Barack Obama announced the formation of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders National Leadership Council as part of his campaign today.A new group called Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Obama is also live now on barackobama.com.
Many of the senator's AAPI supporters are from Hawai'i where he was born and grew up.
His sister Maya, brother-in-law Konrad Ng and niece still live in Honululu.
Obama Announces Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders National Leadership Council
Continuing to expand on the historic grassroots campaign to bring fundamental change to Washington and our politics, the Obama for America campaign today announced its Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders National Leadership Council. This Leadership Council consists of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders leaders and activists from across the nation, representing every sector of our society, including community, nonprofit, entertainment, business, government, law, academia and media.
“I am proud of the strong personal ties I have had with the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders communities that go back to my birth, and I am humbled to have the widespread support from these communities in my campaign,” said Barack Obama. “Like most Americans, the AAPI community knows that with the great challenges facing our nation today, we need leadership that can unite us to bring change we can believe in.”
The Obama campaign also unveiled its Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders website today (http://aapi.barackobama.com). This tool will provide Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from across the country the ability to connect with one another and to learn how to educate their friends and neighbors about Obama’s record of bringing change to their communities.
Senator Obama was born in Hawaii, a state where Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up a significant portion of the population. As a child of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic family that included Asian Americans, Obama lived in Indonesia, sharing some of the same personal experiences that many Asian immigrants in the United States have also experienced before arriving on these shores.
“My brother is the only candidate with an intimate connection with Asia and the Pacific,” says Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s sister of Indonesian descent. “Our mother’s work and values brought us into contact with a wide range of worlds. The movement of our childhood and adolescence required that we be able to walk between worlds and, in particular, to communicate broadly within Asian and Pacific Islands cultures. Barack understands the values, needs, and expectations that are unique to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”
“There hasn’t been a presidential candidate who understands the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders experience as intuitively as Barack,” says Konrad Ng, Obama’s brother-in-law of Chinese descent. “I hope that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders will recognize this opportunity to support a candidate who can speak to our diverse communities and bring real and beneficial change to our country. It is time that we have someone in the White House who can do it all.”
Obama studied and worked alongside strong and diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander populations in Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston. After college, he moved to Chicago, another city with a large and diverse Asian American population, where he worked as a grassroots organizer, advocating for civil rights and economic fairness.
"Barack Obama has a long track record of promoting policies that are important to the AAPI community. His depth of experience in bridging the many divides combined with his sound judgment is what I believe will make a better America,” says Ann Lata Kalayil, Chicago-based AAPI community leader and Co-Chair of the Obama Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Leadership Council.
In state and federal elected offices, he continued to push for legislative policies to protect the rights of immigrants and minorities at the local, state, and national levels. For example, he led the fight in Illinois to identify and end racial profiling and provide health insurance coverage to 150,000 low-income children and parents. And in the U.S. Senate, Obama has been a leader in the bipartisan effort to enact comprehensive immigration reform.
As president, he will continue to chart a better course for all Americans, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders can be assured that Obama will continue to work for these communities, as he has already demonstrated throughout his life. Former New York Solicitor General Preeta Bansal says, “As we try to work to clean up America’s image and policy toward the world and its policies at home, I can think of no better leader than Senator Obama, who – in part because who he is and where he came from, but also because of what he believes in – would give America a whole new fresh chance.”
Members of the Obama Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders National Leadership Council include (Note: Their affiliation is to be used for identification purposes only):
Nancy Chen, IL, Former APA Outreach Director for the Office of Presidential Personnel (1996 – 1997) and Former Chicago Director for Senator Paul Simon (D – IL) (1991 – 1996); Co-Chair, Obama AAPI National Leadership Council
Ann Lata Kalayil, IL, Former DNC At-large Member and APIA Caucus; Co-Chair, Obama AAPI National Leadership Council
Stanley Toy, CA, Chairman of Los Angeles County Hospital and Healthcare Delivery Commission and President and CEO of TEAM Healthcare; Co-Chair, Obama AAPI National Leadership Council
Preeta Bansal, NY, Former New York State Solicitor General (1999 – 2001) and Partner, Skadden Arps, and Former Counselor, U.S. Department of Justice and Special Counsel, White House (1993 – 1996)
Paul Igasaki, Former Vice Chair and Commissioner, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1994 – 2002)
Angela Oh, CA, Former Member, President’s Initiative on Race (1997 – 1998)
Amy Agbayani, HI, Community Activist and Administrator, University of Hawaii
Anilesh Ahuja, NY, Investment Banker
Tania Ahuja, NY
Della Au Bellatti, HI, State Representative
Som Baccam, IA, Community Activist
Priya Bhatia, IL, Attorney, Goldberg Kohn
Umbreen Bhatti, PA, Attorney
Eric Byler, VA, Activist and Award-winning Filmmaker
C.W. Chan, IL
Wilma Chan, CA, Former Assemblywoman
M. Hasan Chandoo, NY, Businessman
Raazia Chandoo, NY, Artist
Subodh Chandra, OH, Principal, The Chandra Law Firm
Kan Chou, IL, President, Elitegen Corp
Marisa Chun, CA, Partner, Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass LLP
Jerry Clarito, IL, Skokie Park District Commissioner
Jun Choi, NJ, Mayor of Edison
Siddarth Desai, GA, Management Consultant and South Asians for Obama – Atlanta
Selma D'Souza, IL, Attorney
Gautam Dutta, CA, Attorney and Board Member, Asian American Action Fund
Tong-Jen Fu, IL, Former President, Naperville Chinese Association
Ram Gajjela, IL, President, Indo-American Democratic Organization
Kasturi Haldar, IL, Professor, Northwestern Medical School
Alamdar Hamdani, Partner, Hamdani & Simon, LLP
Ferial Hamid, NY
Wahid Hamid, NY, Senior Vice President, PepsiCo
Anjana Hansen, IL, Alderman in Evanston
Pakou Hang, MN, Community Activist
Bob Hasegawa, WA, State Representative
Kelly Hu, CA, Actress
Imad Husain, MA, Director of Credit Risk, Enterprise Risk Management, State Street Corporation
Jin, Hip-Hop Artist
Jon Karamatsu, HI, State Representative and House Vice Speaker
Hrishi Karthikeyan, D.C., Attorney and Co-Founder of grassroots South Asians for Obama
Eddie Kim, CA, Executive Producer, Projekt Newspeak
Paul Kim, CA, Executive Director, Kollaboration Talent Show
Ming King, WI, Chairman, Precast Engineering Company
Ramey Ko, TX, Attorney and Chair of grassroots Asian Americans for Obama
Ann Kobayashi, HI, Honolulu City Councilmember
Russell Kokubun, HI, State Senator
Raja Krishnamoorthi, IL, Deputy Treasurer for Policy and Programs, State of Illinois
Dave Kumar, D.C., Attorney, Goldberg, Godles, Wiener & Wright
David Lang, CA, Principal, Lang/Pan/Chan Public Relations
Russell Leong, CA, Editor, Amerasia Journal UCLA
Henry Lo, CA, Garvey School Board Vice President
Monica Macer, CA, Television and Feature Screenwriter
Michael Magaoay, HI, State Representative and House Majority Whip
Theresa Mah, IL, Assistant Director and Lecturer, Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, University of Chicago and Board Member and Chicago Chapter Coordinator, Asian Pacific Americans for Progress (APAP)
Zachariah Mampilly, CA, Assistant Professor, Political Science, Vassar College
Hydra Mendoza, CA, Commissioner, San Francisco Board of Education
Ken Mok, CA, President of 10 x 10 Entertainment
Hung Nguyen, D.C., Chair, Asian American Advisory Board and Former President of the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans
Clarence Nishihara, HI, State Senator
Catherine Park, CA, Chief Operating Officer of Giant Robot
Jan Pastores, IA, Community Activist
Anhoni Patel, CA, Writer
Robert Plang, IA, Community Activist
Sunil Puri, IL, President, First Rockford
Rahul Rajkumar, MA, Physician, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Anita Ramasastry, WA, Law Professor
Scott Saiki, HI, State Representative
Norman Sakamoto, HI, State Senator and Senate Majority Whip
Rahul Sharma, IL, Founder of Funkades
Pramod Shah, IL, Niles Township Trustee
Woon-Wah Siu, IL, Attorney, Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLP
Mora Mi-ok Stephens, CA, Activist and Award-winning Filmmaker
Cary Tagawa, HI, Actor
Christina Tchen, IL, Partner, Skadden Arps
Vinai Thummalapally, CO, President, Mam-A Inc.
Nancy Tom, IL, Director, Center for Asian Arts and Media, Columbia College
Emme Tomingbang, HI, Television Personality
Glenn Wakai, HI, State Representative
Eddie Wong, CA, Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media
Martin Wong, Co-Editor, Giant Robot Magazine
Swallow Yan, IA, Business Owner
Janet Yang, CA, Film Producer and Producer, Joy Luck Club
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