On Saturday, April 12, the Swarthmore Pan-Asian Association (SPAA) hosted its fourth annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Upper Tarble. The event, which featured Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) -identifying dancers, singers, poets, and themed crafts, was completely student-organized by SPAA and its Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Heritage Month Committee. While the rainy weather forced the organizers to make a quick location change indoors from the Cherry Border, the campus and surrounding community still showed up.
The Cherry Blossom Festival was devised by current SPAA Co-President Clara Haru Mulligan ’25 in 2022. Both Mulligan and Olivia Han ’25, another SPAA co-president, have been organizing the event since they were first-years. Han explained that she and Mulligan “wanted to have a large event that could highlight the work and talent of APIDA identifying students and create a social space for the community to bond.” Now, Han says, “We have had to extend the duration of the festival, increase the amount of food catered, and we’ve added more arts-based activities. Our team has also grown alongside the festival.”
Han stresses that while the organizing process of the festival has not been too difficult since she created a comprehensive guidebook her junior year, “the main struggle is always the weather.” SPAA works to always have a backup plan, which was essential for this year’s festival when forecasted rain pushed the event from Cherry Border into Upper Tarble. In a conversation with The Phoenix during the event, co-president Chloe Kanemaru said she felt the festival was “going super, super well.” She was excited to see the attendees’ engagement with student art and emphasized the success of the clubs, vendors, and food.
Even with the last-minute location change, the Cherry Blossom Festival maintained a line-up of performers across the afternoon. Individual students, many of them APIDA-identifying, performed songs, dances, and spoken word poetry. Clubs performed as well: SwatJeans and Swat K-Pop Club showed off K-Pop dance routines, Sinowave performed Chinese music, and the Swarthmore Taiko Ensemble closed off the acts with traditional Taiko dance, a Japanese style of drumming. Other performers included Minhyuk Lee & Band and Gamelan Semara Santi, with many students performing individual acts as well.
Maya Yung ’27, a member of the student-led acapella group Grapevine, expressed her excitement to participate in the festival for the first time: “It was really fun. I really love being a part of the performing arts culture here at Swat and it’s really lovely to see all these other really talented performers participate in Asian styles of art.” Yung mentioned that Grapevine, like many other festival acts, has performed at the Cherry Blossom Festival for multiple years in a row, encouraged by their friends in SPAA.
While watching the performances, attendees could wander around Upper Tarble and purchase crafts and snacks from student artists and community members. Students could also purchase raffle tickets to support Students for the Preservation Of Chinatown’s (SPOC) Ginger Arts Center, a community arts center for youth in Chinatown. SPOC was founded after the 76ers announced a proposal to build an arena adjacent to Chinatown. The organizing students went on to create the Ginger Arts Center, “inspired by Chinatown’s legacy of resistance.” The funding from the festival will help keep the center, which is entirely not-for-profit and volunteer-run, operating. Reina Jones ’27 was excited to enter the raffle and support the cause, hoping to win a Cherry Blossom Lego Set, one of the many prizes arranged by SPAA.
The festival’s free food was another highlight for many attendees. SPAA organized catering with Thai Jai Dee, a Thai food truck located in the Philadelphia area. The truck organized a buffet of food inside Clothier Hall, or guests could opt to try freshly prepared pad thai from the food truck. Students could also grab a cup of shaved ice from the Kona Ice truck in Clothier Circle. Jonathan Garrity ’27 described having a “wonderful time” at the festival, made all the more better with his chicken pad thai which was “bursting with flavor.”
Han reflected on the community success of the festival: “As someone who has been organizing the festival since the start, my favorite part is always just seeing people come and enjoy the event. It’s cheesy, but it’s amazing knowing that your hard work has paid off and created something meaningful for the community.” 
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