On Sunday, May 20, AABANY joined many other community groups to celebrate the 39th Annual Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Festival on Mott Street in Chinatown. Despite forecasts of heavy rain, the crowds came out and so did the sun, which drove away the showers. Because of the positive turn in the weather, the festival ran from 11 am to 4 pm as originally scheduled. 

Visitors to our table learned about our monthly Pro Bono Clinic which takes place on the second Wednesdays of the month at Confucius Plaza, not too far from where our table was set up on Mott Street. Visitors also could pick up past issues of our newsletter, the Advocate, and our 2017 Year End Report. New for this year were business-card size “Know Your Rights” cards in Chinese (simplified and traditional) and Korean that people can carry in their wallets for reference in case they are detained by authorities and want to know what they should or should not do or say. We also met with many representative from other community groups and organizations and government offices who were interested in AABANY’s work, who either stopped by our table or we met at their tables. We look forward to future potential collaborations and partnerships with these groups.

Thanks to Chris Kwok, Board Director, Issues Committee Co-Chair and Asia Practice Committee Co-Chair, for getting a dedicated team of volunteers to help us staff the table. Thanks to Albert Suh, Asako Aiba, Laura Misumi, Kevin Hsi, Youngjin Choi, and our intern Mai Fukata, for volunteering at the AABANY table. Thanks to Mihea Kim for creating the Know Your Rights cards and thanks to Francis Chin for printing them.