Like President Obama, congressional candidate (and AAA-Fund endorsee) Judy Chu has won over her share of friends from the other side of the aisle.  Check out this analysis from Mike Spence, Chair of the California Republican Assembly:

In a special election members of any party can cross over and vote for a candidate of another candidate in the primary. The 32nd CD is about 21% Republican. Although there are at least two well-funded candidates talking about running, almost a dozen local GOP officeholders have endorsed Chu.  I haven’t checked the registration of everyone. These were the one I saw and knew they were Republicans, at least recently they were:

Dennis Zine, Los Angeles City Councilmember
John King, Covina City Councilmember
Harry Baldwin, San Gabriel Mayor
Mike Ten, South Pasadena City Councilmember and GOP Nominee in the 22nd SD in 2006.
Mary Su, Walnut City Councilmember
Barbara Boyd, Bassett Unified School District Board Member
Anthony Fellow, Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District Board Member
Shelley Sanderson, West Covina Mayor Pro Tem
Sherri Lane, West Covina City Councilmember
Steve Herfert, West Covina City Councilmember
Mike Touhey, West Covina City Councilmember

Quite remarkable: the party’s state chair isn’t even sure all these elected officials are still Republican!

Unless the California GOP listens to its moderates, its days in the desert will continue indefinitely.

– Gautam Dutta

California, Campaign Update, Congress, Gautam Dutta, Judy Chu, Republicans | No Comments »

Have the Republicans chosen window dressing or real change?  That’s the question to ponder after a divided GOP picked Michael Steele to be the first African American to head the Republican Party.

We’ll see if the GOP can get its act together — and figure out how it can appeal to an increasingly diverse America.  However, this blast from Steele’s past does not bode well.  At the time, Steele was running for Maryland Lieutenant Govenror (via Harper’s Magazine):

On board, 300 mostly poor African Americans from Philadelphia ate doughnuts, sipped coffee and prepared to spend the day at the Maryland polls. After an early morning greeting from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s wife, Kendel, they would fan out in white vans across Prince George’s County and inner-city Baltimore, armed with thousands of fliers that appeared to be designed to trick black Democrats into voting for the two Republican candidates.

The glossy fliers bore photos of black Democratic leaders on the front. Under the headline “Democratic Sample Ballot” were boxes checked in red for Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael S. Steele, who were not identified as Republicans. Their names were followed by a long list of local Democratic candidates.

As a candidate, Steele had no qualms about using dirty tricks against African Americans.

Past is prologue.

– Gautam Dutta

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An immigrant’s son was just sworn in as our 44th President. Should immigrants be allowed to run for president? Make sure your voice is heard in the AAA-Fund’s latest poll.

Update: Curious about how folks voted? Track the poll results! After you have voted, click on the “Next” box, click on two “Done” boxes, and you can see the instantaneous poll results. As of 10:52 am PT, a whopping 80 percent believed that immigrants should be able to run for President. Click here to take the poll!

– Gautam Dutta

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Cos we’re working hard for a living! Ok, not really, since none of us gets paid to blog, but tip us instead in links to articles, campaign intel, and other bloggable items. We’ll love you just as much. Send tips and praise to: info -at- aaa-fund – dot – com

– Caroline

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At long last, the LA Times finally published a real piece of journalism on the race to replace Rep. Hilda Solis — and the Politico took note. Although she has officially remained neutral, Solis has played a critical role in propelling AAA-Fund endorsee Judy Chu into the lead (via LA Times):

Solis’ staff said she would not endorse a candidate.

“All of her efforts have been focused on the confirmation and transition process,” said Sonia Melendez, Solis’ spokeswoman.

But State Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) said Chu touted Solis’ support during a private meeting at an East Los Angeles coffee shop last month.

“She said ‘I have Hilda’s blessing’ and that Hilda would be making calls to the unions,” said Romero, who at the time was weighing a bid for the seat. Romero said she scoffed at the notion that Solis’ recommendation would guarantee union support.

“She said: I don’t think the unions would want to upset the new secretary of Labor,” said Romero, who decided shortly after that to instead seek the post of state superintendent of public instruction.

Romero has endorsed Cedillo.

In an interview, Chu denied telling Romero that Solis, a Democrat from El Monte, would make calls on her behalf, but acknowledged saying that her backing would be helpful.

“I think that what I said was that Hilda would clearly be considered the leader in labor and for this nation and that her opinion would be very much respected,” Chu said.

Although Solis hasn’t publicly endorsed her, Chu intimated that Solis was in her corner.

“Let’s put it this way: She and I are very close friends, and her staff is my campaign staff, and her fundraiser is my fundraiser, and many of her supporters are my supporters,” she said.

Reliable sources tell us that Dr. Chu will soon open her campaign headquarters in Baldwin Park, in the heart of the 32nd Congressional District. Her campaign plans to aggressively reach out to all voters in the district: Latinos, Asian Americans, and whites.

Since voter turnout will be dismal, the candidate that can get her voters out to the polls will win.

Or, to paraphrase James Carville: It’s the voters, stupid!

– Gautam Dutta

California, Campaign Update, Congress, Gautam Dutta, Judy Chu | No Comments »

Monday, January 26, 2009, First Day of the Lunar New Year.  Lions crouch in prayer for a prosperous new year inside the Kwan Ying Vietnamese Buddhist Temple located on 3224 N. Broadway right outside Chinatown, Los Angeles.

Now four days into the new Year of the Ox,  I wish all of you happiness, good health, and prosperity.  That aside, onto the serious stuff:

As usual this Lunar New Year, I went with my parents on our temple round in Chinatown (here in Los Angeles) and a few scattered ones throughout the San Gabriel Valley.  And as usual, I was overwhelmed by the masses of adults and children gathered at these temples.  One may conclude that I have short term memory to be surprised yearly by the same scene that takes place throughout Chinatown at the start of each new year; but in my own defense, I have to argue that public gatherings of Asian Americans of this scale is uncommon at any other time during the year.  For this reason, Chinatown’s public scene during the Lunar New Year on temple grounds screams opportunity for political mobilization at these very sites.

There is of course no need to politicize this joyous occasion of free food, promised fortune, and shattered firecrackers.  However, when the veil of incense subsides, so does public life in Chinatown.  We wait until next year for another great Asian American celebration — indiscriminate of class, education, and generational background.

Once upon a time before the 1990s, Chinatown was a place of thriving civic life equipped with generational loyalty, social outlets, and most importantly, public space.  In passing one of the temples located just off of Broadway, my mom mentioned that it was the first organization she was introduced to when she first arrived in America in the late 1970s; it was the initial social sanctuary for most Asian immigrants who arrived during that era.  Today, there exists no such central place but rather many places for transitional assistance, many of them focused solely on immigration assistance.  Temples were different.  They once fulfilled not just the spiritual needs of their congregation but also their social needs.  Within walking distance of temples were ethnic organizations (such as the Southern California Teo Chew Association) fundraising for community causes and fostering community leadership.  Today, these two institutions exist side by side but with inactive political currents and without public activity — except during the new year.

The crowd.

Chinatown’s temples, in collaboration with its surrounding organizations, are an abundant group resource for civic engagement and political participation.  Obama’s presidency has captured the political interest of Asian Americans across generations, and now is the rare window of opportunity to translate that to renewed public life.  Whether the objective is to increase voting or train candidates for public office, the goal is to sustain political interest.  Temples have always had a devoted following eager to work together for common good.  There is no limit to extending this common good to political issues that affect our daily lives.

In response to Obama’s inauguration speech, John Delloro wrote: “For Asian American Pacific Islanders, this new period means displacing 20th Century identity politics with a 21st Century recognition that we are part of a multi-racial majority.”  I can’t agree more, but until we can bridge generation and language divides within our own ethnic communities, a vision for a pan-Asian community joining other communities is a destination without a road.  Rather than just forming pan-Asian organizations anew as many have suggested and already done in Los Angeles, I would suggest also trying to reinvigorate resources already present in old establishments such as Chinatown and temples.

Since academic discussion on factors driving political participation has focused a lot on churches, I thought it would be relevant to enlighten your new year with my thoughts on a convenient analogy at a convenient time — the temples of Asian America during this Lunar New Year.

–Helen Tran

Grassroots Activism, Helen Tran | 1 Comment »

Betsy Kim to Defense. Well, not exactly. She’ll be White House Liaison to the Defense Department, in charge of handling messaging from the White House to the agency. Previously, Kim was Deputy Director of the AAPI Vote team for Obama, and DNC Dep. Director, American Majority Partnership. She was also a Board Member of the Asian American Action Fund. Congrats!

Shomik Dutta, who was previously Mid Atlantic Finance for the campaign, also joins the Office of Legal Counsel as special assistant to Greg Craig, White House counsel.

Rashad Hussain, who was previously staff for the House Judiciary committee, joins as Deputy Associate Counsel.

The administration also will nominate Ivan K. Fong, as General Counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, which deals with immigration matters. Per the press release:
Ivan K. Fong is currently the Chief Legal Officer & Secretary for Cardinal Health, Inc., and served previously as Deputy Associate Attorney General for the Department of Justice, playing a key role in directing the federal government’s role in civil litigation and enforcement matters. During his tenure, Fong was the primary author and editor of “The Electronic Frontier: The Challenge of Unlawful Conduct Involving the Use of the Internet,” a groundbreaking report on cybercrime policy.

He holds a Bachelor and Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Juris Doctor from Stanford University and was a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University, Magdalen College.

The Obama administration and transition team has so far done an excellent job of promoting diversity at all levels, starting with the Cabinet.

–Caroline

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There’s a whole slew of news happening on the local level with Asian American candidates, Supes, and mayors, from East to West. The whole federal inauguration thing is pretty awesome, and I have a lot of stuff to upload on that front, but in the meantime, here’s your digest of local APA candidate and elected news (which is awesome in its own right because we need local leaders who will be able to move up.) And if you think about it, I’m sure a lot of voters decided, hey if a man named Barack Obama can lead our country, then Jessica Wang sure can govern our town!

MAYORS:

1) New mayor of Irvine, CA: Sukhee Kang. Kang moves up from the city council to helm the city. Repubilcan Chris Choi regained his seat on the council.

2) Rhode Island gets its first APA mayor: Allen Fung. He’s a Republican. Now mayor of Cranston. Still kinda cool in terms of representation. 63-37 victory which is pretty good.

3) Mountain View, CA gets its first female APA mayor: Margaret Abe-Koga. Ronit Bryant was voted in as vice mayor. Here’s a nice clip:

In her acceptance speech, Abe-Koga remembered her father’s remarks before he passed away in 2007: “Only in American could the daughter of an immigrant be elected to serve as mayor.”

As Abe-Koga’s two young daughters looked on, she thanked Art Takahara, the city’s first Asian mayor, for paving the way.

CITY COUNCIL:
4) Boston City Councilor At-Large Sam Yoon will be making a decision about his mayoral intentions next weekend. It would be a first in a city founded by immigrants. Read a recent clip here. AAA Fund has previously endorsed Yoon in his first two successful runs for Council.

5) New York City Councilmember John Liu has maxed out on how much money he can use for the Public Advocate seat. He recently hired the crack polling firm of Celinda Lake and other top notch advisers.

6) First Indian American City Councilor in San Jose, CA: Ashu Kalra. He joins a number of other APAs on City Council in a district that has a long history of being represented by APAs including Congressman Mike Honda when he was on the school board, and former Transportation and Commerce Secretary Norm Mineta, back when he was San Jose Mayor and then Congressman.

7) San Jose’s first Vietnamese American City Councilor, Madison Nguyen, is facing some resistance in her re-election battle.

San Francisco Supervisor David Chiu was recently elected. (He was endorsed by the AAA Fund’s NorCal chapter.) He is the first Asian American, and the first Chinese American to represent Chinatown. (Which seems sorta crazy given how long Chinese Americans have been in SF. Baby steps, right?)

OTHER LOCAL NEWS:
9) Philadelphia’s Chinese American community is fighting efforts by Foxwoods casino to locate in Chinatown.

Closing thought: Per Myron Pitts, on Rev. James Lowery’s invocation line, “”We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.”

*It’s not really appropriate to call Asian-Americans “yellow” or Native Americans, “red men,” but I think no one wanted to make anything of it with a civil rights warrior like Lowery.

More discussion here. What did you think about his rhyme?

Update: Some corrections made – 1) on Mayor Kang, who was already on Irvine City Council, and 2) to fix the Madison Nguyen link – all pointed out by an astute reader.

– Caroline

Campaign Update, Caroline, Sam Yoon | No Comments »

No, not the band. The good ole USPS which provides us with our daily mail, vitamins, correspondence from loved ones, etc., is thinking of cutting a day of delivery!!! It’s one more move towards an early death for a federal institution and a move towards only having private companies (which are increasingly consolidating – see the recent DHL-UPS talks.)

Yeah, I know there’s an inclination to say, who gives a flying fig? And I would understand that sentiment, since the USPS is not always the speediest or most efficient of creatures. And while we are moving to (and have been in) a more automated and online correspondence age, the USPS is still the backbone of our economy, and it still moves goods across the nation. Cutting a delivery day would just further erode what confidence and trust that Americans have in the postal service and its delivery capacity. Not to mention, USPS can be more dependable than both private companies.

Furthermore, additional post office closures are likely to impact residents of rural areas and low-income neighborhoods (reading between the lines). Well, apparently the only two options are that or raise the prices of stamps:

The agency could request a larger increase because of the special circumstances, but Potter believes that would be counterproductive by causing mail volume to fall even more.

Dan G. Blair, chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission, noted in his testimony that cutting service could also carry the risk of loss of mail volume. He suggested Congress review both delivery and restrictions it imposed on the closing of small and rural post offices.

Also, cutting a day of service just because the economy is weak doesn’t build consumer confidence – I’d argue that it actually leads to a snowball effect where people grow increasingly disinclined to use the system. While USPS prices have been increasing steadily, they are still cheaper than delivery rates for the only two private companies left standing. The USPS is an imperfect beast which needs to modernize, but it’s a necessary part of our nation’s infrastructure. I hear the bell tolling, and the long-term implications aren’t pretty.

Ok, ok, because I psyched you out, here’s an actual Postal Service video.

Don’t leave an empty space, USPS. Who else is going to send all my unrequited love letters? (Kidding on that one.)

Caroline | 2 Comments »

Georgetown University Law professor Neal Katyal, who was successful in the habeas corpus case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, has been appointed by President Obama to be deputy solicitor general.

Good-looking, funny, and a Yale Law grad who has clerked for the Supreme Court, Katyal is living the Asian American Dream. Need proof? See his entertaining 2006 interview with Stephen Colbert. Or look at his resume, which is available at his Georgetown profile. The interesting thing is that he lists Attorney General-designate Eric Holder as a reference.

Kudos to President Obama and the transition team for picking such a talented individual for the Office of Legal Counsel.

Update: While Obama has picked a number of legal stars for his team, many of them are notably anti-Bush torture, including Neal Katyal. But his Department of Justice is going to face a thorny issue of defending John Yoo, who gained notoriety as the legal mind behind many of Bush’s torture memos. Why would Obama’s team want to defend John Yoo? To protect US gov’t prerogatives.

– Caroline

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Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic has a profile of Michelle Obama that covers Chicago’s role in creating a large African American middle class community that is comfortable and secure in itself, a “third way” not of Clintonian formation but of being robustly American.

Standing behind that podium in Milwaukee, Obama was waxing nostalgic. That doesn’t mean she was wrong. She was merely expressing the hope that the world could be as it was in South Shore, filled with people who get up, raise kids, and go to work, and never have to think about being “the other.”

But increasingly, as we move into the mainstream, black folks are taking a third road—being ourselves. Implicit in the notion of code-switching is a belief in the illegitimacy of blacks as Americans, as well as a disbelief in the ability of our white peers to understand us. But if you see black identity as you see southern identity, or Irish identity, or Italian identity—not as a separate trunk, but as a branch of the American tree, with roots in the broader experience—then you understand that the particulars of black culture are inseparable from the particulars of the country.

There’s a certain parallel in his words to our experience as Asian Americans. Traversing between our immigrant families and communities and the broader American culture, we had to learn how to translate situations and conversations for our parents and grandparents, and sometimes even strangers. There are those of us who are third or forth generation, further removed from the discoveries of acculturation, who have still been in the position of being asked to speak to a customer who looks like us, but who we share nothing with, not even a common ancestry, just because “we all look alike.” In these cases, we cannot decide whether or not to be embarrassed for the customer, our coworker, or ourselves. (If the customer actually shares a nationality with us, I’ve been told by friends who are alternately angry at the presumption that they should know their “native tongue” and regretful that they never learned Korean/Chinese/Gujarati/etc. I also have friends who are doctors who REALLY wish they could communicate with their patients.)

I don’t do a lot of code-switching or culture crossing, but there are ceremonies and holidays that I observe that are not recognized by the federal government, and probably never will be. Nonetheless these are traditions which are rich and flavorful, in all the best ways (especially food!) Speaking of which, happy lunar new year!

Walking a third way is something that may of us wind up coming to. For me, President Obama’s 2004 DNC address encapsulates a modified third way – acknowledging the presence of black, Latino, and Asian America while saying that we are more than the sum of our parts.

– Caroline

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It’s time for President Obama to get Hilda Solis confirmed as U.S. Labor Secretary.  As La Opinion notes, Republicans have bottled up her nomination in the Senate:

Solis is the right person to return the agency to its original purposes, but GOP resistance has stalled her nomination. Those who oppose her confirmation disagree with Solis’s support of a bill that facilitates union organizing and they are against the overturning of a Supreme Court ruling on pay discrimination. It should be noted that the Senate has just passed a bill on this latter issue.

It isn’t surprising that a Republican minority wants to maintain policies of the Bush Administration but the political scene has changed dramatically with the election and so too, the priorities of the federal government.

Throughout her career, Hilda Solis has fought for the underdog.

President Obama should see to it that she gets confirmed pronto.

— Gautam Dutta

Gautam Dutta, Obama Administration, Social Justice | No Comments »

It’s about time. Sam Zell’s ever shrinking LA Times has finally run a follow-up piece on the race to succeed Rep. Hilda Solis.  Tonight’s LA Times Blog (but not its print edition) caught up with last week’s news that the LA County Federation of Labor had endorsed Dr. Judy Chu:

On Monday night, candidate Judy Chu, currently chair of the State Board of Equalization, received a coveted distinction in local politics: a nod from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

“She’s got a tremendous labor background,” said Ed Rendon, political director for the Teamsters Joint Council in Los Angeles, which is a member of the federation’s Committee on Political Education.

He said his union separately endorsed Chu earlier this month.

“I am so grateful that they placed their trust in me,” said Chu, a former teacher who said she has worked for the labor movement for decades, including leading rallies and pressuring employers to use unionized janitorial services and sponsoring legislation to protect workers from on-the-job heat illnesses.

Let’s hope the Times continues to cover the race.

– Gautam Dutta

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Dissatisfied with your (Chinese) fortune (cookie)?  Then get in touch with Kenny Yee (via LA Times):

When Kenny bought his fortune cookie company, he inherited an inventory of roughly 100,000 little pearls of wisdom. And most of them, he thought, were out of date, irrelevant, a lost opportunity — bad for business, worse for karma. “With this cookie,” he told me, brandishing a folded, stuffed example, “I’ve got five seconds of face time with someone. I don’t want them to just chuck the paper aside. I want to make fortunes that inspire people, that have spark, that make them laugh or want to be or want something they don’t have.”

This morning, the LA Times’ Gregory Rodriguez wrote a whimsical column extolling the virtues of fortune cookies.  In the process, he put in a friendly plug for my friend Kenny Yee, a civic leader who’s Vice Chair of the Center for Asian Americans United for Self-Empowerment (CAUSE):

My buddy Kenny Yee wants to be the Barack Obama of the Chinese food industry — purveying fortune cookies you can believe in.

Rodriguez continues with a quick history lesson:

The last time I wrote about Kenny, he was presiding over the Miss Chinatown pageant and running his family’s noodle business. But in March of last year, he struck out on his own and bought one of L.A.’s four Chinese fortune cookie factories. I hate to break it to you if you don’t already know, but fortune cookies aren’t from China. Depending on which story you believe, they were invented right here in Los Angeles by a Chinese-born noodle manufacturer, or in San Francisco by a Japanese immigrant who tended the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. Either way, they’re a California invention that dates back to before World War I — classical Californiana.

Food for thought.

– Gautam Dutta

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Blogger Vijay Prashad is a professor at Trinity College.

On January 27, 2009, a newly formed task force of Indian American organizations is set to overrun Capitol Hill. The Indian American Task Force will take their message to Congress and to the new administration, asking them to be much tougher on Pakistan. The impetus for this new combine and its lobbying is the Mumbai attacks of December 2008.

But this is not just about justice for the victims of Mumbai. There is another dynamic involved, which is to walk the Jewish American road, to create a “India Lobby” that resembles the “Israel Lobby.” The investment among these Indian Americans is to follow the remarkable success of the Israel Lobby, which has been able to leverage its relatively small numbers (7 million, only 2.5% of the U. S. population) into considerable political power. An even more impressive story is that of the Cuban Americans (1.6 million; 0.5% of the U. S. population), but these Indian Americans are less enthused by them. After the Bay of Pigs and a few isolated terrorist acts, the Cubans have been rather unimpressive, the Embargo notwithstanding. The Jewish American dominated Israel Lobby, on the other hand, has made the United States into “Israel’s attorney” (according to former U. S. State Department official Aaron David Miller). This is what impresses the new Indian American Task Force.

More details are available here.  And don’t forget to call Congress on this one…

– Vijay Prashad

Congress, Foreign Affairs, Grassroots Activism, Obama Administration | 2 Comments »