Lunar New Year / Spring Banquet 2011

Our Lunar New Year Banquet is just right around the corner. It’s the Year of the Rabbit & Cat !!!  🙂

APIQWTC would like to invite you to celebrate the new year at our 24th Annual Spring Banquet!!!  Come see old friends and make new ones.  The food and performances are going to be fabulous!!!  Our banquet has been a sold-out event for the last few years and space is limited, so please reserve your seats ASAP!!

View photos of previous banquet at Legendary Palace, click here.

Our paper invitations went out on Monday, Feb 28th! If you would like to be on the mailing list, please email . Thanks.

4/8/2011:  Yeah, tomorrow is the day!! Our PayPal registration is now closed. If you are still interested in joining 250 of us, just come and pay at the door. 🙂

This year’s entertainment is loaded with LOTS of FUN !!Phoenix Award Honoree:  Pam Louie 

Our 2011 Phoenix Award honoree, Pam Louie, is a local girl.
She grew up in Oakland’s Chinatown and spent her entire educational career in the Bay area, from public schools in Oakland to the University of San Francisco, Golden Gate University, UC Berkeley and Stanford. She grew up with 6 sisters, and all 7 were raised by her mom when her father died at a young age. Dad was Chinese and mom is a mixed-blood from Filipino, Hawaiian, American Indian, and Mexican ancestries. Pam still remembers her mom’s beauty salon on Lakeshore Ave (right across from the current Trader Joes).

Pam’s involvement with our community goes back more than 20 years, when she was a tireless board member of APS (Asian Pacific Sisters) and APLBN (Asian Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Network). There, she organized numerous events, such as the SF pride parades, our annual banquet, the Rice Balls, drag king fashion shows, the 1993 (??) March on Washington, and two APLBN conferences in Santa Cruz & Los Angeles.

Pam has a passion for music and dance – and she was able to combine this interest for our community by providing an API queer space by co-founding “Jaded”, a co-gender dance club in 1996. Jaded was a major hit for the API queer community for years. After Jaded, Pam continued with her passion and formed PersuAsian, which became Flaava. Pam has also been a generous donor and sponsor of our community for many years. Whenever the API queer community needed money for events, Pam never hesitated to pull out her wallet year after year.

More on Pam’s Bio, please click here.

Fabulous Community Performance Lineup:       – Read Bio –

Yulin Ling Our fabulous Mistress of Ceremonies for the night.

Hula Dance by
Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu

Hula dance performance by class members who have been studying hula with Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu

Tavae Samelu

A Samoan-American native of Long Beach who moved to Northern California to attend UC Berkeley and has been in love with the bay ever since. Accompanying her on guitar will be Vanessa Coe.

Priti Priti has been performing Bollywood songs and traditional Indian dances for the last decade both in the US and in India. She is a passionate dancer, actor and filmmaker from the SF Bay Area. She wishes to show you that a BIG girl can knock your socks-n-heels off with some scintillating hip-shaking. Her performance will make you move to the Bollywood groove! She will be performing to Munni Badnaam Hui (Munni became infamous because of you), the reigning smash hit Bollywood item number from the movie Dabangg.

Speed Dating

Silent Auction

Raffle Prize Drawings (including an iPad)

And More!!

After Party:  Club Rimshot
at Bench and Bar
510 17th Street (between Telegraph & San Pablo)
Oakland, CA 94612
510.444.2266

Party begins right after the banquet!
Banquet guests get free VIP entry and
access to the 2nd floor VIP seating area!

Free commemorative mugs – one per each guest.
A must-add to your APIQWTC mug collection!!!
(This year’s design is top secret! Come and find out.)

Time:

Saturday, April 9, 2010

Come early – Open Seating                               -Back to Top-

Location:

Legendary Palace
708 Franklin Street
Oakland, CA
(510) 663-9188

Click here to visit their website. Restaurant is wheelchair accessible.

Parking on the street and parking garages nearby. Easy accessible by BART – four blocks from City Center / 12th Street BART Station.

Tickets:                                                             -Back to Top-

Since space is limited, reservation is guaranteed by a check or a PayPal transaction.  Please send in your RSVP form or reserve online by March 28, the banquet usually sells out. All payments are non-refundable after April 1.

SPONSOR — This year, consider being a Silver, Gold, or Platinum Sponsor!  Gold and Platinum Sponsors will be recognized for their generous support in the banquet program under the “Thank You Sponsors” section. Of course if you chose to be an anonymous sponsor, we would gladly honor your wish.

PAYMENT:                                                                    -Back to Top-
Due to the tremendous success of online registration last year, we are excited to offer it again. So, if you hardly ever write checks these days and can’t find your check book or if you’d like to rack up some frequent flier points on your credit card, try out our new online registration and PayPal payment method.  Note:  there is a 4% handling fee to cover the added costs for these services.

To summarize, there are three ways to register for the banquet: 

OPTION 1:  Fill out a blank registration form by hand and mail in with your check (there is no handling fee for this service).

           A. Just download PDF and fill out the RSVP form
           B. Make your check payable to “API Banquet”
           C.  Mail your form and check to:

           APIQWTC Banquet
17 Walter U Lum Place
San Francisco, CA 94108

OPTION 2:  Fill out a registration form online and mail your check (there is a 4% handling fee for this service) to the address above. This option is CLOSED!!

OPTION 3:  Fill out a registration form online and pay by PayPal (there is a 4% handling fee for this service.)  This option is CLOSED!!

Menu:                                                         -Back to Top-

Veggie egg roll & seaweed salad
Veggie soup
Honey walnut shrimp
Peking spareribs
Roasted chicken
Flounder with XO sauce
Tofu w/ bok choy
Ying yang vegetables
Veggie fried rice
Sesame balls
Coconut custard

Beverages
Open Bar

Additional Info:                                       -Back to Top-

– We will make all efforts to accommodate special requests.
– Partial or whole scholarships are available, if you volunteer!!!

Contact:

For general inquiries and confirmation, please email us at with subject ‘API Banquet’.

Volunteers are welcome. To volunteer for the banquet, please contact Ginny Eng at with subject ‘API Banquet’. A limited number of scholarships are available for our volunteers.

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   for Honoree and Performer

Pam Louie

Pam Louie is the recipient of APIQWT’s 2011 Phoenix Award. APIQWTC’s 2011 Phoenix Award honoree is Pam Louie. Every year, APIQWTC presents the Phoenix Award to someone for their lifetime achievements and contributions to the API queer and transgender community. It’s our way of recognizing the many members who have done so much for our community in countless ways. And Pam is of those women who personifies the Phoenix Award!

Pam is a local girl, she grew up in Oakland’s Chinatown and spent her entire educational career in the Bay area, from public schools in Oakland to the University of San Francisco, Golden Gate University, UC Berkeley and Stanford. She grew up with 6 sisters, and all 7 were raised by her mom when her father died at a young age. Dad was Chinese and mom is a mixed-blood from Filipino, Hawaiian, American Indian, and Mexican ancestries. Pam still remembers her mom’s beauty salon on Lakeshore Ave (right across from the current Trader Joes).

At school, Pam was an athlete, played competitive rugby and formed a rugby team with her friends, called “Peninsula CHAOS”. For fun, she made a film with some lesbian friends called “Fun with the sausage”. Pam has a son, Robert (32) and currently works as a financial controller at a Bay Area local non-profit organization.

Pam’s involvement with our community goes back more than 20 years, when she was a tireless board member of APS (Asian Pacific Sisters) and APLBN (Asian Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Network). There, she organized numerous events, such as the SF pride parades, our annual banquet, the Rice Balls, drag king fashion shows, the 1993 (??) March on Washington, and two APLBN conferences in Santa Cruz & Los Angeles.

Pam has a passion for music and dance – and she was able to combine this interest for our community by providing an API queer space by co-founding “Jaded”, a co-gender dance club in 1996. Jaded was a major hit for the API queer community for years. We have many fond memories of flyering in the City in the middle of the night. Pam and the other owners also made it a point to contribute all of Jaded’s coat-check proceeds every month to non-profit organizations in our community. After Jaded, Pam continued with her passion and formed PersuAsian, which became Flaava.

Pam has also been a generous donor and sponsor of our community for many years. Whenever the API queer community needed money for events, Pam never hesitated to pull out her wallet year after year. She’s sponsored the API float for the pride parade in San Francisco, rented a dragon for the SF Lunar new year parade, donated seats and tables in past APIQWTC banquets, as well as at NCLR, LAVA and API Wellness galas. She sponsored films and hosted receptions before QWOCMAP was formed, and hosted numerous dance events, like Trikone’s pre-pride-parade-party and GAPA’s Runway events. She’s also sponsored the dragon boat team, Rainbow KOI.

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Yulin Ling

Yulin Ling is honored to be this year’s APIQWTC Mistress of Ceremonies. As a community leader for over 20 years, Yulin’s served as co-founder of Q-Wave in New York City, co-chair of Queer Asian Pacific Alliance (QAPA) in Boston, board member for International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and advisor to major corporate and philanthropic boards on LGBTQ issues nationally.

At age 22, Yulin came out to her very large extended Chinese fundamentalist Christian family and has since become the family’s personal Wikipedia on all things “gay”. She’s especially proud to have paved the way for younger generations to come out without having first attend a women’s college. When Yulin is not traveling, making farmer’s market dinners or giving fabulous dating advice during long walks on the beach, she’s often playing with her amazing cat, Bali.

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Class members of Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu

Performing will be dancers who have been studying hula for between one and ten years with Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu, http://www.naleihulu.org/, including two mothers with their daughters.

-Back to Top-

Tavae Samelu 

Tavae Samuelu is Samoan-American native of Long Beach. She moved to Northern California to attend UC Berkeley and has been in love with the bay ever since. Accompanying her on guitar will be Vanessa Coe.

-Back to Top-

Priti

Priti has been performing Bollywood songs and traditional Indian dances for the last decade both in the US and in India. She is a passionate dancer, actor and filmmaker from the SF Bay Area. She wishes to show you that a BIG girl can knock your socks-n-heels off with some scintillating hip-shaking. Her performance will make you move to the Bollywood groove! She will be performing to Munni Badnaam Hui (Munni became infamous because of you), the reigning smash hit Bollywood item number from the movie Dabangg.

Scholarship:

Wen Liu and Estelle Davis have won this year’s APIQWTC scholarships.
Congratulations to both for their impressive accomplishments!

Wen  Liu is a queer Taiwanese community organizer and graduate student in the Social-Personality Psychology Ph.D. Program at the City University  of New York, Graduate Center. As an undergraduate at University of  Washington, Wen co-founded  the Queer People of Color Alliance, Youth for Middle East, and Chinese  Speaking Queers. Wen additionally worked as a programming coordinator at Q Center, the LGBT resource center, advocating particularly for queer students of color.  Wen has also organized East African, Latino,  and Asian
immigrant custodial staff by forming a multi-generational  labor solidarity group called International Workers and Students for  Justice to combat lay offs and workplace harassment. This summer Wen  will conduct qualitative research on
lesbian and bisexual Southeast  Asian migrant workers in Taiwan to underscore
how they have formed  community and comradeship in their fight against capitalist  exploitation.

Follow the link below for a thank you from Wen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWtwkJ5huPQ

Sarah Estelle Davis is a second-generation queer Filipina American who  will
begin the Master’s in Public Health at San Francisco State  University in fall 2011. She hopes to improve accessibility by training  health care professionals in cultural competency. Estelle plans to  develop frameworks that are particularly inclusive of LGBT, trauma  survivors, and Asian American communities. She has worked eight years as a  public health worker at organizations such as Center for Health  Training, Fenway Community Health Center, and Marin AIDS Project. She is  currently a legal worker at Communities United for Restorative Justice,  an organization that combats the criminalization of young men of color  and the displacement of low-income communities. As an undergraduate at  Tufts University, Estelle examined the medicalization of polycystic  ovary syndrome, the most common reproductive disorder in reproductive  aged women.

Estelle will be at the banquet to thank APIQWTC in person.

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Last Update on April 8, 2011