coming up on african american we'll meet the first asian american assistant secretary of business development for with brains, who gets other their community. later, grace kelly plays the sax. i'm mary sit, join me next on asian focus. good morning, everyone, and welcome to asian focus. i'm mary sit. in two hours, the american cancer society's "making strides against breast cancer" walk starts and it's not too late to get involved. join thousands of supporters at the dcr hatch shell and unite to celebrate breast cancer survivors. the event starts at

8 a.m. if you can't make it, you can go online and make a donation at: makingstrides.ascevents.org. our first guest has been a community leader for 30 years and is now the first asian american assistant scretary for the state in business development. nam pham has been a commercial banker for more than 20 years and is the former ceo of vietnamese american initiative for development - known as vietaid. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. my pleasure. >> congratulations on your new position. >> tell me, what exactly do you do now as the assistant doctor? >> i oversee a few offices for recent development, travel and tourism office and the office for interget the trade investment. >> you get all of the fun offices, films and tourism.

that involve helping the economy growth in different area i'm involved in it. >> so what is your plan and your strategy of thew make that happen? you have like three years to do this right? >> yes. i should do it sooner otherwise governor baker might find somebody else to do it. >> what is your plan? what are the things you want to do? >> 85% of our economy is small businesses. >> 85% y didn't realize that. >> and also 90% of exporters are small business. and the state has not provided much support for small businesses. small businesses are the catalyst to our economy in terms of bringing jobs, creative jobs for our commonwealth. so we always do everything we can to support them, to make, to help them make more money

>> what ways would you do that? tax breaks, subsidies or what? >> yes. >> both of those, really? >> for example we realize reriation is one of the biggest obstacles for big and small businesses, so the governor has asked all of us to look at all of the reriations to see if we can do away with something that does not reflect common sense. >> we streamline the process? >> we streamline the process, we make the plummeting easier, we try to reduce all of the taxes that put the burdens on business and we also try to connect small businesses with buyers, they are what we call the urban, the anchor buyers. the big university, the state,

things but our small business always finds it difficult to sell their stuff, to anchor buyers, so we hope we can connect our small businesses with those buyers. >> you hope you get a coalition with small businesses and say can you tend to these businesses and supply with these parts, that kind of thing too? >> the governor also formed a small business council that included small business people, governing people, intellectuals so we could learn from them, tell us what we could do to help you. >> what did you have to do for this job? did you have to apply for this job and interview for it? it wasn't just like an appointment. >> yes. i like to make a difference. and massachusetts has been so good to me and my family in terms of giving me a second

can do to make the place bet for all of us, i love to do that. >> now, what is it like to be the only asian-american? are you the only asian-american working? >> there is a second one. it was good. >> more than one is good. what is it like to be one of the few asian-americans to be working in the statehouse and doing that work? >> i feel very honorred and humbled but i also feel an extra burden because when people look at me they often don't see nam but they see an asian face, so if i fail it's not nam nat fails but the whole asian race. >> yes, so you feel like you have to work extra hard thene prove your? >> we always have to prove ourselvessism, asian minorities, any minority, if you're going to make it you have to, often you have to

>> do you use being vietnamese-american to your advantage, people can't forget who you are, or whatever statements you make in the meeting they know because you are the only vietnamese-american in the meeting. >> i've been very fortunate working with very livenned people, the governor, the secretary doesn't look at me as an asian,. >> you're just an expert. >> exactly, so i feel very fortunate on that. but when you're in a much bigger meeting you still stand out like a sore thumb. >> let me ask you this, you've worked for 30 years in the community, a lot of it probably helps you do what you do now, for instance the vet aid, you worked with small businesses and groups, tell me about that and how you

developed that organization. >> vet aid has been around for 22 years and it has been a catalyst to build in the vietnamese community and mainstream community with people who need help and people who can provide help. everything is based on relationship and vetaid has been able to build relationships with a lot of professions. >> so it officers soccer social services and financial business help too? >> yes. we help small business to navigate all of these crazy at. we help people to connect the american culture and system. i still use we, -- . >> because you were the a long time. and a founder. >> i helped but i wasn't

>> ok. >> we teach people english, teach people surviving skills, we teach kids that there are a lot of opportunities in america, you should prepare yourself to take advantage of that. >> now i think one reason you're so good working with the immigrant communities is because you were an immigrant and a refugee and you have a remarkable story of how you came over at age 19 in a boat. tell me about that story. >> vietnamese refugees escaped the war. >> what year? >> 1975. but our story is the typical american stories, a lot of american groups have tomore a lot of to make it in america. we try to make it, a lot of vietnamese try to make it. >> you were actually on a boat? >> i was. >> how many people?

a little boat? >> a barge. >> a barge? and how many people were with you? >> 500 people. you're kidding, 500 people on a barge, oh, my goodness and from the coast to vietnam to where? to the coast of the vietnam to the philippines. >> how long? >> a week. with 500 people on a barge. >> what did you have to eat? >> we didn't have much to eat but we had plenty to drink. it was raining very hard. >> in a way that was very lucky, you had water. >> i left early but a lot of vietnamese who left in the '80s and '90s had to deal with high pirate. the un estimate is that there were almost 800,000 vietnamese that died. >> 800,000 people died on the high sea because of bad

>> oh, my goodness. >> did you travel by yourself or did your family come with you? >> i was fortunate to have my family with me and that was almost 40 years ago. >> and then from there you eventually came over to america and then got established here? >> yes. america still a land of opportunity for most people around the world. >> and what would you say are the biggest needs for refugees and immigrants today who still come over to this country? learning english, findling a job? >> finding a job. i think learning english is always a challenge, still a challenge for me after 40 years. >> i understand you perfectly. >> but ones to have a job, create a business, to continue to learn english and having a job also gives them self worth. they are no longer a refugeary or immigrant but a survivor. >> you were telling me earlier, i want to touch on

it, what is seat nomlike today in terms of personal freedoms and the people there? >> unfortunately vietnam is not a happy place that it was promised by the government for years. religious freedoms is really restricted. freedom of speech is virtualy not existent. the government is no longer a communist government, a socialist, people democratic socialists in vietnam, but like a mafia group, money and power, no ideology. >> so the young people there that's all they think about, materialistic things and getting money? >> unfortunately that's what it is. >> and you find the whole relationship with the family structure sort of unraveling too? >> i spent a few years working vietnam not so long ago and that's the most disheartening

that all of the value that we share, respect of the rule of law is no longer there. it is just money. they kill each other for a little, little money. >> brothers and sisters kill each other. >> oh, yeah. >> i didn't realize it was like that. and you said people are still fleeing into this country from vietnam. >> there are still more people from vietnam try to come to australia for the past four or five years there have been a thousand people try to escape. >> wow. well we're going to follow you and your story and at the statehouse and best of luck at your job there. and best of luck. thank you for coming on the show. >> thank you. coming up next...we'll meet a beautiful young woman who recently was crowned miss india massachusetts and who spends her time as a political operative, convincing indian american young people to get involved in their community.

she calls herself a political operative in and around massachusetts state politics. sonali lappin is a graduate of mount holyoke college. she served as an aide to former gov. deval patrick and constituent services and senator barry finegold. sanali is vice president for the indian american forum for to engage indian american youth in projects that make a difference. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me, mary. >> you call yourself a political operative, what do you mean by that? >> that's a very general term. political operative is around politics. i got my start working in the statehouse and actually moved out of the statehouse on to political campaigns when my former boss state senator berry finegold decided to run for state treasurer, hiring me as director in his office and campaign. >> that's pretty good. now were really young then as press secretary.

>> yes. >> how did you do that? >> i actually had not had formal training in communications. i studied comparative communication science so i had that background but i also had the previous two years of experience; one, working as a legislative aid on health care payment reform and one working as an aid to governor patrick in constituent services so that mix of experience i think really helped me to transition on to the campaign well because i had all of those things under my belt. >> what is it about working with political campaigns that excites you, because you obviously like it? >> i think what's exciting about it is i'm someone very interested in many things, as you can see, i like to have a well-rounded life and i also like to give back in a lot of different ways and i think, you know, my mom is definitely someone who taught me that,

so i definitely wanted to do something that was exciting that would keep my interested every day and also use my background y have a background in performing arts as well as a writing background so i think that doing campaign work really pulls all of it together. >> and what about politics, what is it about politics that got you interested in the first place. >> i got interested in politics when i was at mount holyoke. being with the experience knowing not a lot of people were doing, so i actually met with a state representative whom i found very inspiring and i decided to chat with her and try to move into politics that way. i did some internships in the statehouse, but i think it really kind of fell into my lap that she called me up

and interview from a job and it went from there. that's one great thing about politics is that there are many opportunities to do different thins and you get a chance sometimes regardless of the training you have. maybe you studied math and you know you get hired to do something completely different just because you didn't study it doesn't mean you won't be good at it if you work hard. >> and you get to make a difference in the community too. changing policy and doing that sort of thing. >> yes. >> you're also right now the vice president of the what's the name of the organization? >> so i work for the indian-american forum for political education. >> thank you. [laughs] >> it is the largest and oldest political education forum for our community and we've got 22 chapters across the united states. it was established in 1982, so it's been around for a long time. >> ok. >> and this is a massachusetts chapter that i help run. >> and what are some of the objectives and goals?

there? >> so one thing we have that i kind of got on board with is we have a flagship fellowship program and we work to engage in the american youth in state politics or even politics at the federal level. so we have applicants, qualified candidates come into our program. we give them training and mentorship and then we place them in political offices in and around the state s. so what we're hoping is that people who want to be engaged in my generation specifically engaged we have them work in the statehouse as well as do a community project on the side. >> so we don't have shows saying the first asian-american, it would be like many. >> right, right right. >> you have a father who is jewish-american and a mom who is penjaviing. >> yes.

she grew up in india and came here for college and grad school. >> what was it like growing up in your household? >> i think my mom always made sure dag-- i have a younger sister -- so my mom made sure to instill the values of being indian. >> is this your family? >> yes. >> is that you,. >> yes. >> five years old, four years old. >> probably three or four, yeah, so my mom definitely made sure we had a good connection to our heritage and i think working in politics has been interesting because some people find that it's very reductive of different cultures so i've also been interested in working with the indian-american forum and my other job to sort of bridge that gap and find ways to not really have to sacrifice part of your identity and i think growing up with parents who are in the mental health field, who are mental health professionals and having such

open about talking. >> everybody just talks about everything. >> yes. it was great because i think i had a lot of -- . >> is this your family? >> yes. >> ---- i had an opportunity to gain emotional intelligence. >> that's keen. what is this now? >> that's your dance group. >> i do classical dance. iert staked when i was four. my grandfather actually told my mother to sign me up for classes and then when i got to college i really wanted to start a multi-cultural dance group. >> so you started this group? >> i starred this group as a freshman and you can see all types of -- . >> lots of hand movements, very expressive. >> and being at a women's college i thought it was very important to have this kind of bonding between people of all different backgrounds. >> and they don't have to be indian-american they just learn the glans that's right.

a lot of times a dance group will have mainly -- this is just a trip to india we took when we were young. >> so your mom understood made sure you understood the culture. >> you were recently crowned miss indian massachusetts in 2014. congratulations. let me ask you this why did you enter into a beauty contest because a lot of people will say aren't you a feminist and a sexist. are you beautiful. >> one of my mentors encouraged me to do it. i was in between campaigns at the time and i decided that if you are, even if you are a femnist you can also be an individualist and you should be able to do whatever you want and i think as i was saying before, you know that's

part of what i perceive to be the american dream is being yourself and having the freedom to do that, so you should take full advantage of, you know, whatever you would like to do, especially if it ultimately can allow you to give back to your community and back to others. so i thought this would be a great way to kind of use it as a platform and it kind of fed into some of the work i've done with other public figures in my work as a political operative. >> and then winning that title too also gives you like, it's like you're also a role model for younger girls who look up to you. really, right. and you can spread the mission of getting involved in your community and doing good work. >> i definitely think that. i think there is camaraderie between the other pageant winners and myself, so that's really nice. >> and you guys do community work together. >> we do work together and i think that also just the event itself was a multi-cultural

was balancing being american with being indian. so it was actually two things and you had to do performance, you had to speak, so it was really a display of so many different thins and so many different types of people. >> and like you said it was more of a cultural thing. >> did you get criticism or did people say hey, go for it? >> i had a lot of support, which was nice. i think some people wondered why i did it, but i think it's funny because maybe they wondered why because of maybe their own assumptions because of pageant and about what feminism means or what being a woman means, so i like to revisit my own assumptions about myself and others and do that from time to time throughout my life. >> i like your attitude on being an individual and no labels. what is your future, what are

some of your goals? >> one i would like to find a way to merge my background with politics and at some point open a learning consulting group. so for kids who have different learning needs trying to find a coordinated, comprehensive model that will address their needs without their care having to go through separate providers. i think that would something i'm really hoping to work on. >> that's really good. sort of a one stop shop. that's great. wish you the best of luck. and thank you so much for coming on. i'm sure you're going to achieve all of your goals. >> # # coming up next. grace kelly, the jazz saxophonist, plays an original piece for us. stay

>> our last segment features

korean american saxophonist/composer, singer/songwriter who has performed in more than 600 concerts. wynton marsalis said of her music: "grace kelly plays with intelligence, wit and feeling. she has a great amount of natural ability and the ability to adapt. that is the hallmark of a first-class jazz musician." here is grace kelly performing an original piece called "filosophical flying fish." we'll leave you now with grace kelly playing. that's all for this addition of asian focus. thanks for joining us. i'm mary sit. i'll see you again in four weeks.