Community, an integral piece of our society. From small close knit groups of friends to the city you live in, the sense of togetherness and familiarity that community provides creates a space for growth and learning.
However, when people cannot find a place in their community, they branch out and surround themselves with people to create their own.
Students at Mt. SAC are no different. With a wide range of interests, it can be hard to find a place where you can belong. Despite that, one particular group of students have come together to create their own community, the Japanese Language and Culture Club.
Kelvin John Lindayag is a 26 year-old biology major and the current president of the JLCC. Along with his officers, Dagny Goren, Gio Hanoum and Tongyu Ji, the four of them have created a community for people interested in Japanese culture to meet with one another.
“So the club has been around for several years now as far as I know,” Lindsayag said. “I haven’t been a part of it for too long, only two semesters … I wanted to revive it because I really wanted a place for people to meet other people with similar interests.”
Goren expanded on Lindayag’s statement with her own reasons as to why she wanted to help revive the JLCC.
“I wanted to help revive it because I don’t feel like I fit into any of the other clubs,” Goren said. “This was like the only one so I was really happy that we could revive it.”
While in the past, the JLCC has not held many events, this semester they are focusing on restructuring and ironing out the method to their madness with plans to host more events in the coming spring semester.
“When I was a junior officer, we didn’t really do much as a club,” Hanoum said. “There was a lot of disorganization and we’re trying our best to move away from that.”
However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t hosting any events this semester. On Tuesday, the JLCC hosted a cosplay contest for members of their club. With three winners being chosen out of a lineup of 12 people. Those three winners were 20 year-old Kristine Carpio, 18 year-old Sandra Cruz and 20 year-old Gene Poirier.
With Carpio and Cruz finding the club through the Join-A-Club event held earlier this semester, and Poirier finding it through an advertisement in a class, the three joined and each gave it their own shot.
When it came to cosplaying however, the three differed, each sharing their own perspectives on why they started their journey with the practice.
“Ever since I was in 6th grade, I was watching a lot of anime and it was getting to the point where Halloween wasn’t enough so I really wanted to start wearing cosplays,” Carpio said.
“For me personally, social media such as tiktok throughout covid,” Cruz said. “I loved the idea of dressing up as your favorite characters and I was amazed by all the people doing that.”
“I love cosplaying as different characters from shows or from video games,” Poirier said. “It’s pretty fun.”
Despite having different journeys with cosplay, their paths all had crossed at this event and their reasons for participating reflected that meeting point.
“I really like dressing up in general and I feel like this was a way to show off my costume,” Carpio said.
Cruz and Poirier shared that sentiment in why they participated as well.
“I love dressing up in general too but I also really love fashion and I love being myself,” Cruz said. “Even though some people might make fun of that, others will be inspired by that.”
“I made my costume in September for a con and I decided that this could be a fun event so I wanted to share my costume.”
While cosplaying is closely associated with the anime aspect of Japanese culture, the JLCC leaders shared that the club isn’t strictly anime focused. They share and incorporate other things like baking and fashion so everybody can have something they’re interested in.
“We’re not an anime club. We are the Japanese Language and Culture club,” Lindayag said. “Some people are interested in similar things. Like J fashion and we have people in baking and pastries. I want people to find people with similar interests.”
