IRVINE : Asian Awareness Seminars Set at UCI

Asian American students at UC Irvine will be hosts of a conference Thursday about the experience of Asians and Pacific Islanders in mainstream America.

Organizers will conduct four workshops during the one-day Asian/Pacific Awareness Conference called “Empowerment Through Identity.” The event, free to the public, is sponsored by the Asian/Pacific Student Assn., the Cross-Cultural Center and Associated Students.

Miya Iwataki, director of the National Coalition for Redress and Reparation, will be the keynote speaker, said UCI spokeswoman Dorothy Jean.

Other speakers scheduled to appear include Bettina Chan of the Language Rights Project of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center; Diane Fujino of the National Research Center for Asian American Mental Health at UCLA; Asha Parekh, a counselor with the Education Opportunity Program at UC Santa Barbara, and Dan Do Khanh, chairman of the Campaign for Free Elections in Vietnam.

Discussions will include:

* How English-only policies in education and the workplace affect ethnic communities.

* Partnerships between Asian Americans and those of other ethnicities.

* How Asian American women and men struggle with tradition and how women are challenging stereotypes and expectations of mainstream society.

* The participation of Asian Americans in grass-roots politics.

Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. Thursday at the UCI Student Center; the conference ends at 5:30 p.m. For more information, call the Cross-Cultural Center at (714) 856-7215 or (714) 725-2000.