edwin tan, the director of advocacy and development for aaci, who spearheads many of aaci's efforts. ef aand prisor for ve honoree dr. r. leena-- dr. leena v. khanzode, adult psychiatrist she travels the world to help the underserved, but makes time to do that for aaci here in the bre leena khanzode: thank you very much. robert: edwin, give us a little bit of an overview here in terms of aaci and why it honors these people. edwin tan: yeah, aaci was founded about 47 years ago, and our goal at that point was to raise awareness of the asian american community. since then, we've evolved to provide health, mental health, and wellness services for the community for the underserved. and one of the still main items is that we still want to promote the asian community, asian identity. being a county of one-third of the county is asian american, and myself growing up in southern california in a part that was a little bit of the boonies, i didn't get to see many asian american champions or heroes that people i could look up to in the community. and so, thisa ng hoes that we have in our very ow

and that was one of the issues that aaci said, "we need to target.e need to get people talking about that." sarita: exactly. robert: have you seen much progress in that kinda thing? do you think that we're making, the community is making progress in these kind of areas? jorge: i think they're slowly chipping at it, but i think oftentimes funders, because of the model minority myth, oftentimes don't see asians having those issues. and also, other times, like, they don't even have a language, or they feel the shame and stigma of actually coming in and seeking for services. oftentimes, asians don't really reach out or those services, even though they are available, and they can be actually helped. oftentimes, they come-- especially in the ar of mental health, they can be experiencing it for a long time, and by the time they come to us, they're actually in crisode. and that time, that's when we kick in. there's also many cultures that don't have the language to really even talk about mental health issues or even treatment. so, sometimes that's not even i

edwin tan, the director of advocacy and development for aaci, who spearheads

it's the api summit coming up in san francisco by aaci, asian americans for community involvement. up with a health issue important for every community. it's stroke awareness month, the signs to look out for, and how santa clara county hospitals can help you deal with it, all on our show today. well, we're big supporters of caamfest, the long-running asian american festival that entertains and enlightens. with me now is the festival and exhibitions director for caam, our old friend masahi niwano, who's been part of the festival