After school once a year, the Cypress Field becomes a mosaic of colored powders. On Wednesday, April 10, the Asian and Pacific American Club (APAC) and South Asian Student Alliance (SASA) collaborated to celebrate Holi.
Holi, also known as the Festival of Colors, is a Hindu holiday thought to invite the love of the deities Radha and Krishna, as well as to celebrate the beginning of spring. Sophomore Jiayan Guo celebrated this year for the first time.
“This is my first [Holi celebration]. I’m in APAC. I saw all the promotions, and it looked really cool, so now I’m here,” Guo said. “I learned that Holi wards off evil spirits.”
The event began with the unveiling of a massive box with vivid powders and a few white shirts. Senior Priya Katari, who attended the event for the second year in a row, said the celebration was really fun. Katari said she celebrated Holi on a smaller scale at home but didn’t have a chance to celebrate with many people.
“My dad is Indian, and [Holi] is something that I grew up hearing about. [My family] talked about trying to have it, so having the school implement it in a way that I can access really easily was really fun,” Katari said. “ We’ve mostly been in mostly white communities; there wasn’t really anything. We had done mini versions of it before, but we weren’t able to implement the full-scale ‘throw colors at each other and have a bunch of people’ kind of celebration.”
Last year, Katari celebrated Holi in the Quad.
“I think having it in the quad [last time] was interesting because it was a bit more contained, so having it be this visible is an interesting thing. I’m not sure about how other people might feel about that, but I liked it,” Katari said.
The event comes after about a month of planning in advance, according to APAC co-president Justina Wang.
“It was pretty simple. We just ordered a ton of powder and had a couple of white shirts in handy. We were very lucky the Cypress Field finished all the renovations it was going through,” Wang said.
APAC hosts many types of celebrations during the school year. Wang said she appreciates getting to share parts of a different culture.
“I learned a lot. Learning about Holi and being able to celebrate it myself and as president with the club is really great,” Wang said. “I feel like it’s a great way for us to demonstrate our different cultures. Holi is a very significant holiday for those who celebrate it.”
