On Friday, May 17, the Office of California Assemblymember Ash Kalra, held its annual AAPI Heritage month celebration at Elyse restaurant in downtown San Jose. On the occasion, he recognized four AAPI community leaders for their contribution to San Jose.
Speaking at the event, Assemblymember Kalra – who represents the state’s 25th District – reminded the audience that Asians make up 27% of the Bay Area’s population, and an even higher percentage in San Jose. “But our stories are rarely told, or are not told with an AAPI voice,” he said. While he celebrated the fact that the AAPI voice has become much stronger than in the 70s and 80s, he also denounced recent anti-Asian attacks that we saw during the pandemic.
However, the spirit of the evening was to celebrate the individuals and organizations that lift up the voice of the AAPI community. Assemblymember Kalra honored four individuals and one organization with a special resolution recognizing their contributions.
The honorees were Jane Kawasaki, who received the Norman Y. Mineta Legacy Award for her efforts to revitalize San Jose’s Japantown; Sean Kali-Rai, honored for his business advocacy efforts; Mylinh Pham, honored for her social service within the Vietnamese community; Dr. Angelica Cortez, honored for her advocacy for the Filipino American community in the Bay area; and the organization Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI), which works to uplift the underserved communities in the Bay Area.
Sean Kali-Rai thanked Ash Kalra for the recognition and expressed pride at how the AAPI community has flourished in the Bay Area, especially in the small business space. “There might not be a place in corporate America for us because of the way we look, or our accent or whatever,” he said. “But there is a lot of entrepreneurial spirit here, and so whenever there is a business opportunity or someone needs help with getting their business, that’s where I come in and help.” Working under the aegis of a firm called United Strategies, Kali-Rai also works with religious organizations to help build places of worship and ensure compliance with the law.
For AACI CEO Sarita Kohli, the honor was all the more meaningful as AACI is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Since its foundation, the organization has succeeded in providing culturally-sensitive healthcare, mental health support, domestic violence assistance, and other crucial services to AAPI communities. Apart from impact on the ground, the organization has been instrumental in policy changes that have made these services more accessible to the underserved.
Right now, AACI is trying to create a model of integrated care to make it easier for underserved communities to access basic care services.
“What we recognize is that human beings have mental health, physical health needs, wellness needs, all in one person,” she said. “We are creating pathways to refer internally, so that people can get all their basic needs met in one place – a one-stop shop – and we can only do this because of our emphasis on cultural sensitivity, like having staff who speak 40 different languages.”