RECORDING: From the Margins to Margin of Victory: The Growing Power of AAPIs

Featuring over 20 million members, the AAPI community is among the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States with the power to affect real social change in elections. We are excited to chat with Christine Chen, Executive Director of APIAVote to discuss this organization’s important mission. Since 1996, APIAVote has been at the forefront of a rising movement to ensure AAPIs are represented and heard, leading to historic voter turnout and advancing equity for AAPI communities. In this conversation, Christine will discuss the landscape of the AAPI electorate, the importance of civic engagement for our communities, and the road ahead looking towards 2024.

Christine Chen

Christine Chen is a co-Founder and Executive Director of Asian Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote), one of the most trusted national, nonpartisan organizations. APIAVote’s mission is to work with local and state community based organizations (CBOs) to mobilize Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in electoral and civic engagement. Since 2007, APIAVote has been building power in AAPI communities by investing in their capacity and infrastructure to mobilize voters. This investment, as well as, proactively training and resourcing community leaders across the country, paid off in the 2020 election cycle and Census. Under Chen’s leadership, APIAVote strengthened and expanded APIAVote’s partners into 28 states and made two historical milestones; attracted, then candidate Joe Biden to speak directly to the AAPI electorate, a first in history for a Presidential nominee, and second, contributed to the groundwork that led to the highest AAPI voter turnout in history.

The unique framework Cultural Confidence® has been trademarked, which outlines the intersections of these areas:

Katy Mason

Katy is best known for encouraging and inspiring virtual beyond-surface-level participatory sessions, attracting repeat attendees seeking to practice collaboration. Her active engagements in global virtual sessions has led to virtual engagement tool kits, best practices and insights - the invaluable in-depth knowledge library for leaders and coaches actively refining their craft.Her childhood in Hong Kong sparked her love and appreciation for cultures and perspectives. Along the way, her training in design and research strengthened her superpower in uncovering patterns, themes and threads in human stories. Learning from perspectives and belief systems fuels her quest to build vibrant communities with individuals and organizations craving for iterative conversational spaces and re-connection to humanity. She is a trained UX researcher experienced in building usability interviews, scenarios, and scripts. Practitioner of empathic customer motivation discovery, transforming thought process and behavior into actionable insights and roadmaps to inform product dev and stakeholders on ‘what’ to build for the next version. Conversation Facilitator ✧ Interviewer ✧ Moderator ✧ UXR Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/katy-mason/ and Instagram @modernchi

Jeanie Chang

Jeanie Chang is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Founder of Your Change Provider, PLLC®, an interdisciplinary practice founded on solutions and her unique framework cultural confidence®. She is a bestselling author and an accomplished international speaker for corporations, community organizations, and colleges on topics such as burnout, resilience, mindfulness, stress, workplace wellness, and mental health conditions including anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Jeanie is also a corporate wellness and DEI consultant, executive leadership advisor, and clinical expert for college student organizations. Jeanie founded the national Cultural Confidence® program which she created to provide psycho-education in all sectors. She has presented her trademarked curriculum for corporations such as Cisco, Eaton, Hallmark, Lenovo, Lockheed Martin, National Football League, Salesforce, SC Johnson, and Truist. She has also spearheaded her program for non-profits including the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), the Council of Korean Americans (CKA), the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP), and The Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE). This year, Jeanie launched her own YouTube Channel called, "Noona's Noonchi" where she does a deep dive into Korean dramas from a mental health perspective. Her first book, “A is for Authentic: Not for Anxieties or for Straight A's”, is an international bestseller on Amazon. Jeanie is a Certified Mental Health Integrative Medicine Provider (CMHIMP) and a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP) with experience in grief and trauma. In addition, Jeanie holds specialized training in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).

Mental Health
Identity
Mindfulness
Resilience
The four elements seen the most in Jeanie's work.

Jeanie has delivered this curriculum-based program for diverse audiences and corporate clients.

Through the AAPI lens, Jeanie integrates Asian culture with mental health techniques to promote the Asian identity. The first session in this curriculum is the above.

During this chat you will learn and reflect on...

Understanding mental health and stigma
Discovering and unpacking our cultural identity - model minority myth, racial oppression and realize the mental health implications

In a recent report from The Trevor Project, 54% of AAPI LGBTQ youth reported discrimination based on their race/ethnicity in the past year while 63% of AAPI transgender and nonbinary youth reported discrimination based on their gender identity. How can we come together to support the LGBTQ+API community and embrace its many intersectionalities? We are thrilled to be joined in conversation with Kenrick Ross, Executive Director at the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), the largest LGBTQ+API organization in the United States, to discuss the organization’s mission and his personal journey.

Kenrick Ross

Kenrick Ross (he/him) is the Executive Director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), the nation’s leading organization empowering LGBTQ+ Asians and Pacific Islanders. He has spent the past two decades in socal impact leadership launching and leading new programs, initiatives, and startups, and stewarding organizations through transformative change and growth in staff, mission, services, and constituencies. He is passionate about social justice and entrepreneurship; civic engagement; intersectional diversity, inclusion, and equity; and inclusive sports, and he’s shared his thoughts on them as a panelist or presenter at more than 50 events for companies and organizations like Reuters, Dropbox, The LGBT Task Force, The Trevor Project, Stanford University, Johns Hopkins University, etc., and in media, such as Esquire, Gay City News, and Good Morning America. He is founder of Urban&Out, a network for LGBTQ+BIPOC professional and leadership development, and, more recently, chief evangelist for @LOVE, an LGBTQ+tennis platform. He was born in Guyana, raised in the NYC area, and currently lives in Newark, NJ with his husband Joseph, and cats, Kitty and Pet. He holds a BA in Politics from New York University, and an MS in Urban Policy and Leadership from CUNY-Hunter College.

This interactive workshop tackles common misconceptions about burnout and the unique factors contributing to this syndrome for remote teams. Yen Tan, co-founder of Kona, a burnout prevention platform, offers a number of solutions and tips to help folks name and tackle their own burnout. Afterwards, Yen leads an open discussion to fight against mental health stigma at work and inspire change.

Yen Tan

Yen is co-founder of Kona, the culture habit engine and manager copilot for remote teams. Yen's work on people-first leadership and well-being has been featured by The Guardian, Fortune, Yahoo, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business School, Forbes, and more. They've spoken at remote work conferences, numerous podcasts, and advised Fortune 10 companies on remote strategy. In their free time, Yen likes exploring LA's bookstores and boba shops and convincing their partner that they could use another plant.

The Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community is a large one with over 20+ million members according to the latest US census. Of that number, roughly 690,000 people identified as Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (NHPI) alone but almost 900,000 identified as NHPI in combination with another race. We are excited to sit down with Karla Thomas, Co-Founder of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC) to discuss how her organization is advancing racial equity for Pacific Islander communities, disaggregating Pacific Islanders and uplifting the Pacific Islanders in such a large racial umbrella.

Karla Thomas

Karla Thomas is the oldest daughter to her Samoan mother and Aymara father, who came to the U.S. from Vatia, Tutuila Samoa and Quime, Bolivia. She was raised on Serrano and Tongva land, in the city of San Bernardino, California. Karla serves as the Deputy Director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC) and has a public health background, holding a Master of Public Health with a focus on health policy. Prior to joining EPIC, Karla was co-founder and Policy Director of the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) Data Policy Lab at UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research. She is also a local organizer and co-founded the Pasifika Inland Empire Coalition for Empowerment (PIECE), which serves Pasifika or Pacific Islander families living in San Bernardino and Riverside counties through direct services and local advocacy. Karla is passionate about serving the communities she is a part of as an advocate in all spaces she enters.