2014 SCPASA Summit in UCR
RIVERSIDE—Hundreds of college students from different Filipino-American organizations participated in the seventh annual Southern California Pilipino American Student Alliance Summit last Saturday, February 8, at University of California-Riverside (UCR).
The UCR Katipunan cabinet said in a media conference that the 2014 SCPASA Summit theme “Tomorrow in Retrospect” tells about how to build a better tomorrow by taking action in the present through looking at what have learned in the past.
“This year’s summit tackles on how we tend to do something, but we do not follow through it afterwards. Summit gives us the opportunity to see where we can thrive and find our niche through looking back from the past,” Kent Paris, UCR senior student and Katipunan’s cultural chair, said.
According to SCPASA Chairperson Adrian Velasco, the summit theme came from Programming Director Khryztine Ilagan.
“We [SCPASA board] certainly agreed with her fresh ideas and vision for the [summit] theme. We tasked Khryztine to figure out things in her life that really sparks inspiration,” Velasco said.
The annual student-led conference began with the opening remarks led by keynote speaker Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales. While speaking in front of participants, Cubales showed a video presentation about herself relating to the summit theme.
“I was thinking about the connections between the past, present and future. The PEP [Pinoy-Pinay Educational Partnership] helped me to develop and organize those ideas in one thing for the theme,” Cubales said.
“I’ve learned that as we become part of older generation, we tend to forget what it felt like to be part of younger generation. So we must not be so separated and discriminated to the younger ones and must share goals to each other,” the Asian American Studies associate professor added.
The summit provided several and meaningful workshops to the attendees, such as “The Saysay Project: Sharing Your Story,” “Culture is Just Another Accessory,” “Share Your Talent: Staying Involved in Community,” and many more.
University of California-Los Angeles alumni Paolo Roca, one of the summit group session leaders, told the Asian Journal about summit workshops organized by various Fil-Am groups.
“Workshops gave good reviews to the younger generations who must be educated in different issues revolving Filipino community,” Roca said. “As a group session leader, I was trying to give back to the community, teach younger generations and convince anyone to be involved in leadership,” he added.
For the first time in history, summit had a closing address led by closing keynote speaker Ronald Wong, CEO of Imprenta Communications Group. During the closing address, Wong discussed about the importance of American politics and gave an advice to Fil-Am college students.
“Political activism happens to every college students and activists, so I am here to inspire them [participants] to fulfill their dreams and become leaders of tomorrow. They should remember where they come from. We have a lot of challenges in America and need everyone with individual talents and brave power for the future,” Wong said.
Summit milestones
The 2014 SCPASA Summit made event milestones: UC Riverside becomes the first summit to be hosted twice by Katipunan; the first summit to have a closing keynote speaker (Ronald W. Wong); the first summit to have workshops from out-of-state organizations (i.e. New York, Hawaii); and most group session leaders (also known as “fun-cilitators”) with more than 70 in summit history.
In an exclusive interview with Asian Journal Katipunan President Yochabel Loyola shared that the Katipunan Pilipino Student Organization was voted by SCPASA in the spring of 2013 to host another summit at UC Riverside.
“Katipunan Pilipino Student organization was honored to be hosting SCPASA Summit for the second time in its legacy. From 2009 to 2014, five years have passed and have utilized to strengthen and broaden the SCPASA community. It is just remarkable to see UCR and SCPASA grow alongside one another and seeing how things have changed from the past, and how they have bettered in the present. Katipunan strives to reflect and embody the idea of unity and we found no better way to do so than open up our campus and family to the SCPASA community,” Loyola said. “Every workshop was molded to show the attendees that there are so many outlets and opportunities that everyone should take advantage of to create a brighter future, and that success is bred by action,” she added.
The 2014 SCPASA Summit was presented by Southern California Pilipino American Student Alliance and Katipunan Pilipino Student Organization.