Performing Arts - Los Angeles, California, United States
The history of Samahang Pilipino's Cultural Nights (SPCN) originates from the Pilipino Far West Conventions held throughout the West Coast during the early 70s and 80s. On the UCLA campus, Samahang Pilipino adopted the educational cultural drama of these Far West Conventions and created cultural presentations that highlighted various community issues and historical events.For the past three decades, these cultural presentations developed into the SPCN that we know today, setting the breeding ground of a number of different components to rise and flourish such as Tinig ng Samahang and Samahang Modern.SPCNs have provided a space where students can learn about themselves, their histories, and their communities, as well as express that growing knowledge to a larger community beyond campus. It is a space where non-Pilipin@s and other communities of color can come to understand Pilipin@ experience and culture, perhaps connecting our issues with those within their own communities. And it is a space that connects generations of students, families, friends, and alumni to one another, reminding all that the making and remaking of culture, together, is important and sustaining. Ensuring that our stories live on is rooted in the purpose of SPCN. Because even as Samahang's Theme Song exhorts us to "remember all the manongs, they came here all alone," so, too, does it remind us "that we are all one big family, we're working together, for tomorrow is here."