The highest ranking family association in SF Chinatown votes to end the 20-year partnership with a women's group

(SAN FRANCISCO) In recent years, there has been controversy about the selection of some of the honorees at the Chinese Consolidated Women's Association (CCWA) annual events. The Board of Directors of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) voted in its September meeting to end the 20-year partnership with CCWA to co-host the annual events.

The resolution to end the partnership was approved by the majority of the Board Members at CCBA on September 25. It will be effective from 2022. CCWA and CCBA have co-hosted the annual events for 20 years including honoring the best mothers in May, students for scholarships in July, and the outstanding overseas Chinese in October.

This year's Outstanding Overseas Chinese Awards banquet will be held on October 16 in Far East Cafe. Four honorees are Kenny Lau, President of the Chinese Herb Trade Association, Henry Chen, Founder of the AA Bakery and Cafe in Chinatown, Jian Zhang, CEO of the Chinese Hospital, Sally Leung, Senior Analyst at San Francisco Police Department.

Due to the pandemic last year, three honorees of the 2020 Outstanding Overseas Chinese Awards will attend the upcoming banquet. They are Fanny Chu, President of the Chinatown Lions Club, Robert Ju, an insurance agent and broker, Jie Bing (解冰).

Ding Lee, both a Board Member of the CCBA and Chinese Hospital, spoke in the CCBA meeting that the 7-member Presidents Committee of the CCBA were not allowed to vote to select the honorees of the CCWA's annual award events, according to the bylaw of CCBA.

One of the honorees of the Outstanding Overseas Chinese Awards this year is Jian Zhang, CEO of Chinese Hospital. Lee noted that it was inappropriate for CCBA to nominate Zhang to receive the award, since half of the Board Members in the Chinese Hospital are the representatives from CCBA.

CCWA is a non-profit organization made up of all women. Harrison Lim, a senior Board Member of CCBA, narrated the history of CCWA which was founded in 1998. "The founder of CCWA was Annie Lee who passed away earlier this year. Annie had the idea to establish a brand new Chinese American women's group in 1998. Several more women joined to become the co-founders. Since CCWA was not known to the community in those days, CCWA was advised to be related to CCBA," Lim said in the meeting.

Lim continued, "For the past 20 years, more talented women have joined CCWA, they are more financially stable, they have established their foundation, now is the time for them to be independent from CCBA and plan for all the events on their own."

Thomas Ng, another senior Board Member of CCBA and also a Board Member at Chinese Hospital, commented that CCBA has a long history for over 170 years. There is no CCWA in the bylaw of CCBA."

CCBA is responsible to offer the gold medals for the honorees in the partnership. Charles Chow, a Board Member both for the CCBA and the Chinese Hospital, remembered when he was the Presiding President of CCBA in 2011. He was invited by CCWA to join the meeting to select the honorees. "We discussed the nominations in the meetings, " said Chow.

Board Member Tek W Wong (黃榮達) proposed a resolution to end the partnership between CCBA and CCWA. Roger Louie is a Board Member of CCBA and his wife Amy Louie is the Honorary President of CCWA. Louie suggested ending the partnership starting from 2022, since the Awards in October have been planned for sometime.

The majority of the Board Members voted to support both resolutions which will be effective from next year.

Jenny Xu, President of CCWA, is surprised to hear the decision made by CCBA. "It is not fair to us. CCBA should let us know in advance," said Xu. "We can end the partnership. We can't accept the way that it is handled."

"As of September 27, we have not received any official letter from CCBA to tell us that the partnership will be ended," said Xu, who is a longtime medical doctor and retired in recent years.

Xu is devoted to serving the community by putting more of her time to charity work. She joined CCWA five years ago and has become its President for two years. "CCWA has followed the same model of making selections of every year's honorees for the Best Mother Awards and the Outstanding Overseas Chinese Awards. We have not changed any of it," said Xu.

"CCBA has always been part of the selection process. We called for press conferences with CCBA to announce the award events and invite the public to nominate outstanding members of our community for the awards. The Presidents Committee and the Secretaries of CCBA had nominated their choices to us. We made all decisions with CCBA in the meetings," said Xu.

Xu agreed that CCBA offered gold medals for all the honorees in the joint award events. "Our members pay for the banquet tickets and other expenses. We also donate to a number of the non-profit organizations and senior service groups. Our members donate their time and money for all the events for the purpose of serving the community."

Xu said she would work with CCBA to issue a joint statement to the community about the closure of their partnership after the Outstanding Overseas Chinese Awards event on October 16.