API Summit 2023

Wednesday, June 7, 2023
The Commonwealth Club, 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

The Asian Pacific Fund, celebrating its 30th anniversary, is hosting its annual Asian and Pacific Islander (API) Summit back in-person!

This year’s Summit, “Honoring our Roots, Charting our Path: APIs in the Racial Justice Movement,” will create space for leaders to gather, reflect, and gain insights on how the API community can continue to work in alignment with other communities of color toward healing, recovery, and collective action. As our community emerges from the pandemic and continues to face anti-Asian hate, the 2023 Summit will focus on how the Asian and Pacific Islander community works alongside other communities of color toward healing, recovery, and collective action.

Curious about what was discussed during our 2022 API Summit? Click here for details.

AGENDA
SPONSORS
SPEAKERS

9:00 – 9:30 a.m.	Registration & Breakfast
9:30 – 9:45 am	Welcome
9:45 – 11:00 a.m.	Opening: Anchoring to Strength, Who We Come From The day will start with anchoring – a reminder that we have been in the racial movement for decades. Hear from “community anchors” who have been leading voices and actors on racial equity in the AAPI community. • Estella Owoimaha-Church, Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC) • Nikki Dinh, Leadership Learning Community • Pam Tau Lee, Retired • Peggy Saika, Common Counsel • Vivian Huang, Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) • Leafa Taumoepeau, Taulama for Tongans
11:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.	Data Panel: Anchoring to Data, Making the Invisible Visible Systemic inequities that impact communities of color impact the AAPI community, too. Hear from AAPI Data on the latest survey data that shows how systemic inequities impact the AAPI community and how those impacts are similar or different from communities of color, broadly. Understand the importance of making meaning, framing, and developing narratives around data so that we can work in solidarity with communities of color. • Karthick Ramakrishnan, AAPI Data
11:45 – 12:45 p.m.	Lunch
12:45 – 2:20 p.m.	Action Panel: Anchoring to Promise, Sharing Examples from the Field, Models for our Future It’s hard to be what you can’t see. Hear from Asian Pacific Fund affiliates and their partners who are intentionally working in cross-racial solidarity. • Asian-Black Solidarity Project (Asian Health Services + West Oakland Clinic) • Black Pacific Alliance (a project of EPIC) • How I Keep Looking Up (Chinese Culture Center of SF + Calle 24 Latino Cultural District)
2:20 – 2:35 p.m.	Break
2:35 – 3:30 p.m.	Narrative Panel: Anchoring to Story, Widening the Lens of the Problem to See Better Solutions S/he who frames a problem gets to also frame the solutions. Narrative change is a powerful tool to drive systems change. Hear from thought leaders doing the work to reclaim and shift narratives about the AAPI community, to get to solutions that better meet the needs of our community and communities of color. • Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author • Helen Zia, Writer and Activist
3:30 – 3:45 p.m.	Closing: What Racial Justice Looks Like for Our Community Hear from statewide leader on the importance of driving cross-racial systems change in the bay area and statewide. • Rob Bonta, Attorney General of the State of California
3:45 – 4:00 p.m.	Closing Meaning Making, Appreciations, Evaluations • Carolyn Wang Kong, Asian Pacific Fund