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COVER STORY: Seven awardees are honored for as year’s Asian American Heroes of Colorado
Written by Thy Vo Photos by Brandon Iwamoto
2022 Asian American Heroes of Colorado
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From left: Deborah Yim, Alyssa Nilemo, Dr. William Wei, Gary Yamashita, Dr. Sumiko Tanaka Hennessy, Mimi Luong Ye, and Joanne Liu
Young Hero Award: Alyssa Nilemo
• Executive Director, Asian
Chamber Foundation of Colorado • Dharma School Superintendent,
Denver Buddhist Temple • Mirai Generations Leadership
Program Graduate, Sakura
Foundation
Mimi Luong Ye
• Co-owner, Truong An Gifts • Founder, Sweetest Day CO
Gary Yamashita
• Chief Executive Officer, Sakura
Square LLC • Executive Director, Sakura
Foundation • Community Grantmaking
Committee, Rose Community
Foundation
Joanne Liu
• Co-Founder & CEO, Asian Girls
Ignite • Chair, Colorado Asian Pacific
United • Commissioner, Denver Asian
American Pacific Islander
Commission
Dr. William Wei
• State Historian, History Colorado • Boardmember, Colorado Asian
Pacific United • History Professor, University of
Colorado
Deborah Yim
• Owner & Managing Attorney,
Primera Law Group • President-Elect, Asian Pacific
American Bar Association • Commissioner, Denver Immigrant and Refugee Commission • Legal Counsel, Asian Real Estate
Association of Greater Denver
Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Sumiko Tanaka Hennessy
• Founding boardmember and former Executive Director, Asian
Pacific Development Center • Co-founder, Asian Chamber of
Commerce • Co-founder, Crossroads for Social
Work • Former boardmember, Women’s
Foundation of Colorado
77 outstanding individuals have received this award since 2009. See past recipients in Asian Avenue’s April 2022 issue.
2022 Asian American Hero of Colorado Awards Ceremony Saturday, May 21, 2022 | 10am to 12pm Happy Living and Wellness Center 14015 E Evans Avenue, Aurora, CO 80014 Tickets: General $40 | Student $30 Table of 8 for $280 Get tickets at: www.cacendenver.org
Each year, in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the awards ceremony honors an extraordinary group of local heroes in May. Join us to hear their inspiring stories as we recognize this year’s awardees over a dim sum and sushi brunch.
This year’s awardees were selected by: Asian Chamber of Commerce, Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Asian Pacific Development Center, Aurora Asian/Pacific Community Partnership, Colorado Asian Culture and Education Network, Colorado Dragon Boat, Community Organizing for Radical Empathy, Sakura Foundation, Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers, National Association of Asian American Professionals Colorado.
Alyssa Nilemo grew up navigating being hapa with her older brother Chris.
YOUNG HERO AWARD
Executive Director, Asian Chamber Foundation of Colorado Dharma School Superintendent, Denver Buddhist Temple Mirai Generations Leadership Program Graduate, Sakura Foundation
ALYSSA NILEMO
As an unsure 20-something-year-old, Alyssa Nilemo says it was her community who saw her potential before she did.
Now as a community leader, she’s constantly asking herself: “How do I make sure I give this back? How do I make sure this means something for others?”
A fourth-generation Japanese American whose family came to Denver after World War II, Nilemo also identifies as hapa, or mixed race. She grew up in Littleton and attended the Dharma School, where her grandfather was a community leader in the tight-knit Japanese American community.
Nilemo has poured her energy into giving back to organizations that supported her personal and professional growth. She volunteers as superintendent for the Dharma School at the Tri-State Denver Buddhist Temple, serves on the board of the Asian Chamber of Commerce and is executive director of the chamber’s foundation, which provides educational and career development opportunities for underserved segments of the AAPI community.
She’s also the campaign manager for Neal Walia, a Democrat running for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District.
“She’s an example of the young leaders that will bring the next generation into the future,” said Gary Yamashita, CEO of Sakura Square and executive director of the Sakura Foundation.
But Nilemo often felt torn between her different ancestral roots. She felt too white-passing to claim her Asianness and too Japanese to be white, and struggled for years with feelings of shame and isolation.
After spending a few years on the West Coast, she returned to Denver to reconnect with her community. It was an experience with the Sakura Foundation’s Mirai Generations Leadership Program, where Nilemo met other young Japanese American and mixed-race leaders, that helped her reconcile those feelings.
“I started to realize how diverse this community was, and in my own way, I was acting like ‘Asian’ was this monolith... I had been telling myself I didn’t belong,” she said.
Now, whether it’s through her work in public policy and politics, or in the Japanese American community, Nilemo says that experience fuels her commitment to equity and service.
“I just want everyone to have a space in the system, just the way they are,” she said.
Nilemo participates in Denver’s womxn’s march in 2021. Advocacy for womxn’s rights will always be an intersectional conversation for her.
At the AAPI Solidarity Against Racism event on March 20, 2022, Nilemo spoke about the power in sharing stories.
Nilemo attributes her successes and accomplishments to the support and sacrifice of her husband, Korey.
Mimi Luong Ye with her husband Michael and sons Landon and Noah
Luong is known for organizing large-scale Asian events in Denver, especially the lunar new year and mid-autumn festivals.
MIMI LUONG YE Co-owner, Truong An Gifts Founder, Sweetest Day CO
When Mimi Luong’s family first built Denver’s Far East Center, a shopping plaza on Federal Boulevard, they envisioned a place where Asian Americans from across Colorado could find food and comforts to remind them of home.
Now Luong, who has taken over management of the shopping plaza and ownership of Truong An Gifts, her mom’s gift shop, wants to expand and preserve the area’s AAPI businesses for younger generations and a broader community.
The entrepreneur and mother of two has been the force behind community events and efforts to support Asian American-owned businesses along Denver’s “Little Saigon” corridor throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
Dismayed by how the pandemic had affected Asian American businesses, last year Luong created a Facebook page to promote Little Saigon businesses and worked with state and local officials to bring vaccination events to Far East Plaza. Community members can also pick up COVID testing kits at her family’s shop.
“Our area has a lot of people who do not speak English. They don’t have computer access, they don’t know how to sign up” for vaccinations, Luong said. “My goal was to get the community vaccinated — the business owners, the employees — and let everyone know, this area is a safe place to shop, to dine, to hang out.”
The entrepreneur and mother of two also has bigger plans this year.
In addition to the annual Lunar New Year festival that Luong hosts at the Far East Center, she’s working with other local organizations to put on night markets where Asian American restaurants and businesses will be represented. She’s also lobbying Denver officials to create an official “Little Saigon” in Denver, with the hopes of drawing more visitors.
Luong grew up at the Far East Center — It’s her home. Now she wants to make sure people don’t lose that connection to Asian culture and miss out on what it has to offer.
“If our gift shop isn’t here, I don’t think there’s other places that have as much variety as we do, the Asian culture will slowly fade away,” Luong said. “I feel like people need to know, there’s a lot of great restaurants and supermarkets.”
Luong grew up at The Far East Center helping her family with the Asian gift store, Truong An Gifts.
In addition to her work serving the Asian community, Luong also owns an event planning business called Sweetest Day CO.
GARY YAMASHITA
Chief Executive Officer, Sakura Square LLC Executive Director, Sakura Foundation Community Grantmaking Committee, Rose Community Foundation
Yamashita (right) attends a gala with the Mirai Generations Leadership Program class and Ryan Harris, Denver Bronco Super Bowl Champion. Yamashita speaks to the crowd at the 2016 Denver Cherry Blossom Festival. This year, the festival will be held on June 25-26, 2022 at Sakura Square.
Sakura Square was a refuge for the Japanese Americans that came to Denver’s Lower Downtown when they weren’t welcome elsewhere. And Gary Yamashita sees it as his mission to protect that safe space for future generations.
“I just turned 69 last month, and... most people would be considering retiring. But we have so much more work to do,” said Yamashita, who as CEO of Sakura Square is now overseeing its redevelopment.
Yamashita serves on the board of several community organizations, including the Denver Downtown Partnership and Mile High Japanese American Citizens League. As executive director of the nonprofit Sakura Foundation, Yamashita also oversees programs for the next generation of Japanese American (JA) leaders. The foundation has scholarship and leadership programs and also runs Chibi No Gakko which is a JA Heritage School that provides K-8th grade students the opportunity to explore JA culture and history in a fun “hands on” way. Sakura Foundation also co-hosts the annual Cherry Blossom Festival with the Tri-State Denver Buddhist Temple in June each year.
The longtime community leader, who has a background in real estate and banking, feels it was his calling to protect a space that generations of Japanese Americans have called home.
Yamashita’s father, a U.S. citizen born in California, was one of 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans who were imprisoned during World War II. When the war ended, his family was among the Japanese Americans who came to Colorado after then-Gov. Ralph Carr publicly welcomed them to the state.
But discrimination forced Japanese Americans to the Lower Downtown, where Yamashita’s family settled and opened a cafe across from what is now Sakura Square.
The redevelopment of Sakura Square will include a new residential tower, retail space, and brand new Temple/community center building, said Yamashita, noting that the temple was a gathering space for Japanese Americans who had nowhere else to go after the war.
But he also envisions the center as a place where anyone, Japanese American or not, can learn about Japanese culture. That’s increasingly important for a community that has suffered exclusion and is increasingly mixed race, he said.
“It must be a place that is open to everyone, not just an exclusive place for just a select few,” Yamashita said.
Joanne Liu, her husband Roger, and her kids Melody (9) and Ryden (5)
JOANNE LIU
Co-Founder & CEO, Asian Girls Ignite Chair, Colorado Asian Pacific United Commissioner, Denver Asian American Pacific Islander Commission
Team AGI and students have fun at a community gathering during their inaugural summer program in July 2021. AGI and Moonshot edVentures staff pose for a photo. AGI was designed and launched through a fellowship offered by Moonshot edVentures. AGI students celebrated at a virtual Lunar New Year social where they received surprise gift boxes they opened together in February 2022.
High school Joanne Liu was excited when a white friend told her, “Sometimes I forget that you’re Asian.”
It meant that her peers didn’t notice her differences, said Liu, who often felt invisible growing up as a Chinese American girl in a mostly white, middle class neighborhood outside of Boston.
So while exploring a career change in 2019, Liu decided to create a space that she and other AAPI girls and women never had.
Asian Girls Ignite (AGI) is a nonprofit dedicated to giving AAPI girls and LGBTQ+ people in Colorado a space to explore their voices and identity. More than 50 students, including mixed race individuals and adoptees, have been served since it launched in 2020. AGI was designed and launched through a fellowship offered by Moonshot edVentures, which is an organization that recruits leaders to develop new learning environments such as a school or program for students of color.
Just being with others who look like them is transformative for many girls, who are often the only or one of few Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders in their school or community.
“They’ll say, ‘this is the first time I’ve ever been in a room of other Asian girls,’” said Liu, a longtime educator and school administrator in Colorado. She also serves on the Denver Asian American Pacific Islander Commission and as board chair for Colorado Asian Pacific United.
Students help create their own programs, and the group invites AAPI women to share their stories, including their careers, family background and experiences with discrimination. The nonprofit recently received a $200,000, two-year grant that will allow Liu to work fulltime and expand AGI’s programs.
For Liu, it wasn’t until college that she had the chance to explore her identity, when she met Asian friends and joined Asian student clubs. After college, she participated in Gund Gwok — Cantonese for “heroine” — an Asian women lion and dragon dancing troupe.
“It was the first time I found myself in a community of all Asian women who really believed in their innate power,” said Liu.
Now she’s creating a space where AAPI girls can find that power for themselves.
“You may not look like anybody in your community, but know that your differences are your superpower,” Liu said.
Yim, managing attorney at Primera Law Group, presents a client’s case in the courtroom.
DEBORAH YIM
Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Colorado volunteers assemble holiday gift bags for AAPI seniors.
Owner & Managing Attorney, Primera Law Group President-Elect, Asian Pacific American Bar Association Commissioner, Denver Immigrant and Refugee Commission Legal Counsel, Asian Real Estate Association of Greater Denver
Deborah Yim with her husband Tony, daughter Alex, and son Justin
Many individuals who have come to Deborah Yim for legal assistance say they considered giving up fighting against discrimination and workplace abuses. It was just too hard to battle against an employment and legal system where the odds are stacked against them.
That’s why Yim has dedicated her legal career and pro bono service to being an advocate for immigrants, refugees and other marginalized individuals whose civil rights have been violated and who have been wronged in the workplace.
“The reality is that it is a true David versus Goliath situation for most of my clients, and it takes a lot of courage for them to stand up against entities that can outspend and outlast them a million to one. Yet, they still want their stories to be told so that the injustices they have suffered do not happen to anyone else,” said Yim, who left a job with the federal government to start her own private practice in 2020 in order to do more work serving the AAPI community.
Yim relocated to Denver from California in 2017. She’s since become a “driving force” behind a number of community service projects, said Harry Budisidharta, executive director of the Asian Pacific Development Center.
Among her efforts, Yim spearheaded a free legal hotline for the AAPI community and formed a free legal clinic helping low-income AAPI elders draft end-of-life documents (such as medical powers of attorney). She organized donation drives to help refugee families celebrate Lunar New Year and to help low income AAPI seniors celebrate Christmas. She also serves on the board of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Denver Immigrant and Refugee Commission and as legal counsel for the Asian Real Estate Association of Greater Denver.
Yim, a Chinese American immigrant who immigrated to Los Angeles from Singapore when she was seven, cites experiences with discrimination that have engrained a personal commitment to equal justice and advocacy on behalf of marginalized communities.
She’s currently working with the Nathan Yip Foundation to develop an anti-bullying program, after seeing her 10-year-old daughter encounter racism at school and finding few resources geared toward elementary school students.
She wants to make sure the next generation of AAPI leaders have the tools to combat discrimination and inequity.
“Our community has a powerful and resilient voice. We need to encourage our next generation to not be afraid to use their voices to speak up against injustice,” Yim said.
DR. WILLIAM WEI
State Historian, History Colorado Boardmember, Colorado Asian Pacific United History Professor, University of Colorado
Some historians see local history as too small, even provincial. But especially for Asian Americans and other people of color, those histories show exactly what happens when stories go untold.
“You can see the light bulbs go off when people realize, ‘I have a significant history in this country,’” said Dr. William Wei. “They can’t ignore racism that’s been directed against Asian Americans – it’s not a one-off experience.”
Wei moved to Colorado in August 1980 from Ann Arbor, Mich. He is a professor of Modern Chinese history at the University of Colorado at Boulder and served as the 2019-2020 Colorado State Historian. His work has focused in part on Asian American Pacific Islanders and their contributions to Colorado and across the American West, including a 2016 book, Asians in Colorado: A History of Persecution and Perseverance in the Centennial State.
Wei looks at recent anti-Asian attacks in the context of centuries of discrimination against Asian American Pacific Islanders and other people of color in the United States. And he believes telling full and accurate stories is crucial to dismantling the racism that allows history to repeat itself.
Wei’s work has also highlighted the history of Denver’s historic Chinatown and an 1880 racist riot that nearly destroyed it. He and other advocates with Colorado Asian Pacific United successfully lobbied Denver Mayor Michael Hancock last month to issue an apology for the riot, a mob of more than 3,000 white people that lynched a man and destroyed Chinese businesses.
He hopes it’s just the beginning of efforts to retell Chinatown’s story, and that of other Asian Americans in Colorado, through murals and other historical markers.
“By reclaiming the past, that helps to understand the present and pave the way for the future,” Wei said.
As a professor and Chinese American, he’s also seen how learning Asian American history has affected younger Asian Americans who may feel caught between a mainstream narrative that excludes them and a foreign history they don’t relate to.
“Young people are often torn by the identity question, when that’s a false dichotomy. Because we actually have an Asian American history that explains who they are,” Wei said.
William Wei and his family hike in Rocky Mountain National Park.
From left: Leslie A. Wei, M.D., William Wei, Ph.D., Susan C. Wei, Ph.D. Published in 2016, Wei authored Asians in Colorado that sheds light on anti-
Chinese riots in the 1880s and the more recent influx of Southeast Asian refugees. Wei recently shared the history of Asian Americans in Colorado on April 16, 2022 during the City of Denver’s Chinatown apology event at CU-Denver
Founding boardmember and former Executive Director, Asian Pacific Development Center Co-founder, Asian Chamber of Commerce Co-founder, Crossroads for Social Work Former boardmember, Women’s Foundation of Colorado
Sumiko was a social worker and trauma therapist.
Sumiko volunteered as a ski instructor in Winter Park’s National Sports Center for the Disabled for 15 years.
When Dr. Sumiko Tanaka Hennessy took over management of the Asian Pacific Development Center (APDC) in 1984, the fledgling nonprofit was struggling to stay afloat. So, Sumiko staked out a breakfast spot where she knew a state lawmaker could be found on early mornings.
Her persistence paid off. She convinced the lawmaker to help APDC get a special funding designation. And with that door open, along with some aggressive grant writing, Sumiko was able to resuscitate and grow the organization from a staff of seven to more than 70 employees.
“She was a fierce advocate for making sure we were never forgotten and that we were always at the table,” said Dr. DJ Ida, a former colleague and leader in AAPI community health.
Sumiko is a retired licensed clinical social worker with over 50 years of experience in mental health, developmental disabilities and social work.
She was born in Yokohama, Japan and came to the United States in 1961, where she earned her Master’s from Fordham and a PhD from the University of Denver.
As executive director of APDC, Sumiko not only stabilized the organization’s finances but advocated for health equity for Colorado’s AAPI communities. Concerned about cultural stigma against mental health care, she created programs centered on recreational activities and helping people learn new job skills.
Sumiko understood that clients, immigrants and refugees who had endured significant trauma and were adjusting to life in Colorado needed the agency to teach and guide them rather than to have things done for them. For younger clients, classes in ESL, arts and crafts and job skills training were important.
Sumiko was also an influential civic leader. She was honored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1998 for her work in health care, inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame in 1989 and received other awards including from the Colorado Chapter of National Association of Social Workers and other awards for her leadership on behalf of women and Asian American Pacific Islanders.
After retiring from APDC in 2000, Sumiko went on to help establish the Tokyo University of School of Social Welfare. She studied and shared new approaches to treating developmental trauma. Not only was she teaching social work, in addition, Sumiko helped to develop a program to teach the disabled to ski.
Sumiko (second from right) enjoys lunch with a team of therapists from Japan in Grand Lake, Colorado in August 2016.
