Contest & Exhibition Recap
Thank you to every student who participated in this year's Make Noise Today Student Scholarship Contest & Exhibition. This year's theme, "Echoes and Action: The AAPI Soul in a Changing World," asked you to reflect on where we've been and where we're going—and you answered with work that was honest, bold, and deeply personal.
Your stories are the echoes that carry forward, and your courage in sharing them is the action. Thank you for making noise with us. We're proud to celebrate every one of you.
The Make Noise Today Team
2026 Award Winners
Visual Arts
1st Place
Elaine J. - First They Came
2nd Place
Grant D. - Life Lessons with Grandpa
3rd Place
Kaylee P. - Comfort Food, Uncomfortable Me
Literary Arts
1st Place
Samantha S. - The Four Crumbs I Kept
2nd Place
Anqi G. - 3/28/26
3rd Place
Aashi J. - Inheritance
Performing Arts
1st Place
Ananya S. - My People: A Culture of Growing and Giving
2nd Place
Kingsley P. - Should Be Proud
3rd Place
Henna L. - The Yellow Side
Long Beach Excellence
1st Place
Anneleese L. - The Rain is Here. What are you going to do?
2nd Place
Aliiyah V. - I am
3rd Place
Kenneth L. - Arirang
Exhibition Launch Event
This year's winning submissions — along with 60+ top entries — came together as Echoes and Action: The AAPI Soul in a Changing World, the 2026 Make Noise Today Student Exhibition. Opening night at the Edison Theatre in Long Beach set the tone: students, families, artists, and educators packed the space for gallery walk-throughs, live music, and student awards, with youth voices front and center. The exhibition now continues its run at the Billie Jean King Main Library through August — carrying forward what the night made clear: AAPI youth stories belong at the center of our community.
See the Stories Here
The Virtual Exhibition
If you didn’t get a chance to see the exhibition in-person. The Make Noise Today 2026 Student Exhibition is available on the link below— bringing together the artwork, stories, and voices of AAPI youth from across the country in a format anyone, anywhere can experience.
This year's theme, Echoes and Action: The AAPI Soul in a Changing World, drew nearly 500 student submissions exploring identity, heritage, and what it means to speak up in a world that's always shifting. The virtual exhibition makes that work accessible anywhere — because these stories deserve the widest possible audience.
Browse the collection. Sit with the work. Share it.
Meet Our Judges
Candy Kuo
Candy Kuo is a Taiwan-born visual artist and muralist based in Austin, Texas. Her work—known for bold female portraiture and vibrant, multicultural influences—blends East Asian and Southwestern aesthetics shaped by her upbringing overseas and in the Rio Grande Valley.
Since 2016, she has created over 150 murals across the U.S. and internationally, specializing in large-scale public art using aerosol and mixed media. Her work explores identity, human connection, and lived experience through a personal lens as an immigrant, mother and artist.
She is also a co-owner of an independent art production company and contemporary gallery in East Austin, supporting artists through collaborative, community-driven exhibitions.
Visual Arts Judge
Jamie Jo Hoang
Jamie Jo Hoang is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees. She grew up in Orange County, CA—not the rich part—and worked as a docuseries producer before shifting to writing full-time. Her debut young adult novel, My Father the Panda Killer, was named one of the best books of the year by Amazon Editors and NPR's Books We Love, and received an Honorable Mention from the Freeman Book Awards. My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser, the companion to her debut YA novel, won the Freeman Book Award and is an L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist.
Literary Judge
Performing Arts JudgeElizabeth Ai
Elizabeth Ai is a Chinese Vietnamese American award-winning filmmaker and writer whose work explores identity, memory, and survival. Her debut feature documentary, New Wave premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival, earning a Special Jury Mention for Best New Documentary Director.
This Year’s Noisemakers
The Make Noise Today Noisemaker Award recognizes those who uplift AAPI communities through art, storytelling, mentorship, and leadership.
Noisemakers are catalysts—amplifying youth voices, strengthening cultural identity, and shaping our own narratives. This award is about standing up, standing out, and making noise for our community. Congratulations!
Sam Hyun
Sam Hyun is a Boston-based speaker, activist, and entrepreneur who has spent his career turning personal identity into political power. As Director of Government Relations at The Asian American Foundation, he fights anti-Asian hate and bridges grassroots advocacy with federal policy. As co-founder of 1587 Sneakers — named for the year the first recorded Asians arrived in North America he's proven you don't have to choose between success and staying rooted in who you are. Named Boston Globe's Bostonian of the Year in 2021, Sam is living proof that our culture and identity are not obstacles they are the foundation. For the next generation of AAPI youth figuring out who they are and what they stand for, Sam Hyun is exactly what that can look like. Make Noise Today is proud to honor him as a true Noisemaker.
Act To Change
What began as a landmark White House initiative in 2015 has grown into something even more powerful. Act To Change was born from an urgent truth: bullying is a universal struggle, but AAPI youth face unique cultural, linguistic, and religious barriers that too often keep them from getting the help they need. Rather than just advocating for young people, Act To Change centers them as leaders, architects of schools and communities where every student feels safe, celebrated, and free to be fully themselves. That's the kind of noise that echoes. Make Noise Today is proud to recognize Act To Change as a Noisemaker whose work is transforming what belonging looks like for the next generation.
To Our Partners — Thank You.
None of this happens without you.
The 2026 Make Noise Today Student Exhibition — Echoes and Action: The AAPI Soul in a Changing World — reached hundreds of students, families, and community members this year. That reach is a direct reflection of the organizations who believed in this work and chose to stand behind it.
We're grateful to build with partners who understand that community investment looks like this — showing up for the next generation before they've made their mark, because you believe they will.
Thank you for making noise with us.
