Category Archives: diversity

At High Noon, an Asian American to California’s High Court: Say hello to Justice Goodwin Liu

Goodwin Liu finally got justice. The title that is.

It’s not the U.S. District Court spot that may have led ultimately to the highest court in the land. Instead he’s Justice Liu, member of the California Supreme Court.

Check out the new AMOK column at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund blog:

http://aaldef.org/blog/with-goodwin-liu-asian-americans-now-the-majority-on-californias-highest-court-but-is-diversity-the.html

After Libya, Detroit? Grace Lee Boggs’ humanistic revolution

I visited Detroit recently when I attended the Asian American Journalists Association Convention.

But the highlight of the trip was meeting Hall of Fame activist Grace Lee Boggs.

If you are an unabashed capitalist, maybe even a free-market Tea Party-type, you might not give Boggs the benefit of an open mind. 

She’s a radical, maybe the most radical Asian American I know.

And we all know what happens when “socialism” enters into any discussion in America. Witness the debate over universal health care.  In the U.S., there is a low tolerance for Marx, unless you’re talking Groucho.

But Grace Lee Boggs is different. When capitalism fails us (as it is currently),  Boggs has answers.

Read my profile of her:

Rep. David Wu’s failed promise

The debt ceiling debate was given a little levity when politicos had David Wu to pounce on.

It’s hard not to. The guy has been flat out bizarre in his actions.

But it’s not funny, really.

The guy may have been troubled personally, stressed out on many different levels.  But he was no buffoon. He was the first Chinese American elected to the House. And that’s a big, big deal.

Read my amok column exclusively on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund website: 

http://aaldef.org/blog/farewell-to-tigger-wu.html

Jose Antonio Vargas–the undocumented, not the illegal

Talked to an editor friend about Jose Antonio Vargas, an award winning Filipino American reporter who revealed his life as an undocumented person recently in a  New York Times Magazine article.

The editor pal said he’s not “undocumented.” He just had fake documents.

But I pointed out since the documents were fake they are non-documents, hence Vargas is still technically “undocumented.”

To which the editor-friend replied, that to the people Vargas presented the fake documents it appeared he had documents, which actually  would make Vargas a “falsely documented person.”

OK. But still basically undocumented.

The reason we have debates like this is that people tend to call the undocumented  “illegals.”

Illegal  is used as a noun, which is not proper and offensive when applied to people who should be presumed innocent.

“Illegal” can  be used appropriately, as an adjective or adverb. You can be a person who enters illegally. But you can’t be an illegal.

Sure, the shortcut is lost on texters and butchers of the language, but once explained you can see why “undocumented” is the  preferred term for people who entered  this country outside the law, or illegally.

But they aren’t “illegals.”  Those are sick birds.

They may be  illegal entrants, but as people they are undocumented.

My editor pal objected still and  said undocumented is like a sanitized euphemism. Like calling a janitor a “sanitary engineer.”

But I tell him insisting on “undocumented”  doesn’t sanitize or euphemize, it humanizes. It’s an appropriate balance to calling them “illegals” which only  vilifies and criminalizes unfairly.

For my take on Vargas, the new face of the undocumented, check out my blog at:

 http://aaldef.org/blog/vargas-the-undocumented2.html