UNC SEASA hosts first ever cultural gala for charity

On Sunday evening, the Great Hall in the Student Union was filled with the excited chatter of students, mostly dressed in traditional Southeast Asian clothing and holding plates piled high with banh mi sliders, pad thai or basil fried rice.

Some ate their meals at tables arranged around the room, while others took photos in front of a backdrop decorated with fairy lights and paper flowers. Pop and R&B songs streamed through the speakers. 

The food and festivities were part of the UNC Southeast Asian Student Association's first ever charity gala, “Threads of Unity.” The name is inspired by the diversity and unity between various Southeast Asian cultures.

“SEASA is kind of unique and unlike the other Asian orgs in that there's many different parts of Southeast Asia, so it's hard to think of one particular theme that encompasses all of us,” Kayla Vu, one of SEASA’s design chairs, said. “So we kind of wanted to just capture how different and similar that we are.”

Vu, a UNC junior, said SEASA has been trying to plan a charity gala since her first year but lacked the funds to do so. Thanks to the club's growth over the past two years, they were finally were able to make it happen on Sunday.

The gala's ticket proceeds will be donated to Transplanting Traditions Community Farm, a Chapel Hill farm supporting Burmese, Karen and Chin refugees. The farm hopes to foster food sovereignty in refugee communities, meaning community control and access to agricultural and food systems. It has a number of educational, agricultural and mutual-aid oriented programs specifically for refugees in the area. 

Vu said she tried to represent the charity and Southeast Asian countries in the gala's decorations, which incorporated baskets and earthy colors.

The organization's culinary chairs also represented Southeast Asia through the event's menu. Some dishes were catered by local restaurants like Cham Thai and Rasa Malaysia, while others were made by the chairs themselves.

After attendees filled their plates with food and took their seats, the night's performances began. Disaporadic, an Asian American indie band made up of UNC students, took the stage first, performing covers of the songs “Every Summertime” by NIKI and “APT.” by ROSÉ and Bruno Mars in their first ever performance with all five members.

A series of musical performances followed, with rounds of trivia interspersed between.  The performances ranged from Vietnamese dance troupe Blue Star to student Daffany Lee singing a song in the Hmong language.

Kasama, UNC's Filipino American Association, had the most people in their performance; their dance medley involved 37 people and showcased three popular Filipino dances.

One of them, a dance called Tinikling, involved the dancers jumping over bamboo poles.

“Basically, it just mimics the movements of the tinikling bird as it tries to escape the traps set by rice farmers back in the Philippines,” Elaine De Jesus, Kasama's dance coordinator, said.

During the intermission, April Bourommavong, Christy Thalangsy and Thu Neang — three UNC alumni — said Kasama's performance was their favorite up until that point.

All three were once part of SEASA, with Bourommavong co-founding the club in 2018.

Bourommavong said she started the club to give Southeast Asian students a place on campus but never thought it would be as big as it is today.

“There wasn't really a place for Southeast Asian students, especially since a lot of us never really had the opportunity to make it to secondary education, so I just think it's beautiful that this community has been built, and it's thriving and prominent,” they said.

After the performances, members put on a fashion show, celebrating traditional clothing from specific Southeast Asian countries.

Toward the end of the night, SEASA announced that the gala had raised over $2,000 for Transplanting Traditions so far.

 Kyna Lisette Zaldivar, Kasama's publicity chair and a dancer in the performance, said the gala is a great way to learn about the cultures of Burma, Laos and other Southeast Asian countries that are not often talked about.

“SEASA is an amazing organization, and Kasama loves SEASA so much, and the fact that they're doing this is incredible,” she said. “So props to them, especially for it being their first time.”

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