Speaking at ASPIRE
Monday, August 2nd, 2010By Jian Ping
ASPIRE, an Asian Pacific Internal Revenue Employee organization, had its annual conference in Chicago last week. I felt honored to be invited by Marina Milton, President of ASPIRE, to give a talk at their dinner banquet at the Marriott Hotel on Michigan Avenue last Thursday.
The first time I appeared at an Asian/Pacific organization was last May at the Annual Federal Asian Pacific Council’s (FAPAC) conference in Houston, TX. I was invited to give a talk at a panel. It was the first time for me to see so many Asians under one roof in the U.S. The conference offered many workshops to help Federal Asian employees and students who wanted to pursue careers at Federal agencies to advance their careers. ASPIRE served a similar mission, limited to Internal Revenues Services only.
I shared with the 150+ attendees my experiences as a first generation immigrant and told them stories of my role models—my grandmother and my parents who inspired me to overcome barriers I had encountered in my journey. I was touched when many people in the audience resonated with me, especially Harry, a Japanese descent who was born and raised in the U.S. He talked about how he felt obliged to avoid his Japanese name growing up and regretted that even his marriage certificate didn’t bear his real, Japanese name.
We are lucky to live in an era in which diversities are being embraced and the “melting pot” is no longer a simple assimilation, but rather a mosaic of different cultures and ethnicities. Racial and immigrant issues are still sensitive topics, as demonstrated by the new Arizona law that is still under debate/appeal, and the forced resignation of a director in the USDA because of some heavily edited speech addressing racial discrimination. But we are making tremendous progress and the fact that organizations such FAPAC and ASPIRE exist and have annual meetings to help Asian Pacific Americans to enhance their career development speaks volume.
I walked away from the ASPIRE banquet feeling empowered and optimistic.
Jian Ping, author of Mulberry Child: A Memoir of China. Visit www.mulberrychild.com or www.moraquest.com
