Third Thursdays

Would Confucius beat his Wife and Kids? The Nature of Domestic Violence in Asian America
Thursday, September 20th, 2007
7:00-9:15pm
Japanese Cultural & Community Center
1840 Sutter Street
San Francisco, CA 94115

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Have you ever heard:

• An Asian-American say, in explaining domestic violence, “oh that’s just part of our culture!”
• One Asian immigrant parent say to another, “You have to be careful about hitting your kids in America; you could get in real trouble for that here!”
• A non-Asian-American say — whether explicitly or implicitly — that domestic violence in Asian cultures can only be resolved when Asian cultures become more Westernized.

Join us for a conversation regarding the problem of domestic violence — whether physical abuse of a partner, child, or other family member — in the Asian American community. We’ll learn about the extent of domestic violence in Asian America, and we’ll discuss the effects of domestic violence, realities which are too often suppressed and unspoken, on individuals and on the community as a whole. Finally, we’ll ask whether the problem of domestic violence manifests differently in Asian America than it does in the general American society — whether “Asian” domestic violence is more prevalent, or more virulent, or indeed, just part of the culture — and whether we need a different set of solutions for our community.

Panelists include:

Leo Bruenn
Training Director
ManAlive

Yanin Senachai
Resource Center Coordinator
Asian & Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence
APIA Health Forum

Moderated by:

Sung Ae Choi
Attorney
Contra Costa County Public Defender’s Office

Pricing Plan:

recommended donation w/dinner: $10, $15 or $20
recommended donation for program and refreshments only: $5
no one will be turned away for lack of funds. please email feewaiver at thirdthursdays.org to request a fee waiver.
donation supports refreshments, room rental, and any honoria
or fee waivers

Questions:

email questioncomment at thirdthursdays.org.

To RSVP:

Please complete the RSVP form by Tuesday, September 18th at 5pm.

Schedule:

7:00-7:15PM: Registration
7:15-8:15PM: Panel Discussion
8:15-9:15PM: Dinner & Discussion Groups
9:15-9:20PM: Wrap up & Shout outs*

*If an organization you work or volunteer for has an upcoming event or opportunities to publicize, you can do a shout out. At a future event, we may ask you to update us on event or opportunities you presented.

About the Speakers:

Leo Bruenn

Leo comes from a background with wide-ranging violence both as a perpetrator (which includes violence to women) and within the past 12 years as a community organizer specializing in violence intervention. Leo now spends part of his work week at the San Francisco County Jail, where he is the Training Supervisor for the RSVP program, an intensive 5 days per week, 8 hours a day in-custody violence intervention program which uses ManAlive principles and houses 48 men who have varying forms of violent offenses in their documented criminal histories. Leo also works as a trainer and organizer with students and teachers at a local high school in SF. He has developed and implemented violence intervention programs locally and worldwide that serve API communities including a Cantonese monolingual program that was based in SF Chinatown, and Maori and other Pacific Islander-based programs at a forensic psychiatric clinic and at a high school both in Auckland, New Zealand. Leo is Japanese-Austrian, with Chinese as well as Hawaiian influences. He now lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two children.

Yanin Senachai

Yanin Senachai is the Resource Center Coordinator at the Asian & Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence of the APIA Health Forum. Previously, she was the community educator and data manager at Asian Women’s Home of Asian Americans for Community Involvement. Her undergraduate research at Stanford University was on the impact of collaborations with victim advocates on police attitudes to domestic violence. At the API Institute since 2003, she has been providing technical assistance and training to Asian and Pacific Islander domestic violence programs across the country on a range of issues aimed at deepening women-centered advocacy and organizational sustainability. As an information specialist, she manages the API Institute’s national resource center/clearinghouse, website and Listserve.

About the Moderator:

Sung Ae Choi
In her day job, Sung Ae has frequently observed the legal consequences of domestic violence — mostly bad — on her clients and on their families. For approximately five years, she defended indigent criminal defendants, including many accused of battering their partners or children. During the last two years, she has represented clients — parents and children — in juvenile dependency cases (aka, CPS cases). Approximately 40% of her cases involve allegations that the kids have been physically abused or exposed to domestic violence in the home. Sung Ae is a 1.5 generation Korean American, and she is guardedly optimistic that domestic violence is NOT “just part of our culture.”