NEW YORK (Feb. 19, 2016) — Former U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., Heidi C. Chen of Zoetis, and Phil Yu, creator of the Angry Asian Man blog, received 2016 Justice in Action Awards on Tuesday.
More than 700 people attended the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund’s (AALDEF) annual lunar new year gala at Pier Sixty in New York City. The 2016 AALDEF Justice in Action Awards were presented to Eric H. Holder, Jr., former attorney general of the United States and partner at Covington & Burling LLP; Heidi C. Chen, executive vice president and general counsel of Zoetis, Inc.; and Phil Yu, founder and editor of Angry Asian Man blog.
Cindy Hsu, Emmy Award-winning anchor and reporter at CBS2 New York, and Sree Sreenivasan, chief digital officer at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, were the emcees.
Actor and activist George Takei, a 1992 Justice in Action Award recipient, delivered a special message at the awards ceremony. He recently completed a four-month run on Broadway in Allegiance, the musical inspired by his experiences in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II.
Since 1974, AALDEF has been protecting and promoting the civil rights of Asian Americans across the nation through litigation, advocacy, organizing, and community education. Proceeds from the Lunar New Year Gala support AALDEF’s programs in immigrant rights, economic justice for workers, voting rights and civic participation, educational equity, and the elimination of hate violence, police misconduct, and human trafficking.
