What began in 1989 as primarily a fashion show has now developed into a mix of fashion, dance and music as a celebration of the unity between Asian and American cultural identities.
On Friday night the Lansing Center was alive with the life and music of “Cultural Vogue 2.015: Generation Creation,” hosted by the Asian Pacific American Student Organization.
This year’s “Generation Creation” theme placed an emphasis on the idea of this generation of Asian-Americans creating their own history.
Communication senior Brenda Duong coordinated this year’s fashion competition, which she chose to title “Le Dernier Cri,” which is French for “the latest fashion.”
As she introduced each of the contestants, Duong spoke to the complicated nature of the fashion show and the larger implications on a societal level of putting Asian-Americans into strictly Asian outfits.
Each of their outfits combined a traditional aspect of their culture with a contemporary Western style.
“Culture and fashion are complicated, but identity is something that’s even more complicated,” she said.
The winners of the fashion competition were announced near the end of the show, and supply chain management sophomore Yoon-Gi Kim and human biology sophomore Dalena Le were respectively crowned Mr. and Miss APASO.
The event was overseen by recent neuroscience and human biology graduate Widya Adidharma, who has been involved with APASO for several years and currently serves as the organization’s senior adviser. Now in her gap year, she will be attending medical school at University of Washington in the fall.
She decided to become involved in Cultural Vogue as a parting gift to MSU’s Asian-American community, which she said has supported her throughout her undergraduate career.
“I’m actually from Wyoming, which doesn’t have many other cultures,” she said. “I was one of maybe three Asians in my school and it was hard for me to be comfortable with my culture while trying to make friends. Then I came here and I joined APASO and it made me realize that it’s OK to have more than one culture. It’s OK to have modern culture as part of a traditional heritage.”
Psychology senior and Cultural Vogue emcee Jen Nguyen kept the crowd entertained between set-ups and tear-downs for each act.
As a graduating senior, Nguyen said it was great to perform and see the new generation of students at MSU take over and start doing their own thing.
Though the crowd was a large one, she said she felt pretty at ease and just had fun with the experience.
The headline performance of the night was Far East Movement , the first Asian American musical group to have a No. 1 hit on the United States Billboard Hot 100 with their song “Like a G6.”
Adidharma said that she chose to involve the group in Cultural Vogue because of the national impact they’ve made as Asian-Americans.
“If you think about it, there aren’t any Asian artists other than Far East Movement,” she said. “They’re like the only ones that everyone recognizes, and people look up to them.”
