Our Story

“You speak such good English where did you learn it from?” I’ve repeatedly heard that question as I traveled all over the world. My standard reply is “You too would sound like this if you were born in Berkeley, California”. While I was born in Berkeley, my parents were immigrants from China. My parents wanted me to be a quiet, passive and obedient daughter. The problem is that those Chinese cultural values don’t work in America, as I’ve had to deal with racist, discriminatory and exclusionary behavior from an early age. I learned to pick those Asian values that allowed me to thrive in today’s society, and ignore the ones that don’t work. I learned to fight for my own personal values and assert myself over people and institutions that try to force me into the negative stereotypical boxes that fit their narrative. As I got promoted into Fortune 500 corporate headquarters, and in tech companies in Silicon Valley, the same pattern emerged. The three institutions that dictate our country’s power structure are: Government, Media, and Corporations. They are run and controlled by the white male majority. The government dictates policies, the media defines and reinforces negative stereotypes and the corporations produce products they profit from and employ our population.

We believe that we define our own identities which are not tied to race nor the color of our skin. Immigrants serve as the backbone and foundation of our country. The fact that our forebearers came here for better economic, educational and an improved quality of life for our families and future generations should be celebrated. They were the brave and courageous visionaries that our nation’s fortunes were built upon. Regardless if you are a first generation or fifth generation member of an immigrant family, we all owe it to our families for the lives and freedoms that we enjoy. Therefore, it is the cultural values of family, food and expectations that influence us more than the color of our skin. We choose to use the term “Multicultural” to respect the influences and importance of how we identify ourselves, and not by the stereotyped “Boxes” that narrowly constrict and bind us. If you talk to young people today you’ll learn that so many of them identify themselves as multicultural with mixed heritages. They refuse to limit themselves to the boxes that the major institutions would reinforce in order to maintain their control and dominance.

Even after the Affirmative Action and EEOC mandates of the 1980’s, the representation of multiculturals and women have not significantly increased. In 2000, California became the first Multicultural majority state comprised of Latinx, Blacks, Asian American Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, LGBTQ and women populations. Yet very little has changed. The three institutions are still run by the same white majority males. In 2045 our nation will become a Multicultural majority nation. At that time we will become the majority of taxpayers, voters, consumers, employees, and future generations. We must assume the leadership mantle of our nation to represent our own best interests. We need to prepare and offer the training, support, and experience to make us qualified to become those leaders. We must eliminate the unacceptable and intolerable excuse of “We can’t find enough qualified multiculturals to promote into these leadership positions” that we hear today. Those are the excuses the white male majority provide enabling them to maintain their power and control. We know that they will never give up their power and will continuously find ways to divide and conquer us. They accomplish their objective by reinforcing the racial, ethnic and generational silos that were set up to divide us and to find ways to limit our freedoms and opportunities.

We firmly believe that we need to invest in leaders that will be developed over time. They will be a product of skills and experiences that are honed over the years. The 2045 National Leadership Platform is designed to create a pipeline of qualified multicultural leaders. It is a roadmap and plan to help our youth and communities identify, engage, and participate in programs that will help them become those qualified leaders. The plan begins at Pre-Kindergarten and is a continuous process. It is imperative that we promote multiculturals to participate in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) training that will help us address the employment and wealth equity gap in this country:

No one should be left behind

Our nation’s ability to maintain it’s global leadership is directly tied to the introduction and implementation of disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Virtual & Augmented Reality, Cybersecurity, Robotics, Genomics, BioInformatics, IOT, Quantum Computing and other emerging technologies. Our future success is defined by our ability to educate an inclusive and technically trained population to fulfill these critical needs. We need to re-train, upskill and redeploy our population. Unlike other countries who face severely declining and depleted populations, the U.S. has the opportunity to surge ahead by educating, supporting, and reinvesting into our most important sustainable and competitive advantage we have in this world:

Our people. All of us. Together.

This is our call to action. Let us welcome everyone to join in our future prosperity and success. Let’s Educate - Engage - Activate everyone to achieve this vision. We must continue to maintain our success as the dominant global leader for our families and future generations. Just like our nation’s original immigrant visionaries imagined our future success, we have come full circle.