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Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month [APAHM]~ "Leadership, Diversity, Harmony – Gateway to Success"

Events for 2008

Thursday, May 1, 2008
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Building 1, Room E-100-D

"Taste of Asia" plus a Movie and Art Exhibit on Asian Culture

Come celebrate the kick-off event of Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month with a movie, art exhibit, and tasty treats of different types of food from various countries. This event is $3/person.

*** All managers, employees and staff, civil service as well as contractors, are cordially invited to attend this event. ***

For a sign language interpreter please click on the following link: http://terpschedule.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Building 26, Room 205

Brown Bag Lunch/Learn Movie: “The Grace Lee Project” with the Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee

“The Grace Lee Project” - When Korean American filmmaker Grace Lee was growing up in Missouri, she was the only Grace Lee she knew. Once she left the Midwest however, everyone she met seemed to know "another Grace Lee." But why did they assume that all Grace Lees were reserved, dutiful, piano-playing overachievers? The filmmaker plunges into a funny, highly unscientific investigation into all those Grace Lees who break the mold -- from a fiery social activist to a rebel who tried to burn down her high school. With wit and charm, THE GRACE LEE PROJECT puts a hilarious spin on the eternal question, "What's in a name?”

*** All managers, employees and staff, civil service as well as contractors, are cordially invited to attend this event. ***

For a sign language interpreter please click on the following link: http://terpschedule.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

15th Annual Holocaust Remembrance Federal Observance Event

Honoring Joseph Ichiuji, a Japanese-American war veteran, who was once interned, but then was among the first of the allied forces to liberate Jews from the camps of Dachau in April 1945.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Goddard Recreation Center

APAHM Luncheon. Special Guest Speaker, The Honorable Norman Mineta, Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation and Commerce

Come for a delicious luncheon and to hear Mr. Mineta, the first Asian Pacific American to serve in the cabinet, discus the issues that are vital to the Asian Pacific American community.

Menu

General Tso's Chicken
Mongolian Beef
String Beans with Tofu
Seafood Combo with Assorted Vegetables
Vegetarian Fried Rice
Sushi - California Roll, Inner Harbor
(Crab and Veggie)

Please purchase your tickets in advance, no tickets will be sold at the door

Building 1 ~~ Kellie Behrle, x 6 - 2282
Building 2 ~~ William Zhang, x 6 - 6230
Building 5 ~~ Jeff Bolognese, x 6 - 4252
Building 8 ~~ Gerald Tiqui, x 6 - 9461
Building 11 ~~ Walter Flournoy,  x 6 – 3775, Alice Liu, x 6 – 1270, Maria So, x 6 – 8152
Building 12 ~~ Jane Liu, x 6 – 2468, Duc Dang x 6-3572
Building 21 ~~ Mei-Ching Fok x 6 - 1083
Building 23 ~~ Edwin Fung, x 6 - 7347
Building 28 ~~ Minlin Chang, x 6 - 1630
Building 32 ~~ Su hung Shen, x 4 - 5088 
Building 33 ~~ Hailan Wang, x 4 – 5844, RunHua Yang, x 4 – 5251

Cost for the luncheon is $9.00 per person.

This event is jointly sponsored by the APAAC and Chinese American Club

For more information about the Goddard Chinese American Club (GCAC), please visit the GCAC Web Site at: http://gcac.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/clubs/gcac/load_page.pl

*** All managers, employees and staff, civil service as well as contractors, are cordially invited to attend this luncheon and presentation. ***

For a sign language interpreter please click on the following link: http://terpschedule.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Building 3 Auditorium

"Sharing of Success Stories"

Panel discussion of successful Asian Pacific American Employees. They will be providing insight, advice, and experience on what it takes to have a successful career at GSFC.

Confirmed Panelists:

Mansoor Ahmed
Nipa Shah
Minh Phan
Frederick Lim

*** All managers, employees and staff, civil service as well as contractors, are cordially invited to attend this discussion. ***

For a sign language interpreter please click on the following link: http://terpschedule.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
10:30 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Building 8, Room 600, Director's Conference Room

"Can We Talk?" ~~ Honoring Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month
Rick Obenschain, Goddard's Deputy Center Director

Deputy Center Director Rick Obenscahin is hosting focused Can We Talk sessions with employee groups as part of the various heritage/history months' activities, in the spirit of NASA's commitment to enhance communication. This focused Can We Talk session is dedicated to Asian and Pacific American issues and issues of interest to Asians and Pacific Americans in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. There is no agenda or set topics; just an opportunity to have constructive dialogue with the Center's leadership on issues of interest to employees and contractors.

To register, visit http://internal.gsfc.nasa.gov/canwetalk.cfm or contact the Office of Public Affairs at x6-8955.

*** All managers, employees and staff, civil service as well as contractors, are cordially invited to attend this event. ***

For a sign language interpreter please click on the following link: http://terpschedule.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008
9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Building 8, Auditorium

Keynote Speaker: George Takei, aka “Sulu” from Star Trek

Please join Goddard’s Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee (APAAC) and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Advisory Committee (GLBTAC) in welcoming Mr. Takei to Goddard.

*** All managers, employees and staff, civil service as well as contractors, are cordially invited to attend this special event. ***

For a sign language interpreter please click on the following link: http://terpschedule.gsfc.nasa.gov.

NOTE: Though not an event for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, this program may have special interest to Asian Pacific Americans.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Once again at the historic Lincoln Theatre
1215 U Street, NW
Washington, DC

15th Annual Holocaust Remembrance Federal Observance Event

The 15th annual Holocaust Remembrance program will be held on Wednesday, May 7, 2008, at 11:30 am. The theme for this year's national Days of Remembrance, as designated by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, is Do Not Stand Silent: Remembering Kristallnacht 1938. The committee, this year, has decided on a different theme for our program, Rescuers.

We will be joined this year by Joseph Ichiuji, a Japanese-American war veteran who was interned at Poston War Relocation Center, an internment camp in Arizona for Americans of Japanese origin, for one year after having been drafted, but not allowed to serve. It was not until 1943 that he was allowed to join the U.S. Army. His 100/442nd Regimental Combat Team, an Army unit of Japanese-Americans, became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history for its size and length of service due to their outstanding bravery and heavy combat duty they faced. There were over 18,000 individual decorations for bravery, 9,500 Purple Hearts, and seven Presidential Distinguished Unit Citations.

At the dedication of the World War II Memorial in Washington, he “told of being among the first of the allied forces to liberate Jews from the camps of Dachau in April 1945. ‘When I saw the barbed wire it reminded me of the camp my family was in,’ he said, ‘and I wondered when they were going to free my family.’” (New York Times, 5/30/2004)

Mr. Ichiuji lives in Rockville, Maryland.

Majlinda Myrto is an Albanian-American Muslim, the daughter-in-law of rescuer Shyqyri Myrto. She will speak about how her late father-in-law and his family took in his friend Josef Jakoel and Josef's sister Keti in October 1943, shortly after Albania was occupied by the Germans, until its liberation in November 1944. Although it was no secret in the town of Kavaja that two of the “extended family members” living with the Myrtos were Jews, nobody betrayed them.

Even when Shyqyri's brother Ramazan was arrested as not friendly to the occupiers, and sent to the Mauthausen camp in Austria, from which he never returned, the Jakoels were sheltered.

Shyqyri Myrto and Josef Jakoel, school friends before the war, maintained the friendship even after Josef emigrated to Israel. In 1993, an American Jewish benefactor made it possible for a group of Righteous Albanians to visit Israel, where they were honored by Yad Vashem. Shyqyri and Josef were reunited one last time.

His Excellency Robert Kupiecki, the newly arrived Ambassador of the Republic of Poland, will read a letter from Irena Sendler. This Polish gentile social worker smuggled approximately 2500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto, and placed them with Polish families, in convents, or in orphanages. Because her goal was always to reunite the children with their families, she put information about each into glass jars which were buried in her garden. Her story was almost unknown until four high school girls from rural Kansas began researching some information about her in 1999 for a National History Day Project. Their research led to the Life in a Jar project.

Ambassador Kupiecki was born in Warsaw in 1967. He holds a Ph.D. degree in political science, in addition to a number of other degrees, and specialises in international relations. Ambassador Kupiecki started to work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1994. From 1999 to 2004, he was Deputy Ambassador of the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland to NATO and Western European Union (WEU) in Brussels. In 2004, he became Director of the Security Policy Department, until his current appointment

Derek McGinty, our moderator, is the weekday co-anchor for News Now on WUSA-TV, Channel 9 at 5:00 7:00 pm. The Washington, DC, native is perhaps best known for “The Derek McGinty Show” on WAMU from 1991 to 1998.

He has been a reporter and anchor for WJLA, and spent two years at ABC News. His broadcasting experience includes both politics and sports; he has had articles published in The NY Times, NY Daily News, Washington Post, and Washingtonian Magazine. He received his bachelor's degree in communications from American University.

Sponsoring Agencies:

The 23 Departments and other agencies listed here provide financial and logistical support for the Holocaust Remembrance program:

Department of Agriculture
Department of Defense
Department of Education
Department of Energy
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of the Interior
Department of Justice
Department of Labor
Department of State
Department of Transportation
Department of the Treasury
Department of Veterans Affairs
Bureau of Customs and Border Protection
Environmental Protection Agency
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Federal Emergency Management Agency
General Services Administratin
International Broadcasting Bureau
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Small Business Administration
Transportation Security Administration
United States Commission on Civil Rights

*** All managers, employees and staff, civil service as well as contractors, are cordially invited to attend this event. ***

A sign language interpreter will be provided at this event by the sponsors.