APASU and APANO representative, Justin White! (He's to the top right with the red APANO shirt)

There was a pretty good turn out for today’s meeting, the second meeting of this academic school year (if you count last week’s open house). Justin White from APANO (Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon) came to our general meeting. We broke the ice with some API Jeopardy.

It was a close game, but team ‘Hate-Free’ pulled through in the end. Not surprisingly, team ‘Grace’ which was not graced by the actual Grace’s presence was the runner-up. Team FCUK (pronounced eff-kuk) came in last with a whopping zero points–sadly, winning only in spirit.

Justin then continued on to talk about APANO’s purpose (their website explains it far more eloquently than I even could) and certain measures that will on the upcoming ballot in November (for Oregon). He especially highlighted Measure 58, which would, as Justin explained it, effectively eliminated ESL (English as a Second Language) as we know it. Immigrants who once depended on ESL to help them learn English could be in serious trouble.

He also encouraged us to throw voter registration parties, to educate people on the wide range of API issues as well as having some fun.

We finished with a rather quiet brainstorming/Q&A session on how APASU and APANO and work together in the future. Although we may not have been able to come up with ideas right there on the spot, I think that we have made is a great connection for the future. So, thank you, Justin, for coming!

Silly picture?

Also, I’m not sure how this blog is going to run yet. I’ll make announcements about events here, and I may continue to make a post after each meeting; hopefully you’ll be hearing from our other wonderful staff members as well. I also may post some interesting APA-related news articles on here. So, as you see, this is a work in progress; feel free to make any suggestions.

Alright, this is, Nolan, signing out.