AACP July 2020 Newsletter

One hundred! This is our one hundredth newsletter.

For those of you that are new to our newsletter and didn’t know we had a newsletter until this year, then this may come as a surprise to you.

It didn’t really occur to me until I was redoing our newsletter archive page and discovered that we had 99 previous newsletters. I never realized how close we were to reaching this milestone when we ended the newsletter back in 2011.

In the years since we ended the newsletter, whenever there was a reason for me to go looking for an old article we wrote, I would often find it exhausting to do this search. I never thought we had created that many issues. Those nine years had gone by relatively fast. Now that we’ve finally reached this milestone, I don’t know if we should celebrate or just be thankful that we’re still around to be working on it.

So what difference does 100 make over 99? Not that much really, but it does feel like we’ve accomplished something. I don’t know if we’ll be doing another year’s worth or another hundred, but we have completed the first hundred.

Thank you to all of you that have contributed to our newsletters and made this milestone possible!

On with our normal order of business.

Thank you very much to AACI for letting us highlight your Growing Up Asian in America contest. This was always a special pleasure of ours in the past to have a newsletter featuring this wonderful contest. We hope you the reader will also feel as inspired as we do by seeing the works of these young artists.

Jodie Ching of the Hawai'i Herald, Hawai'i's Japanese American Journal, has informed me that they will be using part of our interview with Frances Kakugawa in their next Friday, August 7th, issue. Thank you Jodie and the Hawai’i Herald!

Thank you Vincent for recommending “The China Mystique” for our featured books.

You too can recommend books to us – especially you authors. We’d love to hear from you.

That’s all for now. Take care everyone!

Leonard Chan

Let us know of your virtual events.

Here is an event that may interest you -

The 27th Pistahan Virtual Parade and Festival will take place on August 8-9. Have a look at their website for more information.

Note: AACP is considering participating in the Pistahan Festival by create a list of Filipino American books. Stay tuned to our social media outlets to see if we do.

Interview by Angela Zhao

Each year, AACI (founded as Asian Americans for Community Involvement) in San Jose hosts the Growing Up Asian in America student art contest in celebration of APA Heritage Month. This year’s theme was “Why I Count!” in celebration of the 2020 U.S. Census. It also marked the contest’s 25th anniversary. Students were invited to share their beliefs in the importance of advocating for and being counted in their communities, and why representation matters, in the form of artwork, essays, and videos. We had the chance to speak to two students, Annika Pyo and Arya Das, who won best in class for art and writing respectively. You can see their winning pieces of art as well as the other winners here.

AACI is an organization that advocates for and serves the marginalized and vulnerable ethnic communities in Santa Clara County. They provide support in the areas of health, behavioral health, and wellness for individuals, as well as advocacy and community organizing.

The Growing Up Asian in America contest was founded by Lance Lew of NBC Bay Area in 1995, and provides a creative platform for young artists from 1st to 12th grade to explore and celebrate AAPI identity during APA Heritage Month. It is one of the largest youth celebrations of APA Heritage Month. Winning students receive cash prizes and features on NBC Bay Area. You can learn more at http://aaci.org/guaa.