In late June, Immediate Past District Governor Orrin Mahoney passed the baton to Tim Lundell, 5170 District Governor for Rotary Year 2018-19.
Tim Lundell 2018-19 District Governor makes his special visit to Cupertino Rotary this Wednesday during our Club's luncheon meeting at Quinlan Center. Tim's visit is an opportunity for Cupertino Rotarians to better introduce Tim to all that our Club does, as we hear his perspective on Rotary helping to make the world a better place. Join us, our program begins at 12:15.
“Be the Inspiration” is the theme for Rotary this year and Tim looks to inspire each of us to grow, to want to do more and to have more impact in the communities around us. In his welcoming letter to the 54 clubs in District 5170 Tim said, “Let’s all do our best to “Be the Inspiration” for each other, and to spread that enthusiasm throughout our communities.”
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Rotary Club of Cupertino’s class of 2017-18, those Rotarians who joined between July 2017 and June 2018. Hopefully you have given them a warm welcome and have invited them to participate in one or more of our many projects.
The Rotary Club of Cupertino – Class of 2017-2018
Catherine Liu, Janel Breen, Patrick Ahrens, Andrew Lin, Victoria Bracha, Tarun Galagali, Larry Tan, Bill Allen , Hongwei Wang, Fabrizio Vitagliano, Jill Popolizio, Meredith Smith, Parth Bharwad, Meenakshi Biyani, Precy Celis, Scot Austin, Manisha Puranik, Jennifer Chang, Kiran Varshneya, Tim Widman, and Victor Augusteo
I would also like to take this opportunity to give well wishes to the Rotarians who left our club at the end of the 2017-2018 Rotary year. We wish them the best in their future endeavors, and of course invite them back when and if the opportunity presents itself.
Well wishes to:
Alex Agah, Maureen Chen, Jenny Ding, Thomas Fox, Patrick Kwok, Winnie Lee, Catherine Liu, William Mott, Brian Murphy, Frank Tsui, Trudy Yeh, and Chris Zhang
Janel Breen gave her Red Badge personal talk at the August 29th meeting.
Janel was born and raised in Oahu, Hawaii to a family who had migrated from the Philippines. She attended Mid-Pacific Institute, a private high school, and was an Interactor there. She then attended Santa Clara University and stayed stateside for employment as an Operations Analyst. She lives in Santa Clara with her husband and two dogs and two cats.
Currently Janel is a Silicon Valley Rotoractor Rotary Club Partner. Her hobbies are calligraphy, gardening and travel. She is also an advocate for doing away with single use packaging. How cool is that.
At our August 29th meeting Don Sun introduced Frank Wu, law professor and author as our guest speaker.
Wu currently serves as a Distinguished Professor at UC Hastings. He previously served as Chancellor & Dean receiving unanimous and early renewal for a second term.
He shared his very personal story of being Chinese in America.
His father was a PhD engineer for Ford and so he grew up in Detroit. He was an interpreter and liaison to the rest of the world for his parents helping them to meld into American life.
As a minority, he was embarrassed by his parents and relatives and angry at them. Because nobody looked like him, he worked doubly hard to fit in. Later in life he discovered that his parents suffered worse prejudices than he did. He stated that, “When you’re a minority, they want you to think it is your fault.”
With this personal backdrop, he spoke of his research into the violent death of Vincent Chen, a murder victim on the mean streets of Detroit in the 1980’s.
Vincent, an American citizen of Chinese ancestry was attending his bachelor party at a strip club with friends. Autoworkers there thought he was Japanese and that they were out of work because of him. There were words and an altercation that resulted in them beating him to death with a baseball bat.
Defendants showed up in court nicely dressed, took a plea to manslaughter and got just three years of probation. Everyone was up in arms. There was no such thing as hate crimes then. The lesson is that words are important-people need to stand up, speak out and become advocates for change.
Wu spoke of the history of Chinese in America and their struggle against prejudice. (To watch a video of his remarks click on the photo below)
After the 1857 Supreme Court ruling against Dred Scott denied American citizenship and access to courts to those of African ancestry, the same was applied to those of Chinese ancestry.
Chinese fought on both sides during the Civil War.
There were between twelve and fifteen thousand Chinese building the transcontinental railroad in the 1860’s. They were not able to bring any women to America and marriage was precluded. They could not be citizens as that was only for free white persons.
In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress which prohibited immigration of Chinese. More about racial prejudice than immigration the exclusion stayed in effect until 1943.
The 14th Amendment to Constitution, adopted in 1868, says that if you’re born in America, you’re a citizen, but it wasn't until 30 years later that Wong Kim Arc, an American-born child of Chinese living in the US won a Supreme Court case to recognize his citizenship.
Mindfulness Meditation course for beginners will start on September 7th. It will be held at St. Jude's church facility and the sign-up deadline is September 1st. Please send an email to MINDFULROTARIANS@GMAIL.COM with you Name and Telephone number. Click here to see flyer (link) for further details. If you have questions please email to the same address or contact Sunil Nethisinghe 408-930-6678.
The meeting was called to order by President Helene Davis at 12:15 PM.
Greeters:
Angela Tsui and Louisa Roberts
Sargent at Arms: George Denise.
Pledge of Allegiance: Henry Buffalow
Secretary Assistant: Victor Augusteo
Inspiration: Victor Augusteo
Visiting Rotarians:
Gregg Giusiana from Gilroy Club
Rotarians with guests:
Elizabeth Karlsson, Zach Tatar, and Rylee Kirk were guests of Tina Ferguson
Frank Wu, our speaker for the day, was a guest of Don Sun
Rachael Chen was a visiting journalist for Chinese News
Benaifer Dastoor was guest of Meenakshi Biyani
Jerry Yuan was guest of Hung Wei
Announcements:
Bill Allen announced that Marine Science Institute Workday will be 9/8 at their facility in Redwood City.
Contact Bill to sign up.
Josh Selo announced the 8th annual Chefs of Compassion on Friday, 9/28 @ 6 PM at the Computer History Museum, 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd in Mountain View honoring Dolly Sandoval and Ed Hoffman [in memorium]. For tickets log on to www.chefsofcompassion.org. Hurry because 75% of the available spaces are taken.
George Denise reminded members of the upcoming Fall Fest on September 15. This event is one the club’s major projects and depends on volunteers for its success.
George is looking for additional volunteers for tasks on the day of the event and setting up the evening before. Sign up now! Email George for more information.
Louisa Roberts talked about Global Elegance 2018 to be held on the 9th of September at Hakone Gardens. Louisa said this event supports World Community Service projects that address humanitarian needs around the world.
Padma Chari asked Rotarians to save the date - Thursday evening 10/4/18 in Santa Clara - for District 5170 Avenues of Service. It will be a fun informative evening, a chance to learn about leadership and being effective Rotarians. There is something for all of us.
Our Rotary partner, De Anza College, is offering a 2 year Mandarin language and culture class and wants our Rotary members to know they are welcome to sign up. The program is great for anyone who wants to learn the basics of Mandarin. Classes begin on 9/24. If you have any questions contact Hua-Fu Liu (liuhuafu@fhda.edu) 408.864.5324
The following information is for club members with articles to submit to the Rotator. Deadline for Article Submission: To help the editors in the work they do, please plan to make your submissions by the end-of-the-day Thursday. Please email them to cupertinorotary@gmail.com. Later submissions might be deferred to the next week's Rotator, depending on how far along the editor is in processing the meeting and program staff reporting for the current week. Our outstanding editors are assigned as follows: First Wednesday - Gary Latshaw; Second Wednesday - Stuart Rosenberg; Third Wednesday - Stuart Rosenberg; Fourth Wednesday - Padma Chari Fifth Wednesday - Peter Troop. Our highly esteemed meeting reporters are assigned as follows: First Wednesday - Julie Griswold; Second Wednesday -OPEN; Third Wednesday - Josh Selo; Fourth Wednesday - Bill Wilson;; Fifth Wednesday Byron Rovegno
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Rotary Club of Cupertino’s class of 2017-18, those Rotarians who joined between July 2017 and June 2018. Hopefully you have given them a warm welcome and have invited them to participate in one or more of our many projects.
Janel Breen gave her Red Badge personal talk at the August 29th meeting.
At our August 29th meeting Don Sun introduced Frank Wu, law professor and author as our guest speaker.
George Denise reminded members of the upcoming Fall Fest on September 15. This event is one the club’s major projects and depends on volunteers for its success. 
Padma Chari asked Rotarians to save the date - Thursday evening 10/4/18 in Santa Clara - for