AACP April 2024 Newsletter

Hello AACP Newsletter Readers.

For those of you that are new to our newsletter, yes, this is our April newsletter. As I’m writing this editor’s message, it’s still April and I hope to have it out before midnight (at least in Hawaii :).

Happy Lei Day (May 1) and Children’s Day (May 5, Japan and Korea)! Also Happy AAPI Heritage Month!

This May, we are working with the San Mateo Main Library to bring you lots of event (link to more information). The one event that I will highlight here is our Authors Day event on May 19, starting at Noon.

We have a full slate of authors that will be doing presentations and others that will also be on hand to sign their books. The schedule authors that will be doing presentations are

Noon: Mina Harada Eimon (Why Cats Chase Mice and A is for Ame)

12:30pm: Judith Kajiwara (Silly Green Mask; read the interview we did with her)

1pm: Natasha Yim (Luna's Yum Yum Dim Sum)

1:30pm: Oliver Chin (read the interview we did with him)

2pm: Abigail Hing Wen (Love Boat, Taipei)

2:45pm: Li-Ying Eileen Lundquist (Wings of Silk)

3:30pm: William Gee Wong (Sons of Chinatown)

Pioneering print journalist and author William Gee Wong is also feature in this month’s newsletter with an interview we did with him and reuse of an old article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal titled Some Friendly Advice for Vietnam Refugees.

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We have a wonderful selection of books this month including two on the holidays I mentioned earlier (Kalei's May Day in Hawai'i Nei and a new book in the Danbi series “Danbi’s Favorite Day”) and a new AAPI Heritage Month selection that covers biographies on Bruce Lee, Pedro Flores, Kalpana Chawla, Yuri Kochiyama, Philip Vera Cruz, Mahani Teave, and so much more). Please check them all out.

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Thank you for all the readers and friends who have informed me about their events (some have already passed and we couldn’t get it announced in our calendar; apologies about that). Thanks for inviting us to your events. I wish we could go to all of them.

Thank you Bill Wong for the wonderful interview. It was really great to reconnect with you after all these years.

Thank you to all the volunteers and staff that helped with this newsletter, especially my sister Sharon who helped transcribe the Bill Wong article.

That's all for now.

Hope to see you at the upcoming events.

Take care.

May 3, 2024, 4-7pm: Chabot College AANHPI Night Market (we will be there)

25555 Hesperian Blvd, Hayward, CA 94545

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May 11, 2024: Locke Asian Pacific Spring Festival

Walnut Grove, CA

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May 18, 2024, 2-4pm: Tiburon AAPI Heritage Festival

Zelinsky Park, Tiburon, CA

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May 19, 2024, Noon-4:30pm: AAPI Heritage Month: Meet the Authors Day (AACP co-hosted event)

San Mateo Main Library, 55 West 3rd Ave., San Mateo, CA

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May 28, 2024: AAPI Hertiage Month Celebration - UC Office of the President's Asian Pacific Islander Staff Association (we will be there)

Oakland, CA

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If you have an event that you would like us to mention and or to participate in, please feel free to let us know.

Interviewed by Leonard Chan

William Gee Wong was a print journalist that worked for many newspapers including the Oakland Tribune, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Asian Week, and more. He was born and raised in Oakland, California, went to UC Berkeley and Columbia, and also did work in the Philippines for the Peace Corps.In the 1990s, William Wong was an occasional guest commentator for the PBS news program The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. He is also the author of the book “Yellow Journalist” and two books in the Arcadia “Images of America Series,” one on Angel Island and the other on Oakland Chinatown.

I’m not sure when I first made contact withWilliamWong. It’s possible that Florence (Hongo, head of AACP) knew him long before I did. I know for certain that he did a signing for us in 2007 at an OCA Convention (Organization of Chinese Americans, now called Asian AdvOCAtes) and I even had a chance to meet his sister Li Keng in 2006 when she did a presentation and signing for her book “Good Fortune: My Journey to Gold Mountain.”

William was even a subscriber to this newsletter before it went on hiatus in 2011. Over the years we lost touch. With all the people that he has known, I’m not even sure if he remembered us when I finally heard about his new book and tried to reach out to him. Thankfully, he replied and agreed to do this interview and some book signing with us.

Hello Bill. Great to reconnect with you. Thanks for doing this interview...

Transcription by Sharon Chan

The following is an article written by William Gee Wong which was first published in The Wall Street Journal on May 13, 1975.

William Wong has given us permission to reuse this article. It is used here for noncommercial educational purposes.

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Some Friendly Advice for Vietnam Refugees

By William Wong

Once again, America is showing signs of schizophrenia, it can’t seem to decide what kind of country it wants to be. On the one hand, it desperately wants to be humanitarian – because legend has it that America has always welcomed, throughout its history, people of various colors and religions from all over the world. Isn’t this the country, after all, that has beseeched other nations in “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . .”?

On the other hand...

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