FREDDIE MAC, AREAA, COUNTRYWIDE Team up with Nonprofits to help Asian Americans in Los Angeles Become Homeowners
(Los Angeles, CA) Thanks to a new homeownership initiative made possible by many organizations working together, Soo Han is the proud owner of a new home in Winnetka, Calif. Han is one of several individuals who have become
homeowners through a collaborative community effort to increase homeownership in the Korean American community in the greater Los Angeles area.
At a ceremony today at Youngnak Presbyterian Church, Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) and the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) officially kicked off the homeownership initiative with Korean Churches for Community Development (KCCD), the Koreatown Youth and Community Center (KYCC), Countrywide Home Loans and Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC).
This homeownership initiative, which began last year, addresses language and cultural barriers, lack of knowledge about the homebuying process and other challenges faced by Asian Americans. These barriers are keeping many Asian
Americans from pursuing their dream of homeownership.
"Through KCCD's Homebuyer Education program, I realized how important having knowledge can be for first-time homebuyers," said Han. "With the help of KCCD's counseling program, I was able to purchase my first home with more than $138,000 of layered financing and downpayment assistance and at a five percent fixed interest rate."
"What better definition of 'The...
Award-winning Journalist and author William Wong comments on the national firestorm that AsianWeek has created by publishing writer Kenneth Che-Tew Eng's "Hate" Column
March 5, 2007
By William Wong
For nine years (1989-1998), I wrote a regular column for AsianWeek, the San Francisco-based weekly newspaper that bills itself as "The Voice of Asian America" but that now has egg foo yung on its face for its incredibly stupid decision to publish a racist rant ("Why I Hate Blacks") by a young writer named Kenneth Che-Tew Eng, or as AsianWeek labels his (now former) column, "God of the Universe."
I appreciated the forum AsianWeek provided me. It gave me an opportunity to explore numerous angles, tangents and pathways of the complex Asian American experience, including uber-sensitive yellow-black relationships.
I tried my best to do this exploration in the context of a changing America that has racial and ethnic ghosts it wishes would stay in an overflowing closet. I never ranted or raved or engaged in racist language or stereotypes (at least that's what I thought). I felt my "voice" was mostly reasoned, respectful, honest, and thoughtful (again, my opinion).
I even included a number of my AsianWeek columns revised and rewritten slightly in my first book, Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America, published in 2001 by Temple University Press.
In my resume and one-page biography, I include AsianWeek as a publication I have written for. Now I am not so sure I want to...
A Lifetime Achievement Award was presented posthumously to the late Sam Chu Lin by the Asian American Journalist Association during its annual convention.
The AAJA also presented Special Awards to the late newspaper owner Chinn Ho, Bobbi Bowman and Dmae Roberts. Excellence in News Coverage Awards were presented to honorees in eleven categories.
Read more about the honorees from this news release from AAJA.
The late Sam Chu Lin , former pioneer broadcast television reporter for CBS News and other news outlets including KTTV-TV (LA), KTLA-TV (LA), KRON-TV (SF) , and KOOL-TV (PHX) , SF Examiner , Asian Week and Rafu Shimpo received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asian American Journalists Association.
Fellow journalist, community leader and pioneer television broadcaster Chris Chow comments on the award to Sam Chu Lin :
"AAJA is to be commended for giving its 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award to Sam Chu Lin .
AAJA is cut from the same cloth as Sam and aspires to the same ideals as Sam and is one organization in the field of his profession that has recognized his contributions, leadership and worth. This is like being honored by one's own community.
Sam was honored by the Chinese Historical Society of America, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, the Organization of Chinese Americas and now the Asian American Journalists Association for his pioneering lifetime achievements in media and journalism and America.
I really regret not having been there for him at Salinas...
Dith Pran, Humanitarian and Photojournalist for the New York Times has died of Pancreatic Cancer. A survivor of the Cambodian holocaust, he was the subject of the Oscar winning movie "The Killing Fields."
New York Times photojournalist Dith Pran, a Humanitarian, Cambodian Genocide survivor, and the subject of the Oscar winning 1984 movie "The Killing Fields" has died of pancreatic cancer this morning March 30, 2008 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Last week, surrounded by family and friends in the hospital, Pran, 65, known for his upbeat personality quipped to Star-Ledger staff reporter Judy Peet that he intends to win his battle with cancer, "Food, medicine and meditation are good soldiers, and I am ready to fight."
But ultimately "this is my path and I must go where it takes me." He said he wanted to use his condition to encourage people to do early cancer screening.
Pran had spent his life since his survival from the brutality by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979, to raise awareness of the Cambodian holocaust and to campaign against genocide everywhere. He said in an interview in recent weeks, hoping that others will be able to carry on his work, "If they can do that for me, my spirit will be happy."
Pran was an assistant and translator in war-torn Cambodia from 1973 to 1975 to Sydney Schanberg, a New York Times correspondent. On April 17, 1975, while most Americans and other foreigners had already evacuated Cambodia, Schanberg had decided to stay to witness...
The recent death of Steve Jobs, a man who dared to dream and create beyond the constraints of the prevailing consciousness, brought many people including me to a place of deeper reflection. What does it mean to be really alive? How do I make sure that I am living my highest potential every day? How do I ensure that I will feel at peace when it is my time to leave this planet?
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.
And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.” --- Steve Jobs
I believe above quote holds a key to Jobs’ success. He followed his life purpose, what he was born to do. He didn’t have his life path handed to him on a silver platter. He was given up for adoption; he quit college after one semester because it was draining his parents’ entire life savings for him to attend. He still wanted to learn so he slept on the floor of his friends’ dorm rooms. He sold soft drink bottles he scavenged to return for money to buy food so he could sneak in to attend classes.