OCA - Orange County Chapter

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The Ethnic Composition of U.S. Inventors — HBS Working Knowledge
The contributions of immigrants to U.S. technology formation are staggering. While the foreign-born account for just over 10 percent of the U.S. working population, they represent 25 percent of the U.S. science and engineering workforce and nearly 50 percent of those with doctorates. Even looking within the Ph.D. level, ethnic researchers make an exceptional contribution to science as measured by Nobel Prizes, election to the National Academy of Sciences, patent citation counts, and so on. The magnitude of these ethnic contributions raises many research and policy questions: 4 examples are debates regarding the appropriate quota for H1-B temporary visas, the possible crowding out of native students from the science and engineering fields, the brain-drain or brain-circulation effect on sending countries, and the future prospects for U.S. technology leadership. This paper describes a new approach for quantifying the ethnic composition of U.S. inventors with previously unavailable detail. Key concepts include:

* Ethnic scientists and engineers are an important and growing contributor to U.S. technology development. The rapidly increasing ethnic contribution in high-tech sectors is due to the strong growth of the Chinese and Indian ethnicities.
* Shifts in the concentration of ethnic inventors appear to facilitate changes in the geographic composition of U.S. innovation.

EQUAL JUSTICE?

Racial Profiling and Selective Prosecution in the API Community
A Community Teach Seminar

CO-SPONSORS (Partial List)

Japanese American Bar Association
Philippine American Bar Association
Southeast Asian Bar Association
Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association

Time:
5:30 – 6:00 PM Registration & Light Dinner, 6:00 – 9:00 PM Seminar

Date:
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Location:
Japanese American Culture and Community Center
244 S. San Pedro, Conference Room A & B
Los Angeles, CA 90012

A media panel will examine if mainstream media and entertainment have contributed to the negative stereotypes of APIs and paranoia in the country; and what we can do about it.  At the criminal justice panel, legal experts and community activists will examine the issues of racial profiling and selective prosecution in the API community. Intended outcomes include: (1) raise the awareness of these issues among APIs leaders; and (2) calls for action.

This seminar is for community leaders, concerned citizens, legal professionals, and students who care about the welfare of API community members and who believe in upholding the constitutional rights of all citizens in this country.

ADMISSION IS FREE!
SPACE IS LIMITED. PLEASE RSVP AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
RSVP: e-mail APIforJustice@gmail.com

“It’s not a man’s world anymore.”

Susan Ho says that now with confidence, but when she founded Lakeville Homes in 1985, there were very few women in the construction industry.

Ho immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong in 1976 with her husband and infant daughter and $20 in their pockets. She didn’t believe that her gender — or her race — should keep her from pursuing her dream of designing custom homes.

Today, Bellevue-based Lakeville has 10 employees and has helped more than 100 clients build their dream homes, including one in 1992 that was featured in the prestigiousSeattle Street of Dreams.

Ho’s success has become an inspiration for other women, and she was a keynote speaker at a recent luncheon in Seattle that honored women builders.

Her speech at the event, sponsored by the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties, was titled “A story of perseverance and accomplishment.”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/realestate/2003863025_susanho020.html

AsianWeek » Looking for Heroes
Growing up in the 1960s and 70s in suburban New Jersey, away from any large Asian ethnic enclave, the only Asian people I saw on a regular basis were my mom’s family, the Woos who ran the local laundry and a Thai family who moved in before I went to college. I was the only APA person in a high school with over 1500 students, except for my siblings and a woman two grades behind me.

Today, with the Asian Pacific American population so much larger, there are many Asians not only in New Jersey but in almost every corner of the country. A study by the Organization of Chinese Americans a few years ago found that 95 of the 435 congressional districts had more than five percent APAs, and I’m sure the number has grown since then.

Looking back on my own upbringing, I do not feel like I was missing anything by not seeing other APAs on a daily basis. What I did miss was the sense that someone who looked like me could expect to rise to the highest levels of government, industry, the arts or any other field of endeavor.

In my twenties, while living in New York City, I remember being stunned by the audacity of Hawaiian-derived APAs, who had thought nothing of applying for the role of Hamlet in their high school play. In 1984, I remember reading about an American-educated APA physics professor in Delaware who somehow had been elected lieutenant governor of the state. Was S. B. Woo’s ability to go for the prize partly related to having been born in Shanghai, where people who looked like him were the head of state?

A group of Chinese Americans from the Bay Area have launched a “Chinese American Heroes” project to try to publicize the heroic things that Chinese Americans have done in this country. Based on their Web site and materials, it appears that they will be expanding upon the work done by pioneers such as the Asian American Curriculum Project, the Association for Asian American Studies, and others who have made part of their mission to celebrate the achievements of heroic Asian Pacific Americans.