[applause] >> hello. thank you everyone. how you guys doing?

we have one last song for you guys tonight. it is called "dancing in the streets" so i expect all of you to get up and dance, all right? hello, mayor. including you as well. [laughter] all right. i'm not seeing anyone get out yet. hmm. anyone want to get up? i'm going to come down. ♪

>> thank you so much. thank you guys for participating. have a great time. thank you so much. thank you, everyone. [inaudible] thank you. great finality, and thank you. what a wonderful way to end this fabulous celebration. and you know what? it does not end here. you can view the entire ceremony and program on sfgtv channel 26 as well as the apa heritage month's website.

check out asian week's 7 annual street fair saturday the 21st in the street center. little saigon. glass of wine, arts and crafts. on behalf of the apa heritage celebration committee, congratulations to all our recipients this evening, thank you for taking part. thank you to the volunteers of the planning committee, supporting organizations, and last but not least, the sponsors who made this celebration possible. great troubles, everyone. see you next year. -- great tavels, -- great travels, everyone. see you next year.

>> i tried to think about this room as the dream room, where we dream and bring some of those dreams to life. i feel very blessed that i have been able to spend the last 31 years of my life doing it my way, thinking about things better interesting to me, and then pursuing them. there are a lot of different artists that come here to work, mostly doing aerial work. kindred spirits, so to speak. there is a circus company that i have been fortunate enough to work with the last couple of years. i use elements of dance and choreography and combine that with theater techniques.

a lot of the work is content- based, has a strong narrative. the dancers have more of a theatrical feel. i think we are best known for our specific work. in the last 15 years, spending a lot of time focusing on issues that affect us and are related to the african-american experience, here in the united states. i had heard of marcus shelby and had been in join his work but never had the opportunity to meet him. we were brought together by the equal justice society specifically for this project. we were charged with beginning work. marquez and i spent a lot of time addressing our own

position on the death penalty, our experiences with people who had been incarcerated, family members, friends of friends. pulling our information. beyond that, we did our own research. to create a picture that resonated with humanity. it is the shape of a house. in this context, it is also small and acts like a cell. i thought that was an interesting play on how these people make these adjustments, half to create home. what is home for these people? the home is their cell. people talk a lot about noise -- very noisy in prisons.

that is interesting to me. looking at the communication level, the rise of frustration of being caged, wondering, where does redemption fit into the equation here? [singing] i think both of us really believe the death penalty is wrong, and is flawed for many reasons. the list is as long as my arm -- about several others. we feel this is important for both of us, personally, to participate in the debate of

this issue in a way that we can help people frame it for a conversation.

>> hello, good evening. welcome everyone to the 2011 you for your awards ceremony where we honor the amazing accomplishments of 15 of the

most lot inspiring and wonderful leaders of san francisco. i am the youth advocacy coordinator of the youth empowerment bond, part of the department of children and youth and their families. i have had a wonderful honor of working with the 50 warriors in the past five months. each warrior before you was nominated by a community-based organization and has dedicated their knowledge, skills, and talents to improving the lives of others living in san francisco. although all warriors are similar in their passion for community change, may differ greatly in their path to positive change. through making documentaries, political organizing, creative workshops, and even boxing, they have made beautiful contributions to others in need in their communities. the youth warriors are also incredibly strong in character

and heart. they have demonstrated incredible strength and courage for overcoming difficult life obstacles. throughout card chips that have overcome, they have stayed true to their commitment of self improvement and helping others. these remarkable youth leaders took part in a five-month fellowship at provided training on public speaking and city government. these workshops were led by you for your alumni. they facilitated the trainings and help to create the curriculum for the trainings. you if warriors then utilize their newly learned skills to lead you to advocacy day here in city hall on wednesday april 6, an historic day of youth civic engagement when high-school students met with their elected officials to talk about the issues they care about. on youth advocacy day, you for

years led interactive workshops with high school students and city government and also help students prepare for their meetings with elected officials. they met with officials from some various departments, members of the board of supervisors, and mayor edwin lee. mayor li was gracious enough to address all of the participants. he shared his history and inspiring words about the importance of youth in city politics. i am happy to share with you today that mayor lee is here to help celebrate youth warriors. [applause] throughout the fellowship, youth warriors also has the opportunity to meet other youth leaders throughout the city and share the wonderful work they are doing to run the city. this past thursday, the youth warriors and a group of leaders

went to sacramento to our state capital to meet with our elected officials to talk about the community work we are doing. the warriors had an opportunity to get involved in the political process and have their voices heard on the city and state level. the department of children, youth, and their families, is proud to be working with such wonderful and inspiring youth. now i would like to introduce the director of the department of children, youth, and their families. she has been an advocate of the use or your award and fellowship. please give her a werround of applause. [applause] >> thank you. i am so honored to be here. on behalf of our departments, citizens advisory committee, all of our staff, i want to congratulate all of our youth warriors for completing disfellowship. i also wanted knowledge the

staff who has worked tirelessly to make this all happen. our youth department coordinator, nadia, peter -- who am i missing? with all the work, we have been able to make this a successful program. the program could not have been this successful, had it not been for the other members and the audience right now, the parents, caregivers, the adult allies, the friends, the cousin, and we also want to say thank you for supporting our warriors in making this monumental time in their lives. it is an honor for me to be able to be here to express my appreciation for the accomplishments that every one of these warriors has achieved.

starting from helping pc y f -- dcyf informing our decisions, to helping us have a transparent and community-based project in the mission, to helping us advise the white house on what young people need in our country. i am sure each and everyone of you would agree it is such an inspiration to be in this room, in this space, with all of you, future leaders, and i definitely hope to see you one day in my position so that you can honor the next group of leaders. so i want to personally say congratulations to everyone. now i have the pleasure of introducing our wonderful mayor, mayor edwin lee, who will be giving us a few words. [applause] >> thank you. welcome to city hall, your city

hall. i wanted to make sure -- i know supervisor mirkarimi is here. supervisor jane kim is also here. they are both here because i know both have a strong commitment to our youth in san francisco. i want to welcome all of you here tonight for two reasons. one, i know we are going to give some awards out for our youth leaders, but the other reason i wanted to make sure you had a good invitation to come to city hall tonight was because we have been waiting for one of you to register, wondering if you are going to run for mayor or not. there is a vacant seat for youth to lead the city. i think you can take this job and run with it. this city needs to be more kid- friendly, more youth-oriented. i think you could have a big input to make sure that what we are doing will be there for

you to raise families as well. i want to congratulate all the nominees tonight. all of you who have been participating in this competition for the fellowship have been doing great work. i have been reading through some of the accomplishments that you are a part of. i got to meet some of you, luckily, last month when you participated in youth advocacy day, but you also followed up -- some of you were at the old school cafe with what house representatives about what the youths were looking at in terms of their future, participation in the city. here in city hall, we are serious about having programs that not only help you out, but to make sure you get the support you need to be successful. we want you and need you to be

successful. without that, we are literally a soulless city. whether it is being able to traverse on a good muni system, having a good education system, or being able to work in a company like twitter. i am working with two great supervisors and we are working with tech companies, to make sure if you wanted that job, you would be able to work for a company like them, who has their international headquarters right here in san francisco. did you know that if you kept focus on the educational background that you want and need, you can make it into the top jobs? besides the great money that they pay, the workers who want to be here -- want to be here in this great city. they enjoy the culture,

diversity, diversity of food, diversity of people that live here. you are all reflected of those diverse cultures. so we will do our best to make sure we are working with our school district, community college, with our san francisco state university, and with private donors, a program i called bridges to success, which we are working closely on with dcyf, school district, school board, to make sure that we not only encourage people to go to college, but when they begin in the experience, that we support you when you are there. that you go all the way to succeed in your degree. as i told you on youth advocacy day -- and i would tell you again to the parents. there is literally a $1 million difference in someone that does not have that college degree and

someone who does when they get their first job, and future jobs. i think in san francisco, it will be more than a million dollar difference because of the very good salaries that the private industry and public industry pay. if you have a college degree, you can get a good living. it will be expensive for you to have your own home here in the city as well. so with all of that, we want to embrace, and i want to thank the parents, siblings, family supporters here tonight, to share in the announcements of the youth warrior fellowship award east tonight. i want to thank everyone who has participated in this. the voice of the youth is important to people like me, supervisor mirkarimi, jane kim, to listen to what your all about, and to follow your advice

in many occasions as to what is necessary for us to do and continue doing to make sure this is a welcome city that is supportive of strong families and that we keep on doing the right thing here and not allowing rhetoric or politics to get in the way of being a safe city, a successful city, a city that knows how to come out of this economic challenge in a solid whey. we need your help to do that. i look forward to seeing you in city hall, not just in the rotunda, but when we have internship programs. by the way, when you go to college, make sure you applied to city hall and all of our 60 departments. you can get an internship at the public utilities commission, health department, department of the environment. there are a host of departments that offer internship programs.

while you are of studying in college, in the summertime, even during the year, you can be an intern and learn even more about how the government works. then you can think about a career, whether in the public or private sector, there will be good choices in front of you if you are focused. now we can start with identifying all of you won this year's fellowship award. you are on your way to very good foundation. [applause] >> thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule and for being our onerous speaker. thank you again. -- honoree speaker. [applause] i now have the pleasure of presenting our youth warrior a warrants. i will read each individual's

bio. we have a special treat today because mayor edwin lee will be handing out the awards. we also have supervisor mirkarimi and kim who will be helping to hand out the awards and flowers to the warriors. now i would like everyone to stand up and line up over here. as i call your name, please come on up. [applause] first, we have carlos hernandez, 16. he is a positive influence to those in his community who looked up to him and follow his steps towards success and greatness.

[applause] if we could keep it to just a few photos, that would be great. next, we have -- a film maker of a media crew where she treats me that spreads awareness about important issues and encourages you to make change. she created a film around the oscar grant story and documented youth reaction to the case. [applause] sh and