Through Passion and Dedication: How the AAPI Democratic Club of San Diego Fights for Democracy10/20/2024 Afina Chenmei Liang (Editor's note: Afina Chenmei Liang is a high school student from the Class of 2026 at The Canyon Crest Academy. Afina is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) SAN DIEGO — “I always kind of joke that I want someone to take my job. Ideally, in my mind, a young woman. I think we in our community need to elevate women a lot better than we do right now,” said Indroneal Banerjee when asked about how he thinks of his position as the president of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Democratic Club of San Diego County. Banerjee is no doubt a busy individual, responsible for caring for his family and elderly parents every day in addition to his volunteer position as the president of the AAPI Democratic Club, the San Diego County Democratic Party’s AAPI affinity group. What keeps him going might be his passion for democracy and hope for this country.
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Noah Lee (Editor's note: Noah Lee is a high school student from the Class of 2026 at The Cambridge School. Noah is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) SAN DIEGO — Kyle Tianshi, an 18-year-old from San Diego, reads off the comments aloud, one by one.
“Someone commented ‘Asian privilege,’ and someone replied with ‘forced Asian privilege, every Asian friend I have was forced to excel by their parents.’ Some person said ‘Koreans are the best,’ which is a little off, since I’m Chinese. Someone said ‘affirmative action scholarship.’” Online Asian Grocery Market Weee! Credits Customer-Centric Approach for Sharp Rise in Busines10/4/2024 Joy Ma (Editor's note: Joy Ma is a high school student from the Class of 2025 at The Torrey Pines High School. Joy is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) SAN DIEGO — The online Asian grocery market Weee! has witnessed significant proliferation since its founding in 2015. The Fremont, Calif.-based startup is now valued at $4.1 billion.
Founded by CEO Larry Liu, Weee! started as a group-buying company on the Chinese instant messaging app WeChat. According to Executive Associate Yiyi Liu (no relation to Larry), the company “was inspired by a $10,000 collective purchase of Pacific cod fish by a WeChat group.” In 2017, recognizing the limitations of the group-buying model, Larry Liu pivoted Weee! to a direct-to-consumer grocery delivery service. Afina Chenmei Liang (Editor's note: Afina Chenmei Liang is a high school student from the Class of 2026 at The Canyon Crest Academy. Afina is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) SAN DIEGO — In 2022, Kent Lee was elected to San Diego City Council with over 60% of the votes, becoming only the fourth elected official in the City of San Diego’s history. In becoming the representative for District 6, which includes heavily Asian American communities like Convoy and Mira Mesa, he succeeded in keeping Asian political voices heard. However, the story behind his campaign is unconventional—he had never planned to run for office.
Lee was born in West Covina, Calif. to ethnic Chinese immigrants from Vietnam and Myanmar. Now, Lee and his family have resided in San Diego for over 15 years. Lee’s journey started in 2007, when he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California San Diego, double majoring in economics and biology. Throughout his college years and career, Lee worked with numerous non-profit organizations such as the Pacific Arts Movement (which promotes Asian and Asian American cinema), the San Diego API Coalition, and the Asian Business Association of San Diego. Justin Zhang (Editor's note: Justin Zhang is a high school student from the Class of 2025 at The Canyon Crest Academy. Justin is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) SAN DIEGO — GeneGoCell is a biotechnology start-up company based in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Bernardo, which specializes in genome editing verification for cell gene therapy field. They provide tests to ensure the quality, precision and safety of genome editing products. The company aims to detect genotoxicity, or the ability of substances to damage cell DNA, in their clients’ products, ensuring safety to consumers.
Elizabeth Zhang-Chen founded GeneGoCell in November 2020. Her husband, Aaron Zhang-Chen, serves alongside her as Chief Technology Officer. Justin Zhang (Editor's note: Justin Zhang is a high school student from the Class of 2025 at The Canyon Crest Academy. Justin is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) Alliance of Chinese Americans San Diego (ACA) held its sixth annual graduation ceremony on Aug. 18th. The event celebrated the accomplishments of 91 Asian American middle school, high school and college students who completed a diverse range of civic-engagement internships over the summer, such as public service internships within government offices, journalism internships and community service internships. Many students were also recognized for their own community service projects.
Ling (Editor's note: Ling is an ACA member who has authored multiple blogs covering events organized by ACA. ) August 15th. The first Friday of the school year. 4 PM. CCA High School. Cars lined up in a long queue, slowly exiting the school. Even half an hour after the final bell, the campus was still bustling with students, as if the real action began after school. Stepping into this prestigious San Diego high school, ranked among California’s top three, I immediately sensed a different atmosphere, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
In the library conference room, a workshop was underway. Despite the presentation is in English, 99% of the audience—students and parents—were of Chinese descent. This “Mental Health Face-to-Face” event was organized by Chinese students and parents, sponsored by the Alliance of Chinese Americans (ACA) San Diego, and open to all. Tonight’s special guests included two mental health counselors and three CCA graduates currently attending top universities, all of whom were Asian women. Justin Zhang (Editor's note: Justin Zhang is a high school student from the Class of 2025 at The Canyon Crest Academy. Justin is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) leaders from around the country emphasized the importance of data disaggregation during a webinar organized by the non-profit AAPI Data, showcasing their AANHPI Community Data Explorer tool. The leaders presented insights gained from disaggregated data and explained how that data has supported service of their communities.
Disaggregated data is data which has been broken down into more detailed sub-categories. For example, traditionally, data on things like average household income could present AANHPI as one aggregated category, reporting the average household income of all people who identify as AANHPI. Disaggregating that data would mean separating out subcategories, giving the average household income of Chinese Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Native Hawaiians, Indian Americans and so on. Joy Ma (Editor's note: Joy Ma is a high school student from the Class of 2025 at The Torrey Pines High School. Joy is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) SAN DIEGO — On June 24 the White House hosted an Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Pride Month convening to commemorate the achievements of queer people of AANHPI backgrounds. The event reflected the Biden-Harris administration’s stated commitment to helping the queer community in the United States, while acknowledging that queer people may face discrimination in different ways depending on their race, ethnicity, gender and other factors.
Noah Lee (Editor's note: Noah Lee is a high school student from the Class of 2026 at The Cambridge School. Noah is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) SAN DIEGO — The Karen Organization of San Diego hosted an oral history exhibition titled “Our Voice, Our Power” on June 21, concluding a year-long effort to collect stories from Myanmar refugees resettling in the United States.
Taking place on the organization’s 15th anniversary, the exhibition at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park involved the presentation of documents containing first-person stories of refugees fleeing from political tumult in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and their journey to the U.S. It concluded with a documentary produced by the Karen Organization (pronounced kah-REN) and other cultural performances. “Our community members from Burma carry a lot of stories — stories of happiness, stories of struggle and stories of their journey — and we’ve realized people are not really listening, and there’s not much opportunity for people to share these stories,” Nao Kabashima, director of the Karen Organization, said in an opening statement. Chenyang Rickard (Editor's note: ChenYang Rickard served as the president of ACA from 2021 to 2023. She attended the UCA Convention in Washington, D.C., representing ACA. Below is a memo she wrote after attending the convention. ) "If you don't respect us, you'd better expect us." Texas State Representative Gene Wu's powerful speech strongly resonated with more than 600 attendees from 34 states at the 4th Chinese Americans National Convention. Hosted by the United Chinese Americans (UCA), the four-day event in Washington, D.C., brought together delegates, including many youth representatives, to address pressing issues and advocate for the rights and interests of the Chinese American community.
Amy Choi, Emily Chong, Helena Jiang (Editor's note: Amy Choi, Emily Chong, and Helena Jiang are high school students from the Class of 2025 at the Canyon Crest Academy. They are working on a project titled "Mental Health Awareness for Asian American Youth," sponsored by ACA's mental health initiative. This is a memo the team wrote after attending the July API Coalition meeting. ) On the first of July, a meeting was hosted by the San Diego API Coalition with a special presentation by the County of San Diego’s Health and Human Services Agency, specifically the Behavioral Health Services branch. Two groups involved with the 2024 API Project for Community Advancement attended, in hopes of learning about and fostering connections with mental health support organizations in San Diego.
Katelyn Wang (Editor's note: Katelyn Wang is an undergraduate student in the Class of 2027 at Yale University. She is a recipient of the UCA Convention Travel Grant from ACA. Below is the memo she wrote after attending the convention in Washington, D.C. ) “IF YOU DON'T RESPECT US, YOU BETTER EXPECT US!"
These words from Texas state representative Gene Wu have stuck with me as a Chinese American. Last weekend, with sponsorship from the San Diego Alliance of Chinese Americans, I attended the 2024 United Chinese Americans (UCA) Convention in Washington D.C. This conference unified generations of Chinese Americans, and I felt a fiery hope that as the younger generation, we could and should use our voices to abolish barriers barring us from truly belonging in this country. This conference displayed the value of engaging in political action as a Chinese American—for our right now, the future, and our past. We fight for our positions in power, because there had once been laws excluding us from this country. We fight back with our fluent, strident voices to substantiate our citizenship because our parents were dismissed under guises of linguistic racism. We advocate our citizenship because we have seen what it means for the people before us to vote for the first time. We defend ourselves when wrongly accused of being “national security threats” because we know our parents did not leave their homes for this nation if they did not desire to build a safer, more loving future. Sydney Chan (Editor's note: Sydney Chan is a high school student from the Class of 2024 at The Bishop's School.. Sydney was a recipient of Scholarship for API Student Internship 2023 for API Student Journalism Internship. This is one of the three articles she wrote for the program)
Sydney Chan (Editor's note: Sydney Chan is a high school student from the Class of 2024 at The Bishop's School. Sydney was a recipient of Scholarship for API Student Internship 2023 for API Student Journalism Internship. This is one of the three articles she wrote for the program)
Kyle Tianshi (Editor's note: Kyle Tianshi is a high school student from the Class of 2024 at The Cambridge School. Kyle was a recipient of Scholarship for API Student Internship 2023 for API Student Journalism Internship. This is one of the three articles he wrote for the program)
Sarah Gao (Editor's note: Sarah Gao is a high school student from the Class of 2025 at The Canyon Crest Academy. Sarah was a recipient of Scholarship for API Student Internship 2023 for API Student Journalism Internship. This is one of the three articles he wrote for the program)
Kyle Tianshi (Editor's note: Kyle Tianshi is a high school student from the Class of 2024 at The Cambridge School. Kyle was a recipient of Scholarship for API Student Internship 2023 for API Student Journalism Internship. This is one of the three articles he wrote for the program)
Sydney Chan (Editor's note: Sydney Chan is a high school student from the Class of 2024 at The Bishop's School. Sydney was a recipient of Scholarship for API Student Internship 2023 for API Student Journalism Internship. This is one of the three articles she wrote for the program)
Amy Wang (Editor's note: Amy Wang is is a high school student from the Class of 2024 at Canyon Crest Academy and President of Asian Student Union. ASU organized the film screening and a discussion forum in March of 2023. The event was sponsored by ACA. ACA actively participates in programs that raise mental health awareness in youth.)
Katelyn Wang (Editor's note: Katelyn Wang was a recipient of ACA Civic Engagement Scholarship 2023. She interned at Congresswoman Sara Jacobs' office in the summer of 2023)
Kyle Tianshi Editor's note: Kyle Tianshi is a high school student from the Class of 2024 at The Cambridge School. Kyle was a recipient of Scholarship for API Student Internship 2023 for two programs - Journalism and Community Service Project. ACA thanks Kyle for this special report. ACA wishes to express sincere gratitude to San Diego API Coalition, San Diego Chinese Women's Association, Qualcomm, The Hom Family Fund, The Avery Tsui Foundation, and numerous community individuals, for their generous grants or donations that make this program possible. Jenna Park About the author - Jenna Park is a college student, Class 2023, at University of San Diego. She was a recipient of ACA Scholarship for this research project. Jenna was interested in the history of the thriving mini Koreantown (K-Town) in San Diego. This is her story based on her research and interviews of business owners in the Convoy District.
About the Program - This story is part of a research series aimed to document the history of Asian immigrants in business. This program is in collaboration with Dr. Yi Sun, Professor of History Department, University of San Diego. Dr. Sun advises the student interns in topic selection, interview preparation, and final research paper and presentation. ACA is deeply grateful to Dr. Sun for her dedication to this program and her care for the API community. Jenna also received guidance from Dr. David Miller, who directs the internship program in the History Department, USD. Kyla Le About the author - Kyla Le is a college student, Class 2025, at University of San Diego. She was a recipient of ACA Scholarship for this research project. Kyla was interested in learning more about City Heights, a neighborhood in San Diego where Kyla grew up. This is her story based on her research and interviews of three business owners in City Heights.
About the Program - This story is part of a research series aimed to document the history of Asian immigrants in business. This program is in collaboration with Dr. Yi Sun, Professor of History Department, University of San Diego. Dr. Sun advises the student interns in topic selection, interview preparation, and final research paper and presentation. ACA is deeply grateful to Dr. Sun for her dedication to this program and her care for the API community. Kyla also received guidance from Dr. David Miller, who directs the internship program in the History Department, USD. Riley Lim About the author - Riley Lim is a college student, Class 2024, at University of San Diego. He was a recipient of ACA Scholarship for this research project. Riley was interested in the history of the businesses owned by Chinese immigrants. This is his story based on his research and interviews of business owners in the Convoy District.
About the Program - This story is part of a research series aimed to document the history of Asian immigrants in business. This program is in collaboration with Dr. Yi Sun, Professor of History Department, University of San Diego. Dr. Sun advises the student interns in topic selection, interview preparation, and final research paper and presentation. ACA is deeply grateful to Dr. Sun for her dedication to this program and her care for the API community. Riley also received guidance from Dr. David Miller, who directs the internship program in the History Department, USD. |