boston progress radio

Last Saturday, Delia and I were honored to attend AARW’s 30th Anniversary Banquet. Wow, can you believe that the Asian American Resource Workshop has been around for thirty years? Wow. You can read about the accomplishments of AARW here.

Delia and I were there to accept the 2009 Community Award from AARW on behalf of Boston Progress Arts Collective.

I was particularly happy to be a part of this year’s banquet, because AARW also honored Dr. Michael Liu with a Lifetime Achievement Award. If anyone deserves such an honor, it would be Mike. I’ve only interacted with Mike a handful of times, and he’s really old enough to be my father, but age aside, he’s really one of the friendliest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Given all his contributions to Asian American activism, you think he’d be full of himself, but no, Mike is as down-to-earth as lichen on a rock. The attendees of the banquet gave him a well-deserved standing ovation.

Overall, I thought the event was fun and educational. I got to step out of my own personal little shell and meet Asian American community leaders, both new and old, from around the Boston area. AARW has provided the Asian American activist community in Boston and beyond with strong leadership and guidance. In Boston, we are fortunate to have them.

If you want to read my acceptance speech on behalf of BPAC, the full text appears after the break. I was a little nervous preparing it, because I felt as though I was there representing hundreds of BPAC volunteers and I didn’t want to misrepresent. Thanks to Giles for making some useful edits.

First of all, I’d like to thank AARW for recognizing us with this community award. We are extremely honored to be receiving this recognition.

When Boston Progress Arts Collective first heard about being named the 2009 AARW Community Award Winner, many of the core members of BPAC were quite surprised. I mean, by many traditional measures, we aren’t a model non-profit organization: our bylaws are vague, our so-called “board” consists of people with extremely questionable qualifications, we’re not incorporated. And these are only a few of the things wrong about our organization. I could go on.

Upon further reflection, however, I realized that we shouldn’t be judged using these traditional measures of success. Our goal as an organization is to provide a space and time for folks of any race, age, gender, ability, or sexual orientation to come together and share something about themselves, to feel safe, to hangout and to celebrate life. As a result, many of our events bring together people from all different backgrounds. On top of that, as a non-hierarchical organization, we really try to give anybody the opportunity to lead and shape our organization. So, if you judge us by traditional measures, well, we’ve really been quite a failure. But if you judge us on all the metrics that we believe are important, well I think we’ve done alright. [So maybe, we do deserve this award.]

If nothing else, BPAC has given me some guidelines for living real life: do what makes you happy. Take risks. Embrace your fears. Sing songs you learned today. Dance dances you’ll learn tomorrow. Play instruments that haven’t been invented yet. In short, forget about common sense. You know, when I was still pretty new to the organization, I went on a first date at one of the open mics. I was a little nervous about it all, but in the end, well things worked out. Delia and I will be getting married in July.

Over the years, there have been many people from the community who have supported Boston Progress, either as a volunteer, as a participant, or as a collaborator. Without the support of the Asian American activist community here in Boston and beyond, BPAC would not be the organization it is today and we certainly wouldn’t be here, accepting this award. So while tonight, we will take home the hardware, in truth, this award doesn’t only belong to Boston Progress, it also belongs to all of you.

Thanks again and I look forward to seeing you all at a future BPAC event.

Last 5 posts by eugene

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Tags: AARW, Food, Recap.