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Eddie Lee: Well, welcome back to the afternoon session today.
I want to just kind of take this moment to thank you all.
After kind of like listening into each -- some of these
sessions, I know how many great ideas that are out there and
how passionate you guys are.
And so we're very encouraged to hear your stories and your
thoughts about these different issues.
At this moment, what we're going to do is invite the break-out
sessions, a representative from each session to come up to the
front and share what their session was about, their ideas.
And our question is, how, if you were going to advise this
Administration and this President about the issue that
you were talking about, what would you say?
And we invite you to come up here for about four minutes
each, four to five minutes, and try to kind of put together a
briefing memo of how -- of what we've established
in each of these sessions.
Before I do that, I've asked our White House Initiative on the
AAPI staff to come up here, as well as our Commissioner to be
up here to just basically listen and also to sort of give you
our thoughts on how -- our feedback to your ideas.
And so I wanted to introduce, or ask them to introduce
themselves, starting with Akil.
Akil Vohra: Hi, everybody.
I'm Akil Vohra.
I work at the Initiative with all these folks.
I focus on civil rights issues, education,
and I work with our 20 commissioners who are
appointed by the President.
Miya Saika Chen: Hey, everyone.
Can you hear me?
No, okay.
Speaker: I don't think these are on, are they?
Miya Saika Chen: It's green. Hello.
(laughter)
Miya Saika Chen: My name is Miya Saika Chen.
I'm a senior advisor in the White House Initiative,
and I focus on community engagement and economic
growth for our initiative.
So I coordinate all of our national community engagement
events across the country.
I encourage all of you to join our list serve in case Eddie --
Eddie, I'm sure you mentioned it, right?
Eddie Lee: Not yet, no.
(laughter)
Miya Saika Chen: Oh, my gosh, that's horrible.
Eddie Lee: I was getting to it.
Miya Saika Chen: Okay, good.
And follow us on Facebook or at Facebook.com,
White House AA -- slash White House AAPI.
If you want to join our list serve,
you can write to White House AAPI at ed.gov.
But we'll probably add all of you to it after this event.
So thanks so much for being here, everyone.
Sunaree Marshall: Hi, my name is Sunaree Marshall.
And I work with the Initiative on sustainable neighborhoods.
So a kind of combination of housing,
community development and other issues that have to
do with sustainability.
And also, I work with our federal agency partners on
trying to get them to focus more on AAPI issues and
the AAPI community.
Audrey Buehring: Do I have to push it?
Hi, this is -- I'm Audrey Buehring,
and I am the senior advisor of intergovernmental affairs,
so I liaise with all the 25 different agencies that we work
with trying to get them to put forth some agency plans
that really create some change in our communities.
Tuyet Duong: Hi, I'm Tuyet Duong.
I'm an advisor and I work on civil rights and immigration and
also our commission.
Hector Vargas: Hey, everybody.
My name is Hector Vargas.
And I am a commissioner on the President's Advisory
Commission for AAPIs.
And in my day job, I am the executive director of the Gay
and Lesbian Medical Association, which works on health
policy for LGBT people.
Ramey Ko: Hi, everyone, again, my name is Ramey Ko.
I'm also one of the commissioners from
Austin, Texas.
And in my day job, I am an Associate Municipal Judge
in Austin.
I'm also a lecturer in Asian American studies at UT.
Eddie Lee: All right.
So at this time we want to turn it to you.
And the way we -- I'll open it up to any volunteers that may
be brave and bold enough to start the session.
If not, then I'll just start going down the lists.
Tuyet Duong: The immigration people, like all three of you,
can come up, since we didn't pick one.
You can split the four minutes.
Eddie Lee: All right.
Sunaree Marshall: In other words,
Tuyet's volunteered you for yourselves.
(laughter)
Eddie Lee: You guys can come up here to the stage.
Speaker: I think this session was kind of, you know,
framed towards giving advice to our advisors.
But I think our presentation is going to basically, you know,
going to be based on our discussion in our session which
was basically on our individual of our honors student levels.
So I think later on one of our peers can
connect up back to you.
But that's what I'm going to present.
So within our group, there were various things that came up,
and I'm going to try to cut it short.
And there were so many different stories that we shared,
and I think one of our panelists earlier had mentioned the
importance of, you know, each and every one of our stories.
And one effective way that came up was documenting our stories
and sharing it within our communities.
One of my peers was planning on showing a documentary within his
organization on campus.
Once -- I didn't say -- ARC's break-out session was
talking about immigration and communities.
So we basically talked about ways for us to deliver the
message that we learned today in the AAPI briefing back to our
communities as student leaders.
So I think that's when we come out in the scene.
And so documenting.
Our panelists told us that the Library of Congress is document
-- collecting documentations of Asian American stories.
And as we said, I think -- I thought that was a very
powerful and effective way of delivering our message.
And another thing that we can do easily is word of mouth.
Things like this opportunity is really rare and it's a great
opportunity for us to be here.
So kind of letting the community know that there are
opportunities like this, that AAPI initiatives like that are
putting this effort to spread out the message back to our
community is very important for us.
And, yeah, I think I can pass it along to my other peer.
Kiwi: Hi, my name is Kiwi and I'm from Rutgers university
representing the Asian American Cultural Center.
Thank you, Tuyet, for just volunteering us first.
I appreciate it.
(laughter)
Kiwi: I guess, we had three different groups in
our break-out session.
Our group really tried to dig in as to defining the biggest
problem with immigration, I guess on a very --
on a local level.
And we came up with certain solutions as to how we can go
about trying to remedying some of these very bigger issues that
come along with immigration.
And I guess just on -- we talked a lot about on campus solutions
for coming -- for immigration.
And we talked about having support groups for people
who are struggling with similar issues.
We felt that through support groups people can really,
you know, educate each other on the different problems that they
face when it comes to immigrational issues.
Also, help each other out through connections
each other might have.
And we just pretty much defined that the biggest problem with
immigration is a lack of education for the AAPP --
AAPI, sorry, the AAPI --
(laughter)
Kiwi: -- groups.
Yeah, AAPI, thank you, Eddie.
(laughter)
Kiwi: And so, we felt that education of the
different problems with immigration could be a very
simple solution, such as expired visas -- I can't read
my handwriting -- application processes, renewals.
So, yeah, we just felt like education was the main focus
for, you know really remedying a lot of problems for
immigrational issues.
Thank you.
Speaker: Hello, everybody.
Just to let you know, Sarang and Kiwi are Korean,
and I'm a Korean, too, so Korean pride.
(laughter)
That's how I start.
(laughter)
Kiwi: Any Koreans?
Are we still live?
There, I see you.
(laughter)
Sarang: It's about the community, not about --
It's about the community, that's right.
(laughter)
Kiwi: As I mentioned earlier,
it's very hard to approach or identify or outreach AAPI
undocumented students because there's some sort of culture
stigma or social discrimination within our community.
And as Sarang mentioned about, you know,
having some sort of like, you know,
collecting stories and have some sort of documentation or movies
to, you know, bring ideas and, you know,
outreach communities and, you know,
how Kiwi mentioned about having to educate our community to,
you know, understand broader context of immigration
issues at large.
And I think we need some sort of like compiled information
together and kind of have toolkit guide, maybe at the,
you know, AAPI website and get some sort of information so
that any community members could, you know,
download with the resources guide to, you know,
outreach AAPI undocumented youth to, you know, provide resources,
how to go to college and pursue our education and move on to
college and, you know, even provide like free legal
assistance because there's a lot of, you know,
immigrant communities are looking for that
free legal assistance.
So I think, we thought that it would be a great idea to have
some sort of like toolkit guide or like resources guide on the
website so anyone could download them and share the information.
Eddie Lee: Great.
Give them a round of applause.
(laughter)
Eddie Lee: I'll say,
before we bring up our next one, I want to just to turn it
over to our Initiative staff.
I'm not sure if they have any thoughts or questions for that.
But, you know, our initiative, we take immigration
very seriously.
It's one of our forefront of our huge priority for us.
And so it's really encouraging to hear your stories,
your feedback, and with that I'm going to turn it over to our
folks over here at the table.
Tuyet Duong: I feel like a proud parent, it's like.
But I think we had a great discussion.
I feel reinvigorated about my work.
I think there were a lot of ideas even beyond what was
shared by our three great representatives, too.
But I think they came up with some great ideas at
the ground level.
They offered some ideas to the Initiative on how we can bridge
some gaps between the student bodies and educators and
administrators and provide tools to the community, too.
And so I'm really excited to take this back,
work with our team to see what else we can do to advance the
community and what the federal -- and see what the federal
government can do to better improve getting information
out there to the community.
So thank you so much for the discussion, the questions,
challenging me, and I look forward to talking and working
with you all in the future.
Eddie Lee: Great.
Thank you.
I think our next group is so ambitious,
they came up here early.
So we will invite, I think you're from the youth
empowerment -- or empowering AAPI students, so.
Speaker: Hello, my name is Sayata Shayan (phonetic).
I'm also an intern at the Initiative.
And before I give the action agenda,
I wanted to thank the Initiative staff members for providing this
space and this opportunity, and thank you students, college,
high school and administrators who are here and hope that you
take this opportunity and embrace it and can take
this back to your campus and your community,
whether that's at home or local, state and such.
And so I was with the empowering AAPI students
through campus activism.
And in our discussion, in our room, it was very diverse.
We had college students, a few high school students and
administrators, as well.
We discussed about how to build student capacity and
partnerships with the White House and the Initiative.
And some of the few pointers were outreach,
and particularly virtual -- being virtually connected.
I believe Kiran and Christina had spoken earlier about how
in our generation, we have Twitter and Facebook.
And so utilizing that social media,
and also having some form of virtual mentors to pair up
as advisors, either from the federal government,
having federal representatives on campuses, if possible.
Another would be having White House sponsored teachants (phonetic)
for either specific issues or trainings.
And the trainings could be on having campus liaisons or
teachants that these students could utilize in order to build
capacity on their campus or have student activism.
And another is setting -- sending out data,
whether it's reports or surveys, for students and organizations
to use to support in their activism.
And also using these students, polling the students for
insights and for an example, a student capacity survey,
so that the initiative can get an insight on what issues
these students are facing on their campuses and what they
think that you could do, just as a yearly update.
Because sometimes issues might change.
And finally, another thing that was spoken about is
AAPI heritage month and how to expand on that,
having more AAPI representatives on the campuses actually
go to the campuses.
So the Initiative is hoping from yourself, the student leaders,
for invitations to speak on your campuses on more
of these issues.
Thank you.
(applause)
Eddie Lee: Thank you.
Do you guys have any feedback for that, any thoughts?
Just want to open it up.
Great.
Well, I was in that session.
And I've just got to say, that was just a fraction of
the awesome ideas that we got out there.
There was a lot of great and dynamic things,
both involving the commission and not.
So, again, thank you to all the students who were in our session
and hopefully we can continue to work on some of these
great ideas that we have.
I think we especially liked the idea of having maybe the
opportunity to touch base with students through surveys or
other ways periodically that don't always necessarily require
a big event like this, you know.
So I think that will be -- that's a really great idea.
But, yeah, it was a great session.
Thanks for everyone who was in that one.
Wonderful.
I believe next we have the LGBT and AAPI Pride session.
Joya Ahmed: Good afternoon.
I'm Joya Ahmed (phonetic),
I'm a freshman at Columbia University.
And first of all, I'd like to thank everyone for having us all
here and giving us a chance to talk about these issues.
The main issue that was brought up in the LGBTQ AAPI group was
that we use too many alphabets.
(laughter)
Joya Ahmed: The second big issue was that we
don't like to talk about what these alphabets stand for,
and the fact that there's a lot of Asian shame was a term that
came up a lot, that children and parents often don't know how to
communicate with each other.
There's a generational gap that has yet to be bridged.
And there's a lot of fear behind coming out or asking for help or
searching for resources, because the people don't
know where to start.
So a lot of our issues kind of focused on the idea of
invisibility of the Asian people in the LGBT community.
The idea of giving out data and information and finding equal
ways to access this information, whether that's through language
-- transcending the language barrier by having translators,
by having campus involvement, by having peer to peer mentors,
and also having the idea of dispelling myths about
LGBT people and success.
One of the main things that was brought up was how Asian parents
get worried when their kids come out to them.
They say, my kid can never be successful now that they're gay.
So you've got to choose.
You can either be gay or you can be Asian; you can't be both.
So we want to leave that behind and come up with a way that
Asian people, kids, parents, elders, can come together,
bridge those generational and cultural gaps and start to
talk about these issues in a cohesive manner.
So our big idea was maybe a Pan-Asian alliance to bring
together the Korean LGBT community,
the Bangladeshi LGBT community, the Filipino LGBT community.
Instead of leaving them as fragmented pieces,
bringing them together to make a cohesive whole,
and maybe that way we could start to get real change in
the Asian community and give ourselves a voice.
Thank you.
Eddie Lee: Thank you.
(applause)
Eddie Lee: Great.
Turn it over to our panelists here to give feedback.
Ramey Ko: Yeah, I also want to thank the students who are --
and especially the allies who were in our session.
It was a lively session and great discussion.
And one of the things that the Initiative and also the White
House Office of Public Engagement has focused on is the
intersection of LGBT and API communities and individuals,
and how we can ensure that government programming addresses
these issues from those multiple perspectives.
And that's something that we've worked on in terms of bullying,
in terms of *** prevention programs,
and many different ways.
And I look forward to continuing that.
And also, want to give a shout out to an organization that does
try to -- that really works to build on those intersections
and that's the National *** API Alliance,
which is holding its national conference here
in D.C. in July.
And if you need more information about that, come see me.
Tuyet Duong: Sorry.
Go ahead.
Ramey Ko: Follow George Takei on Twitter and Facebook.
He does post really great stuff about AAPI LGBTQ issues.
Sunaree Marshall: You know, we actually talked about George Takei
in our session.
Is this on?
Maybe I'll just talk loud.
Because, you know, there was this idea of the generational
gap and not -- there not being enough role models in that
generation for younger people to look up to.
So what I just want to say is, it sounds like we have our work
cut out for us, and I'm excited about it.
I love that, you know, a lot of times we go to these meetings
and we hear ideas but, you know, a year later,
we think what happened to those ideas.
And so, you know, I know our session talked about forming a
group, staying in touch over the next year and then coming
together and talking about what progress was
made at the end of the year.
So very excited.
And I think that's probably what's happening
in these other sessions.
So thank you all so much for coming together with these great
ideas and can't wait to hear back, you know,
in the November time frame.
Eddie Lee: Great.
Thank you.
Our next session will be from The Youth and
Entrepreneurship session.
So if there's a representative from that office or
that session.
Yeah, yeah.
(applause)
Speaker: Hi, everyone.
My name is (inaudible) and I'm a freshman at Georgetown
University this year.
So today in our break-out session, we were talking about,
you know, supporting entrepreneurs and small
businesses in the AAPI community.
And sort of a theme that we developed throughout our entire
break-out session was how supporting these, you know,
businesses really helps to make your community,
your state and your company stronger as a whole,
rather than just focusing on the individual.
Just expanding it to the community as a whole.
And we first kind of talked about getting the
information out there.
I'm sure this came up in a lot of break-out sessions,
how there's so many resources for our communities,
but they just -- we just don't know about them.
Like people don't know where to go.
So we were talking about, you know,
doing summits in different states, word of mouth,
constantly expanding, having one-on-one conversations to
really kind of open up this forum and to make it more
accessible to people that, unlike us,
don't have the opportunity to come to, you know,
events like these.
And then we also talked about how -- how can we make
entrepreneurship, you know, accessible for the broader
public good and what is government's role in sort
of assisting that broader public good.
And we talked how entrepreneurship for minorities
really makes it easier for minorities to live in these
communities and to establish themselves and to form
relationships and to really make their home their home.
Because, you know, it allows them to have a
stake in where they are.
We talked about decreasing the stigma of taking out
loans from other people.
Because oftentimes, you know, AAPI families often have a
stigma against, you know, borrowing money from others and
how we need to decrease that to, you know, make start-ups more,
you know, encourage more start-ups, really.
We talked about having counseling services,
allowing people to talk one-on-one with other,
more experienced mentors and how to develop their ideas.
Giving businesses the opportunity to grow by
themselves rather than keeping tabs on them,
to really encourage a sense of independence.
Talking about sustainability.
Talked about, you know, investing in new and
burgeoning industries.
Really just setting up presences in big communities to
make a viable impact on entrepreneurship as a whole
and to really make our voices heard, you know,
in the business sector.
Thank you.
(applause)
Eddie Lee: Thank you. Any thoughts?
Miya Saika Chen: Thanks, Shopa (phonetic),
and thank you to everyone who was involved in our workshop.
I wish we had more time to talk, because I find
those recommendations so helpful and important.
So when we follow up with you all,
we'll all -- I'm volunteering all of us to give you all our
contact information so you can follow up with us directly about
any other kind of questions or recommendations or
comments that you might have.
Thank you so much.
Eddie Lee: Great.
And on that note, as a follow-up to this briefing,
we'll be sending all of you e-mails with resources as well
as e-mails of all of the folks that were up here today,
just so that you keep in touch with them and follow up with any
questions or thoughts that you might have.
So with that, we come to our last break-out session,
and that is the maximizing educational opportunities.
And so with that, I'll invite our representative up.
Jennifer Brionus: Hi, everyone.
My name is Jennifer Brionus (phonetic),
I am a senior at Loyola University in Maryland.
And I just wanted to first thank the White House and the AAPI
initiative for having all of us here today.
As Eddie said, I was in the education break-out session.
We first, part one focused on big group discussion,
which was basically a continuing the panel discussion that
we had earlier this morning.
And in that discussion, we talked about the big issues that
came up this morning, such as the tuition hikes and people's
concerns about quality of education and defining
that and what that means.
And basically, we were given advice that the best way to get
our voices out there was to reach out to your local
administrators, school administrators and state
government, as well.
And that eventually maybe it will go to a federal level,
as well.
Afterwards in our second portion,
we separated into smaller groups in which we discussed more
issues and then came back together and picked the most
important ones in our opinion.
The first one was sometimes there is a misunderstanding
between professors and AAPI students.
This could entail sometimes professors do, you know,
have issues with students who have English as their second
language, or some AAPI students tend to be more shy and
therefore do not get that participation grade that
is a huge aspect of many college grades.
And the solution to this would be encouraging cultural
competency in public universities by the federal
government and that would come through such things as cultural
competency training, which could be funded by grants.
A second issue we discussed were -- was transparency.
So a lot of people want to know, where exactly are
my tuition dollars going.
Now, the federal government is becoming more and more
transparent, so we focused more on state government.
We want to encourage them as our main concern to be more
available, to be more transparent.
You know, why should we have to fill out FOYA forms and
wait forever to figure out where our money is going.
We had a great idea from one of our students that perhaps there
should be a website for all universities that can be
accessed in which there could be a list of all of the grants and
scholarships that are available by all of the schools.
And that way, there would be somewhere where we could all see
where -- at which schools we could get which scholarships.
A third issue we discussed is, you know,
after school program availability.
And we talked about how, what we can do instead
of asking for funds.
And what we can do instead of that is leverage our resources
such as, you know, promoting community advocacy,
promoting these programs, partnering with nonprofit
organizations and getting the word out there, saying,
you know, these programs are out there, they're available,
so take advantage of them.
And finally, we talked -- someone brought up maybe we
should have a program for students who are being
interested in becoming teachers, where we could train them and
have them teach and mentor younger AAPI students or
ESL students.
And apparently, there is already a program that exists.
So that just brought up the issue again of promotion and
getting the word out there and having our voice heard.
Thank you.
(applause)
Akil Vohra: Well, thanks for saving the best for last.
I mean, I was --
(laughter)
Akil Vohra: My bias.
No.
But I was very, very much impressed,
and I think all of us here are in terms of the ideas,
the passion, and just the insight that all of you have.
And, you know, especially for our group,
talking about education issues, you know,
there are a lot of things that I think sometimes when we're in
D.C. we become disconnected with what's happening on the ground.
And we -- our office tends to be pretty sharp on these things.
But, again, I learned a lot from all of you.
And I thought a lot of you had a lot of smart ideas.
Folks said that we're not going to ask for more money,
because we know we're not going to get anymore money.
So let's talk about leveraging our resources.
Let's talk about leveraging our programs.
And when I informed them that, you know,
this program already exists, you know,
they said why don't we know about it?
And that's our responsibility, to make sure that we're getting
these programs and resources out to you much better.
So I wanted to thank all of you for that insight and
that feedback.
Question?
Audience Member: What's the program called?
Akil Vohra: Trio.
Yes.
There's actually a lot of programs from the Department of
Education that provides funding for ELLs on different levels.
So sometimes it's given to the state.
It's always given to the state, but it's tied in to
some other program.
So there's Trio, there's Race to the Top, there's actually, yeah,
there's probably eight to ten different
programs that provide funding.
Eddie Lee: Well, thanks to the Initiative staff for coming
up here, and for all of you for presenting your ideas.
I know that there's a lot of things that were talked about
all day and a lot of opportunities for you to engage.
And this brings us to the last opportunity for you to do that.
And so what we want to do is for the next 15 minutes or so,
we want to open up the floor to you in a town hall session,
all right.
So this is our chance to really engage the Initiative staff,
so the folks that are the eyes and the ears of
the AAPI community.
And we want to just hear from you what are your thoughts.
If there are any things that were not said for this portion
or for any of the portions here today,
we just want to open it up broadly for all of you to speak.
And I also want to encourage you to come speak on the
microphones, just so that the folks that are watching on the
live stream can hear you.
So you can start making your way over to the microphones.
All right.
Go ahead.
Audience Member: Hi.
A lot of these problems that have been brought up and have to
be addressed, it seems like there are already programs
that are in place.
And, at least in our discussion with empowering the community,
a lot of the solutions that we tried to think of,
they're already there.
It's just that nobody knows about it.
So it's this idea of promotion that's a problem.
Would it be difficult to kind of mandate that, you know,
school multicultural centers, you know, have to, you know,
distribute this information, that they would have it?
Because I know mine doesn't.
And, you know, if -- you would have to go on your own to look
through it and they're pretty much just as in the dark as
I am and the students.
So how would you address that?
Eddie Lee: It's a good question.
Is anyone brave enough to answer that?
Ramey Ko: Well, let me throw this out there first.
So I mentioned this to a couple of the break-out sessions.
But I want to make sure everybody here knows, right.
Our website, www.AAPI.gov.
And if you go to that website, we have a lot of downloadable
documents on there that not only can address some of
these issues y'all have, but you can start immediately
disseminating this information.
For example, we developed -- actually,
not -- I don't want to take too much credit for this.
Commissioners.
It's really the staff who did this work.
A comprehensive federal agency resource guide specifically for
the AAPI community that goes through all the federal
agencies, how to access them, what services they provide,
you know, et cetera.
So that's already available out there.
And we also have some other documents that sort of overview
a lot of the programs that we've been doing.
So at least in terms like those resources that we can provide
that can probably provide information on what's already
out there, that maybe people haven't heard of,
we need your help to get that out there and disseminate it.
And follow us, you know, join the mailing list, AAPI.gov,
et cetera.
And then when we -- you guys get, you know,
our notifications from us, we need you to echo that, right.
It needs to be like a constant web,
like it goes to you and that goes to your networks and hubs
and other hubs send out to more and more, right, like the,
you know, you've seen the diagram, flow charts, right.
We want it to look like these sunbursts that go out to all
these different communities.
So that's one thing that we can do.
I'm going to stop there and not -- leave someone else to
discuss the actual mandating.
Tuyet Duong: I want to ask the question back, is, you know,
obviously a lot here are trying to absorb your question.
But I want to ask you, who are the usual multicultural offices
accountable to, right?
They're accountable usually to their funders,
their constituents, some of the administrators and schools.
And so maybe you can find out where the
accountability points are.
And if it comes back to the federal government and there's
some federal funding tied, then obviously there's a link for us
to have a lever here to push that accountability lever.
And so we're definitely interested in pushing those
accountability levers.
Eddie Lee: Great.
Miya, do you want to talk about the resource guide, real quick?
Miya Saika Chen: Yeah.
So Ramey mentioned that we have this AAPI federal resource guide
that has, you know, most of you should have gotten it,
but I think we have more copies in the lobby.
But it basically describes a lot of different programs and gives
a snapshot of grants and resources available from 17
different federal agencies.
And it gives examples of community organizations or
individuals who have successfully leveraged these
grants, who have received federal funding or different
resources in that way.
And so they kind of give people advice on how to
access those resources.
But I also wanted to mention -- and we can send this to you all,
too, if you just let us know that you want it.
If you want to have a round table or a forum or some kind of
event in your local community, and if you want us to bring
speakers from the Department of Education or the Department of
Health and Human Resources or different agencies there to
explain what their resources are and explain, you know,
how to access them, then we would be more
than happy to do that.
We've held events across the country.
This year we have a very ambitious community engagement
schedule and we're focusing on the midwest and the south.
But we're really, really open to kind of bringing the federal
resources out to the community.
So if you are willing to host an event or a round table,
organize your other students or other members of your community
to come together, we would be glad to bring
those speakers out to you.
Eddie Lee: Great. Thanks.
Go to our next question.
Sophia Cho: Hi, My name is Sophia Cho.
I'm from Rutgers University.
I don't know -- and I know the panelist is more for
like specific questions relating to your fields.
This might be just more for Kiran and Chris,
who I don't think are here right now.
But I wanted to ask about this before.
And someone briefly brought up the issue of with bullying and
the Army and the soldiers, the recent light of -- in recent
light of like Danny Chen, who was a Chinese American from New
York who recently committed suicide on base in Afghanistan.
And we touched upon a lot with bullying within schools and
colleges within the United States.
But I was wondering if the AAPI community initiative has
anything that helps Asian American soldiers and people who
are considering going into ROTC.
And it's strange, because I have a lot of friends at Rutgers who
are a part of this ROTC program.
So if there's anything that will be happening or if there's
already things that are already happening with that.
Tuyet Duong: Actually, we have been engaged on the
Private Danny Chen issue.
We've been in conversations with Lisu Yang (phonetic),
who's been an amazing leader, right.
And we helped -- help her meet with the Secretary of Army's
folks.
So we're glad that she's able to -- we were glad we were able
to facilitate that dialogue, because we do want to
facilitate leaders' access to federal agency leaders.
And I think what we have is, coming up is a round table with
Department of Veterans Affairs, which is those who are coming
out of active duty and with the veteran affairs leadership with
the veterans communities on the supports they can provide.
But we are in touch with the Department of Defense and
their kind of diversity inclusion shop.
And so if you think that's a good idea to have a round table,
I'd be interested in talking to you more about that in terms of
understanding what supports there are for those in
active duty for AAPI.
So thank you for your idea.
Eddie Lee: Sure.
And on that note, I think it would be appropriate for Akil,
if you want to talk about our efforts on the bullying front,
as well.
Akil Vohra: Sure.
So the Initiative has been working on harassment and
bullying issues for the AAPI community.
And in terms of getting the information about how to
file a federal claim when these issues come up,
dealing with the issues of making sure that parents
are understanding what students are going through,
making sure that students are communicating those issues to
their teachers and parents.
And we put on a bullying prevention summit in New York
where we actually bussed in students from Philadelphia,
from New Jersey and New York, as well.
So we're going to continue with our outreach.
There's also a federal interagency team that we sit on
that focuses on harassment, and Department of Defense
is part of that, as well.
So we make sure our voice is to go back and say, you know,
we know HHS or DOD, you're doing a great job on this issue.
What's the AAPI component to that?
Are you making sure that materials are translated?
Are you making sure you're reaching our
specific communities?
Are you taking into consideration the unique
needs of our community?
So that's continuously what we're doing on a day-to-day
basis when we're interacting with the
federal government folks.
Eddie Lee: Great.
Just as a show of hands, who here knows someone or has been
bullied themselves over the last year or so?
Right.
So I mean we mentioned this earlier in our conversation
that, you know, AAPI communities are more -- are affected just as
much, if not more, on bullying than any other community.
And so it's a huge priority for us and we need to make sure that
we're not only, you know, talking about this issue here
in the Beltway, but we're hearing from all of you
on your campuses.
You know, Miya mentioned having round tables
on conference calls.
I think that's a very effective way for us to hear from you guys
on, you know, what are the appropriate ways for us
to address this issue.
How can we better serve you at this administration level.
And what are the ways that we can solve this moving forward.
So we want to keep this conversation going and I want to
thank you so much for your question.
Who do we have next?
Up there, yeah.
>>Speaker: Hi there.
This is more of a question that relates to the first panel that
we were discussing, and talking about the AAPI
population as a community.
And in the first panel we spoke about how a lot of our
communities view themselves as microcommunities.
For example, the Indian population doesn't necessarily
place itself in the larger Asian community.
What I wanted to know, especially in terms of students
being active on campuses, how we can show that we can have an
amalgamation of communities without necessarily having
assimilation to a larger population.
So how can you retain the idea of being an Indian,
being Chinese, being Filipino, being Hawaiian,
and still be a part of the larger community,
and how that can foster a sense of community so we can move
forward with a lot of these initiatives.
Ramey Ko: Sure.
I work a lot on coalition building on student -- in
student activism and organizing.
And I think, let's take this question even bigger, right.
Like there's also the issue of how do we work in coalition with
other communities of color, with other marginalized communities,
with women's groups, with LGBTQ communities, with, you know,
people with disabilities and mental health and, you know,
all of these kinds of things, right.
It's not just about coalitions within the AAPI community.
It's about broader coalitions in order to get things achieved
that maybe we can't do on our own,
or because it affects more than just our community.
But at the same time, I don't think it's necessary for us to
necessarily sacrifice, you know, some of our individual heritage,
as well.
I think there's examples in certain campuses,
you can look at some best practices.
And, you know, the culture and history of different campuses
and areas means that this develops differently.
But some campuses have been very successful at having umbrella
organizations, like an Asian American student union or
student association that does a lot of coordination between
groups while each individual group still has its own
independence, its own programming, its own work.
At the University of Texas, in response to this concern about
Balkanization between the different AAPI groups,
they founded a couple of years ago the Asian American
Leadership Council.
And so now once every two weeks or something like that,
the president of every AAPI student organization on campus,
the presidents all meet in order to discuss their
issues and things like that.
So I think it's, you know, perfectly capable of doing that.
I actually think with college students and young people,
it's easier to make the AAPI sell, right.
Like let me just ask this question out here.
How many of you here would say you primarily identify
as Asian American?
I'm going to raise my hand myself on that, okay.
Okay.
How many people's parents primarily identify
as Asian American?
Right.
A lot fewer, a lot fewer, right.
But it only takes, as we can see,
probably for most of the people in this room,
one generation here in the United States to recognize
that larger Pan-Asian identity.
And I've even seen in my parents, right,
my parents have been here now for over 40 -- over 30 years.
And before, I never really saw them or heard them talk about
Asian Americans or Asian experiences,
as Asians we need to work together on this or that.
And surprisingly starting a few years ago,
I started hearing it more and more from them.
And I think part of it is because when you're here in the
United States, you recognize that regardless of, you know,
where our family is really from or things like that,
we're going to be treated certain ways based on
perceptions.
We're going to deal with stereotypes and discrimination
based just on how people lump us together,
or choose to lump us together, right.
And at the same -- so that forces us in many ways
to be coalition.
But at the same time, there's a lot of great strengths that
I draw from different groups, right.
I love seeing, for example, the passion of the Korean American
community for their identity and their strength, right,
the unity on campus, right.
I really like the grassroots activism I see a lot in the
Vietnamese American community, for example.
I love the fact that the South Asian community is really
good at fund raising, for example, right.
And these are different pieces that we all have strengths at.
And different communities haven't necessarily learned
how to do it on their own.
And if we can work together to bring those strengths
to each other, right.
I mean, I know it sounds kind of crude, but it's true, right.
We don't all do the same things and have the same strengths
because we all have different histories.
So if you can build those and bring those strengths to each
other and share those abilities, then we have a lot better deal,
especially when we start to recognize that our fates
are interlinked, right.
The Japanese Americans recognized that with 9-11,
that they needed to reach out to South Asians and Middle Eastern
and Muslim and Arab Americans, right.
They needed to be solidarity with that.
The very -- one of the first examples we know is Vincent
Chin, back in the early '80s, right, 1982.
Everyone should see a documentary called Vincent Who,
and who killed Vincent Chin, those two movies,
because they really focus on how the AAPI identity developed
out of national tragedies that brought people
together in certain ways.
I think it's a perfect case study if you want to see how
different groups like Chinese, Indians, Japanese Americans,
Pacific Islanders, et cetera, saw this one guy who got killed
because he was Chinese American, but mistaken for
Japanese American, right.
It really showed people that we're all part of one community
at the end of the day.
And so I think that's really important that we do
build that coalition.
But it doesn't I think entail sacrifice of our
individual identities.
Eddie Lee: Thank you.
We have about ten minutes left, so we're going to rapid fire and
I want to ask the panelists to keep their answers
short for this part.
So over here.
Andrew Ye: Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Andrew Ye.
I'm from the University of Colorado, Denver.
And we talk a lot about community but we kind of haven't
addressed any like local nonprofits,
target programs that have ESL programs or target leadership
programs towards high schoolers or middle schoolers.
What can the AAPI Initiative do for those?
Miya Saika Chen: I was just going to say that that's the
focus of most of our work.
And so that's who we rely on.
We really rely on local community leaders and local
community orgs as the experts.
And they really guide and dictate a lot of the
work that we do here.
And the guide that we put together is really focused on
them and getting them resources.
Because we know that they're really helping our community.
So we're really targeting and reaching out to them.
Akil Vohra: Yeah.
Just as an example of what Miya for this harassment and
bullying conference that we put on in New York.
We really partnered with the organizations on the ground in
Philadelphia and New York and New Jersey to reach out to their
communities, to find out their stories and really bringing
folks who, we actually had interpreters who were there at
the event to make sure that they took advantage of resources that
were desperately needed.
So that's just one example of the community engagement efforts
that we're doing.
Eddie Lee: Great. Next question.
Richard: Richard from Columbia once again.
You guys talked a lot today about getting involved -- Asian
-- AAPIs getting involved with public service,
kind of following our passions, getting engaged.
So I guess one of the first, easiest ways to get engaged,
kind of the first door into public service is
working on campaigns.
So what roles do you see in terms of like Asian American
voter outreach, kind of what role do you think AAPIs can play
in campaigns, what specific skills do we have,
such as fund raising that could make us -- give us a comparative
advantage and make us an asset to a campaign?
Ramey Ko: Well, I guess we have to be somewhat careful in
how we talk about this, because, you know,
we are an executive branch agency,
we're not doing politics here.
But I can talk a little bit about politics, I think,
generally.
I worked on campaigns a lot of my life.
I think it's a very great way to get involved.
One way out there is I think was it 75% of Asian American Pacific
Islanders are online every day.
So that means that when it comes to things like social networking
and outreach and doing that type of organizing,
AAPIs are particularly well positioned with some
competitive advantages.
But again, you know, sometimes it really is not necessarily
about our community, right.
Like all of us have strengths as individuals.
And being out there in whatever thing that we have to offer
helps AAPIs in general, right.
Because since there are so few of us,
if you are out there being involved in campaigns or civic
engagement, there's also ways to be involved on issues,
not individual candidates and things like that,
if you're not comfortable with that.
Then, you know, it shows, it reminds people, right, aha,
there are Asian American Pacific Islanders,
and they're citizens and they're part of our communities and
they care about the same things that we care about.
They care about our government.
They care about our future.
And they're working with us.
So whatever you do, whatever you offer,
you're already making a difference simply by showing up,
simply by being there.
Eddie Lee: Yeah.
Just to add on to that, and to kind of speak very
carefully about this.
You know, I've never been someone interested in government
or politics throughout my life.
I was always a science and math geek at school.
I was captain of my chest team, you know, I was part of our,
you know, math and science class.
I started it in my school, that's how geeky I was.
(laughter)
Eddie Lee: We didn't have it, I brought it in.
And so, you know, my parents are both professors in
computer science and pharmacy.
I never really got involved and I never felt like I needed to,
like I was saying earlier today.
I kept my head down and I got my good grades, you know,
went to the college that I wanted to.
But there was a moment, again, in college when I realized
that that's not enough.
That we as a community, as young people,
have to really stand up and make our voices known.
And this is what this whole briefing and this summit is
all about is that you all are chosen,
you've been brought here, because you are -- people will
listen to you when you go back to your campuses.
You are a leader on your campus.
And so when you go back, you know,
we're asking you to be a partner to this White House and to speak
with the authority of having come here and being
a partner here.
The moment where I, you know, decided I wanted to be --
to speak out was when I dropped out of college,
joined the Barack Obama campaign,
went to New Hampshire as an intern knocking on doors and
making phone calls, for about four months,
with no pay, nothing.
I slept on couches.
I got hives all over my body after not sleeping for weeks,
you know.
What else?
(laughter)
Eddie Lee: I'm sorry, this is --
Speaker: I think that's enough.
Thank you, Eddie.
Next question.
Eddie Lee: Bringing back some bad memories.
My parents told me it's not -- that wasn't the way to go.
But the reality is, you know, look how far we've come
and look how far this administration has come.
And I think that for all of us, young Asian American Americans,
we have to buck the trend, go against convention,
and do what's risky, do what's unorthodox.
Because it's only when we decide to take those risks that
we can really make an impact in the world.
So that's my encouragement to you all.
Yes.
Claire Sa: Hi, my name is Claire Sa(phonetic),
and I'm from the University of Richmond.
And I just wanted to touch base with something we had kind of
addressed earlier in terms of the whole thing with how
we identify on our college applications.
I'm currently in college but I'm going through the process again.
And I can testify for myself that I understand that there's
a lot of mystique behind college admissions.
But what the AAPI community at large has probably come to
realize is that it's detrimental to your application to
identify as Asian American.
And I was wondering how is AAPI going to address that in terms
of affirmative action or dispelling doubts and
things like that.
Ramey Ko: Hey, I have a question for you on that issue.
So I saw the article that talked about that but
it didn't provide any data.
It just said that people think or perceive that it's
a disadvantage to identify as AAPI.
Do you know if there's actual data out there that shows that
it actually disadvantages you?
Claire Sa: Well, I mean, that's exactly what
I'm trying to say.
Like I don't know personally, but from you know all the
folklore and everything that's happened with college
admissions, it's been going on forever.
People don't really know what the truth is.
And I feel like it's either the responsibility to dispel those
beliefs or to address them and make it so that it's something
that we don't need to feel that we can identify
with our culture.
Ramey Ko: I think that what you just proposed is perfect.
And I think that's something we should take into mind and
talk to the Department of Ed and say, hey,
let's do some research into this issue.
Let's find out the truth and what we can do.
Claire Sa: Okay.
Thank you.
Eddie Lee: Great.
So we're going to take these four questions and
then wrap up here.
Audience Member: Hi, everyone, my name is Happy (phonetic) from San Francisco.
First of all, I just want to tell you guys I just feel really
inspired that I'm here today and I can learn about what your
office is doing and also know what other leaders throughout
our country are doing.
And then my question is say like after this event,
so then how can we keep you guys accountable making sure that you
are picking out advice.
For example, are you going to like --
(laughter)
Happy: Oh, all right.
(laughter)
Happy: Yeah.
So like for example, are you going to like invite people to
sit on a commission or maybe like have a like yearly report
back to every one of us, or just how specifically?
Or like if we think, no, your office or some speaker are not
doing enough on certain issue, like maybe undocumented youth.
So how can we make sure that we can follow and tell you again.
Sunaree Marshall: Give Ramey a call.
(laughter)
Eddie Lee: Well, actually,
we're going to talk about that at the end of this briefing.
Claire Saw: Oh.
Eddie Lee: There are someaction items that we'll talk
about, how to take all the information you took in today
and transport that back to all the states that you came from.
So we'll talk more about that later.
Tuyet Duong: But you should e-mail us and tell us when
you think that we didn't follow through.
That's why we handed you our business card.
So we appreciate that.
Ramey Ko: And we did a two-year published report for
the first two years and I anticipate we'll do more of
those progress reports, as well.
So keep an eye out on what we're doing.
Sunaree Marshall: Right.
And get on our mailing list and we have weekly standard,
you know, not weekly, sorry.
We have regular community outreach calls,
web-based options, you know, you can post on our Facebook wall,
all these sorts of things that say, hey, by the way,
we talked about this, and what's the progress on that.
There's lots of ways to interact with the Initiative.
Audrey Buehring: On that note,
I did want to mention that we will be -- this is just between
us for right now, the smaller room.
We will be.
Tuyet Duong: We're live streaming.
Audrey Buehring and the live stream.
Nobody out there tell anyone.
No.
We'll see the announcement that we're going to be starting a
series of webly -- webly -- weekly web chats.
So we hope that you join us on these.
We'll send out an announcement soon that lets you know the
topic for each week.
So we hope you, you know, that's an easy,
quick way that you can join us, shoot us your questions,
give us your e-mail addresses and we can be in
touch directly that way.
Eddie Lee: Great.
So with these last three questions,
we'll just have you ask the questions and then
we'll answer it all together.
So why don't we start right here.
Speaker: Okay.
I'll just like keep it really short.
But basically, it's just something that I saw that we
didn't really address today.
Or maybe you guys did in a smaller focus group,
but obviously I was not in it.
Basically, I was wondering how feminism plays into the
AAPI realm and like what you guys can do,
what resources can you provide.
And I want to make sure to differentiate not as like the
typical American feminism but as feminism as an Asian American,
regardless of gender and sexuality.
And then also the stereotypes that come with gender and
sexuality, such as like the China doll thing or like the
dragon lady thing or like -- sorry,
I have a lot of --
Eddie Lee: Sure. Thank you.
(laughter)
Eddie Lee: Over here.
Audience: Hi, this is a question that kept lingering in my mind before
this conference and still, until now,
I guess I think it's not -- it wasn't sufficiently answered.
My question is more opportunities for non-U.S.
citizens and students in the U.S.
government, or even with AAPI, just to go back to the
federal resource guide that you mentioned.
I looked into it and it doesn't have Department of State or
Department of Defense on the list.
And also, AAPI on the website, it states that AAPI internships
are also requiring the U.S.
citizenship.
So it was kind of a disheartening factor for me,
who is, you know, very interested,
very much interested in getting involved with the
U.S. government or the foreign service,
and for people who came to the states to pursue a career in
that area.
So if you have any advice on that, I would appreciate it.
Eddie Lee: Thank you.
Keenan: Hi, thanks for having us here.
My name is Keenan.
I'm currently attending Seattle University but I'm from Hawaii.
What my question would be, is there a way to bridge the gap
between -- for people who identify with more than
one ethnic background, I am Filipino,
Japanese and Portuguese.
So for me, I mean, I am an AAPI, but I'm --
I identify with more than one.
So is there a way, especially in Hawaii,
when it's really commonplace to be a multicultural in a sense
that you have a lot of family backgrounds.
Is there a way to bridge that gap and, you know,
have a way to -- it's not necessarily be just grouped as
you know Asian, but just kind of just getting the community
together and figuring out a way to be heard in that sense.
Eddie Lee: Great.
Keenan: Thanks.
Eddie Lee: Thank you.
So let's open it up to our panelists to answer
those three questions.
Tuyet Duong: I can talk about the --
Eddie Lee: Sure.
Tuyet Duong: The federal government does hire people who
are not citizens in special circumstances.
There is an Office of Personnel Management,
OPM.gov directive about our policy,
memo memorandum about hiring those who are noncitizens.
There are special circumstances, especially in special positions
of security are requiring certain skills like
interpretation, which is why there are cases in which DOD,
National Institutes of Health and some other agencies will
hire a noncitizen.
But you have to, you're directed to call the agency specifically
in order to do that.
And maybe that's something we should assist in as maybe
getting those offices out there to the community,
if there are certain positions.
But I know a while back, for instance,
DOD was out there recruiting Vietnamese fluent speakers
because they needed interpreters badly and they were willing
to take noncitizens.
So I think it comes in cycles and it's kind of a word of mouth
thing, because the security clearance required for those
type of positions are extremely high.
So that's why they're not publicized.
Audrey Buehring: And to chime in about internship
opportunities for noncitizens, and especially,
we have heard this issue come up recently with Pacific Islander
students who mate not be citizens.
It is something that our office is aware of acutely,
and we are investigating it right now and trying to see if
we can change that policy or get some guidance and try to get,
you know, noncitizens to at least come intern at our agency.
So keep an eye out for that.
Ramey Ko: I mean, a lot of these limitations are federal
law and there's nothing the executive branch
can do about that.
So, I mean, one thing is to think about, you know,
maybe there needs to be legislative change,
and that's something you guys maybe need to work on.
Sunaree Marshall: In answer to the multiculturalism
question, I think, you know, it is tough.
My background is English, German and Thai/Chinese American.
And I think, you know, one of the places for me at my school
there was a Huppa club, there was a Huppa initiative -- issues
forum that gave that venue to discuss that part of the
identity and how you actually become in one person sort of a
bridge between different places.
So if I go into a room like this one that's predominantly Asian
American, I feel more white.
And if I go into a room that's predominantly Caucasian,
I feel more Asian.
And to understand, you know, sort of looking within that to
how do you then translate that part of the other community and
the other half of yourself to each community.
You know, I think it becomes sort of a personal challenge.
But I think also looking for their venues,
there are I know MIT has a Huppa club.
I know there are a number of different places that have them.
And then also just, I don't know,
looking -- I think to some degree one of the reasons I
joined the Initiative was because I didn't have to
self-select into one category or another.
And I think that, you know, in some ways,
those Pan-Asian groups can be helpful in that respect.
Eddie Lee: Sure.
Miya Saika Chen: And just a quick note about how we
incorporate feminism in our work.
Our director, Kiran Ahuja, is a fierce NAPAWF leader in the
National APA Women's Forum.
And that's -- yeah, I see some NAPAWFers back there.
And so we try to incorporate the women and girls issues
in all of our work.
We partner with the White House Council on Women and Girls on a
number of different projects, including a report on
AAPI women's issues.
Our former colleague, Amanda, did round tables across the
country assessing issues that AAPI women and girls are dealing
with every day.
And we're submitting a report to the White House in
the next couple of months.
So that's our work on AAPI women.
Eddie Lee: Well, let's give our Initiative staff
a round of applause.
(applause)
Eddie Lee: Thank you so much.
Great.
And I'm going to dismiss them back to their seats as we close.
Ramey Ko: Can I leave everyone with two-- just like two words of --
I always give this to every group I speak to,
especially young people.
Two sort of catch phrases I always keep in mind, all right.
Number one, is the best ideas are stolen ideas, right.
Don't reinvent the wheel.
You have a room here full of resources.
If somebody else has a great program that works, copy it.
Copy it.
Half of my, you know, stuff that I have developed or that I have
in my hard drive is stuff I've stolen from other conferences
and groups I've gone to, right.
(laughter)
Ramey Ko: Second thing is my political mentor,
Glen Maxey, who was the first openly gay state representative
in the state of Texas, always has this saying about
challenging yourself to rise to the occasion when
you identify a need.
If you ever find yourself saying,
"someone really ought to," that someone is you.
If you ever find yourself saying,
"someone really ought to," that someone is you.
Speaker: Thanks, Ramey.
Eddie Lee Wow.
(applause)
Eddie Lee: Thank you.
Ramey always has a way of making me speechless
at the end of his talks.
I don't really know how to, you know, breathless.
With that, we are going to move into our last part of this
program, which is our closing remarks.
And when we were thinking about how to set up our program,
the person that came to mind the most was this next gentleman who
I'm going to invite up here.
He is someone that I have absolute respect for,
someone that epitomizes the word passion,
someone who's been a tireless fighter for the community,
the young Americans across this country.
It's his portfolio.
I'm a co-worker of his in the Office of Public Engagement.
It's his portfolio to reach out to young Americans across this
country, and he has been kind of leading the way in making -- in
filling some big feet in terms of really setting the standard
high as to how we engage our communities and really make sure
that this Administration's policies are moving forward.
And so with that, I have the honor of welcoming up
Mr. Ronnie Cho.
(applause)
Ronnie Cho: Well, thanks, Eddie,
that's awfully nice of you to say.
Hello, everyone.
My name is Ronnie Cho, and I am an associate director at the
Office of Public Engagement, along with my colleague,
Eddie Lee.
Ramey, good to see you.
It's been a long time, since Austin, Texas.
So I want to talk a little bit about what we do at the Office
of Public Engagement.
I think you spent most of the day learning about the federal
government and kind of what we work on here as relates to the
300 plus million Americans, but specifically the AAPI community.
But to describe a little bit about what we do at the Office
of Public Engagement, this office of initially the
Office of Public Liaison.
It was rebranded when President Obama became -- when he came
into office in 2009.
Generally, this office was a place where the White House
senior administration officials could interact with the business
community, VIPs, elected officials, sort of, you know,
fancy people like that.
That has been the case for the last few decades until President
Obama came in the office said, you know,
we ought to extend that same opportunity to ordinary
Americans, communities all across this country,
different stakeholders from all over.
I think it's important to illustrate that these kind of
forums were not happening five years ago,
were not happening 12 years ago, and it's an important
distinction to be made that this is a President that understands
the value and the need for an accessible and responsive
government, a place where you can say you guys are doing a
great job, or you guys are really blowing it, you know.
That's an important discussion and conversation to have.
The President has had a special relationship with young people
for his entire career, since he was a community organizer in the
south side of Chicago, to when he was a law professor at the
University of Chicago.
Certainly, his political career has been influenced and shaped
and propelled by the power of young people.
And I think the designation that I have as his liaison
illustrates his commitment continuing to advocate on behalf
of young people, whether that's from student loan debt to
healthcare for 2.5 million Americans that -- young
Americans that were previously uninsured.
There's tremendous accomplishments here that we
should be proud of.
The other thing that I want to mention that maybe you folks
don't talk about is that the AAPI community is very close to
the President himself personally.
We know his background.
We know that his cultural influences come from
the AAPI experience.
And I think that's a special relationship that he has with
our community and that sort of has informed a lot of the
initiatives that we have here that are truly historic in
nature and the level of robust interaction that we have.
And it's an important thing to understand that we have -- you
have a fighter in the White House who's
addressing these issues.
And if not completely solving them and mitigating them,
addressing them, bringing people who know these
issues better than us.
Now, there are a lot of smart people at the White House.
Some of the smartest people you'll ever meet anywhere.
But we don't have all the answers.
We can't do all of the work.
And I think very humbly we come to the American people and say,
we need your help.
We need your assistance.
We need your communication.
We need your network.
So when someone asked about the accountability piece of it,
right, what are you guys to do when this thing ends?
I think that's a good question, it's an
important question to ask.
But the question I think is applicable to everybody here and
everyone paying attention online.
What are we going to do?
What accountability do we have to our own communities,
to our own families, our own
neighborhoods and towns and cities?
Now, the journey that brought you to this room,
obviously a lot of impressive young leaders in this space.
But you don't get to come to the White House because simply
you're that great and you're that brilliant, or attractive.
There are a lot of good-looking Asian people in this room.
(laughter)
Ronnie Cho: You got here because there was a
community that supported you, a community that gave you values
of education, work ethic, the things that have informed and
gave me an opportunity in this country.
You know, I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I'm a first
generation Asian American.
And that you come to this country with really nothing,
not a fancy last name that anyone can
even pronounce correctly.
Certainly the only Asian family in Phoenix, Arizona,
as you can probably imagine.
But the things that got me to where I am was a community of
other families, people who shared a value of hard work,
education, opportunity.
That our parents would never have an opportunity to come to
the White House and interact with people who can make
policy and shape and change people's lives the
way that you guys have.
So while this is a tremendous honor for all of us to have you
here, I'm sure a piece of pride that your family hold that
you got a chance to come to the White House,
I think it's an obligation for us here,
for the folks out in the audience and at home who are
watching, to do something with this opportunity.
That you are in front of people who are making a difference.
You are one of those people who are making a difference.
And what are we going to do to make things a little bit easier
for our own kids, our own families, our own communities,
that perhaps was not the case when we came up.
It was not the case when our parents and our grandparents
were around.
That is the responsibility, that is the charge that we all have,
not only from this presidency to the next presidency and beyond.
I think there's an opportunities for the AAPI community to really
emerge and assert itself as a community that cares about
politics, that cares about the process,
that cares about being engaged, holding people accountable.
And that is something that I think we're just now
kind of taking grasp of.
And it's an important thing for us to continue.
So I wanted to keep my remarks real short,
because I really wanted to get a chance to answer any questions.
I know being the last speaker of the day is tough in that regard,
but if you have any thoughts or questions about how we're
engaging folks on college campuses,
I work a lot with college students.
But young professionals, high school students,
all these things, I think it's important for us to
keep staying involved.
In 2008, I think our generation kind of came to age politically.
Not talking about politics explicitly,
but young people came out in a way that shaped the end result
of the election in 2009 -- 2008, rather.
And you know, I think there's a sense of literally and
figuratively checking the box on election day.
And maybe some of us thought, well, that was all we had to do.
We had to vote and that's the extent of my responsibility as a
citizen of this country.
Well, I think there's an opportunity and a challenge
and obligation to change that attitude.
That citizenship, the things that our family came to this
country for, was not only economic opportunity,
but social justice, fairness, and education.
All these things that we value in this country,
we need to stake some ownership of that.
And are we going to be a part of that discussion.
We have an opportunity as young people to really mold
that in our own vision.
It's a tough time for a lot of Americans out there with,
you know, student loan debt, unemployment at
unacceptably high levels.
But those are sort of -- it's a diagnosis of our
state as a generation.
It's not a -- it's not a death sentence for us, you know,
we can shape the destiny that we have ahead of us,
just what is that destiny going to look like.
And I think with the faces we have here and the people I heard
speak earlier, you know, I wouldn't count us out,
not one bit.
Any questions?
I'd love to answer some.
Anyone from Arizona, by chance?
You're from Arizona.
Audience Member: Yeah.
Ronnie Cho: Where?
Audience Member: Scottsdale.
Ronnie Cho: Scottsdale.
Boy, nice.
She said it in a knowing way.
She and only I -- she and I know what that really means,
the way she said it.
(laughter)
Ronnie Cho: Any other thoughts?
Yes.
Audience Member: Hi.
I'm Bell, I go to Columbia.
I was wondering what is the Office of Public Engagement
doing to encourage AAPI voters to vote in the next election?
And also, is the Office of Public Engagement doing anything
about the upcoming elections in terms of voter ID photo fraud --
photo ID fraud.
Ronnie Cho: So those are great questions.
I want to be clear, and I think this is a hard thing for
a lot of people to discern.
I think the lines can be blurred,
at least on the perception side.
We don't do anything in terms of getting people out to vote,
to campaign for anybody.
That's just not our job.
It's actually illegal, to be perfectly clear.
But what I will talk about is, you know, what this White House,
what this President is doing to engage AAPI community at large.
I think you spent most of the day with Eddie Lee.
That's his job, his whole life, what is left of one,
with the hours that he spends, is dedicated to this very thing.
My whole life, such as it were, dedicated to making sure that
young people understand that there's an opportunity
for engagement here.
The issues that you have brought up,
everyone in this room have brought up,
it has been -- it is live streamed, it is on record.
We have let the sun shine in.
People can listen and see what we talked about.
And if there is policy that runs contrast to what the general
consensus, or what is reflective of what this community cares
about, we can be held accountable very easily,
in a way that is historic, really.
And that's the other thing that I want to mention.
We don't market democracy particularly well, right.
So, for instance, the Harry Potter movie comes out,
you know exactly when, where to go, how much it's going to cost,
what time you've got to show up, all that stuff,
months and months in advance.
Maybe even a year in advance.
When there's a zoning hearing, for instance,
if there's a liquor store or a, you know,
strip club that's going to open up in your neighborhood,
where the heck do you find that information out?
Why isn't -- I mean, those are things that impact our lives,
at least not to put a value of good or bad,
but those are things that impact our life in a way that maybe we
as citizens of this neighborhood ought to know about, right.
So those are sort of, that's a small example of why we need to
create opportunities where people can understand the
impact a zoning law could have on someone,
a healthcare law can have on people.
That's our job, to make sure that you have an opportunity to
understand what you can do, how you can be a part of it.
And, you know, over the last two and a half years,
I think we've done about as good a job as you possibly can.
But we're not getting it all right.
Again, we don't have all the answers.
So if you have a suggestion of how we can better,
most effectively talk to the people in your community,
folks out in the audience, places that you guys hang out
and care about, you have his e-mail address,
I'll give you mine.
I'd be happy to chat to you about a way that
we can collaborate.
I'd be delighted to.
Audience Member: Thank you.
Ronnie Cho: Thank you.
Yes, sir?
You can just shout it out, just come on, you know.
Tommy: Having learned this today's great things and
(inaudible)
AAPI community, I have learned a lot in depth
(inaudible).
And while we have now kind of or kind of mission to spread
the word of mouth and to our Asian community.
But at the same time, this briefing and this kind of
event is very important.
So if you are planning any upcoming,
it's not a good idea to just finish one time event.
So if you have any comment (inaudible).
Do you plan some sort of, this kind of briefing
in other cities?
Ronnie Cho: That's a good question.
We do plan on having a series of different regional conferences
out of the Office of Public Engagement.
Myself, in the work that I do with young people,
also plan on doing a similar kind of convening that we can
sort of talk about these issues and really
kind of get out of D.C.
I know many of you probably don't live here,
but it is what it is in this town.
It can be stifling creatively, intellectually, to be honest.
We want to get out of this -- get out of D.C. and get out to
the communities.
And so I will ask you to stay tuned for those announcements.
Again, I'll share my information.
And if you want to sign up for a newsletter,
if I can do a shameless plug here of what things I work on,
on behalf of young people, which approximately 75 million
Americans are under the age of 75 -- I'm sorry -- 35.
(laughter)
Ronnie Cho: 35.
I was never good at math.
Stereotypes be damned, I was not good at math.
So it's WhiteHouse.gov/YoungAmericans,
and you can find out everything that I'm doing on
behalf of our generation here.
Other questions?
Going once.
Yes, yes, sir.
And what was your name again?
Tommy: Tommy.
Ronnie Cho: Tommy, Good to meet you.
Yes?
Vincent: I am Vincent.
Ronnie Cho: Vincent.
Vincent: So my question, it seems like you are holding us to
cooperate with AAPI.
And most -- I'm from Columbia, and we have student associations
and we have website and I know other Asians -- (inaudible).
Do you give any kind of consultants or resources to put
on website and other members (inaudible) get resources to the
people who it is intended for.
Ronnie Cho: Yes, I think that's an outstanding idea.
In fact, you know, I run -- we all run a blog.
We have our own little websites, young Americans or
WhiteHouse.gov/YoungAmericans, the AAPI has its own website.
I would connect with them about specific issues that you have.
Maybe there's an opportunity for you to author a blog that
identifies an issue that you need -- you think
needs to be elevated.
I think those are relatively easy things for us to do.
I think beyond that, you know, certainly we want to be in touch
with you about specific issues.
But, again, you can't wait for us necessarily
to reach out to you.
There are, again, 300 million Americans in this country,
and we're only getting to a tiny sliver of them.
So be proactive.
Get ahold of us and, you know, until we answer,
and typically I think we're pretty good about that.
We want to work on those things.
Audience Member: Your question will be the last one.
Ronnie Cho: Last question.
Someone raised their hand?
No.
Oh, yes.
Olivia Chow: Hi, my name is Olivia Chow.
I'm with the Asian American Justice Center.
Ronnie Cho: Hi, Olivia.
Olivia Chow: I'm not in college anymore, I'm sorry.
Ronnie Cho: Neither am I.
Olivia Chow: I just wanted to thank you all and everyone that
helped put this event together.
You are doing a lot of amazing work in the Asian community on
the ground in bringing them into the White House in D.C.
My question is more how can we get college age,
high school youth integrated into some of the issue briefings
and the other events that you host.
How to do some intergenerational conversations and having more of
like college students that are here that are Asian to then
speak on the panel.
Ronnie Cho: You know, that's a great idea.
I think those opportunities will present themselves both this
spring as we do these regional conferences,
and as they are relevant locally.
I think, you know, as we have these conferences across the
country, you know, for me anyway,
and I would love -- Olivia, I'd love to exchange contact
information if you and your network has, you know,
a desire to be a part of this and in a programmatic sense,
and to be on a panel that we host,
I would love to explore a way for that to happen.
I think it's an important thing to do.
So I just want to close, want to say thank you very much.
I know it's been a long day for everyone.
I hope that you had a good time here.
I do want to say that it's, you know, for us, and for me,
to be perfectly honest, if I were able to come to an event
like this as a college student, or a high school student,
and see people who look a little bit like me,
who maybe had the same experience that I did,
how much that would have meant to me.
And how much that does mean to me now,
where I can say that is true.
And this White House, and across this government,
across this administration, that we are truly becoming more
representative of the country, populationwise,
and virtually every demographic.
And I think that's an important measure of progress,
we should all take a deep -- a great deal of pride in.
And so with that, I want to say thank you so
much for being here.
We believe in you.
The President's proud of you.
I certainly am.
And I hope to see you guys again real soon.
(applause)
Eddie Lee: All right.
How are you guys feeling?
Good?
You guys have made it through the whole day here
at the White House.
And I can't tell you how tremendously proud I am of
all of you, how amazed by all of you,
and how inspired I am just kind of listening to your stories,
seeing your energy, feeling that community vibe
here in this room.
If I could just get your attention for about six or seven
more minutes, and then we'll wrap up from there.
You guys are getting handouts.
And those handouts was made specifically for you all.
As you go back to your campuses, your communities,
your neighborhoods, and you think about how you want to
talk about this experience.
And I basically laid out, I don't know,
seven or eight different brainstorming ideas.
This isn't, you know, limited to this day's, you could do more.
But the opportunities I want to lay out for you all as you think
about this is on this page.
And I'll just go over them real quick.
One is if you want to hold a conference call with your fellow
students and you want to invite myself or someone from the
White House that you've heard today to the call,
my challenge is if you're able to bring 50 people to that call,
we'll jump on that call and we'll be on it for however
long you want us to talk for, all right.
So 50 people across your campus, your neighborhoods,
whatever it might be, let me know and we'll set that up.
Convene a round table on your campus to discuss the issues
and the topics that are important to you.
Right.
Just like we did this afternoon.
If you want to bring that to your campuses, make it happen.
Stay engaged with the White House through social media,
and you'll see some websites on there that
will allow you to do so.
Hold targeted onsite meetings here at the White House.
So I know, you know, it's a huge privilege to come here.
And we want to open up these doors to
as many folks as possible.
If you're able to bring 50 students,
50 advocates to the table, bring them all here for a day,
for an hour or two, I'll set up a meeting with you all with key
officials and we can talk about these issues in more depth.
Apply for a White House or White House Initiative
on AAPI internship.
The deadline for the Initiative internship is March 19th.
Sign up at WhiteHouse.gov/AAPI.
The White House internship, I believe the deadline is
January 19th or 20th.
So it's coming -- 22nd.
So please get on the ball on that.
So it's less than ten days away.
So if you want to start thinking about how you can get more
plugged in with what we're doing over here, it's a tremendous,
tremendous opportunity.
I think the folks that made this event possible are interns,
including Ernie over here, who was pretty much pulling
everything together last night at 2:00 in the morning,
just to make this all possible for you.
But to be a part of this experience,
even though it's unpaid, even though a lot of your work goes
unrecognized, I can guarantee you that you will come away from
this experience so inspired and so plugged in that
you will never forget it.
Organize an event on your campus, that's self-explanatory.
Sign up for a White House AAPI e-mail list serve.
All of you that are here today will be signed up automatically
so you can't get out of that one.
But if you're able to get your friends and your networks
engaged as well, you could do so at White House.gov/AAPI.
Write an op ed in your school newspaper.
This is often overlooked, especially in our generation.
But it goes a huge -- a long ways.
And so I think it can really have an impact.
Talk about your experience coming to the White House.
Talk about the issues that are important to you
and why it matters.
Write a blog post.
We'll try our best to submit it and post it on our blog.
But there's plenty of blogs out there where you can submit your
own stories, too.
And I'm sure people will want to hear it.
And the final thing I want to say is share your story.
You know, as I said earlier, change happens and real
difference happens here in the Beltway.
But it doesn't stop here.
It also happens in your cafeterias.
It happens as you walk to class with your classmate.
It happens in your classrooms.
It happens, you know, as you're, you know,
doing these round tables.
Whatever it might be, share your story,
talk to folks about what you experienced here.
Talk to your friends about your immigration story.
Talk to your friends about your education story or, you know,
civil rights.
Whatever it might be.
The more you're able to be a voice and an advocate, you know,
the better off our community will be as a whole.
And so with that, let me just close by saying that, you know,
this has been, as I said earlier,
probably the event that I have been most proud of, you know.
As I thought the first day I came here and walked through
these hallways, I said to myself,
I wanted to put together an event that will bring together
young people across this country and bring them into a room where
we could talk about ideas, where we could construct solutions for
the problems that we face on a day-to-day basis.
I want to think about how we can work with other communities to
move forward as a country.
Because this is our moment and our opportunity to really make
an impact on our communities.
It's very easy for us to be selfish, to live our own lives,
kind of stay within the lines and do what we normally do
without thinking about the people around us.
But the fact that you guys are all out
here today really says a lot.
And it says that you want to really be a vocal champion.
You know, I see myself, as I said earlier, in your seats,
not too long ago.
And because of that decision to actually take action and step up
and stand up, you know, I'm able to be here and I'm so honored
to be your liaison here in the White House
for the AAPI community.
And I can guarantee you that I will work hard every single day
to make you proud of that.
So please take this with you.
Please use my -- use me as a resource, you know.
You could feel free to say that you talked to the White House
today because you did.
You spoke with this administration.
And you have that authority to go back to your campuses and
make that fire and make that magic
happen on your own campuses.
The last thing I want to say is that we have put together these
executive orders for all of you, signed by the President.
I know we couldn't get the President out here,
but hopefully this will appease that to some extent.
So we've got one for every single one of you.
So on your way out, feel free to take one, frame it,
put it up on your wall, and, you know,
hopefully use this as a way to commemorate
your experience here.
And so with that, thank you all so much for coming to the first
ever White House AAPI Briefing for Young Americans.
(applause)