Ed. Note: The below is from our friends at the APALA.

APALA Members and Allies,

On June 5, 2010, John Delloro, APALA’s National President, passed away at the age of 38 in Los Angeles, California. John dedicated over two decades of his life to fight on behalf of working people, originally as an organizer, later as a labor educator. John embodied the APALA spirit, graduating from the APALA Organizing Institute, serving as the President of the Los Angeles Chapter, before being elected as one of the youngest individuals to serve as our National President. The impact that John had on APALA, the labor movement, as well as the broader social justice movement, is reflected in the outpouring of support that we have received on his behalf.

Memorial services were organized in his memory in Los Angeles and Oakland, California and Washington DC, with plans for a celebration of his life in Seattle, Washington. At the memorial service in Los Angeles, Congresswoman Judy Chu, Assemblyman Warren Furutani, Assemblyman Mike Eng and Dolores Huerta were some of the individuals that formally paid homage to John’s life. In Washington DC, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, AFT Secretary-Treasurer Antonia Cortese and SEIU President Mary Kay Henry were among the labor leaders that recognized John’s contributions to the national labor movement.

Congressman Mike Honda, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, submitted a Statement for the Record on behalf of John, memorializing his name in the annals of Congress. In California, Assemblyman Mike Eng adjourned session in John’s memory and the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution in his memory. These formal acknowledgements of John Delloro only capture a segment of John’s influence and impact on our work.

John electrified APALA, sparked a movement that brought a wave of young leaders into the organization, initiated an effort to strengthen student and worker solidarity and inspired emerging Asian Pacific American activists across the country to learn more about our history and to contemplate a life building power for working people. He transformed APALA and fundamentally altered the trajectory of the Asian Pacific American labor movement and we are forever grateful for his contributions and his dedication to advocate on behalf of working families. It is with a heavy heart that we move forward in John’s honor to continue his life work and to honor his memory.

Together we must continue to fight for Immigration Reform that protects all workers and their families, be they documented or not, to fight for the Dream Act, to help the Obama administration implement Health Care Reform and make changes over the next few years so all workers have access to quality healthcare and that we continue to advocate for and help past the Employee Free Choice Act so all workers can organize into a union without fear of retaliation or losing their job. It is all of our responsibility to work within our own individual unions to build APALA and grow the labor movement.

John Delloro is survived by his wife Dr. Susan Suh, and his children Mina and Malcolm. I humbly request all APALA members and allies to consider making a contribution to the John Delloro Memorial Fund to support his family. The address to send donations is:

John Delloro Memorial Fund
LACCD Foundation c/o Rix Bradford Associates
512 N. Larchmont Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90004

Checks should be made payable to LACCD Foundation/John Delloro Memorial Fund.

In Solidarity,
Luisa Blue,
APALA First Vice President

Grassroots Activism, Healthcare, Immigration, John Delloro | No Comments »

Ed.’s Note: This memorial service honors the late John Delloro, a AAA-Fund Blog contributor and AAA-Fund friend. The Facebook group In Memory of John Delloro will also have updates.

You are invited to attend a memorial service to celebrate the lives and honor the legacies of three young progressive leaders:

John Delloro, APALA National President, Cinthya Felix and Tam Tran, graduate students and national spokespersons for the DREAM Act.

In lieu of flowers, organizers respectfully request that a donation be made to support John, Cinthya and Tam’s families. Make checks payable to “John Delloro Memorial Fund” and drop-off or mail to either:

UCLA Asian American Studies Department
Attention: Stacey Hirose
3336 Rolfe Hall, Box 957225
Los Angeles, CA 90095-7225
www.asianam.ucla.edu

UCLA Asian American Studies Center
Attention: Meg Thornton
3230 Campbell Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546
www.aasc.ucla.edu

To RSVP, please contact APALA at 202-508-3733 or .

Co-Sponsors: AFL-CIO, AFT, APALA, United We Dream and USSA
Thursday, June 17, 2010
5:00 – 6:30 pm
AFL-CIO
815 16th Street NW
Washington, DC

John Delloro | 1 Comment »

John’s brother, Alvin, put together a Facebook group In Memory of John Delloro to update the public.

The dates are set for the viewing -
Thursday June 10, 2010 5:00-9:00pm
Friday June 11, 2010 5:00-9:00pm

Mission Hills Catholic Mortuary
11160 Stranwood Ave
Mission Hills, CA 91345

The funeral is set for Saturday June 12, 2010.
Location and time TBD

AAA Fund, John Delloro | No Comments »

##############################
Asian American Action Fund
Online Newsletter
Volume 10, Number 13, June 7, 2010
For more, visit www.aaa-fund.org
Send comments to info@aaa-fund.org.
Subscribe and unsubscribe info below.
******************************
1. John Delloro, RIP
2. Californians – Vote tomorrow!
******************************
1. John Delloro, RIP

John Delloro, a Filipino American labor leader
from Southern California and member of our
AAA-Fund blog team, died of a heart attack
yesterday.  The AAA-Fund board and blogteam
send our heartfelt condolences to his family.

John was executive director of the Dolores
Huerta Labor Institute, national president of
the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance,
and a former staffer for SEIU and AFCSME in
Southern California.

To read blog pieces by and about John, visit
http://www.aaa-fund.com/?cat=67

RIP, John, and thanks for leaving the world
better than you found it.

MORE:  http://www.aaa-fund.com/?p=5137

******************************
2. Vote tomorrow!

If you live in California, make sure to vote
on Tuesday.  If you don’t, please forward this
to friends and family in California. Here are
AAA-Fund’s endorsements for the June 8
California primary election:

California Attorney General:  Ted Lieu and
Kamala Harris (dual endorsement)

US Congress:  Mike Honda (District 15) and
Ami Bera (District 3)

California State Assembly
(District 20):  Garrett Yee

In addition, AAA-Fund of Southern California
makes the following recommendations:

Proposition 13:  YES.  It will in effect give
a tax break to retrofit buildings for earthquakes.

Proposition 14:  Leaning no.  This measure
(which some of our friends are supporting) could
give one party a monopoly on certain elections.
And if it passes, party leaders might put pressure
on Asian Americans not to run for office.

Proposition 15:  Leaning yes.  This measure sets
up a pilot program to offer matching funds for
candidates for California Secretary of State.

Proposition 16:  NO.  PG&E’s brazen measure would
ban cities from helping lower our utility rates.

Proposition 17:  NO.  Mercury Insurance’s brazen
measure would raise auto insurance rates for
thousands of drivers.

This Tuesday, make a difference:  vote.

MORE:  http://www.aaa-fund.com/?p=5148

2010 Campaign, AAA Fund, California, John Delloro, The Editors | No Comments »

I think John would understand that I borrowed a title from Ishle Yi Park.

Today is a heavy day. Today I learned that John Delloro, AAAF blogger and Asian American labor leader, died of heart complications. Even when I was a young organizer, John was encouraging and supportive of my efforts. He was a mentor to so many students and young organizers, paying forward what he had received from other Asian American organizers. John came of age when there weren’t that many APA organizers, but what he learned he put to use teaching at community college and training young activists. John was a teacher and an activist and a champion for the underserved.

I can’t count how many lives he touched, from the workers he organized, to the students that he taught, to the organizers who he mentored. He seemed to have an extraordinary amount of energy. His writing was reflective and proactive, all at once – full of wit, wisdom, and will.

Just today we pulled off an amazing hearing in New York. John would have been proud of us – the NY crew was really happy, and so was Amado. We were thrilled with the turnout and how much the movement has grown and evolved. Then we got the news of his passing. We rededicate ourselves to building the movement, making it more inclusive, and training a new generation of leaders.

Not everyone gets to do what they love, but John lived his life true. His minutes mattered. I just want to quote from his personal blog, Burning Cane:

Fire has always signaled a cycle of resistance and rebirth in US history. Flames devoured the sugar cane fields of Hawai’i at the turn of the century as Asian immigrant workers clashed with the boss, the police and a system that trampled both their dignity and decent living underfoot. From its embers, interethnic solidarity and a solid tradition of unionism left standing. In 1991, Amerasia Journal entitled their special issue of literary works “Burning Cane” to give name to the cultural resistance represented within its pages. This blog wishes to continue carrying the torch with essays releasing both heat and light.

John, my thoughts are with you wherever you are. Know that you lit the way for a lot of people. And know that I will keep your spirit with me by mentoring other young Asian Americans.

– Caroline

Caroline, John Delloro, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

To resolve the economic woes and tensions between the Irish and the English, writer Jonathan Swift, in his timeless 1729 classic, A Modest Proposal, suggested that the Irish poor sell their children as food for the rich. However, as I waited in the returns line at Costco, I hit upon a solution to our difficult times that is less shocking than Swift’s proposal and very much within the all-American tradition – “Return Arizona to Mexico and get our money back.”

Almost every major immigrant rights organization has set their crosshairs on Arizona. With a simple signature, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer enacted into law SB1070, which opponents claim would promote racial profiling, and HB2281, which would ban ethnic studies. A number of cities, organizations, and high-profile individuals have lined up to condemn and boycott the state for its racism. Most recently, the City of Los Angeles has joined the growing crowd with their own formal boycott resolution.

On the opposite side of the aisle, supporters of Arizona shake their heads in disagreement and decry the decline of civilization and opportunity within their own backyards. They argue that SB1070 is about the irresponsibility of the federal government and HB2281 is about schools teaching students to value each other as individuals, rather than inculcate them in divisive “ethnic solidarity.”

In the backdrop, despite our nation recovering from near financial collapse and a rising GDP, wealth remains largely in a few hands and have not reached hardworking patriots through higher pay and better benefits or simply more jobs. Major deficits still plague many states. During tight economic periods, especially whenever the election cycle begins its next revolution, elected leaders and large segments of US working families have historically and divisively fingered the blame on immigrants. Currently, Arizona has become ground zero for this type of fight. Do we really need these tensions now?

Back in the 1800s, when Mexico had to cede two-fifths of their land to the US after losing a war to them, the entrepreneurial US Minister to Mexico James Gadsen and his allies saw an opportunity and wanted more. James, who was also president of the Southern Carolina Railroad Company, had long dreamt of tying together all the Southern railroads into one Southern transcontinental railroad to the Pacific thus rendering the West economically dependent on the South, not the North (Coincidently, Jefferson Davis, who would become president of the Confederate states during the Civil War, helped James obtain this governmental position). He needed land for a railroad route and so the US purchased for 15 million dollars, which is the equivalent to $376 million today, nearly 30,000,000 acres of land, which is now a portion of New Mexico and largely Arizona (In 1854, when the residents of Arizona sought to form a territorial government, they considered naming their state Gadsonia, a Latin adaptation of Gadsden).
Well, it is no longer the 1800s. Does Arizona add anything to our national purse today?

According to the Northeast Midwest Institute, Arizona received more federal funds than its state taxpayers put in (Arizona received $1.19 in federal funds for every dollar spent by a taxpayer in 2005 whereas California only got $.80 for every dollar spent). They were rewarded over a $139 million in stimulus funds from the Federal Government in 2009. After the recent passage of 2010 Healthcare Reform, Arizona did refuse federal funds to administer the temporary high-risk insurance pool, which would have extended health care insurance to those who were rejected from a health care insurance plan due to pre-existing medical conditions (However, Arizona will not create or run it so the responsibility will fall onto the Federal Government). For a state with a long history in the “State Rights versus Federal Rights” battle beginning with the Civil War, they sure take in more than a pretty penny from the Federal Government.

With Governor Brewer signing SB1070, Arizona has made clear its desire for autonomy from the Federal Government. This new law directly challenges the Plenary Power doctrine, which grants decision-making authority exclusively to the Federal Government without constitutional review. This policy only applies to the areas of war and immigration since they fall under the concept of national sovereignty—the sole domain of the Federal Government. They clearly wish to escape from under the purview of our national government.

So, let us hand Arizona back to Mexico. Not only can we request our refund, we can save on what we are already spending on the state. In fact, we can probably ask for more since we are returning an Arizona with more developed land and attractive tourist sites (Only 15% of the region is privately owned and the rest are parks and other pleasant natural formations like the Grand Canyon). Plus, we are the US, the world needs us (Remember, the global economy went into a tailspin when we hit major financial crisis in 2007).

I’m absolutely sure that the bordering states of California, Utah, New Mexico, and Nevada could use the money to help further stimulate their economies.

Re-configuring our national borders will be relatively manageable since Arizona is already geographically connected to Mexico and it was the last landlocked state to become part of the US.
Additionally, this is a win-win for Arizona as well. Not only will they be free of the yoke of oppression of the US Federal Government, their “illegal immigration” issue will be largely resolved. Many of the undocumented immigrants will already be Mexican citizens. Arizona will be free of any legal challenges or bureaucratic red tape around their educational policy to ban ethnic studies. However, they will probably need to institute their own special ethnic studies classes since there may be some discomfort with the possibility that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Gadsen Purchase may be characterized as “land grabs” and that it may be taught that English-only policies and discrimination towards Mexican residents living in the area prior to the US-Mexican War are violations of international agreements between the US and Mexico.

If residents of Arizona want to remain citizens of the US, they can go through the same process that all immigrants undergo. They can apply for employment-based visas if they possess any professional and technical skills, especially in the sciences and computer technology. Since the Immigration Act of 1990, they can defacto buy their way into the US by voluntarily investing a “million dollars” in the US. However, if they attempt to enter through family reunification visas, the sponsor must be able to support the immigrant at an annual income not less than 125% of the federal level. Additionally, the sponsor must also be earning enough to support him or herself at minimally the same level of income.

When they land in the US, they must remember that if he or she goes on public benefits within the first five years they will be deported. Additionally, the family sponsor will be billed the cost of the benefits used and will be penalized $5,000 if a payment is not made. In fact, according to the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, new immigrants are already barred from public benefits for 10 years. Woe to the Arizonan-Mexican immigrant who is “convicted of a crime for which a sentence of one year or longer may be imposed” within five years after entry. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 states that they will be deported and have no right to due process. For example, if an immigrant is convicted for a crime like urinating on the grounds of a public park, they will be deported without any judicial review.

We must not underestimate the potential danger of illegal Arizonan-Mexicans crossing the border. I am especially nervous about the ones who defiantly hold onto their guns, deride our national government as socialist and liken our democratically elected president to Hitler (I have heard rumors that some of them may have literally spat on some of our Congress members). We must secure our borders and ensure our safety by enhancing our ability to identify and deport illegal Arizonan-Mexicans. Of course, we will not engage in racial profiling so I will simply display photos of the more prominent Arizonan-Mexicans as a guide:

Some private citizens will argue that our economy may still need to rely on these illegal Arizonan-Mexicans. Considering Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in Arizona, this is a workforce conditioned to low wages and little benefits and may be a solution to our ability to save on labor costs and grow our economy. They are already familiar with the US culture and language. It would cost less than deporting them. However, if we pursue legalization, we may be sending out the wrong message and leaving out crucial cultural considerations.

In 1979, President Ronald Reagan, when he launched his presidential run, proposed a “North American Accord,” where people and commerce would freely cross the borders of Mexico and Canada. Underpinning Reagan’s position is the idea that migration is a part of the logic of the global market, rather than narrowly defining immigrants as parasites within the framework of American exceptionalism. He once stated, “It makes one wonder about the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won’t do? One thing is certain in this hungry world: No regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters.”

All due respect to President Reagan, I have friends who are Arizonan-Mexicans but I just can’t see them sweating out in the fields and picking vegetables. Their white skins burn too easily under the sun.
I definitely can see them letting the “crops rot in the field” and making a fuss about working below minimum wage for over 11 hours a day with no overtime. They don’t seem to realize that once the owners acquire enough wealth, it will eventually reach them. They lack the patience and discipline to properly prepare for the national cyclical boom and bust of our economic system. It is just the system cleaning itself out and engaging in the “creative destruction” of the market. Additionally, a certain degree of unemployment is necessary to maintain competitive salaries and quality products. Again, I have friends who are Arizonan-Mexicans and one was even my date for the high school prom but they are just too self-centered and only worry about themselves and no one else.

We are at a crucial crossroads and Arizona stands like a signpost in front of us. We can either go the direction of progress or regress as a nation. Giving back Arizona may potentially jumpstart our economy and stimulate our national imagination towards creating a greater common vision. If returning Arizona to Mexico doesn’t work, we can always revisit and adapt Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal and sell and consume undocumented immigrants as food in the ultimate and most seamless form of assimilation into the body politic of the US.

Si, se puede. Yes, we can.

– John Delloro

Ed. Note: The below is also published at LA Progressive.

Immigration, John Delloro | 2 Comments »

May is officially Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, an homage to Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) accomplishments, but the origin story of this special month is our cautionary tale for the 21st Century. For Jeanie Jew, a former national president of the Organization of Chinese American Women, the absence of the contributions of AAPIs in the US’s bicentennial celebrations in 1976 set her on a quest to rectify this blindness. However, the stories of her grandfather and his peers ignited the flame which fueled her passion for this nation and continue to burn in the memories of many AAPIs who descended from those who worked the land and laid the railroad tracks at the turn of the 20th Century.

In 1977, Jeanie Jew and Congressional staffer Ruby Moy sought the help of Congress members Frank Horton (R-NY) and Norman Mineta (D-CA) who successfully introduced House Resolution 540 to designate the first 10 days of May as a time to recognize the achievements of AAPIs. US Senators Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and Spark Matsunaga (D-HI) initiated a similar bill, Senate Resolution 72, in the same year with President Jimmy Carter signing the Joint Resolution (Public Law 49-419) on October 5, 1978. By October 28, 1992, with unanimous support from both the House of Representatives and the Senate, President George Bush signed Public Law 102-450 which permanently designated the whole month of May as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Two important historical events justified May as the choice month: the first major migration of Japanese into the US on May 7, 1843 and the completion of the transcontinental railroad, largely built by Chinese immigrants, on May 10, 1869, also known as “Golden Spike Day.”

Jeanie’s grandfather, M.Y. Lee, was part of the wave of Chinese immigrants who lifted and set down heavy iron rails and hammered the stakes into the ground which allowed the social and economic engine of the US to roll from coast to coast. During the 1800s and much of the 20th Century, US citizens blamed Chinese and other AAPI immigrants for their domestic woes. For these white citizens, AAPI immigrants conjured images of opium dens, rat-eating sexual deviants preying on white women, and “coolie” labor who robbed them of livelihood and devoured, like locust, the riches of the land. AAPIs were not seen as the successful “model minority” currently bandied about today. Despite having helped built the first US transcontinental railroad that enabled the nation’s economy to expand westward, Jeanie’s grandfather was spat upon and cursed. He was later killed for speaking out on behalf of Chinese immigrants.

AAPIs would become the first group to be racially profiled in US immigration law with the passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese workers from entering the US and several subsequent laws such as the 1917 Asiatic Barred Zone, which restricted most immigrants of AAPI descent.

The adoption of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month was a partial dream fulfilled for Jeanie Jew. She would reflect, “My dream continues. Hopefully I’ll live long enough to see more of my dream realized. It is a journey, it is a dream; it is an Asian American dream for us to continue because each generation puts their stamp on what this month means to them.”

With the recent passage of SB1070, which opens the gate to racial profiling, and the adoption of an educational policy that seeks to ban ethnic studies and teachers with an accent to teach English in Arizona, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month becomes a crucial time for needed remembrance and reflection in the 21st Century. To truly celebrate the struggles and contributions of AAPIs in this country, we need to stop repeating history. We need to continue to courageously speak like Jeanie’s grandfather and fully realize her dream now.

– John Delloro

John Delloro, Social Justice | 1 Comment »

Dear Tea Partiers and your supporters,

With the signing of Arizona’s SB1070, this is your chance to prove that you are not racists.

Signs declaring that you are not racist doesn’t cut it. Putting your friends or family members of color up for show only make you 21st Century caricatures of yourselves (It is as laughable as a white man proving he is not racist by showing off his Jackson 5 music collection while supporting racial segregation in the South during the 1960s). Neither does showcasing your spokespersons of color. For Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, we had S.I. Hayakawa in the 1960s who trumpeted that World War II Internment was a good thing for Japanese Americans (Sorry, I forgot one of your own stars Michelle Malkin also supports this view).

You have clearly stated your active opposition to Hitler-like and totalitarian regimes. The image of a uniformed officer saying, “show me your papers!” definitely has that oppressive stamp. A law that allows police the authority to demand papers from someone if they look like an “illegal immigrant” and criminalizes, fines, and possibly imprisons legal noncitizen residents if they don’t carry their documents on them has definite Gestapo overtures (Please, don’t bring up drivers licenses. Currently, police cannot pull you over if they think you don’t have one so it does not apply). This definitely smacks of “big government,” which you abhor. Do you really believe that an officer should be allowed to have this power even if they don’t use it? Would it be ok if there was a gun control law that enabled an officer without court order to search your house if you look like you may be a gun carrier?

Lets be frank with ourselves, no one white will be suspect. This issue has been clearly racialized. The front page of the Boston Herald on April 27, 2010, in the aftermath of SB1070, declared “Mass. Cracks down on Illegals” and showed a picture of three people of color with the following words stamped on their foreheads: a Latino with “No Tuition,” an Asian man with “No Medicaid” and a black woman with “No Welfare“. The largest undocumented immigration population in the Northeast is Irish. If you are truly anti-racist, you cannot tell me that it is ok for an officer to demand papers from me because I may look “illegal”—code: “not white.” Unless the “birther” folks among your ranks have gained ascendance and now want to throw me and others with Obama and ask for all our birth certificates (For your information, I was born in the US and my tagalog is horrible and I still have people asking me when I immigrated here).

In the 1800s, an anti-racist opportunity presented itself for people of Irish descent in the US. In 1841, African American abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond returned from Ireland to the US with a letter written by Dublin abolitionists James Haughton and R.D. Webb and signed by over 60,000 Irish citizens that called upon the Irish in the US to support the abolition of slavery. “Treat the colored people as your equals, as brethren. By all your memories of Ireland, continue to love liberty—hate slavery—CLING BY THE ABOLITIONISTS- and in America, you will do honor to the name of Ireland!,” an excerpt of the letter reads. Unfortunately, in 1863, workers of Irish descent did not heed the call and rioted in New York and blamed and beat up the “rich” and African slaves for their conditions.

Or do you really support “big government” when it affects the “other?”

If you will not heed the 21st Century version of the Irish abolitionist clarion call, then lets be honest about the true contours of your vision for this country. Patrick Buchanan, who I assume you herald since he wrote the speeches of your icon Ronald Reagan and espouses similar messages to your own, wrote a New York Times bestseller entitled, The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization. He warns that the decline of white births and increased migration of Asian, Latin American, and African people into the US will lead to the twilight of the West. Socialism in Europe and feminism in the US has discentivized white families from having more children and immigrants come in to make up for this loss of labor. Pat writes, “…no nation in history has gone through a demographic change of this magnitude in so short a time, and remained the same nation…Well, those students are going to find out, for they will spend their golden years in a Third World America.” He further cautions, “Not since the Black Death carried off a third of Europe in the fourteenth century has there been a graver threat to the survival of Western civilization.”

Arizona governor Jan Brewer cited crime and the protection of her people in Arizona as the main reason to sign SB1070. In the 1990s, the proponents of anti-immigrant measure Proposition 187 in California relayed the same argument when the mother of deceased Steve Woods declared that her son would be alive today if it wasn’t for “illegal immigrants.” They used his image in a number of their literature (They conveniently left out that her son and his friends attempted to run over a few Latino youth with a car and he died when one Latino youth threw an object in self-defense at the speeding impending vehicle). Regardless of your personal view of immigration, your lack of public rebuke of SB1070 reinforces the narrative weaved by Pat, Jan, and the leading proponents of proposition 187 in the 1990s—”non-white immigrants have come to threaten the security and sanctity of our civilization.”

Lets be honest about your vision of society and admit that you are more comfortable with a white nation so that we can have a real discussion. Just keep in mind these US Census Bureau projections: In 20 years, we will witness the last largest population of white people to retire in the nation and white deaths will outpace white births. In one generation, the nation will be majority people of color. In other words, it will be largely communities of color who will make decisions about your retirement security.

After anti-immigrant proposition 187 passed in California in the 1990s, Latinos later emerged as a huge voting force and wiped out from office those who supported this initiative.

Tea Partiers, the anti-racist choice is before you.

In Unity (if you want it),
John Delloro
US Born citizen who is still trying to find his birth certificate

California, Demographics, Immigration, John Delloro, Media, Political Reform, Republicans | 2 Comments »

The Tea Partiers and Herpes

Longtime labor and international activist Bill Fletcher likened the Tea Party movement to herpes—they have always been there lying dormant and inevitably re-emerge whenever the nation’s immune system goes down.  Highlighting the racist overtures of this inflammation on the body politic, Bill adds that it will take more than “economic inoculation” in order to return them into a slumbering state.  In other words, just addressing “bread and butter” issues will not be enough.  We still need to address race.

Bill’s diagnosis haunted me when I gave the keynote address at the recent 20^th Annual Students of Color conference in Washington entitled: “Generation of Change: We are the Future!”  I told the students gathered that their generation are the Rainbow warriors to usher a new era as foretold by Native American elders, the Joshua generation to lead us to the Promised Land as predicted by some black church leaders, the embodiment of “si se puede” as articulated by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, and the “golden bridge towards the future” loved and honored by manong Philip Vera Cruz and the Pilipino  farmworkers of UFW past.  I cited US Census Bureau projections that by 2028, 18-29 years olds will be majority of color and by 2030, white deaths will outpace white births.  Communities of color will be the majority of this nation in one generation.

Afterwards, a group of mostly students of color gathered around me to talk further.   However, the only white male student present, who was also about 15 years older than most of the other students, began dominating the discussion.  He lamented the lack of attention to his experiences and made an effort to let us know that white is also a color.  He complained, “where was my white privilege when I couldn’t afford my mortgage anymore?!”

After some time, I interrupted his monologue.  I told him, “I hear you but you are attending a Students of Color conference.  This is a safe space for students of color.  Many of them are arriving with the expectation that their life experiences will be finally heard and put front and center.  If you are wondering why a number of them are shunning you after you speak, it is because they come with the expectation that you are here to listen to their experiences and to learn from where they are coming from.  If you haven’t noticed, you have been dominating most of this discussion without hesitation and many of them have not had a chance to even speak yet.  That’s white privilege.”

He then replied, “But, where can I go–the Tea Party!?”

His response does reveal a real concern.  Longtime union activist and educator, Lou Siegel, once commented to me while gesturing towards the Tea Partiers, “they should have been with us.” In the last presidential election, labor unions were only ones able to effectively mobilize white working families, especially white men, for Obama.  White men largely voted for McCain, except when they were union members.  The Tea Party anger over bank bail-outs, an unaccountable Wall Street, and an economy that does not help them is consistent with the union message and program.  The Tea Partiers are also the result of an overall shrinking labor movement and consequent declining power of working people.

However, a focus on “pocket book” issues is not enough, since it was a labor movement at the turn of the 20^th century, which included a Tea Party element, that succeeded in passing the first racially discriminatory immigration law in the nation, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and subsequent laws such as the 1917 “Asiatic Barred Zone” which banned any immigrant of Asian descent.  As much as this white student expressed legitimate concerns, he did inappropriately seize center stage and pushed the voices of other students of color to the side and unilaterally dismissed their experiences. He was so focused on his own, he couldn’t hear theirs.

The Tea Partiers have done the same.  Granted not all Tea Partiers condone the racist signs and statements at their events but they did push voices and stories of color to the side.  Ironically, many of them never voted for Obama in the first place but this numerical minority has affected national legislation and marginalized the experiences and concerns of the many communities of color, who mostly voted for Obama and have consistently and largely supported progressive political changes such as health care reform.

At this same conference I attended, a 19-year old student named “Jair” stood up and told his story.  He has spent almost his entire life in the US and currently ranks one of the top 2 students at his college.  “Jair” suddenly broke down and began crying and through his tears, he stated, “but no matter how hard I work and no matter what I do, I am told that I do not matter.  I just want a normal life.”  This student is undocumented but he had to courage to stand up and fight for his rights as a human being.  Coincidently, on this same day, the governor of Arizona signed into law SB1070 which basically gave the police the authority to “pull over” anyone who may look like an “illegal” immigrant.   An elder white woman in her 70s spoke up and declared her support of “Jair.” Another student pledged to talk with his student senate.  The rest of the room, even those who initially did not support the plight of undocumented students, followed suit and stood by “Jair”.

The Tea Partiers have always been and will always be there but we must also listen to the voices and stories of “Jair” and others.  Their stories can bring a room together.

– John Delloro

Civil Rts/Liberties, Culture, Demographics, Grassroots Activism, Immigration, John Delloro, Obama Administration, Political Reform, Social Justice | No Comments »

Two stories of the US stand in stark contrast with one another in the wake of the passage of Health Care Reform 2010.

Unlike most of my progressive and liberal friends and family, I turned the radio dial to conservative talk radio after the signing of this bill into law. Angry voices described a nation under siege with a federal government trampling over the individual rights of its people. They strip the president down and paint a picture of an autocratic rugula-eating emperor who has illegitimately seized the throne which has been built on the backs of working people and who sends his minions in Congress to do his bidding. “Obama is the next Hitler.” “Obama is a liar.” “Obama is a socialist.” A recent Harris Poll reflects this sentiment and reveals that two-thirds of Republicans interviewed think that he is a socialist. Hatred of the president has been equated with patriotism and this health care bill is taken as further proof of the illegitimacy of this government. The commentators invoke the age old battle of state rights versus federal rights. This is their story about “freedom.”

This is not a new story and its general template has been revived successfully many times over the years. However, it is a dangerous story because it ignores its own shadow and eclipses another narrative that has been struggling for more than a century to be heard.

This story becomes more complete when we focus on one of its key protagonists, former President Ronald Reagan. He has been hailed as a hero by many conservatives but his record on key civil rights legislation is conveniently ignored or forgotten and even forgiven. We conveniently let slide his public opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the creation of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr holiday. In 1980, he launched his presidential campaign in the town where civil rights workers were slain and declared, “I believe in state rights.” In the same year, he decried the Voting Rights Act as “humiliating to the South.” In 1982, he intervened on the side of Bob Jones University when it was about to lose its tax-exempt status because of its ban on interracial dating. The most instructive is Reagan’s explanation for opposing California legislation when he ran for governor that would have outlawed racial discrimination in housing—people have the right to sell to whomever they want.

Now, I willingly consider the possibility of innocent mis-steps or misunderstandings. My intent is not to demonize Reagan as a racist but to highlight the unacknowledged aspect and outcome of the conservative freedom story. One of its real dangers is the lack of self-criticism on part of its tellers. Their one-sided narrative dismisses my story and many others like me, especially 106-year old Ella Mae Johnson, who passed away this past week.

Ella Mae witnessed over a century of African American history and traveled at age 105 to witness in person the inauguration of Barack Obama as president. “I have experienced some of the terrible things that happened to groups, to us, and to others. There are people who believe because you were different, you were less than.” At age 4, she was orphaned and neighbors took her in and cared for her. When she needed money to go to college, women in her town gave her a scholarship. She eventually became the first black woman on campus when she got into graduate school. Upon graduating, she turned around and became a social worker because she wanted to be the one to now help others.

Her story is similar to my father who was dismissed by his co-workers when he first came to the US from the Philippines and was told that he was only good in getting coconuts from a tree. With help from friends and family, he eventually started his own successful business to escape the racism. When I asked his key to success, he told me the story of my grandfather who caught a thief in his small store and told the person, “If you want something, don’t steal. Just ask and take only what you need for you and your family.”

I share a similar story with Ella Mae and my father. Because my parents wanted a better life for my younger brother and me, they had to work long hours and leave us alone at extended hours at a time. At age 7, I would tuck my 4-year old brother into bed and lock the house doors at night as we waited for them to come home. Neighbors and friends would check in on us and give relief to our isolation. The nearby Catholic Church would provide a structure for my life and I would remember a particular priest, Fr. Moore, who stressed importance of the “human gesture” in guiding my actions.

Writer Patricia Mulchay commented that “Ellie Mae’s real lesson is that compassion is what will get you through life.” The story of Ellie Mae, my father, me, and many others like us is the story of community and compassion. It is our stories that shape how we view the role of government in our lives. It is our stories that has allowed us to survive and grow as a community.

The conservative freedom story has historically and currently excludes our individual and collective experiences. It abruptly intruded into the intertwined stories of my father and me after he suffered a debilitating accident which left him with a cracked skull, bleeding in the brain, and damage to his reasoning faculties. When he was first brought into the hospital, his head injuries sent him into violent fits and I had to hold him down so that he wouldn’t pull the tubes out that sustained his life. Temporary amnesia from his accident caused him to push against me and not recognize me as his son as he yelled at me to let him go. Due to understaffing, my brother and I had to secure him. I kept thinking as I struggled with my father and held back my own tears, “we should not be doing this by ourselves.”

The greatest hit was when my mother thanked me and told me that my father would not have been alive without me. My dad as a small business man does not have his own healthcare insurance but he was included in my mother’s health care coverage, which was secured when we helped organize a union in her workplace. The bills totaled over a million dollars within two weeks and without the healthcare coverage we fought for, he would have been declined the care he needed to progress and most likely my parents would have sunk into inescapable debt.

My feeling about health care reform is best summed up in a comment from an old high school friend who runs his own business:

“How we treat our own elderly and defenseless says a lot about us, just like it does any other culture. It’s a big topic and this probably isn’t the solution but I feel that this is progress. As Darwinian as I love to get about my own business, I still know that sometimes the right decision is not the best business decision.”

So when I first heard Obama say the following words during the Democratic primary, I stood up and took notice:

“We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and dissonant in the weeks to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”

Our collective stories are ultimately girded by hope, not anger or fear.

State rights and individual freedom have an important place in our society but so does the values and beliefs informing the lives of Ella Mae, my father and I. Our narrative of community and compassion yearns and demands to be included in the larger story of America.

– John Delloro

Culture, Healthcare, John Delloro, Obama Administration, Republicans, Social Justice, Voting Rights | No Comments »

Asian Americans: Whose Side Are You On?

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) response to the racial incident at UCSD may foreshadow the fate of race and racism in this nation.

At UCSD, a fraternity mocking Black History month by holding a “Compton Cook-Out” with an invitation steeped in racial stereotypes, the subsequent noose in the library, and the recent KKK hood placed on the head of a statue outside the library has foregrounded the larger issue of declining numbers of black students on the campus (1.6% of the student population).  As public outrage grew, some counter the demands of the UCSD Black Student Union with fears of “unqualified” students taking seats from “deserving” students and the specter of the notorious Asian quotas of the nineties, when AAPIs were denied entry because their numbers were considered too high, is resurrected.   However, like the frog who has lived his entire life on the bottom of the well and assumes the whole world is the size of the opening above him, they have defined the issue too narrowly and the bigger picture is missing.

The original cry of 1960s was for open admissions and self-determination, not just diversity and achieving a certain number of colored faces.  Affirmative action in education was supposed to be about transforming education from a vehicle which mainstreams us into society into a tool for social change and bettering the world.  Affirmative action was also about ethnic studies and relevant classes, financial aid, retention programs, and bridging the campus and community divide.  To deny a community access to education was to deny them a chance to improve their communities and that education was a right and a necessity for the functioning of a democracy, not the exclusive realm for the few.  It was really a case of fighting for a bigger pie, not scrambling over each other for bread crumbs.

Now, racism in the 21^st Century is different.  Currently, this is the millennium of the Model Minority.  In the 1990s, Mari Matsuda described how political opportunists would pit AAPIs against other communities of color as the “good” hard-working minorities.  With the election of Barack Obama as US president and the advent of the first Latina on the US Supreme Court in a period where affirmative action has been dismantled on a number of campuses, black and Latina/o students on a university campus now join the ranks of the new model minority despite their small numbers.  As for AAPIs, we are still the model minority but have become the tipping point in turning a campus like UCLA for the first time in history to be majority people of color.  AAPIs now have to make a decision.

AAPIs must choose to either embrace their history or reject their past.  They must decide whether to remember that we as community have rode on the shoulders of African slaves and their descendants across oceans and onto the campus.  It was the success of the Civil Rights Movement that forced a nation to re-examine itself and remove the last vestiges of racism in immigration law and pass the 1965 Immigration Act which opened the gates for AAPI immigration.  It was the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement that forced the doors to education to part for all communities of color to step through which first began with their efforts to fight segregation in schools across the nation.  Let us not forget that when Yuji Ichioka coined the term “Asian American” in the 1960s to supplant “Oriental,” it was to signify an alliance with a global Third World movement of all races, not to segregate ourselves—“All Power to the People!”

Mari Matsuda once said that the hymn of the “model minority” was not “We Shall Overcome” but “We Will Not Be Used.”  With the Census Bureau projecting that whites will no longer be the numerical majority by 2042 (white children become the minority by 2023), these words become more salient.  What happens in majority people of color campuses like UCLA may forecast the promises and challenges of a multiracial nation.  The model minority may show us the future of race and racism in this country.

A black minister once told me that his generation, the Civil Rights Generation, was also known as the “Moses” generation and how tragic a blow it was when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, soon after his mountaintop speech, was killed in 1968.  He also said that the generation forty years after them is the Joshua Generation and added that it was not Moses who brought the people into the Promised Land but Joshua.  In 2008, after 40 years wandering in the desert, this new generation had enough and elected the first black man to the US presidency.  In fact, in places like South Carolina, white and black voters over 30 years of age largely voted along racial lines but the younger generation voted across race for Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries.

A younger generation of AAPIs must now decide our future again.  Will AAPIs continue to be a minority fighting for their own selfish interests or will they join the Multiracial Majority who wants self-determination for all people?

Will it be bread crumbs or a bigger pie?

– John Delloro

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No matter how you spin it, Democrats suffered a crushing loss in the race to replace the US Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy and undoubtedly it will be seen as a referendum on Obama. However, I find the multiple fingers pointing in every direction to be as equally depressing—just more dizzyingly so. Obama was too left. Obama was not progressive enough. Obama did too much. Obama didn’t do enough. Obama came too late to Massachusetts. Obama should not have come. (Substitute “Democratic Party,” “Martha Coaxley,” or any other player in Massachusetts politics for “Obama” and all critiques have been covered. More nuanced analysis will subtlety blame all parties equally and cynics will damn everyone and government).

So what happened in Massachusetts? I have no idea but I do know one thing that has occurred. Obama has become the new “model minority” for largely white Massachusetts – “he is proof that the system works but we don’t want him anymore.”

As an Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), I intimately know what it means to be a “model minority.” I know what it means to be held to high expectations, especially when one student confessed to me that he worried about the curve when he saw a lot of AAPIs in his math class. I know what it means to be lectured at for not being aggressive enough while at the same time being accused of being too “racial” when I talk about my experiences with racism. I know what it means to have others define you and your actions, regardless of what you say, and to be used to justify an existing system and at the same time to be accused of trying to take over the system (Really, “UCLA stands for University of Caucasians Living in Asia” jokes do get grating). The concept of the “model minority” has long been used as a political tool to divide and pose as an alternative to the Civil Rights and “Black Power” movement approach.

As a student and teacher in Asian American studies and an AAPI leader in the labor movement or labor leader in the AAPI communities, I also know that the history of AAPIs in the US tells me that the GOP victory in Massachusetts is a result of a right-wing populism which has succeeded in shaping the debate (Is it me or do the Right have a more intuitive sense of Gramsci and “hegemony” than the Left?). Historically, both right-wing and progressive populism have emerged from the grassroots and both articulated struggles against Big Business and Big Banks. However, right wing populist movements have always targeted the bottom, immigrants and people of color, as well.

For AAPIs, there has never been a truly progressive populism in this country. Progressives praise US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for his social and labor reforms but he is the same person who sent Japanese Americans into internment camps. The Labor Movement of the first half of the 1900s helped create the first middle class in this country but they cut their teeth pushing for the first national immigration laws excluding a group based on race, which happen to be AAPIs (e.g. 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act or the 1924 “Asiatic Barred Zone”). The Civil Rights Movement opened many doors but today a number of African American and Latino/a leaders leave AAPIs out when they talk about racial justice (The model minority myth strikes again! The “model minority” myth blinded many people to the fact that AAPIs have the largest economic divide out of all racial groups and that AAPIs have historically been used to fight progressive reforms).

With a rise in right wing populism, I am worried. Our history tells us that immigration will become the key hot button issue these next coming elections and, in the past, hate crimes against AAPIs and Latina/os have consistently risen with increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, especially during low economic periods. Our history tells us that institutionalized racism evolves. Today, it can come in many subtle forms and doesn’t require individual prejudice. For example, a number of anti-Obama “tea baggers” rage over particular members of the Obama administration who have “ties” with communist groups or are possibly “communists” but they will praise Ronald Reagan to high heaven and conveniently ignore the people in the Reagan administration who had “ties” with white supremacist groups. Ronald Reagan publicly opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and promised out loud to remove the Fair Housing Act, when he ran for governor of California, and declared that people have the right to discriminate based on race when renting or selling their house.

In the absence of a visible progressive pole, the drumming of the “right-wing wackos” and “Astroturf” beat may inadvertently be agitating them to the ballot box, rather than marginalizing their message in the political discourse. I worry that the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration will move to the right as a part of strategy. In some cases, it may work to save some 2010 electoral seats in the short-term. However, as a former organizer, I found that defensive strategies only prolong the inevitable—backsliding in progress already made with us holding the bag. If Obama remains the “model minority,” any progress made over the decades will recede and all races will be thrown into the column of the model minority with AAPIs and more voices will go unheard. When whites become the numerical minority in the US, we may instead see a multiracial right-wing populism.

– John Delloro

2010 Campaign, Democratic Party, Immigration, John Delloro | 2 Comments »

Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Means A Lot to Asian Americans (If We All Want It)

Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize has the potential to be the lit torch to brighten and forge a path forward and not another political stick for partisan “Punch and Judy” theater.

Most debates around the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama will be the same recycled arguments from all sides about his policies since his election. Considering one of the past recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize includes the military veteran Alexander Haig and never the world peace icon Gandhi, we might as well argue about whether Obama deserved to win the Grammy. Also, do we really need a politicized and grander version of the recent MTV Video Music Awards when Kanye West denounced the awarding of Best Female Video to Taylor Swift?

Let’s walk past the predictable responses of majority of US pundits, the same comments mirroring every major political issue since inauguration, and pause to listen to the words of other Nobel Peace Prize winners. Their responses range from outright praise like 2002 recipient former US President Jimmy Carter who saw it as a “bold statement of international support for his vision and commitment” to 1983 awardee former Polish President Lech Walesa who thought the award given too soon but saw it as an encouragement for Obama to act. Considering the wide global support for Obama, it may be closer to the sentiments expressed by 1984 winner Archbishop of South Africa Desmond Tutu, “It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama’s message of hope.”

Archbishop Tutu hits it on the head–Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize could serve as a beacon of hope or organizing tool for the US to exercise global responsibility and inspirational leadership once more. Keith Kamisugi shared on his Facebook page the following quote from Mike Taylor of the Baltimore Sun, “Peace is not made by one person. The Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded just to President Obama but to the American people as a whole and should therefore be welcomed by the American people.” Obama was elected to the Presidency with a wide margin by the US electorate with significant participation by the future of our nation—the 18-25 year olds (Almost all the most vocal mainstream critics never voted for Obama in the first place and do not represent the majority of the electorate who voted this change in national leadership). His award is a recognition of our ability as a nation to move forward.

The case of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in the US highlights the necessity of using the Nobel Peace Prize for a more responsible global purpose, than the coffeetable topic of internal bitter partisanship. Historically, the treatment of specific ethnic AAPIs in the US has links with global politics. During WWII, the US government suspended due process of law and interned Japanese Americans. In the 1950s when relations with China grew tense, the INS and FBI employed “confession programs” for Chinese immigrants to come forward to expose communists in exchange for citizenship. When Japan beat the US in the market of the auto industry, 2 laid-off autoworkers killed Chinese American Vincent Chin for the loss of their jobs.

Similar to the thinking that guided internment of Japanese Americans, the Cold War mentality found enemies based on ethnic identity as specific Asian American professionals were accused of working for China against US interests. Despite lack of evidence, Republican congressmen in 1996 alleged that campaign donors John Huang and Charles Yah-Lin Trie were spies for China and the media trumpeted the “Asian Connection” or “Chinagate.” In another situation, in 1999, the US government unfairly charged Wen Ho Lee of espionage of which he was later cleared of those specific accusations. In both cases, their Chinese ethnicity was highlighted and held at suspicion. Neither party had a past record of questionable conduct. After the Persian Gulf War and the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, suspicion was thrown onto South Asians and Arab Americans with a list of 314,000 people targeted for deportation in January 2002, despite having no evidence that any were tied to terrorist activity.

The debate around Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize can be another boxing match between left and right or a tool to bring us together with a newfound global credibility and promise to recognize the integral role we play in the world. This is crucial not only for AAPIs but all of us.

– John Delloro

Foreign Affairs, John Delloro, Obama Administration, Social Justice | 1 Comment »

Young people have always been the key to any movement for social change. Yet like the Greek Titan Chronus who swallows his newborn children whole in order to retain his throne, an older generation may be be the biggest obstacle to progress.

Scholar Oiyan Poon astutely observed how a number of current progressive leadership fail to effectively pass the torch on to the next generation: “Sure we talk a good talk, even giving conferences titles like ‘Passing the Torch,’ but in practice… (I love my elders but, I gotta say it) our older generation SUCKS at walking the talk of empowering a next generation…And by the way… I had a lengthy discussion a few months back with an ‘elder’ who mentioned that by ‘next generation’ he thinks of people in their 40′s. YIKES!” Except for a few notable exceptions, the crescendo of “we need to reach out to the youth” has dramatically risen but unfortunately words largely remain words. This moment closely echoes the early ‘90s when a lot of local unions espoused “Organize the Unorganized” but few actually committed resources to this prerogative.

When words do translate to action, some leaders treat “youth” as mere cannon fodder for intensive short-term campaigns. A respected organizing director had even frankly confided with me that young people are good for 2-3 years, they leave, and then you bring in a new batch. I have witnessed a revolving door at many social justice organizations where young minds and bodies go in and out until a good number of them leave altogether disillusioned to become school teachers or retreat to grad school. We are not nurturing the next generation of leaders but producing a phalanx of burnt out wounded warriors.

Veteran organizer Marshall Ganz, after working through the Civil Rights Movement, the United Farm Workers Movement with Cesar Chavez and the recent election of Obama to president, noted that “young people come of age with a critical eye and a hopeful heart. It’s that combination of critical eye and hopeful heart that brings change. That’s one reason why so many young people were and are involved in movements for social change.” Is an older generation only feeding the eyes and leaving the fire burning in the hearts of young people out in the cold?

This past July 2009, I was elected National President of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO (APALA, AFL-CIO), the largest and only national organization of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) union members. At age 37, I came to the position with a mandate to unite a younger generation with the labor movement. Additionally the number of elected executive board members under the age 40 went from two to 10 including the election of our youngest leader Van Nguyen at age 22, a recent graduate from UC Berkeley and the first Vietnamese student body president. The electoral convention trumpeted the theme, “Generations United, Organizing for Change” and it was the first national gathering of Asian American and Pacific Islander students and workers in US history. Looking across the crowd, the involvement of the ages 18-35 crowd clearly electrified the union convention.

The founders of APALA, at its very beginnings when they started the organization in 1992, had the foresight to recruit, train, and mentor me and a group of young AAPI students to enter the US Labor Movement. The founding national president Kent Wong convinced me as a young 20-year old to attend their 3-day organizing training. As the years progressed, Kent, former APALA national president Luisa Blue and leaders Josie Camacho, Amado David, Pat Lee, and several others mentored and guided me through the byzantine labyrinth and sometimes harsh world of the trade union movement. But more importantly, they stepped to the side and risked letting me exercise leadership. In other words, they understood that the best mentorship program is getting out of the way and helping me into a leadership position. This doesn’t mean that their wisdom should be ignored but that they do not always have to be the ones holding the reins.

At the APALA convention, a founder of APALA went up to the public microphone and spoke about how as a young student she joined a campus-wide strike at her college for ethnic studies, and then tearfully expressed her joy in seeing a new generation here who want to continue making change. A flame still kindles in this next generation and it burns across all lines.

We mustn’t forget it was a 26-year old Rev.Dr. Martin Luther King who led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a 20-year old Clara Lemlich who ignited some of the first marches for women’s rights in the US, an 18-year old Sieh King King who led a rally in San Francisco for equal rights for women in the US and China in the early 1900s, and it was a new generation who made history and propelled a black man to the highest position of the land.

- John Delloro

Civil Rts/Liberties, Grassroots Activism, John Delloro | 4 Comments »

When I heard of Senator Ted Kennedy’s passing, I immediately thought of my father after his near-fatal road accident.  His skull fractured with internal bleeding in his head sent him into violent fits and temporarily erased his memories of me.  I had to hold him down onto the bed so that he would not hurt himself and pull out the tubes sustaining his life.   All that time, I kept thinking “why must I be the one doing this?”   I should not have been the one to restrain my father.  Afterwards, I discovered that the hospital did not assign enough nurses to the floor to adequately attend to all the critical care patients.  At this moment, I realized how much we are not meant to be alone. 
 
At one time, we as a nation believed that our survival and prosperity depended on us being each other’s keeper and that when the least of us fall, we collapse as a people.   Our country created a public safety net because we embraced this idea—“No family or individual should face tragedy by themselves.” 
 
Regardless of our political and moral views of him,  Senator Ted Kennedy hails from a family, who at their very best, represents this notion of service and sacrifice.  The three Kennedy brothers John, Robert, Ted called upon the best of us.  “…Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country…” began John and created the Peace Corps.  Robert built a presidential campaign based on listening to the voices of the unheard and ignored.  Ted, the “Lion of the Senate”, whose heavy body of legislative work included the Ryan White Care Act which helped care for those suffering with AIDS, held the banner for healthcare reform higher than anyone in the halls of Congress. 
 
In 1973, the doctors diagnosed Ted Kennedy’s 12-year old son with bone cancer and he sat and prayed by his son’s bedside as his son underwent months of chemotherapy.  Fortunately, his son survived and successfully recovered.  However, the other families he met in the hospital were not as fortunate:  “Our family had the necessary resources as well as excellent insurance coverage.   But other heartbroken parents pleaded with the doctors:   ‘What chance does my child have if I can only afford half of the prescribed treatments?   Or two thirds?   I’ve sold everything. I’ve mortgaged as much as possible. ‘  No parent should suffer that torment.    Not in this country.   Not in the richest country in the world.”
 
The current ugliness of the health care debate conceals the guiding spirit of service and sacrifice behind the health care reform movement and existing universal healthcare systems.  For example, we ignore why Britons across the political spectrum, have reacted so angrily to US citizens kicking around their healthcare system-the National Health Service (NHS).   After the destruction of their homes during World War II, the people of Great Briton realized they had to extend a hand to each other in order to lift themselves from the rubble, to rebuild and prosper once again.  NHS emerged from this new consciousness.   When US critics punch their system around, which Britons acknowledge is not perfect,  the attack is seen as an assault on their sense of community and responsibility to each other.   
 
Writer Michael B. Laskoff decries our nation’s shift away from President John Kennedy’s original call for service:  “So with the defacto passing of the Kennedys, we have truly reached an end.  What comes next, it seems, is an age in which the operative question has changed.  Today, it is:  what can America do for me?  This, by the way, is not the ‘me’ voice of the Generation X but rather the  ‘mine’ of the Baby Boomers.  That’s why I don’t think that this is really a debate about healthcare at all; its more like a desperate last stand in support of a status quo that gave us big cars, big houses, and big credit.” 
 
Lay aside the partisan struggles and ideological battles, we must ask the real question, “Am I responsible for my neighbor?”    The issue of health care access deals directly with matters of life and death.   When we accept the inequality of quality health care access, do we pass judgment on the uninsured  and what sentence do we pass ?    Should we ignore over 42 million women, men and children without adequate health coverage?   Like the proverbial Cain, who responded to God’s inquiry of Abel’s absence with “I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?,”  we may in truth may be the defacto murderers of one another.
 
When my father miraculously recovered and continues to heal to this day, my mother told me he would not have lived if it wasn’t for me.  He was a small business owner without health care insurance and his medical bills totaled over a million dollars after the first month.  My mother’s health care policy, secured when we successfully organized a union at her hospital, covered the costs.   I cried as much hearing her say those words as when I saw him on the hospital bed that first time.
 
In the words of US Senator Ted Kennedy, “we will end the disgrace of America as the only major industrialized nation in the world that doesn’t guarantee health care for all of its people.”

– John Delloro

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