Dr. Jack Ouyang, one of the founding members of Asian American Coalition for Education (“AACE”), along with Dr. Ting Dai, Secretary of AACE, hosted a greet-and-meet lunch event with local Chinese community leaders resident in Washington DC metropolitan area. It is part of national outreach efforts by AACE for the leadership to gather ideas, exchange thoughts and seek collaborations.
Attendees are local leaders and activists from Howard County, Montgomery County, Fairfax County, Loudon County and Arlington County. They represent a wide spectrum of professional backgrounds, such as IT, health care, education, finance, small business, business development and public services. These local leaders also hold executive positions of 80-20 Initiative DC chapter and many leading Chinese collegiate, professional or provincial associations. Participant highlights include Dr. Hang Lu, Vice President and Secretary-General of Chinese Alumni Associations of Greater Washington, Dr. Tao Ni, President of Washington DC Area 80-20 Chapter, Ms. Jean Xu, President of the Chinese American Parent Association of Howard County, Mr. Mark Xu Director of General Affairs, Coordination Council of Chinese-American Associations (CCCAA), Mr. Yubin Ye, Board Chair of the Union of Chinese American Professional Organizations (UCAPO), Dr. George Zhou, President, Chinese Professional Development Association.
The lunch meeting circled around how AACE works collaboratively with DC metro area Asian ethnic groups. Dr. Jack Ouyang briefed the progress of the complaint filed through the Department of Education and Department of Justice against Harvard University and the amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court to support the plaintiff, Abigail Fisher, in the Fisher v. University of Texas lawsuit and urge a total ban on racial discrimination in college admissions. Local leaders expressed viewpoints and suggestions on how to make the equal-opportunity feasible for all-college applicants who aspire to enroll into the top universities in the U.S. A few key takeaways include:
- Circulate the mission statement of AACE for broader awareness of the Chinese community and Asian American to the wider extent;
- Prepare a baseline communication package in the wake of key events to educate the Asian Americans nationwide, raise broader audience awareness, and solicit gross-root participations;
- Mobilize local resources in DC area to deliver pamphlets to the Congress, host face-to-face meetings with government officials or law makers, and invite congressmen or congresswomen to Asian American events;
- Designate resources to maintain and sustain the fundraising success, making the donation a habit other than an one-time spontaneous act; and
- Identify and cultivate good writers (English, Chinese or other Asian languages) to promote key messages from AACE, craft media speech scripts, summarize activity highlights, and report on petition progress.
Leaders from 80-20 Initiative DC chapter also possess rich experiences and resources in igniting public activities in the political arena. We see the uttermost importance of collaborations among various national, state and local Asian American organizations.
(In the picture clockwise: Jean Xu, Jun Han, Jie Wang, Hang Lu, Karl Zhang, Yubin Ye, Mike Nie, Tao Ni, Calvin Ni, Zhigang Ma, Yujian Zhang, Peng Xu, Sam Yan, Mark Xu, George Zhou, Ting Dai, Jack Ouyang )