APIA Spoken Word & Poetry Summit Mission to establish a national network of progressive artists involved in the APIA community to challenge the often peripheral and passive roles the artist is branded within the APIA community and the arts community at-large to acknowledge the arts as a critical, elemental component in building, empowering and transforming our community and our selves. APIA Spoken Word & Poetry Summit Vision We are out to spread the word, cipher with our ancestors and family, and cultivate our personal text into actions. The aim of the summit is simple: to learn to love our impending selves through the reflections, exchanges and stories of our Asian/Pacific Islander American community. Although we self-identify as APIA we simultaneously redefine the term to be inclusive of West Asian (Middle Eastern), South Asian, and Multi-Racial peoples. Participants range from youth workers, teachers, poets, organizers, actors, emcees, writers, artists, performers, history keepers to the future of Asian America. The word is just the medium. What you put into this gathering is what you get out of this gathering. As contemporaries, our responsibility is not only to serve as each other’s peers but also as each other’s mentors. Make each moment count. Create connections. Break down walls. This summit asks for honest participation and unfiltered moments—moments so much bigger than ourselves, our self-deprecation, and our notions of community. We are building living history. We are part of a cultural continuum. APIA Spoken Word & Poetry Summit History Click here to learn the history of the Summit Click here to visit the 2003 Summit in Chicago Click here to visit the 2001 Summit in Seattle About Boston Progress Arts Collective Boston Progress provides a safe space for Asian Pacific American perspectives to be expressed and observed through visual, performance and literary arts. Boston Progress seeks to build a sense of community among its membership, and outreach to APA communities by promoting the importance of art as a tool for community education and activism.