Conference Biographies

Sewell Chan has been a reporter for The New York Times since 2004. He is the bureau chief of City Room, The Times’s local news blog. He previously covered public transportation and City Hall. From 2000 to 2004, he was a staff writer at The Washington Post. He has also written for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Wall Street Journal.

Born in Manhattan, Mr. Chan graduated from New York City public schools and from Hunter College High School, part of the City University of New York. He is the son of Chinese immigrants who settled on the Lower East Side before moving to Brooklyn and then Queens.

He graduated in 1998 with a degree in social studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard University. He received a master’s degree in politics from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, in 2000.

His work has been recognized by the New York Press Club, the Journalism Center on Children and Families at the University of Maryland, and the Carter Center in Atlanta, among other organizations.

 

Ken Chen is the Executive Director of Asian American Writers’ Workshop. A poetry finalist for The Iowa Review Award, the Anthony Hecht Award, and the Yale Series of Younger Poets, Mr. Chen’s work has been published in Best American Essays 2006 and was recently recognized in Best American Essays 2007.

Mr. Chen started Satellite: The Berkeley Magazine of News + Culture, a monthly magazine that published authors such as Ishmael Reed. He also helped found Arts & Letters Dail, a cultural website described by The New York Times as “required reading for the global intelligentsia” and called the “best website in the world” by the Guardian (London).

Mr. Chen has been featured in World Journal, the most prominent international Chinese language newspaper, and China Crosstalk TV. His work on Asia and Asian American affairs has been published in The Boston Review of Books, Manoa, The Kyoto Journal and nationally syndicated Asian American PBS show Pacific Time.

A graduate of Yale Law School, Mr. Chen successfully represented a Guinean American teenager’s asylum claim. The case was named one of the top ten most significant pro bono cases of 2007 by American Lawyer and profiled by The New York Post, Essence, and The New York Times.

 

Joanna Eng is the Web Editor for Idealist.org, where she writes and edits new features of the website, helps coordinate Idealist’s social media outreach strategy, and manages the NYC blog. Ms. Eng joined Idealist in 2005 after graduating from Cornell University, where she received her B.A. in Anthropology with a concentration in Latin American Studies. After some adventures in Mexico, Nicaragua, and China, she has settled in Queens, New York, the most culturally diverse place she has ever been. She loves exploring the city by bicycle, dabbling in various areas of the arts, and making playlists and other kinds of lists.

 

Caroline Fan is the Editor in Chief of the Asian American Action Fund blog (www.aaa-fund.com) and was one of two Asian American bloggers selected to receive media credentials at the Democratic National Committee in Denver. The blog’s elections coverage also was honored to be archived by Library of Congress. Caroline has been an organizer and communications maven for unions and grassroots nonprofits, and has wide experience in crafting strategies for winning complex policy debates through online organizing and in the field. She currently works at Progressive States Network as a Policy Specialist.Caroline sits on the AAA Fund board and holds a Masters in Public Administration from Baruch College through the National Urban Fellows, a national leadership program.She has served as a speaker and trainer for national conferences including the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, the United States Students Association, and Hmong National Development.

 

Jennifer Hayashida is Acting Director of the Asian American Studies Program (AASP) at Hunter College, CUNY. While at Hunter College, she has worked closely with students, faculty, administrators, and community groups to strengthen and expand the AASP; initiatives include collaborations with community-based organizations including AAWW, Asia Society, CACF, and AALDEF, intended to give Hunter students interdisciplinary opportunities to apply their coursework to NYC’s dynamic Asian American communities. In addition to her work as an educator, she is a writer and translator, and is currently a writer-in-residence through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s 2008-2009 Workspace Program.

 

Chung-Wha Hong is Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella advocacy organization made up of over 200 groups throughout the state that work with immigrant and refugee communities.  As the coordinating body for organizations that serve one of the largest and most diverse newcomer populations in the United States, the NYIC has become a leading advocate for immigrant communities on the local, state, and national levels.  The NYIC’s membership includes grassroots community organizations, not-for-profit health and human services organizations, religious and academic institutions, labor unions, and legal, social, and economic justice organizations.  With its multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and multi-sector base, the NYIC provides both a forum for immigrant groups to share their concerns and a vehicle for collective action to address these concerns.

Prior to coming to the NYIC in 2001, Ms. Hong served as Executive Director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), a national organization working on civil rights, immigrant rights and civic participation in the Korean American community.  Her past activism includes involvement with health care issues at the Committee of Interns and Residents and with Asian American and labor issues at the Washington, DC-based Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO.

 

Tarry Hum is an associate professor in the Department of Urban Studies at Queens College, City University of New York.  She has a PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA’s School of Public Policy and Social Research, and a Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  She was a 2006-2007 William Diaz Fellow sponsored by the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council.  Her research on immigration, economic development, ethnic banks, race relations, and neighborhood institutions and planning has been published in various journals and books including the Economic Development Quarterly and AAPI Nexus.

 

Hiroko Karan is Chair of the Board of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute, CUNY. She served as Chairperson of the Department of Physical and Computer Sciences, Assistant Dean and Dean of the School of Science, Health and Technology for twelve years at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, and since September, 2004, is serving as Executive Director of Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP).

 

Helen Koh is the former Associate Director of Cultural Programs at the Asia Society. She has taught East Asian literature and Korean film at Columbia University and the University of Chicago.  While a Research Fellow at Columbia’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute, she co-curated the series, “Country & City,” which featured films by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Hong Sang-soo, Im Kwon-taek, and Hirokazu Kore-eda.  At the Asia Society Koh has programmed films for the Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF) and served on the jury for “Emerging Director in Narrative Feature.” She has organized a retrospective of director Lee Chang-dong’s films and moderated an interview between the filmmaker and Richard Pena.  In addition, Koh organized a series on Japanese yakuza films called “Gamblers, Gangsters, and other Anti-Heros” as well the first-ever International Short Film Festival on Iran in the U.S.

 

Vanessa Leung is Deputy Director of the Coalition for Asian American Children & Families (CACF). Vanessa joined CACF in November 1999. She oversees CACF’s policy initiatives by partnering with decisionmakers and community organizations and is responsible for the development of a pan-Asian children’s advocacy agenda to improve policies, funding, and services for the Asian Pacific American community.

Previously, Vanessa was CACF’s Education Policy and Program Coordinator. She authored CACF’s in-depth report on the status of Asian Pacific American students in the public school system entitled Hidden in Plain View. Vanessa has worked alongside other advocates, including the New York Immigration Coalition and Advocates for Children, to call for changes to improve safety in our schools as well as equitable access for parents, winning the addition of Chancellor’s Regulations on interpretation and translation services in the public schools and an increase to $12 million for such services. She spearheaded a high school youth leadership project, the Asian American Student Advocacy Project (ASAP) that trains a diverse group of high school students to advocate for the needs of Asian Pacific American students.

In February 2007, Vanessa was named to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s Middle School Taskforce to investigate and develop recommendations to improve the persistently low academic achievement of New York City’s middle school grades. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Chinatown Youth Initiative and the Parish Advisory Council for the Church of the Transfiguration. Vanessa received her Masters of Arts degree in developmental psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College and her bachelor degree from NYU. She also completed the Institute for Not-for-Profit Management’s Middle Management Program of the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University and the Immigrant Civic Leadership Program of Coro New York Leadership Center.

 

Glenn D. Magpantay is a Staff Attorney for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Magpantay oversees AALDEF’s Asian American Election Projection efforts in fifteen states across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest.  In 2004, he coordinated the nation’s largest exit poll of Asian Americans surveying over 11,000 voters in 23 cities.

Magpantay has published scholarly legal articles, authored a number of reports, and has given commentary to numerous media outlets including The New York Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, CNN, and National Public Radio on the Voting Rights Act, bilingual ballots, redistricting, and Asian American voting patterns and political opinions.

He currently teaches the Race & the Law at Rutgers School of Law – Newark and a clinical seminar on Individual Rights and Representation at Brooklyn Law School.  He serves as a Commissioner to the New York City Voter Assistance Commission and as a Steering Committee member of the Gay Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPIMNY).

Magpantay attended the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook on Long Island, and graduated cum laude from New England School of Law in Boston – after being admitted as an affirmative action beneficiary.

 

Parag Mehta served in the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team as a constituency liaison to the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) communities. He also worked with organizations focused on education and the arts.

Previously, Parag was the Director of External Communications for the Democratic National Committee. In that role, he worked to keep political opinion leaders, Democratic surrogates and allied organizations on message with the Obama-Biden campaign. He previously served as National Training Director for the DNC from 2005-2008, organizing trainings for more than 22,000 Party staff, candidates, leaders and activists in all 50 states and around the world. Prior to joining the DNC, Parag was Deputy Political Director for America Votes, a coalition of the largest progressive groups in the country who joined forces to register, educate, recruit, and mobilize voters during the 2004 elections.

In 2003, Parag served as a Deputy Political Director for Governor Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, based in Burlington, Vermont, where he handled Congressional and union endorsements for the campaign and coordinated political call time with the candidate. Parag also directed the campaign’s Asian, Arab, Muslim and Pacific Islander outreach, working with elected officials, community leaders, and grassroots activists to build support for Governor Dean.

As a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) from 2000-2002, Parag worked as a speechwriter and policy analyst for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and for the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Following this two-year fellowship, he served as Deputy Field Director for former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk’s U.S. Senate campaign in Texas. Parag is a second-generation Indian American from Central Texas. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin where he received his B.A. in the Plan II Honors Program. He was awarded a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2000.

 

Joyce Moy is the Executive Director of the Asian American/ Asian Research Institute. She was the first Asian American director of a NYS Small Business Development Center. Her area of expertise is entrepreneurship and economic development. She has taught business law and taxation at Queens College, the CUNY School of Law, and at Cornell University School of Law.  She is a former practicing attorney with over 15 years experience in corporate law, franchising, taxation and commercial areas. She is the recent recipient of the Woman of Excellence award from the NY Women’s Chamber of Commerce, and Star Mentor of the Year Award. Ms. Moy received her B.A. from SUNY at Stony Brook, and her J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law.

 

Sunita S. Mukhi is the Director of Asian and Asian American Programs for the Charles B. Wang Center at SUNY Stony Brook. Dr. Mukhi is a cultural manager, performance scholar, and artist. Her early education was from St. Scholastica’s College, Manila, Philippines. She has a B.A. in Behavioral Sciences and in Literature from De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines; an M.A. degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Social  Sciences from San Francisco State University; and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University.

Born and bred in the Philippines, having short stints in Mumbai and Singapore, and having lived the last 21 years in the United States, has provided Dr. Mukhi with an international understanding of migration and the global interconnectedness of peoples–a true product of the Manila Sindhi Diaspora.  As a cultural manager, Dr. Mukhi  continues to produce innovative programming in light of promoting a multi-faceted, intellectually sound and humane understanding of Asianness. She has presided over, participated in, and moderated numerous panel discussions, and given lectures and addresses on topics ranging from identity politics, performativity, arts, and the South Asian diaspora. She is also currently teaching at the Asian and Asian American Studies Department at Stony Brook University.

The courses she has developed as part of the faculty of the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at Stony Brook University are Popular Indian Cinema and Culture, Peformance in Contemporary India, Desis in the Diaspora, and Presenting Asian/American Cultures Internship Program.
Her poems appear in the anthologies Desilicious: Sexy, Saucy, South Asian and Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America, her articles in Art Spiral, and Little India magazine and Cinevue. The essay “Underneath My Blouse Beats My Indian Heart: Indian Womanhood, Hindi Film Dance, and Nationalism” appears in A Patchwork Shawl (Rutgers University Press, 1998), and her most recent book is Doing the Desi Thing: Performing Indianness in New York City (Garland Publishing/Routledge, 2000). She also co-wrote a ground-breaking report  Engaging Asian America: Challenges and Opportunities (2004) for the Asia Society.  Just recently, her work 10 Poems was published in the Philippines.

She has performed, directed, and choreographed in university, community, and professional theatrical, television, and film productions in Manila, the United States, Mexico, and Singapore. She has also appeared in a number of short independent films. She is a story-teller and appears in numerous family day events at the Asia Society, the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum and other venues. Her most recent performance works are on sexuality, women’s power, the slipperiness of identity and other yearnings such as It’s a Drag Being an Indian Woman and Cornucopia. Liberty’s New Wedding Day is a tongue-in-cheek indictment against imperialism and terror. As a story-teller, she has composed and performed tales with dynamic women as central characters such as Kalahati, the Half-Girl, Butterfly and the Pin Man, Princess Guddi Saves NYC, and Brown Fox. White Tiger, among others.

 

Elizabeth R. OuYang is Executive Vice-President of Organization of Chinese Americans – New York.  She has been a civil rights attorney for the past 22 years.  Her areas of expertise include immigration, voting, media accountability, and combatting hate crimes and police brutality.  She teaches a comparative constitutional pre-law course at Columbia University and New York University.  In 2000, she was appointed by President Clinton to serve as a special assistant to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

 

Shan Rehman is the Communications and Development Associate for Chhaya since 2007, when he began his work with the organization as a Community Organizer. He has also worked as an analyst with a public sector oriented management consulting firm, where he conducted management and communications research for some of New York City’s largest civic organizations.

Before joining Chhaya, he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree focusing on issues of international development, globalization, and social change from Hampshire College. He has also previously worked with the National Rural Support Program and the National Commission for Human Development in Islamabad, Pakistan; and has had his academic work published. Originally from Pakistan; he is fluent in English, Urdu, Punjabi and is proficient in Nepali. In his free time, Shan enjoys playing guitar and exploring the wares of New York City street vendors.

 

Amardeep Singh is the Executive Director of the Sikh Coatlion.  An attorney, Amar is a co-founder of the Sikh Coalition and became the Coalition’s first full-time staff as the Legal Director in 2003. Amar has represented dozens of Sikh victims of airport profiling, employment discrimination, and hate crimes.  Along with Department of Homeland Security officials, he also helped to formulate guidelines governing the searches of Sikh passengers in U.S. airports.   With his assistance, New York City’s Police Department now allows Sikhs to serve as traffic enforcement agents while wearing their turbans.  He has represented the Sikh community during meetings with the United States Attorney General, Secretary of Transportation, and the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Prior to joining the Coalition, Amar worked as a Researcher in the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch (HRW). While at HRW, he authored its report, “We Are Not the Enemy: Hate Crimes Against Arabs, Muslims, and Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslim after September 11.”  Amar has also written published articles on the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

In 2008 Amar received a joint award for his community service from the Asian American Bar Association of New York, Korean American Lawyers Association of Greater New York, and South Asian Bar Association of New York. In 2007, Amar was honored by the South Asian Law Students Association at St. Johns University’s School of Law during the law school’s Annual Ronald H. Brown dinner. He was also honored by New York Disaster Interfaith Services with a “Best Practices” award for his work on mitigating bias in the wake of public disasters. During 2005, he was honored by the Sikh Centennial Foundation as its Human Rights Activist of the year.  He also received the Chavez, Houston and Korematsu Public Service Award from Benjamin Cardozo Law School in April 2005.  In November 2005, Mr. Singh was a co-recipient of the Union Square Award, from the Union Square Foundation.

Amar sits on the advisory committee to Harvard University’s Discrimination and National Security Initiative. He is also currently the Vice-President of the South Asian Bar Association of New York.

 

Choua Vue is Policy Coordinator for Education and Child for the Coalition for Asian American Children & Families (CACF). Choua joined CACF in July 2008. She is responsible for promoting equity and access through the Education Advocacy Project and the Child Welfare Advocacy Project. Among her key education initiatives are the reduction of bias-based harassment in schools, the collection of disaggregated data on Asian Pacific American students, and the improvement of English Language Learner services. Among her key child welfare initiatives are the Preventive Services Action Network to improve the capacity and resources of community based preventive services programs as well as the South Asian Immigrant Community Partnership to build ties between the Administration for Children’s Services and South Asian families.

Previously, she worked with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights as the Program Director for the Outreach and Interpretation Project, where she advocated on issues of immigrant rights, language access, and cultural competency. She also spearheaded electoral campaigns to increase political participation and awareness in immigrant and refugee communities and to protect voting rights. Choua received her bachelor’s degree from Carleton College and her Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs.