The 20th Annual Conference of the National Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodians, Laotian and Vietnamese Americans.

"Honoring Our Past As We Enter Our Future"

Bouy is presently deputy director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs (OBEMLA) helping school districts meet their requirement to provide equal education opportunities to limited English proficient students. Before joining the U.S. department of Education, he was Deputy Director of the National Coalition of Advocates for Students (NCAS), a nationwide network of 23 child advocacy groups, carried out in 13 states and the District of Columbia. He was also director of NCAS—National Asian Family/School Partnership Project that focuses specifically on Asian families addressing educational issues from a national perspective through extensive research and direct services.

He was born in Cambodia, escaped the Pol Pot regime and settled in Minnesota 1981. Bouy wants to emphasize quality and equity in education for all children. He believes that the bottom line is, one child who fails or one child who is denied equal opportunity to learn and succeed is one child too many.

Bouy shared a personal story from his 5 year old daughter. They were in a shopping mall in Washington DC area. An Anglo American came up to her because she was so cute. She speaks English so well. He asked her, "What language do you speak?" She said, "American." The confused man asked, "What do you mean?" She replied, "I speak American, I speak Cambodian, and I speak English."

To speak American means to speak Khmer,Vietnamese, Thai Dam and other languages. My daughter understands that.

I am very green and blunt in the political arena. I am blunt. Life is too short to be content. I want to maximize my two years. Sometimes it is difficult to stand alone. In the Khmer culture, we have lots of one man bands, and they are wonderful. If it is the right thing to do, do it. You will feel happy.

Like I was introduced, I was involved in many things, especially at the grass roots level. I was the president of the Cambodian Student Association in Massachusetts. One of the first things we needed to do was to gain respect among the other API students groups. I remember in the month of February, The APA center on campus wanted to hold an APA heritage celebration. They put up a big sign up that said, "Celebrating Asian New Years." I told them not to use the phrase "Asian New Years. " Our Cambodian New Years and others were not in February. I didn't feel it was accurate. Some people said I should not fight this, but instead just try harder to work together. But I said I am working with them, but I am insisting they be truthful. We had good relations with the Center and other API student groups after that.

Once I worked with the Minnesota Caucus. At the time I had no idea what a caucus was. I had to look it up. But it was a good experience for me. I started to work with different ethnic groups. I learned that despite our different backgrounds, we can work together, and we can always find common ground.

When to start fight, stop fight, and against who? We must understand this in order to be an ally. I am grateful to Ed Fujimoto for helping me the past 9 months. We need more APA faces. You can't lose your values. We need to spend more time listening, not talking. It is not about you, but about those you represent. It's not about the high position you hold, but how you use it to serve.

In closing I'd like to share a quote. "Information and knowlege is power." But I would add, "Information and knowledge, when shared, is the absolute power!"

Chanrithy is currently a city Council member for the City of Lowell and is a certified Guidance Counselor at Lowell High School, Lowell, MA and also a Doctoral Candidate in Leadership in Schooling. He received a Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts and was a math teacher and parent liaison in Lowell. He has been actively involved in community-based projects for many years working with Cambodian and other immigrant groups. His experiences include: NCAS Field/Consultant Trainer on school advocacy issues, field director, SKIP Cambodia. He served as President of the CMAA Lowell, MA and was a co-founder of the Cambodian American Voters’ League, Lowell, MA.

I consider myself a grass roots person, not a politician. As a refugee, I came to the United States in 1981, with no English, and no high school diploma. I tried hard to accomplish my goals. I got my GED, and went on to college. My motivation, was honoring the past, and entering the future. It is an honor to my parents who worked so hard to bring me up in this country. I became a U.S. citizen in 1987. I had just finished my BA at Boston, and I was thrilled. Many people asked me after I got my citizenship, "Why didn't you change your name? It is long and hard to pronounce." I thought "this is the name my parents gave me, to love, honor me, how can I change it?" We think a long time about names we give to our children before they are born. Our names are a way to honor our parents. They paved the way for us so we can live in the most rich country, with voice and opportunity for all.

There used to be much hatred towards new-comers. There was much fighting in the city.

I went to work for the United Nations in Cambodia in 1992. I wanted to give back to my country. I worked for the electoral training office in Cambodia. I had wondered, if the Cambodian people have believed in communism for so long, how will they do with this free and fair election? In the end we had a great voter turn out. When I came back here, my eyes were opened. We have all we need here. We take things for granted here. The Latino community in Lowell has, for many years, tried to elect an official, but were unable to do it. But we were able to do it.

Power, and politics are not bad. Politics is getting together to discuss something to solve problems. We must work together to make a difference for our country. Many people say that in Asian communities we get jealous when one of us rises, but it is important for us to support and help each other in order to make a difference. I hope more Asians will become politically active.

Dang Pham, Immigrant Rights Commission and the City Census 2000 Liaison, San Francisco, CA

Mayor Willie L. Brown appointed Dang Pham on October 18, 1999 as the Executive Director of the Immigrant Rights Commission and the City Census 2000 Liaison. With this appointment, Dang Pham became the first Vietnamese American Department Head in the history of San Francisco. Before Mr. Pham joined Mayor Brown in San Francisco, he was Deputy Director/Chief of Staff of the Office of Bilingual Education & Minority Languages Affairs, US Department of Education. In 1996, he was a member of the Clinton & Gore transition team at the Office of Presidential Personnel at the White House to help out with the outreach to the Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders community. Dang Pham was the first Vietnamese American appointed by President Clinton and the highest-ranking Vietnamese American in his Administration.

After Dang left Washington DC in July 1998, he became the Executive Director of Petrusky Educational Center in Garden Grove, Orange County. The center offers the after school program for the Southeast Asian students in the area. Before moved to Washington DC in 1994, Dang Pham was the Educational Program Director of the Massachusetts Office for Refugees & Immigrants He also was the first Asian American appointed as the Commissioner of the Fair Housing Commission of the City of Boston. He was a secondary math teacher and discipline coordinator in Boston Public Schools for 7 years.

Dang was involved in many local and national political campaigns. He was the national coordinator for Vietnamese Americans for Clinton & Gore campaigns in 1992 and 1996. Dang Pham received several awards and recognition for his leadership, commitment and his advocacy for refugee and immigrant populations:

National Service Award from the National Association of Asian & Pacific Americans for Education (NAAPAE); Outstanding service Award by United Way of Massachusetts Bay; Recipient of the Most Ten Young Leaders Award from the Boston Jaycee; Outstanding Service Award from Master Bilingual Parent Advisory Council; (Master PAC) of Boston Public Schools; Outstanding Public Service Award from the Board of Trustees of University of Massachusetts - Lowell Campus.

Before I get to the main issues, I want to thank Ed Fujimoto for his great support and commitment. Buoy Te is the current Deputy Director of OBEMLA, and there are a number of other APA appointees in the government. It is the largest number of APA appointments in history! This is the first time an administration has been truly committed to the APA community. (Mentions a Vietnamese person who has been appointed to the State Department to help prosecute the Khmer Rouge.) Buoy Te and others, keep up the good work. (Recognizes other NAFEA former leaders, and thanks them all for their commitment.) You are helping us and the community to move on. Make sure to give us more funding!

Buoy Te has been appointed as the deputy director of OBEMLA. Chanrithy Oung, an elected official in Lowel, which has the second largest Cambodian population next to Long Beach. How did this happen? They didn’t just hand it to him. He got support, not just from Cambodians, but the mainstream group as well. The important thing was a focus on issues, not just Southeast Asian issues, but all issues. We must connect and reach out, partnership with other folks. We must get involved in these things.

Executive Order 12125. I am happy President Clinton signed this order. It took a long 5 year fight from the API community to get this executive order. Now we must give our support to person in charge of the initiative. There are 15 members of APA panel responsible for the initiative. Out of these 15, there are 2 Southeast Asian members. We are now engaged in every level of the government. This is good.

When I worked with OBEMLA in 1994, the first item I looked at was the budget. I never saw any programs targeting Asian groups. We are the ones who put the first together the budget, a very small amoung, only $84,000, but we were able to put together the first ever APA Education forum to talk about our issues nationally. (Recognizes some of those who were involved).

One thing, be honest with yourself, and the community. Be a doer, not a talker. You must have a vision, Without vision, it is like driving a car without any idea where you are going!

Xuan Vu, Financial Consult, Merrill Lynch, CA

Xuan T. Vu - is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine. Her majors were in Political Science and Women's Studies and a minor in Asian American studies. In 1997, Xuan was among the first hired Field Representative for the newly elected Congresswoman, Loretta Sanchez. She served as the main liaison for the Congresswoman in the Asian American community and in particular to the Vietnamese American community. During her two and a half years on Congresswoman Sanchez's staff, Xuan headed the Congresswoman's major committees and issues in the district office, including Education, Health Care, Human Rights & International Relations, Defense, Housing, Transportation, and Business & Economic Development. Currently, Xuan is a Financial Consultant with Merrill Lynch specializing in retirement planning, education planning, estate planning and business and private finance.

I grew up in Orange County, California. I went to UC Irvine, and earned a degree. I developed. a liking for politics at a young age. When I was 11 years old, I was deeply interested in the presidential election between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. My friends thought I was weird. Later I was curious about all the criticism against Geraldine Ferarro. I saw lots of signs against her, even though she never did anything wrong. All the criticism was simply because she was a woman. This got me thinking.

Growing up, I never wanted to be Vietnamese. Sometimes I felt the war was my fault. There were llots of Vietnmese war movies out. I felt embarrassed. But it was my family history that got me involved in the political process.

When I was younger I read lots of newspapers. I was bored, and had nothing else to do. Later on, as I got older and learned about the political process, I got involved. After graduation from college, I got involved with the campaign for Laura Sanchez (U.S. Congress). I had noticed that Sanchez wasn't getting involved in the Vietnamese community. We approached her about her lack of involvement in Asian community, ane pointed out we could be 10% of the vote. She asked for my help. We did phone banking, press, and got a debate set up. Bob Dornan, her opponent, didn't show up, but his wife did and made a fool of him. Tjos caused him to lose support in the Vietnamese community, and helped Sanchez win. After the election, Sanchez invited me to work for her. I was shocked, I had never thought about that.

I no longer work for her, I am now in the corporate world, but I still stay involved. I read the newspapers, and keep in touch with colleagues and Sanchez. A phrase I learned in college was "representation creates meaning." When we don't have representation, we do not have any voice or meaning.

Sary Thipapong, United Laotian Community Development, Inc., Oakland, CA

Sary Tatpaporn currently is the Executive Director of the United Laotian Community Development, Inc., a position he held since 1994. Mr. Sary Tatpaporn is an active advocate for Laotian communitiy as well as the larger Southeast Asian community in the San Francisco Bay Area. He serves as a board member of the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, a 25 years CDC. He is also a member of the National Southeast Asian Advocacy Initiative of the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center (SEARAC) based in Washington, D.C. He is a committee member of the working group on the Proposition 10 for Contra Costa County. In the past 18 years of being in the United States, Mr. Sary Tatpaporn has served on numerous City and County Task Forces and Commissions as well as being the special consultant to the California State Department of Social Services, Refugee Resettlement Bureau (1986-88)

I'd like to share some of my personal experiences and beliefs. Social integration and acceptance includes political acceptance. This is a two way street. In my communities, I look in neighborhoods and find out what is going on in the communities, especially at the quality of education in the neighborhoods and the school sites. My neighborhood is a low income area with a diverse population, with many African Americans, and Hispanics. I learned that there were political labels on all government levels, and politics at all levels. Once I learned the system, I tried to become one of the players. I wanted to increase my knowledge at the community level on the issues and put them on the table. I wanted to let the political leaders know I am one of the knowledgeable people. Many politicians claim to know the problems of the community and say they want to solve them. But if we want to get involved, and we hear from what the people are saying in the community, and if this is different from what the politicians are saying at the table, then we can say something. Many politicians out of touch, and this leads to a lack of interested voters. Big lack where I am. Why is that?

Once we know what we are talking about, we can get support. I am now running for city council in my city.

Prany R. Sananikone, Director of Diversity Relations and Education Programs, UC Irvine

Prany Sananikone is currently the Director of Diversity Relations and educational programs, Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity (OEOD), at the University of California at Irvine. He develops, oversees, and runs most of the staff development training programs, especially in the area of diversity and cross-cultural communication, both for the main campus and the Medical Center. Before joining the University of California, Mr. Sananikone had extensive experience working with community-based/non-profit organizations, developing health, mental health, educational and social services programs for refugees and immigrants. He has served as consultant/trainer for law enforcement, medical, educational, social service agencies, in addition to a number of corporations throughout the United States and abroad. His bachelor degrees are in Education (B.ED) and Community Development (B.A), and his Masters degree is in Communication (M.A), both from the University of Hawaii. Prany is a native of Laos.

Peter J. Armbrust, Monterey Defense Language Institute, Monterey, CA

Mr. Armbrust was born in Austria in 1943 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1956. He graduated from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY and received a Masters Degree from John Hopkins in 1970. He served in the US Army as an Intelligence Officer and joined the East Coast Branch of the Defense Language Institute in 1972 before moving to the West Coast Branch in 1974. He has served as German teacher, course project developer, Dean of School of Germanic Languages, Dean of Romance Languages, and Dean of Asian School 1. Mr. Armbrust has also served as President of the local chapter of the National Federation of Government Employees; President Federal Managers Association, President Toastmasters International, DLI Chairman, Handicapped Individual Employees Program Committee, DLI, Rotary Club Member.

Edward Fujimoto, U.S. Department of Education

Prior to joining the Department, Fujimoto held a number of communications and executive positions in government, the private sector and academia. He served as the Communications Director for the late United States Senator Spark M. Matsunaga; Director of Government Affairs for Isuzu Motors of America, Inc. in Washington, D.C.; Executive Assistant to former Mayor Herbert T. Matayoshi of the County of Hawaii; and chaired the Communications Department at the University of Hawaii, Hilo Campus. Fujimoto also possesses a background in administration and human resources management. He served as Chief of Administration and Human Resources Management at the Shimadzu Scientific Instruments Company in Columbia, Maryland, and was Chief of Administrative Services at the Oakland Army Base in Oakland, California.

In addition, Fujimoto taught at the Ohio State University, Central Michigan University, California State University at Los Angeles, University of Hawaii at Manoa and University of Hawaii at Hilo. He also served on the Hawaii Education Commission, the Hawaii Higher Education Commission, the Hawaii Vocational-Technical Commission, and is a current Board member of the Johns Hopkins University’s Leadership Development Advisory Board. Fujimoto earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (1965 and 1967, respectively) and his Ph.D. at the Ohio State University (1971). He is married and has three daughters.