and patsy kito, director of the samoan community development center.we want to thank and did knowledge southwest airlines for their sponsorship and providing all of the awards with -- award winners with two round-trip tickets to anywhere southwest airlines flies with an unlimited supply of peanuts. i want to ask -- to presnent the community leadership award, and join me in welcoming dr. emily murase. >> thank you so much. how is everybody doing? a great, a joyous occasion. i have served on the board of education and i am pleased to announce the finalists and the awardee, all engaged in events in education. the criteria is described in the program, i want go through it here. it is important for us to recognize community leaders with a commitment to the educational needs of our community to ensure that the next generation of pacific and asian americans are here to address the concerns. the finalists in the community leadership category are -- program director of asian american community for education. soca mao, the juvenile justice prevention commissione

korean, samoan, vietnamese.also use the language services, where you can call and we will put you in contact with someone who can translate simultaneously, if there is no staff person fluent. all of the attorneys are required to use these for any. the have a small budget for that purpose. it will remain stable over the next two years. we thank them for working with us. it does not require additional funding to approve this. i think that that is it, unless you have any questions. supervisor chu: i was just wondering, in terms of the trajectory and friends, where are you seeing the numbers of caseload for your department? >> we have seen a reduction in the overall number of cases. it is a direct result of smarter charging policies, as well as charging policies from the police department. a report pulls down about seven years ago where our court system was criticized for not spending enough resources on the serious crimes. i have discussed in this with the district attorney and the chief. their focus is on violent

being a chief from the samoan people, i represent them. i want to make sure they get hurt. we cannot have the kids go to that school and not have somebody they can relate to. we will have a big problem. i monitor my everyday job working on those buses. we encounter a lot of kids as they did on the 54, of the nine, or the eight express. if we do not have a polynesian people there, we are going to have a problem. i am concerned that in all of your studies and your background histories on people that this was not taken into consideration to your did you know the problem school districts have. we have all worked on it together. as other people said, everybody whether it is african-american, latino, asian, every group and not represented is at a disadvantage. i am asking the board to reconsider that order to look into it. we do not have that many pacific islanders looking at the schools. at martin luther king, the population is big. you are surrounded by public housing. that is where most of them do well to read if we do not address it, they will be on the streets and they will

welcome everything here from japantown, the southeast asian community, the philippine committee, the samoan community, all of our asian populations working together to promote this month and be able to tell more stories about who we are. it is a wonderful country. i just came back from seattle, my home town. i have my own homegrown seattle jokes i could tell you. they will ruin your day. it is great to link up roots. i went back to my high school in beacon hill where i grew up. i rethought the steps of how i got to san francisco. i met with housing groups that resonated with our international hotel struggle. a lot of community groups that were part of my own personal history but have become part of our whole west coast history that we celebrate because it is really the same thing. every city whether new york, chicago, or san francisco, the asn populations have grown and matured beyond the immediate immigrant groups, but they still have strong ties. i am reminded of this constantly. we have an inner. population that wants to be involved in everything we do and the side. they know with the le

see this sort of common ground that you know, filipinos in daly city find with african-americans or samoans in san diego? .. and what makes it such that there are these wonderful alliances, too. so, i mean, i think my default answer is this notion of the wedge being driven, you know, asian-americans being on the cover of "time" magazine in 1986, whiz kids. it's not even on spoken, but kind of acknowledgement that okay, asians are going to do well in math and science, etc. and they're going to make it. you have ucla filled with asian-americans. but, you know, there are still asian-american brothers and sisters who are standing on the steps of the supreme court when michigan goes to court for affirmative action and grass verses bollinger in 2003, and again, i ask why, you know, if it's not going to benefit asian-americans' why would they want to, you know, agitate for affirmative action, which has benefited actually, right, in the past 40 years. and those folks who are standing next to african-americans, latinos and native america, etc., and white allies etc., you know, the bill be on higher