May 2nd, President’s Speech Confronting Bias and Hate Crimes
ACA President Connie Liao
五月二号由美中家长教育俱乐部发起，Arcadia华人协会及多家非盈利组织参与了一场反对亚裔仇恨犯罪的网络研讨会。 会上Arcadia华人协会会长Connie Liao 廖群代表ACA 做出了以下发言：
大家下午好！
我是Arcadia华人协会会长Connie Liao。非常荣幸地代表ACA在此活动上发表演讲。
自从Covid19病毒大流行以来，针对亚裔美国人的仇恨犯罪急剧增加，使我意识到，亚裔美国人已成为病毒大流行的替罪羊，要改变这一现状，我们需要发出声音，告诉社区，亚裔美国人作为美国的重要组成部分，一直在默默地勤奋地尽责地为社区为美国做着贡献。
仅在去年，阿卡迪亚华人协会就筹集了35,000美元，用于翻新童子军营地；在流行病开始的4月，PPE的供应非常短缺，华协向阿卡迪亚和圣盖博谷地区的五家医院，四个养老中心，警察局和消防局捐赠了价值$ 42,000的PPE；向阿卡迪亚高中和非营利组织捐赠了6000美元；向阿卡迪亚消防员协会捐赠了10,000美元，用于扑灭山猫野火并多次向前线灭火消防员送去感恩午餐；今年又连续4次为65名covid19疫苗工作人员提供感谢午餐。记得当我向Kaiser Permanente at Baldwin Park交付PPE时，负责接收PPE的人告诉我，Kaiser每天收到3-4次PPE捐赠，其中95％来自亚裔组织。上个星期，我参加了PPE Unite组织向900小商家免费分发150万件PPE的活动。这150万件PPE是由华裔企业家Jay Tsao捐赠的，他本人当天也在现场参加分发活动。但是，尽管亚裔美国人一直在为社区抗击病毒做贡献，我们却很少看到主流媒体报道这些令人心动的故事。相反，我们听到了诸如 “中国病毒”和“功夫流感”之类的破坏性词语，这些言论严重损害了亚裔美国人的形象和声誉，激发了对亚裔的仇恨犯罪。
为了防止对亚裔进一步地仇恨犯罪，我们必须重塑亚裔美国人的社会形象和声誉。
众所周知，亚裔美国人在科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）领域做出了许多杰出贡献。例如获得诺贝尔奖的李政道，杨振宁，丁肇中，朱棣文等。建筑师贝聿铭。
不少亚裔美国人也是塑造美国并对美国日常生活产生深远影响的企业家和行业领袖，例如Google首席执行官Sundar Pichai， Zoom的创始人兼CEO袁征Eric Yuan， YouTube联合创始人兼前首席执行官Steve Chen, 英伟达（Nvidia）联合创始人兼首席执行官黄仁勋（Jensen Huang），雅虎联合创始人兼前首席执行官Jerry Yang等等。
亚裔美国人在艺术方面也取得了辉煌的成就。就像电影导演李安（Ang Lee）和赵婷（Chloe Zhao）一样，赵婷刚刚在金球奖和奥斯卡金像奖上因《无依之地》获得了最佳导演奖。
这些优秀的亚裔几乎每个人都是背井离乡追求美国梦的移民，他们成功的背后都是充满艰辛曲折，希望与坚持的故事。是非常有趣的电影电视报刊杂志的素材。希望新闻媒体能有多一点关于这些努力奋斗取得成就的亚裔美国人的报道，我也希望亚裔美国人继续表达我们的声音，并大声疾呼反对仇恨犯罪。 并让美国人民知道，亚裔美国人对这个国家的发展和繁荣有着深远的影响和贡献，把亚裔美国人当作仇恨犯罪的目标是完全错误的。
美国是一个移民国家，由多个种族，语言，宗教和文化传统交织融合而成。每个种族，语言，宗教和文化传统都是世界文化的组成部分，都有它的特点和优点，值得我们深入的研究及尊重。我们来到这个国家，除了保持我们的文化传统以外，我们也应该努力学习美国民主自由的价值观，美国的法律与规则，文化传统，礼仪规范，使自己能够尽快的融入主流社会。 Arcadia 华人协会从去年10月份至今，已经举办了三次专题讲座及两次云端联欢晚会，包括《总统大选及加州提案》，《最新Covid19病毒及疫苗动态》，《最新税法商业法移民法及仇恨犯罪法》。我们相信通过举办各种教育讲座帮助亚裔了解美国的法律规则，尽快的融入主流社会。举办网上文艺晚会也让主流社会了解亚裔的文化传统。
Good afternoon, everyone!
I am Connie Liao, the president of Arcadia Chinese Association. It’s a great honor to speak at this event on behalf of ACA.
Since the Covid19 pandemic, Asian hate crimes have increased dramatically, Asian Americans have become a scapegoat for the virus pandemic. To change this situation, we need to speak out and tell the community that, Asian Americans have been consistently, diligently, and conscientiously contributing to the community and the country.
In the last year alone, the Arcadia Chinese Association raised $35,000 for the renovation of the Boy Scout camp; last April, when the supply of PPE was extremely short at the beginning of the pandemic, ACA donated $42,000 worth of PPE to five hospitals, four elder care centers, police department, and fire stations in Arcadia and San Gabriel Valley area; ACA also donated $6000 to Arcadia high school and non-profit organizations, sent a $10,000 check to the Arcadia Firefighters Association for extinguishing the Bobcat wildfires and delivered thank-you lunches to firefighters on the front line many times, provided thank-you lunches for 65 covid19 vaccine staff in 4 times straight series. Last April when I delivered the PPE to Kaiser Permanente at Baldwin Park, the person who received the PPE told me that Kaiser received PPE donations 3 to 4 times every day, among them 95% were from the Asian-American organizations. Last week, I participated in an event organized by PPE Unite to distribute 1.5 million pieces of PPE for free to 900 small businesses. These 1.5 million pieces of PPE were donated by a Chinese-American entrepreneur Jay Tsao, who also participated in the distribution event on the same day. However, although Asian Americans have been contributing to the community’s fight against the virus, we rarely see these touching stories reported by mainstream media. On the contrary, we heard destructive words such as “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu “, which have severely damaged the image and reputation of Asian Americans and triggered more hate crimes against Asians.
To prevent any further misdirected hatred towards Asians and stop the occurrence of hate crimes, we must take actions immediately to reshape the social image and the reputation of Asian Americans.
As we all know, Asian American have made many notable contributions to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Such as Tsung-Dao Lee, Chen Ning Yang, Samuel Chao Chung Ting, and Steven Chu, etc. who won Nobel Prices, and famous architect, Leoh Ming Pei.
Many Asian Americans are also entrepreneurs and industry leaders who have shaped America and have profound impact on American daily life, such as Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google; Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom, Steve Chen, co-founder and ex-CEO of YouTube, Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, Jerry Yang, co-founder and ex-CEO of Yahoo, the list goes on.
Asian Americans have also made brilliant achievement in the Arts. Like film director Ang Lee, and Chloe Zhao, both won the Best Director at the Golden Globe and the Academy Awards.
Almost all of them mentioned above are Asian immigrants who left their hometown to pursue the American dream. Behind their success, there are stories full of hardships and frustrations, hopes and persistence. They would be very interesting story materials for movies, TV series, newspapers, and magazines. I hope that the news media will have more reports on the hard-working and successful Asian Americans, and I also hope that Asian Americans will continue to let our voices be heard and speak out against hate crime. And make it known to Americans that Asian Americans have profound influence and contribution to the development and prosperity of this country, it is completely wrong for Asian Americans to be the target of the hate crimes.
Thank you.
Question:
Keeping race out of disagreement. How do we not reduce differences of opinion to accusations of bias?
We get to know each other and be friends of each other. The United States is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious, and multi-cultural country of immigrants. Every ethnic, language, religion, and culture are an integral part of the America’s culture, with their characteristics and advantages, and deserve to be in-depth studied and respected. We came to this country, in addition to maintaining our traditions, we should also diligently to absorb the values of American democracy and freedom, American laws and rules, and culture and protocol. Arcadia Chinese Association has held three lectures and two virtual galas since October last year, including 《the presidential election and California Propositions》, 《the Updates of Covid19 virus and vaccines》, 《the Updates of Tax laws, Business laws, Immigration laws and Hate Crime Laws》. We believe these educational lectures would help Asians understand the laws and rules and integrate into the community smoothly and quickly, and the virtual galas that demonstrated Asian performing arts would let the mainstream understand our cultures and traditions.