Blog #5: Meeting with Asian Leaders Across Ohio

 On Wednesday, I was able to meet with various Asian Leaders all across Ohio. They ranged from Cleveland to Colombus to Youngstown. It was a very interesting experience for me, and I was able to ask these leaders about their organizations and what they did. My mentor, Elaine Tso, kindly arranged all of the meetings in order to help me better understand Asian American organizations across Ohio. I met with 3 different leaders of groups. First, I met with Lisa Wong, head of OCA in Cleveland. Then, I met the leader of the APIAHF coalition, Ms. Sankarappa. Finally, I met with Vincent Wang of APAPA, which is the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs organization. I'll condense what I learned about these three organizations into 3 separate paragraphs below. 

The OCA is a volunteer association that is concentrated in the Greater Cleveland Area. They are headed by Lisa Wong, and their primary goal is mainly to assist businesses and Asian Americans struggling to transition to the United States. One of their main programs before the pandemic was educating restaurant owners on how to pass restaurant checkups and safety inspections. They also host leadership camps for Asian Youth and Ms. Wong described their main goals as attempting to change the attitude of Asian Americans and to change the culture of non-involvement that pervades the Asian community. Especially among the immigrant community, there is a tendency to stay away from politics and social involvement and the OCA hopes to change that. 

The APIAHF coalition is a group that is centered in Colombus, but they have chapters across the state. They work actively on pushing state legislatures to enact bills that address issues that affect the Asian American community. For instance, every year, they host a group of activists from across the state that then meets with state legislators to push for progress on different bills and issues. Recently, they pushed a bill affecting medical patients and diabetes. Now, they mostly focus on access issues and aiding communities trying to reach vaccines. 

APAPA is an organization that is a more political wing compared to the other 3 organizations that I have talked with. I talked to Vincent Wang, who became interested in politics because of the case of Peter Liang, an Asian American cop who many Asians felt was scapegoated in New York. When I talked with Mr. Wang, I asked him a lot about how he felt the general tenor of Asian opinion was on a variety of issues including affirmative action, BLM, and current politics as well. Due to his extensive work canvassing and debating with other Asian activists across the nation, I felt it was really interesting to hear his unique perspective on these issues. Talking with him really helped broaden my understanding of Asian American opinion. APAPA also hosts intern programs and other such initiatives in order to help Asian Youth become more involved in politics. 

It truly was amazing for me to be given such an opportunity to talk to all of these people, and I owe a lot of gratitude to my mentor who set up all of these opportunities for me.