Posts

Posted on

ASIAN AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK ANNOUNCES RELEASE OF REPORT ON RISE OF ANTI-ASIAN VIOLENCE IN NEW YORK DURING COVID-19

NEW YORK – February 10, 2021 – The Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) is proud to announce the release of its report co-authored with Paul, Weiss, ​A Rising Tide of Hate and Violence against Asian Americans in New York During COVID-19: Impact, Causes, Solutions​. Executive editors of the report were Chris Kwok, AABANY Board Director and Issues Committee Chair, and Karen King, Vice Chair of AABANY’s Pro Bono and Community Service Committee and Counsel at Paul, Weiss. The report is dedicated to Corky Lee, who passed away on January 27, 2021 due to COVID-19. Corky was a revered photographer in the Asian American community who had been documenting the effort to combat anti-Asian violence and harassment in the wake of COVID-19. Read more here.

To read A Rising Tide of Hate and Violence against Asian Americans in New York During COVID-19: Impact, Causes, Solutions, click here.

Posted on

AABANY and Chinatown CLT Host Successful Rent Relief Application Virtual Phone Clinic

By Nick Loh

The Asian American Bar Association of New York (“AABANY”) just concluded a virtual phone clinic to assist Mandarin and Cantonese speaking tenants in applying for the NYS Homes and Community Renewal’s (HCR) COVID Rent Relief Extension Program. This HCR program allowed NYS renters to seek a one-time rental subsidy for the months of April – July 2020. The program originally opened for submission in late July 2020, extended to August 8, 2020, and then re-opened the application process on December 18, 2020 until February 1, 2021. We assisted 83 callers in total: 87.5% of those callers had limited English proficiency, with most callers speaking Cantonese (41.1%) and Mandarin (46.4%). We handled this call volume with a dedicated team of 24 volunteers.

In response to the program’s second extension, AABANY organized a coalition to get bilingual information and resources out to the community. Articles ran in ethnic newspapers during the weekend of January 17, 2021, announcing our COVID Rent Relief Project 2.0. The goal of the project remote clinic was (1) to provide information to callers on how to apply, (2) if necessary, to have the volunteer and caller contact HCR’s Call Center together to reach an interpreter, and/or (3) to have the volunteer act as the interpreter. No legal advice or legal representation was provided.

At a time of increasing isolation due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and in the face of language access barriers for Mandarin and Cantonese speaking NYC residents, the AABANY Virtual Phone Clinic provided a welcome opportunity to build relationships in the community and provide assistance. 

AABANY would like to thank William Lee, Vice Chair of the Student Outreach Committee; May Wong, Remote Clinic Coordinator, and the Organizers of the COVID Response Law Student Team (Nicholas Loh, Xinyi Shen, and Olympia Moy). We thank the 16 law school volunteers (representing 8 different law schools) and 5 community members who made calls, waited on hold to speak to HCR, and provided this valuable assistance to the community.

AABANY would like to thank our community leaders who partnered with us in making this clinic a possibility. They include:

  • AABANY’s Pro Bono and Community Services Committee –  Co-chairs – Asako Aiba, Judy Lee, Karen Lin, and Karen Kithan Yau; Remote Clinic Coordinator – May Wong
  • AABANY’s Vice Chair of the Student Outreach Committee – William Lee
  • Roxy Chang, Community Organizer of Asian American For Equality
  • Lizzie Lee, Community Liaison from NYS Senator Brian Kavanagh’s office  
  •  Damaris Reyes, Executive Director, GOLES, Inc.
  • Jacky Wong, Chinatown Community Land Trust  
Posted on

AABANY Hosts Weekly Membership Mixer on February 5, 2021

On February 5, 2021, the Membership Committee hosted their weekly virtual Membership Mixer, with 13 participants in attendance. AABANY held the mixer on Remo, a platform that allows attendees to move freely from table to table, much like an actual networking event.

Our weekly Friday mixers are open to everyone, but only members who register for the weekly mixers through the calendar entry on the AABANY website have a chance at winning a prize. 

Please join us this week on February 12, 2021 for our Lunar New Year celebration! To register, please sign up online by February 11 at https://www.aabany.org/events/event_details.asp?legacy=1&id=1468894.

Posted on

NAPABA Commends President Biden’s Memorandum on Anti-AAPI Xenophobia

For Immediate Release: Date: January 27, 2021

Contact: Priya Purandare, Executive Director

WASHINGTON – The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) commends President Biden’s Presidential Memorandum denouncing discrimination and xenophobia against the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.

In the memorandum, President Biden directed the Attorney General, to investigate, document and address hate incidents and harassment against AAPIs. Additionally, the President directed the Department of Health and Human Services, in coordination with the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, to issue guidance, including language access, toward AAPIs in the nation’s COVID-19 response.

“Members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community have been victims of increased acts of discrimination, hate and racist violence, and harassment during the COVID-19 pandemic, much of which has been underreported by the media,” said NAPABA president A.B. Cruz III. “We applaud President Biden’s efforts to unify the country by recognizing and addressing these despicable acts that have devastated our community and businesses. We strongly urge all leaders, organizations and individuals to join us and take a stand against hate.”

According to the Stop AAPI Hate project, there were over two thousand documented incidents of hate or violence targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders over the summer of 2020 related to COVID-19.

Please see NAPABA’s Hate Crimes Center for more resources on how to respond to acts of hate. Organizations are invited to join NAPABA’s Stand Against Hate campaign. NAPABA addressed and condemned racist language in an organization statement last fall.

###

The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) represents the interests of approximately 50,000 legal professionals and nearly 90 national, state, and local Asian Pacific American bar associations. NAPABA is a leader in addressing civil rights issues confronting Asian Pacific American communities. Through its national network, NAPABA provides a strong voice for increased diversity in government and the judiciary on the local, state, and federal levels, advocates for equal opportunity in the workplace, works to eliminate hate crimes and anti-immigrant sentiment, and promotes the professional development of people of color in the legal profession.

Posted on

AABANY Officer Margaret Ling Quoted in New York Law Journal Article about Women in the Law

Margaret Ling, AABANY’s Officer, Director of Development, and founder and co-chair of the Real Estate Committee, was featured in a New York Law Journal article about the New York State Bar Association’s Women in Law panel held on January 26, 2021.

About midway through a New York State Bar Association panel on the challenges of retaining and advancing women attorneys, Margaret Ling, a veteran real estate lawyer, told the story of how she’d once toiled for months on an important matter only to be told by her male superior before a vital, well-attended matter meeting that “you are to sit there and you are to say nothing.”

Read more here (subscription is required).

Posted on

AABANY Hosts Weekly Membership Mixer Featuring Board Member Andy Yoo on January 29

On January 29, 2021, the Membership Committee hosted their weekly virtual Membership Mixer, with 19 participants in attendance. This week AABANY hosted a Zoom room to meet Board Member Andy Yoo and learn more about his career as General Counsel for education companies. 

This week, participants were asked: “What was the riskiest thing you ever did in your life?” Participants answered that riskiest moves they made included partying under the influence of alcohol in foreign countries including Japan, South Korea and Mexico, traveling alone without knowing the local languages, skydiving, leaving their partnership at a private law firm to become Executive Director, moving to NYC alone to start a job, skiing on Black Diamond snow slopes, and swimming with sharks. 

As always, after the regular mixer ends at 7:30pm, members are encouraged to stay for the Mixer afterparty to chat in smaller groups. This week, we were joined by AABANY President-Elect Terry Shen, and former AABANY Board Member Steve Chung and former AABANY Program Associate Simone Chung. Steve even drew a portrait of Terry. The afterparty ended at 11pm.

Congratulations to Tansy Woan, who won a Masterclass program of her choice! 

Our weekly Friday mixers are open to everyone, but only members who register for the weekly mixers through the calendar entry on the AABANY website have a chance at winning a prize. Thank you to the In- House Counsel Committee for co-sponsoring this week’s mixer prize.

Please join us this week in the REMO room for smaller group breakouts and on February 12, 2021 for our Lunar New Year celebration. To register for this week’s mixer, please sign up online by February 4 at https://www.aabany.org/events/event_details.asp?legacy=1&id=1468893.

Proudly powered by WordPress