Had a wonderful time at the @northshoreaapi & @mass_apiscan Spring Festival! 🌷🍵
I’m always so impressed by the intention, care, and thoughtfulness this community brings to everything they do. From ikebana-inspired crafts and a performance by @pangyi0710 , to delicious food from @kotosalemma , it was a lovely experience.
Thank you for another lovely Spring Festival! It's amazing to see how much our community has grown in just one year. This weekend, partnering with @mass_apiscan we really felt how much we have been able to develop and reach out across the North Shore and more broadly in Massachusetts, and we hope we can continue growing, listening, and learning from the community.
Special thanks to Salem's parks and to @make.and.mend for supporting us and to our amazing craft assistants @_shubhecchha and @anjamanjah
Including photos by @bel.yee
We have one last event, our annual AAPI flag raising with the city of Salem on the 22nd at 11am. Mark your calendars and we will share more soon!
We had such a fun time at our first cooking workshop led by Miho Takahashi from @northshorejapanese at Soy Much Brighter's @soymuchbrighter Friends Forever Studio in Beverly! Thank you to everyone who came, learned, and ate with us 🍙
Hard to believe, but we have yet another event coming up this weekend, so join us this Saturday at Forest River Park for our Spring Festival with @mass_apiscan if you want to join for more food experiences and hands on activities!
Celebrate spring with the North Shore AAPI Coalition and APIsCAN at our second annual Spring Festival this May, made possible with support from Forest River Park!
This special celebration, hosted in partnership with Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network (APIsCAN), brings together community, culture, and creativity in honor of AAPI Heritage Month with a nod to Mother’s Day.
Enjoy a hands-on ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) craft workshop, where participants can create beautiful paper arrangements to gift or take home. The event will also feature a live performance of traditional pipa music.
Entry to the event is free, though there is a suggested ticket donation if you can and want to contribute, since we will be running our first fundraiser during the month of May. All proceeds from the event will support the ongoing community work of the North Shore AAPI Coalition as we work to strengthen the network of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across the region.
Come connect and create with us—everyone is welcome!
For our first cooking class on May 2nd, Japanese language and culture instructor Miho Takahashi will teach us how to make onigiri! Miho and our team will guide you through how to form the rice balls including how to handle the rice, add fillings (including vegan/veg friendly options) and more. The instruction and assembly will be followed by a Japanese lunch.
Tickets will be available starting Friday through the link in our bio. There are very limited spots available (15), so please email if you want to book a party or family of more than four. We recommend that children be ages 8+ since some dexterity will be needed. Our funding covers the cooking lesson and Soy Much Brighter's kitchen rental, but since we also wanted to offer a proper lunch, we have a suggested donation of $10 per person.
Miho is the founder of North Shore Japanese Language Education and Services, a language and cultural center based in Salem, Massachusetts. In addition to her work at North Shore Japanese, she teaches at Endicott College and serves as a translator for the Salem-Ota Cultural Exchange, facilitating cross-cultural communication.
A big thank you to @peabodyessex for collaborating with us on our first private tour at the museum yesterday! Guided by curators Karina Corrigan and Jiyeon Kim, we looked at the history of PEM's Asian Export art and Korean art collections and discussed ongoing research and shifting narratives around the objects today.
Asian Export art played a huge role in the perception of Asian people and cultures in the 1800s and its legacy of Orientalism and ethnographic stereotypes still lingers today. Since much of the infrastructure of old Massachusetts was built with money from this unequal trade, we are trying to facilitate conversations about history to connect us to the present moment, and this tour is the beginning of a longer dialogue.
Join us next Saturday, March 28th from 1-2:15, for our first event with the Peabody Essex Museum, a private tour with two of their curators. Jiyeon Kim will take us through the new Korean Art Gallery which opened last year, and Karina Corrigan will lead us through PEM’s extensive Asian Export Art Gallery.
We will meet in the main hall at PEM at 1pm, but to help us get a sense of the group size, please email or message us to RSVP.
Over the last six months, the Coalition has been working with @peabodyessex to engage with the local AAPI community and to open up conversations around the history and provenance of its Asian art collection and how they contribute to Asian American history. This is the first of several collaborations, so stay tuned for more!
Change is on its way 🔥🐎
I left @northshoreaapi ‘s Lunar New Year celebration feeling so embraced & inspired by their beautiful, creative community.
Thank you Flora and the organizers for building something so special here on the North Shore!
🎶 by @yizhiyin_music
Thank you to everyone who joined us to ring in the new year just before the blizzard! It's amazing to see how the community has grown in just one year.
Special thanks to Annie and Loren @yizhiyin_music for their performances and mini music lessons, to the North Shore CDC and our incredible team of volunteers, and to the businesses that donated food and art supplies including @kotosalemma@fantasyisland2022 and @make.and.mend
And thanks to all of our city and state elected and running officials who stopped by and continue to help our community feel seen.
Stay warm, everyone! And if you see a cat answering to the name Maple, please let us know.
The Year of the Fire Horse is here 🧧🐴
@northshoreaapi and @northshorecdc are throwing a Lunar New Year celebration — and you're invited.
Families: There's music, crafts for the kids, and snacks to share.
Curious folks: Never celebrated before? This is your welcome-in moment.
Community lovers: This is what it looks like when the North Shore shows up for each other across cultures.
Bring whoever makes you feel at home. Celebrate traditions. Learn something new. Ring in a year of good fortune with neighbors who get it.
📍 Sunday, February 22nd at Northshore CDC, 96 Lafayette St, second floor, Salem MA
#LunarNewYear #YearOfTheHorse #NorthShoreMA #EssexCounty #CommunityEvent #AAPI #CreativeCollectiveExplores #FamilyFriendly #CulturalCelebration
Sadly we did not take any other pictures, but thank you to @asiancommunityfund , the AAPI Arts & Culture Collaborative, and all of the co-hosting artists for such a fun and warm gathering at yesterday’s AAPI Arts and Culture Summit! We were thrilled to meet so many other organizers and creatives in the Boston area.
Save the date! Come celebrate Lunar New Year with the Northshore AAPI Coalition and Northshore Community Development Center on Sunday, February 22nd from 1-4pm!
This family-friendly event will feature musical performances, craft activities for all ages, and light refreshments. Join neighbors, friends, and community members as we come together to welcome the Year of the Fire Horse.
The event is free and all are welcome, though we ask you to register on Eventbrite (link in bio) so we have a better idea of how many people will attend. We look forward to ringing in the new year with you—full of hope, good fortune, and community spirit!
