To commemorate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPI), which ended in May, students shared how they celebrate and honor their culture at Stanford.

Bella Kim ’29

On Memorial Day, I went to Mega Mart, a Korean grocery store in East Palo Alto, because I miss my parents’ cooking. My friend and I raided the prepared food section for gimbap, meat and vegetables rolled in rice and seaweed, like Korean cooked sushi. We also bought pajeon, a savory scallion pancake that my mom makes at home. Strolling through familiar aisles of packaged ramen and Korean snacks made me feel closer to home and my family. 

Sanya Gupta ’30

I’ve always been self conscious about how I make chai. To be fair, everything about it is technically wrong — I don’t use any sugar, my tea to milk ratio is too tea-heavy and, perhaps worst of all, I use oat milk. Blasphemy, truly. Of course, I love my chai, bubbling with flavours of elaichi, saffron, daal chini and long, but I find myself holding my breath, expecting to be critiqued every time I make it for anyone else. I hear my mom in my panicked “Wait, you can add sugar if you want” or “It’s not my best work.” There is nothing quite as warm as my mom’s heart reacts to my little cups of chai in the family group chat.

Akash Shah ’26

I find yoga — and the philosophy that accompanies it — endlessly fascinating. At YogiFest, we explore the depth of the impact of each practice, from the simple warmup exercises at the beginning of the session to the complex strength or balance poses at the end. The power of a single deep breath, for example, cannot be overestimated. With the capacity to almost immediately decrease physiological parameters such as blood pressure, heart rate and even blood cortisol (the stress hormone) levels, pranayam instantaneously kickstarts the parasympathetic nervous system responsible for the “rest and digest” relaxation functions of the body. 

At Stanford, finding appealing ways to practice yoga, pranayam, or meditation can be difficult. We feel like we are not flexible enough to do yoga, can’t do pranayam with friends or don’t have the discipline for meditation. But as many scholars around the world have been saying for ages — with Western medicine slowly arriving at the same conclusion — mindfulness practices embedded within our daily lives can do wonders to our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. At YogiFest, we not only practice all of yoga, pranayam and meditation, but we get to do it together, with a community of students from all over campus. We get to talk about the philosophy as well as the physiology. And my favorite part: we get to hang out with cool people and make new friends while we enjoy free On Call drinks at the end of every class!

As we wrap up this academic year, I challenge you to take just ten deep, abdominal breaths throughout the day for the next week. I encourage you to incorporate some meditation or pranayam practice into your day-to-day life. And I invite you to join us at our next YogiFest class.

Chloe Shannon Wong ’28

My mom speaks Mandarin, and my dad speaks Cantonese — both are very fluent in English, so growing up, that was the only language I knew. When I was little, Mom tried valiantly to teach me. But I was an impatient student, and the older I got, the more Chinese fell by the wayside. After 19 years of only knowing very rudimentary Chinese (if even that!), when it came time to fulfill Stanford’s language requirement at Stanford, picking Chinese was a no-brainer. Three quarters in, I still find myself struggling with new vocab and the tone system. But it has been undeniably rewarding to finally connect to my culture through language. I am someone who decides her classes five minutes before enrollment — yet I know Chinese will always be on the list.