturally relevant artists and performances that inspire intergenerational and cross-cultural exchange. The performing arts series is supported in part by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund.
Donations are appreciated and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

KCCEB Community Healing Space
2022-04-28 14:30 - 2022-06-23 16:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Now extended to June 23rd!
With 2 years of chaos, pandemic, and API hate, do you feel unheard, worried, hopeless, or triggered after all this? KCCEB’s Community Healing Space is here to provide the API community a safe space to share your stories and resources, support one another, and amplify our collective voices. This support group gathers every Thursday from 2:30-4 PM during April 28 ~ June 23, 2022.
Sessions will be held virtually or in person at Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Fill out the form linked above or call (844)828-2254 to sign up!

Donations are appreciated and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

OACC Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
2022-04-30 - 2022-05-31 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th Street, Suite 290, Oakland, CA 94607, Oakland, CA, 94607
Since March 2020, OACC has struggled with serious financial challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The 22-month (and counting) disruption in public programming and rental revenue has delayed our three-year strategic goals (completed in FY19-20) to advance as a premier cultural hub for our community.
We are reaching out to our beloved community, our donors, local government agencies, and philanthropic partners to help OACC sustain its mission in our recovery stage. Although California has eased restrictions as of June 15, 2021, we are still aware that COVID-19 challenges are not entirely over. We also recognize the longer-lasting trauma experienced by ourselves and our communities from the escalation of anti-Asian violence since the onset of the pandemic. From March 2020 to September 2021, 10,370 anti-Asian racist incidents have been reported to Stop AAPI Hate across the nation. We anticipate that the full recovery of safe gathering spaces for staff, partners, and audiences will take time. We are proud of OACC’s 38-year legacy of service involving artists, schools, and communities and want to sustain our mission.
*Fundraising thermometer updated 5/27/22 – funds raised include donations received throughout the month of May at fundraisers, public programs, and general donations.
Each and every action counts. Whatever you can do — monetary or not — will mean a lot. Below is a list of ways you can support us categorized by upcoming fundraising events, public programs, and community initiatives in the month of May!
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Lotus Link Up: Tiger's Tap Room Party
2022-04-30 14:00 - 22:00 | Tiger’s Taproom, 308 Jackson Street STE 4, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Join us to kick off Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

We’ve partnered with Tiger’s Taproom for an afternoon + evening featuring local beer, food and music.
Tiger’s Taproom
308 Jackson Street STE 4
Oakland, CA 94607
Saturday, April 30
2PM – 10PM
Asian American entrepreneur and co-founder, Brian Chan, is hosting the company’s 2nd Annual AAPI Fundraiser to pay tribute to the generations of Asian American and Pacific Islanders who have enriched this country.
Tiger’s Taproom will be pouring beers from Dokkaebier, a local and Korean-owned brewery throughout the day. Food and music details coming soon. Support OACC while enjoying Asian-inspired craft beers at local favorite, Tiger’s Taproom!! Free to attend with a portion of all sales donated to OACC.
Bring your friends & family!
* This event is part of OACC’s new Lotus Link Up — connecting AAPI & Allies young professionals in the East Bay — to create and connect while exploring Oakland’s vibrant food and drink scene.

AAPI Heritage Month Fundraiser at Co Nam
2022-05-05 11:30 - 23:00 | Co Nam, 3936 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, 94609
Join us in celebration of Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

We’ve partnered with Co Nam to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month in the spirit of Cinco de Mayo and Oakland Cocktail Week! Co Nam is proud to be a co-sponsor with Atelier 19AD6 to Build: Cocktails, Community and Relationships.
Co Nam
3936 Telegraph Ave
Oakland, CA 94609, USA
Thursday, May 5
11:30AM – 11:00PM
Asian American entrepreneur, mixologist, chef, Co Nam founder, and restauranteur, Trung Nguyen, is hosting Oakland Cocktail Week + Cinco de Mayo Charity.
Support OACC while enjoying Pho Tacos and Tamarindo Margaritas! Free to attend with a portion of taco and margarita sales donated to OACC.
Bring your friends & family!

OACC Connex: Community Screen Printing Workshop
2022-05-08 11:00 - 16:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Update as of 3/18/22 – OACC Connex has been postponed to MAY 8, 2022 due to recent conflicts and developments.
You’re invited to the first-ever OACC Connex, a friend-raising event that supports the community in and around OACC.
Join us on March 20, 2022, from 11am-4pm at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center for a hands-on DIY community screen printing workshop and an immersive Oakland Chinatown walking tour. During the workshop, learn how you can create a design/message around community-building with Rock Paper Scissors Collective. In addition to the workshop, enjoy an hour-long special Oakland Chinatown historical tour led by Oakland Community Historian Roy Chan. After the tour, participants are encouraged to explore around Chinatown to grab an early or late lunch based on your workshop time. There will also be a demo and take-home posters provided by San Francisco Poster Syndicate.
There are only 30 spots available for the screen print workshop and attendees will be split into two groups of 15. OACC will provide all the screen printing materials and bottled water. Please come prepared by wearing clothes that would be ok to get paint on since the workshop can get messy.
Event Schedule:

11am-1pm:
Group A – DIY screen print workshop
Group B – Oakland Chinatown tour (tour leaves at 11:30am)
SF Poster Syndicate demo in OACC Lobby (until 1:30pm)
1pm: 30-minute break
1:30pm-3:30pm:
Group A – Oakland Chinatown tour
Group B – DIY screen print workshop

The event will be held in person at OACC. If you are planning to attend in person, please review OACC’s Onsite Visitor Policy. Donations are greatly appreciated and will support programs. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Art supplies were supported in-part by:

Solidarity & Resilience: Narrations through Traditional Vietnamese Music
2022-05-14 19:30 - 21:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
All ages welcome!
The “Solidarity and Resilience” concert is a commemorative reflection of April 30, 1975. It is a date often remembered poignantly – as a loss – by those of Vietnamese descent. As an important contrast to that loss, the goal of this concert is to offer several snapshots of inspiration, strength, and resilience. We will encourage audiences to reflect on the past and offer young people suggestions of how, where, and what inspiration and resilience can be. Vân-Ánh will perform with the genre-bending musical collective Blood Moon Orchestra.
This program is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Hewlett Foundation.

About Vân-Ánh Võ
Vân-Ánh Võ has dedicated her life to the practice and performance of Vietnamese traditional instruments, creating music by blending the wonderfully unique sounds of these instruments with other music genres and fusing deeply rooted Vietnamese musical traditions with fresh new structures and compositions. Since settling in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001, Vo has seen the beauty and strength in the music of other cultures, and especially as they come together. And as a result, she has focused on collaborating with musicians across different genres to create new works that use music to bring these cultures together.
About the Blood Moon Orchestra
Vân-Ánh Võ’s Blood Moon Orchestra is a genre-bending musical collective that defies the bounds of Vietnamese traditional music, hip-hop/rap, and breakdance. All master musicians, members of BMO have an innate ability to blend very different sounds together, creating surprisingly new and fresh musical dialogues. Beginning back in 2015 as an initiative by RIGHTSTARTER (drummer/producer PC Muñoz and rapper DEM ONE), current director/composer Van-Anh took over the creative directorship in 2017. BMO concerts address social issues, critically engage with underserved communities on issues of our times, and bridge cultures and generations through traditional music. In 2019, BMO was a headliner and provided workshops to 12,800 audience members for BridgeFest Vietnam, which aimed to foster dialogue surrounding diversity and equality.

About Alexander M. Cannon
Alexander M. Cannon, Ph.D. is an ethnomusicologist and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham (UK). He is a researcher of the musical traditions of southern Vietnam, including don ca tai tu (music for diversion), and musics of the Vietnamese diaspora. He has published widely in academic journals and has a new book titled Seeding the Tradition: Musical Creativity in Southern Vietnam released by Wesleyan University Press in 2022.

"Stories of Home" Community Screening
2022-05-15 17:00 - 18:30 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Celebrating Stories of Home During API Heritage Month
In these times of disruption and dislocation, storytelling can offer people a way to connect, reflect, and celebrate their memories and cultures. Stories of Home engages immigrants and refugees in exploring their unique narratives of “home” and building bridges of solidarity across communities. Please join us for a special screening of “material memories” stories of treasured objects and heirlooms and the histories they carry, to honor Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month, including work from our 2020 virtual reality project (to be shown in 2D). This work has been spearheaded by StoryCenter’s Artist-in-Residence Parul Wadhwa, who will moderate a panel of the storytellers discussing why narrative and art are vital to community building and wellness.

This event is co-sponsored by StoryCenter and ARTogether.

STORYTELLER BIOGRAPHIES (in alphabetical order):

Anju Subba, The Red Ribbon. Anju and her family came to the U.S. in 2010, as part of the resettlement of Nepalis who escaped ethnic cleansing in Bhutan. She lived and worked in the Bay Area as an aesthetician and a leader serving the Bhutanese refugee community, before moving to Pennsylvania in early 2021.
Edward Gunawan, The Cracked Vase. Indonesian-born Chinese queer immigrant Edward Gunawan is a writer and filmmaker who tells interdisciplinary stories interrogating kinship, belonging, and intersectional identities. He now resides with his husband on unceded Ohlone land in Oakland.
Goli Hashemi, My Grandmother’s Teaspoons. Goli was born in Iran and left the country with her family in 1987, during the Iran-Iraq war. After getting married, she moved to the U.S. and now lives and works in the East Bay as an occupational therapist and director of the Community Wellness Program at ARTogether.
Nahid Fattahi, The Poet. Nahid is an Afghan American writer, activist, and mental health practitioner who uses storytelling and poetry to create new narratives of refugees and others whose voices are often silenced. She works in the San Francisco Bay Area as an adjunct professor of psychology and as a psychotherapist.
Ngawang Lama, The Prayerbook. Ngawang was born in Nepal to Tibetan parents who left their country due to the Chinese occupation. After immigrating to the U.S. in 2017 with her husband and their two children, she found work as a nursing assistant in Berkeley, California, where she is currently attending classes to become a registered nurse.
Yeri Shon, The Passport. Yeri was born in South Korea and moved to the U.S. with her family in the 1990s. While she currently lives and works in the East Bay at a non-profit focused on serving and advocating for Korean and other immigrant communities, she always misses her motherland.

StoryCenter extends thanks to our community partners at the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants’ Wellness in Action program and the East Bay Refugee and Immigrant Forum. This project has been supported in part by an anonymous family foundation located in the San Francisco Bay Area; the East Bay Fund for Artists; and the California Arts Council, a state agency.

Celebrating Our HeART-filled Heritage: Bochan Huy
2022-05-21 16:00 - 17:30 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Cambodian American artist Bochan Huy will present a powerful live performance along with pianist Arlen Hart Ginsburg at OACC. Following the performance Bochan and Arlen will lead an interactive workshop exploring the healing power of music. We will examine how rhythm, melody, and lyrics all work together to heal our bodies, provide mental clarity, and capture our shared emotions and experiences. We will also explore the various aspects of what makes music music. From the pentatonic scale exercise to turning noise and sound into a melodic rhythm, to the composition of lyrics and melodies, together we will experience the birth of a song and art of performance.

FEATURED ARTISTS

Bochan Huy has dedicated her life to spearheading and continuing to sow the seeds of the Neo-Cambodian musical breakout movement. By collaborating with adept pianist and producer, Arlen Hart Ginsburg, Bochan effortlessly bridges the East-West gap with an inimitable, soulful yet sweet indie-pop vibe. She authentically draws on her dual country upbringing, combining influences from the ultra-urban Oakland scene, coupled with her deep-rooted Cambodian inspiration and fellowship, to create her infectious new sound. With 2 albums and 3 official music videos under her belt, from NPR to being a guest panelist for the Society of American Music, Bochan’s music has been featured globally in an array of music festivals, venues, media, films, and conferences. Bochan continues to guest speak at national conferences and has received accolades for her work in the community from various organizations to the State Senate of California in her home state.

Arlen Hart Ginsburg has been playing music since he was six years old and pursuing it professionally for 15 years. He has played and toured with several bands with the following genres: jazz, hip hop, funk, and soul, all the while continuing his independent pursuit of folk, meditation, and cinematic music. The pandemic has propelled him to focus deeper on how he wants to connect with the world and his ancestry through music. He is currently releasing a series of songs that were written and evolved throughout 2020-22, reflecting the changing world we are experiencing. You can follow Arlen on Spotify, Instagram and all other platforms.

About the Series
“Celebrating Our HeART-filled Heritage” champions local Asian and Asian Pacific Islander performing artists, with the goal of providing a platform for accomplished local performing artists and exposing our diverse community in the East Bay to compelling, culturally relevant artists and performances that inspire intergenerational and cross-cultural exchange. The performing arts series is supported in part by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund.
Donations are appreciated and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Lotus Link Up: Cocktails, Comedy, and Connection for AAPI & ALLIES
2022-05-25 16:00 - 20:00 | Somar Bar & Lounge, 1727 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
We’ve partnered with Somar Bar & Lounge on a fun and festive Happy Hour event. Enjoy a night of cocktails, comedy, and connection featuring DJ Trixie, Comedian Shawn Felipe, Singer/Songwriter Vince A, and emcee Stephanie Hoang.

1727 Telegraph Ave
Oakland, CA 94612
Wednesday, May 25
4PM – 8PM

Raffle tickets will also be sold at the event for the chance to win great prizes, including:

Rare and intimate beer tasting experience for four with Brian Chan at Tiger’s Tap Room and $175 Gift Card to Tiger’s Tap Room. Value = $500
Director’s Tour to the Charles M. Schulz Museum for five, “Happiness is” comic book, “Conversations with Charles M. Schulz” book. Value = $300
Umami Mart Bartender’s Toolkit. Value = $150
1 Wine Tasting Package: Hall Winery The Art of Cabernet (for 6 people) and Cakebread Winery Classing Tasting (for 4 people). Value = $100
1 Wine Tasting Package: Hall Winery The Art of Cabernet (for 6 people) and Cakebread Winery Classing Tasting (for 4 people). Value = $100
Malaya Tea Room Gift Certificate for two afternoon teas. Value = $70

$5 = 1 ticket entry; $20 = 5 ticket entries
Support OACC while enjoying innovative cocktails at local hotspot, Somar Bar & Lounge. Free to attend with a portion of all drink sales donated to OACC. Bring your friends and colleagues!
* This event is part of OACC’s new Lotus Link Up — connecting AAPI & Allies young professionals in the East Bay — to create and connect while exploring Oakland’s vibrant food and drink scene.

Artist/Entertainment Line Up:
”Trixamillion is an open format DJ born and raised in the Bay Area playing at your neighborhood bars and clubs in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and beyond. Not only can she party rock a crowd, but has even played for non-profits, corporations, and weddings. Some of her favorite genres to mix are R&B, House, Afrobeats, and eclectic remixes. She represents Cuffin: All Thangs R&B Party, San Jose and Ladies 1st DJ Club, Bay Area. You can catch her spinning virtually on Twitch or locally in the Bay Area.” Honolulu, Hawaii comedian, actor and personality, Shawn Felipe is known for his laconic and clever real-life stories as they expand internationally. His Live, Stand -Up Comedy stretches around the globe from the USA to Countries overseas such as Singapore,
Canada, Japan, Korea and the Middle East. He is no stranger to colleges and university’s Nationwide along with adding color to an array of corporate industries. Performance has earned him a nomination for Best New Artist in the Hawaii Music Awards; Best Take Out Comic in Hawaii; And the Most Recognized Comedy Competition in the USA. Shawn was also noted the Top 7 Comic at the World renowned 36th Annual San Francisco International Comedy Competition.
Shawn’s Stand-Up Comedy has been featured on various international networks including WorldAsia TV, AZN TV, IA TV, TFC Channel, Sprint Comedy, Time Network, and National Lampoons Comedy Radio. Shawn has also been a guest star on NBC’s cop TV series “Hawaii” and has been on several national commercials. Not to forget mentioning, Shawn was a part of a team to win first place on Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race!” He and his team, Aloha Plate, won $50k and a State of the Art Food Truck that is now in operation. Stephanie Hoang was born and raised in Oakland, CA in the San Antonio neighborhood. She graduated from UC Berkeley, majoring in Social Welfare and Asian American & Asian Diaspora Studies, and has worked in restorative justice, youth development, and education. Serving as an Oakland Asian Cultural Center Board Member, she is also an Academic and College Counselor in East Oakland, preparing high school students for college and career opportunities. She is committed to amplifying the voices of young people, and building understanding across generations and cultures with an anti-racist framework. In her spare time, she enjoys arts and crafts, photography, filmmaking, and (eating, sometimes cooking) food. Bay Area artist Vince A is a Filipino singer/songwriter and producer who has recently started his solo career after his departure from the Hip-Hop group he founded known as “The Lychee Boys”. He felt that writing and producing songs for himself rather than a group was more spiritually fulfilling, allowing him to put his whole heart into his music. His writing and production were recently acknowledged when music.com chose his song, “Understand” by The Lychee Boys, to be mixed by Sony out of 800+ submissions. His focus on his music now goes beyond writing the average catchy love song, hoping to communicate the message of “you are not alone, more people are dealing with the same situation than you think and you’ll be ok”. While still writing catchy hooks and memorable punchlines, he is able to honestly convey strange but relatable experiences in a way that is easily listenable yet powerful.

Virtual Book Talk: "The All-American Crew" with Author Russell N. Low
2022-05-27 18:00 - 19:30
How the Early Chinese American Experience Shaped the Greatest Generation
“…Low is a talented storyteller who has woven engaging family tales into a greater American story of ten men from different lives and backgrounds who went to war and bonded into a tight crew, symbolic of an America that is uniquely able to forge strength from diversity.”
—Ted Gong, Executive Director and Founder, 1882 Foundation
Join this virtual book talk to hear from author Russell N. Low about his second novel, The All-American Crew. On January 23, 1943, a B-24 Liberator bomber and its crew of ten men disappeared without a trace in New Guinea. Their families never knew what happened to them. Now, 80 years later, their long-forgotten letters and dusty photographs finally tell their story in Russell’s new narrative nonfiction work.
The All-American Crew presents Ah Ying’s grandsons, Loren and Stan, who enlist in the Army Air Force and go off to the Pacific to fight for their country’s freedom. Their heroic struggles in New Guinea and Saipan offer a personal look at the assimilation of Chinese Americans into fighting crews and units that included young men from every cultural and ethnic background. This novel is a sequel to Russell’s first novel, Three Coins.

Donations are appreciated and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

About the Author
Russell N. Low is the nephew of Stanley Low and a California-born fourth-generation Chinese American physician. Low is the author of Three Coins, which tells the story of his great-grandmother Ah Ying, who was enslaved as a child and trafficked to California, where she escaped from slavery with the help of her future husband, Hung Lai Wah, a worker on the transcontinental railroad. The story of Ah Ying, Hung Lai Wah, and their descendants has been featured on the History Channel, BBC Radio, National Public Radio, and the Voice of America, and is included in the California State Railroad Museum and the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Creative Voices of the Vietnamese Diaspora
2022-06-04 14:00 - 16:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Join artists and writers at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center for Creative Voices of the Vietnamese Diaspora. Artist Katherina Nguyen will discuss her works in the “Textures of Remembrance” exhibition, as well as her work with the DVAN – Texas Tech publishing imprint and upcoming Mapping the Diaspora project. She’ll be joined by panelists Lan Duong and Kathy L. Nguyen, the editors of Troubling Borders and contributors to Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry & Prose, as well as Isabelle Pelaud, Founder and Executive Director of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN).
The panel discussion will draw on the creative outlets and collections found, created, or published to share interwoven cross-generational Vietnamese voices and perspectives of war, refuge, and identity.

This program is presented in partnership with the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, Exhibit Envoy, and Eastwind Books of Berkeley.

Image Credit: Cover art of Troubling Borders.

About the Speakers (in alphabetical order by last name)

Lan Duong is Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Treacherous Subjects: Gender, Culture, and Trans-Vietnamese Feminism (Temple UP, 2012) and coeditor of Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora: Troubling Borders in Literature and Art (UW Press, 2013). Her poem has appeared in Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose (Asian American Writers Workshop, 1998), a reprint of which will be published by Texas Tech University in 2023 to celebrate its 25th year anniversary. Other poems can be found in Oberon (2018), Spoon River Review (2018), Bold Words: Asian American Writing to Span the Centuries (Rutgers University, 2001), and Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing (New Rivers Press, 2000).

Katherina Nguyen is a creative technologist exploring ways to better bridge the past and future. Her work leading high-impact systems design for organizations like Harvard Kennedy School and Google taught her to appreciate the connectivity of global societies and ecosystems. Currently she works on interactive AI storytelling tools at Meta to empower more diverse voices with a vocabulary to access new media frontiers. She believes in the power, freedom, and responsibility of communities to come together to actively shape strong, inclusive narratives. A Bay Area native and 1.5 generation Vietnamese-American immigrant via the H.O. program, she has been exploring her evolving diaspora identity through poetry and narrative essays. With DVAN, Kat leads the Texas Tech publishing series and upcoming Mapping the Diaspora project.

Kathy Nguyễn is Vice President of Research for ESG & Data Intelligence at Diligent, a modern governance company that empowers transformational leaders to build more successful, equitable, and sustainable organizations. A former educator, she has taught Interdisciplinary Studies at the City College of San Francisco and Berkeley City College and was the Managing Editor of Nhà Magazine. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Fringe, Fourteen Hills, Women’s World, and Nhà, among other publications.

Isabelle Thuy Pelaud is Professor of Asian American Studies at SF State University; and the Executive Director of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN), an organization that promotes Vietnamese cultural productions in the Diaspora. She is the author of This Is All I Choose To Tell: History and Hybridity in Vietnamese American Literature and the co-editor of award winning Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora. She is currently writing a novel inspired by her mother.

Additional bios to come.

“Textures of Remembrance” is a traveling exhibit created in partnership between Exhibit Envoy, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network and Oakland Asian Cultural Center. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and California Arts Council, a state agency with a mission to strengthen arts, culture, and creative expression as the tools to cultivate a better California for all. Visit calhum.org and arts.ca.gov.

Queer Trans Asian Pride - A Community Gathering
2022-06-04 17:30 - 20:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
or scan the code below!

Join the QTAPI(Queer Trans API) Coalition for an evening of community gathering.
An evening of fun, food, and films…Happening at Oakland Asian Cultural Center right in Oakland’s Chinatown, this event is to highlight, celebrate and bring together Queer Transgender Gender Non-Binary Intersex ASIAN PACIFIC ISLANDERS during the API Heritage Month. A gathering presented to you by ParivarBayArea in association with Oakland Asian Cultural Center along with QTAPI Coalition. Come out to enjoy food, drinks, and performances by Asian Queer Trans Artists!
Vaccinations, boosters, and testing kits will be also available onsite. And a community fair for resources.
Come out and be part of the community and be part of Asian PRIDE.

This event is part of 2022 San Francisco Bay Area QTAPI Week.

Telling Our Stories: A Celebration of Oakland and Bay Area’s Diverse Voices
2022-06-11 14:00 - 16:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
For many of us who have experienced displacement and marginalization, we tell our stories not only to survive — we do it so we can also fully thrive.
Over six weekly sessions, 10 local BIPOC, queer/trans, immigrant/refugee storytellers gathered to connect and share stories that explore “home” and “home-making” for oneself in this often-times inhospitable world we live in.
Through first-person narration, along with family photos and archival footage, they create intimately personal video stories that will be shared at this special celebration screening on June 11th. A celebration of Oakland and Bay Area’s diverse voices, this event will culminate with a panel that discusses the storytellers’ process in creating and sharing their works, and the vital role that creativity and storytelling play in community-building.
Led by facilitator Edward Gunawan, this gathering is made possible by the generous support from the City of Oakland Cultural Funding Program, and in partnership with Oakland Asian Cultural Center and ARTogether.

About the Storytellers and Facilitator (in alphabetical order of last name):
Lujain Al-Saleh is a labor organizer and public health advocate living in Oakland, California. She graduated with a Master of Public Health in Global Health & Environment from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in 2020 and completed her undergraduate degree at UC Davis with a major in Environmental Science & Management and minors in Middle East & South Asia Studies and Professional Writing.
Jyoti Bachani is a human, storyteller, poetry lover, professor, who likes to walk, dance, cook, and sleep, not in that order. Over-educated with multiple degrees from some fine institutions in three different continents that taught her to pass what she knows on, by taking on the challenge to put knowledge into practice, for serving the greater good.
Jenny Fang is a writer and product manager. Born and raised in the East Bay, she can’t stand same old same old. Known by her friends to seek new meaningful experiences, you will always find her doing something that fills her with joy.
Edward Gunawan is a writer and filmmaker who creates socially-impactful projects and special events to facilitate meaningful connections and community-building. A queer Indonesian-born Chinese immigrant, he now resides on Ohlone land in Oakland, CA. Visit addword.com for more.
J Jha is a GNC South Asian asylee, who is re-imagining the world from trans centers of gravity. In 2019, they presented the world premiere of Mahâbhârata, a solo-telling of the great Indian epic, where the re-tellng presents the non-cis gendered male perspective that has dominated this conversation for all time.
Jasmine Liang is a multidisciplinary artist and student organizer. She currently uses mapmaking as a form of memoir and documentation of the city. As a co-founding member of the Art Student Union at San Francisco State University, Jasmine is committed to connecting the community to local artists and organizations.
Carmen Lopez was born and raised in the East Bay. She studied environmental systems/policy at UC San Diego and currently does equity-focused environmental policy work. She loves trying new recipes, finding new ways to express her creativity, running, and yoga.
Austin Tang is a designer by vocation, hunter-gatherer of stories by inclination. A happily transplanted east coaster by way of long meandering stints in Asia. Now enjoying being a dad, finding greater rootedness and searching for the balance point between peace of mind and reflexive googling.
Man-Tso Wei was born in Taiwan and moved to the U.S. in 2017. He currently works in the East Bay as a social worker. As part of his work, he finds meaning in working with people, especially those in marginalized communities, to find their voice, transform suffering, and resist oppression.
Chey Yen is a queer and trans Chinese-American from San Francisco, with ancestral ties to Hong Kong and Vietnam. Having created a few short films in the past, they hope to return to the practice of creating personal video stories with other artists through this workshop.
Vera Yin dreams of rivers, listens with ancestors, forages beneath weeds, meanders through language, dances between moments, sculpts from wind, swims among stars, reaches across unknowing, drifts along leisurely, lost since the beginning.

Celebrating Our HeART-filled Heritage: Hālau KaUaTuahine
2022-06-18 14:00 - 15:30 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Members of Hālau KaUaTuahine will share the vibrant dances and traditions of Hawai’i onstage at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Following the performances will be various interactive workshops for attendees to learn more about hula. Attendees will be asked to pre-register for these workshops through the RSVP form (above).

Post-performance workshops include:
Construct Your Own Lei Lāʻī
Lāʻī (tī-leaf) is considered to have the ability to ward off evil and encourage positive energy. It is revered as a symbol of divine protection and closely associated with the hula tradition. Lei are symbols of love, honor and continuity. Creating, gifting and wearing a lei lāʻī is therefore an act of deep aloha. Join us in a mini workshop in which you will learn how to weave your own lei lāʻī.
Construct Your Own Kukui Pendant Necklace
The kukui (candlenut) is symbolic of enlightenment and knowledge, as the nut itself can be used as a source of light. For this reason, they are often worn by educators and for ceremonial occasions. In this mini workshop, you will learn how to create your own kukui nut pendant.
Learn Hula Noho (Sitting Hula)
The hula is a dance form which interprets stories, prayers and poems. There are many forms of hula, including one in which the dancer remains seated and conveys the story with their hands, voice, upper body movement and expression. Join us in a mini workshop where you will be introduced to this traditional form of dance.

About the Artists

Hālau KaUaTuahine is an organization dedicated to the study, protection and perpetuation of the performing arts of Hawai’i. It is named after the gentle “sister” rain that falls in the valley of Mānoa in Honolulu. They have presented in performance throughout California and internationally, appearing in venues ranging from the Hollywood Bowl and Kū Mai Ka Hula of Hawaiʻi Island, Maui, Oʻahu and Kauaʻi, to the Heiva celebrations of Tahiti, French Polynesia and Te Papa Tongareva, the National Museum of New Zealand. The hālau will soon celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Māhealani Uchiyama is an award-winning dancer, musician, composer, choreographer, recording artist, author and teacher. She is the founder and director of the Māhea Uchiyama Center for International Dance in Berkeley and is Kumu Hula of Hālau KaUaTuahine. She is the creator and director of the Kāpili Polynesian Dance and Music Workshops. She holds a BA in Dance Ethnology and an MA in Pacific Islands Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi. She trained in traditional hula and Tahitian ʻori under the late Kumu Hula (hula master) Joseph Kamōha’i Kahā’ulelio. Learn more at https://www.mahea.com/.

About the Series
“Celebrating Our HeART-filled Heritage” champions local Asian and Asian Pacific Islander performing artists, with the goal of providing a platform for accomplished local performing artists and exposing our diverse community in the East Bay to compelling, culturally relevant artists and performances that inspire intergenerational and cross-cultural exchange. The performing arts series is supported in part by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund.
Donations are appreciated and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Become a Changemaker: Learn More About Recycling & Composting in Oakland
2022-06-24 13:00 - 14:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Join us in person for a quick presentation and Q&A to learn more about how we recycle and compost in our city. We’ll go over what happens to recycle and compost after it is picked up and how you can do simple steps to help the environment. These changes can make an impact, learn how to become a changemaker with us! Please RSVP.

Jikimee - AAPI Elder Voices
2022-06-30 11:00 - 12:30 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
In collaboration with the Korean Community Center of the East Bay (KCCEB), Oakland Asian Cultural Center’s AAPI Elder Voices Project presents a storytelling and photo exhibit that shares stories of resilience and strength of community seniors. Throughout the pandemic, KCCEB has convened monthly online gatherings with Korean American seniors to combat their isolation. Named “Jikimee” (Korean for “Community Protector”), this group visited healing spaces together, such as the Gardens at Lake Merritt and the Angel Island Immigration Station, where they shared personal stories of community and immigration journeys. This photo exhibition and story sharing event will highlight their collected oral histories through video interviews as well as portraits by photographers Andria Lo and Ella Chang as a part of the AAPI Elder Voices Project.
About the AAPI Elder Voices Project: Amid the unrelenting pandemic, our AAPI seniors have endured isolation, insecurity, and fear from widespread xenophobia. Through the healing power of personal and community oral history, this project aims to uplift the voices and rich experiences of our elders. Made possible by the generous support of the Senior Assistance Foundation East Bay, the AAPI Elder Voices Project comes out of OACC’s Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project which began in 2006. For more info, visit www.chinatownmemories.org
This event is brought to you in partnership with Korean Community Center of the East Bay and generously funded by Senior Assistance Foundation Eastbay.

Natto Presentation & Tasting Session
2022-07-09 10:00 - 11:30 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Eien will talk about natto, the fascinating, delicious, and nutritious fermented soybeans from Japan. The demo will include samples of fresh natto and offer ideas for traditional and non-traditional preparations. In Japan, natto is highly regarded as a ‘superfood’ with many health benefits including cardiovascular health, brain function, bone and teeth strength, and improved digestive system. Because all natto imported into the United States is frozen, this is a very rare opportunity to taste fresh, organic natto, whether you consider yourself a fan or not yet!
ADMISSION FEE* (includes fresh natto sample for tasting)

$25 – Regular Admission
$30 – Regular Admission + Donation

This event is presented in partnership with the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California. The Center is also offering the same workshop at their facility on Sunday, July 10. Click here to view The Center’s workshop event registration page.
*Fees and donations help cover program expenses and sustain OACC’s capacity to bring high-quality workshops to our audiences. If the above fee presents a high barrier to your participation, please email programs@oacc.cc for assistance.

About the Instructor

Eien Hunter-Ishikawa is a musician and educator based in Portland, Oregon specializing in drumset, taiko, percussion, and shinobue. Born in Japan, his passion for drumming started at an early age through the involvement of a youth taiko ensemble directed by Saburo Mochizuki, a founding member of Tokyo’s pioneering taiko ensemble Sukeroku Daiko. Eien continues to work in a wide variety of artistic collaborations and offers private lessons, online instruction, and workshops that also highlight his non-taiko areas of expertise including knife sharpening, vegetable fermentation, and natto demonstrations.

Japanese Knife Sharpening Workshop
2022-07-09 13:30 - 15:30 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
In this workshop, Eien Hunter-Ishikawa will teach the basics of Japanese knife sharpening on water stones. Japanese knife culture is distinct in several ways: the blade is sharper and thinner, sharpening is done on whetstones, and chefs sharpen their own knives in order to accommodate their individual cutting needs. After this introduction of basic techniques, you will be able to sharpen your own knives at home and experience the true joy of cooking with a sharp blade.
NOTE: Please bring your kitchen knives to sharpen during the class. Space is limited to 15 spots so early registration is advised.
WORKSHOP FEE* (includes a King KW65 whetstone for each participant to take home)

$80 – Regular Admission
$90 – Regular Admission + Donation

This event is presented in partnership with the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California. The Center is also offering the same workshop at their facility on Sunday, July 10. Click here to view The Center’s workshop event registration page.
*Fees and donations help cover program expenses and sustain OACC’s capacity to bring high-quality workshops to our audiences. If the above fee presents a high barrier to your participation, please email programs@oacc.cc for assistance.

About the Instructor

Eien Hunter-Ishikawa is a musician and educator based in Portland, Oregon specializing in drumset, taiko, percussion, and shinobue. Born in Japan, his passion for drumming started at an early age through the involvement of a youth taiko ensemble directed by Saburo Mochizuki, a founding member of Tokyo’s pioneering taiko ensemble Sukeroku Daiko. Eien continues to work in a wide variety of artistic collaborations and offers private lessons, online instruction, and workshops that also highlight his non-taiko areas of expertise including knife sharpening, vegetable fermentation, and natto demonstrations.
