BLS Desi Society
"BLS Desi is a South Asian club that strives to bring in a sense of community for those who might feel underrepresented through our cultural dances, talks, and food. Even if you're not South Asian we love to share our culture with people so they get a sense of appreciation."
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Name?
“Fariah.”
Grade?
“I’m a junior.”
Pronouns?
“She/her.”
How do you define community?
“Community is when a group of people can come together and share something that they both/all have in common and bond over that.”
How do you define representation?
“Representation is when you can look at a place or maybe even a show of something and you can see people who look like you, who represent you. You can find yourselves within them.”
Why do you think they are so important?
“I feel like often when you look at certain things you’re like ‘Oh why can’t I be like this person?’, ‘Why can’t I be like this/ a certain way?’ but if you look at/ find someone online that looks like you, you might have an easier time with that or you might be able to accept yourself easier than what the media portrays.”
How does your club provide that?
“Through our events we incorporate a lot of cultural South Asian themes. As you know there's not many South Asians at this school so we do things like henna week, and we have chai time, and through those events we hope that people get a sense of our culture and want to participate in it more. And maybe if there are South Asian students they might wanna come out and represent their culture with us.”
How does your club make you feel?
“I love being in this club. It’s one of the reasons why I love going to this school so much. When I was a sixie (BLS seventh grader) there wasn’t many people that I could look to that shared the same struggles as me so now when I’m together with them we can relate and bond over the same things.”
Does having a leadership position now makes you want to pursue something similar in the future?
“Oh yeah definitely. If I get into a college that might not have representation I would definitely strive for it. And being the president I would say is a heavy burden to hold onto, especially sharing culture and all that, but it just makes me want to share our culture even more.”
April 26, 2022
Henna week
BLS A.S.I.A. (Asian Students in Action)
"A.S.I.A. is a cultural club seeking to promote Asian-American identity, culture, and solidarity at BLS. We host a variety of cultural events throughout the year and often work alongside other BLS cultural clubs. We seek to provide a welcoming environment for everyone at our school."
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Name?
“I’m An.”
Grade?
“I’m a senior.”
Pronouns?
“She/her.”
How do you define community?
“I think community is a lot of things. I think it’s comradery between people.”
How do you define representation?
“Representation is like feeling seen and heard in different forms of media I’d say. Representation is having the confidence that you as a person of color, or someone in the LGBT community, or someone that is just a minority can achieve what you want to achieve because someone else has done that too and there’s room for you to do it too.”
Why do you think they are so important?
“For change. I think if there wasn’t any representation and there wasn’t any community we’d still be living in the world we were 200 years ago. I think representation and community are important for people economically, for social mobility, but more than that for people to have faith. For people to have faith in this world you have to feel like you are able to do something for yourself.”
How does your club provide that?
“We build a community for Asian Americans but we also have partnerships with BLS B.L.A.C.K., and the Jewish club, and T.A.G. (Talented and Gifted Latinx) so I think it’s a show of solidarity. It’s a representation of resilience and strength.”
How does your club make you feel?
“It feels like I’m doing something good for my community. It feels like I’m not saving the world but I think it’s helpful for younger generations for sure.”
Does having a leadership position now makes you want to pursue something similar in the future?
“For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I can’t elaborate on that just yeah.”
May 13, 2022
"Shades of Solidarity" Asia night
BLS V.S.S. (Vietnamese Students Society)
"The Vietnamese Students Society, also known as VSS, here at Boston Latin School started in order to promote, preserve, and celebrate the rich culture of Vietnam. Our mission is to create a supportive, fun,
and welcoming environment for the Vietnamese and Vietnamese American students at Boston Latin School. We aim to share and promote the voices and experiences of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American students, advocate unity among the Vietnamese community, and provide different and interesting ways for students to indulge in Vietnamese culture."
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Names?
“My name’s Ethan.”
“My name’s Nha.”
Grades?
“I’m in 11th grade.”
“I’m also in 11th grade.”
Pronouns?
“My pronouns are he/him.”
“My pronouns are she/her.”
How do you define community?
“I find community to be a place where people can be welcomed, and just share their identity, and things that they love. Like in V.S.S. we’re able to create an area where people can share in the culture comfortably.”
“Yeah I think community is a bond across borders. In terms of culture, being able to bond with someone who isn’t of the same ethnicity, or isn’t of the same race as you. But also intergenerationally. Younger folks like those from 0 years old, 20-something, 30 being able to bond with elderly people. I think that’s really important in creating a community as well. You need to cross all those borders in order to create a full community.”
How do you define representation?
“I feel representation is when people of all backgrounds have an equal voice. Where one person doesn’t have a greater power over the other just because of how they are, whether it be their race, ethnicity, sexuality. I feel representation is just really important so that we can get different voices of different communities and we can all come to a shared answer and all work together.”
“Just to touch on Ethan’s point, representation is just being able to see yourself somewhere else. And knowing that you can do all of that too. And yeah.”
Why do you think they are so important?
“Without representation we can’t create a community where everybody feels welcomed. With representation we’re able to accommodate each other and just make this world a little bit more peaceful.”
“Yeah. And I think representation’s really important especially if you think about how minorities are portrayed in media. If I didn’t grow up seeing myself doing art/ liberal art types of jobs then I wouldn’t think that I could pursue it as an Asian American. And upon that it’s opening those types of doors for yourself. Being able to see yourself represented in other things.”
How does your club provide that?
“Me and Nha have worked really hard to try and create a place where people who are Vietnamese and people who aren’t Vietnamese can enjoy and share our culture that we love so much. We hope that by creating such a welcoming area people from other cultures will also feel as comfortable sharing. And I think that our club has created that environment for people.”
“Speaking on our events as well. I hope that more fun oriented events like tết (lunar new year) festival, or cà phê (Vietnamese iced coffee) day, or build a banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) get to show you the fun side of our culture. But then also events like the one we had today with immigrant speakers really show you the different paths you can take as not only a Vietnamese American, not only as an Asian American but just a person in general coming from BLS. We hope that in the future we can do more speaker events, or just more culture, history, social justice issue events as well in order to make sure that we can represent everyone in our community, our school community, and the broader greater Boston community.”
How does your club make you feel?
“I love my club a lot. We both have been in this club since sixie year (seventh grade). And being able to grow with this club has just become another part of me. It’s like another home for me. And every time I’ve been at this club I’ve been able to make friends, meet new people, and learn more about myself and my culture.”
“Everything that Ethan said reigns true to me too. This club is truly like my second family. I feel like every week we grow. And for Ethan an I to be co-presidents, for us to go onto our third year next year, and for us to grow not only as leaders but just members of this club, I think being able to also represent my heritage, meeting all these new people, and having them grow closer to me and bond with me has been really nice. Meeting sixes that join this club because ‘Oh my god, I see Viet people here and I’m gonna join’, or they really like our food and so they're gonna eat our food at our events, or they really just wanna play games at tết festival. Just being able to meet so many new people, build so many new connections through our events has been really gratifying.”
Does having a leadership position now makes you want to pursue something similar in the future?
“Yeah definitely. I’ve learned so much from being a leader in this role. I’ve learned so much from Nha especially with organization skills cause she’s on top of that. And I think with the skills that I’ve learned from V.S.S. it would be somewhat of a waste if I didn’t use them again in the future. So yeah I can see myself taking on another leadership position in the future.”
“I’ll touch on it differently. I do a lot of community work as well outside and in school, I’m a part of A.S.I.A. a leader there. But yeah being a leader is really gratifying, it’s a lot of work but I know at the end I really love doing what V.S.S. has had me for the past couple years.”
May 27, 2022
Vietnamese immigrant stories
BLS Young Women of Color
"A safe and fun space for Y.W.O.C. to be themselves"
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Name?
“My name is Mariam.”
Grade?
“I’m a senior.”
Pronouns?
“She/her.”
How do you define community?
“I think community is any space where people who you spend a significant amount of time with can come together.”
How do you define representation?
“That’s a good question. First of all it’s tough because there’s obviously so many barriers to getting it. But I think if I were to define representation it’s just having someone or something embody what the group behind it believes. And I think to some degree what they look like and what they represent. I think if it is a community of color I think a person of color should be able to lead it.”
Why do you think they are so important?
“I think that they’re both important because community just helps keep people alive. I think that it helps people feel supported, inspired. I think community just keeps things going. And with representation I think it’s really important to have that because obviously these communities need to be led by people and I think that if we have the right representation then we are able to confidently lead these communities and get them what they need.”
How does your club provide that?
“I don’t know if I can be bold enough to say that we do provide it but I think we do try our best to provide it. I think we do a good job of providing it. I think our board is made up of passionate young women of color who want to lead this group and do great things. Being able to have them look up to us and see themselves in us, we represent them identity wise and we’re also able to, being that we’re all BLS students, we represent them on a personal level.”
How does your club make you feel?
“I’m not gonna lie, planning is definitely very stressful and it’s a lot of hard work but I think it makes me learn a lot about myself, and plan, and is helping me be better. So I think my club makes me feel better to say the least.”
Does having a leadership position now makes you want to pursue something similar in the future?
“I know I’m a senior, I’m supposed to have stuff figured out but I don't know. I think I’ve definitely come to appreciate other leaders that are in my life. But I also think it’s still a lot of work and I don’t know if I’m necessarily equipped just yet to be able to be the best leader I can possibly be. So maybe not in the near future but I think through learning, taking on more mentors, I think I might pursue it. In short I just don’t know.”
June 1, 2022
"Mind, Body and Soul" yoga workshop
BLS B.L.A.C.K. (Black Leaders Aspiring for Change and Knowledge)
"Our goals are to ensure that Black culture is celebrated and recognized at Boston Latin School; to provide a safe space for students to meet and discuss pressing issues in the Black community; to bring awareness to the community about the vast amount of Black and African American culture within Boston Latin School; to define stereotypes and break them; to understanding the limitations and benefits of being considered a person of color in America; to help all members gain confidence to go out into the world and share knowledge learned within the club; to expand club members to not only students that identify as Black, but all people of color and anyone else who wants to gain knowledge about Black history and culture."
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Name?
“My name is Ebere.”
Grade?
“I am in 12th grade.”
Pronouns?
“My pronouns are she/they.”
How do you define community?
“It’s like a group of people you’re comfortable with. You can approach them for absolutely anything, with any concerns, you feel safe around them. It’s all about togetherness.
How do you define representation?
“Representation is being able to see yourself or people who are underrepresented. I guess seeing yourself.”
Why do you think they are so important?
“I think representation is really important so that people know that they are capable of doing something. As far as watching shows as a kid, seeing yourself on T.V., or someone who looks like you on T.V. can let you know that you can do what they’re doing, you can have as much fun as they’re having. Or like growing older if you see someone in an office who looks like you, it’s like you can reach that level of importance.”
How does your club provide that?
“Our club provides that by empowering our students, giving them a place to voice their opinions, to talk about whether or not they feel represented. And possibly making that change. Whether it be by events, or just anything that we organize, and also there is representation at BLS B.L.A.C.K. because we are mostly black students. So when I promote the club I really prioritize in a sense letting the students know you see other people of color. Just getting the word our, communicating with other people, continuing to make our place a safe space. That’s how we get our representation.
How does your club make you feel?
“I feel really proud. I’m kind of sad to leave cause it’s my last year but I love coming here. I’m definitely gonna be back here next year. I love seeing us put things together despite how busy and chaotic the year might be. I love seeing our club events coming together. So I’m always really proud and I’m gonna be even more proud next year when I see you guys continue to do all that.”
Does having a leadership position now makes you want to pursue something similar in the future?
“It really does. Despite having issues socially, a space like this really helps me work on those issues. And while I’m working on those issues I’m also creating a safe space for other people. And I feel like if I can do that as a leader in other places that’s something I definitely won’t hesitate to do.”
June 7, 2022
Meeting on new head of school and end of year events
