The Pan-Asian Alliance has had a rough year, and Fifth Former Brandyn Luong is the first to admit it. As next year’s club leader, he’s been thinking a lot about what needs to change. Take movie night, the club’s biggest event of the year.
“The movie turnout was disappointing to say the least,” Luong said. “I did enjoy the movie, but seeing less than a dozen people there reminded me how poorly coordinated we were as a club.”
He doesn’t blame anyone but himself and the other leaders.
“While I wished we had planned outreach more thoroughly, there were many things I could have taken into my own hands to achieve,” Luong said. “Firstly, taking the initiative to contact school leaders was a must, and trying to go through word of mouth and students alone was not enough.”
The bigger issue, though, wasn’t just outreach. It was that the club barely knew itself. PAA met about once every two months, which made it tough for members to keep track of when to show up, let alone build any real connection.
“As our hallmark event, we should have been building up camaraderie and just getting to know each other better,” Luong said.
Club advisor Ms. Taylor Smith-Kan summed it up with the analogy that it takes a few minutes of grading for every hour spent writing an essay. The big events only work if you put in the small, steady work first. “We didn’t build community, and suffered as a result.”
Next year, that’s the first thing changing. Luong and the other rising seniors want to meet a lot more often, ideally beyond the regular clubs period if they can swing it.
“Establishing a minimum meeting schedule of once a week would be the least we could do for our pan-Asian students who really only connect with each other from other grades through PAA,” Luong said.
Communication between leaders is another piece he wants to fix, and he thinks part of that starts with making sure the right people are in those leadership roles in the first place.
“Finding leaders who have genuine interest in trying to connect and challenge adversity is something I think needs to be improved on, which could be done through at minimum interviews for leadership positions like many other clubs and activities,” Luong said.
The long-term goal is bigger than just getting more people in the room.
“Knowing that people are still passionate about their heritage and looking out for their brothers and sisters makes me proud to be an Asian American, despite feeling different my whole life.”
Brandyn Luong ’27
“I have one singular goal for PAA, which is to increase connection with other schools. That begins by strengthening our current club and providing opportunities for them to connect with other schools,” he said.
Luong has been to conferences at places like FCS that hold annual workshops, and those experiences stuck with him.
“Knowing that people are still passionate about their heritage and looking out for their brothers and sisters makes me proud to be an Asian American, despite feeling different my whole life,” Luong said.
PAA isn’t just another club on the list. It’s a space Luong wants to actually mean something next year, for himself and the students who need it the way he does.