APAPA的真实面目
硅谷老7-877 05/03 104774.5/73
APAPA的真实面目
在一个名为“心平气和谈政治”的微信群里, 大家在相互尊重的前提下，分享观点，共同探讨华人从政的道路。 本人从中受益非浅， 特此分享一些信息，介绍一下APAPA， 消除人们对APAPA政党标签的偏见。
小结：APAPA 是一个集左中右中（民主党、中间派、共和党、中国人）的团体， APAPA 的创始人CC Yin 是GOP大佬和金主; Albert Wang, Bay Area Chair, 是个民主党; Bay Area President Joel Wong declined to state.
AAGG PAC，是由许多APAPA的领导人创办的，将在5月9日于Cupertino与 SVCA 一起为南加的两位有希望的共和党亚裔候选人Young Kim (AD-65) 和 Janet Nguyen (SD-34) 举行募捐餐会。这更说明 APAPA不是 民主党附属的组织。
以下是Albert Wang的群聊记录 (注：网聊语言并不代表实际文字水平)。
Some info on APAPA. Formed around 2002 in Sacramento, based on the vision of CC Yin (Henry Yin’s brother, respected entrepreneur who started with 1 McDonald in Oakland to some 30 today around I-80 corridor and SF) to empower Asian Americans. It was partly based on Bay Area organizations like Vision New America and Citizens for Better Community. Over time it has grown rapidly, mostly due to CC's tireless work and financial support. Now APAPA has different regions, under each are some chapters, throughout CA and also in Florida, New York, and Texas. Bay Area is the strongest with most people and most activities, just because there is a heavy concentration of Asian Americans here and the general level of education and political awareness is higher than elsewhere.
As to party affiliation - CC Yin is a Republican 大佬. He was Statewide Asian American Chair for Meg Whitman (last Rep governor's candidate), Northern California Chair for John McCann's presidential bid in 2008. So the supreme leader of APAPA is a lifelong Republican and big donor to the Republican party. Bay Area President Joel Wong is declined to state. Southern CA Regional Chair Nelson Huang was Meg Whitman's South California API Committee Chair and Republican (I actually just learned this a few weeks ago since this party stuff surfaced recently. Because we just don't talk about party differences in APAPA). I still don't know what party our San Diego Chapter chair Ron Cho is. Others in the SF Bay Area - Vice Chair James Yu is a hardcore, far right, Republican. Henry Yin is declined to state. Phong La is a Democrat. Even our SF chapter had Albert Chang, a Republican. If you know how much of an endangered species Republican in SF is, you'd know it is actually hard to have one in our leadership :)
Now APAPA is 501c3 and we do not engage in specific campaigns and cannot make political donations. Asian American for Good Government, made of people similar to the APAPA leadership is a PAC and the one we give money through and hold fundraising events. Because, as Haipei 薛海培said, CA has few viable Rep candidates, AAGG money has been given largely to Democrats. But we give to candidates, not to the party. Over the years, every API state and Fed level candidates with any chance of winning have received support from AAGG, from as little as $1000 or so, up to $100,000 for statewide races. AAGG is set up for State and Fed elections but individually all of us have supported local API candidates and those of other races. Barry Chang, Paul Fong, Kansen Chu, Evan Low, etc have all benefited from our support. We have certainly supported Rep's too, including strong support for Van Tran, Vietnamese from Orange County who was the last Asian American Republican in the assembly, Michelle Steele (Korean) who is on the State Board of Equalization (very powerful although not well known body). It may seem that we largely gave money to Dem's. But it's pretty much because Rep’s have no chance to win, and usually their API candidates were really just place holders so the party can have a body in the race. We just don't see any reason to waste resources on them, although people like CC have given small amounts of support due to party loyalty.
AAGG is planning to hold a joint fundraiser with SVCA for two viable Rep candidates next month and will probably be providing well over 1/2 of the funds raised. As you can see, we don't discriminate based on party. We do discriminate based on race/ethnicity because we believe Asians are not getting their fair share of political influence and we need "affirmative action" to support our own candidates :).
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阿丹闵 把APAPA 定位为民主党只因为我说了一句我基本支持affirmative action, but also explained that is to support those who are disadvantaged and we Chinese certainly are disadvantaged in many areas in this country. 他却不提APAPA Founder and National Chair 尹集成是共和党大老。曾是Meg Whitman 州长竞选时的全州亚裔Chair. 在他说APAPA 是要出卖大家给民主党时, 我却听到Sacramento 民主党内部大力攻击APAPA 是共和党的走狗，Town Hall 就是为了给Bob Huff 发挥的机会。 那时我就知道我们做对了!!
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For more information about APAPA, please visit http://apapa.org/default.aspx
