Cultures meet in Asian-Latino event

For graduate student Theresa Chen, the idea came in the form of a book.\nLillian Casillas, the director of La Casa, the Latino culture center on campus, handed Chen a book on Chinese-Cuban culture, and Chen discovered a new subculture -- Asian-Latinos.\nAs part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Chen, with the help of the Asian Culture Center and La Casa, will host two programs celebrating these two cultures. \nLa Casa will open its doors to host an Asian-Latino cooking class at 7 p.m. tonight.\n"I have no experience cooking," Chen said, "but it should be fun."\nTucked into her office on the second floor of La Casa, Casillas said the class will consist of two tasty recipes easy enough for an extreme novice to navigate.\n"People love food," she said. "It should be a nice study break before finals."\nThe second event, a Tae Kwon Do demonstration and self-defense seminar, is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday night, also at La Casa. This program is the brainchild of freshman Alonso Mejia, an avid martial artist.\nMejia began studying Tae Kwon Do when he was five.\n"Actually, it was my mom forcing me to do a sport," Mejia said.\nMejia's main purpose for proposing the martial arts event was to present a quick way for students to learn some self-defense moves.\nThe evening will begin with a demonstration from the Tae Kwon Do club and will also include a discussion about Korean culture.\n"We wanted to make sure to involve the Korean cultural aspect with it," he said. \nChen said she is excited to bring the two cultural centers together for the event.\nCasillas said partnership programming with the other culture centers is an important aspect they must make time for. After all, all of the minorities together make up just around 10 percent of the campus population.\n"People assume the various minorities isolate themselves," she said. "But this is not true. People don't need to identify with one culture. These programs celebrate everything that is in your makeup"