BERKELEY – Remembering Ron Takaki (AsianWeek) By Beleza Chan

It is with great sadness to announce that Professor Emeritus Ronald Takaki passed away on the evening of May 26th, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Carol Takaki, his three children Dana, Troy, and Todd Takaki, and his grandchildren.

Ron Takaki was one of the most preeminent scholars of our nation’s diversity, and considered “the father” of multicultural studies. As an academic, historian, ethnographer and author, his work helped dispel stereotypes of Asian Americans. In his study of multicultural people’s history in America, Takaki seeked to unite Americans, today and in the future, with each other and with the rest of the world.

He was a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught over 20,000 students during 34 years of teaching.

Born in 1939, Professor Takaki was the grandson of immigrant Japanese plantation workers in Hawaii. He graduated from the College of Wooster, Ohio, in 1961. Six years later, after receiving his Ph.D. in American history from UC Berkeley, Takaki went to UCLA to teach its first Black history course.

As a Professor, Takaki hoped that his students would learn that skills of critical thinking and effective writing could be used in a revolutionary way. Epistemology, critical thinking, or in Takaki’s words “how do you know, you know, what you know about the America and the world you live in?” was a question Takaki posed to his students to challenge the way they looked at history, current policies, and even life.

In 1972, Professor Takaki returned to Berkeley to teach in the newly instituted Department of Ethnic Studies. His comparative approach to the study of race and ethnicity provided the conceptual framework for the B.A. program and the Ph.D. program in Comparative Ethnic Studies as well as for the university’s multicultural requirement for graduation, known as the American Cultures Requirement.

The Berkeley faculty has honored Professor Takaki with a Distinguished Teaching Award.

Takaki has lectured in Japan, Russia, Armenia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Austria, and South Africa.

He has debated Nathan Glazer and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. on issues such as affirmative action and multicultural education.

Takaki is a fellow of the Society of American Historians; its executive secretary, Mark Carnes stated that Takaki “has re-shaped American history.”

In 1997, Professor Takaki helped President Bill Clinton write his major speech on race, “One America in the 21st Century.”

Professor Takaki was the author of 12 books. Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th Century America has been critically acclaimed. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans has been selected by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the best 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century, and A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America is read on college campuses across the country and has over half a million copies in print.

AsianWeek will be running a series of articles on honoring and remembering Ronald Takaki on AsianWeek.com. If you would like to contribute with written pieces, pictures, or videos, feel free to contact Beleza Chan at belezachan@gmail.com

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO PROMISING MASTER OF ARTS CANDIDATES!

FULLY-SUPPORTED MASTER OF ARTS
GRADUATE STUDENT POSITION IN A/PA ARCHIVES
Asian/Pacific/American Institute
New York University

GRADUATE STUDENT EMPLOYEE IN A/PA ARCHIVES:

The Graduate Student Employees in Archives at the A/P/A Institute (A/P/A) work on collection building efforts while simultaneously pursuing Master of Arts degrees in the Archives and Public History Program in the History Department at New York University. As part of A/P/A’s commitment to ongoing preservation, the grad student will help to create access to A/PA collections of the New York area. The student serves as a key resource person connecting A/P/A’s network of scholars, researchers, activists, archivists, librarians, artists, curators, and community members with archives.

The two-year MA Program is designed to give the graduate student practical experience in archives, in addition to a solid grounding in archival theory and historical scholarship. The grad student employee will work with both the A/P/A Institute and the Tamiment Library of NYU to survey, appraise, and process collections of the New York City area. The student will also aid in organizing the A/P/A Institute’s archives. The student will regularly meet with the Institute’s staff to discuss progress and expectations. The student works an average of 20 hours per week during each 14-week term. (Dates of appointment are 9/8/09-12/15/09 for Fall 2009, and expected to be 1/19/10-5/3/10 for Spring 2010.)

Archival management is an important and growing field with many employment opportunities in the New York area. Recent graduates have gone on to work at the United Nations Archives, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Rolling Stone Magazine, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Smithsonian Institution, American Civil Liberties Union, Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, and Sports Illustrated. Graduates also work in the city and region’s many museums, libraries, and historical societies as well as in government and corporate archives. Graduates can expect starting salaries ranging from $40,000 to $50,000 depending on the institution.

A/P/A works closely with community members to facilitate the process of finding an accessible, permanent home for New York Metro region and East Coast Asian/Pacific American materials.

Past and current archives student employees have curated and published on “yellow peril” and artist social movement collections, been central in bringing in individual and organization collections, taught undergraduates, posted an archival blog, developed archival theory, and much more.

REQUIREMENTS:

o Bachelor’s Degree with a major or minor in Asian/Pacific American Studies preferred.
o Background knowledge or demonstrated interest in Asian/Pacific American history and community.
o Ability to take initiative and work independently and as part of a team.

SCHOLARSHIP:

The selected Graduate student employee receives 100% remission of tuition, fees, and student health insurance for full-time study in the History and Archival Management Program at NYU. For the 2009-2010 academic year, the monetary compensation for the 20 hours of work per week as of 18 May 2009 is still to be determined and applicants will be notified as soon as the information is available; however, as in the past, paychecks will be disbursed every two weeks between September 2009 and May 2010.

APPLICATION PROCESS:

Qualified applicants should contact Professor John Kuo Wei Tchen by email at apa.archives@nyu.edu with cover letter, resume and any additional relevant information no later than Sunday, June 7th, 2009; and if requested, apply to the MA in History and Archival Management Program at NYU online by Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at:

http://history.fas.nyu.edu/object/history.gradprog.archivespublichistory.html

For more information:

Archives and Public History Program:
http://history.fas.nyu.edu/object/history.gradprog.archivespublichistory.html

The Asian/Pacific/American Institute:
http://www.apa.nyu.edu/

May 22, 2009

UCLA Asian American Studies Center
Him Mark Lai: Dean of Chinese American History, Passes (1925-2009)

Him Mark Lai, the internationally noted scholar, writer, and “Dean of Chinese American History” was born on November 1, 1925 in San Francisco’s Chinatown.  His ten books, more than 100 essays, and research in English and Chinese on all aspects of Chinese American life are published and cited in the U.S., the Americas, China, Southeast Asia, and Australia.

Lai was a member of Amerasia Journal’s editorial board for more than 30 years and a contributing writer.  Among his works published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press are: A History Reclaimed: An Annotated Bibliography of Chinese Language Materials on the Chinese of America (1986); in 2000 Amerasia  Journal published his autobiographical essay: “Musings of a Chinese American Historian.”

With the writer Ruthanne Lum McCunn, historian Judy Yung, and editor Russell C. Leong serving as the co-editors, the UCLA Asian American Center Press will be publishing his autobiography in 2009-2010.

* * *

Him Mark Lai was born in San Francisco Chinatown to immigrant parents from Nam Hoi District, Guangzhou, and attended local schools including Francisco Junior High, Nam Kue Chinese School, and was graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1947 with a degree in mechanical engineering and until his retirement worked for Bechtel Corporation.

In late 1949, he began volunteering for Chung Sai Yat Po, the first daily paper to support the People’s Republic of China, and became a member of organizations active in persuading students to return to China to serve the new government.  He also joined the Chinese American Democratic Youth League, more familiarly known as Mun Ching, where he met Laura Jung, a new immigrant, whom he married in 1953.

According to Ruthanne Lum McCunn:

“Lai joined the Chinese Historical Society of America soon after its founding in 1963.  These events, together with contemporaneous changes in the status of minorities spurred by the Civil Rights movement, led Lai towards developing a Chinese American identity, and in 1967, he accepted a proposal by Maurice Chuck, editor of the bilingual East/West, the Chinese American Weekly to write a series of articles on Chinese American history.  This marked the beginning of Lai’s career in reclaiming the Chinese/American experience-a fortuitous confluence of his passion for history and his deep commitment to his bicultural heritage and democratic principles.

His East/West articles-revised and annotated-became the cornerstone for the classic A History of the Chinese in California, A Syllabus, co-edited with Thomas W. Chin and Philip P. Choy, as well as the basis for the first Chinese American history course in the United States, which Lai team taught with Choy at San Francisco State College in Fall 1969 and which resulted in another classic Outlines: History of the Chinese in America.  Lai’s first scholarly essay, “A Historical Survey of Organizations of the Left Among the Chinese in America,” published in the Fall 1972 issue of the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars-together with subsequent revisions-remains a standard reference.  So do Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island 1910-1940, co-authored/translated with Genny Lim and Judy Yung; Lai’s “Chinese on the Continental U.S.” in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups; his From Overseas Chinese to Chinese American: a History of the Development of Chinese during the Twentieth Century (in Chinese) and articles in the Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas and Huaquiao Huaren baike quanshu [Encyclopedia of Chinese and people of Chinese descent overseas];  his studies of Chinese newspapers and schools, district associations, and communities in the Pearl River Delta.”

Indeed, almost every researcher or scholar who has studied Chinese Americans during the past forty years is indebted to Him Mark Lai’s pioneering and lifelong work based on primary Chinese-language sources.  According to editor Russell C. Leong, “Him Mark Lai gave Chinese Americans a voice in history because he listened to ordinary people both in America and China and trained himself to read what they felt and thought–in the Chinese language. His legacy challenges us to listen, to think, and to feel more deeply–to untangle, to clarify, and to refine the historical and political record of our lives here.”

The UCLA Asian American Studies Center is also grateful for Him Mark Lai’s support of the work of others as a long-standing member of the editorial committees of Amerasia Journal and of Chinese America: History & Perspectives, the two leading scholarly journals which have collectively published the most materials on Asian Americans and Chinese Americans during the past four decades.

-Russell C. Leong
Editor, Amerasia Journal, UCLA

May 24, 2009

For Immediate Use
Melany Dela Cruz-Viesca, melanyd@ucla.edu
(310) 206-7738

“New issue of UCLA’s AAPI Nexus explores the other side of model minority myth with new Senior Editor”

The Asian American Pacific Islander Nexus Journal: Policy, Practice and Community (AAPI Nexus) is pleased to announce its newest Senior Editor, Professor Marjorie Kagawa-Singer of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA School of Public Health. In Kagawa-Singer’s first special issue, vol. 6.1, the journal presents five articles that explore the diversity within these communities, including the disparities that continue to mark some of their experiences. The issue begins with the inaugural note from Kagawa-Singer that highlights a new vision for the journal, which works to bring visibility and attention to marginalized experiences within the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations through research and policy.

Paul M. Ong, Melany dela Cruz-Viesca, and Don T. Nakanishi explore in the first article how to provide these communities with agency through voting. In discussing the potential political power of the AA/NH/PI population, Ong et al. provide insight into how to create policy changes that can benefit these communities.

This issue also explores three pervasive difficulties that challenge the model minority myth, including:

Su Yeong Kim and colleagues, in “‘It’s like we’re just renting from here’: The Pervasive Experiences of Discrimination of Filipino Immigrant Youth Gang Members in Hawai’i,” which examines these youth gang members and their challenges in Hawai’i. This piece also includes avenues to help with intervention for these youth who join gangs in order to have agency and protection from discrimination.

Robyn Greenfield Matloff et al. explore in “The Obesity Epidemic in Chinese American Youth?: A Literature Review and Pilot Study” Chinese American youth and possible risk factors for the growing epidemic of obesity in Boston’s Chinatown. The study also discusses the role of acculturation and changing lifestyles that result from immigration experiences.

Jeanne Shimatsu and colleagues include data about the rates of alcohol use and risky sexual behaviors with their piece, “Sex and Alcohol on the College Campus: An Assessment of HIV-Risk Behaviors among AAPI College Students.” This paper also includes ways that can help intervene and address the alarmingly high number of unprotected sex and alcohol use found in their study.

These articles address the diversity within the AAPI communities that are often dismissed due to the model minority myth. These informative pieces help to develop new ways to intervene and prevent other pervasive problems from increasing in these communities.

AAPI Nexus copies are $13.00 plus $4.00 for shipping and handling and 8.25% sales tax for California residents. Make checks payable to “Regents of U.C.” VISA, MASTERCARD, and DISCOVER are also accepted; include expiration date and phone number on correspondence. The mailing address is: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 3230 Campbell Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546. Phone: 310-825-2968. Email: aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu
Order on-line at: http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/aascpress/comersus/store/

Annual subscriptions for APPI Nexus are $25.00 for individuals and $125.00 for libraries and other institutions. AAPI Nexus is published twice a year: Winter/Spring, and Summer/Fall.

Dear Colleagues,

I am looking for additional authors for entries in the EAI, Second Edition. The text of my original solicitation appears below the list of available articles. I would need articles on this list completed by August 1. All articles listed below will be approximately 1000 words unless otherwise noted.

I especially need articles on contemporary immigration issues (e.g., since 9/11) and on cultural issues. I can be contacted at this email or jtradzilowsk@uas.alaska.edu

With thanks,
John Radzilowski

===Contemporary Issues:===

9/11 and its Impact on Immigration

The Politics of Immigration and Amnesty

Controlling the Borders

USA Patriot Act?effect on immigration Department of Homeland Security

Foreign policy and Immigration since 9/11 (750 wds)
Illegal Immigrant Identification

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (750 wds)

U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Service (USCIS) (750 wds)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) (750 wds)

Human Trafficking and Slavery (world-wide)

Theory:

Retention vs. Assilimation

Cultural Issues (Overviews of Historical to Contemporary periods)

Immigrant Literature in English

Immigrant Literature in Immigrant Languages

Immigrant Music

Folk Arts
Immigrant Film and Broadcast Media

Groups
Non-Arab Middle East (Armenians, Kurds, Turks)
Vietnamese

The latest issue of CrossCurrents, the newsmagazine of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center is available for free downloading and viewing at the Center’s web site:

(http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/).

The 24-page full-color magazine, which is a special edition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, is filled with the latest news about Center people, events, and publications, including the new endowed chair and media program on U.S.-China relations and Chinese American Studies; the work of the Center for EthnoCommunications; new books and research and other activities of our faculty, students, and alumni; recently established endowments; and several new on-line projects.

Just go to the Center’s web site and look for the “NEW” hyperlink on the left hand side of the home page for downloading Crosscurrents.

Subscribers to the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press’s two national journals — Amerasia Journal and AAPI Nexus: Asian American and Pacific Islander Policy, Practice, and Community — receive complimentary printed copies of Crosscurrents with their subscriptions.

Colleagues:

I am looking for interested scholars and students, especially in but not limited to LA/Orange County, to discuss and perhaps coauthor new research on immigrant assimilation and multiethnic civil society. A key question is how educated, upwardly mobile Koreans and other Asian-Americans relate to other social groups, such as whites in Spokane or Hispanics in Orange County. I survey a wide variety of organizations, e.g. after-school academy (TaekwonDo), Amway-style selling organizations, martial arts, Buddhist (Soka Gakkai) and evangelical mega-churches; and political movements, such as the campaigns for/against Prop 227 and Prop 8. I am also interested in (non-paid) guest scholar positions at Southern Cal colleges or universities to discuss and develop my research in an institutional setting. I posted my research on: https://sites.google.com/site/josephyiphd/Home.

I have limited library and research resources at my home institution. If you could email me recent/relevant research, I appreciate reading them. Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you!

Joseph Yi
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Gonzaga University
Spokane, WA 99258
yi@gonzaga.edu

New book by UCLA Professor Lane Hirabayashi looks at photos used in WWII Japanese American resettlement effort

(Editors: For review copies of the book, please contact Beth Svinarich of the University Press of Colorado at 720-406-8849 x3 or beth@upcolorado.com.)

Within a year after incarcerating more than 110,000 West Coast residents of Japanese ancestry during War II, the U.S. government began releasing and relocating those it deemed “loyal” to areas outside the West.

The U.S. War Relocation Authority (WRA), which was responsible for the resettlement effort while the war was still going on, encouraged those who left its camps to avoid “Little Tokyo”-sytle neighborhoods, ostensibly to promote their assimilation into mainstream society. Thus, as early as 1943, released internees began building new lives in places like Des Moines, Iowa; Rochester, N.Y.; and Baton Rouge, La.

In “Japanese American Resettlement Through the Lens” (University Press of Colorado, 2009), Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, a UCLA professor of Asian American studies, and Kenichiro Shimada, a University of Maryland librarian, shed light on the role institutional photography played in promoting this wartime resettlement process.

The authors explain for the first time how the WRA commissioned thousands of photographs across the U.S. to convince Japanese Americans it was safe to rejoin mainstream society. The book painstakingly documents the history, mission and impact of the WRA’s Photographic Section and features more than a hundred images taken as part of this government public relations effort.

The WRA photos - which appeared between 1943 and 1945 in newspapers and magazines, government brochures and posters, books, newsreels, and other sources - show content and gainfully employed Japanese Americans blending seamlessly into the larger society in cities, towns and farms of the Midwest, the Rockies, the South and the East Coast. Women were often shown engaged in clerical or service work and day-to-day tasks like cooking and child care. Men were photographed working in various industries, enjoying leisure activities or serving in the U.S. Army.

“The photos also aimed to assuage other Americans’ fears about Japanese Americans leaving the WRA camps while the war was still being fought,” said Hirabayashi, UCLA’s George and Sakaye Aratani Professor of the Japanese American Internment, Redress and Community. “The larger American public had long harbored suspicions of Asian immigrants and citizens alike, and they feared Japanese Americans who had been deemed dangerous enough to be incarcerated.”

Of the 100-plus WRA photos featured in the book, 80 were taken by Hikaru Carl Iwasaki, the last surviving full-time WRA photographer. A native of San Jose, Calif., who was interned with his family at the WRA’s Heart Mountain camp, Iwasaki became the most prolific photographer of the resettlement effort, producing more than 1,300 pictures of Japanese Americans attempting to integrate back into American society.

Hirabayashi says that despite the work of Iwasaki and other WRA photographers, the photos did not assure the majority Japanese Americans that it was safe to leave the camps and join mainstream society before the war’s end. The photos also had little immediate effect on public opinion toward Japanese Americans. A 1946 National Opinion Research Center poll revealed lingering suspicion toward people of Japanese ancestry. Of those surveyed, 66 percent said they believed that first- and second-generation Japanese Americans had acted as spies for the Japanese government.

“In any case,” Hirabayashi noted, “the WRA’s resettlement photographs cannot and should not simply be dismissed as propaganda.” Those interested in exploring this issue will find much food for thought in terms of the history and technical matrix of these photos, as well as Hirabayashi’s discussion of how they can be put to new and sometimes oppositional uses today.

Counting his monographs and anthologies, both solo and co-edited, this is Hirabayashi’s ninth book.

Following the war, Iwasaki, now 85 and living in Denver, went on to work for Life, People, Sports Illustrated and Time, photographing such notable figures as Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Jackie Kennedy and Joe Namath.

“Japanese American Resettlement Through the Lens” features a foreword by former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta. Mineta, who was also the first Asian American to serve as a presidential cabinet member, describes living with his family in the Heart Mountain camp. He also recounts the Mineta family’s resettlement story, which resonates with the photos and accounts presented in this path-breaking study.

New Search!  Director of Development
Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence

The Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence (ATASK), a leading nonprofit domestic violence agency devoted to preventing domestic violence in Asian families and communities for over 15 years, seeks nominations and applications for a dynamic new Director of Development to manage and grow all aspects of ATASK’s philanthropic support and networks of supporters. This search is being conducted by Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group.

Reporting to the President, the Director of Development has overall responsibility for ATASK’s individual, corporate, and foundation fundraising
activities. In partnership with the President and the Board, s/he will devise a comprehensive fundraising strategy to support the agency’s short and long-term strategic objectives, and develop and implement an annual development and communications plan that includes prospect identification, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship of existing and potential individual and institutional donors. This is an exceptional opportunity for an entrepreneurial and strategic development professional with strong managerial and fundraising skills to capitalize on ATASK’s sound financial base and strong reputation, and to guide the agency through its next stage of development.

About ATASK:

Founded in 1992 to address the inadequate resources available to Asian survivors of domestic violence, ATASK has managed New England’s only multilingual emergency shelter, advocacy services, outreach efforts and educational programs for families and their children. With three service locations within Greater Boston and Lowell and a budget of over $1.8 million, ATASK has become a leader in educating and mobilizing social service organizations and the broader public on domestic violence issues specific to Asian communities, and has become a model organization in Massachusetts, throughout the United States and across the globe.

Challenges and Opportunities for the Director of Development:

Building on a strong foundation, the new Director of Development will achieve ongoing growth in current commitments of support as well as to
cultivate relationships with new prospects. One key area of focus will be to build a major gifts program by researching prospects, visiting donors, and increasing the giving levels of existing donors who have financial capacity. S/he will work as a member of the Senior Management Team, supervise a development staff of two, and provide support to the Board Development Committee. S/he will continue to strengthen relationships with and strategically draw upon the talent and resources of the Board of Directors to guide ATASK’s long-term financial health.  The Director of Development will also serve as an ambassador of the agency acting as a key liaison between ATASK and the community. S/he will oversee marketing and public relations efforts and coordinate promotional materials to raise ATASK’s profile and brand position as the leader in providing support services to survivors of domestic violence in the Asian community.

This position is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More Information

————————————————————

Qualifications of the Ideal Candidate:

Responsible for the strategy and execution of all aspects of ATASK’s solicitation of philanthropic support from individuals, corporations and foundations, and through special events, the new Director of Development will be a passionate and articulate advocate for the agency and its diverse
constituency balancing compassion, cultural sensitivity and fundraising expertise.

The ideal candidate will have a minimum of seven years experience in nonprofit development and possess a demonstrated track record of raising funds from a broad range of sources, including direct experience in building a leadership/major gifts program; knowledge of the Greater Boston donor community and an understanding of national/international philanthropic resources; and an appreciation for ATASK’s mission. Familiarity with social and human service programs preferred.

—
Nominations and Applications:

Nominations and applications are due by Friday, May 29.

Due to the pace of this search, candidates are strongly encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Applications including a cover letter describing your interest and qualifications, your resume (in Word format), salary history and where you learned of the position should be sent to:
ATASK- DoD@nonprofitprofessionals.com

In order to expedite the internal sorting and reviewing process, please type your name (Last, First) as the only contents in the subject line of your e-mail.

A full job description and application instructions may be viewed here. -
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102577385140&s=65183&e=001IyZOyvWAzKHSwG8wRcmVgcn

_sj0lJrYLI25_0bsxGqjU0meg_y6M2BEUpXA02MgenlSSj7SivnKZNNIMRLbZOea-OzDBQi4

MxaUCdnhfo12kP1ZvWYgLmhSkPu5JpBqwiidcMA3KErvtlRuJ8×77P6_JkUZZ3Ik2tgNn0htKvP0=
—

More About ATASK:

More information about the Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence may be found on their website
(http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102577385140&s=65183&e=001IyZOyvW
AzKGUsMzLLoW1j0gNCYA7eLYPzJ8xQwn1BrIzDRqKgevBv93pjibqjWLmhvI
2VWPEwLpefreaXZKSLs3pMyYzBmcY1T4BUBrGNRA=).

The Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Women and candidates of color are encouraged to apply.

Job Announcement:
Program Assistant (CED)

Department: Community Economic Development (CED)
Classification: Part-time, hourly (20-25 hours per week)
Reports to: Program Manager, Director
Posted: May 11, 2009
Closing date: May 22, 2009
Salary Range: $10-12/hour

Organizational Information:

SIPA was founded in 1972 to serve the needs of Historic Filipinotown, Filipino Americans throughout Los Angeles County and other low-income, immigrant and disadvantaged communities. Its services include counseling and case management, afterschool programs, community outreach and education and a range of community economic development projects.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Under the supervision of the Community Economic Development Director and Program Manager, the Program Assistant provides administrative and clerical assistance to various Department projects, including but not limited to small business development, foreclosure prevention, financial literacy, affordable housing development, asset management, capital projects and other neighborhood revitalization initiatives.

The Program Assistant should be a self-starter who will perform the following duties:
• Assist with outreach and marketing of various programs and services
• Assist with case management of program clients
• Assist with organizing and conducting various workshops, trainings and other events
• Provide intake services for foreclosure and home ownership clients
• Maintain client database and files, conduct data entry and other reporting and recording duties
• Participate in other Department or agency-wide activities as needed

Qualifications:

REQUIRED: Excellent verbal and written communications skills. Conversational Tagalog. Organized and motivated self-starter who can prioritize and perform a variety of tasks with little supervision. Interest in community economic development and/or passion for working with diverse, low-income and disadvantaged populations. Ability to develop positive relationships with program clients, business community and funders and represent organization and programs to public. Strong computer skills including MS Word, Excel, Power Point and data base applications.

PREFERRED: Bachelor’s degree or coursework in business, finance, social work, urban planning or related fields. Fluency in Tagalog. Ability to analyze data and produce reports/presentations. Relevant academic or professional work experience.

To Apply:

Mail resume with cover letter to:

Human Resources
SIPA
3200 W. Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90026

or fax to (213) 382-7445

or email to dgamoning@esipa.org