My American Story

On Thursday, May 20, 2021, CALex invited speakers of Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean and Filipino descent to share their American stories in celebration of the AAPI Heritage Month 2021. It was a very successful event. In addition to the wonderful life stories from the panelists and the outstanding job of the two LHS student moderators, State Treasurer Goldberg also gave an inspiring speech, and State Senator Mike Barrett and Representative Michelle Ciccolo joined the meeting and made encouraging comments to the panelists and young generation. 

Quotes from the speakers:

when people knock you down that’s the time to pick yourself up and keep on going

No matter what difficulties we had he always reminded me that fair play is the American way.

one nation one people

We belong, we are not perpetual foreigners, … what we try to do is to engage in constructive engagement, stress the positivity and not lower ourselves to negativity.

I hope that, through these different platforms and events that we can continue to learn more about each other, strengthen our relationships and truly openly welcome one another. I think that what will continue to find is that we’re more alike than we are different.

I’m a young person my American story is just starting

I just think this is a great opportunity to hear out from everybody else … speak up and value ourselves is a very crucial part of my learning process of real American culture

Such passion such determination such energy such new ideas that they will grow and make the opportunities. Not to be worried, not to be scared of AAPI. We are there to make things bigger, better, more wonderful.

Follow below links to find the speeches from individual speakers (the same video but at different start points):

• Introduction by LHS student moderator Joanna Liu and Aaron Shao: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk
• Mona Roy’s Opening: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=309 (Chair of Lexington Human Rights Committee)
• State Treasurer Goldberg: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=418
• Betty King: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=757 (Commissioner of Mass Asian American Commission)
• Wilson Lee: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=1786 (Co-founder of Chinese American Heritage Foundation, great-great-grandson of Transcontinental Railroad worker)
• Susie Lee-Snell: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=2657 (Co-founder of KOLex)
• Kaveesh Pathak: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=3283 (LHS Sophomore, Community and Electoral Organizer)
• Linxi Lu: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=3489 (Boston College Ph.D. Student, …)
• Shigeru Miyagawa: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=3872 (MIT Professor and Senior Associate Dean)
• Deepika Sawhney: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=4514 (Lexington School Committee Member, …)
• Q&A Session: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=5228
• Mona Roy’s Closing: https://youtu.be/cYjGJ7NQ5Dk?t=7039

This event was cosponsored by:

    Department of Human Services of Lexington

    The Human Rights Committee of Lexington

    Association of Black Citizens of Lexington (ABCL)

    Bangladeshi Americans of Lexington (BALex)

    Indian Americans of Lexington (IAL)

    Japanese Support Group of Lexington (JPLex)

    Korean American Organization of Lexington (KOLex)

    LexPride