Keith Kamisugi

The Obama for America campaign’s Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders National Leadership Council consists of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders leaders and activists from across the nation, representing every sector of our society, including community, nonprofit, entertainment, business, government, law, academia and media.

“I am proud of the strong personal ties I have had with the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders communities that go back to my birth, and I am humbled to have the widespread support from these communities in my campaign,” said Barack Obama. “Like most Americans, the AAPI community knows that with the great challenges facing our nation today, we need leadership that can unite us to bring change we can believe in.”

The Obama campaign’s Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders website (http://aapi.barackobama.com) provides Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from across the country the ability to connect with one another and to learn how to educate their friends and neighbors about Obama’s record of bringing change to their communities.

Senator Obama was born in Hawai’i, a state where Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up a significant portion of the population. As a child of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic family that included Asian Americans, Obama lived in Indonesia, sharing some of the same personal experiences that many Asian immigrants in the United States have also experienced before arriving on these shores.

(Also see a blog that I’m managing at http://apaforobama.com.)“My brother is the only candidate with an intimate connection with Asia and the Pacific,” says Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s sister of Indonesian descent. “Our mother’s work and values brought us into contact with a wide range of worlds. The movement of our childhood and adolescence required that we be able to walk between worlds and, in particular, to communicate broadly within Asian and Pacific Islands cultures. Barack understands the values, needs, and expectations that are unique to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”

“There hasn’t been a presidential candidate who understands the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders experience as intuitively as Barack,” says Konrad Ng, Obama’s brother-in-law of Chinese descent. “I hope that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders will recognize this opportunity to support a candidate who can speak to our diverse communities and bring real and beneficial change to our country. It is time that we have someone in the White House who can do it all.”

Obama studied and worked alongside strong and diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander populations in Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston. After college, he moved to Chicago, another city with a large and diverse Asian American population, where he worked as a grassroots organizer, advocating for civil rights and economic fairness.

“Barack Obama has a long track record of promoting policies that are important to the AAPI community. His depth of experience in bridging the many divides combined with his sound judgment is what I believe will make a better America,” says Ann Lata Kalayil, Chicago-based AAPI community leader and Co-Chair of the Obama Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Leadership Council.

In state and federal elected offices, he continued to push for legislative policies to protect the rights of immigrants and minorities at the local, state, and national levels. For example, he led the fight in Illinois to identify and end racial profiling and provide health insurance coverage to 150,000 low-income children and parents. And in the U.S. Senate, Obama has been a leader in the bipartisan effort to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

As president, he will continue to chart a better course for all Americans, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders can be assured that Obama will continue to work for these communities, as he has already demonstrated throughout his life. Former New York Solicitor General Preeta Bansal says, “As we try to work to clean up America’s image and policy toward the world and its policies at home, I can think of no better leader than Senator Obama, who – in part because who he is and where he came from, but also because of what he believes in – would give America a whole new fresh chance.”

Members of the Obama Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders National Leadership Council include (Note: Their affiliation is to be used for identification purposes only):

• Nancy Chen, IL, Former APA Outreach Director for the Office of Presidential Personnel (1996 – 1997) and Former Chicago Director for Senator Paul Simon (D – IL) (1991 – 1996); Co-Chair, Obama AAPI National Leadership Council
• Ann Lata Kalayil, IL, Former DNC At-large Member and APIA Caucus; Co-Chair, Obama AAPI National Leadership Council
• Stanley Toy, CA, Chairman of Los Angeles County Hospital and Healthcare Delivery Commission and President and CEO of TEAM Healthcare; Co-Chair, Obama AAPI National Leadership Council
• Preeta Bansal, NY, Former New York State Solicitor General (1999 – 2001) and Partner, Skadden Arps, and Former Counselor, U.S. Department of Justice and Special Counsel, White House (1993 – 1996)
• Paul Igasaki, Former Vice Chair and Commissioner, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1994 – 2002)
• Angela Oh, CA, Former Member, President’s Initiative on Race (1997 – 1998)
• Amy Agbayani, HI, Community Activist and Administrator, University of Hawaii
• Anilesh Ahuja, NY, Investment Banker
• Tania Ahuja, NY
• Della Au Belatti, HI, State Representative
• Som Baccam, IA, Community Activist
• Priya Bhatia, IL, Attorney, Goldberg Kohn
• Umbreen Bhatti, PA, Attorney
• Eric Byler, VA, Activist and Award-winning Filmmaker
• C.W. Chan, IL
• Wilma Chan, CA, Former Assemblywoman
• M. Hasan Chandoo, NY, Businessman
• Raazia Chandoo, NY, Artist
• Subodh Chandra, OH, Principal, The Chandra Law Firm
• Kan Chou, IL, President, Elitegen Corp
• Marisa Chun, CA, Partner, Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass LLP
• Jerry Clarito, IL, Skokie Park District Commissioner
• Jun Choi, NJ, Mayor of Edison
• Siddharth Desai, GA, Management Consultant and South Asians for Obama – Atlanta
• Naisy Dolar, IL, Community Activist
• Selma D’Souza, IL, Attorney; President, AAA Fund of Chicago
• Gautam Dutta, CA, Attorney and Board Member, Asian American Action Fund
• Tong-Jen Fu, IL, Former President, Naperville Chinese Association
• Ram Gajjela, IL, President, Indo-American Democratic Organization
• Kasturi Haldar, IL, Professor, Northwestern Medical School
• Alamdar Hamdani, Partner, Hamdani & Simon, LLP
• Ferial Hamid, NY
• Wahid Hamid, NY, Senior Vice President, PepsiCo
• Anjana Hansen, IL, Alderman in Evanston
• Pakou Hang, MN, Community Activist
• Kelly Hu, CA, Actress
• Imad Husain, MA, Director of Credit Risk, Enterprise Risk Management, State Street Corporation
• Jin, Hip-Hop Artist
• Jon Karamatsu, HI, State Representative and House Vice Speaker
• Hrishi Karthikeyan, D.C., Attorney and Co-Founder of grassroots South Asians for Obama
• Eddie Kim, CA, Executive Producer, Projekt Newspeak
• Paul Kim, CA, Executive Director, Kollaboration Talent Show
• Ming King, WI, Chairman, Precast Engineering Company
• Ramey Ko, TX, Attorney and Chair of grassroots Asian Americans for Obama
• Ann Kobayashi, HI, Honolulu City Councilmember
• Russell Kokubun, HI, State Senator
• Raja Krishnamoorthi, IL, Deputy Treasurer for Policy and Programs, State of Illinois
• Dave Kumar, D.C., Attorney, Goldberg, Godles, Wiener & Wright
• David Lang, CA, Principal, Lang/Pan/Chan Public Relations
• Russell Leong, CA, Editor, Amerasia Journal UCLA
• Henry Lo, CA, Garvey School Board Vice President
• Monica Macer, CA, Television and Feature Screenwriter
• Theresa Mah, IL, Assistant Director and Lecturer, Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, University of Chicago and Board Member and Chicago Chapter Coordinator, Asian Pacific Americans for Progress (APAP)
• Zachariah Mampilly, CA, Assistant Professor, Political Science, Vassar College
• Hydra Mendoza, CA, Commissioner, San Francisco Board of Education
• Ken Mok, CA, President of 10 x 10 Entertainment
• Hung Nguyen, D.C., Chair, Asian American Advisory Board and Former President of the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans
• Clarence Nishihara, HI, State Senator
• Catherine Park, CA, Chief Operating Officer of Giant Robot
• Jan Pastores, IA, Community Activist
• Anhoni Patel, CA, Writer
• Robert Plang, IA, Community Activist
• Sunil Puri, IL, President, First Rockford
• Rahul Rajkumar, MA, Physician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
• Anita Ramasastry, WA, Law Professor
• Scott Saiki, HI, State Representative
• Rahul Sharma, IL, Founder of Funkades
• Pramod Shah, IL, Niles Township Trustee
• Woon-Wah Siu, IL, Attorney, Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLP
• Mora Mi-ok Stephens, CA, Activist and Award-winning Filmmaker
• Udai Tambar, NY, Chair, New York/New Jersey/Connecticut grassroots South Asians for Obama
• Cary Tagawa, HI, Actor
• Christina Tchen, IL, Partner, Skadden Arps
• Vinai Thummalapally, CO, President, Mam-A Inc.
• Nancy Tom, IL, Director, Center for Asian Arts and Media, Columbia College
• Emme Tomingbang, HI, Television Personality
• Eddie Wong, CA, Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media
• Martin Wong, Co-Editor, Giant Robot Magazine
• Swallow Yan, IA, Business Owner
• Janet Yang, CA, Film Producer and Producer, Joy Luck Club