Category Archives: diversity

Emil Amok: Why Destroy The Best Thing in Public Education? Addressing Equity and Diversity at SF’s Lowell High In A Way That Doesn’t Hurt Us All.

I’m an alumnus of Lowell, a San Francisco native, and I hate what they want to do to Lowell High. It was more important to me than going to Harvard.

My op-ed piece in the SF Chronicle on the proposed lottery for admissions to Lowell High.

I say it’s a bad gamble.
Read why.

A lottery is about luck. Let’s be intentional about fixing racism in the schools. I mentioned some ways it could be done while keeping Lowell an academic school.  But that would take some leadership and thought.

I talk about it here in this video:

See my other columns here.

Emil Amok is Emil Guillermo: Here’s more on the U.S. soldier David Fagen, the African American who became a Filipino Freedom Fighter. A true “Insurrecto,” Fagen knew what it meant when his U.S. commanders called Filipinos the “N-word.” They were fighting words. So, of course, he switched sides.

My Emil Amok’s Takeout talks to Professor Daniel Phil Gonzales about David Fagen, the African American Buffalo Solider who deserted during the U.S.-Philippine War to become a Filipino “insurrecto.”

See more of my columns on the AALDEF site.

Emil Amok: Listen to my podcast farewell to Corky Lee, Asian America’s “photographer laureate.” Plus my 2017 APA Heritage Month conversation with Corky.

I say goodbye to Corky here as I read the piece from the AALDEF blog.
Then, listen to the 2017 conversation where Corky talks about his life and why the Transcontinental Railroad picture meant so much to him.
At the end, he gets emotional about his friend, historian Philip Choy who taught Chinese American history at San Francisco State University.
It’s a revealing moment in a conversation that shows Corky, the person, the man behind the lens, who at times was invisible to us all as he stalked the best shot at Asian American events.
It’s one of the few times we took the time to really talk to each other.

It’s my “all-in-one” podcast tribute to Corky.

See more of my columns here.

Emil Amok is mourning. My pal, photographer Corky Lee has died of Covid.

Add my pal Corky Lee to the list of Americans who have fallen in the Covid War.

No one can tell me Covid is fake or that the pandemic is not real.

Corky was a true Asian American fighter.

He always pushed me to do better, always, for Asian Americans, for the greater good.

I will miss him dearly.

More later on the AALDEF blog.