DEAR TAP-NY MEMBERS,
Thank you for allowing me to serve the New York community over the past three years.
As I will be transitioning to the National Taiwanese American Citizens League (TACL) Board, I will look back fondly on my time spent with TAP-NY, with many memories and unbelievable experiences. I can still remember when Wei-En Lee, Michelle Hsieh, and I decided to launch the TAP-NY Chapter as the first TAP chapter outside of California. We had our first board recruiting meeting at Excellent Pork Chop House.
Three years later, I’m happy to say that TAP-NY is one of the largest and most dynamic Asian American organizations in the Tri-state area. Over the past three years, TAP-NY board members have organized approximately 176 events, with 77 of those in 2012. Many of these events were unique to TAP-NY and set the standard for what our community represents. These include:
Night Market
Entrepreneur Competition & Challenge (ECC)
Central Park Field Day Olympics
Le Noir & Jazz Networking
Authentic Home-Style Taiwanese Cooking Classes
A few key accomplishments that I am particularly proud of are:
- Having our chapter serve as an inspiration to other Taiwanese Americans in the Northeast, as there are now TAP chapters in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, and Boston.
- Building an incredible relationship with the 1st generation Taiwanese American community including the aunties we met through our cooking classes and the businessmen from Taiwanese Merchants Association (TMA or 紐約台灣商會). We are culture carriers and it is our duty to retain those traditions and pass those on to future generations.
- Building relationships with Taiwanese American leaders that are out of this world incredible and getting them more involved in our community – Andrew Yang, Annie Lo, Benjamin Sun, Benny Wong, Brian Wang, Chieh Huang, Claudia Chan, Dr. Clifford Chao, Danielle Chang, Dorothy Jean, Iris Chen, Jonathan Hsu, Kevin “KevJumba” Wu, and Rachel Chang – THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
- Finally, building life-long friendships with everyone on the TAP-NY board. I had an immensely fun and gratifying three years and could not have asked for more!
I encourage other young Taiwanese American leaders to get involved in the community because if you don’t, then who will? Our community has been one of the most successful minorities in the US, but we cannot become complacent as there is still a lot of work to do. We are still highly underrepresented at the highest levels of business and government, so we must continue to strive to be better leaders!
As this will be the final month not only for me, but also for several other board members who have committed two years or more to building TAP-NY, please thank them for all their hard work and dedication. They have been involved for all the right reasons and with the best intentions:
Aaron Wu | Andria Chang | Athena Chang | Kate Wang | Vincent Lin
It has been an absolute pleasure to get to know and serve the New York community, so thank you again for giving me this opportunity. I’m excited for the incoming board and know that with your ongoing support, they will take TAP-NY to new heights!
Sincerely,
Bob Wu
TAP-NY President
2010-2012