On Feb. 21, the Asian/Pacific Islander (API) Initiative under UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business featured a series of guest speakers and business professionals from the local API business community at its second annual API Summit.
The event incorporated a business workshop, professional speaker panel, Asian-inspired dinner and networking social hour. Ascend UCI, a student-run professional pan-Asian networking organization, worked alongside the API Initiative to organize and run the event. According to API Initiative Co-Chair Michelle Simon, each of these activities was the result of advanced planning from the API Initiative, which was formed two and a half years ago to bridge the gap between professionals and members of the UCI API business community.
“We started small and we’re hosting little panels, and we wanted to create something larger,” Simon told New University. “This year, we put on the summit to bring together both people from the business community and our students to provide them with tangible skills and insights to help them prepare for their careers.”
The event required months of logistic preparation, as API Initiative’s members worked toward solidifying the event’s outreach, catering, activities and attendance, according to Paul Merage Alumni Program Director and API Initiative Committee Member Sandy Lee. The initiative’s committee sought to incorporate API culture — such as providing mochi donuts and 85° Bakery event catering — as a way of reinforcing the organization’s pursuit of fostering Asian identity.
“Our organization is one of the three DEI initiatives that the dean is very passionate about,” Lee told New University. “The Merage School has the Black Management Association, the Latinx Initiative and the API Initiative, which was the last one that was added. Since then, our organization has come together to decide on what kind of events will help our students feel they belong or feel like they can be proud to be Asian.”
With over 360 RSVPs, the API Summit is the API Initiative’s largest event. Such engagement allows them to further the organization’s mission of promoting Asian identity within the field of business, Lee said.
“The API Summit is important because we feel like it’s an event that helps our community come together for the purpose of supporting each other and showing that there are very relatable topics to our experience and struggles of being Asian,” Lee said. “Similar to BMA and Latinx, we have our own struggles that only we would understand and be able to relate to. At the end of the day, we want to help create a sense of belonging where the community feels we can overcome our struggles together.”
This year, the API Summit revolved around “Empowering and Leading while Asian” to help alleviate stereotypes against Asians within the business community. According to Professor and API Initiative Co-Chair Zheng Sun, cultural differences between Asians and Americans account for a large portion of API underrepresentation in professional leadership. Stereotypes of quiet Asian culture contrast with loud cultural qualities emphasized in American business and professional opportunities.
“One of [API Initiative’s] missions, which I believe to be very important, is to break down the barriers for Asian students to become leaders,” Sun said. “I think we have a lot of smart, hard-working Asian students and they have ambition, but oftentimes they are still perceived as doers, not leaders. For some reason, I think there is a lot of misperception behind that, so we want to change that mindset from the students’ perspective and from the community’s perspective.”
Students can learn more about the API Initiative and Ascend UCI on their websites.
Skyller Liu is a Features Intern for the winter 2025 quarter. He can be reached at skyllerl@uci.edu.
Edited by Kaelyn Kwon.