Catrece Ann Tipon is a true Renaissance woman.

Growing up in the Severna Park area, she studied dance for 16 years, played the clarinet, and rowed crew. She currently boasts a thriving side-hustle as a talented self-taught photographer. Somehow, she still finds time to work as a nurse at University of Maryland’s R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center.

Still, Tipon recalls feeling like an outsider throughout her younger years. As a second-generation Filipino American, she grew up in a majority-white community and often tried to hide her heritage by downplaying the ways she felt different.

“I was always singled out,” she recalls. “I was the brown kid. As a child of immigrants, you’re always, unfortunately, trying to just assimilate and try to be part of the majority. It wasn’t until I went to high school in [Baltimore] City and I met all these different cultures [that] all of a sudden, I realized, ‘I’m in a safe space to be who I am.’”

After high school, Tipon studied at Catholic University, where she had the opportunity to learn even more about her culture through their Filipino Club. Following graduation, Tipon eventually migrated back to Baltimore where she met her business partner, Cori Dioquino, a Filipino-American actor, director, and producer.

Dioquino was frustrated by the lack of Asian American and Pacific Indigenous (AAPI) representation in Baltimore’s theater scene. She wrote a passionate blog post on the topic that went viral. The ensuing activism planted the initial seeds of what would eventually become the Asian Pasifika Arts Collective (APAC), a Baltimore-based nonprofit that uses art to advocate for AAPI representation in everyday life while building cross-community relationships.

“We created the organization out of literally nothing,” says Tipon. “There were basically 12 angry people who felt the need for change in the Baltimore theater community.”

Tipon and Dioquino helped APAC broaden its mission and grow into a powerful advocate and platform for amplifying AAPI voices. Today, APAC lives out that mission by hosting in-person and virtual storytelling events, art exhibits, theater productions, and storytelling workshops.

A good example of APAC’s programs includes the AAPI Women’s Voices Theater Festival produced in May 2022, in partnership with the Strand Theater Company. The festival featured six original short plays by AAPI women-identifying playwrights and aimed to bring awareness to the stories and experiences of AAPI women, as well as transgender, nonbinary, and gender-fluid individuals.

“We’re giving [artists] the platform to tell their story in a safe space, to allow them to be proud of their heritage and to even get to know more,” says Tipon.

Tipon is proud that APAC has given so many AAPI artists a platform to share their stories, including herself.

“APAC gave me a voice that I didn’t know was needed,” she says. “For a long time, I was okay with being in the background. APAC has helped me find the power to say, ‘I am here and you are going to listen to me!’ We wanted to give other artists the platform to share their voice.”

What led to the start of the Baltimore Asian Pasifika Arts Collective (BAPAC)?
I immigrated to Maryland from the Philippines when I was 4, and I grew up in the area and studied theater at Towson University. I was hesitant to be an actor after college because I didn’t know if I was what people were looking for. For a long time, I felt like the only Asian actor in Baltimore—at least the only one who stayed for as long as I did. It wasn’t until recently that more Asians started to perform in Baltimore. It has come to a point where there are more of us able to sit down, talk about these issues, and feel like we have a community.

What is BAPAC’s mission?
BAPAC was started in 2018 by a group of artists. We got frustrated at the lack of representation, particularly in theater, of Asian American and Pacific Indigenous (AAPI) roles and stories, so we agreed to start our own organization to advocate for representation in the arts. It’s a matter of making ourselves stronger and more visible to the world outside of Baltimore so that people see we’re offering opportunities to create, produce, and work. We’re here to give AAPI artists opportunities to create without barriers.

How are you creating community among AAPI people in Baltimore?
Last year we produced Tornkid, our first original production about exploring Asian and Pacific identities. It had a great response—the one thing we kept hearing was, “This is exactly what I went through when I was a kid.” The same thing happens with AAPI Voices, which is a storytelling event series centered on our experiences. There are a lot of people who are excited just to see other Asians up on stage being funny, or talking about their experiences, or sharing some of their conflicted emotions about growing up Asian and American. We didn’t realize how big a hole there was in the arts community in Baltimore until we said, “We’re here.”

Do you feel accepted by the larger arts community in town?
I think everyone has been so excited to see something different, to see all of us come together and do something that’s important to us. We didn’t necessarily come out and ask people to support us—they just did. To us, that’s been the greatest surprise.

Why is it so important to have a creative space specifically for AAPI individuals?
Baltimore is very black-and-white in the way that it views identity and race. It’s not just something that’s specific to Baltimore; that’s how American culture is. When we talk about race and prejudice, it gets pinpointed to black versus white identity. When you are neither, or if you’re mixed, you don’t know where to stand. You don’t know where your place is in the community. We’re still trying hard to gain a foothold. There is a lot of systemic racism that has worked its way through the industry that we’re still doing our best to fight against and overcome.