KQED Honors Dean Ito Taylor

    KQED honored Executive Director, Dean Ito Taylor, for his long history of legal advocacy, leadership, and support  for the API community in San Francisco. Esther Leong, APILO's Administrative Director, spoke of Dean's special honor, "While many people know of Dean as the Executive Director of APILO, very few know of his investment in education and organizing as a way to build community leaders and support - this continues to fuel his commitments to legal advocacy." APILO staff and board members came out to support Dean at a special honoree ceremony on May 5th at the KQED Public Broadcasting Center in San Francisco. The honoree ceremony took place as part of KQED's commemoration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May where the local channel provided over 125 programs that focused on API issues and themes. Dean was honored alongside Caryl Ito, founder of the Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area Coalition, Lourdes Santos Tancinco, Chair and Founding Member of the San Francisco Veterans Equity Center, and Doreen Der-McLeod, Executive Director of Donaldina Cameron House. In his acceptance speech, Dean spoke of APILO's legal advocacy for survivors of domestic violence and trafficking, elders in the community and outreach and leadership programming with API youth in San Francisco and the East Bay. KQED aired a feature on Dean's work as founder and Executive Director of APILO, an instructor with the Upward Bound Program, a board member of the Japanese Culture and Community Center and the past Chair of the Nihonmachi Street Fair and Oshogatsu Festivals.


Source: KQED Asian Pacific American Heritage Heroes 2009