2009 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize - Winner  

Loan Dao is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1975, Loan and her family came to the U.S. as refugees from the American war in Vietnam.  From an early age she was involved in creating social networks and locally-based organizations that provided sites of healing and support for Southeast Asian (SEA) communities. During college, Loan volunteered as the prisoner’s liaison for the ACLU in Central Texas, documenting prison conditions, answering letters from inmates and bringing potential cases to lawyers’ attention.  After college, Loan worked as the Director of Huong Viet Community Center in Oakland, where she recruited local college students to mentor high school youth and assist in the development of research and programs. Now in graduate school, Loan’s dissertation research looks at social movements among Southeast Asian youth challenging the detention and deportation of SEAs in the U.S.  Between 2002-06 she used her academic expertise to help connect college, community, legal and policy organizations to form a multi-pronged response to the detention and deportation crisis affecting Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese refugee communities.  She helped form the Southeast Asian Freedom Network, which was the first national network of organizations to specifically address post-9/11 detentions and deportation practices in the U.S., and she has assisted numerous SEA families facing deportation in her role as researcher, expert witness and legal advocate.  In addition to her advocacy and scholarship on detention and deportation issues, Loan has been active in providing disaster relief to the large Vietnamese population affected by hurricane Katrina. She co-founded “VietBAK” (Vietnamese Bay Area Katrina relief group) and she has made frequent trips to the Gulf Coast to help with rebuilding and relief efforts, provide translation, and advocate for more resources for Vietnamese communities along the Gulf Coast.  She recently completed co-producing a full-length documentary titled “A Village Called Versailles.” Versailles, a community in eastern New Orleans, was first settled by Vietnamese refugees and later ravaged by hurricane Katrina. The film recounts the empowering story of how people who have already suffered so much in their lifetime, turn a devastating disaster into a catalyst for change and a chance for a better future.

2009 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize Winner, Loan Dao (center), with Nicol U (top row, third from left), UC Berkeley PhD Candidate in Ethnic Studies, who nominated Loan for the Prize, and friends.

For more pictures, see the Yamashita Prize gallery

2009 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize - Honorable Mentions

Lynn Wu graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania. She went on to teach at Elmhurst Middle School in the Oakland Unified School District, incorporating social justice and youth empowerment throughout her teaching instruction. While teaching, Lynn earned her M.A.T. from the Center for Teaching Excellence and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. There, she researched the correlation between youth involvement in school policy making and academic success. Currently, Lynn is a joint law and public policy student at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the founder of IMPACT: A multidisciplinary journal addressing the issues of urban youth (www.ImpactUrbanYouth.org). She continues to work with the Oakland Unified School District mentoring her former students, coaching new teachers, and conducting legal research and policy analysis to explore innovative district reform initiatives. She was the Co-Director of Advocates for Youth Justice at Berkeley Law and formerly co-ran the Educational Advocacy Clinic, where she trained graduate students who were then appointed to advocate for the education rights of foster youth by the Alameda County juvenile court. She has taught at Juvenile Hall and has been an educational surrogate for foster children. Her main research and career interests lie in achieving education reform through multidisciplinary collaboration with a particular focus on meeting the educational needs of foster youth.

2009 Thomas I. Yamashita Prize Honorable Mention Lynn Wu (right), with UC Berkeley Law Professor Joan Hollinger, who spoke on behalf of Lynn’s nominator, Barry Krisberg, Presidetn of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.