Excerpt from Portland House Party hosted by Reagan Le:

We had 15 students and 6 community members including myself. It was great to have Bob and Rosa Watada to talk about their son, Lt. Ehren Watada, and share their stories. We had a good mixture of students sharing their experiences and thoughts.

The APIA House Party was integrated into the APIA for Higher Ed. (AHED) retreat that started at 9am, so it was a good transition. During the retreat we dialogued about the model minority myth with regards to the new UC's admission policies and also had a dialogue about our privileges as college students. The Asian/Pacific American Student Union (APASU) facilitated the discussion after the teleconference.

The intentions of the teleconference incited awareness and activism, but wished it was more interactive and/or even visual with the special guests. We had some technical issues with the volume of certain guests not being loud enough to hear (may just be our speakerphone), so that was a little challenging to really listen in on what they were saying.

Overall, it was great and everybody got something from it.

Pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2273387&id=19228817&l=78c777b81d

Excerpt from Portland House Party hosted by Rev. Joseph Santos-Lyons:

We had 14 folks in Portland, and 5 kids! It was a beautiful day. I think the best part for me was getting to hang out with everyone, and then hearing folks respond to the question about their views of the State of Asian/Pacific America. We ended up focusing more locally in Oregon, and definitely I hope that we do some follow up on the ideas to engage Rep. David Wu D-Oregon. We didn't spend as much time "meeting" as perhaps we would have liked to, but it was a gorgeous day and fun to be spending time outside just getting to know one another better. It was great to have such good energy, and also folks from across the generations and API ethnicities together.

Gallery Images: 

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