Articles

Dr. Frankin S. Odo will give the keynote address on Preserving Art & Cultural Heritage
 
 
The 2010 Annual Dinner celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month hosted by the Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans will be held on Saturday, May 15, 2010, 6-9 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza Riverfront Hotel, 11 Kellogg Blvd E, in downtown St. Paul, MN. The dinner is a unique and special event which brings many differing Asian Pacific ethnic groups and organizations together in unity and celebration. The dinner program consists of a keynote address with a notable guest speaker, the awarding of the annual Asian Pacific Leadership Awards, and various cultural performances. 

Dr. Frankin S. Odo will give the keynote address on Preserving Art & Cultural Heritage
 
 
The 2010 Annual Dinner celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month hosted by the Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans will be held on Saturday, May 15, 2010, 6-9 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza Riverfront Hotel, 11 Kellogg Blvd E, in downtown St. Paul, MN. The dinner is a unique and special event which brings many differing Asian Pacific ethnic groups and organizations together in unity and celebration. The dinner program consists of a keynote address with a notable guest speaker, the awarding of the annual Asian Pacific Leadership Awards, and various cultural performances.

 
This year the theme for the annual dinner will be "Rooted in the Community."  As a community, everything the APA community has received it has had to earn by making its case and pushing forward. For example, in 1993, to honor the achievements and contributions of Asian/Pacific Americans, the Congress, by Public Law 102-450, as amended, designated the month of May each year as "Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month." This law is the result of 2 decades of advocacy and activism from the Asian American and Pacific Islander community to claim its place in American history and in the American life story. Heritage Month is rooted in the community as it is the result of community action.
 
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Franklin S. Odo
The keynote speaker at the 2010 Annual dinner will be Dr. Franklin S. Odo. His presentation will be on Preserving Art & Cultural Heritage.
 
Dr. Franklin S. Odo (born 1939) is a Japanese American author, scholar, activist, and historian. Dr. Odo has served as the director of the Asian Pacific American Program at the Smithsonian Institution since the program's inception in 1997. As the director of the APA Program, Dr. Odo has brought numerous exhibits to the Smithsonian highlighting the experiences of Chinese Americans, Native Hawaiians, Japanese Americans, Filipino Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Korean Americans, and Indian Americans. He is also the only Asian Pacific American curator at the National Museum of American History. 
 
Dr. Odo was born in and grew up in Hawaii and was the first from his high school to attend Princeton University, where he received his B.A. in Asian Studies (China and Japan) in 1961. He then received his M.A. in East Asia regional studies at Harvard University in 1963. He returned to Princeton University, where he completed a doctorate dissertation on Japanese feudalism in 1975. While his academic background and training had been in traditional Asian Studies, Dr. Odo became involved in the movement that created Asian American Studies and other ethnic studies in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a result of the anti-war and anti-racism activism in the United States.  
 
Call for Sponsorship
The Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans relies heavily on community based organizations as its base of support, but has also relied greatly on corporate sponsors and partners.  The dinners would not have been successful without such partnership and financial support. The Council must continue to increase sponsorship and ownership of the dinner if it is to sustain and better the event. Every sponsorship is important and much valued no matter what level.  Sponsorship is needed and indeed, it is crucial, to the success of the dinner.   
 
The cost to attend the event is US$40 per person. For more information about the event, call 651-757-1740 or go to the Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans Web site www.capm.state.mn.us/heritage_dinner.