Hundreds of elected Asian leaders across country gather in SF

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — The APEC Summit brought thousands of visitors to San Francisco, including President Joe Biden and other world leaders. The week-long event concluded Friday, but festivities continued on Saturday with the National API Elected Officials Summit.

Hundreds of elected leaders across the United States gathered at The Westin St. Francis in Union Square. This is the first event of its kind in which 300 Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) politicians from all over the country gathered for a convention, the API Coalition says.

“This week, San Francisco was really really busy,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed. “We had leaders from all over the world — from the Philippines, from Japan, from Malaysia, from China, from Hong Kong, everywhere you can think of.

“One of the things I always appreciated about San Francisco is we have been the gateway to the Asian Pacific. This city has been really important in building those bridges in the United States — mostly because of our API community.”

In attendance for this two-day event were 200 top government and business leaders from 21 APEC member countries.

Notable local Bay Area leaders in attendance:

• San Francisco Mayor London Breed
• Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao
• San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu
• San Francisco District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan

The API Coalition summit is a way for community leaders to exchange experiences, ideas and build relationships, the organization says. It has hosted events in the past for API leaders to gather but at a regional level. In the past two years, there was an API leaders summit for those in the Washington D.C., Southern California and Northern California regions.

For a list of politicians under the API Coalition banner, click here.