July Speaker Series

Our third Speaker Series was held on Wednesday, July 27 at Microsoft New England Research & Development (NERD) Center in Kendell. We welcomed Suzanne Lee, Lisa Wong, and Diana Hwang, and explored the theme of Asian American women in politics. Suzanne Lee is an educator and community organizer, founder and longtime chair of the Chinese Progressive Association, and a founding member of the Massachusetts Asian American Educators Association. Lisa Wong is Mayor of Fitchburg. Diana Hwang is the co-founder and Executive Director of Asian American Women’s Political Initiative. Moderated by Speaker Series Committee Chair Van Nguyen, the panel had a a candid conversation about the different points of entry, participation and generational views of Asian American women’s approach and entry into politics.  Each speaker discussed the possibilities and challenges of forwarding their vision for community building and institutional change. Facilitated by Speaker Series Committee Chair Anh Nguyen, the Questions and Answers session had a number of great questions to the speakers.

ASPIRE and the Speaker Series committee thank the three speakers for openly sharing their stories and the attendees for their time to join us! The committee is planning the next event to be held sometime in the fall and looks forward to seeing you all again! Please come back to our website for future information!

Photos by Sandra Kim

Szeman Tse (ASPIRE), Kozue Sawame (ASPIRE), Van Nguyen (ASPIRE), Suzanne Lee, Lisa Wong, Diana Hwang, and Anh Nguyen (ASPIRE)

ON JAPAN

On behalf of the ASPIRE organization, the Board of Directors would like to offer our prayers, wishes, thoughts, and hope for the people of Japan and the members of the Japanese American community who have been deeply affected by the 8.9 earthquake and tsunamis that tragically hit the nation just a few days ago. As of today, there are still thousands missing, and many have already been confirmed to have lost their lives in this tragedy.

 

Though Japan is a half a world away, we know that many women in ASPIRE trace roots to Japan and have been active members in the Japanese American communities.  We hope that individuals identify their personal ways of supporting the relief and rescue efforts in Japan — we stand solidly in our prayers, hopes, and wishes for our brothers and sisters.

 

This external (not affiliated with ASPIRE) site here gives a number of ways to help in the relief and rescue efforts.

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year… or something

Tonight is the Chinese New Year’s eve, or rather Lunar New Year’s Eve.

What does that mean?  In our household, we were scrambling around to see if we had any cash on hand to give to our daughter in her hong bao, or red envelope. Luckily, we scrounged up a few bucks (ok, $10) to give to her.  My mom always gave me $6, because she said that 6 was lucky, being 2×3.  My husband wanted to give a crisp $10 bill, but alas, we were stuck with what little cash we actually had on hand.

Chinese New Year for us is a small way for us to pass down some of our heritage to our daughter.  For a couple of years, she thought that when people talked about New Year’s Eve, they were talking about tonight, about the lunar new year.  She still likes to help clean up the house around new year, and hang decorations up around the house.  (Except in our case, we left some of them up for the entire year.  But that’s another post.)  This year, our daughter made some lanterns and signs that say, “Gong hay fat choy!”

I’m not sure what she understands about the holiday, except that it is a time for a fresh start and for spending time with friends and family.  If that’s what she remembers about Chinese New Year, I’ll take that.  Gong Hay Fat Choy!  Happy Chinese New Year!!

We want to hear from you!  What do you do to celebrate the lunar new year?