Keynote Speaker

Miriam Yeung

Miriam W. Yeung is the executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF), the only national, multi-issue Asian and Pacific Islsnader women's organization in the country. NAPAWF's mission is to build a movement to advance social justice and human rights for APA women and girls and does so through grassroots community organizing and public policy advocacy. Currently, NAPAWF is engaged campaigns for reproductive justice, immigration reform, and human rights for human trafficking survivors.

Prior to this Miriam was the Director of Public Policy & Government Relations at the NYC LGBT Community Center. Miriam serves on the board of Generations Ahead and Queers for Economic Justice. She received her MPA from Baruch College and her BA from NYU.

Speakers

Andrea Ng

Andrea Ng is a Junior majoring in Media, Culture, and Communications in NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and minoring in Art History in the College of Arts and Science. She is particularly interested in gender studies and the representation of women in the media. Although the fashion industry objectifies women the most, Andrea is unable to stay away from anything aesthetically pleasing and hopes to break into the fashion industry working in styling or PR. As Co Editor-in-Chief of NYChic, NYU’s only student fashion publication, Andrea hopes to change the perception of women in high fashion and strongly vetoes any ideas misrepresenting women in the magazine. Andrea plans to go to Parsons School of Designs for her MA in Fashion Studies and hopes that one day, people will treat the fashion industry as a serious field and not everyone in the industry is narcissistic or materialistic.

APICHA

APICHA’s mission is to combat HIV/AIDS stigma and related discrimination, to prevent the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the Asian and Pacific Islander (A&PI) communities, and to provide care and treatment for A&PIs living with HIV/AIDS and their families. In the fall of 1989, six Japanese American women activists founded APICHA after being inspired by the People of Color AIDS Conference earlier that year. Two years later, with a grant from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Foundation and the fiscal sponsorship of the Family Health Project, APICHA hired its first two employees. By the fall of 1992, with additional support from the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation and a contract with N.Y.C., the staff had grown to six. APICHA was incorporated in December 1992, and granted tax-exempt status in May 1993. In February 1995, we moved into a small office in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. In July 2001, we moved into our current office in Lower Manhattan.

Barbara Lee

Barb Lee is the founder and President of Point Made Films, a documentary film company that focuses on various aspects of American identity.

Barb is the Director and Producer of the documentary film, Adopted, a feature length documentary that explores the grit rather than the glamour of international adoption. The film includes a companion DVD Adopted: We Can Do Better, which Barb and her team created as an educational teaching guide for today’s adoptive families. She is the Executive Producer of The Prep School Negro, a new documentary that explores how costly scholarships can be for young African American students who attend some of the most elite prep schools in America. She is also the Executive Producer of In 500 Words or Less, a documentary that follows 4 high school seniors through their senior year as they navigate the college admission process.

Barb is a Tar Heel! She attended the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and in 1988 earned a BA in Broadcast Journalism and a BA in Speech Communication.

Bethany Li

Bethany Li is an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) where she works primarily on housing and environmental justice issues with low-income Asian immigrant communities. Bethany graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, where she worked on housing policy and immigration issues and organized tenants in Washington DC?s Shaw neighborhood. Previously, at the Brennan Center for Justice, Bethany helped coordinate a national campaign to remove restrictions on federally-funded legal services programs. As a college student, Bethany was a founding member and chairperson of the National Asian American Student Conference (NAASCon). She received her undergraduate degree from Amherst College.

AALDEF, founded in 1974, is a national organization that protects and promotes the civil rights of Asian Americans. By combining litigation, advocacy, education, and organizing, AALDEF works with Asian American communities across the country to secure human rights for all.

Carla Ching

Originally a poet from the LA, Carla Ching stumbled upon pan-Asian performance collective Peeling at the Asian American Writers Workshop and wrote and performed with them from 1998-2001. Full-length plays include TBA (2g/Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center), Dirty (finalist for the 2006 Cherry Lane Mentor Project and the 2008 Ignition Festival at Victory Gardens), Big Blind/Little Blind (Ma-Yi Labfest 2008) and The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness (NAATF workshop 2009). Short plays include “Multicultural Education” (commissioned by Ma-Yi Theater Company/Ohio Theater), and “Dissipating Heat” (finalist for the 2005 Heideman Award from Actors Theatre of Louisville). Member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab and The Women’s Project Lab 2008-2010. Carla is the recipient of a 2008 Urban Artists Initiative fellowship, a 2009-2010 Teachers & Writers Collaborative Fellowship and a nominee for the 2009 Wasserstein Prize. She attended Envision 2009, Voice and Vision’s developmental retreat. BA, VassarCollege. MFA, Actors studio DramaSchool. Artistic Director of 2g. www.2g.org

Christina Seid

Christina Seid aka Christina of Chinatown has been nicknamed “Chinatown’s sweetheart”. Her family’s roots are in Chinatown and she stays actively involved. Neighbors and visitors alike have seen her around town or in the media presenting her positive views. It only made sense for her to proudly carry the word “Chinatown” in her name.

This entrepreneur is the owner of Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (CICF); which has been repeatedly voted best ice cream in New York City and stands as an unofficial landmark in the community. Christina recently created a small socially conscious cupcake line, designer reusable bags and a children’s bilingual book. “Saturdays in Chinatown” shows Chinatown through a child’s eyes and breaks down stereotypes while offering positive Asian role models and colorful illustrations.

Christina blogs about eateries, politics, boutiques; anything and everything Chinatown related. She gives you the real scoop on what is going on in the neighborhood. Community advocacy in the NYC area is a big part of her life. Serving on committees and boards in NYC, her generosity and advocacy in Chinatown and the APA community is laudable.

Christina of Chinatown hears the heartbeat of the community she loves so much and echoes it to her readers. She proudly embraces her culture and her community as a third generation Chinese American living out her dreams while working towards making changes in the world.

Contact info: www.christinaofchinatown.com, www.chinatownicecreamfactory.com

Christine Choy

Christine Choy is an educator, creative artist, and a pioneer Asian American film maker. She has produced/directed/photographed more than seventy works in various forms. Her works have been broadcasted on HBO, PBS, Sundance Channel, Life Time, NHK, and many other stations.

She is a full professor at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She served as a Chair of Graduate Film/TV Program, and taught at Yale, Cornell, and SUNY Buffalo. Choy has received over sixty international awards, including an Oscar Nomination. She was also a recipient of numerous fellow-ships, such as the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Asian Cultural Council, and the best cinematography award from the Sundance international Film Festival. She has been appointed as a member of the Fulbright com-mittee from 2005 to 2008.

Chyng Sun

Dr. Chyng Sun is a Clinical Associate Professor of Media Studies at McGhee Liberal Arts, School of Continuing and Professional Studies at New York University. Her research interests include media literacy; race, gender and sexuality in media; and audience reception. Sun is also a filmmaker. She created the documentaries Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood and Corporate Power (2001); Beyond Good and Evil: Media, Children and Violent Times (2003); and The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality, and Relationships (2008). Teamed with four scholars, Sun designed and conducted a large-scale research project to study the content of the most-rented pornographic movies of 2005. She is currently conducting research on pornography audiences with both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (large scale survey) methods.

De Guerilla

De is a Filipino and African-American community-based artist. Originally from San Diego, California he is currently residing in Boston, Massachusetts since 2006. He has diverse experience and training in Music, Visual, and Peforming Arts, but his work is grounded in Graphic Design, Community Organizing, and more recently Film Making. He is currently working with various organizations and initiatives in Massachusetts that focus on issues impacting the LGBT and Immigrant communities he is a part of - including Massachusetts Asians & Pacific Islanders for Health (MAP), Full Circle: New Media for Social Justice, the "Resist the Raids! Network (RTR!), and the Asian American Civic Association (AACA).

Dennis Chin

Dennis Chin is a Jersey-born, NYC-living, queer-identified, left-leaning Asian in the mix of local, state and federal struggles for progressive change for all people. At 25, he has already contributed to the movement as an organizer, collaborator and communicator with various organizations and collectives. He currently works at the Center for Community Change and is an active member of CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, Queers for Economic Justice, and Downetime, the young adult group of GAPIMNY: The Gay Asian Pacific Islander Men of NY. He has been featured as a keynote speaker for SERCAAL: South Eastern Regional Conference of Asian American Leaders in 2007, NYCAASC: The NYC Asian American Student Conference in 2008, and Brown University's Asian/Asian American History Month in 2009.

Dimple Rana

Dimple Rana is Gujarati Indian American womyn community organizer. She grew up with the Cambodian American community in Massachusetts and has been involved in multiple non-profits that serve Southeast Asian American youth and families. Dimple has worked on issues such as HIV/AIDS, education, social justice, anti-deportation, economic development, gang peacemaking, and cultural events. In 2002, she joined Providence Youth Student Movement’s campaign against deportation after many personal friends received orders of removal. Dimple moved to Cambodia from 2005 to 2007 to live and work with deportees. In March 2008, she co-founded Deported Diaspora. Dimple loves her Guju family and is always inspired by her friends and community.

Emery Huang, Baohaus

I’m 25-years old, an ABC, and the CEO of Baohaus; a restaurant dedicated to bringing legit Taiwanese street food to the NYC food scene. The vision for Baohaus is that we use traditional techniques like red-cooking/braising with new ingredients to create an evolved, modern, original way to experience Taiwanese flavors that are true to form. Our customers get Taiwanese food even the motherland can't.

The old Chinese spots used to rely on cheap labor and low quality ingredients that came off American grocery store shelves because that’s the situation they were stuck in when emigrating to a foreign country. But now that Asian cuisine has advanced far enough into the Western market, we have leveled the playing field by importing authentic Chinese ingredients from the motherland, cooking with Niman Ranch and Imperial Wagyu, and evolving the art form with new looks like cherry coke and moutai.

The second part of our vision for Baohaus is the atmosphere. We are golden-age hip-hop heads. Our joint is a place where people can listen to Nas or Biggie and eat good food. The team we’ve built at Baohaus reflects this. We’re loud, brash jokesters, and our chef-owner Eddie has no problem kicking a customer out for acting a fool. The only thing we are serious about is our food.

Fiona I. B. Ngô

Fiona I. B. Ngô is an Assistant Professor in the Asian American Studies Program and the Gender and Women?s Studies Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Ngô is currently writing Imperial Blues: Travel and Transnationality in the Age of Jazz, a book manuscript which examines race, sexuality, and imperial signifiers in New York?s music cultures during the Jazz Age. With Mariam Lâm and Mimi Thi Nguyen, she is co-editing a special journal issue on Southeast Asian diasporas. Ngô has published articles in Amerasia Journal and in the edited anthology, Embodying Asian/American Sexualities.

FiRE

Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE) was founded on April 14, 2007. It is part of the first overseas chapter of GABRIELA in the USA. FiRE is also a member organization of BAYAN-USA.

FiRE is a mass based women’s organization serving New York City and its surrounding areas. We are dedicated to global and local Filipina and Filipina American issues. We believe that class oppression is inextricable to the struggle of women; therefore we support and create women’s initiatives by fostering leadership, building alliances and mobilizing our immigrant and native-born community through critical education and learning. We are an anti-imperialist formation working in solidarity with the National Democratic movement of the Philippines. We connect the Filipino diaspora to the women’s struggle in the Philippines by organizing across class, gender, sexual identity, and age lines. Bringing woman-born and woman-identified people together, we challenge pervading stereotypes by creating self-defined Filipina identities.

Fronthy Nguyen

Fronthy Nguyen is the Outreach Coordinator at the New York Asian Women’s Center. She has been with NYAWC since July 2008. Fronthy is responsible for managing and conducting outreach activities for NYAWC. Fronthy received her Master’s Degree from The New School University.

The New York Asian Women’s Center helps women and their children overcome domestic violence and other forms of abuse by empowering them to govern their own lives. The Center provides a safe haven through multi-lingual support programs and shelter services. In addition, the Center works to raise public awareness about violence against women, advocates for the rights of survivors, and acts as an agent of social change.

Gary Okihiro

Gary Y. OkihirO is a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, where he was the founding director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. His research interests are Asian American studies and southern Africa. He is the author of nine books in U.S. and African history, six of which have won prizes, most recently of The Columbia Guide to Asian American History(Columbia University Press, 2001) and Common Ground: Reimagining American History (Princeton University Press, 2001). Professor Okihiro received a PhD in African history from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1976. He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Studies Association, and is a past President of the Association for Asian American Studies.

Glenda Bautista

Glenda Bautista is a technical product manager and systems architect, with a professional background in online publishing, rich media, and search technology. Having recently returned to her native NYC from San Francisco, Glenda has worked with the Filipino and Asian Pacific American (APA) community on both coasts over the last 15 years, most recently serving on the Board of Directors of Kearny Street Workshop -- the oldest multidisciplinary APA arts organization in the United States. She has held directorships in a diverse array of non-profit, grassroots, and student organizations on a local, state, and national level over the last 15 years, stemming from her experiences with social justice and advocacy as an undergraduate at The University at Albany (SUNY). A writer, journalist, and artist by education, her personal and professional mission is to bridge art and science through the creation of both media and technologies. She is currently pursuing a dual MBA/MS in Information Systems at Fordham, and is her very large and loving family's reigning karaoke champion.

Glenda Villajuan

Glenda Villajuan is a real estate investor, child advocate, and social entrepreneur. She is the owner of an Arbonne franchise, selling all natural, environmentally friendly health, beauty and skincare products. She also founded Great ExpectAsians, a greeting card company for the Asian American community. She has been featured in NY1 News, Newsday, ABC's Eyewitness News, The Miami Herald, Asians in America Magazine,Audrey Magazine among others.

She has served on the board of Filipino American Human Services, Inc., mentored students for Asian Professional Extension, organized a childrens fair for the Coalition for Asian Pacific Americans, written on child development for the Filipino Reporter, and has helped children with developmental challenges for various organizations including MHRA/Early Intervention, ICHAP and the Visiting Nurse Service of NY.

In 2003, she received the "Caring For Children" award from the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families and in 2007 she was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Asian Enterprise Magazine.

She earned her MA in Public Policy and a BA in Sociology form SUNY Albany.

Glenn Magpantay

Glenn D. Magpantay, Esq. is one of the nation’s foremost LGBT API leaders and activists. He is co-director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), a new national federation of Asian American South Asian, and Pacific Islander lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organizations.

He brings to this work years of working with local LGBT API groups. He is a former co-chair of the Gay Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New York, a political, educational, social, and peer-support group for gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning Asian and Pacific Islander men in the Greater New York Metropolitan Area.

Professionally, Glenn is a staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. He is a recognized authority on the federal Voting Rights Act and Asian American political participation, including bilingual ballots, election reform, minority voter discrimination, multi-lingual exit polling, and census). AALDEF has also filed briefs with federal and state courts in support of same-sex marriage and civil rights for lesbians and gays.

Glenn attended the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook on Long Island, and as a beneficiary of affirmative action, graduated cum laude from the New England School of Law, in Boston.

Grace Meng

Grace Meng is proud to have been elected to the New York State Assembly on the same historic day as President Barack Obama. She is the youngest Asian-American ever elected to the New York State Legislature, and currently the only Asian-American serving in the entire legislature. A dedicated public interest attorney and a grassroots political activist, Grace’s top priorities are making sure that all children are healthy and are able to receive a quality education, improving the quality of life for senior citizens, and helping small business owners achieve their American dream. During her first term in office, Assemblywoman Meng has emerged as a fighter for working families, children and senior citizens. She has already introduced over 40 bills in her first legislative session. She also authored the historic law that eliminates the offensive word "oriental" which still existed in some government documents. She has also been able to work with the Governor and the congressional delegation to secure millions of dollars in stimulus money for Flushing for affordable housing, youth employment, and transportation infrastructure. Her office has also helped thousands of constituents get much needed money from EITC and HEAP programs – directly putting money back into the pockets of working families and senior citizens. Grace graduated from Stuyvesant High School, has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a juris doctorate from Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Her legal career has included being a Partner at Yoon and Kim LLP and volunteering as a pro bono attorney for Sanctuary for Families, a domestic violence legal service provider in New York City. Committed to developing the next generation of leaders, Grace founded F.O.C.U.S. (Friends of the Community Unite & Serve) Community Access Center and is president of the Queens Chinese Women’s Association. She currently resides in Flushing with her husband, Wayne, two sons – Tyler and Brandon, and dog – Bounce.

Helen Gym

Helen Gym is a board member of Asian Americans United, where she has worked on campaigns around school reform, community development, and immigrant rights, including the founding of the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter school, an arts-based charter school in Philadelphia Chinatown and supporting the Asian student boycott of South Philadelphia High School, following anti-Asian attacks at the school. In 2006, she helped coordinate a successful national human rights campaign to bring justice to an immigrant woman who miscarried twin fetuses following a violent deportation attempt. Helen is also the founder of Parents United for Public Education – an independent parent advocacy group that has successfully increased public school investment and parental engagement with the School District’s budget process. She is also a founding member of the Public School Notebook, an education newspaper covering the Philadelphia public schools; and blogs at YoungPhillyPolitics.com and thenotebook.org about race and education issues. The Philadelphia Inquirer named Helen its 2007 Citizen of the Year for her work in public education reform and APAs For Progress named her one of their 2009 Unsung Heroes.

Henry Chang

Henry Chang is a New Yorker, a native son of Chinatown and the Lower East Side. His poems have appeared in the seminal Yellow Pearl anthology, and in Gangs In New York's Chinatown. He has written for Bridge Magazine, and his fiction has appeared in On A Bed Of Rice and in the NuyorAsian Anthology. His debut novel Chinatown Beat garnered high praise from the New York Times Book Review, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, among others.

Henry Chang is a graduate of CCNY (City College of New York). He has been a lighting consultant, and a Security Director for major hotels, commercial properties, and retail businesses in Manhattan.

He resides in the Chinatown area and has finished the third book of his "Chinatown Trilogy", "RED JADE", which will be available Fall 2010. His second book, "Year of the Dog" was published Fall 2008.

Jeff Cylkowski

Jeff Cylkowski is an abstract painter interested in perception and consciousness.

Of Korean descent, he was born in Chicago and adopted at 3 months to a Caucasian family from Minnesota. He grew up on skateboarding, punk rock and hip-hop, which provided his artistic foundation, and spent much of his youth and earl adulthood breakdancing, and painting walls throughout the world.

Jeff is a founding member of the internationally renowned MUL (MadeULook) crew from Chicago; an organization that focuses on large scale murals, youth leadership, and the preservation of graffiti/street art culture; and was also an active member of the flourishing San Francisco graffiti/street art movement of the late 90’s.

Over the last fifteen years, Jeff has been involved with several community art and youth leadership projects. He has facilitated workshops and lectured at various high schools, colleges, and conferences throughout the US. He has been featured in Hyphen magazine, MTV, and also been commissioned to do various projects for companies such as, Converse, Verizon, and Powerade.

He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Jerome Chang

Jerome Chang recently opened DessertTruck Works, a dessert cafe on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Prior to DT Works, he founded the DessertTruck, which opened in October 2007. Since night one, DessertTruck has been recognized its pioneering spirit and its delicious desserts. Adam Platt of New York Magazine (NYM) has proclaimed that there's no more fitting way to end a restaurant binge? than to visit DessertTruck and warned that the bread pudding is dangerously addictive.? Notable awards include "Best Hot Chocolate", (NYM), one of the ?100 Best Things Yelpers Ate in 2008, and Time Out New York 2008 Eat Out Award. DessertTruck also emerged victorious in a chocolate bread pudding episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay.

Jerome is a 2004 graduate of the French Culinary Institute's Classic Pastry Arts program. Prior to starting DessertTruck, he was pastry sous chef at Le Cirque. He considers his mentor to be Michael Zebrowski, whom he worked for at the Westin Governor-Morris hotel in Morristown, NJ. Jerome also interned at the River Cafe in Brooklyn.

Joseph Tien

Joseph is a founder and owner of Mantao Chinese Sandwiches, an eatery in midtown Manhattan specializing in Asian-inspired sandwiches made from a northern Chinese steamed bread called mantou. Mantao opened in mid-2009 and has been featured in multiple publications including the Village Voice and New York Magazine. Originally located in Tribeca and formerly known as Province Chinese Canteen, Joseph and his partner purchased the restaurant in late-2008 and reshaped it into its current form.

Joseph is also currently an associate with FLAG Capital Management, a private equity fund of funds, and a member of its international coverage team. With FLAG, he spends most of his time covering the Asian private equity market. Prior to joining FLAG, Joseph worked as an investment banking analyst in the technology group at UBS. While in college, Joseph spent time with Morgan Stanley, Millennium Capital Partners, and co-founded a boutique merchant banking firm Eastbridge Capital Partners.

Joseph holds a B.S. (Business) from the University of Southern California with concentrations in Finance and Entrepreneurship.

Kekoa

Kekoa, an artist of eclectic taste, identifies with a diverse cultural background comprising Mongolian, Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Portuguese and Irish decent. Most of his years were spent on the West Coast, where he developed a firm grasp on his identity as an Asian American. He sought out knowledge of his rich ethnic heritage as to not accept the mere “mutt” label. During his quest for understanding, he became aware of racial issues on a personal and professional level.

Throughout high school and college, Kekoa was a member of various Asian Pacific Islander organizations. As early as high school, he accepted the prestigious role of president in most of these groups. Under his leadership, many events and charities were created to help spread a positive image of these cultures.

Today, Kekoa operates as the founder of a small graphic design corporation and communications director for his church. He also serves as a part-time instructor for various after-school programs, with subjects ranging in graphic design, self-defense and Bible study. His focus is to influence the world through positive graphics and media, and become an advocate for justice by reaching out to other cultures on common ground – humanity.

Kit Ho

Kit Ho is a licensed clinical social worker and currently works in the position of Clinical Social Work Supervisor at the Bridge Mental Health Program in the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center. He has been practicing clinical social work at outpatient mental health and chemical dependency programs in New York since the year of 2000. He provides individual psychotherapy, family therapy, and case management to mostly Asian Americans and Chinese immigrants who encounter various mental health and/or addiction problems.

He specializes in working with adolescents and young adults who encounter multiple stressors including severe emotional disturbance, self-mutilation behaviors, drug abuse problem, parent-child conflict, and school truancy and/or drop-out.

He has also been conducting psycho-educational workshops on achieving mental health well being to Chinese immigrant community and parenting education workshops to English and Chinese-speaking parents raising adolescent children through presentations in high schools, churches, community agencies, public libraries, and a Chinese radio station.

Kristy Nguyen

Kristy Nguyen is the Executive Director of APEX, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of Asian American urban youth through one-to-one mentoring and educational programs. Kristy is responsible for raising awareness of the critical need for educational programs and services for the highly under-served population of inner-city Asian American youth. Kristy has been a long-standing advocate for providing rigorous academic opportunity and training for young people. Prior to joining APEX, she was Executive Vice President at Working in Support of Education (W!SE), where she was responsible for the development and oversight of the highly successful services division, which designed, implemented and managed educational programs for prominent clients. Additionally, over her 13-year tenure at W!SE, Kristy directed a number of programs that prepare students for college and the global workplace, including the Global Business Challenge and the award-winning Sanford I. Weill Institute for Lifelong Learning. Kristy earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. She has been a volunteer with the Institute for Vietnamese Culture and Education (IVCE) and the Long March Foundation in Beijing, China.

Linda Chan

Linda Chan grew up in Manhattan’s Chinatown and now lives in the Bronx. She is a contributing blogger at 8Asians.com. She also has her own blog, LindasTV.blogspot.com, where she sometimes writes about the dearth of APAs (and the general lack of diversity) on television. She is still mourning John Park’s departure from American Idol. Linda works in television research in NYC and will be attending law school in the fall, much to the happiness and utter relief of her parents.

Loraine Sammy

Loraine Sammy is an activist and artist in the media industry, based out of Vancouver, Canada. Along with co-creator Marissa Minna Lee, she developed racebending.com: a grassroots protest group focused on whitewashing, discrimination and the lack of media representation for marginalized groups. An observer and a participant in the postmodern overlap between fanworks and source material, she challenges privilege within both and looks at the subsequent effects on overall art and internet cultures. When not working on racebending.com, Loraine aspires to illustrate a graphic novel, reach Expert level on Beatles RockBand, and consume dim sum in cities across Canada/America.

Luis Francia

Luis H. Francia is the author of several books. His poetry collections include Museum of Absences and The Arctic Archipelago and Other Poems. The Beauty of Ghosts, will be published this year, as well as History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos. His Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago (2001) won both the 2002 PENCenter Open Book and the 2002 Asian American Writers literary awards. He edited BrownRiver, WhiteOcean: An Anthology of Twentieth Century Philippine Literature in English, and co-edited Fiippin’: Filipinos on America, and Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999. He teaches Philippine-American Literature at Hunter College and Tagalog Language and Culture at New York University.

Marie Tae McDermott

Marie Tae McDermott was born in Jin-ju, South Korea and adopted to the United States when she was six months old. She received her B.A. in Anthropology from FordhamUniversity winning the Rev. J. Franklin Ewing, S.J. Memorial Award in Anthropology. In 2007, she traveled to South Korea on a St. Edmund Campion Institute grant to research international adoption practices. Marie is now a graphic designer and creator of ART and SEOUL, a multi-disciplinary magazine that showcases artists from Korea as well as adoptee artists.

Marissa Martin

Marissa Martin also known as Oh, Sun Hee, was adopted from Korea when she was six months old. She grew up in New Hope, Pennsylvania and attended AmericanUniversity graduating with a degree in Sociology and Communications.

Currently Marissa serves as President and Director of the Teen Mentorship Program for Also-Known-As, Inc., a NYC non-profit organization offering post adoption services for International Adoptees. Marissa has always been interested in social policy and post adoption services and has been actively involved in the international adoptee community for over 9 years. She was a counselor, Assistant Director and Co-Director of the CIT Program 2000-2004 at Holt Heritage Camp. She also served as Assistant Director in Seattle for 3 years at the KIDS Teen Camp.

Marissa traveled to Korea in 2005 to study at a Korean University and teach English. While in Korea, Marissa met her birth mother and several members of her birth family. Currently Marissa works as a Sales Operations Analyst at Chartis International.

Mary Shen

Mary Shen is currently a junior at New York University, studying economics and public health at the College of Arts and Science. She became interested in Asian American Mental Health after viewing Ms. Pearl Park’s documentary film, “Can,” which chronicles the obstacles that a Vietnamese American man and his family face as he struggles with bipolar disorder. Ms. Shen hopes to pursue a career in developmental economics and/or public health. She is moderating “Breaking the Silence: Asian American Mental Health.

Melissa Zhang

Meng (Melissa) Zhang holds interests in the food, arts, and social media sectors. A visual artist by nature, her time is now consumed by food blogging, helping with cupcake events, and pursuing a career in food PR and marketing. In her free time, she still likes to eat, bake, and draw.

Melissa is a soon-to-be graduate from the College of Arts and Science at NYU, where she is pursuing a BA in Psychology, with a double minor in Studio Art and Asian/Pacific/American studies. She is currently an Art Therapy intern at a school for Autistic children, and plans to continue with psychology and/or art therapy in the future if food ever loses its appeal.

Nadira Persaud

Nadira Persaud is a first generation American from an Indo-Caribbean family. Born and brought up in New York City, NY, she graduated from CUNY Hunter College with a BA in Sociology and Urban Studies. She began working within the South Asian community as a youth with South Asian Youth Action! Nadira is currently a Masters of Social Work student at Adelphi University-Manhattan Campus. She continues to be involved in the South Asian community by volunteering with SALGA's Youth Support Group.

Nancy Nguyen

Nancy Nguyen is the Delaware Valley Branch Manager of Boat People SOS (BPSOS), a national non-profit organization that works to empower, organize, and equip Vietnamese individuals and communities in their pursuit of liberty and dignity. Ms. Nguyen has been working closely with Vietnamese parents, students and the broader coalition of anti-violence advocates since the December 3rd attacks.

Nina Sharma

Nina Sharma is a writer and teacher living in New York City. She is currently completing her thesis project at Columbia University, in the Liberal Studies, American Studies program, concentrating on immigrant and diaspora studies. Prior to, Nina worked at the Asian American Writers' Workshop as the Programs Coordinator, where she helped plan readings, writing workshops, and craft and teach youth programs.

Niraj Delhiwala

Niraj Delhiwala is an Assistant Project Director at The Child Center of New York (CCNY) Clinical Consultation Program. He is graduated with a Master of Social Work in Clinical Social Work at New York University and is licensed to practise in state of New York.. At CCP, Niraj provides clinical consultation to the child protective workers on cases dealing with mental health, domestic violence and substance abuse. He also provides counseling and training to the workers on individual basis to deal with stress and secondary trauma. Niraj is also working as a therapist at the Asian Outreach Project at the Child Center of NY where he provides culturally informed long term psychotherapy to Asian children, adolescents, adults and families struggling with mood disorders, personality disorders, psychotic disorders, anxiety disorders and adjustment disorders and dealing with severe psychosocial stressors like family discord, marital issues, poverty, occupational stressors and medical issues.

Olympia Moy

Olympia Moy is a Steering Committee member of Q-Wave, an organization for people of Asian Pacific-Islander descent who identify as lesbian, gay, female bisexual, or transgender and for anyone who is questioning her identity or sexual orientation. Olympia also works with Lunar New Year for All, the group that organized the first-ever contingent of LGBT Asians, family and friends in NYC Chinatown's Lunar New Year Parade in February 2010. She also leads the Asian Pride Project, an online resource and oral history project that presents Asian-language stories and resources for parents and family members of LGBT Asians and Pacific Islanders. Olympia graduated from Princeton University in 2005 and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2007.

Patrick Rosal

Patrick Rosal's most recent poetry collection, My American Kundiman, won the Association of Asian American Studies 2006 Book Award in Poetry and the Global Filipino Literary Award. Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive, won the 2003 Members' Choice Award from the Asian American Writers' Workshop and his chapbook, Uncommon Denominators, won the Palanquin Poetry Prize. He was awarded a 2009Senior Fulbright grant as a U.S. Scholar to the Philippines and his poems and essays have appeared widely in journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Ninth Letter, The Literary Review, Black Renaissance Noire, Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Non-Fiction, the Beacon Best and Language for a New Century. He has read his poems and performed around the United States, Argentina, the UK, the Philippines and South Africa. His poems have been featured in film and media projects screened in Germany, Italy, Argentina, New York and Los Angeles. His various visiting appointments include University of Texas, Austin, Centre College, Penn State Altoona, and University of Southern Maine. He currently teaches in Drew University's MFA program and lives in Brooklyn.

Pauline Park

Pauline Park (paulinepark.com) is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (nyagra.com), which she co-founded in 1998. Park led the campaign for the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002. In 1997, Park co-founded Queens Pride House (a center for the LGBT communities of Queens) and Iban/Queer Koreans of New York, serving as coordinator of Iban/QKNY until 1999, and co-founded the Out People of Color Political Action Club (OutPOCPAC) in 2001, currently serving as co-president of the club. In 2005, she became the first openly transgendered grand marshal of the New York City Pride March. Park did her Ph.D. in political science at the University of Illinois. She has written widely on LGBT issues and has conducted transgender sensitivity training sessions for a wide range of organizations. Park was the subject of "Envisioning Justice," a documentary about her life and work that premiered in 2008.

Ramon Gil

Ramon Gil is the award-winning owner and managing/creative director of Fresh Concentrate LLC, a multicultural marketing and graphic design company in Murray Hill. He has taught at the Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. He has also led and organized marketing seminars for various organizations including the Workshop in Business Opportunities, The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, The NY American Marketing Association, The Asian-American Entrepreneurs Network, and the National Minority Business Council, the last two of which he is a member of the Board of Directors.

He has been featured in the Artists' and Graphic Designers' Market, the Society of Illustrators West Annual and Show, Stephen Romaniello's The Perfect Digital Portfolio, Crain's New York Business, The Chamber of Commerce's Business Matters, PBS' Asian America, Altra Magazine, CrèmeMagazine, The CSULB Beach Review and most recently in Liz Lynch's book Smart Networking. In 2000, he illustrated Party Train, a storybook for children with Autism.

Is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach.

Ray Brijmohan

Ray Brijmohan is managing partner and co-owner of 2 Techs Co., a full service IT consulting firm providing service to small and medium sized businesses in the NY metro area. He has worked at multiple levels within the IT industry from corporate consulting, reseller and consumer giving him a rounded view of the way businesses operate and maximize value from technology investments.

He began his entrepreneurial career out of college with great aspiration to achieve his dreams. In his career as a technology consultant of over 14 years he has worked with companies as small as a startup to companies as established as fortune 500 media conglomerates. Now he heads initiatives for business development, strategies and emerging technologies.

Raymond J. Lee

Raymond J. Lee feels honored to be invited to be a part of the 4th NYC Asian American Student Conference. GO ASIAN POWER! Broadway: Mamma Mia! (Eddie). Off-Broadway: Applause (CityCenter Encores!), Two Gentlemen of Verona (The Public/NYSF), Victor Woo (NY Fringe). Regional: The Fantasticks (Matt), The King and I (Chululongkorn; MillMountain). Workshops/Readings: Bruce Lee: Journey to the West, Honeymoon in Vegas, Shrek the Musical, Tears from Heaven. Film: Ghost Town. TV: "Fame" (NBC). His most recent film, THE MIKADO PROJECT, will have its debut at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival on May 1. He has also performed with orchestras at Carnegie Hall and the KennedyCenter and is a proud graduate of Northwestern University (RTVF). Ray would like to thank Victoria and everyone at NYCAASC for making him feel so welcome. Ray would also like to thank his wonderful friends and family, especially Robbi, for always keeping him grounded and supporting him through thick and thin. www.raymondjlee.com.

Sarah Chung

Sarah Chung is the founder and CEO of Periscope Solutions, a provider of advisory services for small businesses in the areas of strategy, marketing and operations. Incorporated in 2001, Periscope has worked with entrepreneurs and small-medium organizations to define areas for growth and provide strategic and execution support to further key initiatives such as business planning, fundraising, product development, marketing, sales and business development. The company has developed workshops for corporations, such as the Union Square Hospitality Group, and community organizations, such as Women's Venture Fund, Asian Women in Business and Queen's Economic Development Center. Ms. Chung also serves as a consultant to NYDesigns, a nonprofit organization providing support services to growing design firms. She serves on the board for the Korean American Community Foundation.

Sarah holds a B.S. from Boston University College of Communications in Public Relations and a minor in East Asian Studies.

Sel J. Hwahng

Sel J. Hwahng, Ph.D. is currently a Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Professor at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University, and was a Research Investigator on the New York Transgender Project at the Institute of Treatment and Services Research, National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. They have received several awards, grants, and fellowships including an Independent Research Investigator Development Award from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, the U.S. National Institutes of Health Loan Repayment Program for Health Disparities Research, an International Scholarship from the International AIDS Society, and a U.S. National Institutes of Health National Service Research Award and Postdoctoral Training Fellowship in Drug Abuse Research. Publications include over 15 articles and book chapters in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. They have also co-authored reports on trans/gender-variant people in Africa and Latin America, a white paper on trans/gender-variant health disparities research, and are currently editing a book volume on mass rape systems during armed conflict.

Sonjia Hyon

Sonjia Hyon received her B.A. in ethnic studies and communications at Mills College in Oakland, CA, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research interests include: Asian American film and literature, American popular cultures, and critical race theory. She is also the former festival director of the Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

Suki Terada Ports

Suki Terada Ports, a Morningside Heightser most of her life, raised her three children there. An education major, AB, Smith College, she met her husband Horace (Hotz) Ports, Jr teaching after graduation at Robert College,Istanbul. Hotz’ US Army draft duty in Augusta, Georgia taught them about the segregated South - their interracial marriage was illegal. Back in NYC, seeing the overcrowded school their children would attend, Suki’s advocacy activities began. Appointed to the local school board she fought to replace the overcrowded school and neighborhood faculty desiring a quasi-private school in Columbia’s environs. Southern life gave Suki the backbone to fight northern school segregation,seeking to build schools with integration potential. Suki and friends successful defense of Morningside Park against Columbia’s gym/ROTC encroachment got them jailed in 1968, and two years in court. Upon Hotz’ melanoma death, she eventually worked to prevent HIV/AIDS in communities of color, particularly among women. She helped to found Minority Task Force on AIDS, the National Minority AIDS Council, APICHA, Iris House, Family Health Project, VOW, and helped the new AIDS programs at the American Indian Community House and the HIV Law Project. On many Boards she’s been recognized in her battle against cultural and linguistic ignorance fueled by racism in the lack of parity in funding and public health policy.

Susan Becker

Susan Becker was adopted from Seoul, Korea at the age of 41/2 months. She was raised in Northern New Jersey with strong ties to the Korean American Adoptee community attending regional cultural events and camps since she was a baby. Susan visited Korea for the first time in 1995 when she was 11 years old. She has returned 6 more times since then, most recently to study the Korean language at Ewha University and to attend the 2007 IKAA Gathering. Susan is a former board member of Also-Known-As, Inc., a non-profit organization for international adult adoptees in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. She currently volunteers with Also-Known-As' Youth Mentorship Program and works as an Administrative Assistant in New York City.

Tazuko Shibusawa

Dr. Tazuko Shibusawa, MSW, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the New York University Silver School of Social Work. Dr. Shibusawa?s research focuses on aging among vulnerable populations. Her research includes intimate violence among older couples; HIV risk among older drug users; and intergenerational relationships and psychological well being among Asian-American elders. Dr. Shibusawa?s clinical experiences have been in the areas of geriatric, psychiatric and school social work. Dr. Shibusawa is a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Scholar and received her MSW and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Teresa Williams-León

Dr. Williams-León's research has focused on the complex and dynamic nature of multiple identities among Asian-descent Americans. Her teaching and research specializations are in ethnic and multiethnic/multiracial identity development, communities and institutions, race and ethnic relations, popular culture, language, gender, and sexuality. Williams-León has published numerous articles and book chapters.

She co-edited, with Professor Velina Hasu Houston of USC., the special issues of Amerasia Journal (1997, Vol. 23, No. 1) titled, "No Passing Zone: The Artistic and Discursive Voices of Asian-Descent Multiracials," which has now become part of Amerasia's classic series. She co-edited an anthology with Cynthia L. Nakashima of UC Berkeley titled, "The Sum of Our Parts: Mixed Heritage Asian Americans" (Temple University Press, 2001).

She has taught some of the first classes on multiracial/biracial identity at UC-Santa Barbara, UCLA, and CSUN.

In 2002, Teresa Williams-Leon was awarded the Prism Award from the National Hapa Issues Forum for her contributions to multiracial identity scholarship. In 2007, she won CSUN's Outstanding Faculty Award & in 2009, she was recognized for her commitment to international education with the "Outstanding Service Award" by the Omega chapter of Phi Beta Delta (the international scholar's society).

Terrence Gong

Terrence Gong is the co-founder of DowneTime, a NYC-based support group for young queer Asian men/trans folk, and is currently serving as the Associate Chair for DowneTime's parent organization, GAPIMNY (Gay Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New York). Full-time, Terrence works as an Advertising Finance Manager at Time Inc, where he is also active as the Events Chair of the Time Inc. Asian American Association. This fall, Terrence will be starting the MBA program at Harvard Business School, and is looking forward to returning to student group Asian & LGBT on-campus programming.

Thomas Yang

Thomas is one of the co-founders and partners of the NYC Cravingstruck. NYC Cravings is a Taiwanese food truck based on a familyrecipe. The idea was incubated in college and the business began in April of 2009. It has been featured in The New York Times, GQmagazine, MSNBC and other publications.

Victoria Chau

Victoria Chau is a junior at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study with a concentration in sociology and theatre. She is a Workshop Coordinator for this year’s 4th annual New York City Asian American Student Conference for Asian Heritage Month, the Founder and President of Asian American Theatre Alliance at NYU, and an officer member of Gallatin’s Dean’s Team for Recruitment. She is a graduate of CentralHigh School and is a former staff member and always supporter of the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia. She hopes to go to graduate school and aspires to become the first Asian American actress to win an Academy Award and to utilize her celebrity to bring attention to and protest racial discrimination within the entertainment industry in honor of Anna May Wong’s legacy and all people of color.

Wayne Ho

Wayne Ho, executive director of the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families, joined CACF in August 2004. He is responsible for leading the nation’s only pan-Asian children’s advocacy organization by overseeing agency administration, program oversight, board relations, staff supervision, community partnerships, and fundraising to improve the health and well-being of Asian Pacific American children and families. He serves on the board of directors of Coro New York Leadership Center, Human Services Council, New York Foundation, and Partnership for After School Education (PASE). To ensure that Asian Pacific American needs are being represented, Wayne is a member of the NYS Governor’s Children’s Cabinet Advisory Board, NYS Office of Children and Family Services’ Internal Review Board, NYC Citizen Review Panel, Immigration Advisory Board of the NYC Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), and Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Multicultural Audience Development Initiative. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business of New York University. Previously, Wayne was the administrator of out-of-school time programs for San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), which was recognized as a model after school partnership by the California Department of Education during his tenure. He also conducted policy analysis for ACS on options for public and non-profit agencies to expand child care and worked with the Blue Ridge Foundation New York on performance management systems for start-up non-profits. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Wayne founded several volunteer-based programs to empower youth of color to pursue higher education and to become community advocates. Wayne received his bachelor degree from UC Berkeley and his Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He also completed the New American Leaders Fellowship Program of the Coro New York Leadership Center and New York Immigration Coalition. Wayne received a Making a Difference Award from the Family Health Project in 2008.

Wei Chen, Duong Ly, Bach Tong and Hao Truong

Wei Chen, Duong Ly, Bach Tong and Hao Truong are all current students at South Philadelphia High School. They and more than 50 of their classmates drew national headlines and international attention when they staged an 8-day boycott of their school following repeated physical assaults and harassment. They courageously testified before school district, city and state officials raising concerns over the failure of the school to address long-standing safety concerns for Asian immigrant students. They’ve succeeded in raising citywide attention to issues of violence for all students and have worked closely with other student groups and community members to urge strong attention to the responsibility of adults to address anti-immigrant/anti-Asian violence in schools. Wei Chen, who formed the Chinese Student Association at South Philadelphia High School, following violence last year, was recently awarded the Princeton Prize in Race Relations, granted to a high school senior doing outstanding work in advancing the cause of positive race relations.

Yunah Hong

Yunah Hong is an award-winning filmmaker, based in New York City. She grew up in Seoul, Korea.

She moved to New York to do graduate work in 1985. There she saw Anna May Wong in Joseph von Sternberg’s Shanghai Express. Though she is marginalized in the film as a Chinese and a prostitute, Hong perceived her as a beautiful, independent, gutsy American woman unlike any women she had known in Korea. She embarked on a quest to find out what Anna May Wong had been like as a person behind her cinematic image.

Yunah Hong has made eight films. All of them focus, in one way or another, on Asian American women. Between the Lines: Asian American Women’s Poetry (2001) is a one-hour documentary that weaves together autobiographies and readings by 16 poets. Becoming an Actress in New York (2000) follows three hopefuls as they trek to auditions, work with coaches, strive to be noticed in workshop productions and labor at day jobs. She has made several experimental films, including Memory/all echo (1990), based on the work of multimedia artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.