Tuesday May 6

Two women honored as 'local heroes'

By Ken McLaughlin / Bay Area News Group

A Santa Clara County historian from Los Altos Hills and the founding director of Engineers for a Sustainable World and are two of the "local heroes" who will be honored Wednesday in San Francisco in celebration of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

The 11th annual awards are given by Union Bank of California and San Francisco public broadcast station KQED.

Connie Young Yu of Los Altos Hills, an Asian-American historian for the past 40 years, is being honored for making local history accessible and relevant to the Bay Area community through articles, presentations and books recounting the early experiences of Chinese-Americans.

Yu has worked to ensure that local Asian-American historical sites are recognized, restored and made available to the public. Her Bay Area projects have included the restoration of the immigration barracks at Angel Island; exhibits of the Ng Shing Gung building at History Park in San Jose; the Chinese Walls in Woodside; and the archaeological excavation on the Chinatown site in San Jose.

Her work and passion for recounting the experiences of immigrants draw on years of research, oral histories and her own family background.

Yu's paternal grandfather, Young Soong Quong, was among the early merchants of the Heinlenville Chinatown in San Jose. Her maternal grandmother, Lee Yoke Suey, was detained on Angel Island for 16 months while the Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect.

Yu is the author of "Chinatown, San Jose, USA." She is a member of the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project, the advisory council of Asian Americans for Community Involvement and is a trustee of the Hakone Foundation.

Regina Clewlow, a Korean-American who grew up in San Jose, received her bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering at Cornell University. She founded Engineers for a Sustainable World to mobilize engineers to raise awareness about global sustainability; work in developing nations to increase sustainable access to water, sanitation and energy; and take action in their own communities to reduce resource consumption.

Since 2002, the nonprofit organization based in San Francisco has grown into a network with thousands of members. The group has more than 30 chapters in colleges and universities, including Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.

Family and friends are invited to attend Wednesday's ceremony of the 11th annual "Local Heroes" awards from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the KQED Public Broadcasting Center, 2601 Mariposa St., San Francisco.

KQED (Ch. 9) will air short profiles of the honorees as part of its special May programming on the Asian-Pacific-American experience.

For more information, see www.kqed.org.