Biography
KaYing Yang, Nonprofit Management Consultant and President of RedGreen Rivers, LLC
For more than two decades, KaYing has been a social justice advocate who has built and led community organizing, public policy engagement, and development efforts locally, nationally, and globally. In the mid 1990’s, she began her career as a community organizer and executive manager providing social services and advocacy for the protection of refugees and immigrants in Minnesota at the Women’s Association of Hmong and Lao. She then went on to defend and promote immigrant and human rights by serving in a number of organizations including the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL) in Minnesota. All of her work comes from a deep experience having come to the United States as a Hmong refugee at the age of seven in 1976 where she experienced firsthand the struggles faced by communities experiencing socio-economic disparities, including generational trauma and poverty. She is president of RedGreen Rivers, LLC, a social enterprise, a board member of Women Winning and a 2019 recipient of the Bush Foundation Fellowship. In 2022, KaYing was appointed to President Biden’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.
Articles, Publications, and Appearances
In the News
- This week, Minnesotan KaYing Yang joins President Joe Biden’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans. One searing experience she’ll bring to the job: Watching her Hmong parents work against daunting obstacles to build a new life in America, Sahan Journal, February 3, 2022
- Minnesota woman appointed to presidential advisory commission, KARE11, February 11, 2022
- Amazeworks Newsletter. Resilient Women in our Community: KaYing Yang, March 3, 2021
- NBC Asian America — Self-Starters: RedGreen Rivers, Apr 26, 2016
Publications
- Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL). 2021. A Race to Close the Disproportionate COVID-19 Death Rates in Minnesota’s Asian (Managed the research and writing)
- Education Evolving and Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL). 2020. Power, Politics and Preservation of Heritage Languages
- Saadeh, Cirien and Yang, KaYing, Voices for Racial Justice (VRJ) The Quilt page 14-15, 2019, Data Disaggregation: Creating Visibility Through Numbers
- Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL). 2019. Redefining Wealth through Communal and Cultural Assets (Managed the research and writing)
- Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL) and Immigration History Research Center. 2018. Invisibility Perpetuated: The Complex Economics of Asian Minnesotans (Managed the research and writing)
- Yang, KaYing, Future of Children, v14 n2 p 127-133 Sum 2004, Southeast Asian American Children: Not the “Model Minority”
Selected Interviews and Speaking Engagements
- St. Cloud State University, Keynote Speaker: Power in Diversity Leadership Conference, January 27-29, 2022
- Amherst Wilder Foundation. Talking through the Numbers Podcast May 19, 2019 with Nicole MartinRogers on Data Disaggregation: Breaking Down Data to Explore Community Assets and Strengths
- Minnesota Humanities: Hmong Educational Forum: From Mountains to Lakes – May 15, 2021, The Importance of Student Data Disaggregation
Awards
- Recipient, AARP Minnesota and Pollen’s 2019 50 over 50 Award
- Recipient, 2019 Bush Fellowship, Bush Foundation
- Recipient, Minnesota Vikings, 100 Vikings Women Awardee, September 2019
- Recipient, 2016 Hmong Woman of the Year from Hnub Tshiab: Hmong Women Achieving Together