Spring Festival 2008
April 18-27

Welcome!

Even in its short history, the PanAsia Spring Festival—now in its seventh year—has broken critical ground at the University of Chicago. The Festival, established as a politically-minded and socially-purposeful cultural organization, has always focused on the contemporary issues related to Asian America and has consistently provoked an essential discourse on Asian racial and ethnic identities. The Festival in its various incarnations, reminds us of the multiple perspectives that may be seen in light of the complexities of understanding the minority experience. And through representations of art, political discussions, and academic dialogue, the Festival offers opportunities to further an exploration of what is intimately familiar or, even distantly unknown to us; it functions, ultimately, to help coalesce a better understanding of the society we find ourselves in.

This year, the Festival considers the mutability of cultural discreteness, exploring the nature of the cross-cultural. Events during the week prove that contemporary issues facing Asian America are not necessarily specific to particular races, ethnicities, or cultures; they prove that human themes transcend arbitrary social categories. PanAsia’s Opening Performance, “HipHopistan Hyde Park,” demonstrates too well that a single musical genre, Hip Hop, may express the universal nature of artistic representations as functioning cultural tools—in both South Asian and Black communities. And Anne Elizabeth Moore’s lecture on her experiences of teaching Khmer women how to empower themselves through self-publication reveals the obvious importance of free speech. While the content of these particular events relate to Asian issues, the messages of them relate to everyone. This is the specific goal of the Festival: to bring people together under a common consequence.

And it is with this that we invite you to enjoy the Festival. Join us for another great season of events!

Yennie Lee, Festival Chair