Transformation Tuesday: Race, Racism, and Asian Americans

Dallas Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation presents Transformation Tuesday, a community-driven online series highlighting the ways race and racism impact every aspect of our lives, and what we as a community can do to change and transform it.

This panel will be moderated by Dallas TRHT Communications Director Stephanie Drenka and focus on race, racism and racial equity in the Asian American community.

Panelists include:

Amy Tran-Calhoun
Amy Tran-Calhoun (she/her/hers) is the proud daughter of Vietnamese refugees. Raised in a small predominantly White suburb in San Diego, California, Amy experienced race and racism at a young age. It wasn’t until college that she learned about the social, economic, and historical context of her family’s refugee journey. This knowledge sparked Amy’s passion and urgency for advocating for the rights of underrepresented communities like her own.

From labor organizing to college access to workforce development, Amy has devoted her professional career to advocating for access, opportunity, and equity alongside communities of color, undocumented, working-class, women, and LGBTQ+ communities. Most recently, Amy served as the Director of Programs and Partnerships at Education Opens Doors, equipping nearly 60,000 middle school students with the knowledge and skills to navigate toward their college and career goals.

Amy is currently a racial equity coach with Dallas TRHT and a trainer with the Center for Racial Justice in Education. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Mass Communications and Masters in Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley.

Amy is most excited and joyful when she’s eating delicious food and spending quality time with her loved ones.

Nancy Tiên
Nancy Tiên (she/her/hers) is a Vietnamese and Chinese American from Dallas, TX. After attending Dallas ISD schools and completing college, she worked in both Mesquite, Uplift and Dallas ISD schools for over 7 years. As a child of immigrants and first-generation college graduate, Tien understands the importance of identity development and advocacy, and focuses her work on pursuing educational and racial equity. She currently serves as a lead organizer for Dallas CORE, education consultant with Education Powered and election coordinator with Dallas Kids First. When she isn’t organizing, advocating or facilitating in her free time, she enjoys reading, cuddling with her dogs and playing video games. Tien received her B.S. in Applied Learning and Development from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. HaeSung Han
Dr. HaeSung Han is a Licensed Clinical and Forensic Psychologist and a Board Certified,
Nationally Registered Art Therapist. She is also the Co-Founder of POETIC, an in-community
program that addresses the systems not just the symptoms of exploitation and trafficking of
minors.

POETIC’s innovative model was named 2019 United Way’s Social Innovation of the Year.
POETIC’s team and culture was named 2019 DCEO Non-Profit Team of the year. Due to
POETIC’s proven record of showing outcomes, was accepted into two national catalyst
programs; BBVA and Stand Together. Additionally, POETIC is a proud advisee of Social
Venture Partners.

Dr. Han’s work building programs in the field of trauma and youth was recognized by Texas
Women’s Foundation as she was awarded their 2019 Young Leader Award. She is also a
Presidential Leadership Scholar and a Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd project.

Soudary Kittivong-Greenbaum
Soudary has spent her 21-year career in the nonprofits and philanthropy, helping
organizations power their missions through community-centric strategies with diversity,
equity and inclusion at the core. Proud 1 st generation Lao American, Soudary channels
her passion for refugee and immigrant rights, children youth + families, and social
justice into engaging supporters to address systemic issues that touch upon equity,
education and public health. She most recently served as senior managing director of
development at Teaching Trust, a DTRHT Racial Equity NOW! cohort member. She is a member of the Orchid Giving Circle of the Texas Women’s Foundation. Soudary
holds a Masters in Public Service from DePaul University, and a Bachelors in Asian
American Studies and Political Science from the University of California, Santa
Barbara.

Sagar Desai
Sagar Desai is an Indian American who grew up in Houston, TX. An electrical engineering by trade, Sagar made a career switch into education over 13 years ago, originally at an education startup in San Francisco that provided real-time coaching supports to college students to help them persist and graduate. Currently he works a Senior Consultant for the Ballmer Group, where manages their investment portfolio to build more racially diverse talent pipelines in community partnerships. Previously, Sagar worked for the Commit Partnership in Dallas where he launched a statewide campaign to systemically reform how we fund public education in Texas, resulting in a $6.5b equitable investment in public education. The campaign, InvestEd TX, is an effort to bring together the business community, education community, and community leaders together to comprehensively improve our school finance system so that it provides more funding for students who need it the most towards efforts that will improve student outcomes from cradle to career. In addition, he has incubated and scales regional efforts to systemically improve critical leaks in our education pipeline, with the goal of ensuring that every student has an effect educator and that every student graduates college and career ready. he has also developed a comprehensive strategy and secured national funding to help start the Dallas County Promise, an effort to provide every student an opportunity to attain a postsecondary credential and a living wage job.