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CN: So I think it's interesting how you mentioned like being chapter president is more focused and infrastructure-based and small projects. And I'm wondering, where they're intersections? I know you took there's like a break between working on the national level at the chapter level, but were there like intersections between your work on a national level and like the Seattle chapter? And I don't know, which one, like which side of it did you like better? Working on bigger picture things or working more hands on, just on the Seattle area?

RC: They're just really different animals, and I enjoy them in different ways. So on the national level, especially like 2000, we just... you could really, like, leverage the connections that the organization had and the visibility. So it would be like, okay, it would be like, we oppose the detention of Muslim Americans or any kind of thought of that. And so because of our clout, we're able to reach out to other organizations and get their backing as well on it. So like with different things, because we had that presence and that history, we could get the support on different issues that may primarily impact APAs, but we'll still get, we will still get the backing of AJC, American Jewish Committee, the NAACP, obviously OCA, but all these different other groups, we were able to get their backing, too. So if we want them to sign on to a statement, we wanted to show, mention on the Hill that they were also, like, supporting us, then it was very easy -- not very easy, but it helped a lot to move things on the national level and get visibility to it a lot quicker just because of the clout that the organization had. So that is, it's just a very cool thing to have.

But on a on a chapter level, it's more, you can also, we can also do that at a chapter level where we could kind of move things that way, because especially in the Seattle region, just because we're so established here. But on a chapter level, since you're working with other people a lot closer because we didn't have any paid staff. So basically, you do the work. So you end up doing a lot more work with people. Like at the national level, a lot of people, you could just -- and most people did generally set the policy. So they'll say, like, well, okay, we should focus on this, and then that would kind of be the directive to the paid staff and other people. But that's less hands-on. And because we're coming from different areas of, all different areas of the country and flying in for meetings, it takes longer to build the personal relationships out. But on a chapter level, you build that out a lot quicker. So I would say like on the chapter level, it's much more fulfilling in terms of the personal bonds, national level, it's much more interesting in terms of how much more you could impact discussions at a U.S. level or a much higher level than just your city. So they both have their own merits.

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