Young Asian Professionals Can’t Find Unity Group, So Start One : Organization: ‘Y-GAP,’ which was kicked off Saturday night, aims to bridge gap between generations and different Asian cultures, to ‘network’ with one another and to help their communities.

To young Asian-American professionals like C. Vanessa Chong and Richard S. Chung, Orange County lacks an organization that offers career support, a place to “network” and the opportunity to volunteer community services.

So Chong, a 24-year-old risk manager from Newport Beach, and Chung, a 26-year-old corporate publication editor from Long Beach, recently helped form the Young Generation Asian Persuasion, or Y-GAP.

“We’re interested in getting young Asians together,” Chong said. “There’s nothing for individuals who have just graduated from college, who have just entered the work force.”

The group has three main goals: to bridge the generation gap between the youths and their “Old World” parents, to promote members’ career development and to work to overcome the cultural differences between distinct Asian cultures.

Y-GAP’s coming-out party was a masquerade ball Saturday night at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach. About 140 people--far more than the 100 participants that organizers had expected--paid $50 each to attend the event, with proceeds going to the Asian American Senior Citizens Service Center in Orange County.

The Santa Ana-based center serves about 5,000 Asian seniors in the county, said its president, Calvin Mar.

It is no coincidence that Y-GAP’s first major event paid homage to the elders in the Asian community. It is consistent with the group’s goal of bridging the generational gap, Chung said.

For one thing, the fund-raiser allows Y-GAP members to work with their parents’ more-established organizations, to form a common denominator between the different generations.

There are differences between the older Asians, especially immigrants, and their children. For example, some Asian parents like to arrange marriages, Chong said. “That’s something that a lot of young Asians have an aversion to,” she said.

But there are traditions from Asia that the young would like to retain.

“The respect for elders,” Chong offered as an example. “That’s great. Let’s keep that one.”

Y-GAP also would like to do something for its young members.

The group now has about 20 members, but organizers are launching their first membership drive this month to attract more members. The current members come from all career paths, from first- to third-generation.

Y-GAP is targeting college students and young professionals in the 18- to 35-year-old bracket.

While older, well-established Asians have all kinds of groups to offer them support, young Asians starting out in their careers have no such network in the county.

Y-GAP is similar to the Leadership Education for Asian Pacific in Los Angeles, they said.

“Young Asians are in a transitional period,” Chung said. “They need architects, builders, to help them enter the mainstream work force.”