By Tiffany Banh

USC senior Bruce Cabanayan discovered his Filipino culture here, after growing up in a small, predominantly white suburb of Phoenix, Ariz. Photo: Tiffany Banh

Bruce Cabanayan wasn’t hard to spot through the students crowded in the shade alongside Tommy Trojan.

The 20-year-old USC senior had donned a light blue polo and khaki shorts, sporting an outfit that embodied his put-together yet laid-back personality. After initial introductions, we hopped on our bikes and made our way to his house, charmingly enclosed by a white fence and cheery flowers.

Inside was no different. Cabanayan’s warmth radiated off the sand-colored walls and he was instantly at home.

In fact, he hadn’t always referred to Los Angeles as home until moving his life here four years ago to pursue a degree in biochemistry. Born in San Diego, Calif., Cabanayan and his family later relocated to Chandler, Ariz., a small suburb of Phoenix.

As an Asian American among a predominantly Caucasian population, Cabanayan occasionally felt the sparseness of the Asian community. Because of the large ratio of Caucasians to Asians, Cabanayan felt the students at his school formulated assumptions about him. He never thought the issue of ethnicity was an outright problem – just that there was something separating the Asian community from the rest.

“I was stereotyped or overlooked,” he said. “And they placed expectations on you that you’re quiet, which I definitely lived up to in a lot of aspects, but there is also so much more to me.”

But the culture clash disappeared when Cabanayan arrived at USC.

Here, he has been able to explore his Filipino roots through his involvement with Troy Philippines. TroyPhi is an organization that immerses university students in Filipino culture. Cabanayan has taken on various roles in TroyPhi, from acting at the forefront of its annual culture show as a freshman to coordinating the show as a sophomore to currently serving as president.

However, as a freshman, Cabanayan was baffled by the existence of a club just for Filipinos.

“Here, I was very much surprised by different aspects of the culture that I wasn’t used to,” Cabanayan said. “I didn’t know there was a whole club dedicated to bringing Filipinos together. So it was very different coming from Arizona just because of the composition of races.”

There was something of a lack of cultural roots growing up in Arizona. This void drove Cabanayan’s involvement with TroyPhi so that he became its president. Because of USC, he went from having little knowledge of to becoming the epitome of Filipino culture.

“It’s been a blessing that I got to come here and learn more about the culture,” he said.

Besides the cultural distinction between Arizona and Los Angeles, Cabanayan feels that another difference is the friendliness of Californians. When going home, he often finds that he must readjust back to Arizona’s traditionalist nature.

“Everyone in Arizona is more conservative. Coming here, everyone is hugging and everyone is loud. Just because I wasn’t used to it, the friendliness of everyone was almost overwhelming at first,” Cabanayan said.

His defining college memory is taking the stage as a freshman for TroyPhi’s culture show. The last time he had been on stage was when he played Peter Pan in elementary school. Playing the lead role reinvigorated his lost interest in acting.

To Cabanayan, being able to showcase his talent at Bovard Auditorium was an incredible sense of achievement. The experience sparked his initiative to declare a theatre minor.

When he’s not spending time on stage, Cabanayan is completing his studies in biochemistry. Coming from Arizona, where the educational climate wasn’t extremely competitive, he had the misconception that college wouldn’t be much different than high school. He soon found himself fighting to prove to his professors that he belonged alongside other top students.

Since he was in the Resident Honors Program, a program offered by USC for high school juniors to begin college a year early, he especially felt the pressure to measure up with his peers. But Cabanayan eventually realized overshadowing his peers was not most important.

“It’s more about being here to learn and challenging yourself,” he said.

As a senior preparing for graduation, Cabanayan entertains many possibilities for his future: Teach for America, medical school, social work, or even activism.

He has too many passions to stick to a particular line of work for too long. It’s likely he’ll find himself tackling any or even all of these possibilities. Regardless of what he decides to pursue, he knows that he will have the support of his family and friends.

“I want to keep a lot of options open. But it’s kind of scary right now because I don’t have a very set life. If anything, college has shown me that through hard times, you need to have those people to support you,” Cabanayan said.

Lessons well learned by a small town kid from Arizona turned big city dreamer.

By Nimisha Thakore

USC sophomore Maithreyi Shankar was part of a tight-knit Indian community in Burlington, Mass. She's realized now that being APA isn't about being Asian or American, but both. Photo: Nimisha Thakore

Maithreyi Shankar had an interesting problem growing up: she was an Indian American who felt left out of the Indian American crowd.

“I always felt like they were talking about me! I know it’s irrational, but it’s a feeling I always get. I wanted to be included in the community,” she said.

She’s talking about the community in Burlington, Mass., where she lived from the age of 5 until venturing cross-country to USC to study neuroscience (or maybe biomedical engineering, it’s still up in the air).

Burlington is a small town northwest of Boston that measures just less than 12 square miles and is home to 24,521 people, according to the city’s website. It is 80.6 percent white and 10.6 percent Asian/Pacific Islander. Shankar guesses of that Asian demographic, 10 to 20 percent is Indian.

Despite the largely Caucasian population, Shankar, an excitable 18-year-old sophomore, speaks of multicultural clubs, fairs and Asian American leadership programs at her high school. She even recalls the sometimes stuffy nature of an extremely close-knit Indian community. All things considered, Burlington is a lovely and diverse place to live.

“I liked living in the suburbs,” said Shankar of the safe area. “In April and May, we would walk around places… It made us feel independent.”

Shankar was born in Mumbai, India, and spent four years in Singapore before moving to the East Coast. Her South Indian family hails from the state of Tamil Nadu and speaks both Marathi and Hindi.

Many of the Indians in Burlington are Gujarati (originally from the state of Gujarat in North India), leading to language and interethnic barriers that Shankar felt kept her slightly outside their “very, very cohesive” community. A lot of immigrants weren’t interested in exploring American culture, while Shankar’s family enjoyed such “non-Indian” activities as hiking.

She is small, but her frame walls in a kind of energy that seems on the verge of exploding. Yet when Shankar talks about her experiences finding cultural connections in a cliquey high school environment, she waxes philosophical. She pushes back a drape of jet-black hair in a brief moment of silence when she’s searching for the right words.

“The way I really did culture was through dance and family, not the school. I didn’t like [all] the people. You don’t really want to be around that when you know you’re Indian enough,” she said.

Bharatnatyam, a classical Indian dance form based on Hinduism, helped shape Shankar’s Indian American identity. Because dance wasn’t something that came easily to her, she sweated over it for 13 years.

“It’s very physical, mental and spiritual… It was very core to developing as an Indian for me,” she said.

At USC, she has continued her passion for dance. Shankar is the founder of USC Drishti Classical Indian Dance and is in the process of getting the team recognized as a student organization. She is also involved with Undergraduate Residential Student Community, the Hindu Student Organization, and is coordinator of the DESI (Discovering and Enriching South Asian Issues) Project.

It wasn’t until she left the suburbia of Burlington that she realized being Indian American is not just about being a gung-ho desi or completely whitewashed.

“I realized there’s a spectrum of Indianness… I’ve come to terms with it. I have a better understanding of where I fall,” she said.

Shankar gestures animatedly with her hands as she speaks, especially when she delves into her freshman year wake-up call. She skipped her senior year of high school to come straight to USC with the Resident Honors Program. Shankar doubted USC’s ability to challenge her – but she was wrong.

“Things didn’t pan out completely according to plan. I think I was overconfident,” she said. “I thought I would ace everything and transfer.”

Instead, she had to work hard for good grades in her science classes. But as a reward, she found her place.

“Something connected when I got here,” she said, noting she didn’t have that in high school. “I like what I’m trying to accomplish, so there’s no reason to leave.”

In the next three years, Shankar wants to continue her involvement in various corners of campus to connect communities and build conversations. She then hopes to earn a Ph.D. and become a professor and entertains the idea of one day returning to Burlington.

“I love the Northeast for a lot of reasons,” she said. “It feels intellectual, the seasons [are] more in tune with reality… And I associate with the East Coast culture,” said Shankar.

And, after all, it has played at least some small part in making her who she is.

Shankar is nothing if not a free spirit. She’s carved out her own unconventional path from a northeast town known for Amy Poehler and a “ginormous mall” to an urban heavyweight like Los Angeles.

Her strikingly young age belies her introspection and self-confidence. She never wanted to be whiter, but she also never wanted to be more Indian. Shankar has what many children of immigrants struggle to find: peace of mind with her place on the spectrum.

“It’s how removed you want to be and how connected you want to be with your culture,” she said about finding one’s roots. “I’m Indian enough for me now.”

By Chloe Wang, with Nimisha Thakore

Growing up in Ohio, USC senior Beibei Bai didn't consider herself Asian American. That was an identity she discovered only after leaving the Midwest. Photo: Chloe Wang

Beibei Bai never considered herself “Asian American” until she came to USC.

“I appreciate my culture more because when I was growing up, I wasn’t always surrounded by it,” said Bai, a senior majoring in business administration, who until a few years ago thought of herself as an American born in China.

After living seven years in China, Bai moved to Beavercreek, Ohio, and started life as a Midwestern girl. Her years in China defined her move to the Midwest, and her years in the Midwest in turn defined her learning experiences as an Asian American at USC.

In China, Bai attended a private primary school in Tianjin for two years. The school was so rigorous that she didn’t have to relearn the things she was taught up to second grade until middle school in Ohio.

Because of that, a lot of Bai’s friends in the United States thought she was good at math – a common Asian stereotype.

“Everyone thought I was great at math, but it was just… I’ve done it already,” she said with a laugh.

As it turns out, Ohio made for an interesting experience for a young Chinese immigrant.

“I think it was a great place to grow up because it has an all-American feel, but at the same time, it wasn’t the most exciting place,” Bai said. “It made the transition from a different culture easier and harder at the same time. It was a complete culture shock for me but at the same time, everyone was so nice.”

According to Bai, she had a typical American childhood – one that included not considering herself Asian American.

“I think where I’m from, there was not a strong and solid Asian American identity,” she said. “There wasn’t that many Asian Americans and I think I purposely made myself not be friends with a lot of Asian Americans that were at school because I didn’t want to fit the stereotype. I wanted to do what I wanted to do.”

Bai was a self-proclaimed “whitewashed” kid but still culturally aware. Her parents taught her to keep speaking Mandarin and encouraged her understanding of Chinese culture.

She didn’t realize how much of an advantage she had until she came to USC. Here, she met plenty of Chinese Americans who didn’t fit her assumption that they knew Chinese because they were surrounded by it in Los Angeles.

“Their Chinese is terrible because maybe their parents told them that ‘You want to reform, you want to be more American,’” she said. “But my parents were like, ‘You will learn English, don’t worry. The entire world around you speaks English but you will pick that up, especially when you are young. But the Chinese identity is what you should worry about because that’s the one thing you might lose.’”

Bai was at first “freaked out” by the Asian American culture at USC, but she delved right into exploring it. As a freshman, she joined a six-week program called CIRCLE (Critical Issues in Race, Class, and Leadership Education), hosted by Asian Pacific American Student Services to encourage students’ education about Asian American history and issues.

“I think for me it was very eye-opening because I had no idea about Asian American culture,” Bai said. “It really taught me a lot of things about the Asian communities that I didn’t know and made me more aware in everything I do.”

She feels that there are many things that can be done to make the Asian American community stronger. Bai thinks much of Asian America is more preoccupied with the small things while missing out on the bigger picture – within the Asian American community, there often tends to be a lot of competition between ethnic groups.

That being said, Bai believes that if there are more people helping each other and really bringing the community together, it could have a brighter future.

“That’s a detriment to the entire community because there’s not enough solidarity to help one another out,” she said.

Now that Bai has found her place in the Asian American community at USC, she has some well-learned advice to give to others.

“Don’t let your race or your ethnicity hold you back, but at the same time don’t ever forget it, because that’s what makes you special,” she said. “Whether you think it or not, it will eventually help you.”

By Vivian Yan

USC junior Eaphy Mao was one of two Asians in his high school class. He's learned more about being Asian American at USC, but the charm of the South still has his heart. Photo: Stacy Kwok

Junior Eaphy Mao seems like your average USC student in Los Angeles: jeans, a tan, a friendly smile and a love for football. And then you hear he’s from Oklahoma.

What?

It’s alright – he gets that reaction a lot.

“And I totally understand,” said Mao. “Because before I moved there, when I was told by my parents I was moving there, I was like, ‘What? Why?’”

Though he was not born in Oklahoma, Mao, a self-described American-born Chinese, has lived in the South for the majority of his life. He moved from Texas to Florida to a suburb outside Atlanta, Georgia, before settling in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Ponca City is a small place of 25,000 in north-central Oklahoma that is comfortably outnumbered by USC’s student body of 35,000.

Among those students, more than 10,000 are Asian – a striking contrast to Mao’s hometown demographics.

“I was one of two Asian kids in my class of 300,” said Mao. “So there were maybe 10 Asians in my high school out of 1,500.”

Mao, a business and Chinese double major, knew all the other Chinese people in his town, which amounted to a total of 20 or 30 people.

“It’s like a circle of friends,” said Mao. “You know all the Chinese kids and then your parents know each other and… on holidays we’d all get together.”

But outside of his home life, Mao describes himself as “just another guy” in his town, absorbing many facets of Southern culture into his own personality. He espouses a die-hard love for soul food – fried chicken in particular – and passionately roots for his home team at football games.

“Football’s like a way of life there,” said Mao, who played football, cross country and track in high school. “Like here, ‘SC football fans, we go and when we’re up by 20, we leave. But there, they get excited about the game probably a week before. And then they stay for the entire game. And then after the game, that’s all they talk about for like the next half-week or so.”

Mao also recalls celebrating other American traditions with a similar exuberance unique to the South, largely due to the openness of Oklahoma’s landscape. In southern California, not everyone will buy fireworks from stands for the Fourth of July, but according to Mao, it’s a common practice down South.

“My friends and I, during the summer, would usually go and pool a bunch of money together, spending like $300 on fireworks, and just shooting them off for hours,” said Mao. “In the country, no one really cares in the middle of nowhere. Everyone does it.”

Though Mao “grew up in an all-American way,” as he describes it, his parents tried to keep him in touch with his Chinese heritage. They sent him to Chinese school to learn the language and took him to China to visit his relatives.

Yet the mix of Chinese and Southern backgrounds led Mao, like many other American-born Asians, to struggle finding a balance between cultures.

“When I was younger, I tried to do everything I could to be more white, because all my friends were white and I just wanted to fit in with them,” said Mao. “But then as I got older, I’ve gotten more and more interested in Asian culture.”

Coming to USC also influenced Mao’s desire to explore his Chinese heritage further, partly because of the sizeable Asian population on campus.

“I felt like I knew a lot less about Asian culture,” said Mao. “They [other students] knew the dates of all the Asian holidays, or they’d eat Asian food. Like I had no idea what boba was before I came here, and they were more used to hanging out with Asians than I was.”

Mao now looks toward having a career that eventually takes him to China. But he still wants to live mainly in the American South, evidence of his obvious love for its people and lifestyle.

“You’ve heard the term Southern hospitality? It’s basically just like that,” said Mao. “It seems like people there just care more or are more interested in you when they meet you. They’re just friendly for friendliness’ sake. They’re just friendly because it’s the right thing to do.”

Mao admits with practicality and a wry grin that Oklahoma wouldn’t be his first choice to settle in (“I’m a business major, right? There’s not a whole lot there”). But it’s clear that his love for the South, with its fried chicken, its football and its people, will have him living there again.

By Michelle Banh

For junior Sara Tsukamoto, clothing has evolved from a form of personal expression into a full-fledged business venture in the past year. Tsukamoto, a business major and communication design minor, joined the ranks of talented Trojans when she founded Kealohalani, her own clothing line, in 2008.

Though Tsukamoto has designed in her free time since the age of 10 when she first learned to sew, it was not until her freshman year at USC that she began to actualize her vision.

When a friend received an oversized USC T-shirt at the beginning of the year, Tsukamoto took the initiative to convert it into something completely original. With some thread from the dollar store and a pair of scissors, she created a dress that her friend ended up wearing to a number of football games for the rest of the year. After numerous compliments, Tsukamoto began crafting dresses and selling them out of her apartment during her sophomore year.

“I really wanted to create things that were comfortable and easy to wear to games while being unique, not just to have the same things that everyone else can get from the bookstore, especially for girls because there is not a lot of choice for them in the bookstore,” she said.

So how is Tsukamoto able to do all this? She begins with the basics. Tsukamoto starts each design with T-shirts and other ready-made styles from the University Bookstore. She then transforms these simple fabrics into unique, one-of-a-kind pieces.

Kealohalani, named for Tsukamoto’s Hawaiian name, has expanded to now include custom dresses, tops, rompers, shorts, skirts, and accessories, all hand-crafted by Tsukamoto herself.

The laidback, beach-inspired style of Tsukamoto’s comfortable feminine pieces pays homage to her Hawaiian roots. Drawing inspiration from Billabong’s and Quiksilver’s current trends, Tsukamoto hopes to continue creating wearable styles for the everyday Trojan girl.

As a blossoming entrepreneur, she hopes to keep her business at its current moderate but healthy size.

“I really like keeping it just me,” she said. “I love interacting with clients and being able to customize things for people because they really appreciate being able to buy something relatively inexpensive that fits them really well.”

Fit is very important for this petite designer. Tsukamoto says many of her designs are so easy to customize because they are loose and made with elastic.

Kealohalani currently offers ready-to-wear designs as well as custom-made pieces. In fact, Tsukamoto welcomes creative input from her customers, as she draws inspiration from the “give and take” experience.

There is no real formula to Tsukamoto’s creative process. She plays around with different designs and waits to see what sells. Right now her hottest seller is a gray and red halter with a braided back.

To keep herself updated on trends in the fashion industry Tsukamoto subscribes to a number of fashion blogs and is constantly browsing shops online. In a way, she considers herself an observer of the fashion industry because “it’s fun to investigate fashion from that point of view.”

To date, Kealohalani has a Facebook fan base 350 strong and growing each day. Tsukamoto’s Facebook page and ads have been her greatest assets in publicizing her clothing line. Her page currently displays Kealohalani’s most recent fashions, photographed by Jennifer Nguyen, a fellow USC student.

“The biggest factor for me was Facebook because that’s where I started, when I first made a Facebook page for my business,” said Tsukamoto.

She now receives most of her orders and appointments via the social networking site.

Kealohalani was featured in the USC Fashion Industry Association’s 5^th Annual Fashion Show on April 10 at USC’s Town and Gown. Tsukamoto sent eight Trojan-inspired looks down the runway in front of a crowd of 500 people. The fashion show as a whole showcased 12 up-and-coming student designers who worked with both professional and student models.

Tsukamoto first started as a member of FIA coordinating a spring fashion show her freshman year. She then returned last year and this year as the vice president of marketing and now oversees all of FIA’s publicity.

As she looks toward the future, Tsukamoto hopes to build a career in the business side of fashion. At the moment, she is planning to study abroad in Hong Kong next semester to complete her concentration in global business.

“Because Hong Kong is a fashion center in Asia, I think it will be interesting to see fashion from that perspective,” she said.