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News and views from progressive Asian Pacific Americans participating in Democratic Party politics. To read about candidates endorsed by the AAA-Fund, visit the official AAA-Fund website. To help support this blog, please consider making a donation. Thank you!
Part four on our speakers from last May’s AAA-Fund Annual Reception introduces the DNC’s new Director of Community Outreach and Voting, Sindy Benavides.
During the reception, Benavides briefly describes her experience working across communities as a person of both Asian and Latin American descent.
Her introduction to the AAA-Fund is a good start to reaching out to the APIA community. I look forward to hearing about the work she will be doing for the community.
-Sally Zhu
In the case of Bernie Madoff, billionaire thief, Judge Denny Chin delivered a resounding blow during judgement - Madoff would be sentenced to the maximum 150 years.
And now, more about man passing judgement:
Judge Chin used to work under Rudy Guiliani, who gave Chin his highest compliment: “He’s not a softie.”
Chin was born in Hong Kong, and came here at 2 with his parents, who settled in a cramped tenement on W. 42nd St.
To support their five kids, his mother worked six days a week in a sweatshop and his father labored nonstop as a cook in a Chinese restaurant.
The epitome of a hardworking immigrant, Chin also managed to defy stereotypes - going to Stuyvesant, but playing football. After attending Princeton and Fordham Law, and a distinguished career, Chin took to the federal bench at age 39. He’s the kind of guy who even gets praise from attorneys whom he’s ruled against:
Even lawyers he’s slammed are Chin fans.
Lawyer Judd Burstein, whom Chin fined $50,000 for “Rambo” tactics in court - a punishment later reversed on appeal - has high praise for the judge.
“I’ve tried three cases before him, and … I can’t think of anyone in that courthouse who is more fundamentally fair than Denny Chin,” Burstein said.
“But he does not like intellectual dishonesty. Not at all.”
I’m glad we have individuals like Judge Chin who are willing to serve as the righteous arm of the law.
– Caroline
The AAA-Fund hosted its annual reception last month on May 13th with several guest speakers from the Democratic National Committee out to show its support for the Asian American community.
Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania started the night off by sharing the similarities of his father’s immigration story with his district’s Asian American community.
Watch this video to hear how this influenced him to join the Congressonal Asian Pacific Caucus. Also, click here if you would like to see more videos covering the annual reception.
-Sally Zhu
Richard Bernstein’s book has garnered a lot of attention both in print and online media recently. His Book, The East, The West, And Sex A History Of Erotic Encounters, attempts to explain relationships between European (and white American) men and non-European (and white American) women, particularly Asian women. The book even discusses such modern conventions as a white American English teacher in Shanghai discussing his sexual exploits in a blog.Like Angry Asian Man, I have not read the book. I have, however, read a number of reviews and several reviews of the reviews.
The book appears to be a waste of good trees — offensive drivel masquerading as an explanation for
Sunny Singh, who has read the book, dismantles it improper generalization by generalization.
Giles at Boston Progress Radio provides my favorite review. Enjoy excerpts:
Throughout the review, Miller uses a loose argument to prove these women are not influenced by colonialism to be with white men, but are choosing white men based on their own free will. But conveniently forgotten in this is that these women are not college-educated middle-class women from Diamond Bar, California. Let’s not pretend we’re talking about two people who met at the gym or in class or at a Starbucks.
There is a tendency to romanticize these relationships, and take ostensibly healthy ones (say Maury Povich and Connie Chung, who are both wealthy and successful and educated) to prove the unhealthy ones (say, American soldiers stationed in Okinawa or ex-Pats in Bangkok) are just fine the way they are. This is akin to saying Phil Jackson coaching Kobe Bryant to an NBA Finals MVP award shows us that white masters and African slaves probably both benefited from that relationship. Idiotic, right?
In 325 pages, Bernstein labors to explain global events and personal encounters leading one to believe he would say this disgusting ad is a good thing. Here and now I would join with Angry Asian Man and Caroline to also be on record in finding mail-order bride “services” despicable.
But what are we to expect from Bernstein — a man whose book contains the “oblique confession to having his first sexual experiences in an Asian brothel
Some of the book’s reviews are also disturbing. As Claire at Hyphen Magazine points out, Laura Miller’s review for Salon completely ignores the perspectives, needs, and value of Asian women. I thank Claire for being the strongest voice (that I’ve come across) come out and say so. But I wish Claire would be more just a little bit more careful with her wording.
It seems, in fact, that now somebody’s written a book about [Asian sexual fetishes] … that somebody being a white dude married to an Asian woman. Sigh.
I understand where Claire is coming from after reading so many reviews. For a reader whose first encounter with Bernstein’s book is in Claire’s post in Hyphen Magazine’s blog, however, the sigh could be misinterpreted. At first glance, one could hope that Bernstein might have written something worth reading. And one could interpret Claire’s sigh — at its extreme — as disappointment with a white guy and an Asian gal being together.
Claire also seems to indicate that even Miller engages in the crux of the Asian sexual fetish, a topic which renders Claire “nauseated” and renders me disgusted at and disenchanted with its purveyors:
But that’s the heart of the fetish, the allure, the lust, isn’t it? A whole group of “ultra feminine” babes whose perspective and desires — for whatever reason: colonial oppression, poverty, submissiveness, etc. — you are politically, economically, and morally empowered to ignore.
Claire’s possibly insensitive writing pales in comparison to a grander display from a comment to her blog post and in Sunny Singh’s blog post itself.
Singh paints with far too broad a brush
I remember that I decided within three months of living in NYC as a teenager that I would never date two categories of men: one, those who professed an interest in India; and two, those who had travelled to India. The first, I had discovered, very quickly were looking for their personal fantasy of the “Kamasutra girl,” an impossible female caricature who was at once intellectually inferior, psychologically submissive and sexually voracious. The second category of men, I admit, seems to be a vast generalisation at first glance. Yet I realised that those who had refused to sample the local flavours at an Indian brothel during trip - due to an innate sense of decency, social or moral qualms, or plain good old upbringing - still nursed the same fantasy: the afore-mentioned Kamasutra girl. They want the final souvenir of their travels East, sex with the Oriental fantasy!
Maybe I don’t get out enough or maybe men in New York are exceedingly horrible people. Even if those are true, as Angry Asian Man would say, that’s racist! It’s also directly offensive to my father.
The comment on Claire’s post
These racial power relations are ALWAYS PRESENT and influence people’s lives from choices in spousal partners; beauty standards; socio-economic status; or job opportunities like … who gets hired to “teach racial politics” at a school and what race they just so happen to be.
Pretending that one’s own personal life is free from these things may help people to rationalize away a guilty conscience, but that’s all it is good for.
And your complaints about the supposed “demeaning” of (your) interracial relationship appear to be just a pretext for downplaying these issues of White Supremacy and power that, for some strange reason, many Euro-Americans want to glibly whitewash away.
rings with truth but is far too overbearing in its assessment. It’s also racist. An interracial relationship is not inherently free of the effects of white supremacy. Nor is a such a relationship inherently tainted with the effects to any extent worth raising a heated discussion about. If someone has been able to move to a point where white supremacy bears only a minute influence upon his or her personal life, that person is not glibly whitewashing away the effects of white supremacy. This is not to say that white supremacy does not continue to impact such a person’s life.
I expect to take flak simply because I’m a white male participating in the conversation. I’m not going to spend my life being a color. I look forward to a continuation of the discussion in the comments here, but I will not engage trolls. I’m a lover, not a fighter.
You can read other reviews of the book at The Buffalo News, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, and Slate
You can read excepts of the book in the New York Times and The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast also has Bernstein’s explanation of how he researched the book.
- Justin Gillenwater
From CNN:
The court’s unanimous, unsigned opinion declared that Franken “received the highest number of votes legally cast” and is entitled “to receive the certificate of election as United States senator from the state of Minnesota.”
AAA-Fund endorsed Franken in his race.
- Justin Gillenwater
In the second installment of videos from our AAA-Fund Annual Reception on May 13th, Congressman Bobby Scott speaks. Our guest speakers from the Democratic National Committee were able to discuss all the hard work they have done to advocate for the APIA communities.
Rep. Scott reflects on work concerning Filipino Veterans, representation in education, healthcare and hatecrimes.
See the AAA-Fund Honorary Board Member speak about the growth of Asian American activism, and also browse through our other amazing speeches throughout the night on our Youtube page.
-Sally Zhu
The AAA-Fund hosted its annual reception last month on May 13th with several guest speakers from the Democratic National Committee out to show its support for the Asian American community.
AAA-Fund Honorary Board member Mazie Hirono shared with us her thoughts on healthcare, a hot topic in the news and our blog. She recognizes the need for great changes to the system.
Take the time to hear her address the push for the public healthcare plan.
You can watch Congresswoman Hirono’s and others’ speeches straight from our Youtube page.
-Sally Zhu
From our friend Brad Lee, President of Korean American Democratic Committee:
Cell Phone Numbers Go Public in July
On July 1, all cell phone numbers will be released to telemarketing companies — and you will start to receive sales calls.
To prevent this, call the National Do Not Call List from your cell phone: 888-382-1222. For only a minute of your time, it will block your number for five years.
The fine print: you must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked; you cannot call from a different phone number.
Protect your cell-phone minutes: dial now.
Dr. Judy Chu is the Chair of the California State Board of Equalization, an Honorary Board member of the Asian American Action Fund, and endsorsed by the Asian American Action Fund in her election in California’s 32nd Congressional District.
Judy Chu for Congress
Cordially invites you to the
“HOME STRETCH” Fundraising Banquet!
Dear Supporter,
We did it! I am now the Democratic nominee for the 32nd Congressional District. With the primary election behind us, I am now focused on winning the General Election on July 14th, 2009.
To that end, I am hosting a “Home Stretch” fundraiser!
While my 23 years representing the people of this district give me a strong advantage to win, I am facing an extremely low-voter turnout (less than 10% of registered voters are projected to turnout), as well as an opponent who shares my last name. Turning out my voters and educating them to vote for the right “Chu” is costly and critical to our victory on July 14th.
I hope I can count on your support for my general election campaign!
With deepest gratitude,
Event Information
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
6 p.m. Social Hour
7 p.m. Dinner
Ocean Star Restaurant
145 N. Atlantic Blvd., 2nd Floor
Monterey Park, CA 91754-1581 (Google Maps directions)
(626) 308-2128
Sponsorship Levels
Platinum Sponsor: $5,000
Diamond Sponsor: $3,500
Silver Sponsor: $2,400
Bronze Sponsor: $1,500
Individual Sponsor: $150
*The July 14th General Election represents a new election cycle for contributions to “Judy Chu for Congress.” Prior contributions to the primary election do not apply to the general election limit of $2400 per individual donor.
Please RSVP by Friday, July 3rd at 310-477-8081 or rsvpforjudychu@gmail.com. Make checks payable to “Judy Chu for Congress.”
Link to Invitation & RSVP Form:
http://www.judychu.net/PDF/finalstretch.pdf
http://www.judychu.net/PDF/finalstretchrsvp.pdf
Contributions to Judy Chu for Congress are not deductible for federal income tax purposes. Judy Chu for Congress may receive contributions of up to $2,400 per election from any individual and $5,000 from any Multi Candidate Committee. Judy Chu for Congress may not accept contributions from corporations, labor unions, federal government contractors or foreign nationals. FEC ID # C00458125, Barbara Chavira, Treasurer,777 S. Figueroa Street, Suite 4050, Los Angeles, CA 90017.
Paid for by
Judy Chu for Congress
c/o AMB
1531 Purdue Ave.
Los Angeles
CA 90025
For more information, please visit my website:
www.judychu.net
The below is a reprint of the original press release.
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) reintroduced a bill today to reunite Filipino World War II veterans who are U.S. citizens and U.S. residents with their children in the Philippines who have languished for years on the visa waiting list. The Filipino Veterans Family Reunification Act of 2009 is cosponsored by Senators Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington).
“In seeking an exemption from the numerical limitation on immigrant visas for the children of the Filipino veterans, our bill will address and resolve an issue rooted in a set of historical circumstances that are now nearly seven-decades old,” Senator Akaka said. “It does not require any appropriation and will serve to reunite these veterans with their children and honor their too-long-forgotten World War II service to this nation.”
Of the 30,000 surviving Filipino World War II veterans, 7,000 are U.S. citizens and reside in this country. Many filed visa petitions for their children, who remained in the Philippines. Now in their 80s and 90s, these men continue to wait for their children, who languish on the visa waiting lists, to join them. This legislation exempts the veterans’ children, about 20,000 individual in all, from the numerical limitation on immigrant visas.
HISTORY OF FILIPINO WWII VETERANS
In 1941, over 200,000 Filipinos were drafted into the United States armed forces and served honorably during World War II. In 1946, Congress passed the Rescissions Act, which authorized a $200 million appropriation to the Commonwealth Army of the Philippines conditioned on a provision that service in the Commonwealth Army of the Phillippines should not be deemed to have been service in the active military or air service of the United States.
It would take Congress more than four decades to acknowledge that the Filipino World War II veterans had, indeed, served in the U.S. armed forces. The Immigration Act of 1990 included a provision that offered the opportunity to obtain U.S. citizenship. And nineteen years later, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 included a provision that authorized the payment of benefits to the 30,000 surviving Filipino veterans in the amount of $15,000 for those who are citizens and $9,000 for those who are non-citizens.
The Politics of Mourning Michael Jackson
With the passing of Michael Jackson, I am 12 years old again and rediscovering the subversiveness of living authentically.
Now, Michael Jackson is not a “John Lennon.” He never used his celebrity status to aid controversial causes like ending a war or freeing political prisoners. He never had a corrupt US president attempt to deport him for his politics. He never wrote a revolutionary song like “Imagine.” Instead, he spent more time bleaching his skin and under the surgical knife, rather than on the picketline. He has been accused of sexually molesting children and careless with his own child, rather than taking time off to be a stay-at-home father. His altruism has usually stayed within the safe boundaries of charity (although, I am little unsure how to categorize his desire to buy the deceased body of the “Elephant Man”).
Yet, I gave up a night’s sleep to turn up the volume along with the masses in listening to the endless musical tributes to the “King of Pop.”
Throughout Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and the other vast populated regions in cyberspace, its citizens detail childhood memories of failed attempts to moonwalk, popping and dancing to his tunes, or feeling the joy, innocence, and inspiration of his beats and sounds. Everybody is back to being a child again. For me, it is about returning to a time of living in the moment. At age 12, we moved from a small largely white New Jersey town to initially live in a predominantly Latino/a urban area in Los Angeles. My younger brother and I would walk to the nearby record store “Discolandia.” I knew little Spanish so I would only understand Michael Jackson’s “Bille Jean,” which they religiously played. When that familiar one-two keyboard sound filled the air, our heads would nod in rhythm with the other young heads in the store. Eventually, some kids broke out in dances imitating Jackson’s moves and we would hold one hand out in the air in honor of the one-gloved wonder. However, the song was also very bittersweet for me because it was one of the last music videos I watched before leaving Jersey. At night, whenever the video would come on, I would miss my old friends and quietly cry with the bedroom door closed.
For me and many others, Michael Jackson and his music were very much part of our cultural landscape growing up, regardless of our musical tastes. It is tied to a time when we were able to fully experience both suffering and joy without intrusion and to live authentically.
This is especially relevant for today. The most devastating result of the current economic crisis is not job loss or declining workplace conditions but the atomization and destruction of community and theft of dignity. Dignity finds substance when we are able to adhere to our values of hard work and individual initiative. When those values lose meaning in a changing economy, the despair is much more profound and community crumbles. We yearn for a better way to relate to our world beyond left and right partisanship.
Many of us chose to remember Michael Jackson, not solely for his talent as a performer but out of a desire to remember what it feels like to be a human again. To feel part of a community again. Even when we acknowledge his flaws, we are recognizing that the painful process of growth always involves some loss. If anything, for those who are politically engaged, his passing instructs us that his music is not some “opiate for the masses” but that we have yet to learn how to touch the hearts of the everyday person on a global scale.
I am not an ardent fan of the music of Michael Jackson, but I appreciate shared smiles and tears and the power of simulating walking on a moon across the Apollo stage.
– John Delloro
Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) is a US Congresswoman and an Honorary Board member of the Asian American Action Fund.
You are cordially invited to a Breakfast Reception honoring Congresswoman Mazie K. Hirono
representing
Hawaii’s 2nd District
Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure
Committee on Education & Labor
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 10:00 a.m.
Johnny’s Half Shell
400 N. Capitol Street, NW (Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps)
Requested Contribution
PACs: $5000 Host | $2500 Sponsor | $1000 Ticket
Individuals: $2400 Host | $1000 Sponsor | $500 Ticket
Contributions should be made payable:
Friends of Mazie Hirono
625 3rd St. NE Suite #2
Washington, DC 20002
RSVP to Madalene at (202) 547-6656 or madalene@arumgroup.com
Friends of Mazie Hirono PO Box 677 Honolulu, HI 96809
Contributions to Friends of Mazie Hirono are not tax deductible. Individual contributions are limited to $2,400 per person, per election. Contributions from the general treasury funds of corporations, labor unions and national banks; federal government contractors and foreign nationals are prohibited. Federal law requires us to use our best efforts to collect and report the full name, mailing address, occupation and employer of any individual whose contributions exceed $200 in an election cycle.
Paid for and authorized by Friends of Mazie Hirono.
RELEASE: June 24, 2009
CONTACT: Naomi T. Tacuyan / naomi@apiavote.org
WASHINGTON, D.C.-The United States Supreme Court on Monday handed down a decision that preserves the Voting Rights Act, effectively avoiding the constitutionality question of Section 5, a key provision which requires certain states and jurisdictions to apply to a federal agency or court for changes to their voting processes, and expanding the ability of political subdivisions to seek “bailout” from Section 5’s preclearance requirements.
Monday’s decision is not necessarily a decisive victory, as the justices almost unanimously united (8-1) to avoid the question of Section 5’s constitutionality. Chief Justice John Roberts stated in his opinion that the ruling did not definitively give an answer to whether Section 5 is relevant today. The Court’s lone dissenter, Justice Clarence Thomas, asserted the unconstitutionality of Section 5, stating that the “violence, intimidation and subterfuge” that caused the passage of Section 5 no longer exists.
The decision was handed down via a limited ruling in the case filed by the Northwest Austin Municipality District in Texas, in which they challenged the constitutionality of Section 5’s “preclearance” requirement, and argued that small districts such as theirs should be exempt from the requirement, since smaller districts do not fall under the definition of “political subdivision” that could be exempt from the preclearance requirement as stated by the Act.
The Voting Rights Act continues to play a key role in protecting voting right for all Americans. Many see the VRA as outdated and antiquated, but in Asian American Pacific Islander and minority communities, barriers to voting and discrimination at the polls still occur.
Texas is one of the states fully covered by Section 5 (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia are also fully covered), and is still a state at which AAPIs experience voting obstacles and discrimination, according to the Asian American Justice Center.
Asian Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) is a national non-partisan, nonprofit organization that encourages and promotes civic participation of Asian Pacific Islander Americans in the electoral and public policy processes at the national, state and local levels. For more information, please visit www.apiavote.org.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND FOR PARTNERS:
Background: Helping Uphold the Voting Rights Act in the Supreme Court
This past March, APIAVote signed on to two amici curiae (”friend of the court”) briefs filed by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), urging the Supreme Court to uphold the ruling regarding the Voting Rights Act in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder. Both briefs address Section 5 of the VRA in particular, as Section 5 requires jurisdictions with atrocious histories of voting discrimination to get federal approval of new voting practices or procedures. This approval or “preclearance” must be in place in order to ensure that the proposed changes will not make it more difficult for racial and ethnic minorities to vote.
AALDEF’s brief cites examples of how Section 5 has protected Asian American voters with regard to school board elections, poll site changes, and compliance with Section 203, the language assistance provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The brief details how Section 5 was used to ensure fully-translated ballots and language assistance at more polling places in growing Asian American neighborhoods. In contrast, and as a signal of the work that still needs to be done, AAJC’S brief underscores the disparities still faced by Asian American populations in Section 5-covered jurisdictions with respect to voter registration and turnout, electoral representation and racial discrimination in voting.
Links:
APIAVote: http://www.apiavote.org/
AALDEF: http://www.aaldef.org/article.php?article_id=395
AAJC: http://www.advancingequality.org/en/rel/157/
Ed. Note: The below is a reprint of the original article.
Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:30pm EDT
By Peter Henderson
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The path to gay marriage in California may start in Chinatown.
After a double defeat at the voting booth and in court, gay advocates are reassessing their plans to push for legal same-sex marriage in the most populous U.S. state.
The new drive, focused on getting the issue on the ballot again as soon as November 2010, is more personal and reaches farther beyond the liberal confines of San Francisco’s Castro or Los Angeles’ gay heartland West Hollywood.
Lost in the 2009 election wreckage for gays was the marriage campaign’s relative success in Asian communities, which have swung toward support of same-sex marriage at a faster rate than the rest of California and have become a model for other groups.
Asian Americans have been building grass-roots support in Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Filipinotown for four years. Gays, lesbians and straight allies have talked about the often-taboo topic of homosexuality, set up booths at festivals, harangued non-English language media to change coverage and lobbied elected officials for support.
“What we felt we had to do is talk to people who aren’t on our side. So that’s why we do these crazy things like walk through the streets of Chinatown as part of the New Year’s Parade. That’s why we go out to festivals from Little India to Little Tokyo and talk to complete strangers,” said Marshall Wong, co-chair of Asia Pacific Islander group API Equality.
From California Controller John Chiang to Star Trek’s Mr. Sulu — actor George Takei — and dismissed U.S. Army Lieutenant Dan Choi, who said he cannot stay silent about his sexuality, Asian community heavyweights have come out in support of gay marriage.
Californians voted to ban gay marriage last November, ending same-sex nuptials a few months after the top court legalized it. The same court in May backed the new ban.
The margin of victory for the ban fell to 4 percent in 2008 from 18 percent in 2000, when a similar vote was held (and later thrown out by the court).
Together ethnic groups can dominate elections. White non-Hispanics have dropped to 43 percent of the population in California, compared with 66 percent nationwide. Asians are 12 percent of Californians, blacks 7 percent and Latinos 36 percent.
Polls of ethnic groups are often controversial because of small survey sizes. But polls of Asians by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center showed a 36 point margin of victory for the ban in 2000, falling to 6 points in 2008. The decline in support was clearly faster than in the state overall, the center said.
Arnold Pamplona, president of the Philippine American Bar Association, said his group was goaded into supporting gay marriage even though it did not seem like a Filipino issue.
“That wasn’t something we were going to touch, because being Filipino American, a great majority of our members are Roman Catholic,” he said.
Gay groups lobbied hard and said past discrimination against the Filipino community was similar to what gays faced, eventually closing the deal on an endorsement from the group — and many other ethnic bar associations and alliances.
“Until not too long ago it was illegal for Filipinos and whites to marry, and a lot of our board members are married to Caucasians,” Pamplona said.
Gays and their allies were shocked by the passage last November of Proposition 8, the California state constitutional amendment which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Ethnic groups said their communities were largely ignored in a one-size-fits all campaign. Many political pundits said support from blacks was instrumental in the passage of the gay marriage ban but one pollster called this an impossible extrapolation from a flawed exit poll.
Pollsters say that factors including education and religiosity correlate more closely with voting patterns than race, but there is still some rancor.
“The campaign made certain efforts to bring people in around the table but didn’t appear to have strong strategies for winning voters in communities of color,” said Wong.
Campaigners for “traditional marriage” feel they have a single message which carries across ethnic groups.
“The issue of defending marriage was a very unifying idea,” said Jeff Flint, one of the campaign managers. His side is credited for doing a much better job of door-knocking and running non-English ads.
Despite gay activists’ hopes for success in ethnic communities, Flint still believes they favor his side. “You have to be working hard, but you have to work on fertile soil. In those communities the soil is more fertile (for us),” Flint said.
Gay and lesbian groups say the Asian push is a strong rebuttal to the view that ethnic groups can foster change.
“I just want to be like them,” said Ron Buckmire of the Jordan/Rustin Coalition, a black group focused on gay and lesbian issues. But he said the black community needs a different approach than Asians or Latinos.
Buckmire, who once gave a lecture “Gay is Not the New Black,” said his community is wary of easy comparisons between African-American civil rights and gay rights.
“Three hundred years of slavery,” he said, “that is not the same thing as not being allowed to get married.”
Ari Gutierrez, a leader of the new Latino Equality Alliance, has also been watching the way Asians organized. One big lesson is the success of connecting the issue to family members and individuals and their stories rather than dealing in abstracts.
“Familia trumps religion,” she said.
Supporting gays and lesbians and getting them to tell their stories will be part of her group’s push for acceptance.
(Reporting by Peter Henderson; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Long Beach Councilmember Robert Garcia has endorsed Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). The youngest Councilmember to be elected to City Hall, Garcia is the first Latino to serve in the Long Beach City Council.
In 2006, Long Beach taxpayers paid a total of $2.5 million for an April primary election and a June runoff election. If IRV had been used then, over $1.3 million of precious tax dollars would have been saved.
To bring IRV to Long Beach, voters need to approve an amendment to the City Charter. For this to happen, the City Council must first approve a bill to put IRV on the ballot.
Councilmembers Suja Lowenthal and Gary DeLong have also endorsed IRV, along with Long Beach City College Trustee Mark Bowen.
The Dean of Student Affairs at Long Beach City College, Garcia has also taught Communication Studies at both Cal State Long Beach and Long Beach City College as a part-time faculty member.
– Gautam Dutta
An op-ed by AAA Fund Honorary Chair Congressman Mike Honda and Congressman Raul Grijalva as published in Politico. (And the title is apt.) This op-ed comes on the heels of 120 members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Progressive Caucus saying that they will vote down any health care bill that lacks a public option.
Public option is key to health reform
By Rep. Mike Honda and Rep. Raul Grijalva
6/24/09
Seventy-two percent of the American people support a robust public health insurance option that is available to everyone. A public option is good for our families, is good for the American economy and is supported by the American public. As Congress moves forward with health care reform legislation this summer, we must include in our final reform package a robust public option linked to an existing federal provider network — for example, the Medicare network.
The current system is broken. Today, skyrocketing health care costs continue to crush the pocketbooks of our families and businesses. Far too many others in our country continue to go without basic health coverage, posing public health risks and driving up costs for everyone. Finally, our current system is not comprehensive, as it fails to address the health care needs of racial, ethnic and other minorities.
The current system is not affordable for our families. Health care premiums have doubled over the past nine years, three times faster than wages have increased. A daunting 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies were due to medical costs in 2007. The goal of President Barack Obama and our goal is the same: It is to ensure high-quality, affordable health care for all.
The two of us are supporters of the single-payer approach. However, we acknowledge the current political realities of health care reform. We praise Obama and the congressional leadership for their commitment to reduce health care costs for families, businesses and government — and a public option would do just that.
Private insurance companies would be forced to compete with an affordable, high-quality option. We would expand choice in the health insurance market, while allowing families to keep the health care plans they like. By increasing choice and competition, we would be able to lower costs for all.
The current system is inefficient, as it fails to provide health care coverage to close to 46 million people, including 8 million children. Failure to cover the uninsured further drives up our health care costs. The uninsured are less likely to visit the doctor regularly and less likely to receive quality primary-care and preventive services. These are crucial to assessing and managing major health risks. The uninsured have a 25 percent higher mortality risk and higher rates of death from preventable illness than the insured.
We must expand coverage under a strong public option, as it would increase access to primary and preventive care, which would in the long run lower costs. This is particularly critical when we look at the racial and ethnic health disparities among the uninsured population.
The current system also fails to provide high-quality care for all, particularly for ethnic and racial minorities. In communities as diverse as the Asian, Hispanic, African diasporas and Native American communities, cultural and language barriers pose a challenge to providing high-quality care for all.
The lack of medical interpreters and translators often leads to devastating consequences, including misdiagnosis or mistreatment, or places young children in immigrant families in the awkward position of providing medical translations. We know that private providers and insurers have for the most part failed to meet the needs of these underserved communities. A robust public option that reflects sensitivity toward these diverse populations offers us the opportunity to get it right.
In our roles as chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, we are working intimately with our colleagues in the Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses to ensure that the needs of the most underserved and vulnerable populations in our country are met during the health care debate.
These four caucuses are standing united in support of a robust public health insurance option that is available to all and that is linked to an existing federal provider network. Together, we make up 112 votes in the House of Representatives and five votes in the Senate. We stand united with 72 percent of the American people in support of meaningful reform that includes a robust public option that is available to all.
America can do better to provide affordable and quality care for those on her shores and her territories. A strong public option is a critical component of health care reform, ensuring affordability and expanding health care coverage to all, and it will be critical in addressing all health disparities. America deserves a health care system that enables everyone to live a healthier and happier life.
Rep. Mike Honda is chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Rep. Raul Grijalva is co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
– Caroline
TMZ: Michael Jackson dies of a heart attack.
Update: Our condolences to the families of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.
– Gautam Dutta
A great interview over at Columbia Journalism Review with Wendell Potter, the former head of corporate communications for CIGNA on the health care industry’s obfuscation and tactics to prevent true reforms. Potter has since seen the light and now works to expose the industry’s schemes including dropping people and businesses from coverage to maintain medical loss ratios.
A brief snippet of an illuminating interview:
WP: I can’t recall a reporter ever probing how insurers manage to meet Wall Street’s expectations through medical management and claims practices, which are key ways to manipulate the medical loss ratio and dump unprofitable accounts. Not once was I asked by a reporter what happens to people who work for small and mid-sized companies that get “purged” by insurers because their employees’ claims were causing the insurer’s medical loss ratio to move in the wrong direction from an investor’s point of view. No one ever asked me about the human consequences of satisfying Wall Street. Most reporters are happy to do a superficial job.
TL: How do companies manipulate the medical loss ratio?
WP: They look at expensive claims of workers in small businesses who are insured by the company, and the claims of people in the individual market. If an employer-customer has an employee or two who has a chronic illness or needs expensive care, the claims for the employee will likely trigger a review. Common industry practice is to increase premiums so high that when such accounts come up for renewal, the employer has no choice but to reduce benefits, shop for another carrier, or stop offering benefits entirely. More and more have opted for the last alternative.
Forcing businesses that want to provide health care to drop coverage, or forcing individuals and families to lose coverage or to never gain it by denying them based on “preexisting conditions” - either way it’s a dirty practice and one that leaves millions uninsured.
Go read the article in full.
– Caroline
Or that’s the deal that Vietnamese Brides International was offering, under the auspices of Diners Club. The going rate was $8000, broken down into convenient $167/month charges on your credit card. That’s $8000 for a human person to be sold, and another family impacted. And by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable chunks, Diners Club was condoning the immoral exchange of people for cash. (Mail order brides might be legal, but it doesn’t make it morally or ethically right in many circumstances.) And as a vulnerable population, they tend to be subject to exploitation, domestic abuse, violence, rape, and worse.
Change.org had a campaign up to prevent this from happening, and after 800 people contacted Diners Flub, they stopped being the fiscal transactor. I understand that credit card companies have few boundaries and are willing to sponsor everything from sports teams to colleges and universities and celebrities, but there really ought to be some limits.
Besides, didn’t Diners Club originate as a rewards membership card?!? What does that say about them joining in on mail order brides? Wikipedia has this line on the company: “Diners Club created what would later be dubbed the Travel & Entertainment (T&E) card market, which focused on cardholders who were frequent travellers and had a substantial income to pay for other high-value charges.” Yeah, it’s all in bad taste.
(h/t RaceWire)
– Caroline
Watch the press conference here. TPM coverage here.
Not much to say, except this is probably textbook for how NOT to break news of an affair (i.e. after the national news media are wondering where you’ve gone. Then your staff covers by saying you’re hiking the Adirondack Trail . . . on the same day as “National Nude Hiking Day” which causes people to worry about the Boy Scouts who hike the AT, as well as questions about your sanity.)
Someone asked me why he’s only resigning his GOP post at the Republican Governors’ Association and not his gubernatorial position, and I said, “Well, it’s not like he’s in there for that much longer. He only has time to refuse more money for the state and cause a general GOP meltdown.”
Oh, and for those of you who incorrectly think that this was some nefarious Democratic plot, let’s keep in mind that the instigators were his own Lt. Gov (a Republican who’s running for Gov.) and a Republican state senator. Even Republicans are pointing fingers at each other: South Carolina state Sen. Greg Ryberg (R) called the story the work of “well documented Republican political adversaries of the governor.”
Indian American State Rep. Nikki Haley, who Sanford had said complimentary things about for her race to be Gov. promptly scrubbed her website of his photo and quote.
I think that’s enough of that. Oh, and GOP2012FAIL.
–Caroline
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
8:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
New America Foundation
1899 L St NW, 4th Floor
Washington, DC 20036
On June 22, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its much-anticipated voting rights ruling in the NAMUDNO case (Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder). Many long-time experts are sifting through the decision to understand the broad implications for the future of voting rights protections and minority representation in the United States.
In addition, ongoing demographic shifts in our national mosaic are creating more situations where alternatives to single-seat districts, including proportional voting methods, may be necessary to ensure diverse representation. This is an opportune time to renew the national conversation about the future of voting rights.
The New America Foundation is joining with longtime fair elections advocates FairVote to organize “The Future of the Voting Rights Act” in which some of the nation’s top voting rights experts will come together to review NAMUDNO and its impacts, and think more expansively about voting rights and representation.
8:30 - 9:00 a.m .
Coffee and light breakfast
9:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.
Welcome
Steven Hill
Director, Political Reform Program, New America Foundation
The Hon. John Anderson
Former Congressman (R-IL)
FairVote Board Member
9:15 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Historical OverviewAlex Keyssar
Stirling Professor of History, Harvard University
Author, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States
9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
The Supreme Court and Minority Voting Rights: A Discussion of NAMUDNO and Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor
The Hon. Jamin Raskin
Maryland State Senator, (D-20)
Director of the Law and Government Program, Washington College of LawEddie Hailes
Senior Attorney, The Advancement Project
Kristen Clarke
Co-director, Political Participation Group of the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund
Ronald Walters
Director, African American Leadership Center, University of Maryland
Nathaniel Persily
Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law and Political Science, Columbia Law School
Lisa Bornstein
Senior Counsel, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Moderator
Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote - The Center for Voting and Democracy
11:00 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.
Break
11:15 am - 12:30 pm
After NAMUDNO: Fair Representation in a Changing America
Myrna Pérez
Brennan Center, Counsel on Democracy
Jon Greenbaum
Legal Director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Jason Harris
Legislative Director for Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
Steven Mulroy
Associate Professor of Law, University of Memphis School of Law
Shelby County Board of Commissioners
Michael McDonald
Associate Professor of Government and Politics, George Mason University
Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings Institution
Amy Ngai
Director, Program for Representative Government, FairVote
Moderator
Steven Hill
Director, Political Reform Program, New America Foundation
To RSVP for the event, click on the red button or go to the event page:
http://www.newamerica.net/events/2009/future_voting_rights_act
For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at (202) 596-3367 or gunter@newamerica.net.
Congressman Adam Schiff (CA-29)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, June 18, 2009
CONTACT: Sean Oblack, 202-226-8348
Schiff Introduces Resolution Urging Release of American Journalists Held by North Korea
WASHINGTON, DC – Late yesterday, Rep. Adam Schiff, co-chair of the Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press, introduced a resolution urging North Korea to release American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee on humanitarian grounds. Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee have been held since March 17th when they were detained by North Korean soldiers on the border between China and North Korea. On June 8th, the Korean Central News Agency reported that Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee had been tried for violating North Korean law and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor.
“Laura Ling and Euna Lee are two respected American journalists and should be released and returned to their families,” said Schiff. “This resolution is a simple humanitarian appeal to North Korea to release Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee; they should not be used as pawns in the standoff between Pyongyang and the international community over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”
Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee’s case has drawn international attention. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the journalists’ families, international press freedom advocacy organizations, and major national news publications have all called for their release.
You ever go to the airport and wonder what’s the deal with the special “VIP” line for people who are willing to pay $199 to get faster clearance (essentially paying for the government to upgrade you in their databases.) As Atrios says, “our identity-verification security system doesn’t make any sense” and it especially doesn’t make sense that if you pay more money, you’re somehow automatically less suspect.
Well, now those lines are no more - no more preferential treatment for rich people who are willing to throw away $200 because the company that ran those lines is out of business. This leaves a bunch of business travelers and frequent fliers in the lurch. But hey, maybe outsourcing elements of security (and allowing it to be run for profit) maybe wasn’t the best idea to begin with, ya know?
– Caroline
California State Assembly Member Paul Fong recently proposed a resolution that will recognize the important contributions of the Chinese American and Chinese immigrant communities in the Golden State’s history. From the work on the transcontinental railroads to the fishing industries, the bill will remind the Chinese community its work has not been forgotten. The resolution, ACR 42, is also set to get the state to officially apologize for many of its historically discriminative policies towards the Chinese communities of the state.
From the assembly resolution itself:
“…while this nation was founded on the principle that all men are created equal…we recognize that the practices of our state and its government have not always honored that promise…Today that struggle continues, and learning from our past will help enable us to travel further down the path toward building a more perfect Union…
…the Legislature deeply regrets the enactment of past discriminatory laws and constitutional provisions which resulted in the persecution of Chinese living in California, which forced them to live in fear of unjust prosecutions on baseless charges, and which unfairly prevented them from earning a living. The Legislature regrets these acts and reaffirms its commitment to preserving the rights of all people and celebrating the contributions that all immigrants have made to this state and nation…”
Thank you Mr. Fong.
-Sally Zhu
July 23rd is National Dream Act Graduation Day! On behalf of the undocumented youth in the United States, cities like Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago and Houston will be hosting a mock graduation in efforts to bring awareness to the struggles of the graduating, undocumented high school students. These youth, who by then will have just received their high school diploma, will be limited to hard labor jobs under the table, never to be able to utilize their education, talents and abilities.
In thirteen states, supporters will be gathering to advocate on behalf of the dream we all share, the American Dream. Rallying for the passage of the DREAM Act this upcoming fall, the mock graduations will allow for students to share their stories on why they, as good people, can’t make minimum wage, why they can’t get a license, and most importantly why they cannot live a life free of fear.
The reason why I bring this up is because we often forget that the undocumented community includes our families, our Asian American communities, too. Too often members of our community don’t get the help they need, facing so many other obstacles, too, such as underrepresentation, language limitations and the Model Minority stigma. With the misunderstanding that the undocumented community consists of only the Latin American communities, our friends and families never get the help they need. Especially since a lot of members of our community who are undocumented never know that their visas expire, or how to go about the path to