MOCACITIZEN: Let's Talk About Ferguson and Asian America

This program is FREE, courtesy of TARGET. RSVP required at programs@mocanyc.org.

In the wake of the Ferguson verdict and the Garner decision, please join us for a forum moderated by Sewell Chan, Deputy Editor, Op-Ed/Sunday Review, The New York Times, to examine how communities situated in the in between are impacted and can effect change on the issues that matter, ranging from race and racism, to the justice system, to activism and social justice.

Moderator:

Sewell Chan

Sewell Chan is the Deputy Editor, Op-Ed/Sunday Review at The New York Times. He was previously a Washington economic correspondent for the newspaper, the founding bureau chief of the City Room news blog, and a metropolitan reporter covering transportation and City Hall. Before he joined The Times in 2004, he was a staff writer at The Washington Post.



Participating panelists include:

Chhaya Chhoum

Chhaya Chhoum is the founding executive director of Mekong NYC, a community-based organization in the Bronx working to empower and meet the needs of the NYC Southeast Asian community.

Born in Cambodia in 1978 during the fall of the Khmer Rouge Regime, Chhaya and her family sought refuge in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines before making their way to the United States. After a refugee resettlement program abandoned her extended family along with thousands of other Cambodians and Vietnamese in urban poverty in the Bronx she began to organize her community against institutionalized oppression.

Prior to Mekong NYC, she mobilized Asian immigrant and refugee communities against the institutionalized violence of urban poverty, worker exploitation, police brutality, INS detention and deportation. She is the recipient of the 2005 Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World Award, 2006 Petra Foundation Award for unsung heroes, and the 2013 Neighborhood Leadership Award from The New York Women Foundation.



Kevin Park

Kevin is a member of the Harlem Cop Watch team and on the Steering Committee of Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Men of NY (GAPIMNY). He also works for Hunter College's Asian American Studies Program, organizing on-campus events as well as assisting with student outreach. Off-campus, Kevin was a Public Housing Organizing Intern for CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities and a Community Organizing Intern for Girls for Gender Equity. He is currently an Asian American Studies major at Hunter College.



Neriel David Ponce

Neriel David Ponce identifies as a queer, undocumented Filipino youth. He is a member of RAISE: Revolutionizing Asian-American Immigrant Stories on the East Coast, the first pan-Asian undocumented youth-led group on the East Coast and is affiliated with AALDEF (the Asian American and Legal Defense and Education Fund). Neriel currently studies Anthropology and Asian American Studies at Hunter College.

Sahra Vang Nguyen

Sahra Vang Nguyen is a writer, entrepreneur and creative producer currently based in New York City. She has served as the Director of the Writing Success Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Sahra has published an e-book of poetry titled, "One Ounce Gold," and been published in the print anthology, "Pho For Life." In Spring 2014, Sahra created a documentary web series about NYC entrepreneurs called, "Maker's Lane," which was co-presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and Hyphen Magazine. The series celebrates innovation, creativity and trailblazers in the entrepreneurial spirit of the American Dream. Currently, Sahra writes for NBC News Asian America, contributes to The Huffington Post, is filming Season 2 of "Maker's Lane" and opening a Vietnamese restaurant in Bushwick slated for early 2015.