A bold and unique conference designed to bring together divergent and contrasting perspectives on controversial issues dividing the Asian American community will take place at UC Berkeley on Saturday, October 26 from 9-4:30 p.m.
Entitled Common Ground, the day will be an opportunity for a provocative but respectful conversation on issues of importance to Asian Americans.
It will be followed by an optional awards dinner to honor two exemplary Asian Americans whose groundbreaking work is breaking stereotypes and uplifting members of the community. The dinner overlooking the San Francisco skyline will be held at Hong Kong East Ocean Seafood in nearby Emeryville.
Dave Liu, a veteran of Wall Street and executive producer of the award-winning feature-length film DÌDI (弟), will receive the Bad Ass Asian Entrepreneurial Spirit Award.
Christopher Chow, who in 1970 became appointment television for many as the first Asian American reporter ever hired by a Northern California television station, will be honored with the Bad Ass Asian Pioneer Journalist Award.
Both Common Ground and the awards dinner are produced by AsAmNews as a benefit for Asian American Media Inc, the non-profit that publishes AsAmNews.
Tickets for both are available here. The tickets may be purchased together or ala carte. Prices start at $10.
“The public is tired of partisan bickering and the political divide. They want common sense solutions to the issues facing this country and the Asian American community,” said Randall Yip, founder & editor of AsAmNews and president of Asian American Media Inc. “They are ready to find Common Ground.”
A recent poll by the PEW Research Center confirms that overwhelmingly, when asked an open-ended question to find one word that describes the current state of politics, they used words like divisive, corrupt and messy, according to Hannah Hartig, Senior Researcher at Pew Research Center.
“We’re at an era of historic polarization, partisan and sort of negative feelings about each other. We also found that a majority of adults said that there’s far too much attention paid today to the disagreements between Republicans and Democrats sort of bickering and far less attention paid to important issues facing the country.”
Hartig says people want to hear about the issues. They are open to policy debates. They want to know about what we can do to solve problems.
Common Ground will set out to do that. While it would be unrealistic to expect a one-day conference to solve the world’s problems, organizers hope that by listening to each other, opposing sides can better understand each other and perhaps come closer together on the issues.
Here are the confirmed topics and speakers with additional speakers possibly to be added:
Race in college admissions:
- Nan Zhong – Opposed to the use of race in college admissions. His son got hired by Google at age 18, but couldn’t get into an elite university.
- Sally Chen – While a student at Harvard, she testified in a federal court case in favor of race in college admissions
Criminal justice reform:
- Carl Chan- Violent crime victim and former president of the Chinatown Oakland Chamber of Commerce. Part of the tough on crime movement in Oakland
- Eddie Zheng- Spent 20 years in state prisons and immigration jails. Reformed himself while in prison and is now a respected community activist who founded the Asian Prison Support Committee
Tiger Parenting
- Deb Liu- CEO of Ancestry.com and a self-professed Tiger Mom to her children
- Bethany Liu- Deb’s high school daughter who doesn’t always appreciate her mom’s parenting techniques
Misinformation- how it is used to divide us
- Jinxia Niu- runs a newsletter for Chinese for Affirmative Action calling out misinformation directed at the Chinese immigrant community
Just the facts
- Neil Ruiz – Head of new research initiatives at PEW research center. He grounds us with the facts on a variety of controversial issues.
Moderators:
Ryan Yamamoto, Evening News Anchor CBS5 San Francisco
- Robert Handa – Journalist, NBC Bay Area
Veteran Bay Area reporter who currently hosts the weekly show Asian Pacific America. Named reporter of the year by the Associate Press in 2015.
Common Ground is sponsored by Liucrative Media and East West Bank
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc.
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