The APIQWTC Year of the Monkey Lunar New Year Banquet!

The APIQWTC Year of the Monkey Lunar New Year Banquet will be on:

Date: 4/16/2016

Time: 5pm to 11pm

Location: Oakland Asian Cultural Center (OACC), accessible by 12th St City Center BART
(parking available in garage under OACC for a fee, carpooling can also be arranged)

388 9th St, Ste 290
Oakland, CA 94607 [map]

In Special Celebration of
the Women of Trikone’s 30th Anniversary

Purchase tickets here: http://www.apiqwtcbanquet2016.brownpapertickets.com (SOLD OUT! Ticket sales are now closed. If you didn’t get a ticket to the banquet this year, join us at our After Party!)

Questions regarding tickets? Email

For general Banquet info, email .

This event is:

• ADA accessible
• Scent-free**
• Vegetarian, gluten-free friendly

(Trans and youth are encouraged to attend.)

**See this site for description and guidelines for being scent-free: http://goo.gl/ZyDsHa

Sponsorship

We have a few sponsorship levels.

Be a Fire Monkey Sponsor or Community Catalyst! Community Catalyst Sponsors will be recognized for your generous support in the banquet program under the “Thank You Sponsors” section. Of course, if you choose to be an anonymous sponsor, we would gladly honor your wish.

(Service fee = Online Reservation Service fee)

Purchase tickets here: http://www.apiqwtcbanquet2016.brownpapertickets.com (SOLD OUT! Ticket sales are now closed.)

Phoenix Award Honoree (Individual)

Kitty Tsui

Congratulations to Kitty Tsui, Our 2016 Phoenix Award Honoree!

Kitty Tsui is the quintessential Renaissance woman: author, activist, artist, actor, athlete. Her 1983 groundbreaking WORDS OF A WOMAN WHO BREATHES FIRE was the first book by a Chinese American lesbian; her second BREATHLESS – EROTICA won the Firecracker Alternative Book Award; her third, SPARKS FLY was penned by her alter ego Eric Norton, a gay leatherman. Her writing has been collected in over 70 anthologies worldwide and been published in German, Japanese and Italian. She has written for magazines and newsweeklies including The Bay Guardian, San Francisco Sentinel, Bay Area Reporter, Lambda Book Report, Chicago Outlines and The Advocate. Midsummer Night’s Press and Sinister Wisdom will reprint WORDS OF A WOMAN WHO BREATHES FIRE as a Sapphic Classic along with new poems from NICE CHINESE GIRLS DON’T in July, 2017.

Out since 1973, she was instrumental in the birth of the Asian Pacific Islander lesbian movement in San Francisc
o, an original member of the first Asian women’s group, famous for ethnic dish potlucks, and a member of Asian Pacific Sisters. Editor of Phoenix Rising and New Phoenix Rising, she was co-­founder of the first Asian American women’s performance group, Unbound Feet. She has been a keynote speaker at universities, community colleges and conferences; a panelist, a poet, a performer and a workshop presenter.

Tsui was one of the members of the Vida Gallery Collective. An artist who has done batik and boumaki, she has worked with Asian Women Artists at the Japantown Art & Media Workshop on exhibits including Impressions Expressions, an exhibition of silkscreen posters with poetry. She produced three silkscreens to poems by Willyce Kim, silkscreens numbered and signed by the artist. Two of her silkscreens Makai/First Light and Landscaping are part of the show “Feminists to Feministas: Women of Color in Prints & Posters”, co­-curated by Amy Sueyoshi, at the GLBT History Museum through July 4.

In her thirties as an actor, she debuted at the Asian American Theater Company in Paper Angels, winning critical acclaim as Chin Moo, an old woman interned on Angel Island. In the Lilith Women’s Theater’s Exit the Maids, she was cast as an Asian maid with an accent who tells fortunes from wrinkles in hotel bed sheets. When Tsui spoke out against this stereotyped role, she was ostracized and ultimately fired before the company’s European tour. She has been featured in four films including Framing Lesbian Fashion and Women of Gold.

At 38, Tsui won the gold medal at Gay Games III and the bronze medal at Gay Games II in women’s physique. She was co-­president of Arcadia Bodybuilding Society (ABS) and co-producer/co-­director of Physique ’87, the first gay and lesbian bodybuilding championship, a fundraiser for San Francisco athletes going to Gay Games III. Physique ’87 won the 1988 Cable Car Award for Best Competition Event.

She is the first Asian American woman to be on the cover of the irreverent lesbian porn magazine ON OUR BACKS as well as the VILLAGE VOICE. She was also the first woman featured twice on the cover of ON OUR BACKS and voted Most Popular Cover Girl. A staunch lesbian feminist, she came out as a proud leather woman in 1988. Despite public criticism and boycotting of her books and readings, she struck out fearlessly in this sexual arena. She wrote Leathertalk: Top to Bottom, the first leather column in the Midwest, for Chicago Nightlines, gave workshops and presentations, and judged leather competition including International Ms. Leather. An icon in the LGBT community in the 1970s through the 1990s, she is the “no bullshit dyke” that many APLs who came of age in the nineties wanted to be.

Phoenix Award Honoree (Organization)

Women of Trikone

Congratulations to Women of Trikone, Our 2016 Phoenix Award Honoree!

Women of Trikone is a branch of Trikone, the world’s oldest South Asian LGBTQ non-profit organization. We represent the group of queer – female identified persons of South Asian descent from the San Francisco Bay Area interested in building a strong community, engaging in discussions, networking, sharing news, and advertising events.

APIQWTC Phoenix Award

APIQWTC was formed in 1999 and as a legacy from previous APIQW organizations has continued celebrating the lunar new year with an annual banquet tradition. In 2012 we celebrate our communities’ 25th Banquet year. Proceeds of the Banquet aid projects that support and promote the visibility of the API LBTQ community. Your support also funds other APIQWTC activities, such as the summer BBQ, Pride, and other events.

Every year, APIQWTC presents the Phoenix Award to an individual and an organization for their lifetime achievements and contributions to the API queer and transgender community. It’s our way of recognizing our many members who have done so much for our community in countless ways.

Come celebrate with us at our 2016 Spring Lunar New Year Banquet! An awesome lineup of entertainment and community spirit awaits you!

APIQWTC Scholarship

Congratulations to our 2016 APIQWTC scholarship awardees, Tracy Zhao and Lauren!

Tracy Zhao is pursuing a Master’s degree in Asian American Studies at UCLA. She received her B.A. from Pomona College, where she majored in Asian American Studies and Psychology. As an undergraduate, she was inspired by radical mentors and ethnic studies classes to participate in student activism around workers’ rights, sexual assault, students of color coalitions, and queer and Asian American student groups. After moving to Los Angeles, Tracy has worked with many progressive coalitions and community groups, including Summer Activist Training and API Equality-LA. Through her academic and community work, she hopes to build strong coalitions among queer and trans APIs, immigrants, and people of color. In her spare time, Tracy helps the Free Radicals collective maintain the website www.freerads.org, a resource dedicated to critically examining science and its role in social justice.

Lauren is pursuing a Master’s in Social Work at the University of California at Berkeley with a concentration in Community Mental Health. After graduating with a BA in Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies from UC Berkeley, she participated in Public Allies Silicon Valley/San Francisco, which placed her at a non-profit where she provided case management services for formerly incarcerated, homeless, and low-income residents of Richmond and Contra Costa County. Two summers ago, Lauren participated in the Seeding Change Fellowship Program for Asian American Organizing and Civic Engagement, where she learned about community organizing and worked on grassroots community campaigns at the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco Chinatown. Afterward, she continued working at CPA as the coordinator for their queer youth program, Gender Sexuality Diversities and facilitated a weekly space for queer, questioning, and ally Asian youth.  Lauren hopes to provide healing-centered mental health support for young people of color, supporting them toward finding their own liberation from trauma and toward becoming agents of change in their communities.

SPECIAL THANKS to all supporters of the Silent Auction and Raffle and other APIQWTC-sponsored events, all of which support the scholarship program.

Donate to the scholarship fund today! For Donations to APIQWTC Scholarship Fund, go here now and donate online, or please make you check payable to “API Scholarship”. Thank you.

A portion of Banquet proceeds goes to the APIQWTC Scholarship fund to support queer API women and transgender people in their pursuit of technical/professional training or higher education. The scholarship aims to recognize active community members and encourage future leaders. The scholarship fund is strictly segregated from the APIQWTC general operating fund. For more info, contact Junior Claros at .

Donate Products or Services as Prizes

Support our Banquet Silent Auction! This is a fun part of the event and we thank our community donors for making it possible.

APIQWTC is a non-profit, volunteer-based Bay Area group for nearly 900 Asian and Pacific Islander LGBT individuals, and the banquet attracts over 400 attendees each year from throughout the wider Bay Area.

In past years, our banquet SILENT AUCTION and RAFFLE have raised funds for scholarships and organizations dedicated to social justice causes. This year’s proceeds will support TGI Justice Project (TGIJP), a group of transgender people—inside and outside of prison—creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom. TGIJP’s mission is to challenge and end the human rights abuses committed against transgender, gender variant/genderqueer and intersex (TGI) people in California prisons and beyond.

We enthusiastically invite you to contribute your talents, skills, and resources to our auction and raffle!!

What can I donate, you ask?

• SERVICES
• SKILLS
• ARTWORK
• GIFT CERTIFICATES
• JEWELRY
• HOME ITEMS
• GIFTS FOR CHILDREN/PET
• and MORE!!

Donations are tax deductible.

If you have a potential auction/raffle item or know of any individuals or businesses that might be willing to donate items, and if you are interesting in helping out with the auction, please contact: .

Thank you for your support!

With Gratitude,

APIQWTC Banquet 2016 Silent Auction & Raffle Committee

Lynn, Muy, Cam, & Tracy

Requesting Banquet Volunteers!‏

APIQWTC peeps –

We are counting down to our Annual APIQWTC Lunar Year Banquet Extravaganza on April 16! This year, we’ll be in a new space at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center (in Oakland Chinatown).

To make this event a success, we rely on the support of our fabulous volunteers – such as you! Yes, you!

Do you have time to help out with the Setup/Decoration, Silent Auction, Raffle, Outreach, Registration, Green (Sustainability) Team, Speed Dating <3, Entertainment, etc? Whatever interests you, we’ll match you up with the committee leads.

Please send me a short email with your contact information and interests and I’ll pair you up with our committees. This is a great way to meet new people and contribute to the API queer community.

On behalf of the APIQWTC Banquet Committee – Thank you!

Contact Info: Email: | Mobile: 415.203.5279

After Party

APIQWTC Banquet 2015 (Produced by Tracy Nguyen)