The Democratic Asian Americans of Virginia (DAAV) honored former Fairfax County Democratic Committee (FCDC) Chair Sue Langley and President of the Korean American Society of Virginia Tae Chang Woo at its Fourth Annual Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Awards Dinner on Sunday May 20, 2018 at the Pakistani restaurant Sapphire in Tysons. Elected officials including Gov. Ralph Northam spoke at the award ceremony.
Sue Langley and Tae Chang Woo were presented with the 2018 Joe Montano Community Engagement Awards. Joe Montano was a prominent Virginian community organizer and activist who served as Northern Virginia Regional Director of Constituent Services for Senator Tim Kaine, and worked on a number of campaigns for the Democratic Party of Virginia.
Sue Langley was FCDC Chair for two terms, from 2014 to 2017. She started in politics as a volunteer with the Wesley Clark campaign in the 2004 primary and then worked for John Kerry in the general campaign. She was active with the Hunter Mill Democrats and served as FCDC Vice Chair for Precinct Operations. Sue has hosted numerous canvasses, phone banks, picnics, and fundraisers at her home in Flint Hill precinct. Sue Langley grew up in Thailand, received her Ph.D. in economics from Iowa State University and was a senior economist and branch chief at the Department of Agriculture.
Tae Chang Woo has served as the President of the Korean Senior Citizens Association of Greater Washington Area for the past ten years. He leads voter education and outreach efforts to mobilize Korean American seniors to vote every cycle, and organizes volunteers and campaign events for state-wide Democratic candidates. He helped with the successful effort to expand language access for Virginia voters by adding Korean documents on voting information.
Speakers at the dinner included Gov. Northam, who was introduced by former Democratic National Commitee Indo-American Leadership Council Co-Chair Shekar Narasimhan; Secretary of Education Anne Holton, introduced by state Sen. Dick Saslaw (D-35); Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-11); state Del. Mark Keam (D-35), who introduced Sue Langley; and School Board Member Karen Keys-Gamarra who introduced Tae Chang Woo.
DAAV was founded in 2008, was recognized as a constituency group by the DPVA in 2010, and recognized as an official DPVA caucus in 2013. DAAV has been working to educate political participation in the Asian community, empower Asian Americans to run for offices and to elect Democrats.
An April 4, 2018 New York Times op-ed summarized DAAV outreach with multi-language sample ballots, phone banking, and canvassing, ethnic celebrations and festivals.
The President of DAAV is Dewita Soeharjono of Arlington. Longtime active FCDC member Rose Chu is DAAV treasurer and one of the co-founders.