Faint pop music played in the background as a crowd of students gathered into CCE114 to celebrate Quinnipiac University’s Asian Student Alliance’s (ASA) first in-person event of the 2021-2022 school year — Halo-Haloween.
The event gave students the opportunity to try the traditional Filipino dessert, halo-halo, while learning about Filipino culture. Halo-halo, which means “mix-mix” in Tagalog, is a treat made of shaved ice, red beans, evaporated milk and fruits like bananas or coconut.
There are some variations of the dessert as seen through the lens of social media and television, with some recipes throwing in mango and other traditional Filipino dessert add-ins like leche flan, a caramel custard.
“It’s enjoyed by so many Filipinos, you could say it’s basically our national dessert, because it is such a staple,” said Naomi Gorero, director of public relations for Asian Student Alliance. “People make it during parties or for any important festivals.”
Gorero highlighted how she was pleased that so many students at Quinnipiac enjoyed the dessert.
“It doesn’t look like a typical dessert,” Gorero said. “People wouldn’t expect it to go well but they were surprised. There were some people coming up to me being like ‘woah, this is really good’ and I’m like ‘of course.’”
The event not only celebrated the dessert in light of the upcoming Halloween holiday, but also to recognize October as Filipino History Month. ASA put together a presentation that highlighted the history of Filipino culture as well as recognized some famous Filipino celebrities in popular culture.
Halo-Haloween closed with a raffle that featured prizes of varying themes such as dessert, Halloween and even a “Squid Game” themed prize box.
ASA has plans to highlight other specific Asian cultures through events in the future.
“We were unsure to introduce these different types of Asian cultures, but with the success that happened with halo-halo, I hope that this could lead to introducing more Filipino, Vietnamese, Japanese, Lao, Thai, etc. events, such as this one,” Gorero said.
ASA is planning events for the future such as a ramen-themed trivia night, a K-Pop dance workshop and more cooking-focused events.
“ASA is such an open club, and we want people to come and try this and that because it’s such a good way to introduce new culture and integrate that knowledge,” Gorero said. “Since this is a predominantly white university, it’s a good way to introduce Asian culture to non-Asian people.”