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2022 OCA National Convention: Earlybird Ticket Sales End This Saturday!

Be sure to get your tickets to our 2022 OCA National Convention: Building Our Community's Heroes before earlybird pricing ends June 18th! Afterwards, prices will increase. In addition to OCA National Convention programming, registered attendees will have access to workshops hosted by the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) at their own convention that's happening at the same time and venue as our convention!

Reserve Your Hotel for Convention!

The deadline to book your discounted hotel rooms for OCA's National Convention is July 12, 2022. The OCA National Convention programming is hosted at the same hotel: Bally's Las Vegas Hotel and Casino located at 3645 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109.

BOOK YOUR HOTEL ROOM HERE

For those who prefer to make reservations over the phone, you may call their Reservation Center at 702-967-4111 or 800-722-5597. However, a processing fee per reservation will be incurred if you choose not to use our dedicated weblink above. Currently, the name of the group is listed as “OCA National Convention.” Callers may also use our group code to identify the group: SBOCA2

Please note that upon booking your reservation, your credit card will be charged a deposit equal to the first night's room and tax. To avoid forfeiture of deposit, please ensure all changes and cancellations are made at least 72 hours prior to scheduled arrival date. You may be charged a nightly resort fee which will be added into your total on the final summary page. Please be sure to read the hotel policies for more information.

UPDATES

News — Introducing Our 2022 Summer Interns!

We are excited to unveil our first in-person summer intern cohort since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, placing 12 outstanding college students in national policy and advocacy organizations across the Washington, D.C. area. Read about our interns here.

POLICY CORNER

K-12 AANHPI Curriculum Impact Project Launch

Thank you to those who attended the launching event for our K-12 AANHPI Curriculum Impact Project! You can view our project's landing page on our website by clicking here to access all the resources and opportunities that are available.

How can you support this project?

FOLLOW and SHARE our Instagram where we post a majority of our content! @k12aanhpi_project
VISIT our Linktree and donate to our project, sign our petition, and visit our website to learn more about our project in-depth!

If you have any questions, please email OCA's Associate Manager of Policy & Advocacy Michael Nguyen.

CHAPTER SPOTLIGHT

OCA-Greater Los Angeles
Community SHEROES: Honoring Our Past Presidents

On Sunday, May 15, OCA-Greater Los Angeles chapter celebrated Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month by hosting an event entitled, "Community SHEROES: Honoring Our Past Presidents," in the outdoor plaza of the new, beautiful Terasaki Budokan multipurpose sports and activities center in Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles. The mid-afternoon event honored the chapter's female past presidents and brought six of them together in a fireside chat to share stories about their journeys as chapter presidents, community leaders, and accomplished professionals. The honorees included:

* Adeline Yoong, Inaugural OCA-GLA President, 1991-92, 1998-99; Principal, Meaningful Joy Coaching
* Julia Keh, 1996; Special Services Liaison, LA County Dept. of Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk
* Wendy Huang, 1997; General Counsel, Prospera Hotels, Inc.
* Kathay Feng, 2001-02; National Redistricting Director, Common Cause
* Stacey Toda, 2004-07; Associate Director, Public Relations and Marketing, Long Beach City College
* Lisa Thong, 2014; Consultant

Clara Chiu, Development Officer for the AARP Foundation who also served as OCA-GLA's Senior Director of Operations and Programming from 2002-2008, moderated the powerful and heartwarming discussion.

Collectively, 17 of the GLA chapter's 30 years have been led by women presidents, including the six honorees, as well as Colleen Seto and Janet Ly who were unable to attend.

The event was made possible with the generous support of Wells Fargo Bank.

OCA-Fairfield
#Stop Asian Hate: 1 Year Later

To celebrate AAPI Heritage Month, OCA Fairfield Chapter in Connecticut held a panel discussion on May 4, on the state of Asian hate incidences during the last year and explore ways that we can help the Asian community. We collaborated with AAPI Westport, a non-profit group committed to educating others about AAPI history and experiences, and the Westport Library, where the event was held.

To set up the discussion, we screened the 1-hour long film, “We need to Talk About Anti-Asian Hate” by Eugene Lee Yang. It covered the history of anti-Asian sentiment and biases in the U.S. as well as the need for us to stand up, be heard and seen, and increase our representation in order to affect change. The film provided a good foundation for the panel discussion, which moderated by NBC investigative reporter Vicky Nguyen. Panelists included Connecticut’s first Asian Attorney General, William Tong; Mike Keo, founder of #IAmNotAVirus and co-founder of MakeUsVisible; Patra Kanchanagom, co-founder of AAPI Westport; and Miriam Yeung, President of OCA Fairfield. The panelists shared their personal experiences of poignant incidences. Attorney General Tong remarked that it is not unusual for him to experiences racial slurs. “I am your Attorney General, yes, but if you go to my twitter feed, you will probably see somebody saying something about me and my race.” Miriam spoke of the importance of engaging children in the process of teaching.

Mike Keo, who has been an activist pushing to bring AAPI history to the class room, spoke of the imminent passage of the bill that will require teaching AAPI history and experiences in K-12, with funding for a localized curriculum. (3 weeks later, on June 1, the bill was signed into law by Governor Lamont, making Connecticut the first state to require and fund the teaching of Asian American history.)

Connecticut News 12 TV covered and reported our event. Please see their clip here.

OCA-Utah

PIC 1: OCA Utah and Asian Pacific Islander elected officials in Utah participating in the AANHPI Celebration Rally at the Salt Lake City & County Building
PIC 2: OCA Utah directors and members pose after a successful AANHPI Celebration Rally
PIC 3: OCA Utah and University of Utah Alumni Association bring together API Alumni of the University of Utah
PIC 4: OCA Utah directors and liaisons at the APIHM 5K Solidarity Walk/Run

PIC 5: OCA Utah hosted an APIHM Mixer to bring together seasoned API community leaders, young API community leaders, and API college student leaders to celebrate each other and to network across generations
PIC 6: OCA Utah, JACL Salt Lake, and the Chinese Railroad Workers Descendants Association co-hosted artist Mitsu Salmon's Somatic Tracing exhibit at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, depicting the history of the building of the transcontinental railroad and invisibilized Asian labor and healing.
PIC 7: OCA Utah directors at the APIHM Mixer.
PIC 8: OCA Utah and the Utah Pacific Islander Health Coalition supporting the Utah Marshallese Association's inaugural Jemenei Day (Constitution Day) Celebrations
PIC 9: OCA Utah directors and members pose at the finish line after completing the APIHM 5K

OCA-Tucson

OCA Tucson conducted an Anti-Asian Hate art contest for Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) high school students. Cash prizes to four winners were awarded at the May 13th Awards Assembly, including copies of Loveboat Reunited, by New York Times best-selling author Abigail Hing Wen. Wendy Karahalios congratulated the students and presented the prizes.

Part of May Asian Heritage Celebration included the Restaurant Grant Program. Cash grants were awarded to five Asian restaurants that have contributed to community fundraisers over the years. Wendy Karahalios presented checks to the owners at their restaurants.

OCA-New Jersey
APA Heritage Celebration

OCA-NJ kicked off their APA Heritage Celebration on May 22, 2022, at The Flaming Grill and Supreme Buffet with an entertaining and thought-provoking presentation by Cathy Bao Bean, author of “The Chopsticks-Fork Principle”. She told stories about how she learned to make the "foreign" more familiar and the ordinary and extraordinary into each other. Cathy’s presentation was followed by the presentation of the 2022 OCA-NJ scholarships that awarded $14,300 in scholarship money this year. This year’s recipients included the Willie Lau Memorial Scholarship to Sarah Chin, the Edwin and Aurora Len Memorial Scholarship to Angelina Cheung, The Spirit of Corky Lee Scholarship (that debuted in 2021) to Peijin Han, the Ferdinand Gajewski Memorial Scholarship to Richard Zhu, the Linda Lee Memorial Scholarship to Owen Shen, the Robert E. Wone Memorial Scholarship to Sophia Yeh, and the first ever, inaugural Virginia L Ng Founder’s Scholarship in honor of the inimitable Virginia L. Ng who founded the OCA-NJ Scholarship program 21 years ago was awarded to Brian Chen. The event concluded with a delicious meal, friendly conversation, and a wonderful time had by all. It was a fantastic way to celebrate APA Heritage Month.

EVENTS + OPPORTUNITIES

June 16-19: Vincent Chin 40th Rededication and Remembrance

Forty years after the murder of Vincent Chin and the miscarriage of justice that followed, amid a climate of anti-Asian hate similar to today’s, a four-day commemoration will be held in Detroit and virtually, June 16-19, 2022.

All events will be livestreamed on the Vincent Chin website. Click the button below for more information.

vincentchin.org

June 25: Unity March

When we unite, we will bring real change. On June 25th, 2022, step out and march with us in Washington, D.C. to advance equitable representation and rights for all of our communities.

To join our mobilization we ask you to take one of the following actions:

Pledge to attend the Unity March to June 25th.
Follow the Unity March on Twitter, Facebook, and/or Instagram
Recruit and share this historic collective action with your friends, family, acquaintances, and colleagues.

For more information about why we are marching and who we are partnering with, visit the Unity March website.

June 25: 2022 Edwin M. Lee Memorial Golf Tournament
OCA-Greater Seattle are the fiscal sponsors for the 2nd Annual Edwin M. Lee Memorial Golf Tournament, to be held Saturday, June 25, at the Auburn Golf Course, 29630 Green River Rd. SE, Auburn, WA. Click here for more.

July 9: 45th Annual Utah Asian Festival
OCA Utah proudly invites everyone to attend the 45th annual Utah Asian Festival on Saturday July 9th from 11AM to 8PM in Salt Lake City, Utah!

Click here for more.

GIVE TO OCA

OCA National Center
Embracing the hopes and aspirations of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

900 19th St. NW, 6th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20006

Copyright © 2022 OCA - Asian Pacific American Advocates, All rights reserved.

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