Welcome

APALSA has been striving to serve the needs of the Asian/Pacific-American student community at NYU School of Law since 1978. In addition to the many traditions and annual projects we undertake annually, the 2002-03 year marked a year of many firsts for APALSA, such as the publication of this guide. Under the leadership of Jen Wu, Agnes Park, Jeanette Park and Ed Han, we have combined our annual publication Perspectives, with this new guide for Asian American life in New York City geared primarily toward the incoming 1Ls. The guide features writings by students, restaurant reviews, and advice for how to find the Asian American hotspots in the urban jungle.

We started off the year even before the school term began, relaxing with other APALSAs from local area law schools such as Columbia, Fordham, New York Law School, Cardozo, Hofstra, Pace and Rutgers at Climate 8 while discussing opportunities for strengthening alliances. Kelvin Chen and Alvin Lin have continued to meet with members from these other local APALSA groups to create a regional APALSA, with the main purpose of facilitating professional development and networking opportunities.

The first-years were welcomed to campus by Wayne Ma and Melissa Chan, with the help of many other APALSA members, at a fabulously well-attended Orientation dinner party on Mercer Terrace. Wayne and Melissa also organized a first mentor-mentee scavenger hunt that led us all over the extended NYU area (a.k.a. the West Village, Soho and Union Square) in search of memorabilia from significant spots such as the Stonewall Bar and the new Prada store. Ignited by the early excitement of these outings and the energy of first year, the 1Ls themselves have taken the initiative to organize several dinner field trips to local restaurants.

The 2L transfers, in their turn, were welcomed to the community at a transfer dinner hosted by Esther Kim and Jen Wu, as well as other 2Ls. Melissa and Wayne kicked off the second semester with a scrumptious Lunar New Year's Banquet at Shanghai Tang in February with the help of 1L Howard Han. Several all-ALSA bar events organized by the Social Committee rounded out the social calendar.

At the end of September, all of the ALSAs met with Dean Revesz to welcome him to his office and to gauge his commitment to diversity and to the minority communities at NYU School of Law. He was very receptive, and showed potential as a great ally in our efforts.