A COMMUNITY ACTIVIST AND BUDDING FUNDRAISER EMERGES ON THE BOARD AT EAST BAY ASIAN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

Meet Klein Lieu, Board Member, EBALDC

Klein Lieu is the youngest member of the EBALDC Board of Directors at age 32. He is the only board member to come from the world of tech; and as a non-binary millennial, he brings a fresh perspective to the Board. Combining his professional expertise as a software engineer with his advocacy in the areas of equity and social justice, he has a unique worldview as it relates to building healthy and vibrant communities. 

“Growing up around EBALDC and its programming, as a kid in Chinatown and East Oakland, I couldn’t miss the housing, workshops for folks, and the Asian Resource Center.” For Klein, the key was growing up in a community where people look like you, a doctor who speaks your language, and food from your culture around the corner grocery store. 

Though his parents do not have high school diplomas, his father owned a hair salon in Oakland’s Chinatown for 40 years across the street from the Asian Resource Center (the first building purchased by EBALDC). His mother was a lunch lady at Oakland High School. He says, “My family are South Vietnamese refugees who escaped the war. We found our bearings in Oakland. This is where my family applied for housing, driver’s licenses, and business loans. I always call Oakland Chinatown the Harlem of the Asian American experience, the cultural epicenter of Asian culture in the US.”

EBALDC Senior Youth Program Manager, Michelle Sit, highlights a sobering statistic: “92 percent of the youth who live in East Oakland never get a chance to leave Oakland.” Klein grew up in HUD public housing but also got to experience the world outside his East Oakland neighborhood through programs like Upward Bound and others. They got him to where he had a competitive application for a school like UC Berkeley, his alma mater. He says, “These kids live in a cultural epicenter that they don’t get to experience — not Yosemite, they probably don’t even know where Muir Woods is. Cal is 15 miles from East Oakland but it’s another country. It’s the upper echelon of the ivory tower and it happens to be a stone’s throw away from the hood.” Earlier this year, Klein funded The Mai Huynh Achievement Scholarship Fund endowment, a four-year, full-ride scholarship named for his mother at UC Berkeley. It’s a thank you to those who made his education possible and a thank you in advance to the next generation coming up. 

Elle Fersan, Executive Vice President for Resources Development and Communications, stated, “Klein is quickly establishing himself as a philanthropic leader and convener. He just committed to a matching fund challenge for an EBALDC Fund-A-Need campaign that will benefit our youth programs.” Reminded of the numerous outings he got to go on when growing up in East Oakland, he says, “I participated in these mind-expanding experiences because somebody thought I could benefit. Some unknown family essentially paid for a poor kid like me to get out of the neighborhood and have an adventure. I was so thankful for these opportunities and that inspired me to contribute $20,000 to the Fund-A-Need drive.” The campaign is closing in on its $100,000 goal and only has $25,000 more to raise.  

In stepping up for Fund-A-Need, Klein noted that some of his fellow board members have jumped into the campaign with their own contributions, and he is working on his tech colleagues to come up with donations that will match his gift. About his workmates, he says, “They are totally awesome and make me 100 percent grateful.” This whole experience is inspiring him to set up a giving circle for EBALDC that will reach out to the tech industry. 

After working for the Obama campaigns, Klein is fairly optimistic about the world. “As the most interconnected and diverse generations ever — in the most powerful country in the world — I fully believe that when power shifts to millennials and Gen Zs there will be a much more equitable view of the world,” he says. “We will break down a lot of restrictions that have plagued US society for generations.”

EBALDC thanks Klein Lieu for his philanthropy and leadership. You can join him in supporting our work and meeting his challenge by donating to www.ebaldc47.com.