activist, district 8, the founding executive director of the chinatown community development center gordon chenrychnine shirley chen, district 10, a community leader and visitation valley, and last but not least, the business woman and president of an iron works co., florence kong. could you join me in thanking all of their leadership? [applause] the last thing i want to say is we have been celebrating our heritage for 163 years, and i look forward to another 163 years of celebration. thank you very much for being here. >> supervisor chiu, thank you very much. this is the seventh year that san francisco has held an official celebration for asian americans. the plans are the culminated efforts of the members of the mayor's asian-pacific american heritage celebration committee. please welcome me and joining claudine cheng for her remarks on this year's celebration. >> thank you, everyone, for joining us for our celebration this year. the theme of our celebration is celebrate heritage, celebrated community voices. the community is selected this team for two reasons.

today, it is my pleasure to honor gordon chen, the executive director of the chinatown community development center, one of district 8's most distinguished residents. slightly more distinguished than another distinguished district 8 president, ccdc's deputy director. gordon, as you know, is the founding executive director of ccdc. founded almost 35 years ago. it brings together community organizing, affordable housing, development, property management, and neighborhood planning, all under one roof. during gordon's tenure, which will -- i do not want to say come to an end, but will transition to a different days later this year, ccdc has built or rehabilitated over 2300 units of affordable housing. this is one of the most important and successful community organizations in that city. many of us know gordon's amazing work, but his roots go much deeper. born in san francisco, board and attended oakland public schools , junior college in the area, received a master's in social welfare from san francisco state. he entered with the late congressman phil burton in the 1970's. he has been very activ