Ed. Note: While AAA-Fund will not make a pre-primary, Presidential endorsement, its bloggers are free to opine about any candidate. To foster a spirited dialogue, we encourage readers to post their Comments on our Blog.

Obama, AA/PIs and the Economy

Listening to the many pundits after Obama’s speech on the economy, I thought I was listening to the proverbial six blind men arguing over whether an elephant is a snake, spear, wall, tree, fan or rope. (Just like an elephant is not its trunk or tail, the Obama candidacy is larger than his individual support for a specific piece of legislation). Most missed the thread holding both his speeches on race and the economy together into one coherent vision. For Asian American / Pacific Islanders, the emerging worldview reveals how we are not a monolithic community but do share a common agenda with the wider bottom 80% of the nation. It further nuances the promise of an Obama presidency for us.

In his historic narrative on race, Obama not only testified to the segregated Sunday morning of black and white rage and its stopgap effect on real social progress but he directly fingered the source of our woes: “Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze — a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.” Obama connects racism to economic inequality and he further expands his analysis in his major speech on the US economy. In this speech, he reminds us that “the core of our economic success is the fundamental truth that each American does better when all Americans do better; that the well-being of American business, its capital markets and its American people are aligned…” and he heeds the Santayana warning of the dangers of forgetting history and cites the Great Depression of the 1920s. “We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street , but ends up hurting both. Nor is this trend new. The concentrations of economic power and the failures of our political system to protect the American economy and American consumers from its worst excesses have been a staple of our past: most famously in the 1920s, when such excesses ultimately plunged the country into the Great Depression.” The current income share of the top 1% is at its highest since 1929. From 2004 to 2005, the US Congressional Budget Office reported that the incomes of the bottom 20% increased 1.3% whereas the wages of the top 1% increased by 20.2%. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan once warned the House committee, “there is a really serious problem here, as I’ve mentioned many times before this committee, in the concentration of income that is rising.”

Respected writer and economist Robert Kuttner appreciates that Obama had also placed the mortgage crisis within a larger financial one. Robert explained that Obama “connected all the dots — between the complete dismantling of financial regulation, the declining economic opportunity and security for ordinary people, the current financial meltdown, and the political influence of Wall Street as the driver of these changes.” Robert then faults Hillary for treating the mortgage crisis as a “self-contained scandal” and that her self-proclaimed “more robust” proposed solutions in her March 24 speech on the economy is the same Frank-Dodd bill co-sponsored by Obama but she forms no links to the larger economic problem. He further commends Obama for his courage and leadership “that is the predicate for the shift in public opinion required to produce legislative change. A radical, appropriately nuanced, and deeply public-minded description of what has occurred, the speech was Roosevelt quality: the president as teacher-in-chief.” Robert does not hail from the early legions of supporters but the line of critics who have been needling for specifics.

The Asian American/ Pacific Islander (AA/PI) communities mirror the widening socioeconomic divide in the country. Out of all racial groups, AA/PIs have the largest gap between rich and poor. In Los Angeles , disaggregating AA/PIs by ethnicity, the US Census Bureau reported poverty levels of Thais (31%), Koreans (36%), Vietnamese (44%), Samoans (51%), and Cambodians (68%) to be higher than Latina/os (20.4%) and African Americans (21.1%). These are the unheard voices of our communities but whose stories resonate with majority of the nation feeling the pinch of the current economic crisis. Historically, AA/PI migration patterns coincided with shifts in the economy from the influx of Chinese immigrant workers in the 1800s as the nation industrialized to the current twin migration of highly skilled professionals and a lower-skilled workforce from Asian countries to fill positions in the growing service, information and underground economy. Race and class converge in the “model minority” image which conceals those who languish in poverty and inserts a wedge within our own and between other communities.

However, disunity and economic disparity only touch upon the surface. If you place Obama’s narrative on the economy within the larger ideas informing his campaign strategy, you will hear the old cry of the immigrant women strikers of the 1912 Lawrence textile mills—“We want bread but we want roses too.” Scholar Scott Kurashige singles out a specific passage in Obama’s autobiography in which Obama compares the disrupted lives in Indonesia with the desperation in Altgeld Gardens , a section of Chicago :

I tried to imagine the Indonesian workers who were now making their way to the sorts of factories that had once sat along the banks of the Calumet River , joining the ranks of wage labor to assemble the radios and sneakers that sold on Michigan Avenue . I imagined those same Indonesian workers ten, twenty years from now, when their factories would have closed down, a consequence of new technology or lower wage in some other part of the globe. And then the bitter discovery that their markets have vanished; that they no longer remember how to weave their own baskets or carve their own furniture or grow their own food; that even if they remember such a craft, the forests that gave them wood are now owned by timber interests, the baskets they once wove have been replaced by more durable plastics. The very existence of the factories, the timber interests, the plastics manufacturer, will have rendered their culture obsolete; the values of hard work and individual initiative turn out to have depended on a system of belief that’s been scrambled by migration and urbanization and imported TV runs. Some of them would prosper in this new order. Some would move to America . And the others, the millions left behind in Djarkata, or Lagos, or the West Bank, they would settle into their own Altgeld Gardens, into a deeper despair.

At a deeper level, job loss isn’t just about financial calamity but the theft of dignity and the destruction of a culture. Dignity finds substance when we are able adhere to our values. When those values lose meaning in a changing economy, the despair is much more profound and community crumbles. An emerging progressive majority yearns for a better way to relate to our world beyond traditional rhetoric of left and right partisanship. A fragmented people demand a return to a nostalgic community of yesteryear.

Both Hillary and Obama offer proposals that are significantly better than Bush and McCain but each piece of legislation will die on the floor of a deadlocked Congress. Obama, the consummate organizer, takes another step further by helping us understand the bigger picture and challenging us to see that “we are the ones we’ve been looking for.” His campaign is striving to forge the national unity necessary to overcome the partisanship and bickering within the DC beltway. Community leader Helen Zia once observed that Asian American/ Pacific Islanders emerged nationally as a self-recognized racial community during the protests of the killing of Chinese American Vincent Chin by two recently laid-off autoworkers who blamed Japan for the loss of their jobs. This time, Obama articulates a proactive possibility for AA/PIs to rebuild community by joining the majority of Americans who are not only demanding bread but roses too.

–John Delloro

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Ed. Note: While AAA-Fund will not make a pre-primary, Presidential endorsement, its bloggers are free to opine about any candidate. To foster a spirited dialogue, we encourage readers to post their Comments on our Blog.

Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Barack Obama more than a week ago still is making waves inside the Clinton campaign. Slate’s John Dickerson reported that jilted Clinton supporters suspect some sort of quid pro quo deal with Obama possibly offering Richardson a cabinet position or the VP slot, even as Clinton’s Mark Penn attempted to downplay the importance of the whole affair.

Then we have James Carville, who in Saturday’s Washington Post, refused to back off his labeling of Richardson as “Judas”. Carville did — with some justification — classify the backlash he’s received as part of a general overreaction that both campaign’s supporters are getting for any controversial comments.

Only Richardson himself knows exactly what he said and to whom about who he was or wasn’t going to endorse. In the wake of Carville’s accusations, Richardson declared that he never made any promises to the Clinton campaign. Despite his endorsement of Obama, Richardson acknowledged his friendship and debt of gratitude to Bill Clinton. But he said his decision was about the future, not about the past, which is exactly why myself and millions of other Democrats chose Barack over Hillary. (Sorry, Clintonites, but Bill and Hillary moving back into the White House in 2009 doesn’t roll the calendar back to 1992 — the 1990s are ancient history in a post-9/11, post-Dubya world.)

Regardless, it’s interesting that Clintonites are once again trying to have it both ways with Richardson. On the one hand, they have Penn and associates telling the world that endorsements don’t matter much, which is probably true in the vast majority of cases — but this might be an exception. On the other hand, Carville and company are calling Richardson nasty names and wondering what kind of dirty deal Obama offered him. Well, if Richardson’s endorsement means so little, then why all the wailing and whining from the Clinton camp?

Let’s remember that this particular endorsement from the only Hispanic governor in the country was so highly coveted that Bill invited himself over to watch the Super Bowl with his New Mexico buddy. So any attempt to downplay it by Penn or anyone else is simply blowing smoke. The Clintons heavily courted Richardson, and he politely snubbed them.

As far as Carville’s allegations: if Bill or Hillary had any such promise in hand, wouldn’t someone in their savvy campaign team have leaked this to the media just prior to, say, the Texas primary? Sorry, but there’s no evidence that Richardson is anything but credible.

As far as a potential deal between Obama and Richardson, formal or not: so what if there was? Are we to believe that Bill and Hillary are above calling in markers and cutting backroom deals just to win over a single obscure superdelegate, to say nothing of one as prominent as Richardson?

The bottom line is that Bill and Hillary tried their best to sway Richardson, and whatever they did, it paled next to Obama’s magnificent speech in Philadelphia that provided the final little push needed to lock up his endorsement.

I can’t speak for other Obama supporters, but if Barack gave Richardson a wink-wink that he’d be on the short list for potential running mates, I’m completely on board. Richardson topped my list of Obama’s VP candidates from the day he dropped out of the race. New Mexico may have only five electoral votes, but in a close race that may be the difference. It’s a swing state that Richardson could and should deliver, along with many Hispanic voters across the country. Just as important, the foreign policy and executive experience on his resume is a perfect complement to Obama’s.

Only time will tell if Richardson’s announcement will mean much in the big picture of the 2008 campaign. However, as Obama heads into the primary home stretch with a sizable delegate lead, the Clinton campaign’s two-faced reaction reeks of bitterness and desperation.

– Theo Chen

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In January, Manan Trivedi of our Blogteam mused whether the GOP would tap freshman Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal as VP nominee. The right wing’s wunderkind had just become the second Asian American Governor on the mainland, as well as the first South Asian Governor in U.S. history.

Trivedi noted that Jindal would bring strong national appeal: “[Jindal's] born-again credentials will go far to fire up the conservative base, and his Louisiana roots and Rhode Scholar past will play well with old school and new school GOP party members alike.”

Since taking office, the 36-year-old Jindal has received rave reviews — piquing the interest of the Wall Street Journal. So far, he has successfully pushed through much needed reforms to clean up Louisiana’s notoriously corrupt state government. Calling him McCain’s ideal running mate, Rush Limbaugh went so far as to anoint Jindal “the next Ronald Reagan”. As VP nominee, Jindal would put a diverse face on a GOP that has failed to produce national leaders like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

As Trivedi pointed out, Jindal’s success raises two questions. First, will McCain pick Jindal? At this point, it appears a bit of a longshot. Names like Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty top the list of usual VP suspects. But as we’ve seen the past few weeks, politics can turn on a dime (or even 800,000 of them — just ask Eliot Spitzer).

Second, if Jindal is chosen, would many Asian Americans vote McCain-Jindal? That is a real concern. While Asian Americans have begun to vote more Democratic in recent elections, the APA community remains a critical swing vote.

We cannot afford to rest on our laurels.

– Gautam Dutta

Update (Mar. 31): As this post points out, Jindal has stopped short on political reform: he chose not to ban a key part of pay-to-play politics.

Gautam Dutta, President 2008 | 3 Comments »

Interested in promoting political reform in Tinseltown? If so, check out this intriguing internship opportunity.

– Gautam Dutta

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California Assemblymember Ted Lieu has endorsed Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which we have profiled here, here and here. Lieu was recently named Chair of the State Assembly’s powerful Rules Committee.

IRV enjoys the strong support of Calif. Board of Equalization Chair Judy Chu, Calif. Assemblymember Warren Furutani, Calif. Senator (and Los Angeles County Supervisor candidate) Mark Ridley-Thomas and AAA-Fund California.

If you live (or know folks) in Southern California, please join our effort to make our government more diverse, efficient and accountable.

– Gautam Dutta

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Obama: A Better Tomorrow

At age 34, I suffered a heart attack. My dozen years of countless hours as a union organizer coupled with my genetics had weakened my body. When the pain shot through my arms and hit my chest, I was on the ground when my son crawled into the room. It became instantly clear, as I watched my five-month old boy stare at me, that we only exist in relation to other people. I didn’t just almost die but he had almost lost a father. Many others almost lost a son, brother, husband and friend. Activist scholar Derrick Bell was correct when he said that relationships are the foundation of an ethical life. Unfortunately, the idea that we can only survive as a community has been under attack for the last few decades. Our nation’s social safety net has been dramatically reduced and economic insecurity has brought a new level mean-spiritedness and scapegoating that threaten to further unravel the fabric of our society. Public responsibility has been narrowly defined to be a self-centered preoccupation for oneself. To me, Obama represents an opportunity to return to the idea of community—“we all suffer if the least of us suffers.”

A couple of my progressive friends and mentors have taken the position of “critical support” or cynically dismissed all the candidates as a continuation of “politics as usual.” They find fault with particular positions taken by Obama and their many years of political battles made them wary of his message of hope. In fact, I don’t agree with a number of Obama’s proposed policies and I had previously joined hands with the other skeptics. My years in the field not only hurt my body but left me somewhat cautious of quixotic electoral crusades. However, when I turned on the television to listen to Obama speak in the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary, these words struck me:

“We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change. We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more 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…

…we are not divided as our politics suggest; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in American’s story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea—Yes. We. Can.”

I felt a rekindling of something warm inside me that I have forgotten. This is more than a sentimental feeling, but a remembered epiphany. Change will not come from the purity of our political stands but the unleashing of a movement of new people into the process. We build transformative community through a common set of values, not issues. I realized that I wasn’t listening to another politician but a brother organizer who saw crises as teaching moments and opportunities for everyday people to emerge as leaders. My interest was further piqued when I later found out that Obama’s campaign is the only one that structured itself around the principles of community organizing—the forging of diverse relationships and the threading of several stories into a larger narrative of a common set of values. His bottom-up 50-state and targeting “unlikely voters” strategy stood in stark contrast to Hillary’s top-down big state and “likely voters” campaign focus. I started to wonder if Obama could actually win.

Then came the South Carolina primary, I watched youth across all races vote overwhelmingly for him while African Americans as a whole voted in large numbers for Obama and whites went for either Hillary or Edwards in significant numbers. 52% of white youth voted for Obama compared to 28% that went for Clinton . More youth voted for Obama than all of the Republican nominees combined. That election told me that Obama represents the youth vote and it is the youth who acknowledge a multiracial future. I realized that this emerging voice signifies a better chance for a more democratic inclusion of the marginalized in our country. This new generation is our communities’ tomorrow and it is a future that I want my son to see, not the tired body of a father hunched over.

–John Delloro

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During our Presidential Blogathon, it has been a pleasure to give voice to our diverse community. As AAA-Fund will not make a pre-primary endorsement, we take pride in offering all of our readers a forum where they can express their views on the Presidential election.

Nevertheless, as one Guest Blogger noted, our Blog has published more pro-Obama pieces than pro-Clinton pieces. And there’s a very simple reason why: Clinton backers have sent in fewer blog posts.

As we know, Sen. Clinton has gained strong support from the APA community. Indeed, California’s Asian Americans voted for Sen. Clinton by a margin of 3 to 1. So why aren’t more folks blogging for her?

For our part, we have reached out to key members and supporters of Sen. Clinton’s campaign and asked them to blog for us. In response, leaders and activists like California Board of Equalization Chair Judy Chu have written eloquently on Clinton’s behalf.

Why’s there such a dearth of Hillary bloggers? Please share your comments below. Or better yet, send us a piece to print on our Blog.

– Gautam Dutta

Gautam Dutta, Grassroots Activism, President 2008 | 1 Comment »

Ed. Note: While AAA-Fund will not make a pre-primary, Presidential endorsement, its bloggers are free to opine about any candidate. To foster a spirited dialogue, we encourage readers to post their Comments on our Blog.

Hillary Clinton loves to talk about her “35 years of experience” which she counts as seven years in the U.S. Senate, eight years as First Lady, and 20 years as a private attorney including while she was First Lady of Arkansas. En route to winning Ohio, Hillary stated repeatedly and unequivocally that she had always been opposed to NAFTA.

But now that her First Lady schedules have finally been released, it turns out that she was directly involved in promoting NAFTA in 1993, a fact that she has conveniently forgotten as she runs as the champion of the blue collar worker.Today, the Clinton campaign claimed that Hillary simply “misspoke” when earlier this month she breathlessly recalled her supposedly dangerous 1996 landing in Bosnia under sniper fire. Even when her tall tale — which she told not once, but twice — was exposed as such by fellow passenger and comedian Sinbad, Hillary refused to retract her story and dismissed him as just a comedian (as if joke-memorizing comedians have faulty memories).

So now we know that Clinton grossly exaggerrated the danger she was under during one of her important trips as First Lady, and completely misrepresented her previous position on NAFTA. Why is this a big deal? Because Hillary has been boasting that her experience is why she will be “ready on Day One.” And she claims that she’s been “fully vetted” with the implication that Barack Obama has not been. Well, if Hillary’s experience is such an asset, why did she feel the need to enhance it with falsehoods? Furthermore, if she truly had been “fully vetted,” why did she withhold her First Lady records this long, and why did the first run-through by the media expose an outright lie about her NAFTA record?

As Hillary’s must-win Pennsylvania primary draws nearer, it’s about time the mainstream media — which is continuing to do her an enormous favor by portraying the race as much tighter than it is — takes a closer look at her slipping credibility, especially as it relates to her record as First Lady.

– Theo Chen

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Ed. Note: While AAA-Fund will not make a pre-primary, Presidential endorsement, its bloggers are free to opine about any candidate. To foster a spirited dialogue, we encourage readers to post their Comments on our Blog.

The endorsement of Governor Bill Richardson should have signaled to Hillary and her supporters of the limitation of her mantra of experience. Of all the original candidates for the Democratic nomination, Governor Richardson held political office the longest, which totaled more than the combined tenure of Hillary and Obama including a seat in US Congress as well as secretary of energy and US ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton. According to the Hillary’s standard of measurement, Richardson should be president and if you further extend “Hillary logic,” his decision, added with the official endorsements of Obama by two other former candidates Senator Chris Dodd and Congressmen Dennis Kucinich, both with impressive resumes, should be enough weight for Hillary to hang her hat and step aside for Obama. Alas, chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn labeled the governor of New Mexico’s support insignificant and fellow Clintonite James Carville painted Richardson with the same brush stroke of Judas Iscariot for his “act of betrayal.” The responses of a number of Hillary supporters in the vast blogosphere, parroting Penn’s and Carville’s pronouncements with their own cynical narrative of Richardson gambling for a position in an Obama administration, only further reveal the bankruptcy and irony of the Hillary campaign.

Hillary’s extensive courting of Richardson renders Penn’s assessment to the level of a spoiled child who didn’t get what he or she wanted—“well, I didn’t want it anyway.” Carville’s attempt at clever analogy by equating Richardson to Judas throws back the curtain and unveils the political quid pro quo and Washington DC machinations that the majority of this country has long suspected and reviled—“Richardson owes the Clintons for his political career, therefore he should automatically and wholeheartedly endorse Hillary.” In regards to the number of Hillary supporters commenting on various blogs who dismissed Richardson’s actions as self-serving, they are probably correct. Extensive experience in Washington DC politics does midwife a wisdom that embraces quid pro quo tactics as necessary to political success and encourages loyalty to key insiders and beltway operatives as opposed to the nation as a whole. Whether Hillary supporters are willing to admit or not, this is the kind of politics that Hillary’s campaign will continue. Forget the speeches and examine the campaign strategies, this conclusion cannot be denied.

Her traditional campaign strategy of focusing on big states, targeting likely voters and reliance on key endorsements only reinforces the status quo by limiting the scope of whose voices are to be heard (This is in contrast to Obama’s 50 state strategy, recruiting the “unlikely voters” to participate, and implementation of the principles of community organizing). With Obama’s current lead in delegates, it is too easy to forget that Hillary, early on, was the choice of the establishment of the Democratic Party. In fact, most pundits, prior to the first primary, had already concluded that Hillary would most likely be the Democratic nominee. The recent tactics of Hillary’s campaign is the most telling. Journalist Marc Cooper noted its turn to negative and fear-based electioneering that began with her infamous “ringing phone” ad, “To heal her own malady of consistently losing to Barack Obama, Clinton decided to scrap any innovation and reach for Granny’s old standby, fix-it-all remedy: When in doubt, just run like a Republican.” The sewer politics continue as Hillary ignored a reporter’s question last week if the Hillary campaign was pushing the controversial and racially divisive Pastor Wright’s story to the superdelegates. This stands in stark contrast to Obama’s recent attempt to bridge racial divisions in his historic speech on race, a risky political move that earned both acclaim and respect from a number of commentators from both sides of the aisle. Remember, extensive experience in Washington DC politics nods at Hillary’s campaign antics and counsels against Obama’s approach. If Hillary is willing to adopt Republican tactics during a difficult election, what would a Hillary Clinton White House do and accomplish during a difficult political season in Washington DC? What change does “experience” promise?

In the tradition of status quo politics and traditional media coverage, the news of Governor Bill Richardson’s impending endorsement of Barack Obama overshadowed a much more important meeting between several young war veterans, majority suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and the two battling candidates that took place on MTV’s Choose or Lose program. “I would trade in my Purple Heart to get my life back to as normal as it can be,” confessed Wendell Guillermo to the candidates. 23-year old Wendell faced a grenade on the war fields of Iraq and returned to the US with medals and a condition that rendered everyday tasks into bouts with anxiety and trauma-induced tension. Each of the newly returned soldiers confronted the two candidates with their stories of alienation and abandonment upon coming back home.

The real betrayal is not Richardson’s endorsement of Obama but the continuation of politics as usual.

– John Delloro

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Ed. Note: While AAA-Fund will not make a pre-primary, Presidential endorsement, its bloggers are free to opine about any candidate. To foster a spirited dialogue, we encourage readers to post their Comments on our Blog.

Race and 2008: An Opportunity

Does race matter? Of course it does. That is why we are talking about our political choices among ourselves as a racial minority with a history with American racism and with similar interests on a number of issues.

Race is why many are holding Barack Obama to a double standard ­ he must do more than reject statements of his former pastor, he must denounce the man, lumping his extreme statements with his teachings on Christ and love. Is this fair? Consider the experience of racism in America.

I am a Japanese American. My community was defined by our experiences during World War II, as a group of citizens and lawful residents (then barred by race from naturalization). We were scapegoated for Japan’s attack on the U.S., thrown into concentration camps losing most of our property. There were no trials and no evidence of wrongdoing or even of the perceived inherent racial disloyalty. That was what the U.S. Supreme Court held and it is still the law. It was and is wrong.

The heroes of my community included both those who refused military service while their families were incarcerated as a statement of civil disobedience and of those that joined the American war effort knowing that even after this they may have been rejected as Americans. The No-No Boys refused to make the choice that the government forced. The veterans went and faced higher casualty rates and more dangerous assignments than white units, most notably the 442nd combat team’s over 800 casualties to save about 200 members of a Texas unit. My late father in law joined the army to fight fascism. Yet when his parents were placed behind barbed wire he refused to serve, even deserting rather than accept unacceptable choices. The Constitution was violated, but even the Supreme Court turned its back.

I am a civil rights lawyer today because of those who stood up before the civil rights gains of the 1950′s and 1960′s. They taught America about true patriotism. At the same time many, especially many like the No-No Boys or my father in law, carried scars and enormous anger because of what they saw as a betrayal of their rights. They should never have had to make the choices that they had to, but I find some of their statements harsh, divisive and sometimes unfair to the white majority, only some of whom were alive when these awful decisions were made.

Should I reject their decisions because of their scars? Should I disown relatives who have taught me so much, yet went beyond what I believe? Should we ever be forced to denounce human beings as opposed to statements or acts? Can we see beyond a person¹s intolerance to see their other qualities? Minorities, and frankly as Senator Obama pointed out, whites also, do so. I have relatives that are among the most loving in my family exhibit sometimes shocking racist attitudes, sometimes against Blacks or against whites. Senator Obama talked about his white grandmother, who raised him, using racial epithets and being scared to be around a Black man on the street.

It is my history and my perspective as a Japanese American to say no. Like the No-No Boys, I have heard African American ministers beyond Rev. Jeremiah Wright that have spoken directly, loudly and dramatically of the pain and injustice visited upon their community, but also of the racism and hypocrisy that angered them. Their congregations don’t always agree with everything, but the extreme is not seen as eliminating that which is good. He is not rare nor is he alone. But in the same sermon I have heard ministers preach forgiveness and peace. It is fair to ask Senator Obama how he feels about those statements. It is not fair to ask that he reject the people or their pain that this intolerance often reflects. I remember my role model Mayor Harold Washington of Chicago, pressed on similar issues saying, “I denounce these vile statements and the ideas behind them. I do not denounce human beings.”

Senator Obama is trying to show this country, and this is one of the toughest divides that we may face, that we can reach across and accept our differences. As a man of mixed race he observes in his family the very divides that these issues reflect. Is America ready to show to the world that we can lead on race relations as we have on military strength? During the Cold War we cared how the world perceived us ­ one of the few areas we were at a disadvantage was when the world saw the violence and hatred visited on African Americans in the north as well as the south. Can we acknowledge that history and move beyond it? Can we show that those in Europe or the Middle East that cannot be at peace due to their religions or ethnicities that there is a better way?

Perhaps not. But I am enough a patriot that I believe that we can. Yes, Barack, yes we can.

-Paul Igasaki

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Ed. Note: While AAA-Fund will not make a pre-primary, Presidential endorsement, its bloggers are free to opine about any candidate. To foster a spirited dialogue, we encourage readers to post their Comments on our Blog.

Barack Obama boldly confronted the biggest crisis of his campaign with a speech on Tuesday that has the bloggers buzzing and the pundits pondering. Of the many adjectives one could use to describe his speech, the one that is most appropriate to me is “presidential.”

A 2007 Gallup poll showed that Americans ranked the top five greatest presidents in this order: Abraham Lincoln (18%), Ronald Reagan (16%), John F. Kennedy (14%), Bill Clinton (13%) and Franklin Roosevelt (9%).

Given that the average American knows little about presidential history and is inherently biased toward his or her own personal experience, as opposed to those of previous generations, this poll must be taken with a few grains of salt. However, it’s notable that all five leaders are remembered for either their overall oratorical skills, in the case of Clinton, or for specific
speeches that are now ingrained in American history. Of course there was Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address, still perhaps the most important presidential speech in our country’s history. FDR and JFK challenged Americans with their 1933 and 1961 inaugural speeches by declaring the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself” and “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” respectively. In 1987, Reagan demanded “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” in Berlin and guess what? He did.

I am not ready to place Obama in the company of Lincoln, FDR, JFK, Reagan or even Clinton just yet. However, it’s important to understand that a president’s ability to challenge, inspire, unite and uplift the country with his mere words cannot be overestimated. Hillary can pooh-pooh Obama’s great speeches all she wants, but as evidenced by Tuesday’s 39 minute masterpiece that he wrote himself, Barack has the same powerful gift that her husband had — and she does not.

Even some conservative bloggers raved about how Obama took the bull by the horns in Philadelphia.

Anyone who watched or read the entire speech would have to be completely out of touch to conclude anything other than that when it comes to race relations in America, Obama simply gets it, in all of its complexity and nuance. He has a grasp of the issue like no one else, yet he is realistic enough to admit that even if elected he could not possibly fix everything in even eight years. But he is determined to do his best, which is all we can expect him to do.

I predict that if Obama wins the nomination and the presidency, that his March 18 “A More Perfect Union” speech will be seen in retrospect as the beginning of the end of this historic Democratic primary battle. It wouldn’t even shock me if it is eventually regarded by historians as the first truly important speech of 21st century America.

–Theo Chen

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On the heels of the Federal Reserve’s stunning bailout of Bear Stearns, here’s one we can all cheer. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal printed a heartwarming tale: How a Boston investment banker freed 40 immigrants from detention by the Department of Homeland Security.

A year ago, federal authorities arrested 361 immigrants during a factory raid in New Bedford, Mass. (Ironically, the workers were sewing vests and backpacks for American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.) Most of the arrested workers were then shipped to a federal detention facility in Texas, where immigration judges tend to rule against immigrants.

That’s when former high school teacher Robert Hildreth — a philanthropist who amassed a fortune trading Latin American bonds — decided something had to be done:

Images of shackled prisoners stumbling as they boarded a plane for Texas are what spurred Mr. Hildreth to call Greater Boston Legal Services, a nonprofit group coordinating a legal response to the raid. “I told them to contact me if they had some bonds that needed to be paid,” he recalls.

According to the Journal, bail is typically set between $1500 and $7000. If a family could pay part of the bail, Hildreth would pay the rest. Altogether, Hildreth posted over $200,000 in bail — which freed 40 immigrants from detention.

While most of those arrested were undocumented immigrants, to date not a single person has jumped bail. After each case is resolved, Hildreth will get his money back. He plans to set up a bail fund for future cases.

Hildreth’s generosity has enabled the 40 immigrants to receive a fair hearing, and to be represented by lawyers. As a result, some may soon qualify for work permits, others may qualify for political asylum, and others may return to their homeland — all without the stigma of shackles.

Acts of kindness have a global impact.

– Gautam Dutta

Gautam Dutta, Grassroots Activism, Immigration, Social Justice | No Comments »

So in this whole fervor of “what happens with the delegates?”, people have had to become increasingly knowledgeable and aware of not just things like superdelegates but also DNC committees that previously were not much noticed by the outside world.

Earlier we noted that our very own AAA Fund endorsee Councilor Sam Yoon, the first and only AAPI elected official in Boston, was appointed to the DNC Rules Committee by Howard Dean earlier this year, and two local Boston blogs pick up on what this might mean in the Michigan and Florida brouhaha.

It is Brighton Centered’s understanding that Councilor Yoon’s appointment might mean he gets to help decide:

Councilor Yoon’s appointment means that a local elected official may have a key role in influencing the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. The Rules Committee may have to rule on two related issues: (1) whether Florida or Michigan can hold “make-up” primary or caucus contests before June 7th; and (2) whether or not those two states’ delegates can be seated at the DNC’s national convention this summer, should they not hold the “make-up” primaries.

They also have a decent breakdown of the difference between the Rules and Credential Committee, as well as conflicting statements from members and the DNC:

There is some confusion among political commentators about which DNC body will determine whether or not the delegates from Michigan or Florida are seated. Many commentators have mentioned the Credentials Committee, not the Rules Committee, as the body that will decide whether or not those two states’ delegates will be seated.

According to a document on the DNC’s website, the Credentials Committee has a role:

The Credentials Committee is responsible for resolving any questions regarding the seating of delegates and alternates to the Convention.

The Rules Committee, on the other hand, “is responsible for recommending the rules for the convention, rules of the Party, and other convention business,” which includes “resolutions on any matter not addressed by other standing committees.”

DNC Chairman Howard Dean has been quoted as saying that:

We would love to have them [Michigan and Florida] seated, but they would have to be seated within the rules. A year-and-a-half ago, we set a primary schedule which Florida and Michigan both voted for. What you cannot do is change the rules in the middle of a contest. I think every American understands that.

There’s been a lot of talk about things they can do; we’ve been very clear what they can do. One, they can resubmit to the Democratic National Committee Rules Committee a set of rules to pick delegates that are within the rules that they agreed to. Or two, if they don’t want to do that, they can appeal to the Credentials Committee and hope for the best in July.

So it appears that both committees have a role to play – if the states submit rules for seating delegates, then the Rules Committee examines them. Or they can appeal to Credentials for seats for their delegates.

Now, if our esteemed and well-informed audience has a better idea of what the difference is between the Rules and Credential Committees, now is the time to share.

Also it should be noted that Councilor Yoon supports Obama, as indicated in his interview with us. Read for his experiences with New Hampshire voters and their dislike of Romney.

This discussion of process bring us to a larger issue – should we seat the Michigan and Florida delegates? One but not the other? Why or why not?

–Caroline

Caroline, Democratic Party, President 2008 | No Comments »

Anger without hope breeds cynicism. The cynics will charge Obama with hypocrisy for only disavowing his pastor’s words, but not disowning him. The din of their very own rage and suspicion will distract them from listening carefully and to the whole of Obama’s historic speech on race. Like the enraged parents embittered by a bad turn in their marriage and embroiled in heated argument, they will not notice their child in the room. They will miss the new generation at our door and ask “who is Ashley?” The story of Ashley is the one of the most crucial elements in Obama’s larger post-racial narrative and is the story of many young Asian American/ Pacific Islanders.

Ashley at nine-years old faced the news of her mother being diagnosed with cancer. Her mother, unable to make it to work regularly, lost her job along with her healthcare coverage. The family had to file for bankruptcy. Ashley, at a young age, knew that food was the most expensive cost and convinced her mother that she only wanted to eat mustard and relish sandwiches. She did this for a year until her mother got better. At twenty-three, she got involved in the electoral race because she wanted to aid the children who needed to help their parents.

Ashley’s story is similar to Kevin’s story. Kevin, a Korean American student taking an Asian American Studies course I was teaching, told me how his mother selflessly worked long hours to care for him and his sister. She always prioritized her children, including forgoing doctor’s visits so that the money can be used for them. Finally, after worsening health problems, she saw a doctor. Kevin found out that she had cancer and she died 6 months later. Kevin and his sister endeavored to study harder and got into UCLA. He expressed, “Someday, I want to be the type of person who can touch and influence other people’s lives in good ways just like how my mom inspired my family.” Kevin’s story repeated itself in various forms in a number of the Asian American / Pacific Islander students in the class. There was Felicia, Arami, Baron, Judy and several more who recognize and are emboldened by the sacrifices of their parents. There are also those like Irene and Monica who had no choice but to help their monolingual parents as interpreters and representatives to various utilities and banks and could not rely on their parents for the same things like other children. Monica explained, “My friends never have to go through this; my family relies on me so much. I can’t be a normal kid.” Another student also named Monica summed it up best for all of them, “We aren’t Asian Americans because we’ve experienced immigrant struggles, downward mobility, or moderate ‘model’ success. Rather, we take the identity of Asian American because our families, our communities, and our people are Asian American.”

This new generation faces a very different reality from the cohort who originally coined the term “Asian American” in the sixties. Asian American movement veteran and scholar Glenn Omatsu noted that the birth of the Asian American movement coincided with the Black Power struggle and a mandate to address the fundamental questions of power and oppression. They experienced discrimination in the US as the nation engaged in the Vietnam War and a number of US citizens freely made racial epithets like “gook” and “chink” to describe the enemy. The insurgencies in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East at the time inspired these youth as they formed “ Third World ” coalitions with other racial groups. Malcolm X’s criticism of the US as a “racist society” and his call for liberation aroused many of them. Pastor Wright’s assessment of the US as a “country and culture controlled and run by rich white people” is no different from the words of Malcolm X. “For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years,” acknowledged Obama in his speech.

Today, many young people in the US see many failed revolutionary experiments, see the ineffectiveness of divisive partisanship and face an increasingly multiracial reality. Hope is a rare commodity that can only be found in the dreams of their parents who chanced to come into this country. When I asked the students in my class to explain what it means to be Asian American / Pacific Islander in the 21st century, they collectively chose to project themselves as “Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander descent.” From the sixties paradigm, it would be too easy and wrong to dismiss their analytical conclusions as naïve and unsophisticated. They simultaneously see the urgency of building political power for Asian American/ Pacific Islanders. Scholar Scott Kurashige explained that “getting ‘beyond race’ today is not about ignoring the problem of racism or moderating ones politics to appease whites. Instead, it means thinking about America as a multiracial nation that dispels old notions of both white normativity and majority/minority identities.”

These same students declared, “We seek to erase the ‘Model Minority’ myth and other stereotypes placed by others on us. We are not a passive people. Our past struggles and our contributions to the United States of American past, present and future needs to be recognized. The Asian American/ Pacific Islanders of today are not only descendants of colonial slavery, Chinese railroad workers and Japanese internees. We are also refugees of war. We are children of a new wave of immigration of highly-skilled and educated parents. And we are constantly searching for our place in this world..” and in a clearly targeted statement to those of different racial and ethnic groups…”we are just like you.”

Obama assessed that the “the profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old—is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know—what we have seen—is that America can change…this union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can be always perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation—the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.” Today’s young people are not willing to give up on the dreams of their parents.

Obama closed his speech with the story of an elderly black man who listened to Ashley tell her background. When it came turn for this man to explain why he got involved in the Obama campaign, he simply said, “I’m here because of Ashley.”

Regardless of who we support in this election, we cannot forget that we as a community need to be here for this new generation.

–John Delloro

John Delloro, President 2008, Social Justice | 36 Comments »

Ed. Note: While AAA-Fund will not make a pre-primary, Presidential endorsement, its bloggers are free to opine about any candidate. To foster a spirited dialogue, we encourage readers to post their Comments on our Blog.

Monday’s decision by the Florida Democratic Party to pull the plug on their mail-in primary do-over puts the spotlight squarely on Michigan, whose legislature is expected to decide by week’s end whether their June 3 do-over is feasible. Any plan would need the approval of the national party and the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

Conventional wisdom says the Clinton campaign, trailing in pledged delegates and needing to extend the game, is likely to approve any do-over — especially in light of the bad news from Florida. Rumor has it that the Obama campaign may oppose a Michigan do-over.

At issue is the plan that prevents anyone who voted in the GOP primary from voting on June 3. According to exit polls, 32% of the GOP primary voters were independents or Democrats, many of whom would have voted for Obama had his name been listed on the Democratic ballot.

Presumably Obama doesn’t mind that Hillary also loses a prime opportunity to catch up. But with Florida a no-go, does Michigan really matter?

Since Super Tuesday II on March 4, Obama has quietly been padding his delegate lead from a myriad of sources: his wins in Mississippi and Wyoming, last Saturday’s Iowa convention, late counting in California and Texas. Even the Eliot Spitzer scandal cost Hillary one superdelegate and also lowered the magic number to clinch the nomination to 2024. As a result, Clinton’s miniscule net gain of +6 delegates on March 4 has been wiped out, and counting all of March, Obama actually INCREASED his lead by a net +25 or so delegates.

Depending on which estimate you look at, Obama’s overall lead is somewhere between +130 and +140 and he is less than 400 away from 2024. Although Hillary looks poised to win Pennsylvania, the rest of the scheduled primaries look fairly even for Clinton and Obama. Under even the most bleak scenario for Obama, due to proportional allocation he should pick up at least 270 pledged delegates in the remaining primaries, bringing him within 120 and change of the nomination. Hillary would close the gap by a modest 21 delegates.

That brings us to Michigan and its 128 pledged delegates. While Michigan’s demographics appear slightly favorable to Hillary, it clearly is more favorable to Obama than Florida’s large population of seniors and Hispanics. If Obama had to choose which state to have a do-over, Michigan would be a no-brainer. Michigan has a higher African-American population than the U.S. as a whole, it has several huge college campus populations (although the proposed June 3 date could be problematic for some), and he has the endorsement of the state’s largest union (The United Food and Commercial Workers), not to mention SEIU.

Hillary has the endorsement of Governor Jennifer Granholm, and a huge white blue collar population that helped her win Ohio and should help her win Pennsylvania. For the sake of argument, let’s say she wins Michigan by the same margin she won Ohio, 55-45. She picks up 70 of the 128 delegates but Obama wins 58, and leads Hillary by at least 100 delegates — with no contests left.

Ignore the talking heads blabbing about popular vote — comparing the 2008 primaries to the 2000 general election is comparing apples and oranges. A general nationwide election conducted on the same day cannot be compared to a mish-mash of caucuses and primaries held periodically over a span over more than 6 months, many with completely different candidate fields.

Bottom line: assuming Florida is out the window, even if Michigan votes again and every single primary left breaks Hillary’s way, she cannot get within 100 delegates of Obama. Therefore, she will have a rather difficult time convincing the lion’s share of uncommitted superdelegates to overturn the cumulative results of more than 50 contests, whether Florida and Michigan vote again or not.

— Theo Chen

Democratic Party, President 2008, Theo Chen | No Comments »