API Equality – LA Wins City of Los Angeles Pride Award
June 30, 2009
Los Angeles - Each year, at the end of the month of June, Los Angeles City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl holds a special Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) pride celebration during a meeting of the Los Angeles City Council. As part of that celebration, the councilmember issues a handful of LGBT Pride Month awards, celebrating leaders and role models in the community. The theme of the awards this year is Faces of the New LGBT Movement.
People who have emerged as fresh faces of leadership in the LGBT community in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 are being honored. API Equality-LA is being recognized for its organizing work in the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) communites. In particular, API Equality-LA was nominated to recognize its work with API Christian and other faith communities, its efforts to ensure that API ethnic media provides balanced coverage on the marriage equality issue, and its work to build a strong coalition between APIs and other communities of color. This is the second award that API Equality-LA has recently received, following on the May 2009 award for its work that was bestowed by the Pride and Heritage Committee in Washington, D.C
“We are thrilled that Councilmember Rosendahl should honor us in this way,” said API-Equality Co-Chair Doreena Wong. “We truly appreciate the recognition of our past efforts and the encouragement this provides for our continuing work to win back marriage equality.”
[Note: Photo shows API Equality-LA members with Mike Bonin from Councilmember Rosendahl’s office. Photo, L-R: Tim Ky, Mike Bonin, Deanna Kitamura, Doreena Wong, Ellen Kameya, and Harold Kameya.]
API Equality - LA is a coalition of organizations and individuals working to build support for equal marriage rights and fair treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the greater Los Angeles Asian and Pacific Islander community. For more information, call 323-860-7348 or visit, http://apiequalityla.org/
A Community Left Out in the Cold
June 30, 2009
By Rodel Rodis
San Francisco - Greg Macabenta, Baylan Megino and I answered the call of Rudy Asercion, Executive Director of the West Bay Pilipino Multi-Service Center, to attend the public hearing of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on June 22 to speak out in favor of providing city funding to West Bay, the community non-profit agency that provided services last year to 3500 Filipino families in the South of Market (SOMA) district of San Francisco.
Rudy had sent out an SOS email expressing outrage that the Filipino community had been totally excluded from the $9-M of city funds that would be allocated to various community agencies throughout San Francisco. Every ethnic community in every section of the city would receive their share of city funds, all that is, except for the Filipino community which was completely shut out.
The public hearing would begin at 5 p.m. and Rudy lined up early to get us speaking cards so that we could express our support for the inclusion of the Filipino community in the allocation of community funds. When Greg, Baylan and I arrived at the second floor of City Hall, Rudy was there with our speaking cards informing us that “we’re no. 4″. We were relieved to think that we would be among the first to speak as we saw over 400 people lined up all over City Hall carrying their own speaking cards ready to advocate for funding their various community programs.
After waiting in line outside the chambers of the Board of Supervisors for about an hour, we learned to our frustration that before our “group 4″ could speak, groups A to Z and 1 to 3 would speak first. Wow! Greg, publisher of Filipinas magazine, still had the July issue of his magazine to “put to bed” that evening so he couldn’t wait hours to speak. He asked Rudy’s permission to leave which Rudy gave, grateful that Greg had shown up to express his support.
All the ethnic groups from every part of the city were represented among those waiting to make their pitch for funding to the Supervisors. We were not the only Filipinos there as idealistic young Pinoy students from San Francisco State were poised to speak on behalf of the Veterans Equity Center (VEC), and young Pinays from the Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS) were also there to speak of the high incidence of domestic violence in the Filipino community. Representatives of a Filipino workers group providing support to exploited Filipino caregivers were there as well to make their case for funding.
Every one would be allotted one minute to speak and then the bell would ring which would alert the speaker to end his or her speech. While everyone more or less kept to the time requirement, a few would greatly exceed it, prompting a second bell.
It was about 10 p.m. when were told to line up as “group 4″ would soon be called. A dozen speakers later and it was finally our turn. Rudy Asercion spoke first and described the vast array of services provided by West Bay to serve the poorest of the poor of SOMA including after-school tutorials, financial literacy and healthy lifestyle programs as well as life skills training. West Bay had collaborated with the Filipino Senior Center, the Filipino Family Resource Center, the South of Market Clinic and the SOMA Employment Center to present a comprehensive package of services for the Filipino community.
Rudy was followed by Baylan who pointed out that Filipinos comprise more than 6% of the San Francisco city population and that we have “the highest teen pregnancy rate, the highest dropout rate, the highest mortality rate due to domestic violence, and the highest mortality rate in several types of cancer”. She expressed shock that given the basic needs of our community that no grant funds were recommended for any of the Filipino community organizations.
Then it was my turn. As a former elected official of the city for 18 years, I personally knew many of the Supervisors. In my speech, I described the history of West Bay as the most empowered and empowering Filipino community agency in the SOMA district. By 2005, after 35 years of solid work in the community, West Bay had been duly recognized by four city departments as the agency that best served the SOMA community and was properly awarded $468,501 in city funds for its various programs.
But then in that year 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a West Bay employee was involved in a Medicare scam in the South of Market district. This news article provided the district’s supervisor, Chris Daly, with the excuse to ask the Board of Supervisors to freeze the city funds that had already been allocated to West Bay until, he said, West Bay was cleared of any involvement in the Medicare fraud.
For two months the various city agencies that funded West Bay, together with the FBI, investigated the Medicare scam charge and determined that only one West Bay employee (out of 30 West Bay employees) was involved and she had already resigned. West Bay, they concluded, had nothing to do with the scam. Despite this clearance, however, the Board did not restore the funding back to West Bay, which was then forced to lay off all of its employees and to eliminate the programs that had been effectively serving the community since 1969.
But the Filipino community would not let West Bay die. Slowly but surely, over the years, under the leadership of Rudy Asercion, West Bay came back, once again serving the needs of the most underserved community in the city.
As my time was running out, I prepared to sum up. “Supervisors, I urge….” Then the bell rang and as I was about to finish my sentence, Supervisor John Avalos curtly cut me off saying “Thank you!” as if to say “Next!” Avalos did not do this to any other speaker. I looked at Avalos and remembered that he was Daly’s chief deputy in 2005 when Daly cut off the funds to West Bay. No wonder.
Later, as Rudy, Baylan and I left the chambers, one of the Supervisors, Bevan Dufty, ran after us to apologize for the discourtesy extended to me. He asked for more information about the programs of West Bay and promised to do what he could to restore the funds to West Bay.
(Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or mail them to the Law offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127. For past issues, log on to Rodel50.blogspot.com).
Daily Dose & Announcements: 06/30/09
June 30, 2009
>>Despite Their Success, Asians Not Rising to Heights of Silicon Valley’s Corporate World
>>Rockets Could Lose Yao for Season or More
>> U.S. Senate Confirms Harold Koh as Legal Adviser of Department of State
>>CA Legislators Draft Resolution to Recognize and Apologize to Chinese Americans
>> Filipino Community Solidarity Rally
>>4th Annual Leland Avenue Street Fair
>>”Friends Reunited” 2nd Annual Dance Benefit
>> Tanabata Festival
>>2009 IWL Release Event & Public Reading
>> Asian Americans Take Center Stage in Enigmatic “Kelland”
Chinese American Heroine: Connie Chung
June 30, 2009
Name in English: Connie Chung (Constance Povich)
Name in Chinese: 宗毓华 [宗毓華]
Name in Pinyin: Zōng Yùhuá
Gender: Female
Birth Year: 1946
Birth Place: Washington, D.C. Read more
Chinatown Job Fair Draws Over A Thousand People
June 29, 2009
The Chinatown Neighborhood Workforce Center hosted a large scale Career Fair in San Francisco Chinatown on June 18, 2009 at the Salvation Army gym.
The event attracted over 1,200 of eager job seekers, all looking for a glimpse of hope in these tough times. Candidates ranged from new immigrants to seasoned professionals. Employers were able to pick out many resumes that they deemed well qualified for their open positions. Sixteen major employers with over 250 job openings participated, including: All Day Homecare, Inc., CBS Radio, Safeway, California Public Utilities Commission, United Commercial Bank, Radio Shack, the San Francisco Police Department, U.S. Army, and the San Francisco Airport
The purpose of the career fair was to bring jobs into the community and help with the city’s economic recovery.
Funded by the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Chinatown Neighborhood Workforce Center - a program part of the Chinese Newcomers Service Center, strives to recruit the most qualified candidates for employers. At the same time, the center provides career orientated services to job seekers; including workshops, career counseling and job referrals.
CNWC plans to host similar large-scale career fairs once every quarter. Employers interested in participating are welcome to call (415) 421-1388 for details.
Tim Dang, Producing Artistic Director of EWP, Receives Irvine Leadership Award
June 29, 2009
East West Players in Los Angeles is the nation’s oldest professional theater of color in operation today. An estimated 75 percent of Los Angeles-based Asian American dramatic artists have made a presence there, including Tony Award winning B.D. Wong, Star Trek star George Takei and the Indian-American actor and House co-star, Kal Penn.
But its greatest achievements of the last decade, under the leadership of artistic director Tim Dang, have had less to do with star power on stage than with the people watching them. Dang has guided East West Players’ evolution from a 99-seat experimental theater into a full-fledged regional theater, based in a 240-seat venue. East West Players has become a multicultural hub, where diverse audiences come together for thought-provoking performances reflecting a broad spectrum of human experience.
Dang is expanding the public’s understanding of “Asian American” culture by providing a stage for Vietnamese, South Asian, Korean and Japanese American characters, among others. Dang also has infused diverse perspectives into old theater standbys such as his hip-hop and anime-inspired production of Pippin. Dang’s emerging playwrights contest has shined a spotlight on new and diverse talent within the community.
From his perspective, the theater must evolve as new generations are less tied to traditional lines of identity. After a production about the marriage of a Japanese American woman and an African American man, played by Danny Glover, biracial couples told Dang they’d never been so comfortable holding hands in public as they did in the East West Players’ courtyard. Through such productions and efforts to partner with non-Asian theaters and artists, Dang provides a space for dialogue and collaborations that reflect the multicultural population of California.
Dang also creates opportunities for socializing among his multicultural audience, nearly half of whom are non-Asian. One successful strategy has been his implementation of social hours before performances that feature music, drinks, food and the opportunity to discuss cultural themes. Under Dang’s leadership, East West Players has brought theater to diverse student groups, both through a touring company and intensive school workshops, aimed at bridging the gap among students of different racial backgrounds.
Dang is currently preparing for a 2011 national conference of Asian American theater groups, the second he has helped organize. Through such convenings, he hopes to inspire new partnerships that will expand possibilities for and exposure to Asian American theater.
For increasing understanding of and appreciation for California’s diversity and creating new opportunities for Asian American artists, Tim Dang is a recipient of a 2009 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award.
Daily Dose & Announcements: 06/29/09
June 29, 2009
>> NAPABA Celebrates the Confirmation of Florence Pan
as Associate Judge for the District of Columbia Superior Court
>> New Hmong Studies Fellows at the University of Minnesota Announced
>> Oldest Chinese Radio Station in Bay Area Closes
>> Hyphen’ Issue #17 Release Party
>> Ambassador Visits Jailed U.S. Journalists in North Korea Read more
Chinese American Hero: Sam Chu Lin
June 29, 2009
In Week 15 of our tribute to Chinese American Heroes we’re going to be looking at our news reporters. Our modern pioneer was Sam Chu Lin, who led the way for many Chinese Americans and Asian Americans to follow. Beginning with his own radio show in racially segregated Mississippi in 1956 he transitioned to national TV news by the 1960s on CBS News. For nearly forty years he worked in radio, TV, and in print journalism fighting to highlight Asian Americans by making them a part of the national news. He confronted issues such as racism directly by creating programs such as ABC’s 1999 Nightline episode, “Asian American-When Your Neighbor Looks Like the Enemy.”
Connie Chung led the way for many Asian American women with her pioneering work in broadcast news starting in the 1970s. Her work covering national political conventions and putting together investigative stories showed that Asian American women were fully capable of covering serious news stories. By the 1980s, many news programs across the country were being co-anchored by Asian American women. This was ascribed to the “Connie Chung effect.” She became the first Asian American woman and only the second woman after Barbara Walters to become the nightly news anchor of a national TV network in 1993. Read more
Quest Crew Wows San Francisco Clubgoers
June 26, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO - Clad in purple, the seven cute and stylish members of Quest Crew - the winners of MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew season 3, strut on to the dance floor of Club NV eliciting a frenzy of flashes from the audience’s digital cameras and cell phones.
The boys sprawl on the ground and gracefully rise at the sound of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” kicking off an energetic five minute hip hop routine full of head spins, handstands, and other highlights from the show.
Quest Crew’s special performance was organized by CenterStage, a new promotions company focused on providing unique, upscale ages 18 and up events within the Bay Area.
“Quest Crew is the hottest performance crew in the U.S., and as CenterStage is gunning for the title of best 18+ entertainment group in San Francisco, it was a natural pairing,” said Kingston Wu, CenterStage founder.
Prior to their performance the popular group from one of TV’s hottest shows, hosted a meet and greet, signing autographs and posing for pictures with adoring fans on June 19.
While previous America’s Best Dance Crew winners - JabbaWockeeZ and Super CR3W featured Asian members, Quest Crew on Mar. 5, became the first dance group to feature all members of Asian descent. Hokuto “Hok” Konishi and Steve Terada are Japanese, Ryan Feng is Taiwanese, Victor Kim is Korean, Ryan Conferrido is Filipino, Brian Hirano is Korean, Portuguese, Chinese, and Japanese, Dominic “D-Trix” Sandoval is Filipino, Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese.
Formed in 2005, the crew has been working together with Quest Learning Center, a community facility located in Artesia, CA. Out of their desire to represent and promote the multi-purpose center which provides tutoring sessions, music lessons, dance classes, and social events, the group decided to name themselves Quest, says Feng.
The boys of Quest are no strangers to television. Conferrido, Konishi, Terada, Kim, and Sandoval all appeared on FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance, with Conferrido becoming a finalist in season one and Konishi and Sandoval reaching the finals in the third season. Crew members each have substantial dance experience and have appeared on music videos, stage shows, movies, and television. Terada, notably, is an internationally acclaimed martial artist with nearly 30 world titles and says a lot of martial arts elements are relevant dance.
“We all have worked as dancers individually and it was always a dream for us to work together on a show like America’s Best Dance Crew,” said Feng, in an interview at Horizon Restaurant and Lounge prior to their club performance.
That dream came true this past January. During the two month competition, the crew consistently did well garnering praise from judges JC Chasez, Lil’ Mama, and Shane Sparks.
“When [host] Mario Lopez announced our names as the winners it was an out of body experience,” recalls Kim. “It was definitely one of the highlights of my life.”
Terada says that Asian males have long been portrayed in mainstream media as being “nerdy” and he is glad that the success of America’s Best Dance Crew has helped created a positive and “cool” image of Asian Americans.
Since winning the competition and the $100,000 grand prize, the group has been performing throughout the country and the entire crew is set to appear in the film Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, due to be released on Christmas 2009. Konishi and Kim are also set to appear in the upcoming film Boogie Town.
For those aspiring to be dancers, Konishi advises, “if you love what you’re doing, never give up, keep going and you’ll get there.”
Pelosi Discusses May China Trip With Ethnic Media
June 26, 2009
By Melissa He
At a special news briefing held for Asian American and Pacific Islander press in San Francisco on Jun. 22, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discussed her May trip to China, tackling environmental and human rights issues.
This was Pelosi’s second visit in nearly two decades and first as House speaker. Her subdued tone and dodging of human rights issues during last month’s visit surprised many who remembered her last visit in 1991, where she unfurled a banner in Tiananmen Square that read, “To those who died for democracy in China.”
The visit in May was markedly different. Pelosi and Chinese officials met to try and find common ground in preparation for the December international climate negotiations held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The U.S. and China are two of the largest carbon emitters and cooperation is key to cementing any kind of global energy reform. Pelosi considers the climate issue a “game-changer in the U.S.-China relationship,” and indicated that discussions have been fruitful despite some disagreements over the required level of reduction. “Protecting the environment is a human rights issue,” she said.
Pelosi’s visit to China to discuss climate issues with top Chinese officials was seen by many as a significant shift in US-China relations under the new Obama administration, and as a symbol of change in global order to some. Pelosi notes that her visit was positive as it exposed her to new technologies the Chinese have been developing and implementing to reduce environmental impact and pollution.
She stressed however, that while development in China is a “great” thing, she still sees a need for freedom of expression.
Pelosi brought attention to the Tiananmen protestors still incarcerated in Chinese prisons and called for an openness and transparency in the Chinese government, as well as accountability and justice. The June 2nd House Resolution commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the protest calls for the release of protest prisoners and for a full investigation into the incident, and renews support for those who are imprisoned or are families of those who were killed or jailed for the incident.
In response to a question about how to address some Bay Area Chinese residents who are fearful of returning to China because of their blacklisted or exiled status, Pelosi answered that she hopes for change in the Chinese government.
The news briefing was organized by New America Media drew over 20 AAPI press.
“As an organization that believes in the strength of ethnic news, we believe that opening up a direct and continuing dialogue between the speakers and the ethnic communities is very important,” says a representative from New America Media. “The news briefing with the Asian media is a good start.”
Daily Dose & Announcements: 06/26/09
June 26, 2009
>> Sam Yoon Receives Backing of Mayor Sukhee Kang
>> David Le Fired From D.C. Summer Jobs
>> Senate approves Koh nomination
>> 5FF Comedy Marathon at Purple Onion
>> 3rd Annual Prohibition Poker
>> Goh Nakamura and Jane Lui perform together Read more
Chinese American Hero: Taylor Gun-Jin Wang
June 26, 2009
Name in English: Taylor Gun-Jin Wang
Name in Chinese: 王赣骏 [王贛駿]
Name in Pinyin: Wáng Gànjùn
Gender: Male
Birth Year: 1940
Birth Place: Shanghai, China
Current location: Nashville, Tennessee
Read more
