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The Daily Northwestern Thursday, May 18, 2023
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4 OPINION/Ryan Field
NU, Mayfest talk Dillo Day with city residents
Students brace for takeoff with Mayfest’s alien-themed Dillo Day
What a new Ryan Field means for gender equity
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Event supports ASPA owned businesses There are about 70 ASPAMay Mart draws owned businesses in the city, patrons to AAPI according to Evanston ASPA. include art stores like owned businesses They Artem, restaurants, cafes, By CASEY HE
the daily northwestern @caseeey_he
Even for casual passersby, Artem Pop Up Gallery on Sherman Avenue is hard to miss. Paintings, sculptures and handmade jewelr y gleam through its spacious glass window. Behind it, the warmly lit gallery awaits customers. Owner Sarita Kamat, a multidisciplinary artist who moved from India to the U.S. two decades ago, said the gallery represents about 75 local artists. Half have been with it since it opened in 2019, while the other half rotates throughout the year. She also sells some of her own pieces along with those of the other artists, she added. This month, Artem is participating in May Mart, an event organized by the group Evanston ASPA to celebrate and showcase diverse cultures in Evanston through its Asian, South Asian and Pacific Islander Americansowned businesses.
home decor shops and salons. Inspired by the street markets that are part of many Asian cultures, Melissa Raman Molitor, founder of Evanston ASPA, organized the first May Mart event in 2022. This year, the rules for May Mart remained mostly unchanged. Molitor said those interested in participating can first pick up a May Mart postcard at a participating ASPAowned business or print their own. After participants visit five of those businesses and receive stickers for their postcard, they can then email a photo of the completed card to Evanston ASPA and enter a raffle for a $100 E-Town Gift Card that can be used at local shops. Although support structures for ASPA-owned businesses, such as the Asian American Chamber of Commerce of Illinois, have recently taken root in Chicago, Molitor said they have not yet expanded to include Evanston businesses. “(May Mart) is our local
» See MAY MART, page 6
Illustration by Lily Ogburn
Students have written a petition in response to the University’s rollback of COVID-19 mitigation strategies, which has since garnered more than 90 signatures.
Students upset at COVID rollbacks
Open letter by graduate students asks to reinstate mitigation strategies By JESSICA MA
daily senior staffer @jessicama2025
In April, Northwestern announced it will discontinue certain existing COVID-19 mitigation strategies for the next academic
year, including isolation housing in 1835 Hinman, on-campus testing in the Donald P. Jacobs Center and the current COVID-19 vaccine requirement for most students. But some students have expressed concerns about how the changes will impact those who are at high risk for COVID-19.
On May 1, a group of graduate students authored an open letter to the NU administration listing 10 demands concerning the University’s rollback of protections, including the reinstatement of a vaccine requirement and public COVID-19 dashboard, among other items. The letter has since
garnered more than 90 signatures from NU community members. Fifth-year Ph.D. candidate Emma Kennedy helped write the petition, alongside others in the NU Graduate Workers union. According to Kennedy, the group
» See COVID, page 6
Art exhibit celebrates AAPI month Org teaches about Coffee Lab partners with Filipino-American artists organization Sinag By KUNJAL BASTOLA and RACHEL SCHLUETER
the daily northwestern @kunjal_bastola / @rschlueter26
Marissa Domantay has been an artist for as long as she can remember. “I’ve just always been drawing,” Domantay said. “My dad said I always drew on the walls, so I guess my art just started when I was a little baby.” Domantay originally went to school as a math major, minoring in art, but switched to majoring in art and minoring in math by graduation. Domantay said she always had an interest in digital art and drawing, and started drawing on Nintendo 3DS. Domantay’s skills have grown since her 3DS days. She now uses her iPad and Procreate to create her art, which ranges from Filipino-inspired graphic designs to digital drawings of mushroom forests. Now, her work is exhibited in the Sinag art exhibit at Evanston’s Coffee Lab. Sinag is a Filipino-American artists organization, and the shop will display the exhibit for
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all of May to celebrate Asian, South Asian, Pacific Islander American Heritage Month. Geraldine Martinez-Benz founded Sinag during the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2021 to foster community among Filipino artists in the U.S. Martinez-Benz herself is a painter and moved to Evanston from the Philippines 20 years ago. “Before (Sinag), I didn’t even know other Filipino artists personally,” Martinez-Benz said. “I just read about them.” This is the first year Sinag has hosted an art exhibit in Coffee Lab. Martinez-Benz said she wanted to collaborate with Coffee Lab after learning its owner, Daniel Aquino, is Filipino. Martinez-Benz said she hopes the exhibit helps build awareness of the Filipino artist community in the Chicago area. “ W hen (people) meet Filipinos, they always immediately assume we’re nurses,” Martinez-Benz said. “But there’s artists also. It’s a different look for Filipinos.” Another artist featured in the exhibit is Jose Aggari, a FilipinoAmerican artist who works with
gendered violence
Abbey Zhu (WeinKAN-WIN shares organizer berg ’22). timeline of the harm The presentation covered time period from 111 Asian women faced the B.C.E. and ending with the By JESSICA MA
daily senior staffer @jessicama2025
Content warning: This story includes mentions of sexual assault and murder.
Kunjal Bastola/The Daily Northwestern
These walls of Coffee Lab are decorated with art made by Sinag members to honor AAPI month.
nature to inspire his artwork. Aggari said he uses a painting technique called Kut-Kut — which he didn’t even know was a Philippine technique until recently. For him, celebrating AAPI art is important because it’s a way to embrace a shared culture by providing a voice for the AAPI community. “There’s so much injustice, discrimination and violence
going on against the AAPI community, and we do respond to that and we try to help each other out, one way or another, through art,” he said. “It’s very difficult, at times, to deal with, but at least we’re out there, and we’re making a voice within our community.” Through Sinag, Domantay and other members visited the
» See SINAG & COFFEE, page 6
As part of Multicultural Student Affairs APIDA programming, Chicago nonprofit KAN-WIN facilitated a workshop and presented a timeline about gender-based violence in Asian Pacific Islander Desi American communities Tuesday. KAN-WIN provides services like legal advocacy and support groups to those affected by gender-based violence. The nonprofit aims to work toward women’s empowerment across Asian American communities. KAN-WIN’s education outreach coordinator Arthi Jacob spoke alongside youth and young adult
present. Each slide covered a significant event related to gender-based violence, including the Bangladesh Liberation War (1971), Chinese imperialism in Vietnam (111 B.C.E.) and the founding of KANWIN (1990). “We created this timeline to talk through how our experiences of gender and gender oppression as Asian women are highly racialized,” Jacob said. “The oppression of Asian and Asian American women under patriarchy is inextricable from histories of racism, colonialism, imperialism, militarism and immigration.” The presenters invited the audience to talk about common themes across history, as well the differences. They facilitated discussion about how past gender-based violence intersects with the present.
» See KAN-WIN, page 6
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