Indian Student Association Club Comes to West

After a year of waiting, West High school has brought awareness to Indian culture with its new club, Indian Students Association. The clubs first meeting was a success as more than 50 students attended.

Art/Photo by Hridhya Sukumaran

After a year of waiting, West High school has brought awareness to Indian culture with its new club, Indian Students Association. The club’s first meeting was a success as more than 50 students attended.

    Every year, West High gives its students an opportunity to start their own club. One club new to West this year is the Indian Student Association (ISA). ISA is a cultural club with many activities and events for students to learn more about Indian culture. Rachana Jestadi (12), president of ISA, explained that “The application process was pretty easy as they had a Google form for all students who wanted to start a new club.” She was also required to give further details about the club itself and who its board members would be. 

    Once the club was approved by the ASB, it was free to start meetings and advertise all over the school. Like many of the other culture clubs on campus, ISA aims to share Indian culture through activities and other events. According to Jestadi, ISA plans on doing this “by celebrating festivals, food, and music” and inviting “anyone who wants to learn about [their] culture” into the club.

    Although ISA is a new club, a similar club called Asian Students Association ( ASA) was a club until 2020, when it ended because of a lack of members. Before starting ISA, Jestadi had a choice to either keep the club’s name as ASA or change it to ISA. When asked why she changed the name of the club, she said that “[they] wanted it to be more specific” because they’ve “noticed that there’s a lot of clubs here at West that are specific to one culture,” which led her to believe that the term ASA was “just so broad.” 

    This new club is helping bring awareness to one of West’s many unique cultures. Come check out ISA in Room 4102 on the last Friday every month.