[ACLU-CU ALERT] Human Rights and Asian Americans speaker on Tuesday

[Champaign County ACLU Announcements]

Asian American Studies Program presents

The Balgopal Lecture on Human Rights and Asian Americans, 2010

Tuesday, April 20, 2010
7:00 PM
Levis Faculty Center, Third Floor

Speaker: Young Shin, J.D., Co-founder and Executive Director of Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA), Oakland, CA

Title: Immigrant women voice, participate and advocate: Developing grassroots leadership toward a just and inclusive society

Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA) is a community-centered organizing group is designed to empower Asian immigrant women through popular education, peer leadership training, community based research, economic literacy training, and collective action/advocacy campaigns. AIWA has developed leadership skills among seamstresses, electronics assemblers, hotel maids and other low wage workers, mostly of Northern California’s garment industry in Oakland and San Francisco and the electronics industry in the San Jose/Silicon Valley area. AIWA employs about 15 immigrant women and youth leaders to develop and conduct programs for nearly 500 immigrant women and youth who participate in AIWA’s activities every year. Sharing her community organizing experiences, Ms. Shin will challenge listeners to consider what it takes for disenfranchised groups such as low income immigrant women to voice, participate and advocate toward creating a just and inclusive society.

Young Shin is the executive director of the Oakland-based Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA). In 1973, Shin hosted and produced a bilingual program called “Asians Now” on KTVU, covering the plight of immigrants working in the San Francisco Bay area. She co-founded AIWA in 1983 after witnessing firsthand the inequities of immigrant workers in the garment, hotel and other low-wage industries while working towards her degree in law from UC Hastings. Both Shin and AIWA are the recipients of numerous awards as well as local and national recognition, inlcuding: Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Award, Gloria Steinem Award, Institute of Policy Studies Award, Women’s Economic Agenda Project Award, California State Assembly Award, California State Senate Award, U.S. Congressional Special Recognition Award, and U.S. Senate Appreciation Award.

The Annual Balgopal Lecture on Human Rights and Asian Americans was established by a generous endowment from Pallassana R. Balgopal and Shyamala Balgopal in 2007.
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Viveka P. Kudaligama
Assistant Director
Asian American Studies Program
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1208 W. Nevada Street
Urbana, IL 61801


Phone: (217) 265-4086
Fax: (217) 265-6235