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May 28, 2025
Nineteen SPS students joined over 360 peers to explore storytelling, culture and community at the annual Footsteps Conference.
BY KATE DUNLOP
For one day in April, Asian and Asian American independent school students were not the minority in the room.
On April 13, 19 St. Paul’s School students joined 360 of their peers from more than 40 New England schools at the 13th Annual Asian American Footsteps Conference, hosted this year at Tabor Academy. Centered on the theme “How We Tell Our Stories,” the day was packed with more than 50 student-led workshops and remarks from keynote speaker Tessa Hulls, an artist, illustrator and writer who soon after the conference won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography for her book, “Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir.”
The conference offers networking opportunities and space for Asian, Asian American and mixed-heritage Asian students to explore issues specific to their experiences. St. Paul’s School hosted the conference in 2022.
This year, Fifth Formers Nausicaa Chu, Mack Barrett and Mabelle Chen offered the workshop on a staple of Asian cuisine, “The History of Hot Pot.” Their formmate Asher Gupta’s workshop, “A Constant State of Nepantia,” focused on finding and sharing joy amidst the hybrid identities self-described third culture kids — those growing up in a country outside of their nationality — take up every day, in and out of their homes and schools.
Humanities Teacher Beth Little, adviser for The Asian Society, was one of three faculty members who accompanied the SPS cohort. A Tabor alumna herself, Little notes that for many Asian students, the conference is a mini reunion as they get to see friends from junior boarding school. For Asian American students, on the other hand, she notes that “when they’re at a boarding school and a minority, to be in a room and everyone else is like you is a cool new experience.”
Little appreciated Hulls’ message about not carrying one’s stories alone and tied it to the importance of supporting affinity groups on campus. “If you share stories, then other people are carrying them with you and you know that you’re sharing an experience with other people, which makes you feel less alone,” she says. “The kids loved the whole conference, which was a really valuable experience to help them become closer as a group and then to widen their circle.”
