A Nation-Wide Conversation on the State of AAPI w/ Konrad Ng and other special guests

Sunday, May 31, 2009
4 pm EST/1 pm PST

Consider hosting a party. It’s easy. Just gather 12-20 friends, family members or co-workers and call into our conference call. You can even provide snacks or make it a potluck. After hearing from our special guests on the call, we encourage you to engage in a conversation with your guests to discuss what issues are important to you, write up a report and post it on the APAP website with pictures. This will become a record of the issues that AAPI’s around the country are talking about. We’ll even submit our report to the Obama administration.

Email Patrice for details or to sign up your house party!

More details at APA for Progress.

A thank you from the First Sister and First Brother-In-Law:

We thank you for your expressions of love and sympathy on the passing of our beloved Tutu, Madelyn Dunham. Tutu was the matriarch of this family, and, although she is not here with us in body, we all felt her powerful spirit with us during this historic event.

Over the past 21 months, our AAPI Vote Team and AAPI staff and volunteers have worked hard and achieved much. Thank you for being our bridge to the Asian and Pacific Islander American community. Thank you for making this campaign possible. Millions of people have come together with the purpose of making our country a better place, and we are truly proud and honored to be part of this movement for change.

With Barack’s victory, our country now begins a new chapter. This chapter will require all of us to continue our efforts and to understand that our work is only beginning. We have much to do in order to unite and to improve this country, and we look forward to continuing our common purpose.

Posted at Konrad’s blog.

Konrad Ng, Barack’s brother-in-law, made this short video encouraging everyone to get out the vote in the final days of this election.

Some terrific pictures from last weekend’s Community Forum with Congressman Mike Honda in Philadelphia! Please read Nina Ahmad’s terrific recap of the event posted earlier this week for more details!

From Nina Ahmad, one of our terrific AAPI grassroots leaders in Pennsylvania:

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who made the Community Forum with Congressman Honda such a successful event. Matt (our photographer extraordinaire) will hopefully post shots from this shortly. Mabel Chan & Steven Zhu outdid all expectations in making it a warm and welcoming venue. Chinese Lion Dancers snaked through the guests, consecrating this historical event of all these Chinatown groups and Pan Asian leadership coming together for a common purpose of putting the country on a new path under the leadership of Barack Obama. Joy Tsin Lau’s 2nd floor was decorated with Chinese language signs which proclaimed ” Chinatown is Obamatown.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Out of ideas, out of time, and just plain out of touch, the McCain-Palin camp has resorted to casting aspersions on Obama’s character by pushing the question, unbelievably, “Who is Barack Obama?” Their latest attack rests on the ridiculous notion that after 20+ months of the longest and most vigorously contested primary and general election in modern history, accompanied by historic levels of voter interest, Americans somehow don’t know who Sen. Obama is. It’s not the first time McCain has insulted the intelligence of Americans, and it won’t be the last. In a characteristically classy response, the Obama campaign has released yet another intimate look behind-the-scenes at Sen. Obama, his family, and his campaign. Watch the video for some of the most candid moments of the campaign and the Obama family at the DNC in Denver - Barack, Michelle, Sasha, Malia, Konrad, Maya, Suhaila, Craig and Marian Robinson, and more!

Well, folks, since no one fainted, vomited or ran screaming from the room - we are forced to call it a draw. (Just kidding. First of all, we would like to thank the following organizations: the Asian American Round Table, the Asian Business Students Association, the Texas Asian Pan-hallenic Council, Piryx (the sponsor) and APIAVote, for organizing this historic debate. This would not be possible without their hard work, and I would like to give a special shout-out to all of the wonderful UT students who attended (and who did not get any extra credit for doing so ;).

Read the rest of this entry »

From the Maui Time Weekly:

Sister act
Barack Obama’s sister discusses family, hope and inspiration

by Rob Parsons

September 25, 2008

Maya Soetoro-Ng is a local Oahu girl, a schoolteacher and the mother of a four-year-old girl, Suhaila. Oh yeah, and her older brother is Barack Obama.

Obama and Soetoro-Ng, who are nine years apart, grew up together in Hawaii, where he attended Punahou School. They recently spent time together when Obama took a campaign timeout on Oahu, seeing his grandmother, playing golf, taking his two daughters to the beach, body-surfing and generally slowing down after a grueling eighteen months on the trail.

Soetoro-Ng, who will be on Maui for two rallies on Saturday, September 27, spoke to me by phone as she was in transit to Honolulu Airport last Friday, on her way to a Hilo political event with Andy Winer, Hawaii State Director of the Obama for President campaign.

Read more at the Maui Time Weekly.

A short video that played at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. See Asian Americans for Obama founder Ramey Ko speak at 1:59!

Konrad Ng, Maya Soetoro-Ng’s husband and Sen. Obama’s brother-in-law, wrote yesterday on the AAPI for Obama blog about how we in the AAPI community can join with our millions of grassroots brother and sisters to achieve real change:

Over the next 50 days, Americans across the country and around the world will talk to friends, family, neighbors and co-workers in support of Barack and Senator Biden. These conversations will be about the importance of registering to vote. They will be about our common hopes and the challenges we face as a nation. They will be about the crucial choice we face on Nov. 4: Electing real change or electing more of the same. As we enter this important phase of the campaign, I think of a passage from Barack’s announcement for President over 19 months ago. Read the rest of this entry »