advocacy

Not so long ago, the phrase “New York’s Chinatown” meant one thing: a district in Lower Manhattan near Canal Street. Now it could refer to as many as six heavily Chinese enclaves.

Koreatown was well known as a commercial zone in Midtown Manhattan, but now parts of Flushing, Queens, where tens of thousands of Koreans have moved, feel like suburban Seoul. The city has spawned neighborhoods with nicknames like Little Bangladesh, Little Pakistan, Little Manila and Little Tokyo.

Asians, a group more commonly associated with the West Coast, are surging in New York, where they have long been eclipsed in the city’s kaleidoscopic racial and ethnic mix. For the first time, according to census figures released in the spring, their numbers have topped one million — nearly 1 in 8 New Yorkers — which is more than the Asian population in the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles combined.

Karin Wang, the Vice-President of Programs & Communications at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), will be honored today as the 2011 Woman of the Year for the 49th Assembly District. 

APALC, a member of Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, is the nation’s largest legal and civil rights organization serving Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities.  Before her current position, Wang directed APALC’s immigrant rights project and helped file a landmark civil rights complaint against Los Angeles County on behalf of limited English speaking welfare recipients, leading to major reforms to the department’s services to immigrants and payment of $1.7 million in back benefits.  Wang also ran the first Los Angeles field office of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, enforcing federal civil rights laws across the Southwest and the Pacific.

A Recap on the past news about "Too Asian" in Maclean's publication that triggered off public anger over it's racist content targeting Asian Canadians in higher education.

CCNC Statement on Dialogue with Maclean’s
Monday November 22, 2010

The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) and Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter (CCNCTO) held a media briefing today to report back on the dialogue with Maclean’s magazine on their article entitled “Too Asian”?

Toronto, ON – The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) and Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter (CCNCTO) held a media briefing today to report back on the dialogue with Maclean’s magazine on their article entitled “Too Asian”?

CCNC and CCNCTO and a number of community organizations met with Maclean’s on November 12th and again on November 17th for hour each time. Maclean’s had offered to publish a letter from CCNC in a future edition. CCNC and CCNCTO, after consulting with various community organizations responded with a 4 point proposal:

Trevor Middleton, 23, of Sutton, was convicted Dec. 15 in a Newmarket court of four counts of aggravated assault and two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

Middleton had been charged with trying to run Liu's Honda off the road, not for the dunking of Liu and Hogan.

The incident on the Mossington Park Bridge is an extreme example of attacks and harassment that have been inflicted scores of times in the past few years on Asian fishermen in the Greater Toronto Area. It has become so common that the attacks have nicknames by some Georgina Township locals: "nip-tipping" and "nipper-tipping."

What's unique about the attack on Liu and Hogan – apart from the near-fatal and crippling injury to Berwick – is the huge attention it has garnered from Asian community leaders, activists and media members.

To the people who thought racism was a thing of the past and no longer exists in the 21st century.... you are dead wrong. Some of us probably live in the nicer places in the country with some good multicultural friends but the people in the next town/city may not be so friendly.

To all my other dearest Asian Brothers, Sisters, Families, Civil Rights Advocacy groups, Asian Activists in western countries. We know racism is very much alive and it comes in all shapes and forms in mainstream society.

While we continue to experience it's reoccurring unpleasantness and Deja Vu's, I am all convinced we are still living as second class citizens and are still sunjected to different forms of  racial oppression.

Ancient Taoist once believed the driving universal life principles are found in Yin and Yang, nature will seek neutrality and find balance between interchangeable opposing forces. Though my analogy might sound a little ancient in the philosophical works but you would eventually understand my point in our society at present.

The six men on stage included a poet, a break dancer and a filmmaker. They pounded rhythms on the dhol drum, modeled fresh fashions, slathered whipped cream on bare skin and discussed their passion for community service.

This is the "Mr. Hyphen" contest, a faux pageant in the San Francisco Bay area aimed at redefining the image of Asian-American men beyond nerdy, sexless stereotypes.

Conspicuously absent from the stage were computer experts, doctors, lawyers or dry cleaners. There were, however, martial arts - with a twist.

Pahole Sookkasikon, an American-born graduate student partial to drawing, cooking, and "flirting for free drinks at the bar," knew that his hobbies would not translate well to the talent portion of the show.

Hokubei - On Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 8-9, the 36th annual Nihonmachi Street Fair takes over San Francisco’s Japantown.

The fair celebrates the diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander communities here in the Bay Area, and has established itself as a summertime tradition in the city.

This event is organized entirely by volunteers, who work with non-profit community service organizations to offer Asian food booths, a broad assortment of arts and crafts vendors, and even a Children’s World activity area, where kids can learn Asian crafts and games.

That commitment to community service is what gives the Nihonmachi Street Fair a unique perspective among Bay Area urban festivals. The fair’s broad goal is to support the programs and services of non-profit organizations.

SEFRE - Asian Men Redefined Calendar is an all-volunteer calendar photographed and produced by dannydan. 50% of the calendar profit benefits Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center (A&PI Wellness Center), the oldest non-profit HIV/AIDS services organization in North America targeting Asian & Pacific Islander (A&PI) communities. The rest of the profit goes back to the calendar production for the following year. The 2010 calendar is the fourth installment of Asian Men Redefined production featuring 13 new Asian & Pacific Islander men from all over the United States. Every year, the new models were chosen by a panel of judges consisting of friends who have helped the calendar production & some of the models from the previous years. Please visit our website at http://www.asianmenredefined.com/.