WE Blog @ AABANY

This year, AABANY has been working together with the Asian American Arts Alliance (a4) on a number of programs, and with the arrival of summer, we thought it would be good to bring together Asian American artists and Asian American lawyers.  It took place last Thursday at Angels & Kings, a bar in the East Village.  Approximately 50 to 60 people came out to socialize, drink and make new connections.

The bar had a stage by the entrance, and a4 got two performers to entertain the crowd.  The first was Rick Ebihara, a member of the Slant Performance group, who played guitar and sang.  The next was Rich Kameda, a professional magician.  Rich also walked around during the happy hour and did close-up magic for anyone who was interested.  In one of the illusions, Rich changed a bunch of singles into hundreds.  That one got a lot of lawyers’ attention. 

It was a wonderful and enjoyable evening, and it was good to hang out with another part of the APA community – not that there’s anything wrong with hanging out with APA lawyers; it’s just that a change of pace from time to time is welcome.

Thanks to Andrea Louie, Executive Director of a4, and her staff who helped put the event together with Liza Sohn, Student Outreach Committee co-chair.  We had so much fun, we might do it again soon.  Stay tuned.  Here are some photos from the evening.

Last Wednesday, July 20, at White & Case, more than thirty law students from a variety of law schools, including many outside of New York, from states as far away as Maine and Missouri, attended the Mock Interview Workshop hosted by AABANY’s Student Outreach Committee.  More than twenty attorneys volunteered their time to help law students sharpen their interview skills by engaging in mock interview sessions with practicing attorneys. 

The evening began shortly after 6 pm with a panel discussion that included the Hon. Marilyn Go, United States Magistrate Judge in the Eastern District of New York, Sylvia Chin, Partner at White & Case and former AABANY President, and Lily Lu, Partner at Arnold & Porter.  To accommodate all the students and the schedules of the attorneys, some of the mock interviews began even as the panel discussion was taking place.  The mock interview sessions continued until 9 pm, with each interview lasting thirty minutes, to allow time for both the mock interview and feedback from the attorneys.

Thanks to all the panelists and the volunteer attorneys for taking the time to help law students with their interviewing skills.  Thanks to Sylvia Chin and White & Case for hosting the event.  Thanks especially to the Student Outreach Committee co-chairs Ben Chan and Liza Sohn for organizing this event.  They note that “many of AABANY’s student members are the first in their family to attend law school and this workshop was a rare opportunity for them to have a practicing attorney review their resume and prepare them for legal interviews.”

We wish all the students the best of luck with their upcoming interviews and we hope that they found the Mock Interview Workshop to be helpful.  For some photos from the event, go here.  To learn more about the Student Outreach Committee, go to this link on the website or e-mail the committee co-chairs, Ben and Liza, at studentoutreach-chairs@aabany.org.

For those who missed this workshop, you may want to try the one being given by KALAGNY on Monday, August 1, starting at 6 pm at the offices of Herrick & Feinstein.  Even if you already went to the AABANY workshop, it never hurts to practice your interview skills multiple times.  Practice makes perfect!  More details at this link.

 

This week’s edition leads off with AABANY supporting immediate pay raises for NY judiciary.

quoted from aabany

AABANY ANNOUNCEMENTS July 18, 2011 – http://eepurl.com/eMH7c

Thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday to join us for the Fourth Annual AABANY Picnic organized by the Young Lawyers and Litigation Committees. We could not have asked for a nicer summer afternoon for this perennial event. YLC Committee Co-Chair Will Ng and LC Co-Chair Tristan Loanzon arrived well before the noon starting time to scout out a great spot under the shade of a large willow tree. Turtle Pond is below the southern edge of the Great Lawn, right by the Delacorte Theater, home to Shakespeare in the Park, across from Belvedere Castle.

We saw many AABANY members in attendance, some with their young children in tow. Because we are usually accustomed to seeing our members in suits or at least in business casual, many AABANY regulars went by almost unnoticed in their summer casual wear. Don Liu, GC of Xerox, in a yellow cap and plaid shorts could have easily passed for one of the many law students who were at the picnic.

President Linda Lin stopped by with her mom.  President-elect Jean Lee also came to the picnic. Past president James Chou brought his entire family.

At an early point in the picnic, we hung the AABANY banner on a branch so that attendees can easily spot us, but a Park Ranger came by and told us that it was against park rules to hang any signs on the trees, so we took it down and put it on a fence, which was allowed.

The sign at the entrance to Turtle Pond indicated no “organized sports” so we decided that the Park Rangers probably would not take kindly to our plans to run a three-legged race and tug of war, and we refrained from those activities.

Student Outreach Committee Co-Chair Liza Sohn brought the marshmallows but we had very few takers for the Chubby Bunny so we skipped on that activity.

Even without the usual fun and games, we had a great turnout throughout the afternoon, and it was a pleasure to enjoy the park and each other’s company in one of the loveliest spots in Central Park.

Thanks to the YLC and LC for putting together the event. Here are some photos from the picnic.

Flipping through the Twitter feed this evening, I came across a re-tweet from MOCA with a link to a July 5 segment on NPR’s All Things Considered which featured Wesley Yang and Jane Hyun as guests.  Wesley Yang wrote the recent Paper Tiger article published in New York magazine and Jane Hyun wrote the book “Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling."  The re-tweet is quoted below but in case it doesn’t come through in full, here’s a link to the NPR segment: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/05/137631005/looking-at-the-bamboo-ceilling

Yang claims not to have experienced the Bamboo Ceiling but in the short segment, Michelle Norris failed to bring out that, as described in the article, Yang did not spend time in corporate America.  He does, however, talk about the Asian Playboy teaching a room full of Asians about how to pick up women and describing the Asian men instantly recognizing he Asian Playboy’s reference to "the Asian Poker Face."  Yang admits that he has an Asian Poker Face.  Norris pleaded ignorance to that description and asked Yang to explain.

Hyun’s response to the question of her encounters with the Bamboo Ceiling came in the form of an anecdote from an early point in her career, describing herself as the (stereo)typical keep-your-head-down industrious Asian who grinded out spreadsheets as she was assigned to do but noticing that one of her colleagues would routinely stop in to the boss’s office and engage in banter.  Hyun speaks in broad terms about certain cultural traits developed from her Asian upbringing that may have led to her hitting a Bamboo Ceiling on her way up the corporate ladder.

Asian Poker Face? Asian upbringing creating workplace barriers to advancement?  Does any of this sound familiar?  Is Yang in denial about a Bamboo Ceiling?  Is Hyun correct about the existence of a Bamboo ceiling?

What do you think?

quoted from aabany

RT @mocamuseum: Wesley Yang & business adviser Jane Hyun @npr on the "bamboo ceiling,” Asian assimilation, career challenges/stereotypes …