This year’s Angel City FC’s 2025 AANHPI Heritage Month scarf was designed by Faith-Ann Kiwa Young, a half-Japanese, LA-based multidisciplinary artist, creative director, and community organizer. She is also the founder of Kibō Nobori, a Children’s Day arts and culture festival held each May at Terasaki Budokan—an event Angel City has sponsored for several years. Through her colorful, dream-like designs and textile installations, Faith-Ann Young spreads “Kibō” (希望)—the Japanese word for hope— and creates opportunities for people to play, reflect and connect.
What inspired your design?
Faith-Ann Young: In my work, I often play with layers of colors, images, and meaning, as metaphors for memory and perspective. I, too, am a mix of layers - half-japanese and having lived in several countries and cities before calling Los Angeles home.
For this design, I wanted to capture the Asian American spirit while reflecting on this unique moment in our city’s story — post-wildfires, some spaces still covered in ash, others healing, and some in the midst of springtime growth and renewal.
I began with the sun, which signifies hope, new beginnings, and spring, and is frequently used in Japanese and Asian art. But I matched the red to the same distinct red that was the color of the sun during the fires - indelible in all our memories. Within this memory, there is hardship and loss, but also incredible strength and communal resilience. I wanted to feature the sunrise to remind us both of the potential of a new day and the sacredness of this present moment ( “Ichi-go ichi-e” in Japanese).
In front of the red sun, I depict young bamboo rising from the ash. Bamboo is a symbol of luck, strength, flexibility, and endurance throughout Asia; it bends but doesn’t break and it’s stronger than steel or concrete. For me, it seemed like a powerful metaphor for the Asian American spirit, Angel City FC’s team right now (fresh with new players as well as others having recovered from injury), and our community’s collective regrowth.
I layered in a few black charcoal strokes from one of my Sumi-e paintings of bamboo. I’ve been studying this ancient method of painting at the Venice Japanese Community Center; this charcoal ink painting is an art that originated in China and it is so beautiful and meditative. It was important for me for the design to have both historic as well as modern elements.
Finally, the silhouettes of leaves and plants at the bottom of the scarf represent spring growth—a reminder that, even after hardship, there is renewal and hope.
Why did you choose the word “resilience” for this scarf?
Young: The word resilience kept echoing in my mind as I designed this scarf; for me, it’s a reflection of the AANHPI spirit and this moment in time. I chose a font inspired by the Philippine pre-colonial sword ‘Sundang,’ which similarly evokes a strong, warrior spirit.
I associate resilience with my maternal Japanese heritage, especially my grandmother, Faith Akiko Yamato, whom I’m named after. After surviving WWII in Japan, she defied many obstacles to become a successful entrepreneur in a male-dominated world, eventually running one of the Bay Area’s first and most beloved sushi restaurants, Kamakura. She lived to 98 — faith-filled, inspiring, and fiercely resilient. She often told me, “Ganbatte!”—a Japanese phrase of encouragement that means “Try your best”; “You can do it!” That phrase carries so much strength and determination— it is resilience at its core.
I think of her, and the countless stories across the AANHPI diaspora— of brave humans who came to this country, most with very little more than a dream, having endured much hardship. That perseverance and strength passes down through generations. I see this resilience in the AANHPI community, in this team of powerful women athletes, and throughout this city, especially in this time.
Can you talk about your art practice ? You use textiles often right?
Young: I’m a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, painting, mixed media, sculpture, and textiles to explore memory, identity, meditation, ritual, and community. I’ve been calling myself a crazy ‘flag artist’ because for the past decade, I’ve created digital photographic composites and meditative textile “flag” sculpture installations, which I construct by combining my photographs of natural elements, my grandmother’s fabrics and keepsakes, and my own abstract brushstrokes. These composites feel representative of memory to me, more than traditional photographs. I print these designs onto sheer fabrics, sew, and hang them ceremonially in open spaces, to create soft, safe spaces for reflection and connection. These flags are in direct contrast to traditional flags, which often symbolize division, exclusion, and even violence or war; they are instead meditative offerings of peace, unity, and inclusion.
Collaboration is key to my practice. Once created, I work with community organizers, nonprofits, and creatives—dancers, writers, performers—to activate these spaces through ritual, movement, sound, and conversation.
While I do a lot of work with textiles, this is the first time I have designed a knit scarf. But the process was so fun…and also deeply healing.
I hope people wear this scarf proudly, hang it on their wall, and appreciate it as a hopeful, inspiring emblem of this moment - and a visual reminder of their power and strength.
You are active in the AANHPI community in Los Angeles and downtown LA specifically. Tell us about that.
Young: I seek to use art to be in service to my community as well as those most in need. Art is powerful. Art makes culture, rewrites or unerases history, and heals.
After becoming a mother of two— in the wake of the pandemic—I created Kibō Nobori, which began as an art installation and has evolved into a joyful, community-driven Children’s Day arts & culture festival held each year in early May at Terasaki Budokan in Little Tokyo - with food, sports, a marketplace, activities and fun for the whole family.
In Japan, Kodomo no Hi (Children’s Day) is a national holiday, and I thought—we have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in the U.S., why not celebrate children here too? Inspired by koi nobori (carp-shaped streamers flown in Japan to symbolize strength and hope, during Kodomo No Hi), I envisioned an immersive, colorful playground where children and adults could come together to honor youthful spirit. With support from the nonprofit community center Terasaki Budokan, we brought that dream to life. This year marked our fourth annual festival, and we were so happy to have Angel City FC and player Jun Endo again this year, who led soccer drills for kids and signed merch, as well as partners JACCC and Go Kizuna.
Kibō Nobori is about spreading “kibō”—hope—through creativity, culture and community. It introduces a new generation to the beauty and significance of Little Tokyo at a time when many cultural programs across America and within this city face defunding and the historic restaurants and buildings within Little Tokyo face gentrification. Little Tokyo is sacred. Its stories, spaces, and rituals deserve protection. Supporting and celebrating these spaces is more vital than ever.
In conjunction with AANHPI Heritage Month, I have a Kibō Nobori textile installation that is on view at Terasaki Budokan throughout May. Go and experience it if you get a chance!
How does being Japanese American affect your art?
I am made up of these two sides that fought against one another in World War II; one side that survived a grave nuclear attack as well as internment here in America. As such, I am a realization of peace, a physical manifestation that love can overcome hate in one generation. I seek my art to reflect this - to be a physical manifestation to resist the grief, injustice, and violence in our world. I use art to share my perspective as well as create hopeful, joyful moments for the community to safely and proudly gather, reflect, remember, and connect. I hope this scarf does just that.
How can people find out more about your work?
Find more of my work at faithannyoung.com and follow me on Instagram instagram.com/faithannyoung. I’m always looking to creatively collaborate or connect!