I Ended Up on Sinovision's Nightly News for World No Tobacco Day!

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I went to City Hall in Manhattan today to support the ACTION youth at The Point CDC. In celebration of World No Tobacco Day, The Point's youth teamed up with the American Lung Association to hold a press conference about banning the sale of Flavored Candy Cigarettes. The youth did all the work during the press conference on City Hall, but somehow they Asian press mobbed only ME! I was the only Chinese person out of all the black and latino youth, and for some reason there was a lot of Chinese press there - why? I don't know. I was also interviewed by Ming Pao Daily News, Sing Tao Newspapers and World Journal.

The crazy part is that it's the youth who did all the campaign work - they are the ones who surveyed the community, garnered community support, worked with congressman serrano, contacted press and etc.

But they just wanted to talk to me about what's my message to other Chinese youth? My response was that more Chinese youth need to build coalition with other communities, like blacks and Latinos and we can't just pat ourselves on the back when we only work with our own familiar communities. Community organizing is about cross-community coalition building and etc....but the only line they have me saying is "we are not adults telling youth not to smoke, we are youth telling youth not to buy candy flavored cigarettes." Oh and they spelled my name wrong! it's 王 圣 㨗! not 洁

Read more about ACTION's work.

Here's more pictures from the press conference.

Technorati Tags: ACTION, anti-smoking, asia, bronx, candy flavored cigarettes, china, cigarettes, city hall, hunts point, new york city, NYC, press conference, sinovision, smoking, the point, tricia wang, triciawang