Reflecting on 2009
Dec 26
Personal Angel Island Immigration Station, Angela Tseng, APA for Progress, Asian American Googler Network, asian law caucus, barack obama, Chinatown Community Development Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, dale minami, David Chiu, Dianne Feinstein, disgrasian, Equal Justice Society, eric mar, eva paterson, fred korematsu institute, Glen Fukushima, hapihour, hukilau, jane kim, jen wang, judge ed chen, Keesa Ocampo, kim shinjo, lauren shinjo, Lisa Menor, mark keam, Mercury Lounge, mike lux, Mike Miller, Neil Abercrombie, Netroots Nation, Nichi Bei Times, ningin, Organization of Chinese Americans, Patrick Leahy, phil ting, phil yu, racism, roxana saberi, San Francisco Chronicle, Steve Owyang, steven chin, Typhoon Ondoy, Warren Furutani, Young Filipino Professional Association No Comments
I welcomed 2009 at the Hukilau in San Francisco.
Kim Shinjo, Lauren Shinjo and I hosted a New Year’s Eve party there with about 40 of our friends, complete with a RockBand on the Wii, karaoke and all-you-can-eat plate lunch food. I had vowed at the end of 2008 not to spend the beginning of 2009 the victim of long bar lines at an expensive, loud party. When the clock struck midnight, we were all full, buzzed and relaxed.
A few days later, I returned to work at the Equal Justice Society, where I serve as the Director of Communications. Not only is this the best job I’ve ever had, I’m fortunate to make a living working for a civil rights organization. Our president, Eva Paterson, likes to say that all of us there have the kind of jobs where in the morning we can read something in the newspaper and then actually do something about it. And true to that sentiment, I’ve never had a dull moment in the almost five years of working there.
Barack Obama’s election as President of the United States dominated much of the forward-looking conversations in the office and in the civil rights community. We saw during the campaign the vicious racism employed against Obama and expected that his first year in office would be challenged with not only racism, but the misguided notion that the election of a Black man as President meant the end of racism in our country.
But first we celebrated. I didn’t even attempt to make it to DC for the inauguration, but we had some great parties in San Francisco — including one where I ran into Paul Hsu and our conversation that night turned into a new project called CauseConnext. I was also asked to write a guest post on the ningin.com blog about my thoughts on what the presidency of Barack Obama might mean to the Asian American community.
Locally, the year also began with the swearings-in of my friends David Chiu and Eric Mar to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Both won races against better-funded opponents and special interests. And David’s election was especially significant because he became the first Chinese American ever elected to the district that is home to Chinatown and a large population of Asian Americans. On January 8, in a turn of events that took me by surprise, the freshman Supervisor was elected President of the Board, making him arguably the second most powerful elected official in San Francisco.
This was a long way from when David and I together ran hapihour.org, a happy hour series that raised funds for local Asian American nonprofit organizations, something David started in 2000 with other young progressive leaders, including Phil Ting, who was now the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder, and Jane Kim, a member of the San Francisco school board.
My February was quickly dominated by political events and activities.
I worked closely with my friend, mentor and benefactor Dale Minami and the local Asian American bar on an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle highlighting the fact that no Asian American had ever been appointed as an “Article III” (lifetime appointment) judge to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. (President Obama ended up appointing the first Asian American, Magistrate Judge Ed Chen, in August on recommendation of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. His nomination remains bottle-necked by Senate Republicans.)
On behalf of EJS, I coordinated an event at Mercury Lounge in honor of Mike Lux, a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Team and liaison to the progressive community, and celebrating the release of his first book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee also came to town in February and I was lucky to participate in a roundtable with him and representatives of the legal and civil rights community.
The highlight of the month though was the marriage of my BFF (yes, guys can have BFFs) Angela Tseng to Ted Szeto in the rotunda of City Hall. Our friendship is especially meaningful in light of the fact that when she first met me (via Steve Owyang), she hated my guts. We don’t have to go into why; it’s something we still debate over. This moment was bittersweet for me because it meant that she would move to San Antonio, where Ted is stationed as a military doc.
March for me had less politics, but most memorable for a ski trip for some of the staff and volunteers of David Chiu’s and Jane Kim’s campaigns. The only thing I can report about this excursion is that Jane and I battled each other in a snowman building contest. And I won.
Earlier that month, Steve Chin and I started a national campaign to seek the release of our friend Roxana Saberi, an American journalist of Iranian and Japanese descent who was arrested in February and held in Iran on charges of espionage. For more than two months, we worked with about a half-dozen folks around the country and the Asian American Journalists Association through Facebook, Twitter and our blog to highlight Roxana’s plight. We’re thankful that she was eventually freed on May 11.
April started with a San Francisco fundraiser I coordinated with Dale Minami for Mark Keam, who was running for the Virginia state house. Mark would eventually win the general election, becoming the first Asian American to serve in Virgnia’s Legislature.
The month ended with the annual dinner of the Asian Law Caucus, which I had recently joined as a board member. The event was also the launch of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education, which will advance the cause of Asian American civil rights and human rights through pan-Asian American alliances and programs that focus on education, activism and leadership. I was responsible for guiding the marketing efforts of the Institute’s launch and I was fortunate to have worked with Stephanie Ong Stillman and Johanna Silva Waki of Hope Road Consulting, a firm the Caucus hired to execute the media relations campaign.
On May 1, I coordinated an APA for Progress reception honoring Glen Fukushima at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. Glen made a very generous donation to APAP for a campaign fellowship, which we named after him and applied towards to Judy Chu’s historic campaign for Congress. My service on the APAP board of directors ends on Dec. 31.
I was able to take some time off in mid-May to spend nine days back home in Hawai’i, in part so I could attend the wedding of my college friend Mike Miller to Lisa Menor. Mike and I spent many years together in student government at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and someone I continue to look up after all of these years. I got to spend time with my family, during what turned out to be my only trip back home this year.
I visited the Angel Island Immigration Station for the first time in June, taking some folks from the Asian American Googler Network on a service project field trip there as part of CauseConnext.
August was full of speaking engagements with the Young Filipino Professional Association, at the national convention of the Organization of Chinese Americans and at Netroots Nation 2009 in Pittsburgh. Also took a side trip to DC to celebrate Christine Chen’s birthday.
Sept. 9 was my birthday, which I celebrated with several hundred people because the 40th anniversary dinner of Chinese for Affirmative Action was that night and I serve on the board. That night also featured the showing of an anniversary video that I worked on with fellow board members Stephanie Ong Stillman and Jeff Chang. I’m starting my seventh year on the CAA board and have been privileged to work with executive director Vincent Pan and board chair Germaine Wong, among many others in the organization.
I won something big this year at the Chinatown Community Development Center’s annual dinner: round-trip JetBlue tickets to anywhere the airline flies. I had just joined the CCDC board of directors and feel a little embarrassed about winning such a big ticket prize, but I’m sure I’ll put it to good use. I’m definitely looking forward to working with Gordon, Norman, Malcolm, Cindy, Dave and Kat in supporting CCDC’s outstanding work.
The end of September marked the culmination of a nearly two-year effort for EJS when we co-presented a panel on unconscious bias at the Writers Guild of America West in partnership with the Screen Actors Guild, Americans for American Values and the Kirwan Institute. The panel represented our first foray into developing entertainment industry connections that could result in changes in the way that race is portrayed in popular culture.
In response to the Sept. 26 disaster inflicted on the Philippines and other countries by Typhoon Ondoy, I joined a committee led by Keesa Ocampo that organized a relief event on Oct. 9, which led to other fundraisers throughout the month that ended up raising nearly $15,000 for flood victims.
Sept. 30 marked the close of the Nichi Bei Times, Northern California’s oldest Japanese American newspaper, after 63 years of business. Kyle Tatsumoto and I for many years wrote a Hawai’i column in the newspaper and it would have been a severe loss for the community if the newspaper slipped away. But thankfully due to the vision and drive of editor Kenji Taguma and other staff, the newspaper continues on published by a new nonprofit, the Nichi Bei Foundation. I was honored to be asked to serve on the board of this pioneering media nonprofit.
My October included serving on the search committee for the Asian American Journalists Association national executive director, traveling to Atlanta to participate in a convening on race and race issues and to Los Angeles to speak with Jen Wang of Disgrasian.com and Phil Yu aka Angry Asian Man on a panel at the first-ever Advancing Justice Conference.
Hawai’i Congressman Neil Abercrombie visited the Bay Area in November and I was fortunate to host a lunch reception for him at Roy’s so he could meet kama’aina expats and local Asian Americans and talk with them about his campaign for governor of the Aloha State. That same week, Carole Hayashino and I hosted a fundraiser for Calif. Assemblymember Warren Furutani.
I also accepted a last-minute invitation to deliver a social media workshop in mid-November at the Asian Pacific Leadership Conference for AA and PI college students in Santa Barbara.
November was also one of my friend’s Thanksgiving gathering, where he single-handedly whips up a Thanksgiving meal for us orphans. It’s one of the year’s traditions that I always look forward to.
Winding down the year always begins after the EJS annual gala and this year Miguel and Ginger in our office did another incredible job of creating an event that sends us out in style and with celebration.
So I guess I didn’t do much in 2009. But I hope I made a difference. I remind myself how lucky I am to have a job, a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food on the table. Any year that ends with that is a good one.
