Episode 21: Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month with Gia Vang and Wenda Fong

PolicyWise

Hosts: Mehek Kandru and Michael Wiafe.

Guest: Gia Vang and Wenda Fong.

Production and Marketing: Jarrett Ramones, Tim Haydock and Abby Pugh.

Gia Vang is an emerging leader in news broadcasting Previously having worked in Arizona, Missouri, and Oregon, she is Now the news anchor for Kare 11 based out of the twin cities of Minnesota, where she covers a wide variety of topics including politics, weather and sports. She is the first Hmong American anchor in the Twin Cities providing representation for by far the largest metropolitan population of Hmong in the United States. Before that, she was an anchor in Fresno just a little closer to those of us in California and she graduated with her degree in Journalism from Sacramento State University.

Wenda Fong is an inspiring media trailblazer. She has produced and directed awards and talk shows, musical and reality specials, sitcoms, documentaries and more. She is the first person of color and only woman to have produced the Emmy awards and launched productions across the world. Wenda spearheaded diversity at Fox broadcasting and was the first vice president of creative diversity development. She launched and oversaw American Idol in 2002 and moved on to supervise all reality series including American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Hell’s Kitchen, MasterChef and many other shows that some of us grew up watching, . She is the co-founder and chairperson emeritus of the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment which is the largest, long-running and most influential organization for Asian American Pacific Islanders in entertainment. Among SO many other accomplishments, leadership, community service she is the Vice Chair of the California State University Board of Trustees and got her degree in Asian American Studies from University of Southern California.

Resources and Links:
Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE)
Stop AAPI Hate
Happy AAPI Heritage Month PSA

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