EVENT SOLD OUT!

Jinah Kim
Jinah Kim is currently a correspondent for NBC news, MSNBC and KNBC in Los Angeles. She is also the co-owner of WorldWise Productions (www.worldwiseproductions.com), a video production company specializing in corporate and non-profit videos, based in Los Angeles.

She is the co-president of the Asian American Journalists Association’s Los Angeles chapter, which will hold its national convention here in Los Angeles in August, 2010. She also sits on numerous boards, including the ALS Association’s national communications committee.

She was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was six. She grew up in the Los Angeles area and attended UCLA, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, with a BA in English Literature.

Jinah’s journalism career began with her high school newspaper, then the Daily Bruin at UCLA. She was sure she wanted to become a newspaper reporter when she decided to intern at CBS News in New York during college. She got the broadcast bug and got her first job at KTLA in Los Angeles as an assignment desk assistant in the newsroom. She’s also produced in Monterey, reported and anchored in Salinas, San Diego and most recently, in Denver.

Jinah has a passion for languages and speaks, reads and writes Korean, German and Spanish. Her other passions include traveling around the world, writing, reading anything she can get her hands on, environmental causes, literacy, and ALS research.

Tritia Toyota, Ph.D.
Dr. Toyota is an Adjunct Asst. Professor with teaching assignments in the Departments of Anthropology and Asian American Studies at UCLA. Toyota received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from UCLA. Her doctoral research centers on new political and social citizenship projects among post-1965 naturalized Chinese immigrants in the U.S. She has been a Visiting Professor at Shih Hsin University in Taipei, lectured throughout Asia including Fudan University in Shanghai, Nanjing University in Nanjing, and Tokyo University in Tokyo.

Dr. Toyota is an award-winning broadcast journalist with more than 25 years in Southern California television news. She began her television career at KNBC in Los Angeles and later moved on to KCBS television where she became one of Los Angeles’ most recognized and respected news anchors.

As a major focus of her broadcast career, her reporting has centered on both the growing diversity and commonalities between different Southern California populations, including the Asian Pacific American communities. At KNBC, she wrote and produced the first Emmy award-winning, hour-long documentary, Asian America.

She has also reported and investigated major news events at local and national levels including numerous political campaigns from local elections to U.S. President. Other significant news stories have taken her around the world. She has covered the war in Bosnia, with special emphasis on the effects of the war on Southern California’s large Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian communities; the earthquake in Kobe, Japan; traveled to Korea to report on relations between North and South Korea, with an emphasis on Korean American community efforts at family reunification; and reported from the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Her broadcast awards include the Emmy, the Golden Mike, and Associated Press honors for excellence in news coverage.

Dr. Toyota is active in many civic and educational organizations. She is a co-founder and past national president of the Asian American Journalists Association, a professional journalism association dedicated to ensuring fair and accurate news coverage of Asian Pacific American communities. She is a governor’s appointee to the California Council for the Humanities. She is also a former member of the Gannett Foundation’s Pacific Coast Freedom Forum, member of the Board of Governors for the Little Tokyo Service Center, board member of Keiro Japanese American Senior HealthCare, member of the UCLA Foundation and the UCLA Chancellor’s Community Advisory Commission and a founding member of the UCLA Asian Pacific American Alumni Association. She has established the Tritia Toyota Fellowship for Graduate Students at UCLA. The fellowship awards stipends each year for graduate students who are pursuing research in Asian Pacific American communities.
She has been recognized and honored by numerous community and civic organizations such as the California State Legislature, the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, the L.A. City Council, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, The Greater Los Angeles YWCA. Dr. Toyota is a frequent speaker and lecturer in Southern California.

Honorable Van Tran
Assemblyman Van Tran was elected to the California State Assembly in November 2004. He represents the 68th Assembly District in Orange County, including the cities of Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Newport Beach, Stanton, and Westminster.
Van serves as the vice-chair of the Judiciary Committee. He also serves on the Utilities and Commerce and Governmental Organization Committees. Additionally, he is a member of the Select Committee on Critical Issues and Asian Pacific Islander Joint Caucus. Van is the highest ranking Vietnamese-American elected official in the nation. He currently serves as an Assistant Republican Leader in the Assembly.
Since his election to the Assembly, Van has made quick work to advance common-sense solutions to some of the biggest problems facing California. His efforts include Assembly Bill 199, an act to expand the number of Enterprise Zones in California and help create new jobs, and Assembly Bill 38, cutting the excessive salary for members of part-time boards and commissions, saving California over $5 million per year. Van’s agenda includes balancing the budget deficit through spending restraint, eliminating waste in the bureaucracy, and improving our infrastructure, particularly roads and highways.
Van’s family first came to America in 1975, evacuated by the U.S. Army a week before the fall of Saigon. Originally settling in Michigan, the family moved to Orange County while Van was in high school. Politically active during his university days, Assemblyman Tran started as an intern for Congressman Robert Dornan and for then State Senator (now Congressman) Ed Royce.
Leading up to his historic election as the first Vietnamese-American in any state legislature, Van was the focus of broad media and public coverage. He was featured in the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar alongside Colin Powell and Abraham Lincoln. Van’s biographical profile has been published in the Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County Register, Sacramento Bee, Grand Rapids Press (MI), and by the Associated Press.
Prior to serving in the Assembly, Van was managing partner of his own law practice, served on the Garden Grove Planning Commission, and served as Vice-Mayor of Garden Grove, having garnered the highest number of votes in the history of a city’s council election. His community involvement has been extensive, including as Vice Chairman of the Orange County based ‘El Capitan’ District of the Boy Scouts of America. He is also a lifetime member of the prestigious American Council of Young Political Leaders, and a 2002 Delegate to the Young Leaders Conference, organized by the American-Swiss Foundation in Zurich, Switzerland. In 2004, OC Metro Magazine recognized Van as one of the ‘Hottest 25 People in Orange County’. The Orange County Register recognized him in 2001 as a ‘person to watch’.
Van completed his Bachelors Degree in Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, and went on to earn both a Master’s Degree in Public Administration and a Juris Doctorate from Hamline University School of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In 2004, he married Cindy and they are expecting their first child in July, 2007.

Tzi Ma
Mr. Ma started his acting career in 1973 starring in a full length Student film called “Half-Ass” written and directed by his friend Victor Huey. He studied acting at LaMama in New York City. The most influential teacher in Mr. Ma’s life was the highly respected MAKO. For the next fifteen years, Mr. Ma dedicated his acting life mainly in the theaters in New York City and regional theaters around the country. His has had the privilege of working with some of America’s most gifted playwrights. Among his most favorite playwrights are Mr. David Henry Hwang and Mr. Eric Overmyer. Mr. Ma has collaborated with Mr. Hwang on FOB, THE DANCE AND THE RAILROAD, GOLDEN GATE, FLOWER DRUM SONG, YELLOW FACE and other plays. Mr. Ma also starred in Mr. Overmyer’s NATIVE SPEECH and IN PERPETUITY THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE. Both of these brilliant playwrights have written works specifically for Mr. Ma.In 1988, Mr. Ma came to Los Angeles to perform in a production of Mr. Overmyer’s IN PERPETUITY THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE at South Coast Repertory Theater, garnering excellent reviews for his work. The opportunity allowed him to exhibit his talent to Hollywood for the first time, leading to work in film and TV. Unfortunately, the work offered at the time was mostly for roles which were stereotypical caricatures, cardboard cutouts or one-dimensional background color which served no purpose other than to lend a mild sense of authenticity to the stories, which were predominately created by white, male producers and writers that were not mindful of how the Asian Pacific American community was being portrayed. Still, Mr. Ma understood the impact and power of the film and TV industries in reaching the world. He knew it was something he needed to be a part of. Every meeting he had with the powers that be became a mission to educate and influence them to give Asian Pacific American characters three dimensions and culture-specific behaviors. Most importantly, he strove to make sure that Asian Pacific American characters be included as part of the fabric of American society so as not to be seen as perpetual foreigners. It has been an uphill climb for too many reasons to elaborate on here, but his efforts have led to the creation of roles he is proud of in the following productions:

Films – FORMOSA BETRAYED, BABY, RUSH HOUR 3, RED DOORS, BATTLE IN SEATTLE, ALL GOD’S CHILDREN CAN DANCE, DRAGON BOYS, AKEELAH AND THE BEE, THE LADYKILLERS, THE QUIET AMERICAN, HAWAIIAN GARDEN, CATFISH AND BLACK BEAN SAUCE, RUSH HOUR, DANTE’S PEAK, CHAIN REACTION, GOLDEN GATE, RAPID FIRE.

Television – LIE TO ME, DOLLHOUSE, FRINGE, COLD CASE, THE BEAST, DIRTY SEXY MONEY, GREY’S ANATOMY, FINNEGAN, 24, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, THE UNIT, THE PRACTICE, E.R., LAW & ORDER, BOOMTOWN, THE BERNIE MAC SHOW, HAWAII, GIDEON’S CROSSING, CITY OF ANGELS, N.Y.P.D. BLUE, MARTIAL LAW, MILLENIUM,YELLOW THREAD STREET, FORBIDDEN NIGHTS, THE FORGOTTEN, THE DANCE AND THE RAILROAD.

Community Co-Sponsors

APALS	API Equality	OCA-GLA
APABA	VACOC	ABL
VABASC