The film will show at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas on Saturday, March 13, at 4:30 p.m. and at VIZ Cinema, 1746 Post St., on Wednesday, March 17, at 7 p.m. Order your tickets online and join our Facebook event.

And join us for our film afterparty the same night, March 17, from 9 p.m. at DOSA, 1700 Fillmore. RSVP on Facebook. Our host committee for the afterparty includes: Keesa Ocampo, Boots Chavez, Hon. Greg Chew (San Francisco Arts Commission), Glenn Fajardo, Tessie Guillermo, Marlene Mira, Alyson Megur Stamos, Dale Minami, Rich Pio Roda, Rodel Rodis (President, Ninoy Aquino Movement) and me.

The Late Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino was the boy wonder of Philippine politics until the object of his criticism, Ferdinand Marcos, declared martial law and threw Aquino into prison. A light bulb glared in his cell around the clock. When at last his frantic wife, Cory, found him, he was so thin he was holding up his undershorts with his hand.

NINOY tells the story of Aquino’s extraordinary transformation from brilliant politician of the Philippines to courageous martyr on the world stage in the tradition of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King.

During Aquino’s eight-year imprisonment at the hands of the Marcos regime, Aquino wrote, studied nonviolence, fasted 38 days and at one point ran for Congress from his cell, constantly inspiring the opposition. When he was taken before a military tribunal, he refused to dignify an unconstitutional proceeding by defending himself. He was condemned to death. Too renowned to execute, too powerful to simply release, Aquino was finally exiled to America for heart surgery.

Three years later, believing with Gandhi, “The willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful retort to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God or man,” on August 21, 1983 he returned to Manila.

In his dying moment, his bullet-ridden body fell on Philippine soil. His mother laid out his remains in the family living room. A trickle of mourners became a flood of two million people, followed by three years of massive protests that drove Marcos from the country. The Philippines became the template for the many countries that since have transitioned peacefully to electoral democracy.

The film is emotionally explosive and intellectually challenging. It was shot with two matched HD cameras in Manila, Seoul, Taipei, Honolulu, San Francisco, Boston, New York and Washington DC, by Tom Coffman, whose previous credits include “Nation Within” and “First Battle.”

Join the Facebook page at http://facebook.com/ninoyfilm.

Cross-posted on foundasian.org and bayareabenefit.org.

The consumption of entertainment media includes listening to music, playing video games, watching TV and social networking on sites like Facebook.

Adults of course likely spend far less time consuming entertainment media, but still in enough quantities that what we see on television and in the movies influences our understanding of society.

For people of color and indigenous people, the way Hollywood presents life is often far different from what we know as reality. I’m not referring to how Jack Bauer saves the country every season on “24″ or the uber-interesting lives of the women on Desperate Housewives. It’s the world these fictional stories take place in has to somewhat mimic society as we know it.

Television shows can influence the way that viewers understand race and race relations. And a recent study has shown that nonverbal behavior displayed on shows can actually transmit racial biases.

Read the rest of this on Huffington Post

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.

The event is from 6-9 p.m. at Lot 46, 46 Geary St. in San Francisco. Due to limited space at Lot 46, we are encouraging attendees to purchase advance admissions online for $20 per person, plus a nominal processing fee (buy here: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/85148). Advance admission will be on a VIP list and will be able to avoid the general admission entry line. You don’t have to donate in advance to attend. We’ll be accepting donations of $20, or any amount, at the door. Proceeds from the event will be donated to the flood victims. We regret that we are unable to accept in-kind donations at this event.

The event is posted on Facebook, Going.com, Yelp.com and Upcoming.org.

The massive flooding in Metropolitan Manila in the Philippines has claimed hundreds of lives and displaced over 700,000 people – in what is considered the worst such calamity in the region’s history. The impact of this unfortunate event will be felt for many months ahead and the country will need a lot of help from the global community in rehabilitation efforts as well as in dealing with resulting food & basic supply shortages and the spread of disease.

Honorary Co-Hosts:
Hon. Dianne Feinstein, United States Senator
Hon. Jackie Speier, Congresswoman 12th District of California
Hon. Betty Yee, Chair of the California State Board of Equalization
Hon. Leland Yee, California State Senate
Hon. Fiona Ma, Majority Whip 12th Assembly District
Hon. Jerry Hill, Assemblymember 19th Assembly District
Hon. Marciano Paynor, Jr., Philippine Consul General to San Francisco
Hon. Gavin Newsom, Mayor City of San Francisco
Hon. Kamala D. Harris, SF District Attorney
Hon. Phil Ting, San Francisco Assessor-Recorder
Hon. David Chiu, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Hon. Jane Kim, Vice President of San Francisco Board of Education
Hon. Hydra Mendoza, Mayor’s Education Advisor City and County of San Francisco
Hon. Steve Ngo, San Francisco Community College Board Trustee
Hon. Joel Young, AC Transit Board Director-At-Large

Host Committee: Keesa Ocampo (Chair), Audie Vergara, Eric Casher, Erin Haney, Fred Calindas, Gen Jopanda, Glenn Fajardo, Keith Kamisugi, Kyle Wong, London Breed, Masood Ordikhani, Matt Haney, Meena Harris, Rene Astudillo, Rhean Fajardo, Terrine Baluyut and Vidhya Prabhakaran

Community Partners: ABS-CBN Foundation-USA, Philippine Consulate General – San Francisco, San Francisco-Manila Sister City Committee, Asian American Journalists Association – SF Chapter, Bay Area Asian Pacific American Legislative Staffers, Young Filipino Professionals Association, Filipino Bar Association of Northern California, Citizen Hope, hapihour.org, Philippine American Press Club USA, Kaya:Filipino Americans for Progress, Filipino American Arts Exposition, Asian American Bar Association, Filipina Women’s Network, Clubworks, National Federation of Filipino-American Associations, DineForChange, Soulciety.org, San Francisco Fil-Am Jazz Festival Community, Asian Business League, Fil-Am Chamber of Commerce Santa Clara, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and Bliss Entertainment

Featured DJs:
DJ Big Rich
DJ Romeo
Chief Xcel

Performance by:
Kristine Sinajon

The organizers of this benefit also stand in solidarity with the typhoon victims in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, as well as those who were most recently affected by the tsunami and earthquake in American Samoa, Samoa and Indonesia. “We encourage all those who can to equally support the various relief efforts being organized by other community groups in the Bay Area and elsewhere to assist our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the Asia-Pacific region, ” said Keesa Ocampo,Community Relations Assistant, ABS-CBN International – North America.

For complete event information, with links to Facebook and the admission purchase link, visit http://hapihour.org/ondoy.

AAJA national president Sharon Chan appointed me to the search committee, which also includes former AAJA national president Mae Cheng, current AAJA national treasurer Candace Heckman, former AAJA national vice president for broadcast Randall Yip and veteran journalism recruiter Joe Grimm.

The responsibility of choosing a new executive director belongs to each of us. We invite your ideas about how the position should be structured, how AAJA should be run and, of course, your ideas about who might fill this vital role. This critical juncture is the right time for you to stand up and lean into the process. Please send your ideas to aajasearch@gmail.com.

“This group brings together diverse perspectives, values and experiences of AAJA’s members,” said National President Sharon Chan. “Thank you to all of them for taking on this task.”

The committee’s work will begin immediately following the AAJA National Convention in Boston this week.

Mae Cheng is a former AAJA and UNITY president and is executive editor of amNewYork , a Newsday publication. As AAJA president, Cheng led the organization through transformative change, establishing the AAJA National Endowment. Cheng is also a McCormick Foundation Change Leadership Fellow named by the Poynter Institute. She was the AAJA National Convention Chair in New York in 2000.

Randall Yip has served as AAJA’s vice president for broadcast and led efforts to increase the number of Asian American men in broadcast journalism, launching an Asian American Male Broadcasters task force and mentor program. He works as a senior producer at ABC7/KGO-TV in San Francisco. Yip was the winner of ELP’s Outstanding Leadership Award in 2006 and AAJA’s Member of the Year in 2005.

Candace Heckman is AAJA’s treasurer. A former breaking news editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Heckman is a multiplatform journalist with first-hand experience of how to serve AAJA members in the midst of seismic shifts in the journalism landscape. Based in Seattle, Heckman is a graduate of AAJA’s Executive Leadership Program and the Maynard Institute’s Media Academy at Nieman Foundation.

Keith Kamisugi is an AAJA associate member and director of communications at the Equal Justice Society. Kamisugi worked as a public relations consultant for the national office and numerous AAJA conventions and led the communications team at the 2004 UNITY convention. He serves on several nonprofit boards, including Chinese for Affirmative Action, Asian Law Caucus, SF Japantown Foundation and APA for Progress and on the advisory board for Netroots Nation. He received AAJA’s Member of the Year Award in 2004.

Joe Grimm is an AAJA member and visiting editor-in-residence at Michigan State University. A former newsroom recruiter at the Detroit Free Press, Grimm has mentored hundreds of journalists in his career, and received AAJA’s Leadership in Diversity Award in 2005. An early innovator in recruiting online, Grimm now runs the Ask the Recruiter blog at the Poynter Institute and has been inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame.

Chen would be the first Asian American district judge on the bench in the 150-year history of that district. He was also the first Asian American magistrate judge when he was appointed to that position on April 23, 2001.

Under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, federal judges require confirmation by the U.S. Senate and serve with lifetime tenure. Magistrate Judges have limited terms and serve as judicial officers of the district courts and exercise the jurisdiction delegated to them by law and assigned by federal district judges.

“I’ve known and worked with Judge Chen for more than 37 years and seen him become a great attorney and an outstanding jurist,” said attorney Dale Minami of Minami Tamaki LLP, who worked with Chen on the successful case to overturn the wartime conviction of Fred Korematsu for defying President Roosevelt’s internment order.

Garner Weng, President of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA) noted that while there were a number of excellent Asian American candidates, “Judge Chen earned this nomination for his record of public service and his experience as a federal magistrate. We are extremely proud of his nomination and of his participation in AABA over the years.”

“Judge Chen will be a tremendous addition to the bench and has a wide range of support from diverse groups, including the public interest, law enforcement, legal, and minority communities,” said Edwin Prather, President of the Asian Pacific Bar of California and a former clerk for Chen. Prather also said that Chen received the 2007 Barristers Choice Award, an honor voted on by the membership of BASF’s Barristers Club and awarded to a jurist who has made extraordinary efforts to educate and encourage lawyers new to the courtroom.

Russell Roeca, President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, echoed Prather’s comments and praised Senator Feinstein for the nomination. “The Bar Association of San Francisco has long valued and advocated for a diverse judiciary and noted the complete lack of Latino and Asian American judges on the district court. In recommending Judge Chen to the President, Senator Feinstein has initiated a historical appointment.” Roeca also said that Chen received an “Exceptionally Well Qualified” rating from BASF’s Judiciary Committee.

“Judge Chen enjoys a solid reputation as an intelligent, reasonable, even-handed and diligent judge,” said San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. Chen “is a balanced and impartial judge whose temperament is well suited to the bench.”

“Judge Chen combines compassion and fairness with toughness and intellect in tacking difficult issues,” said attorney Ismail J. Ramsey, who has appeared numerous times before Chen. “He has always brought a practical approach to the issues, while ensuring that the rights of all those appearing before him were honored and making certain that the community was protected.”

“Judge Chen has earned a reputation as an evenhanded jurist who is constantly mindful of the role that judges fulfill in society as keepers of the rule of law and the public trust in our system of justice,” said David Wong, president of the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association.

Chen graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law where he earned membership in the Order of the Coif, the highest honor society at the school, and served on the California Law Review. He clerked for U.S. District Judge Charles B. Renfrew and U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge James R. Browning.

After his clerkships, Chen practiced as a litigation associate with the law firm of Coblentz, Cahen, McCabe & Breyer (now Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass). While with the Coblentz firm and then as a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, Chen joined the legal team representing Fred Korematsu.

The Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA) was founded in 1976 to provide Asian American attorneys with a vehicle for the unified expression of opinions and positions on matters of concern to all Asian American attorneys. The largest local Asian American bar association in the country, AABA is also one of the largest minority bar associations in California. For more information, visit http://aaba-bay.com.

Roxana was kind enough to email me and express her appreciation for the efforts of the FreeRoxana team, one of numerous efforts across the country and the world to raise awareness of Roxana’s terrible ordeal. We embrace her and welcome her home.

I want to thank the following individuals for playing a critical role in this FreeRoxana campaign:

Steve Chin was the first to respond to my call for help with the efffort and was my initial co-blogger after I launched the FreeRoxana.net site.

Craig Gima, Sharon Chan, Lisa Chung, George Kiriyama, Ellen Endo and Janice Lee were the key folks from the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) that provided me with support from that organization.

Alexis Grant reached out to me on her own and I asked her to take the lead on the Twitter account @freeroxana and she did a terrific job with that. Alexis also led the hunger strike effort, which generated a lot of attention and media coverage, further highlighting Roxana’s plight and engaging supporters in expressing their solidarity.

Caroline Cornish Kmack also reached out to me on her own through the Facebook page and I asked her to take the lead on the Facebook page. She also did a terrific job.

Medill student Joseph Freeman and Professors Jack C. Doppelt and Loren Ghiglione offered the invaluable assistance of the Medill School of Journalism family, which organized numerous activities in support of Roxana.

Joe Freeman was the lead blogger for much of the life of this site, keeping up with news and developments and conducting his own interviews on this issue.

Finally Sheamus Burns on his own created the FreeRoxana icon and artwork that really made a difference in attracting attention and helping me better brand the blog, Facebook page and Twitter account.

Roxana is back home in Fargo and we move on to fight other battles. Numerous other journalists — such as Laura Ling and Euna Lee — are oppressed or imprisioned in other countries. Support them like you supported Roxana so that we can hope to see Laura, Euna and others back home in their own Fargos.

Follow @LiberateLaura on Twitter and subscribe to Richard Horgan’s site at http://liberatelaura.wordpress.com.

Many thanks,
Keith

A Black man born in Hawai’i with an Asian sister was sworn into office Tuesday as our President. He took the oath of office on the same bible used by Abraham Lincoln for the exact same oath 148 years ago, realizing the dreams of countless African Americans and others who previously never imagined this moment.

President Barack Obama now leads our country into uncertain and troubled times. But he begins work on our nation’s ills with unprecedented numbers of Asian Americans in substantive roles in this Administration.

Japanese American Peter Rouse is White House Senior Adviser. Chinese American Chris Lu is Cabinet Secretary. Former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki is Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Nobel prize winner Steven Chu is Secretary of Energy.

We now have a First Family that includes Asian Americans. The President’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, is half Indonesian. Her husband Konrad is Chinese American. Their daughter Suhaila is hapa.

This roster of Asian names is significant because the halls and backrooms of power in our nation’s capitol have for too long been dominated by monochromatic men. It does not mean we have arrived. It means we’ve only just begun.

For many of us, the most urgent unresolved Asian American and Pacific Islander issues are not always those that touch our everyday lives, but our desire to resolve those issues reflects our belief that an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. We must reach outside of our individual realities to understand the plight and tragedy that prevents millions of Americans, Asian Pacific or not, from realizing their true potential.

Our government’s brutal treatment of undocumented immigrants is not just a Latino issue. When Sin Yen Ling and the Asian Law Caucus work to recruit more attorneys to represent victims of raids against immigrants in homes and workplaces and when Sophya Chum and Khmer Girls in Action fight against the unfair deportation of Cambodian youth, we see that immigrant rights is as much our battle.

Attempts to legalize discrimination against gays and lesbians through constitutional amendments to ban marriage are not just LGBT issues. When Amos Lim, Tawal Panyacosit, Jr. and Chinese for Affirmative Action work tirelessly in Asian American communities to replace biogtry with understanding and tolerance, we see that marriage equality must also be our goal.

An article titled “Why I Hate Blacks” – filled with blatant racism and ugly stereotypes published in a prominent Asian American newspaper was not just an African American issue. When David Chiu, now president of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, attorney Dale Minami and other Asian American leaders worked immediately to have AsianWeek apologize for the column and fire the writer and the editor responsible, we saw that the elimination of racism against Blacks and all people of color must be our dream.

All of these issues and more must be part of contemplating our renewed America with Barack Obama as our President. He cannot fight injustice alone. Let’s stand with him.

Kaori Nagao didn’t know it then, but her education at an international school in Yokohama, Japan, turned out to be an ideal environment for her later role as owner and president of a concierge services company in Las Vegas.

The Saint Maur International School graduate now runs AngeLiKa Promotions, a company that creates hassle-free and wait-free VIP experiences for visitors to the Nevada entertainment mecca. Nagao’s clients can choose from a wide range of services, including nightlife, hotel, fine dining, show and concert, spa, nightlife, executive limousine, convention and trade show reservations.

All of which is a long way of saying that if you want a rock star experience in Las Vegas, put Nagao’s number on your speed dial.

And she knows a little something about rock stars. Her graduating class of 21 students included children of celebrities, famous baseball and soccer players, as well as influential business executives.

“You had to have a foreign connection to get into my school,” said Nagao. “I was able to get in because my mother was an interpreter for a Japanese medical association and she traveled a lot abroad.”

After high school, Nagao decided to pursue a marketing degree at the University of California, Riverside. “I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” she said, “influenced by the fact that my father owned a real estate company in Tokyo.”

“While living in L.A., I would go to my friend’s parties in Hollywood. I came out to his events, brought a lot of people with me, and he eventually recruited me as one of his promoters. I learned the ins and outs of throwing parties and events.”

After graduating from UC-Riverside, Nagao continued promoting events, but took a day job at Lieberman Research Worldwide as a research manager.

Nagao used her short time in L.A. to develop a base of contacts and relationships that would help build her future business. One of her international school friends, Lisa Moriwaki, had graduated from the University of Southern California and was working with Nagao in the promotions business.

“Lisa had all the Trojan contacts and I had all my Bruin contacts,” said Nagao. “It was a good foundation.” Nagao and Moriwaki are now partners in AngeLiKa Promotions.

Fast forward about two years, past the Beverly Hills bashes and album and movie release parties. Nagao was 25 and wanted a change.

“It was my quarterlife crisis and I was maxed out on L.A. All the parties started to feel the same. It was always the same crowd and I wanted something new and different.”

“So I packed up my things into my little Acura and moved to Las Vegas. Lisa stayed in L.A. and I decided to move by myself. If it didn’t work out, I could always go back.”

Nagao’s move to Las Vegas wasn’t actually a solo act. “Every time I relocate, my mom flies in from Japan and we move together, so she was there with me. I’m an only child, so she’s very protective.”

What did her mother think of her move to Sin City? “She’s someone who supports whatever choices I make, so she wasn’t shocked (about the move). My mom is very different from traditional Japanese parents. She’s more Americanized.”

“My father died when I was six months old,” said Nagao. “And my mom raised me as a single parent until she remarried. She taught me the value of bring independent and so a large part of who I am today is because of her.”

Nagao wasted no time creating business opportunities in Las Vegas. “I started going to all the networking events – there’s one every day here. One of the developers involved in the Manhattan project south of the Strip was one of the first people I met and he helped build my nightlife contacts.”

AngeLiKa Promotions quickly became one of the top VIP concierge companies in town. “We’re the only personalized and professional concierge business in Las Vegas,” said Nagao. “Some companies just do nightlife and some just focus only on hosting the high-roller gamblers – we do it all.”

One of Nagao’s clients is singer-actress Gina Hiraizumi, who Nagao met through Gina’s sister Keli, a VIP services manager at Caesers Palace.

“Gina’s an inspiration for me because so many Asian American women are trying to make it in the entertainment industry and Gina’s actually doing it. I want to do what I can to help her.” Nagao recommended that Hiraizumi pursue her career and Japan, a move that Hiraizumi made just recently.

In addition to the services offered by AngeLiKa Promotions, Nagao also consults businesses, especially Japanese companies, that want to expand or develop a presence in Las Vegas. Her entry into this line of work started from Nagao’s freelance interpretation services for major property owners such as MGM MIRAGE.

“I was asked to interpret a business meeting between MGM execs and Super Potato, a Japanese design company,” said Nagao. “Super Potato was pitching design work for a new restaurant at Mandalay Bay (an MGM property) and they won the project after that presentation.”

Super Potato is the kind of marquee client serviced by Nagao that highlights the caliber of her talents. Designer Takashi Sugimoto of Super Potato was recently inducted into the Interior Design Magazine Hall of Fame.

Nagao seems to be navigating the recession well. “We’ve been fortunate that we haven’t seen a drastic decrease in business. The quantity has dropped, but the quality (of business) has remained steady.”

Nagao’s colleague, Sylvia Torres, has taken a more prominent role as Nagao’s partner in Las Vegas. “Without her support, I would not have been a able to grow my business and accomplish all the wonderful things we have in the past three-and-a-half years in Las Vegas.”

“Sylvia keeps me grounded. We’re like the yin and the yang when it comes to business and we work very well together. Sylvia’s role is to oversee the operations and manage our team.”

Her company continues to prosper in part because she’s focused on clients from international markets such as Japan, Canada, Mexico and Europe. Nagao is fluent in Spanish as well as Japanese and English.

“I want to help more Japanese companies move into the U.S. market,” said Nagao. “I’d love to be the one to help these businesses establish themselves here.”

Learn more about Kaori Nagao and her Las Vegas concierge company by visiting angelikapromotions.com and about her Japanese consulting and business development services at angelikaconsulting.com.