>> now from abc7, "beyond the headlines" with cheryl jennings. >> welcome to "beyond the headlines." our show today focuses on our local asian-pacific-american community, or apa for short. the library of congress defines the asian pacific as encompassing all of the asian continent, as well as the pacific islands of melanesia, micronesia, and polynesia. a u.s. census estimate in 2015 found 19 million residents of asian and pacific islander descent with a total u.s. population of 248 million people. in california, asian and pacific americans make up almost 21% of the population. and the bay area census in 2010 found that asians and pacific islanders make up almost 24% of the population, inching above latinos as the largest minority race across the nine counties. abc7's chris nguyen is here now with local apa leaders to talk about important issues affecting our bay area communities. >> cheryl, it's great to be here. i'm excited to introduce you to our panel of guests today. gina su is an actor based here in the bay area. she's the winner of the 2016-2017 miss asian global pageant. next,

ends soon. >> welcome back to "beyond the headlines" with cheryl jennings. i'm abc7 news anchor chris nguyen sitting in as guest host for this special roundtable edition. as more asian americans get involved in the political process, many wonder will this lead in a rise in racial tension? vincent, you work for a civil rights organization. it's important that people push back on bias and discrimination. >> it is, and i think the way we should understand our own identity is as a means, not an end. and so i think when we understand what it means to be treated as an other, we can maybe be more empathetic to other groups who are marginalized. and so in that way, we don't see everything as a contest for limited resources, but how we need to work together to make sure that everyone has a fair shot, i think that's the way to address some of these questions around, you know, any potential downsides of diversity, including tension between different groups. >> vincent, are you hearing more reports of people becoming more hateful toward others? >> well, i think we look

i'm kristen sze in for cheryl jennings. congresswoman jackie speier co-founded professional businesswomen of california, or pbwc, in 1989. the nonprofit has evolved over the years from its initial membership of long-term volunteers to what we see today, with corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders from both public and private sectors. joining me now in the studio is curshanda cusseaux woods from kaiser permanente. she's the northern california community relations manager. thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me, kristen. >> all right, curshanda. so, kaiser, we should mention, is this year's pbwc headline sponsor. that's a yearlong sponsorship. >> yes. >> talk to us about why kaiser is doing it. what does that mean for you? >> well, we've been a partner with pbwc for over 12 years, and we kind of dipped our toe into the waters last year by being a major sponsor, and we really saw that it gives us the opportunity to really spread the information that pbwc shares with not only our employees, our employee resourc

>> now, from abc7, "beyond the headlines with cheryl jennings." >> thanks so much for joining us. the new trump administration brings hope to many people and frustration and fear to others, so we reached out to three local professional diplomats whose countries are in the headlines right now. we wanted to learn how we can begin building bridges as friends and neighbors. so i sat down with the consuls general from russia, israel, and mexico, all based in san francisco to get their perspective. >> last year, we issued 20,000 visas to americans living in this part of the world, in this part of the united states... >> the honorable sergey petrov is consul general of the russian federation in san francisco. he and the other consuls general are professional diplomats whose duties include overseeing the processing of legal documents, such as passports, here and around the world. but their primary mission is to build good relations between their countries and the united states. >> we should bring together our businesses, our artists, our actors, our scientists, our students. that's import

. >>> at abc news at >> now, from abc7, "beyond the headlines with cheryl jennings." >> today's show focuses on a longstanding organization called the professional businesswomen of california, or pbwc. abc7 is a proud sponsor of pbwc and its annual premier conference for women in

cheryl: this all playing out in the oval office just moments ago. that tape just coming into fox business. he was sitting there next to nato secretary-general jens stoltenberg. nato talked about. talking about north korea and china. we're talking with retired captain chuck nash. captain nash, i want to bring you in. what we were speaking about before we heard from the president himself, the relationship with president kim jong-un and china. are they putting pressure on kim jong-un? the president said well, we'll see what happens. we're still ready to talk but we'll see if the summit even goes forward? >> he is not trying to push this thing because, again, he doesn't want a deal like iran, that he had to get us out of because it was so bad. he is not going to create another one of those things. the chinese realize that right now kim jong-un, the way he has been behaving he is really bad for business and the chinese is all about business. they are also about the fact that as long as kim jong-un keeps acting out, that is putting pressure on the japanese to get more militant and to take out the self-defense only portion of their constitution. if you