Asian Leaders Alliance Holidays Newsletter #18
Holiday Edition!
by Brian Pang on December 25, 2022
Happy Holidays ALA! Wishing you all a joyous, restful, and safe week. Hope you’re able to spend time with your loved ones. If you’re alone, please reach out to our ALA community — we are all here for you. Our Slack and DMs are open.
The past weeks have brought a prolonged winter storm across North America — while many of us have been inconvenienced, please remember the privileges most of us have. Let’s please be mindful of the many who will struggle to survive through this period, including the unhoused.
Looking ahead to 2023, which is shaping up to be another challenging year, ALA remains steadfast in our mission: To equip and empower Asians, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and allies to develop as leaders in the workplace and communities, to advocate, serve, and drive collective impact through E/BRGs and partner organizations. Jimmy and I are excited to unveil some new initiatives and updates with you all in the upcoming months.
January is anchored by Korean American Day, and Lunar New Year. ALA will be hosting a LNY (Lunar New Year) event at UPenn, led by Alaric Qin, and also a limited space, invite-only Relational Dynamics workshop led by Julie Ea. See below for more details.
Our community of ~2,000 E/BRG leaders, DEI practitioners, and non-profit partners are stronger than ever. Together, we will bolster the various pillars, support and lead the movements, and drive equity initiatives that will help uphold our fundamental rights, equity, and inclusion across our communities & beyond. 2023 will be tough, but we are confident that we will persevere and advance our communities.
Thank you for all you do to uplift and advance the entire Asian diaspora plus our allies across the globe.
Join
ALA as a platform, enables connections and collective impact. If you haven’t already, please join our community on Slack (https://ala.fyi/join-slack) and the Event Portal (https://ala.fyi/events) to directly interact, share, and uplift each other across ALA. Our community is free to join, and open to all ERG leads, DEI experts, non-profit leaders — any supporter of the ANHPI community.
Gala and Awards Season
by Brian Pang on December 25, 2022
UNFOs — on December 18th, Character Media hosted the 20th annual Unforgettable Gala, honoring the best and brightest Asian Americans in entertainment. The 20th annual #UnforgettableGala this past Saturday saw a #Goonies reunion, a live-action #4Town performance, @MichellePhan and @BellaPoarch presenting an award to @BretmanRock, and much, much more. Read NextShark’s coverage of the gala here.
Oscars Shortlist — Congratulations to the following Asian-led films, shortlisted (Top 15 in each category) for this year’s Academy Awards:
- 38 At The Garden directed by Frank Chi, produced by Travon Free, Samir Hernandez, Patricia Lin, Dave Lu
- Hidden Letters directed by Violet Du Feng, Qing Zhao, in association with EST Media
- Bad Axe directed and produced by David Siev, Executive Producer Daniel Dae Kim
The Top 5 nominations will be announced late-January. Read the full shortlist for each category here.
Nominations for Ascend Canada leadership awards — Ascend Leadership has a Canadian entity, which is intaking nominations for their annual Leadership Awards.
Know of any Canadian friends or colleagues to nominate for the following?
- Mentor of the Year Award | Sponsored by Electronic Arts
- Student of the Year | Sponsored by Sun Life
- Social Impact Award | Sponsored by RBC
- Inclusion Champion of the Year | Sponsored by CIBC
- Woman of Distinction Award | Sponsored by Manulife
Nominations close on Dec 23rd.
Nominations for Asian Hustle Network Top 50 Unsung Heroes — Asian Hustle Network is intaking nominations for their annual AHN Top 50 Unsung Heroes awards, to be presented at their AHN: Uplifted Conference in April 2023.
From AHN: an unsung hero is one who has achieved great things or committed acts of bravery or self-sacrifice. These heroes are creating positive impact, pioneering changes, and making remarkable contributions in their respective fields. We understand that there are many members in this community who have been actively giving back without asking for much recognition and we want to take this opportunity to honor their excellence. We believe that these unsung heroes deserve to be celebrated for their work every day.
Nominations close on Jan 6th.
AAF Awards — Congratulations to Bernice Chao (co-founder of Asians in Advertising) and Bing Chen (co-founder of Gold House) for being named as Future Legends of Advertising by the American Advertising Federation (AAF) Hall of Achievement awards, which recognizes the best of the best under 40 rising stars who’ve made a notable impact on the advertising industry through both their work and philanthropic contributions to the community. Watch Bing Chen’s legendary acceptance speech here, and listen to Bernice Chao’s interview here.
Gateway Holiday Event
by Jimmy Hua on December 27, 2022
What are the holidays for? It is to get together as a community to celebrate! And that is exactly what Gateway did! To celebrate our 2 years of Gateway and to hang out with all of you in person, we had a VIP cocktail demonstration, an amazing spread of food, an eggnog relay competition, and an amazing crowd to make it the best! Thank you to everyone who was able to make it out and thank you 83 Proof for hosting us!
Our next professional development session will be both virtual and in-person (In SF). It will take place on Jan 18, 2023. Look out for the event in the event portal or in the #announcements slack channel.
What is Gateway? Gateway is a free professional development series put together by the collaboration of the Asian Business League — SF, National Association of Asian Americans — SF, and Asian Leaders Alliance. You can find all previous sessions on Youtube.
Workplace Justice
Justin Zhu, co-Founder and former CEO of the unicorn Iterable, has filed a lawsuit for retaliation and failure to engage in the disability interactive process in good faith. We commend Justin for his courage and determination through this lawsuit, and also for sending a strong signal that workplace discrimination against Asian Americans will not be tolerated. It’s time to bust the model minority myth and the stereotypical belief that Asians do not face any discrimination in the workplace. Justin’s case and many workplace equity studies indicate otherwise.
Read more about this story here and watch Justin’s interview with Asians Are Strong here. We stand with you Justin.
Madison Square Garden x ALA Offer
by Brian Pang on December 25, 2022
New York City friends, if you’re looking to hold an event for your organization / team over the next few weeks, please consider the following Madison Square Garden lounge offers at upcoming Knicks games. These are fun, light-lift events, and a great way to uplift your employees along with community partners. This offer includes a philanthropic / social impact component.
This offer is created by MSG SPORTS in collaboration with Asian Leaders Alliance. More details within these slides: https://ala.fyi/msg-lounges
Please contact Nora Boussatta (Nora.Boussatta@msgsports.com) and Brian Pang (brian.l.pang@gmail.com) if you’d like to purchase, or to learn more.
Upcoming Events
by Brian Pang on December 25, 2022
Relating Between the Lines — ALA is partnering with the team behind Relating Between the Lines, an Asian-founded school for relational education that equips leaders with the tools to listen and express skillfully. The team will host a special invite-only 90-minute workshop “Supporting over Solving”, for ALA’s top volunteers, designed to equip participants with tools to become a better listener, supporter, and ally.
The ability to listen and communicate effectively is an ever evolving skill that is integral to the work that we do. The workshop will explore the principle of rewiring our problem-solving impulse and discovering how to relate in a more open-hearted, inviting, and supportive way.
Be Seen, Be Heard: ALA x Penn Asian Community — to celebrate Lunar New Year, Penn’s Asian community is partnering with ALA to host an in-person, community event. Penn’s Asian community has a rich history of advocacy and is a forging ground for many first-time advocates of the Asian community.
We’ll start off with a 45 minute fireside chat + audience Q&A with Asian American community leaders who celebrate Lunar New Year, then follow with a night market and community showcase featuring all of our community members and groups.
Partner Updates
by Brian Pang on December 25, 2022
NextShark — Sign up for SharkBites, a free newsletter from our friends at NextShark, published daily, curates the latest news serving Asian communities world-wide.
- About NextShark: NextShark is a leading source covering Asian and Asian American news including business, culture, entertainment, politics, tech and lifestyle. We strive to provide the best and up-to-date coverage for our communities all over the world.
- Please share widely through your networks, and sign up so that we, and our allies, can all stay updated on important news impacting our communities.
Sunrise Collective at Sundance — in partnership with TAAF and Gold House, Daniel Dae Kim’s production company, 3AD is launching the Sunrise Collective. The first few events will be held at Sundance, Jan. 20 through 22 at Riverhorse on Main Street. Read more about Sunrise Collective here
CKA — Korean American Day — January 13, 2023, marks 120 years of Korean immigration to the United States On January 13, 1903, the first Korean immigrants to the United States arrived in Hawaii. In 2005, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution to mark January 13th as Korean American Day to commemorate the contribution of this growing and vibrant community to American culture and society. Join the Council of Korean Americans on January 12th in D.C. to honor this important day, via a fireside chat with the COO of NPR, Will Lee.
ACE Next Gen — Released their 2022 Impact Report — the org has driven incredible growth and impact this year! Read the full report here.
BeChinatown — Just launched a pilot for SMBs in Chinatown SF with the aid/advisory of ALA.. They are helping restaurants in Chinatown in understanding the value of credit cards and technology and are providing free equipment using a grant. The first cohort of restaurants. 80% have seen an increase of 200% in sales and all over them have seen at least a 50% increase in sales. Box’s API ERG has recently partnered up to help provide equipment and aid to this program. This is a perfect example of how ERGs can directly help the community while creating value for our ERGs and company. They are planning to release a playbook for other communities and expand. If your ERG would like to volunteer or be involved, let ALA know and we can connect.
Asian American Leadership Accelerator — from the Multicultural Leadership Institute is about to launch. Please stay tuned for more information about this program.
Season of Giving
by Brian Pang on December 25, 2022
Very Asian Foundation x Subtle Asian Baking — Creators Fund
MATCHING GIFT CAMPAIGN! Subtle Asian Baking and The Very Asian Foundation are partnering to raise money for our #VeryAsian creators. Full details of the fund will officially be announced in the first quarter of 2023.
The Very Asian Foundation has received a donation match of the first $15,000 contributed to the Fund now through January 15, 2023. The first $15,000 of donations for this cause will be able to be matched 1:1 in the hopes of raising thousands of dollars for microgrants to support the work of underrepresented AANHPI creators.
We’d love to see you shine in the coming year — make your tax-deductible donation today!
You can also mail a check to The Very Asian Foundation: 2650 S. Hanley Road, Suite 100. St. Louis, MO 63144. Please add “VA Creators Fund” in the memo line.
The Power of ERGs — Farzana Nayani
by Brian Pang on December 25, 2022
This is the first authoritative book on building employee resource groups (ERGs) to empower underrepresented employees and positively impact diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts within organizations and in society at large.
In existence for decades, ERGs originated out of affirmative action policies and have evolved into powerful sources of employee activity and engagement. Organizations can leverage ERGs to support business goals, but ERGs can also play a critical role in creating a more inclusive work environment for marginalized individuals. ERGs represent a balance of serving company interests and empowering employees, offering the opportunity for innovative leadership within organizations.
This book is a practical guide on how to manage ERGs effectively and how they inspire a deeper connection between employees and companies while helping us progress toward the DEI goals that we aim to accomplish. Participating in an ERG can help professionals of color and other historically excluded groups advance their careers, thereby increasing diverse representation in leadership. Farzana Nayani provides foundational tools for starting ERGs and outlines the five Ps — purpose, people, processes, planning, and priorities — needed to successfully operate them.
Unlike other ERG handbooks, this book is people-centric and socially conscious and thoughtfully takes into account the experiences of employees and leaders during current times. It also serves as a deeper call to action around how ERGs can foster authentic change within organizations, creating transformative impact in the surrounding world.
The Visibility Mindset: How Asian American Leaders Create Opportunities and Push Past Barriers — by Jessalin Lam & Bernice Chao
by Brian Pang on December 25, 2022
Explore the challenges faced by Asian professionals and how to overcome them.
Find your voice, own your story, and elevate your professional life. In The Visibility Mindset: How Asian American Leaders Create Opportunities and Push Past Barriers, Chao and Lam deliver an engaging and enlightening treatment of how Asian American professional leaders have powered through the obstacles in their way. Exploring a variety of myths, stereotypes, and problems faced by Asian American professionals, this book will empower you to overcome many of these issues.
The Visibility Mindset offers straightforward exercises and strategies, alongside many real-life leadership examples from various industries, to help you succeed as you move forward in your careers. The book explores how to work with others effectively and how to handle microaggressions, how to leverage the power of networking, and how to manage and mentor others while seeking out mentorship for yourself. An indispensable resource for Asian professionals, The Visibility Mindset also deserves a place in the hands of allies of Asian American professionals seeking a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by their friends and colleagues.
