The 34th Annual Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Festival held a Press Conference on Tuesday April 23rd at Mika Japanese Cuisine & Bar (150 Centre St, Chinatown, NYC) to brief festival details, performances schedules, and the theme for this year as well as the 2 locations for the festival.

Organized by the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans (CAPA) since 1979, this annual festival is the longest running and largest event celebrating Pan-Asian heritage nationwide. It celebrates not only the value of family, but also the heritage which makes us proud to be Asian American and Pacific Islander.

The festival is free, rain or shine and open to the public and many Asian community organizations also help make the festival possible. AsianInNY will also exhibit at both locations and have prepared a list of exciting performance including live bands, martial arts, dancer presentation and more.

There are 10 emcees totals including some of the Asian American TV anchors:

Richard Lui is an American journalist and daytime news anchor for MSNBC. Lui is also a rotating news anchor for NBC’s weekend Today show and contributes reports for NBC News Investigations Unit and NBC Weekend Nightly News. Before joining MSNBC, Lui was a news anchor for five years at CNN Worldwide. He also solo-anchored the 10 am edition of Morning Express and led morning political reporting during the 2008 Presidential election as a show member of Morning Express with Robin Meade. When Lui joined CNN Headline News in 2007 he became the first Asian American male to anchor a daily, national cable news show in the U.S.

Arthur Chi’en is a three-time Emmy Award winning Reporter currently with WPIX-TV Ch 11 since 2005. He has reported on a wide range of national and local stories like the Transit Strike, the Russian Spy case, the Cory Lidle plane crash and various terrorism related cases. Prior to Pix 11, Chi’en has been a part of NBC’s Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, produced Today Show, covered high profile events for the Specials Unit, and been a General Assignment Reporter for WFXT Fox 25 in Boston, eventually returning to New York for WCBS-TV as a General Assignment Correspondent. Chi’en attended Columbia University.

Michelle Yu is a sports anchor/reporter for Sports Net New York and covers everything NYC in MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL. Michelle began her sports journalism career in print, writing for Gannett Newspaper’s ‘The Journal News and Sports Illustrated For Kids magazine. In 2003, she made the transition from print to television when she joined College Sports Television. She has also spent time as a sports reporter on Time Warner Cable’s ‘Sportstime’ in New Jersey. A Bronx native, Michelle co-authored her first novel China Dolls in 2007, and her second novel Young, Restless and Broke will be published in 2009. Michelle graduated from Manhattan College with a degree in communications and currently lives in Manhattan.

Ti Hua Chang is an award-winning journalist who joined WNYW/Fox 5 in 2009 as a general assignment reporter. His past includes work as an investigative reporter, a talk show host, and investigative producer—for which he has received numerous accolades. Chang is especially proud of discovering the four witnesses to the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers, which led to the reopening of that famous case. Chang has also won five Emmys; the Philadelphia, Denver and Detroit Press Association awards; and, the Associated Press and United Press International awards. Being active in Asian-American community affairs, Chang was both a national and local New York Board member of the Asian-American Journalists Association. He has been published in a number of magazines, including the Sunday New York Times and The Detroit News.

CeFaan Kim is a reporter at News12 Westchester, previously having worked as a NY1 reporter covering Queens. His exclusive story about a woman who died while waiting for help to arrive during the “Christmas Blizzard” of 2010 was monumental in bringing the Bloomberg administration to reevaluate the city’s inadequate storm response system. Other notable stories he has covered include the 2010 summer tornadoes, the 2009 H1N1/Swine Flu outbreak, and the assault trial of then-State Senator Hiram Monserrate the same year. Before reporting, Kim was an associate producer for “Inside City Hall,” having produced the jail-cell interview of then-Transport Workers Union head Roger Toussaint during the 2005 transit strike.

RICHARD ALAN CHEN, ESQ. is an attorney in private practice in Flushing since 1986.  He has produced, directed and appeared in numerous live and taped comedy shows and films for over two decades, as well as recent appearances on Nickelodeon and the Food Network. Mr. Chen is presently working on a book, “The Master on Wall Street,” with co-author Mark Hanna, who is the real life wall street personage  played by Matthew McConaughey in Martin Scorsese’s new film, “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

Victor Chu is an event photographer and has been doing comedy all over the city since 2005. He was a featured emcee at AsianInNY’s 2012 Lunar New Year Celebration. He also the is writer, director and actor on the Youtube comedy show “New York Chity”.

Yvonne Leow is the video editor for Digital First Media’s Project Thunderdome, a new initiative aimed to support 75 local newspapers across Journal Register Company and MediaNews Group.  Prior to joining Digital First, Yvonne served as the west regional video producer for the Associated Press in Phoenix, Arizona. She currently serves as a national board member for the Asian American Journalists Association.

Caroline Shin is a video journalist and a native New Yorker, currently working as video blogger at New York Magazine, producer at Brooklyn Independent TV and co-host of Cooking with Granny, alongside her grandma. Caroline has a passion for languages, photography and dancing, and the joie de vivre to appreciate the world. She attended Hunter High School, Brown University and Columbia Journalism School.

Susan Hamaker is the half-Okinawan/half-American writer/editor of JapanCulture-NYC.com, an English-language resource for Japanese culture in New York City. Susan strives to highlight the people and activities of New York’s Japanese American community from the arts to food and everything in between. She has served as the MC for several Japanese-related events, including functions for the Okinawa American Association of New York (OAANY), a kimono fashion show at the Queens Library, and last year’s NY Street Ramen Contest with Yoshi Amao of Samurai Sword Soul.

Save the date and come out to celebrate the heritage together:

May 4, 2013 in Flushing Mall in Flushing, NY
May 18, 2013 in Confucius Plaza and Yung Wing School, NYC

For schedule of your performance time, go to: www.capaonline.org/schedules