Transcript: Mayor Adams Delivers Remarks and Hosts AAPI Heritage Reception

May 23, 2023

Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Chief Advisor to the Mayor: Good evening. Now you can actually make noise, good evening! So it's indeed a pleasure for me to be here as we celebrate AAPI in Gracie Mansion, the People's House. So many of you are responsible for our mayor being elected, and this is one of the small ways in which we get to say thank you and we love you. You waited a long time to hear from our 110th mayor who everybody in this room should know, and if you don't know him, shame on you.

Audience: Boo.

Lewis-Martin: No boo. No boo. There's no booing tonight. It's all good. It's all love. Before I present our mayor to you, I take this opportunity to thank my sister Winnie Greco, for always pulling a phenomenal event together. Thank all of our elected officials for joining us. Let show them some love. All of the members on the team that helped to put this awesome event together. So are you guys ready?

Audience: Yeah!

Lewis-Martin: No. You don't Sound like you're ready to me. Are you guys ready?

Audience: Yes!

Lewis-Martin: No. Are you guys ready?

Audience: Yes!

Lewis-Martin: Mayor Adams, your AAPI community, they're ready for you. So it's my pleasure to present to you our 110th mayor of New York City, Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Wow. Wow. Look at all 800 of you who are here, really celebrating our amazing AAPI community. And this is the first event we are doing outdoors during the summer season. We kick off the summer season with this amazing community and I want to thank all of my electeds that are here. So many of them we have worked together for so many years. I don't know if she's here, is Jenifer Rajkumar? Did she leave? Jenifer Rajkumar, I think she's in Albany trying to get money for New York City, but she's a real partner for us, year after year after year. Want to thank the amazing Council member Linda Lee, representing Chinatown, a real strong ally, Christopher Marte. I was just hanging out with Sandra Ung over in Flushing earlier today, handing out flyers for the jobs that we have available in the city. 

We also have a Councilman Krishnan is also here from District 25. My good friend Ari Kagan as well is here and just a real team and some of the members who are behind you from my administration. The diversity is real in our administration, when you look at the number of men and women from the AAPI community that's here, our amazing deputy mayor, Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, the first Indian-American to be a deputy mayor.

Our Filipino deputy mayor, the first Filipino deputy mayor, Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer. Our senior advisor and director of Asian affairs is here, Winnie Greco, who's unbelievable, been with me. And just a solid, solid commissioner who understand which many of you understand small businesses, my good friend and commissioner, Kevin Kim. And our great commissioner and the TLC. You know, so many members from the community are with the TLC, but we have an amazing commissioner in David Do who's here as well. And from the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, first Muslim commissioner, Commissioner Asim Rehman. 

So we look at this amazing lineup that we have here because when I ran for office, I stated that you will see yourselves in our administration. You will see yourselves in our administration. And the everyday workings of government is not only the commissioners, and the deputy commissioners, and assistant commissioners with that everyday people who receive individuals who are in need of service. We have over 12,000 jobs that we need to fill of the people who provide service to New Yorkers. We want you to reach your communities and talk about hiring to be a police officer, a nurse, an ACS employee, a Department of Education employee. We want government to look like you and to look like the people of this city, and we need your help to do that.

This community, the AAPI community, has a long and rich tradition in this country. The first delegation over 160 years ago when the first Japanese delegation came here to our shores, and when Chinatown was founded in the 19th century, your contributions to this city is amazing. And I saw that every day when I went out and campaigned and stood with this community in some of the most difficult times. I'll never forget a young man coming to me when his nephew was harmed as a fast food delivery person. And we stood up with the family back when I was a lieutenant in the Police Department and he always remembered that, and he told me to share the story. I will always stand with this community because this community has always stood with our city and in our country.

Coming here today under this big tent is telling us that our city is a big tent. We all must stand together during some of the most difficult times. If we are united, if we stand together, our resiliency is amazing. We've seen it over and over again on how we've overcome some difficult times. We've always made it through because we stand with each other.

And we are there again, many of our new arrivals who are coming to our country to pursue the same thing many of us all have pursued and that's the American dream. We must be there for them. It doesn't matter if they're coming from the continent of Africa, from South America, Central America, or from any of our Asian Pacific Islanders, we have to make sure they have the opportunities that we all wanted to have when we came to this great country, a country that is alone in its title of having, "Dream" attached to its name. 

The American dream is real, the American dream is alive and the city that represents that American dream is a place that we all know and that is New York City. Thank you. Thank you for coming out tonight. We want to really thank all of you for being here tonight. And my team told me I'm joined by two of my good commissioner also, Rohit, where's Rohit? Rohit is here. Rohit Aggarwala, he makes sure your water is clear down at DEP.

And I think that one of the greatest stories of the American experience is what I see in Commissioner Castro. Commissioner Castro came to America as a dreamer with his mother. He was a five year old child. He came here, worked hard, and now he's in charge of making sure every immigrant group has the right to participate in the dream. He's now the commissioner of Immigrant Affairs and we are so, so happy for that. 

And two other great members of the team, Eva Wong and Mir Bashar. Mir is in charge of one of the most important senior positions from the Bangladeshi community. We are continuing to grow. We are continuing to expand. This is who we are as New York City. So I need you to be prepared to honor some of the people who are worthy of being honored because of the work they are doing. And so, give us your patience as we bring them on, and give these citations to these great New Yorkers.

Okay, team? I see so many friendly faces. You folks from the Persian community, folks from the Chinese community, Korean community, Vietnamese. You see, you start calling out names. You are getting chants.

Moderator: Now we would like to honor Anu Sehgal.

Mayor Adams: Come on. Come on, you got to talk louder back there, Angel. Now announce everything loud, announce it loud so everybody can hear.

Moderator: We're going to honor Anu Sehgal.

Mayor Adams: So we want to honor you for your… We're applauding you for your effort to foster cross-cultural exchange while uniting our vibrant South Asian community together, we look forward to the many ways you have helped the AAPI New Yorkers and you will continue to make a positive difference.

Moderator: Our next honoree is Mr. Young Hwan Kim.

Audience: Yes! Best Korean restaurant in Flushing! In the city! 

Mayor Adams: To Mr. Kim, we want to applaud you for the contributions to our culinary and economic sectors and our thriving Korean community in Queens and beyond. And together we will build a strong city and be welcoming to all of our AAPI residents. Keep doing amazing things that you're doing as we get stuff done.

Moderator: The following honoree is Mr. Benjamin Chou from the Fire Department.

Mayor Adams: I applaud you for your service and insuring that our city is safe as we go through some of the most difficult moments in emergency service, your commitment to strengthening our thriving Chinese American community. Together we look forward to the many ways that we continue to build on our AAPI community. Give it up for our brave firefighter.

Moderator: The next honoree is Cityline Ozone Park Civilian Patrol accepted by Mohammad Khan.

Mayor Adams: The Civilian Patrol in Ozone Park is so important. They were so helpful during the pandemic, giving out food, supplies, PPE. Really want to thank them. And as we gather to celebrate the accomplishment and legacy of people who, their roots are in Asia and the Pacific Islands, a joy and applauding this great organization and their leadership and volunteers for their commitment to foster positive and uplifting people in Queens together. Let's keep building a strong AAPI community in New York. Congratulations.

Moderator: The following honoree is Deputy Inspector Chungyoon Huh from the NYPD.

Mayor Adams: Yeah. Deputy Inspector Huh is an amazing representative for the New York City Police Department diversity. We have a couple of police officers around. Let's thank them for their service to our city. I employed the Deputy Inspector for her 25 years of public service as a courageous member of the New York City Police Department as she continued to provide safety to the people of this city. Congratulations to you, Inspector.

Moderator: Last but not least, Philippine Nurses Association of New York confirmation, accepted by Janet Cuaycong. 

Mayor Adams: We owe so much to our nurses during the pandemic. They contribute so much. And our Pacific Islanders, our Caribbean Nurses Association, our Guyanese, our Jamaican, all of our nurses in the various groups provided such a service to our city. So I joined and applaud everyone associated with the Philippine Nurses Association of New York for their efforts to empower an essential workforce, and uplift our vibrant Filipino community. Together, we will have a strong healthcare system with the help of the amazing nurses from the Philippine Nurses Association of New York.

###