OCA Greater Cleveland 2018 Year in Review
2018 was a great year for the Asian and Pacific American (APA) community and for the OCA Greater Cleveland (OCAGC) chapter. In this year, we saw advancement in the social well-being of APA across many fronts. Though there were setbacks at the national level, we at the local level continued to improve the bonds between APA and the communities we live in. OCAGC serves the continually growing APA community of Northeast Ohio and works to promote cultural heritage, active participation in civic and community affairs, securing justice, and equal treatment and equal opportunity for all Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. As a chapter of a national membership organization paid membership supports and strengthen our collective power. This article summarizes the activities that OCAGC was engaged in during 2018 and how OCAGC is advancing Asian Pacific American causes.
Advocacy
In 2018, the APA community made great strides in increasing our representation in elected offices. Of particular note, two newly elected APA representatives will join the existing 12 representatives and 3 senators in Congress, bringing the total number of APA congresspersons to 17. Nevertheless, much work remains as APA represents only 3.2% of all congresspersons even though the APA population is 6.5% that of the overall U.S. population.
2018 also saw the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The repeal marked an end to a dark chapter in American history. An excellent PBS documentary was made publicly available for all who are interested to learn more. This was followed at the end of the year with the passage of the Chinese-American World War II Veteran Congressional Gold Medal Act, which honored ~20,000 previously unsung Chinese-American veterans. Also noteworthy was Chloe Kim taking home a gold Olympic medal for team U.S.A. and the release of Crazy Rich Asians, a Hollywood film featuring an all Asian cast.
At the same time, current events remind us that the fight for APA rights is far from over. For example, the latest hate crime report shows an almost 20% rise in hate crime against APA in 2017 and wages for APA women continues to be anywhere from 15% to 49% lower than their counterparts. OCA is currently fighting against a proposed “public charge” rule that would deny green cards to legal immigrants who has ever used any form of public assistance, even though it is perfectly legal to do so. Poor immigrants who have just begun building their lives in the U.S. will likely avoid the assistance they need to become productive workers in order to maintain a chance at gaining permanent residence. Other issues that OCA fought against this year included the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the proposed elimination of birthright citizenship, the proposed curtailing of family-based immigration visas, the attempt to eliminate affirmative action, the policy to separate families at the border, mass deportation and incarceration of immigrants, and more. If these and other APA issues are important to you, make your voice heard so that OCAGC can better represent you!
Here in the Greater Cleveland area, OCAGC continues to engage with civic leaders, organizations, government entities, businesses, and the media to broadly advocate for Asian Pacific Americans. This year OCA organized a phone bank to oppose the proposed “public charge” rule as a part of the OneNation campaign. The OneNation campaign consists of numerous APA organizations across the nation working in concert to fight the “public charge” rule. OCAGC also put out a call to action to oppose the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census, an untested move that could decrease immigrant representation in the census. Additionally, OCAGC participated in a reverse ride-along with Cleveland police cadets to help them better understand APA culture and neighborhood. Improving mutual understanding between the police and the Cleveland APA population is an important way to avoid future misconceptions and disputes. And OCAGC representative Vera Boggs was sent to the Asian American Advancing Justice Conference in Washington DC where she visited the offices of Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Rob Portman, and Representative Tim Ryan.
In order to improve our ability to advocate for APA, OCAGC participated in the Ohio Asian American & Pacific Islander Legislative Day at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. Four hundred participants from around the state met with elected officials on issues important to the APA community and connected with each other. Additionally, OCAGC maintained strong ties with the local media including Fox 8 News, WKYC-TV3, WVIZ-TV25, WUAB Channel 43, WOIO Channel 19, and the local City Station TV20, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland.com, Cleveland Scene Magazine, Cleveland Magazine, Erie Chinese Journal, Ohio Chinese American News, India International, and The Lotus. Members of OCA Cleveland are sought out for interviews by local media during popular Asian holidays, events, and for comments on APA issues.
Through our own online OCA Image TV Magazine and weekly Asiatown Voice radio program on WJCU 88.7 FM, OCAGC was able to provide positive images and role models for Asian Pacific Americans. OCAGC had also established a good relationship with ClevelandPeople.com that reports on and archives events and news related to the over 100 ethnic groups in Cleveland, ensuring a positive image and consistent awareness of Asian culture in Northeast Ohio.
Civic Engagement
A core mission of OCAGC is to improve APA civic engagement by increasing naturalization and Voter registration at the courthouse Voter registration at One World Day voter registration rates. This year, OCAGC provided assistance in areas like voter registration, early voting, vote-by-mail ballot request, election deadline reminders, language assistance hotlines, and tutoring for citizenship classes. We also hosted a vote by mail ballot review at a residence for APA seniors and linked members to an explanation of the role of Ohio judges. OCAGC works to increase APA participation in civil service with an emphasis on poll worker recruitment. We posted government job opening with entities ranging from Cleveland City Hall to NASA, to the Cuyahoga Board of Election. 2018 was a very busy year for OCAGC in terms of voter registration. OCAGC partnered with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to conduct voter registration at Naturalization Ceremonies at the Federal Courthouse twice a month. This is in addition to the voter registration drive we performed at events such as Cuyahoga Community 
College Culture Shock, Cleveland Asian Festival, CWRU Mid-Autumn Festival, Asian Lantern Festival at the Zoo, National Voter Registration Day at Asia Plaza, One World Day, and more. This year, OCAGC registered a total of 1,127 voters with 556 from the APA community.
Community and Cultural Outreach
This year, OCAGC was extensively involved in a wide variety of community and cultural outreach activities. When the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo decided to open their Asian Highland exhibit and hold the Asian Lantern Festival in the summer, OCAGC worked behind the scene too with advice and planning. In particularly, Johnny Wu (OCAGC) started discussions on the performance program with the Zoo more than a year ago. He and other APA leaders Lisa Wong (OCAGC), Asim Datta, and Oanh Loi-Powell worked together to plan and coordinate special attractions to ensure the events were successful. The festival was so successful that the Zoo extended it by 2 weeks! Many local Asian performance groups participated. Our very own OCAGC Dragon Dance team performed for both the Grand Opening weekend for the Zoo’s Asia Highland and for the Asian Lantern Festival.
OCAGC Dragon Dance team continued to perform at various venues around the Greater Cleveland area in order to promote a better understanding of Asian culture and strengthen our bonds with the local communities. The Dragon Dance team is a part of Project RAISE (Reaching Asian-Americans through Innovative and Supportive Engagement), which is a program for promoting healthy eating and active living among APA in Northeast Ohio. In 2018, the Dragon Dance team participated in six performances in events as varied as St Patrick’s Day parade, Chinese New Year celebration at Asian Town Center, and the Great Northern Mall Chinese New Year celebration.
Through Project RAISE, OCAGC also promotes free Tai Chi and Food Safety Certification classes to the APA community. OCAGC partners with Bai Wei Herbal Store and Asian Town Center to host free Tai Chi classes every Sunday to provide the community with better access to simple exercises and information that improves health and living. The Food Safety Certification classes are important for the parts of the community that works in food services (such as the wide variety of delicious restaurants around Cleveland’s AsiaTown neighborhood). The training emphasized Asian foods and language assistance was provided.
As in years past, OCAGC continues to support the Cleveland Asian Festival. 2018 marks the 9th occurrence of this annual festival and OCAGC provided aids in the form of partnership and coordination with the local government, businesses, community organizations, and other neighborhood stakeholders. This year’s festival brought the return of national act Larissa Lam and Only Won, our signature egg roll eating contest, the parade of the Panda mascot, and much more. And of course, our own Dragon Dance team performed in front of thousands of Clevelanders.
Also, notable this year, OCAGC was the community partner for the film Ramen Heads, which was shown at the Cleveland International Film Festival. Ramen Heads is a behind-the-scenes look at an homage to the arts and traditions of ramen making.
In addition to our community and cultural outreach, OCAGC kept OCA members informed of such events as community policing discussion with the Cleveland Division of Police, AsiaTown Center community meeting, Greater Cleveland Food Bank Free Fresh Produce program, and other great opportunities to get involved. If you haven’t already done so, follow us on Facebook for the latest happenings around town!
Membership and Internal Organization Building
In 2018, OCAGC gained five new 5-year family memberships bringing the total to ten, we also have one 2-year family membership, two 5-year Senior members, two individual lifetime member, eight individual 5-year members, and five individual 1-year members. This brings us up to a total of 39 voting members (44 total members). We hope to continue expanding our membership so that Cleveland APA can project a unified voice in matters important to our community!
To better prepare APA youth for leadership in our diverse community, OCAGC hosted the Youth Leadership Training in Akron. This half-day interactive training cultivated the next generation of APA leaders by developing leadership skills, advocacy awareness, and APA identity. OCAGC also provided internship and volunteer opportunities to three high school students, including Nathan Wong who interviewed Mayor Ron Falconi of Brunswick (the only Filipino-American elected official in Ohio) for OCA’s Image magazine. The interview was also aired on OCA AsiaTown Voice on WJCU 88.7 FM. To better unite the APA community, OCA Cleveland partners with many organizations including: Asian American Bar Association of Ohio, MotivAsians for Cleveland, Asian Services in Action, OCAGC host Youth Leadership Training Chinese Professionals & Entrepreneurs Association, Westlake Chinese Culture Association, Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, Cleveland Contemporary Chinese Cultural Association, Chinese Women’s Association, Japanese American Citizens League, Federation of India Community Associations, Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Vietnamese American Association of Greater Cleveland, Korean American Association of Greater Cleveland, Philippine American Society of Ohio, Philippine Nurses Association of Ohio, the Hmong, Bhutanese, Nepali, and Ka ’ren ethnic communities.
With that, another great year for the Greater Cleveland Asian Pacific American community comes to a close. And with a new year comes new aspirations. Let us look forward to 2019 and continue to advance the well-being of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
P.S. Did you know you can support OCAGC at no cost to you when shopping on Amazon? Choose “Organization Of Chinese Americans Inc” Cleveland, Ohio. The Amazon Smile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price from your eligible AmazonSmile purchases.
