Last night, fellow SALDEF intern Dilroop Kaur and I attended the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership Washington Leadership Program. Like every other agency in DC, the program has an acronym: CAPAL WLP. When booking the venue for the event, CAPAL had apparently assumed some serious navigation skills on our part. Fortunately, taking a “self-guided tour” gave us the opportunity to deploy our communication skills on many guards around the building to ask for directions as well as admire the impressive architecture of the Capitol Building itself.
Kiran Ahuja
When we finally found the place, we entered a room full of maybe 100 or more Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander and everything in between, interns who were all dressed and ready to network, mingle and eat the free food that was provided. The evening started with an address from Judy Chu, the first Chinese-American female member of Congress. The Keynote Speaker of the evening, Kiran Ahuja, took the podium a few minutes later. She is the Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI). Yes, another acronym. Ms. Ahuja’s most inspiring words were about how being able to make change and do something good is “not just about a seat at the table, but about what you do with the seat at the table.” You can have the powerful political position or be head of a non-profit organization, but just holding the position is not enough.
Doing something with that position is where progress is made. But perhaps the most memorable anecdote of the night came from Farook Sait, a member of CAPAL’s Advisory Council, who had spoken earlier in the evening. He started his address by waving a 100 dollar bill in the air, knowing that a group of student interns would love to get their hands on it. He asked 2 questions: Who was the first Asian American in Congress? Who was the first person to get to the top of Mount Everest? He gave 30 seconds to answer each question. No one could. His point: luck is the intersection of preparedness and opportunity. None of us were prepared or taught to know the answers to these two questions, so even though we had the opportunity to receive free money that would probably pay for a week’s worth of groceries, we couldn’t take it. Mr. Sait went on to say that we, as interns, are prepared to take on the various tasks our jobs challenge us with and we have the opportunities that the city of Washington DC offers. It is our responsibility to take advantage of both and make our own luck this summer. Oh and in case you were wondering, Dalip Singh Saund was the first Asian-American elected to Congress and Tenzing Norgay was the first person to climb Mount Everest.
Coming to you from 1413 K St, Jasleen Kaur Singh
