Daphne Kwok: The voice of the AAPI community

Daphne Kwok, the vice president of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Asian American & Pacific Audience Strategy at AARP, joins John Iino and special guest host Janet Kwuon to share her advice as a “leader of leaders” in promoting and empowering Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. Daphne raises important issues, such as representation, education, and action in response to the “Model Minority” myth and hate crimes against the community, as well as advice to younger colleagues just starting their journeys.

Transcript:

Intro: Hi, I'm John Iino and I'm Iveliz Crespo. Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast Inclusivity Included: Powerful Personal Stories. In each episode of this podcast, our guests will share their personal stories, passions and challenges, past and present, all with the goal of bringing people together and learning more about others. You might be surprised by what we all have in common, inclusivity included. 

John: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. We have a great session in store for you today. Really in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month as well. We wanted to do a special episode. So along those lines, I'm today joined by a special guest, co-host. Iveliz is not participating today, but we are really thrilled to have my longtime partner, Janet Kwuon join us as a special guest host. Just a quick background on Janet and Janet I'm going to embarrass you a little bit, but Janet is a real Reed Smith superstar. She serves on our executive committee. She's also the practice group leader for our largest practice group in the firm, which is our global commercial disputes group. We've been partners for forever and whenever frankly, whenever I've had some issues of me as an Asian American uh some things that happened, um Janet is probably the first person I go to. She's just been such a great friend and ally and supporter and leader within the firm. But anyways, Janet, hey, good to see you today. 

Janet: Thanks John. I'm so excited to be here and just tickled that today we're going to talk to Daphne. So thank you very much for inviting me. 

John: Well, that's a perfect segue as well. So our special, special guest today is a friend, Daphne Kwok and Daphne has done many, many things in her short career. I say that Daphne because you said it's long, but it's just getting started. Uh among other things, Daphne is the current Vice President of Diversity Equity Inclusion and Asian American Pacific Islander Audience strategy for the AARP are really intersecting a lot of different diversity there. So you talk about intersectionality. Daphne certainly can speak to that. Daphne has really been a, a leader of, of leaders uh in D&I and especially empowering the AAPI community among the other things which we'll get into. But Daphne was appointed by President Obama to chair the advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and such a great experience there. But we'd love to hear more about that. I could go on and on but just another highlight to me was for 11 years Daphne served as the executive director of the Organization of Chinese Americans or the OCA which is a national uh membership based civil rights organization. So many other things but Daphne just welcome to this, the program. Uh great to have you on, especially in honor of Asian Pacific Heritage Month. 

Daphne: Well, thank you so much, John and Janet, it's a tremendous, tremendous honor to be joining you today and all of your colleagues as well. 

John: Well, we loved it for the audience to hear all about you and uh all the great things that you're doing. So let me just start there. You know, as I said in the intro, um you've been a leader in our community and I say our, the Asian American Pacific Islander community for a long, long time, obviously, your role um currently with the AARP but uh as I mentioned, President Obama's mission and so many others, but we'd like to start our podcast, always talking about the personal stories of our, of our guests. So tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and your journey to, you know, how you got to be the person you are today. 

Daphne: Well, I'll say that I'll start off that. I know that you all are a lot of you are based in uh LA in the west coast and that I come from the east coast and actually not from like New York where there was a large Asian American community. But actually, I grew up and have really lived all my life inside the DC beltway, like literally inside the DC beltway in Annandale, Virginia, which is in northern Virginia. It's a suburb of Washington DC. We're literally just like with no traffic 20 minutes outside of Washington DC. I am second generation, born in Philadelphia, but really have lived in northern Virginia all my life. My parents are immigrants from Shanghai, China. They left China in 1949 with the communist takeover and came to the States for higher education. And so I have two younger brothers and the three of us uh grew up in an area in a suburb that was really predominantly white. We had very few uh classmates. Every school we went to with my brothers and I were like the only Asian Americans and just a, you know, tiny, tiny number and students of color. I went to the public high school, 2000 students. And you know, I think there were probably about only 10% of us were students of color. And because we're in uh outside of DC, there were many of them that were international students from the diplomatic core, children from the diplomatic course. So the numbers were very small. It wasn't really until college. I went to West University in, in Connecticut. I'll confess, I graduated in 1984. So when I entered in 1980 they my entering class had the largest number of Asian Asian American students to date. The entering class of 1984 we had 29 out of 600 students were Asian or Asian American. And that 29 to me, and then you add on, you know, the other three years, I was in heaven. It was the first time I actually had classmates that were Asian or Asian American. And I was just thrilled to death. And so for me, it was really at, in college that I actually had a family, a community to be able to study with, work with, play with. And, and I didn't really realize at the time what I was doing, I thought I was socializing and having fun getting involved in the Asian American student organization. Little did I know that I was actually uh learning how to organize and empower our community and really the skills I gained from my extracurricular activities, not in the classroom, but outside the classroom actually led me to the work that I've been doing my entire life. So I feel very, very fortunate. 

Janet: Daphne, you know, I hear your story and I read the articles about you and the work you've done. And I see so much about achievement and success. But I wanted to hear and ask you about whether you've had experiences with racism, tokenism, microaggressions or things like that. And then how those types of experiences have shaped your approach to work and what you do for others. 

Daphne: Well, I have to tell you, you know, and, and I've been in this uh my entire career and that question always comes up and, you know, to be truthfully honest with you all, I feel fortunate that I actually did not experience it. My brothers actually did they talk about being picked on in school when they were growing up and, and being Asian, being called names and all that. But honestly, uh I have to say that I, and maybe I was naive too at, at the time growing up, I didn't know the difference. But to me, I've been fortunate to be able to be in uh situations and given platforms and predominantly white institutions where I have been able to be the voice for the Asian American community and communities of color. And so I feel very fortunate that I've been able to work in both communities, right? They are mainstream white community as well as to be able to be the voice of communities of color and the Asian American community. And two very specific examples I'll give is I had the greatest honor of being elected and then appointed to my Western board of trustees. And in that really rarified space, I was able to learn to be able to be a member of the board, be able to be an advocate and a voice for the student and faculty and alumni of color as well. And I think I was able to do it because I had, prior to being on the board, I had started Asian American alumni had worked within the mainstream Asia uh alumni association and I had given in so many different ways. The second example is when I was at OCA, I was appointed by the Secretary of Energy at that time to serve on the Department of Energy's Advisory Commission. And I have, I had no idea what the Department of Energy does. I don't know anything about nuclear, you know, waste and all of that. But I was appointed at that time to serve and be the voice of the Asian American community. And so I feel that I've been fortunate to be able to continue to inform and educate institutions that may not be sensitive or know about our communities. 

John: That's just a great, great uh story as well. Daphne, I'm, I'm curious then um I'm gonna go off the go off topic a little bit here. Hopefully you don't mind uh you know, riffing a little bit. But so what inspired you to become such a leader for the Asian American community, right? Because you said you socially in college, you got to meet some people and created this leadership. But you know, really be that becoming your career. What motivated that to really be, become your, your identity of what everything you do. 

Daphne: Well, I'll give you another confession. I graduated from college with no job. Didn't know what I was gonna do. And my mom thank goodness for parents, right? With friends. She pleaded with her friend. Can you please hire Daphne? And uh she was the executive director of the Organization of Chinese American Women. And so she hired me and at the time, I also joined the local organization of Chinese Americans local Northern Virginia chapter to continue to be involved. And at that time, in the 1980s, mid 1980s, there wasn't much infrastructure, there are not many Asian American organizations in DC. And so, uh there are not that many opportunities, but that's how I sort of, I started that line of work. And to me, it seemed like a natural going from the work and the organizing that I had done on the college campus, you know, back into the community. But it was really when I became the organization of Chinese Americans executive director in 1990. There and I had been a, you know, member of the organization, then I had an opportunity to serve as its executive director. At that time. There were only two paid staff, the executive director and an assistant, but there were exactly four Asian American staff for the entire national asian-american civil rights community in Washington DC in 1990. Now, I'd like to tell people this was before computers almost and it was before email, most certainly before cell phones. This is sort of like the back ages, right? When it came to advocacy and communication, it was everything was by phone and by snail mail. But being put into that position of becoming the voice of the Asian American community. Being able to work on issues such as fighting for affirmative action, trying to repeal English only laws trying to advocate for hate crimes, legislation, fighting for fair immigration reform. All these issues I realized if it wasn't me or my colleague who is a Washington DC representative for the Japanese American Citizens League. If that person or myself was not in the room advocating for our community, nobody, literally nobody would be at the table whether it was with Congress, whether it was with the White House, whether it was federal agencies, whether it was before the national media, nobody would be voicing our concerns. And you know, one of the things I like to tell people is you probably can't tell now. But I was very, very painfully shy as a child growing up, even through college, I was very, very shy. I hated classes where you were graded on class participation because I would just be so petrified. But that OCA role and position I realized if I didn't speak up and my colleague in JCL didn't speak up, then nobody would be speaking up for our community. And so I think that's really where I got that drive within me that I was at the table and we talk about the table a lot right? Being at the table, if you're at the table, you have got to use that position and your voice. Most importantly, your voice to be able to advocate for the community. 

John: Great, great story. Um Thank you. Thank you for sharing that motivation and hopefully it motivates so many of us and so so many of our listeners just to, if you don't use your voice, you know, no one's going to, to raise that. So it's so very powerful. I want to switch gears uh to a different topic and that's with your current role with the AARP. Um I think all of us will know that the AARP, you know, tries to advance the efforts on behalf of, you know, retired persons or older persons. But specifically what are some of the unique challenges that older AAPI individuals face, especially compared to like you say the mainstream in comparison? 

Daphne: Well, as you may know that for AARP, we're really working to improve the lives of people, 50 years old and older. So it's really about the life journey, right? And especially end of life for us to address the AAPI community. It's really more of a family, right? Because everything in the AAPI community around family, it's very intergenerational, multigenerational. And when I first took the job at AARP, I'm like, oh my God, what am I getting myself into? Because all of these issues are really taboo issues for all communities, but also really for the Asian American Pacific Islander community, we're talking about end of life issues, you know, who in the Asian community, talks about end of life issues, uh or caregiving or preparing to care for end of life or, or finances money. Right? In the Asian community and our Asian families, you never talk about money. But how important it is to really talk about your finances as savings and all of that health issues. We don't share with anybody, even our, in our own family, our health conditions. Oh, you want to talk about health, dementia, Alzheimer’s? We're not gonna talk about that. So for me at AARP, I'm really trying to help our community norm these conversations to make it part of our, you know, dining room, table conversations with family because it is so critical and important that we address these issues and not when you're 50 because it's almost too late even at 50. But we need to really address it when we're 40 or 28 years old or even when or maybe 18, we need to really start to think about these issues. Uh And so I've really spent a lot of my time really trying to get people to talk about the importance of preparing to care for our loved ones. And the challenge is really with our culture and our traditions, guilt plays a lot into it, right? We feel very guilty if we have to place our loved one in, you know, assisted living or independent living. And so how do we maneuver? How do we have those conversations and how do we support one another? 

Janet: Daphne thanks, thank you so much for that work. And, you know, I now in my fifties as well and my peer group are all wrestling with these issues. And there's so much about the cultural aspect with aging and the traditional way, um that families take care of their older generation and then perhaps, you know, other different ways now. So thank you very much. When I looked at your bio, I was also happy to see that at some point you lived and were on the west coast that you are not always east coast based. But while you were out here, you were doing the very important work of serving as the executive director of AAPI with disabilities in California. So again, another intersection of, you know, looking at folks who are also then dealing with disability related issues. Can you share with us sort of what the focus of that work was like? And you know, the kinds of issues that you addressed? 

Daphne: Absolutely. I think, you know, at the crux of my entire career, it's really about empowering the Asian American Pacific Islander community. And so when I had the opportunity, my very, very good friends from Los Angeles, Patty Kanaga and Peter Wong had started as AAPIs with disabilities of California. And they reached out to me, they had known that I had started a number of Asian American nonprofits and they asked me to help them start that organization too. And that was a tremendous privilege because I, I did not know anything about the disabilities at that time. But for me, if I could help empower AAPIs with disabilities, absolutely. I want to bring everything I had to the table, but I'll share with you one learning that I got, which I hope is a learning for everybody when it comes to Asian American Native Pacific Islanders and disabilities. I remember so clearly one young woman in the San Francisco Bay area who said to me, Daphne, you know, I'm an Asian American and she was a student at that time, I think in college, but a student, she said I have a hidden disability, I have an invisible disability and the model minority myth that myth that people assume all Asians are highly educated, all great in math and science and of tremendous income and wealth. That model minority was a tremendous stigma to her because her teachers assumed because she was Asian American that she would excel academically. They did not know about her hidden disability. And so that was a tremendous burden because the teachers did not understand why she was not excelling academically. And that is a story I constantly tell and bring up because when we meet people, we cannot assume anything and and most certainly we cannot put labels on people, whether it's a model minority myth or anything else, we really have to get to know people and learn about them as individuals. 

John: A common theme. I, I hear in what you're saying and certainly in my own observations is for maybe what unique for Asian Americans or AAPIs is that there is a cultural issue in terms of whether it's speaking up, just kind of hiding some of the issues that are, are, are so important to our, our well being, whether it's from guilt, it's from, you know, we don't raise these things outside the family. And like you said that, you know, getting to, you know, share, you know, and educate folks on the importance to raise some of these issues, whether it's finances or, you know, so many other other areas that you're talking about, mental health and, and, and the like, so it just strikes me that, you know, maybe if our listeners aren't aware, but, you know, that some of the biggest challenges are educating within the Asian Pacific, AAPI community of the importance of reaching out and, and, and speaking up because we kind of feel like we, we have to just take care of it within ourselves and within our own communities. And that's, you know, certainly a big part of the education. I, I think about, for example, the Alliance for Asian American Justice, which is a coalition amongst many law firms and um some in house legal departments that are really trying to work with victims of hate crimes and stuff Asian hate hate crimes. And the like, and the biggest challenge that we face is getting the victims to actually want to come forward press charges or, you know, file litigation against their, um, their perpetrators. Um, as opposed to just saying, no, I don't want to, you know, raise any, raise my head above anything. So it is, it just, for me, it was just something that, that really kind of a common theme of everything you're saying. 

Daphne: I think that's one reason why we have to really hope that more people that who have the courage to come out to speak, whether they're victims of anti-Asian hate or discrimination, that they, those that are courageous to challenge the system that we really get them to speak into the community to show first of all how empowering it is and the difference that it does make because I've had so many friends like Paul Igasaki, who you may know an attorney who was at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a vice chair there. And he would encourage the Asian American community to bring discrimination cases out and they really wouldn't. So he would use his commissioner's charge the ability to raise and bring up cases on behalf of the Asian American community. But for us, in the Asian American community, we need to see and hear more actual cases so we can learn and hope be inspired and then really encourage others or ourselves to raise our voices and to share and bring cases out as well. 

John: Absolutely. So, you know, when we think about the AAPI community and we diversity professionals have to do a lot of effort to, you know, educate others that the AA community is not monolithic. It's, you know, a vast mosaic of, of people, of different cultures, different ethnicities, different backgrounds really is as diverse as all the other broader communities. And you've been a, you know, a real leader, a representative of all those various voices. So I'm curious to share with our audience, some of your own experience is, you know, representing this community. And have you as you know, ethnic Chinese or Chinese American, how have you navigated that to really represent, you know, that entire vast mosaic of peoples? 

Daphne: Yeah. And I have to say yes, I am Chinese American. And you know, I've worked for Chinese American organizations but also been very active involved with the Pan Asian community as well too. I think as a Chinese American in particular, it is up to us, especially those of us that have the opportunity to continue to inform and educate about the other ethnic groups, especially the smaller ones like like the Samoan, the Tongan and the Native Hawaiian, the Hmong community, Cambodian community. We have to provide them the voice and opportunity to inform and educate the broader community. I am constantly learning about the other communities. And I want to, I wish I had more time to be able to watch more films about the various other Asian ethnic groups, to be able to read more from the various authors, from the other communities. There's just so much to learn about each and every one of the communities which is so very distinct and different. So I think for those of us and sorry, John, I know you're a Japanese American but you know, for us Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans that are sort of like, you know, the go to communities uh because we've been here the longest that wherever we have opportunities, I'm always trying to recommend speakers or provide, you know, people that are looking for appointments or, or for trainers to really be able to say, oh, do you know this person is actually Hmong American would be a tremendous speaker. Oh, this individual is a Vietnamese American. I think you need to diversify your advisory council with a Vietnamese American. So for us that are in these positions that were able to give the representation to the other ethnic communities, it's so important to do that. 

John: And Janet as a Korean American, I'm sure you feel the same way. 

Janet: I can completely relate with that because I also am second generation. So my entire time in elementary and middle school was, you know, probably the only Korean American in school even in Los Angeles because this is way back in the sixties and the seventies. And it's interesting to me now to see how popular Korean culture is, whether we're talking about, you know, Squid game on Netflix or yeah, pop bands. Um and how that has changed, you know, throughout the generation. But it was in the very beginning, it was always incumbent on me to be able to point out where the country was on the map to explain, you know, what the difference was between North Korea and South Korea. And, you know, when my parents immigrated over, so it was a, a heavy responsibility to have a little bit of a educational PSA every time the issue of culture came up. So I agree that it's so important for us to keep that door wide open for all cultures that fall under this very broad umbrella. Daphne So I have to ask you since we have a couple of minutes left here, what it was like to serve in your role on President Obama's Commission, the advisory commission on Asian American Pacific Islanders Islanders, and what the primary pressing issues were of that particular commission during that time. 

Daphne: Well, as you can imagine, for me whose whole career has been in the Asian American Pacific Islander community. I mean, that was the top, top, top position or job I could ever ever dream of to serve a president but not only a president but President Obama, you know, I, I never really thought in my lifetime there were an African American would be elected and so there was tremendous, tremendous honor and pleasure. We, I was and the commissioners that I served with were the ears and eyes of the federal government to the Asian American community. We would raise the issues up to the federal government and vice versa. We would then be the ears and eyes and be the conduit from the federal government back into the AANHPI community. The topics that we addressed, data, data, data, every single meeting that we had with a federal agency, no matter what agency it was, we were bringing up the the importance of the collection of Asian American native Pacific Islander data. More importantly, the disaggregation of that data because if you don't have data, as we all know, how can you make policy, how can you really serve the communities and the distinction for our community as we said, you know, are also distinct that we have to have that disaggregated data. And so every meeting we went to, we talked about data. The second major policy issue we addressed in every meeting with language access. At the time we served, it was when the ACA had just been going through and improved. So therefore the implementation getting people signed up for the ACA was so key and critical, but we needed it in language as well. We needed language access. And when it comes now to the hate crimes, all the anti Asian violence and hate crimes going on language access is so important. That was a key second issue. And the third major issue we were really trying to uh advance as well to is getting more Asian American native wine Pacific Islanders into the federal government and especially as appointees at the highest level because we know if we have advocates that know and understand our communities at the highest levels, then we can hopefully get change and attention focused on our communities. 

John: You, you're just such an inspiration to so many people, Daphne. Interested in your thoughts around, you know, that this month is AAPI Heritage Month. What, what does that mean to you and, and how should organizations really be celebrating it? Janet, I think back on, you know, our history of Reed Smith and the Asian Pacific Heritage Month or I can't remember exactly was, was like, well, let's go eat dim sum, you know, for, for that, but it's got to be more organizations than just exposing people to food. It's not like, you know, your diversity efforts for our Taco Tuesdays, right? You have to do a lot more than that. So what are, what are some of your thoughts about the heritage month, Daphne? 

Daphne: Well, I think for the community, the Asian American Pacific Islander community May yes, absolutely is the time for us to continue to inform and educate our colleagues and our friends, as we always say, it shouldn't be 31 days out of the year. It needs to be 365 days but more poignantly for this May. For many of us, it is with deep sorrow with the passing of Norman Y Mineta. And he was one of the authors of the original Asian Pacific American Heritage Week. It was originally a week that went into a month. But Norman Mineta recently passed, he is an icon and I really implore everyone to please, please watch. There is a PBS and is running on PBS this month. But there is a documentary on Norman Mineta’s life and the contributions that he has made to this country, not just for Asian Pacific Americans, but for everyone, he was an author of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He was most definitely the lead on Japanese American redress. Uh and so much more. He was the first mayor, first Asian American mayor of a continental city which was San Jose and he became congressman out of San Jose served in the US House of Representatives, first Asian American to chair a major committee in the House of Representatives. Then he went on to become the first Asian American cabinet secretary under President Clinton as the Secretary of Commerce. And then one of I think only four people in US history to serve in two different administrations as a cabinet secretary in the two different parties, President George Bush, he was the Secretary of Transportation and he was the one that ordered all the flights down on 911. And so I think we all of us, hopefully not just Asian Americans, but all Americans get to know about how a Japanese American who was a young boy who was interned during World War Two used his life experience to really raise, raise the livelihood and equality, truly fighting for equality and justice for all of us. So it's really a time for us to reflect on those individuals and pioneers in the AAPI community. And thank goodness now there's so many documentaries, there's so many films about uh our AAPIs. And so I hope people use this time to really learn about the contributions that so many people have made to this country. 

John: I remember having the privilege of having seen Secretary Mineta speak at a conference. And he said on 911, when they grounded the planes, as the Secretary of Transportation, you know, the the cabinet, the president were talking about, we should, you know, put a travel ban on Muslims and other things. And then he said, you know, having lived that experience, having been interned as a Japanese American because of my race, I think that's the wrong decision. And he said he felt that that first person voice was maybe what carried the day. And so President Bush not uh you know, going down that road. So that's why presentation matters because Norm was at that cabinet table and President Bush knew about the Japanese American internment. And President Bush said, I will make sure that what happened to Japanese Americans does not happen to the Muslim community. And so that's why representation at the highest levels matters. 

Janet: So Daphne, I think that within a lifetime you have as well as others have as well, but you have really stood out in dedicating your life and really changing uh the message in the world. And again, at another time, we might talk about sort of how you found your voice and how you use it so effectively on behalf of others. But for our younger listeners who are beginning, you know, their life, their, their work life, their home life, their family life, what kind of advice do you give as to sort of how to incorporate that into all the other things that we do and who we are? 

Daphne: Well, I hope that people as Asian American and Pacific Islanders, not all of us can be working in the community or, or on behalf of the community. But I hope people really want to be part of the community and take the opportunity to join organizations, whatever your passion point might be. But to help support the Asian American community as well. There's so many organizations that are out there utilize your talents. You know, if you have a legal background, if you have financial background, if your strategic background, these Asian American especially the nonprofit organizations could most certainly benefit from your assistance. Make sure that you join, whether it's list serves or social media tweets or whatever the latest might be to make sure that you are informed about the latest of what's happening in the Asia American community. Uh just to be informed and hopefully you'll be able to use your voice, whether it's for the legislative side of it to continue to advocate for or against policies and legislation that impact our community, or if you had the opportunity to be able to provide a voice for others that are working on the various issues that is all very important as well too. And I think for the young people, there's so many opportunities now with technology, there's no excuse why people don't know what the issues are and can't be connected because now with all the latest in technology, we can all continue to be informed. Uh And so I hope especially for the younger people that they will take advantage, but also to be able to balance work and life balance as well too. 

John: Daphne Kwok, thank you for joining us today. You are just such a leader and sharing all your great advice and, and history and, and it's just so such an honor to have you part of our podcast for our listeners, especially. So, thank you for joining. 

Daphne: Thank you John and thank you Janet and thank you to all your listeners. 

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