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nd here?  That’s not surprising.  The US Southeast is now a hub for international companies and is about to acquire a revolutionary on-boarding strategy to support its global village.  Southern states have thousands of international facilities and trillions of dollars in international investment.  A substantial percentage of the Southern workforce is hired by international companies as well as the vendors, suppliers and service businesses that feed into them.  New Southerners flooding into the Southeast, both international and from other regions in the US, face a major challenge in getting oriented quickly and efficiently to the unique culture in the South.

Asian /Pacific American Heritage Month traces its origin to the first Asian /Pacific American Heritage Week celebrated in 1979.  The prior year, President Jimmy Carter signed the joint resolutions by Congress and declared the first week of May as such to commemorate the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants on May 7^th 1843 and the contributions of Chinese workers to the completion of the Trans-continental Railroad on May 10^th 1869.  In 1992, Congress passed a resolution to expand the weeklong celebration to a month-long observance.

WASHINGTON – Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters are still largely untapped by presidential candidates and their parties even though they are expected to vote in record numbers this fall, according to a major new poll conducted by Lake Research Partners. The first-ever poll of AAPI voter attitudes shows that close elections in important states like Florida, Nevada and Virginia could go to the candidates who best engage AAPIs, a demographic with increasing political clout.

Keynote speaker, Chang Bin Yim, held the audience spellbound at when the Korean American Chamber of Commerce was launched in Chattanooga. The Korean Chamber is a volunteer Council of the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce and is one of more than 60 similar Korean groups in the United States. Their mission is to help existing Korean businesses and support new ones, promoting a stronger business environment in the Southeast region.

We ended the war in Iraq in December, but parades in honor of the troops have been few and far between.  Those of us who lived through the Vietnam War aren't surprised at the lack of celebration and reports of suicides, domestic abuse, unemployment and homelessness among returning soldiers.  After Vietnam we rejected the draft and vowed to do things differently.  Yet, I was reminded by an inadvertent conversation with a young veteran serving as a security guard at Volkswagen Chattanooga, that the aftermath of war remains one of the nation’s biggest challenges.

For those whose lives were taken in war torn lands far from home

And for all those who carry the wounds of war proudly and with honor

Let us say a prayer of thanks and remembrance of courage and of valor.

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