Alliance of Chinese Americans San Diego Honors 91 API Youth for Civic Engagement

 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.

In attendance was Representative Sara Jacobs, one of the youngest women to ever serve in Congress. Jacobs, who represents California’s 51st Congressional District, commended the interns for successfully completing their programs and acknowledged their significant contributions to the community. She also gave the interns some advice for the future.

“Try to focus on what you want to do, not who you want to be. You can do a lot from lots of different places, and you could be someone really important and do absolutely nothing,” Jacobs said. “So find the problem that you really want to help solve, and learn everything you can about this problem. Learn about it from every different angle. Think about all the different solutions… if you stay focused on the problem you're trying to solve, on what you want to do, you're going to be fulfilled, and you’re going to really be impactful.”

The students were then awarded certificates of recognition from Jacobs’ office and the office of San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, a representative of whom was in attendance at the ceremony. After the awarding of certificates, the students gave presentations on their work.

First, the public service interns who worked in government offices presented insights from their work over the summer. Hailey Hua worked in Jacobs’ office, where she completed two research projects, attended press events and shadowed staff, among other responsibilities. Sinead Kiley spent over 80 hours with Lawson-Remer’s office. Katherine Ge interned with Representative Scott Peters of California's 50th Congressional District, while Emily Wong worked for Representative Mike Levin of California’s 49th Congressional District.

The journalism interns—Afina Liang, Justin Zhang, Joy Ma and Noah Lee—shared the stories they worked on, including a piece on San Diego City Councilmember Kent Lee, a piece on the food delivery service Weee! and a piece on how an Asian American non-profit’s online database helped leaders around the nation assist their communities.

The community service interns then presented their diverse array of projects aimed at improving their communities. A few of their many incredible projects were:

• A team led by Emily Zhang talked about their Community Vitals Sign Workshops. Their project focused on educating Asian American youth and seniors about vital signs, such as body temperature and pulse rate, through targeted workshops, enhancing health awareness in the community.
• Crystal Cheng and her team showed their biodegradable trash bags for compost bins.
• Ellen Wang discussed her team’s project promoting Chinese heritage through dance by hosting a table at the San Diego API Festival at the Del Mar Fair as well as hosting the Youth Gala at the California Center of the Arts.
• Ryan Wang presented his team’s home-use wearable kits designed to detect and prevent muscle overuse injury and explained the process of prototyping their kit.

“Us old people don’t have it all figured out. We need you. We need your creativity, we need your wisdom, we need your ideas,” Jacobs said in her remarks, underscoring the importance of youth civic engagement. “I hope that this is just the start, and I cannot wait to see all the good you’re going to do in this world.”

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