Fight for Official Minority Status

 At the time, the Department of LA County Social Services named only three official minority groups who benefited from affirmative action programs: African American, Hispanic, and American Indian. API Americans were not included. Lily successfully worked with LA County to include API Americans as the fourth minority group.

Education

Though API Americans were now included as a minority group, the issue was complicated by affirmative action.

Asian Americans fell on both sides of the issue. Some Asian American activists, who’d had experience building coalitions with Black and Latino organizers during the Civil Rights movement, supported affirmative action because it helped their Black and Latino community members. Many others, especially Asian American parents, were concerned that affirmative action would disadvantage their children pursuing higher education. 

Directorship of Services Planning and Resource Development

After her work in the Asian Pacific Community Outreach Program, Lily was promoted to the directorship of Services Planning and Resource Development under the LA County Department of Public Social Services (DPSS).

Soon after her work in Los Angeles gained publicity, Lily received an appointment from President Jimmy Carter to the National Council on Adult Education. Lily took the oath of office in Washington D.C in October 1979. .

Because many immigrants struggled with the English language barrier, Lily proposed a federally funded English as a Second Language (ESL) program be made available to all immigrants. The federal government later adopted Lily’s proposal as federal law. Now, ESL is available to all new immigrants in adult schools.

Administrator of Children and Family Services

Lily’s role encompassed the placement of children with families—whether through foster care or through adoption. Her purview extended to all the families in LA County, and she focused on recruiting foster parents from the API community.

White House Conference on Families

Because of her work traveling through Southern California working with academics, community leaders, and local politicians, LA County Supervisor Yvonne Burke nominated Lily to coordinate the Western White House Conference on Families in 1980 under President Carter. The White House Conference on Families was meant to “shape government policies in ways that will support the family as an institution and the basis of society.”

The conference included single parents, gay and lesbian families, and others, making it more inclusive and realistic about the changes to American society. Lily invited Dorothy Chandler, then-publisher of the Los Angeles Times, to be on the conference advisory committee.