NikkeiWest--Northern California Japanese American Newspaper

CUPERTINO — Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss presented the 10th annual Asian American Hero Awards on Oct. 22 at Dynasty Seafood Restaurant.

The recipients, both individuals and organizations, were joined by past honorees and local elected officials.

“This award and luncheon is my way of acknowledging the commitment to community participation that I have witnessed, and greatly admire, in the Asian community,” said Kniss. “To those who rise to a leadership position in the community, I thank you for your ability to lead and mentor others which results in effective change.

“Truly, any society cannot grow without the work of those who are involved at the grassroots and local level. They are the foundation of a community and the spirit that encourages others to move forward.”

The criteria for the award include demonstrating a commitment in the selected category, inspiring others to believe they can make a difference, engaging community members, and bridging differences among communities. The categories are leadership, health and human services, the arts, education, and organization or agency.

Following are profiles of the 2010 awardees:

Leadership

• Catherine Chen, nominated by Vicki Tsai and Ann Stevenson.

Chen has demonstrated a commitment through leadership by being actively involved in many community organizations in Cupertino. For the past five years, she has been part of the Mandarin Business Association, raising funds for the International Leadership Foundation (IFL), giving promising young Asian Americans the opportunity to participate in summer internship opportunities in Washington, D.C.

With her leadership, the Mandarin Business Association was able to raise more than $8,000 in funds for Taiwan’s earthquake and flood Victims in 2009.

She was the 2004 chair of Asian American Business Council of the Cupertino Chamber of Commerce and the 2005 recipient of the AABC Bridge Award. In 2008,  she led the Relay for Life Walk-a-Thon in Cupertino and in a two-week span was able to raise over $5,000 with the support of more than 60 volunteers.

Chen has been an active member of Quota International of Cupertino since 2005. She has worked with members to raise funds for the Battered Women’s Shelter, Seeing Eye Dogs Program, and speech-impaired individuals for the past five years. In recognition of this service, she was honored with a 2010 Cupertino CREST Award.

Through her leadership, Chen has effectively helped promote, strengthen and enhance the interethnic business environment in the Cupertino community.

• Wesley Mukoyama, nominated by Julie Kimiyo Hubbard and Ken Iwagaki.

Mukoyama retired from the VA Hospital in Palo Alto after being a licensed clinical social worker for 36 years. Soon after, he became the executive director at Yu-Ai Kai/Japanese American Senior Community Center in San Jose’s Japantown.

He is very active with the Red Cross and volunteers as a licensed clinical social worker. He is a long-time member of Palo Alto Buddhist Church, and belongs to the Northern California Japanese American Senior Centers, where he has served as the president and vice president for the past four years.

While a member of the White House Community on Aging Committee, Mukoyama flew to Washington, D.C. and spoke on the challenges that the Nikkei elderly are facing with health care and the complex rules and regulations that can limit access to those who need it most.

He was in the Peace Corps for six and a half years. He and his wife have lived in Tanzania, Samoa, and the Solomon islands, where he served as the director.

Mukoyama was responsible for forming the Minority Consortium, which met once a month. This group, which included senior centers serving the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Filipino American communities, applied for a large grant together and shared the money.

He supports and attends numerous community events, and uses his outgoing personality to engage the community to support senior citizens and to support Yu-Ai-Kai through volunteer work and donations.

Health and Human Services

• Patrick Ngo, nominated by Michele Lew, president and CEO of Asian Americans for Community Involvement.

Ngo has been a leader in working with middle and high school youth who are at risk of gang involvement. He provides group and individual support services for students, helping them to take pride in culture and heritage, understand consequences, develop new role models, identify areas for self-improvement, and work toward their own dreams.

He has taken the initiative to become an expert in Asian gang issues in Santa Clara County, and he uses his expertise to help youth steer clear of gangs, violence, and drugs. Ngo’s commitment to serving youth is inspiring to all those who work with him. He sees his role as far beyond a 9-to-5 job, and the community has benefited tremendously.

Ngo is empowering the next generation and believes no student is a “lost cause.” He takes a developmental asset-building approach to working with youth, helping build a web of support around each student he serves.

He is exceptional at bridging differences among students of different ethnic backgrounds. Using Asian American history as a foundation, showing students how many of them have shared pasts. He promotes positive cultural identity and encourages students to respect each other. He works with all students of all backgrounds and treats everyone with dignity and fairness.

• Rafiq Dossani (represented at the ceremony by Eric Chang), nominated by Chris Overtington, executive director of Hidden Villa.

Dossani chairs FOCUS USA, a non-profit organization that supports emergency relief services in the U.S. and Tajikistan. The operations are focused in an area that is prone to natural disasters, the Pamir Mountains. The activities include disaster preparedness activities through community training, site-specific projects such as seismic retrofitting of schools and river-bank projects for flood resilience, stockpiling, emergency communications networks, and early-warning systems.

He served on the Board of Trustees of Hidden Villa from 2004-2010, taking an active role in the ranch and wilderness activities, board governance, finance, and strategic planning.

At Stanford University, Dossani served as the director of the Center for South Asia for the academic year 2009-2010. The work he focused on was developing Stanford’s competencies and involvement in South Asia through recruitment, conferences, course development and student support.

Dossani is also involved in the American India Foundation, where he was a founding trustee in 2002. At present, he is actively involved as an advisor to its educational programs in India, especially as they relate to educating the children of migrant rural labor.

His willingness to share his knowledge and expertise with community and non-profit groups enables these organizations to provide vital assistance to so many people in need.

Education

• Victoria Taketa, nominated by Judy Minor, president of Foothill College.

Taketa has been actively committed to education and leadership, sharing the Foothill College mission of access to educational opportunity for all. She was the first Asian American coordinator for the college’s newly developed Multicultural Department.

She co-wrote and developed, with colleague Dr. Lily Chung, the Asian/Asian American studies A.A. degree and co-developed the Third World Women course. She taught Asian American and women’s studies courses for Foothill, DeAnza, and San Jose State University.

Taketa founded Foothill’s Career Faire and assisted in the institutionalization of its Career Center and its Career Life Planning Curriculum.

She has maintained an ongoing liaison with the Japanese American Citizens League of Palo Alto, developed the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Celebration, was the founder of the Asian Pacific Staff and Faculty Association of Foothill College, promoted and implemented the Third World Women’s Month Celebration, and was a founding member of the Asian Pacific students’ rites of passage, Calabra’sian.

• Phil Quon, nominated by Josephine Lucey, president of the Board of Education for the Cupertino Union School District.

This is Quon’s 37th year in public education. He has served as a math teacher and an administrator, and is now in his 17th year as a superintendent in two different Santa Clara County school districts.

He is a strong proponent of 21st century learning and flagship programs such as Cupertino Union School District’s Chinese language immersion program. He is an active member of Rotary Club and its local service projects and served on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) Mathematics Advisory Panel.

As president of the Association of California School Administrators’ Superintendents Council, Quon has worked to influence effective, responsible, legislation on matters such as adequate funding for public schools and reforms that support at-risk students.

He regularly facilitates professional development and the art of negotiation for new and aspiring district superintendents, and also writes blog entries as a recognized “education expert” addressing public policy in the National Journal, a magazine that covers Congress and the White House on educational issues.

Quon engages both local and wider community members to envision, design, and implement policies and programs that serve the educational needs of students and the teachers and administrators who serve students.

The Arts

• Dr. Jindong Cai, nominated by the office of Supervisor Kniss. He was unable to attend the ceremony.

Cai joined the Stanford University faculty in 2004 as associate professor of music in performance and the first holder of the Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies’ Chair. He is music director and conductor of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, the Stanford Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Stanford New Ensemble.  He is also the artistic director of the Stanford Pan-Asian Music Festival, which he founded in 2005. He has led the Stanford Symphony Orchestra on two international tours, to Australia and New Zealand in 2005 and China in 2008.

Cai has received much critical acclaim for his orchestral and opera performances. In 1992, his opera-conducting debut took place at Lincoln Center’s Mozart Bicentennial Festival in New York, when he appeared as a last-minute substitute for the world premiere of a new production of Mozart’s “Zaide.” The New York Times described the performance as “one of the more compelling experiences so far offered in the festival.”

He has guest-conducted the Arkansas Symphony, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Lexington Philharmonic, the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, and the Tucson Symphony, among others.

This award gives him great encouragement to continue doing the musical outreach work that he believes is so important for the culturally vibrant and diverse Bay Area.  He thinks it’s terrific that Santa Clara County is such a strong advocate for cultural diversity within the community.

• Nakayoshi Gakko (represented by Hope Nakamura), nominated by Naomi Nakano-Matsumoto, executive director of West Valley Community Services.

Nakayoshi Gakko (Friendship School) is a two-week summer program where children in grades 1 through 8 learn about Japanese culture and tradition. It provides an opportunity for children and parents to explore the many aspects of the Japanese American heritage.

Nakayoshi Gakko is a full-day program. Morning sessions include art, literature, social studies, and language. Afternoons continue with specialty subjects such as origami, dance, cooking, undokai (P.E.), sumi-e and music. All students enjoy various cultural demonstrations at the end of each day.

The school is proud to have a teaching staff of highly skilled and dedicated professionals who are committed to sharing their talents with the program. NG promotes the Japanese concept of mentorship and responsibility through the sempais, are older youth who provide assistance to the school and the program but also serve as role models, coaches, and mentors to the students.

Parents who wanted to pass down, from generation to generation, the elements of their own Japanese culture initiated the vision of starting this summer program. With the overwhelming support and enthusiasm of interested parents and Mountain View Buddhist Temple, NG became a reality in June 2000 when it opened its doors to 76 students. Currently there are over 130 students enrolled.

NG is a parent cooperative school. Its success is based on the involvement, active engagement, and support of parents, family, the Mountain View Buddhist Temple community, and the broader Japanese and Japanese American community.

Organizations/Agencies

• Asian Law Alliance (represented by Executive Director Richard Konda), nominated by the Office of Supervisor Kniss.

Over the past 32 years as a non-profit corporation, the Asian Law Alliance has helped tens of thousands of people in obtaining decent housing, justice in the immigration process, and access to basic human and legal rights.

Today, Asian Pacific Islanders continue to be denied fundamental rights. ALA continues to keep its doors open for those individuals who are limited in English, who do not understand the legal system, who cannot afford legal fees, and who face the reality of discrimination. ALA provides quality legal service for the Asian Pacific Islander community of Santa Clara County.

Its programs are designed to make legal services accessible to Asian Pacific Islander and low-income people, delivering services in Asian Pacific Islander languages and providing consultation and legal representation on a free or low-cost basis.

ALA has addressed a number of significant issues through its community organizing educational programs, such as participating in efforts to address the issues of decent, affordable housing and housing discrimination, preserving multilingual services in the County Department of Social Services, participating in the redress campaign for Japanese Americans incarcerated by the U.S. government during World War II, and expanding efforts within various Asian language groups for further discussion on domestic violence.

The founding members of ALA believe it’s necessary to maintain a community law office to provide individual legal assistance, community legal education, and community advocacy.

• Tzu Chi Foundation (represented by Leslie Sheih), nominated by Paul Stanfield, Volunteer Program manager for West Valley Community Services.

The foundation was established in 1966 by Venerable Dharma Master Cheng Yen in Taiwan. In over 40 years, it has grown to be an international humanitarian organization with over 5 million members in 48 countries. The foundation dedicates itself in the fields of charity, medicine, education, environmental protection, international relief work and the establishment of one of the world’s largest bone marrow donor registries. It also promotes humanistic values and community volunteerism.

In July this year, Tzu Chi Foundation became an NGO in special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC). This is a significant recognition of the Foundation’s contributions around the world.

Tzu Chi has more than 20 years of international disaster relief experience, providing relief in 70 countries to people suffering from disasters such as the Southeast Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and earthquakes in Turkey, Pakistan, Haiti, Chile, and Sichuan, China. The foundation’s principle is to relieve suffering for all living beings with gratitude, respect and love, regardless of nationality, religion or ethnicity.

In 1984, Tzu Chi Foundation in the U.S. was established in California as a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Since then, 87 branch offices and facilities have been established with over 100,000 members in the U.S. working to make a difference in their local communities.