February 2023 Newsletter
Happy Lunar New Year!
As the rabbit is the symbol of longevity, peace, and prosperity, we at PAAWBAC wish you, your families and communities a year filled with hope and resiliency.
As we welcome the new year, we also welcome you to our new website. Over the past year, the PAAWBAC board has been quietly working on refreshing its navigation and content. We dug into our archives to tell our rich forty-year history. We refreshed our mission statement into something bold and forward-looking. We put our greatest assets - our Woman Warriors and Monarchs - front and center.
While we are proud to launch our new website, it is still a work in progress and we need your help! Are you a former Woman Warrior or Monarch? We would love to hear from you and get your updated bio and photo to post on our website. Can you help us reach others by forwarding this newsletter? Can you identify any of the women, location or date in the archival photos? Please write to us at paawbac@gmail.com. With your help, we can complete the project of writing PAAWBAC’s story.
We would like to take a moment to thank one of our founders, Caryl Ito, for sharing the founders’ story through interviews and archival photos. We also want to thank our web designer Dana Salim for creating a beautiful site and for her creativity and patience in working with us. We also want to recognize our very own, Brittany Wong, for going ‘above and beyond’ to facilitate and coordinate this big effort.
Also, please consider joining the PAAWBAC board at this upcoming event:
Group outing to Cambodian Rock Band, by playwright Lauren Yee, 2006 Monarch Awardee
Join Board members and other PAAWBAC supporters to see Lauren Yee’s latest play, Cambodian Rock Band, at the Berkeley Repertory Theater on Sunday, March 26, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. PAAWBAC has purchased a limited number of group tickets at the discounted price of $82.00 each (normally $103.00 each + service charge).
Lauren Yee is one of the inaugural recipients of PAAWBAC’s Monarch Leadership Awards, given in 2006. At the time, Lauren was still a student at Yale, but already a rising playwright and director whose work had been performed across the U.S. and in Europe. Since then, her career has continued on an impressive trajectory, as Lauren has written at least 10 full-length plays that have opened nationwide, all to critical acclaim, garnering numerous awards along the way. She is also writing for television.
Cambodian Rock Band is described on Lauren’s website:
Discover Cambodia’s lost surf rock scene through the eyes of a young Cambodian American woman and her father, a Khmer Rouge survivor who begrudgingly returns to his home country for the first time in thirty years. This thrilling story toggles back and forth in time, as father and daughter face the music of the past. An intimate rock epic about family secrets set against the dark chapter of Cambodian history. Featuring actor/musicians who perform the show’s mix of contemporary Dengue Fever hits and classic Cambodian oldies.
If you are interested in attending the play with us on March 26, email paawbac@gmail.com by March 18. Discounted tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that currently, the Berkeley Rep is requiring that all theater patrons show proof of vaccination.