Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus of DRUUMM Conference

February 28 - March 2, 2003

Berkeley, CA

 

 

Attendance:  17 persons, no two with the same demographics!  Students, seniors and plenty of folks in-between; immigrants, adoptees,  1st, 2nd & 3rd generations and non A/PI spouse; from CA, NY, CO, WA, OR, NM and MA; local congregation leaders, seminarians, UUA staff, district and national UUA leaders, new and lifelong UUs;  Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Malaysian Chinese, Japanese, Hapa, Indian, and Philippino.  For the record, everyone paid a $15 registration fee.

 

In the morning we met as a committee of the whole.  Manish Mishra led us in opening worship.

 

Before getting started, we developed a conference covenant in order to have agreed upon guidelines to avoid getting bogged down or sidetracked off-topic.  The covenant is in the appendix to these minutes. 

 

Discussion - Our Vision and Objectives  Led by Young Kim, we began with a brief  review of racial oppression in America and moved forward to how we got to where we are now.  He recalled the first “meeting” of this group - at General Assembly (GA) in Cleveland in 2001, sitting in the hallway on folding chairs, 3 people (Young, Mark Watanabe and Karen Eng) flagging down any other Asians that happened to walk by.

 

We brainstormed elements of our Vision Statement.  We didn’t do any grouping or prioritizing nor did we have time to discuss specific ideas.  Linda Hsieh, Aimee Santos and Kok Heong McNaughton will work together to draft a provisional Vision Statement based on these elements for discussion at GA in Boston.  We agreed that those who could be at GA would have an opportunity to discuss it, but that we didn’t want other people to be excluded from the discussion or the vote to adopt.  We will explore using on-line polling.  The brainstormed list is included in the appendix to these minutes.

 

Officially naming this nascent body was problematic, with many ideas.  Part of the problem was that we had to resolve our relationship to DRUUMM.  After more discussion through the day, it was resolved in the last afternoon session.  It could have been because we were too tired to object!  The official name is Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus of DRUUMM.  Note that the group specifically voted not to include the words “American,” “UU,” and “Pan-Asian.”  The shorter title is Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus or A/PI Caucus.  

 

The discussion of affiliation with DRUUMM was contentious, with strong feelings on both sides.   When it became clear that we would not all agree on this, we took a vote.  However there was considerable tension over this so we revisited it and had further discussion after the vote.  The group ultimately voted to affirm that this group would affiliate with DRUUMM with a specific covenant describing what affiliation means.  The final vote was 11 Yea’s, 4 Nay’s and 2 abstentions.  Manish will work with others to draft the covenant which reflects our concerns.

 

We broke for lunch, followed by Qigong exercises, led by Kok Heong McNaughton.

 

After lunch the group split into working committees, one to plan our program at GA (led by Vivien Hao)  and one to discuss Institutional Structure (led by Manish Mishra). 

 

Vivien has done a lot of groundwork to bring Frank Wu to GA and have  opportunities to raise the visibility of A/PI Caucus (and A/PI UUs).  The secretary doesn’t have any notes on this discussion but there are 3 events scheduled during GA:  A public lecture sponsored by us that Frank Wu will give at Tufts Med Center (a site near Boston’s Chinatown), a GA lecture and a Panel Discussion.  Both lectures will share the title of his book, Yellow, Racism in America Beyond Black & White but there will be further discussion about the specific focus of each.  There is a lot of work to be done.  Jennifer Ryu is going to help with the Tufts arrangements.  We’ll want to take advantage of affiliation with DRUUMM to advertise the GA events.   Vivien is the primary contact for this. 

 

Details of the work of the Institutional Structure group are included in the appendix to these minutes.  They brainstormed what has and has not worked well and made suggestions for further discussion when we got back together. 

 

An Acting Steering Committee, was “elected” to serve for one year.  Next year we will hold a proper election and establish staggered terms.

 

·        Chair (main contact): Kim Varney

·        Vice-Chair (public relations):  Kok Heong McNaughton

·        Treasurer ($$):  Jennifer Ryu

·        Secretary (communications):  Karen Eng

·        At-Large for Programs:  Vivien Hao

·        At-Large for Youth and Young Adults:  Linda Hsieh

·        At-Large for Diversity:  Manish Mishra

The Steering Committee is charged with moving this group forward, taking advisement from the members, reporting back to the membership. 

 

The SC will meet 3 times over the next 12 months: at GA in June, 2003, at Murray Grove in conjunction with the DRUUMM meeting in November, 2003, and at the next A/PI Caucus meeting Feb or March, 2004  in Chicago? Or Denver?  Somewhere in the middle of the country.  The Chair manages the agenda for Caucus meetings.

 

Steering Committee members were asked to write job descriptions to give to Kim.

 

The entire Caucus will officially meet at GA (on Sunday after the DRUUMM luncheon) and a year from now.

 

We will need 2 people as representatives to DRUUMM.

 

 

Follow-Up Tasks

 

We need a membership committee, to bring proposals before the caucus about what it takes to be a member - criteria, rights and responsibilities.   We’d like to discuss this at GA.

 

We need to prioritize our action items and deadlines leading up to GA.  We need a project manager.  We discussed having a brochure and banner ready for GA.  Donna Bookbinder volunteered to collect ideas and work on a UUA regulation sized banner.  We need to identify appropriate symbols that we can all agree on!  No one stepped up to do the brochure, but that may fall to the Vice Chair. 

 

 

After that, we were hungry and exhausted.