Category Archives: blog

blog, diversity, news, politics, race

Tammy Duckworth’s history lesson: AAPI Vets’ rich history of service

Every day in May, the White House has had Asian Americans in government post something relating to APA Heritage Month. This being Memorial Day, it was set up perfectly for Tammy Duckworth, the Asst. Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Here is her blog entry on the contributions of Asian Americans in service to our country.

Posted by Tammy Duckworth on May 30, 2011 at 11:17 AM EDT
It’s an understatement to say that the United States benefits from its diverse citizenry.  The very nature of our country is one where Americans of different races and ethnicities come together to contribute to the rich blend of American culture.  Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are one of the many populations to contribute to the patchwork quilt of America—even though many of these contributions are not widely known.  Even as AAPIs have been part of American history, we are also an important part of America’s future as a global economic and innovation leader.
One hundred and fifty years ago, it was Asian laborers who literally moved mountains with their bare hands and bent backs, uniting the nation from East to West by laying the rail line of the first transcontinental railroads.  During the Civil War, Chinese Americans fought in white units mostly in the North, while some united under the Confederate banner.  Edward Day Cohota, a Chinese immigrant, served in the Union Army during the Civil War and remained in the United States Army for more than twenty years.  Unlike other soldiers who were granted US citizenship under the 1862 Alien Veteran Citizenship act upon their honorable discharge, he was never granted citizenship because of the later 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act which made it illegal for Chinese to become U.S. citizens.  And of course we are all familiar with the heroism of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th battalion of Japanese Americans during World War II.  Even while their families were herded into internment camps and stripped of their constitutional rights and liberties, these brave Americans fought with a ferocity seldom seen before or since.
What hasn’t changed throughout American history has been the undivided love that AAPIs have for our nation.  The story repeats itself throughout American history of AAPIs serving honorably.  Today, our Pacific Islander Veterans, along with Native American Veterans, serve in the U.S. military at the highest per capita rates of any population in the nation.  There are currently only two Asian Americans in the United States Senate, Senators Inouye and Akaka, and both are Veterans.  There is no question of our AAPI service members’ ability to excel in the military, something clearly demonstrated by the military service of people like Secretary Shinseki, Brigadier General Coral Wong Pietsch (1st female AAPI Army general officer) and the 32 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients from the first, José B. Nísperos, to the 22 who were recognized decades after their service on the battlefield such as Senator Daniel Inouye and onto the most recently named Private First Class Anthony T. Kaho’ohanohano.
Today, as other nations develop and become more globally competitive, the United States must draw on the skills of all our citizens in order to win the technological, innovation and production race for the future. So as we celebrate the contributions of AAPIs to our nation’s rich heritage, we should also look forward to where AAPI’s varied contributions will add to the toolkit our nation will use to win the future.

Tammy Duckworth is the Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. 

blog, diversity, news, politics, race

Asian Americans won’t soon forget how the GOP shot down Goodwin Liu

Goodwin Liu’s withdrawal as a nominee to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was maybe a “good win” for GOP partisans.

But it’s  a bad loss for Asian Americans, and all Americans who believe in diversity, justice and merit.

There is no doubt that such a gifted legal mind as Liu would have served the country with distinction. 

Too bad the nomination was poisoned by those on the right  intent on designing the face of the federal judiciary instead of leaving it to what has been routinely a sitting president’s prerogative. 

(For more on why Liu would have been a great choice, see my blog posts at www.aaldef.org/blog)

Liu’s letter to President Obama on Wednesday was to the point. As quoted in Politico:  “In light of last week’s unsuccessful cloture vote … I respectfully ask that you withdraw my nomination from further consideration by the United States Senate…With no possibility of an up-or-down vote on the horizon, my family and I have decided that it is time for us to regain the ability to make plans for the future.”

“In addition, the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit has noted the ‘desperate need for judges’ to fill current vacancies, and it is now clear that continuing my nomination will not address that need any time soon.”

The Ninth Circuit’s need for judges is great. But Liu underplayed the need for Asian American judges in the most Asian American region in the U.S.  The under-representation of the group on the federal bench  is practically a crime.

When someone as qualified as Liu doesn’t get past go in the nomination process, it’s  a sad message to Asian Americans, and anyone who believes in the values of diversity and merit.

Were it  not for the nastiness of modern politics, Liu could have been a contender. He is probably the best Asian American Supreme Court Justice who never was. 

Liu never got the chance he deserved. 

How he was shot down by the GOP is something Asian Americans will not soon forget.

I had hoped that Liu would fight on for his right to serve. Certainly, the president could have pressed on and continued the fight through October.   We won’t know if Liu’s letter pre-empted that.  It certainly lifted the pressure on Obama to do anything further.

But we do know that the GOP will come courting in 2012 and beyond.

The memory of Goodwin Liu should still be very fresh. 

blog, news, race

Happy Asian Heritage Street Fair Day! Get the perfect rapture appetizer before the world ends…

I’m out on the streets of San Francisco for the big Asian Heritage Street Day.

As a San Francisco native is great to see everyone out there in Civic Center and Little Saigon checking out the food, the booths, and the music that make the street fair a fun party. 

The Street Fair ends at about the same time the world is supposed to end at 6pm.

I’ll be doing a uniquely Filipino contest at 5pm on the Jazz and Cultural stage at Golden Gate and Larkin.  

Come on by and say hello. Before you get raptured, you’ll want an appetizer.

If you haven’t seen me in AsianWeek since it stopped publishing the print edition,  you can still see NEW Amok columns. 

Read my amok utterances here at www.amok.com.

And there’s the blog at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund: www.aaldef.org/blog

You can also follow me at www.twitter.com/emilamok

Go read up.  If the world ends at 6pm, you’ll be sorry.

blog, diversity, news, politics, race

Schwarzenegger and Strauss-Kahn: It’s not about sex, but power, greed, and ego

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Better than your average car wreck on the interstate, it’s hard not to be fascinated by the public spectacle of powerful white men getting their penises caught in a shredder.

That’s what happening to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who both thought their sexual exploits could be as easily dismissed and forgotten like some unwanted document.

Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, would have gotten away, at least from New York, were it not for the cell phone left at the scene of the crime.

And Schwarzenegger, well, you can’t undo a love child.  A pro-choice Republican while in office, Schwarzenegger made a bad choice.

And now we see how badly he misunderstood the notion of “courting the Latino” vote.

I would have thought that we all have settled in our minds how we felt about philandering politicians after the Clinton/Lewinsky affair.

But I guess it depends on how much you like the philandering pol.

Then you can “compartmentalize” private and public, just like the pol, and allow your guy to get away with the nasty.

Bill Clinton seems to done just splendidly after the affair. But that didn’t happen to John Edwards, who not only cheated on the poor cancer-stricken Elizabeth, but then…. she died on him. 

I’d say serial cheaters like Newt Gingrich, a presidential candidate, need to worry.

The public still expects fidelity and honesty. More leeway is given if they like you. And Gingrich is hardly warm and cuddly.

In Schwarzenegger’s case, everyone loves Maria Shriver, so it’s really no contest for the body builder. He’s done in public life. And in his private life, maybe he’ll find solace among the ethically challenged in show business.

Strauss-Kahn? In America, he’s just known as a man of power.  But he’s also a man of contradictions. The guy heads the IMF and he’s a socialist?  He certainly was a socialist when it comes to sex.

He apparently did it with everybody, many of them journalists and now they’re speaking out.

Curiously, Strauss-Kahn’s victim was a hotel maid from Africa.

Schwarzenegger’s was his household help from Guatemala.

And this is basically why these two sexual exploits are vastly different from some other sexual shenanigans in politics.

You can’t compartmentalize the actions so easy in the realm of  personal vs. public.

Schwarzenegger and Strauss-Kahn’s dalliances become crimes when they cease to be about sex, and turn into imperialistic acts of power and class.

Their actions are all about powerful men taking advantage of the weak, getting what they want, when they want, and thinking they can get away with it.

They can’t.