The first time Hanaa Yoo attended Cultural Vogue, she was watching from the audience.
The annual showcase brings together Michigan State’s Asian Pacific Islander Desi American/Asian (APIDA/A) community for an evening of performances, celebration and activism onstage at the Wharton Center.
Years later, as president of the Asian Pacific American Student Organization (APASO), Yoo would stand on that same stage in front of a thousand attendees as one of the event’s organizers. Her years-long involvement with APASO and other initiatives empowered her to advocate for donor accountability, naming rights and the importance of representation at MSU.
“I didn’t realize that diasporic experiences would be such a formative part of my experience at Michigan State,” she said. “Growing up in the Mason Public Schools system, there wasn’t a very big Asian or APIDA/A community, so just physically seeing that as a kid was very eye-opening.”
Yoo graduates from MSU this month with a degree in Comparative Cultures & Politics and minors in Asian Pacific American Studies, Business and Korean. She’ll represent James Madison College as its flag bearer at MSU’s December commencement ceremony, an honor based on extraordinary academic achievement and community contributions.
Finding Community
Yoo’s path to MSU was fostered by familial connection. Her mother has worked at the university for Yoo’s entire life and been deeply involved in MSU’s APIDA/A community, including serving as advisor for APASO.
Yoo grew up attending MSU events, which helped her find community on campus as a student. Within her first year, she joined the organizing committee for the annual Spartan Remix welcome festival, joined APASO as an intern and become co-chair of APIDA/A Heritage Month.
Maggie Chen Hernandez, who has served in university leadership roles for over 30 years and was one of the founding members of APASO, was another connection who helped Yoo find her place at MSU. Hernandez was Yoo’s mother’s mentor and remained a close family friend. Yoo had watched both women engage in activism on campus as she grew up, but it was the rise in anti-Asian hate during COVID-19 that truly sparked her own advocacy journey.
“I didn't realize how loud my voice could be and how important activism for my community is,” she said.
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Her involvement with APASO deepened each year: intern her first year, events coordinator sophomore year, president junior year and senior advisor last fall. She also served as chair or co-chair of APIDA/A Heritage Month on campus all four years.
Yoo worked to use APASO’s platform for advocacy and activism, recognizing opportunities to extend the organization’s impact across and beyond campus. When local high school students from East Lansing and Haslett expressed concerns about anti-Asian discrimination during and following the pandemic, Yoo knew she needed to help.
“A lot of the advocacy that we do is for our MSU community, but the things APASO advocates for have impacts everywhere,” Yoo explained. “We wanted to better serve our neighboring and local community outside of MSU as well.”
She attended meetings with students at Okemos High School, Haslett High School and East Lansing High School — often scheduled at 7 a.m. before classes started — to collaborate on planning. Conversations with those students inspired Yoo to create the APASO Past, Present, Future event, which earned her the Grace Lee Boggs Award in 2025 for exceptional activism.
The initiative brings high school students to campus to connect with MSU’s APIDA/A community firsthand, including interactive cultural activities, networking and the opportunity to meet with representatives from across the university. The event brings in vendors from the APIDA/A community to help support local businesses.
The inaugural event, sponsored by MSU Federal Credit Union and held at its headquarters, drew about 200 attendees. The following year, attendance grew to 300 at the football stadium’s Huntington Club. This past year, the event moved to Hubbard Hall.
“Over the years we got to see those students who were in high schools attend MSU, become part of APASO and then eventually helped plan the PPF event,” Yoo said.
Looking Ahead
Throughout her undergraduate years, Yoo maintained a full-time commitment to student leadership while working multiple jobs. She averaged 50 to 70 hours per week of combined work during her final three years.
She worked part-time in an administrative role at a local hotel before securing full-time hours, served as student manager at the Mosaic Center for Outreach and Education throughout her entire undergraduate career and worked as programming assistant for Asian Pacific American Studies. Last year, she began working as a coordinator for JMC’s EMBRACE initiative, leading community engagement and event programming at the college.
After graduation, Yoo plans to continue working and enroll in a paralegal program before applying to law school. Her interests lean toward law and advocacy, though she’s allowing herself room to explore.
While she’s stepping back from active APASO leadership, Yoo expects to remain connected to the community she helped build and encourage more students to find their platforms.
“You can learn so much more outside the classroom,” she reflected. “You’re not confined to a space when going about the world.”