Meet the board
Led by a multi-generational board of directors and dedicated volunteers, CAPU is comprised of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) leaders, educators, creatives, and allies.
-
Board Chair
Dr. Yeap is a brand marketer, scholar, and community organizer, with more than 20 years of leadership experience in the retail, higher education, global health, and nonprofit sectors. He has also taught at universities in Singapore, Australia, and the United States, and as a scholar, he specializes in the study of identity politics and ethnic diaspora in Asian immigrant communities. A former journalist, he has worked for an international wire agency and local newspapers. Born and raised in Penang, Malaysia, Dr. Yeap is of Straits Chinese descent, and has studied, lived, and worked in several countries. Throughout his career, he uses his international experience and acumen to advocate for social equity, racial justice, and human dignity at work and in the community.
-
Board Vice-Chair, Project Manager
As the daughter of refugees, Joie Ha has always endeavored to do more good for more people. She has been an organizer for minority communities in Colorado for over 15 years. She has a B.A. in Anthropology and a M.A. in Development Practice with a focus on holistic methods of treating mental health for Vietnamese refugees. She has completed development work in Malaysia as a Community Development Officer, and Cambodia as a researcher regarding how hip-hop can create fictive kin for youth. In the United States, Joie often engages in community projects with focus on anti-racist work, civic engagement, and the intersection of art and activism. Joie’s day job is acting as the founder of CORE: Community Organizing for Radical Empathy.
-
Board Treasurer
-
Board Secretary
-
Board Member
William Wei is a Professor of History at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his Ph.D. in 1978 from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His major scholarly publications are Counterrevolution in China: The Nationalists in Jiangxi during the Soviet Period (University of Michigan Press, 1985), The Asian American Movement (Temple University Press, 1993), Asians in Colorado: Persecution and Perseverance in the Centennial State (University of Washington Press, 2016), and Becoming Colorado: The Centennial State in 100 Objects (University Press of Colorado and History Colorado, 2021). He is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Colorado Encyclopedia.
He has held a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellowship, Mellon Fellowship for Advanced Study and Research at Major University Centers of Chinese Studies, and Rockefeller Foundation Research Fellowship. He was the 2019-2010 Colorado State Historian. He was selected as the “2022 Asian American Hero of Colorado” by the Colorado Asian Culture and Education Network.
In the summer of 1997, he worked as a journalist covering the historic handover of Hong Kong to China. In the summer of 2006, he served as Academic Dean of the Semester at Sea program aboard the MS Explorer, visiting various countries around the Pacific Rim. He has also served on the board of directors of Colorado Humanities (Chair), History Colorado, and Stories on Stage.
He is a member of the History Colorado Center’s State Historians Council, the Colorado Asian Pacific United Board of Directors, and the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board.
-
Board Member
-
Board Member
Gil Asakawa is a cultural consultant, journalist, author and blogger who covers Japan, Japanese American and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) culture and identity in blogs, articles and social media. His blog is at www.nikkeiview.com. He is a nationally-known speaker, panelist and expert on Japanese American and Asian American history and identity. He’s the author of “Being Japanese American” (Stone Bridge Press), a history of Japanese in America originally published in 2004 and revised in 2014, and co-author of “The Toy Book” (Alfred Knopf, 1991), a history of the toys of the Baby Boom generation. His latest book is “Tabemasho! Let’s Eat!” (Stone Bridge Press), a history of Japanese food in America.
He is a member of the board of CAPU, and the current Chair of the Denver-Takayama Sister City Committee. Asakawa served twice as president of the Mile High chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), and has written a column called “Nikkei Voice” for the JACL’s national “Pacific Citizen” newspaper since the early 2000s. He served as chair of the editorial board for the “Pacific Citizen” and was a national board member of the JACL. He has just been named a board member of the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation in Washington D.C.
He is also a longtime member of the Japan America Society of Colorado, Nikkeijin Kai of Colorado, and the US-Japan Council. He was founder of and president for the Asian American Journalists Association’s Denver chapter. Asakawa was appointed in 2014 by Mayor Hancock to Denver’s Asian American Pacific Islander Commission.
He has given presentations to many organizations and libraries across the country about the history of Japanese Americans, including Japanese Americans in Colorado, and to Denver’s Sakura Foundation for its Mirai Generation groups of young local leaders. He has also presented on the history of Asian American in American pop culture.
In 2023 he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays from the Japanese government for his longtime efforts to build bridges between Japan and the United States.
-
Board Member
Work with us
We’re looking for folks to help us on our mission! Please see below for openings.
Want to volunteer?
If you are interested in volunteering with CAPU, we welcome your support!