Volunteer of the Month: Teen champions culture through art and advocacy

Olivia Huang, a 17-year-old junior at Hastings High School, has a passion for sharing her culture and making sure Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) heritage is represented in social spaces and in schools. Huang is a lifelong Hastings resident who lives with her parents, Julia and Paul, and younger sister, Elissa. 

Recently honored with a Princeton Prize in Race Relations for her work within the Hastings School District, Huang is a leader of the high school’s Affinity Club and a member of the district’s K-12 Diversity Committee.

“In the past couple of years, we've done a lot of advocacy for diverse hiring practices and having a welcoming environment for staff,” Huang told the Dispatch. “Another thing we’ve worked on is having a diverse curriculum in school. I hadn't seen my history and my culture taught in school much, because I'm a person of Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean descent. We didn’t learn anything about Taiwan and Korea until ninth grade.”