Aloha and welcome to the Asian American Journalists Association Hawai'i Chapter!!

We are so fortunate to call this beautiful place home - where we live in the most diverse state in the country, where Asians Americans are "minorities" in name only, where our newsrooms and airwaves are filled with Asian American bylines and faces.

But we are not without our own challenges, so the AAJA Hawai'i Chapter will continue to strive toward the National AAJA goals of encouraging Asian American and Pacific Islanders to enter the field of journalism, and to help young and mid-career professionals advance and eventually land top management positions.

We will continue to do this by providing scholarships, internship opportunities and assistance with professional development.

We also want to have fun-to build fellowship and lasting friendships within the industry.

The first half of 2006 has been a busy and exciting one as we prepared for and hosted AAJA's 18th Annual National Convention at the Sheraton Waikiki. It turned out to be a huge success, and hundreds of our fellow AAJA members returned to the Mainland armed with better professional skills, an up-close look at true diversity in action and a new understanding of the aloha spirit.

Not to mention a darker tan.

But we still have almost six months remaining in 2006, so we hope to carry on the momentum built from the convention and make the second half of the year just as productive and exciting as the first.

Stay tuned to this Web site and your e-mails, as we plan to keep you posted on everything that is going on with AAJA Hawai'i.

Mahalo,

Wes Nakama
President, AAJA Hawai'i Chapter