 Candidate for U.S. Senate, Randy Parraz In a video shot at a campaign appearance for the Democrats of Greater Tucson, Randy Parraz – a community organizer running in the Democratic primary for John McCain’s Senate seat – says voters should ask themselves “what type of values this person has.”
In an interview with Blog for Arizona writers, Parraz talks about how he thinks he is the candidate with the right values to replace Senator John McCain in November. “[Voters] need someone who understands the issues,” says Parraz, citing his history of working as a union leader and organizing against Sherriff Joe Arpaio. “We don’t need a traditional candidate,” Parraz continued.
In fact, Parraz spends a lot of time making the case for himself as the candidate with the right values to represent Arizona in the Senate. And, as a progressive and a grassroots activist, I appreciate Parraz’s background as a community organizer. After spending over an hour and a half on the phone with Parraz and his campaign staff, I am reminded of my days working with Obama for America. The same kind of grassroots excitement that fueled Obama’s presidential campaign, and the Dean campaign in 2000, is now evident in Parraz’s organization. I believe that Randy Parraz is a man who genuinely wants to fix Arizona.
Unfortunately, I just don’t think that Parraz’s good intentions are enough.
With all the buzz surrounding Parraz’s candidacy, I was excited to have an opportunity to chat with him about the substantive proposals he brings to the table. But, while researching Parraz’s platform and political stances, I soon came to a frightening realization: for the boatloads of evidence out there demonstrating that Parraz has the right values to be this state’s next senator, he’s got very few tangible ideas.
For example, in our interview, I asked Parraz to clarify his remarks on Arizona Illustrated two weeks ago, when he said that we “can’t secure the border” and that it would be insulting to try. Arguably, illegal immigration is the issue that will draw Arizona voters on both sides of the aisle to the ballot box this year; every aspiring politician running right now should have a polished answer on the subject available at a moment’s notice. Parraz is quick to say that he opposes sending additional National Guard troops to the border, saying, “I don’t buy into the argument that the border is insecure. How many agents do we need to feel the border is secure?” He further quipped, “Republicans only want bigger government on the border.”
However, when Parraz was asked about what his ideal comprehensive immigration reform package might look like, he was disappointingly thin on details. The usual Democratic platform was present – he supports family reunification, and the DREAM Act; opposes mass deportation of illegal immigrants. But on the question of whether illegal immigrants should pay a fine, Parraz is vague. At best, Parraz advocates raising our existing low-skilled job quotas, and allowing existing illegal immigrants to choose a pathway to citizenship, legalization or temporary worker status, but specific details on how to implement these pathways (without affecting America’s existing labour shortage) were absent. And as for whether or not his comprehensive immigration reform package involved re-examining our system for recruiting highly-skilled immigrants, Parraz offered only platitudes, saying, “America needs to maintain our competitive edge.”
 Parraz at a press conference during his community organizing days, in 2008 Even on his “top priority” issue – jobs and the economy – Parraz offers few ideas. When I asked Parraz about the first bill he would love to sponsor in the Senate to address this issue, Parraz used the opportunity to attack John McCain by saying, “the top issue [in this state is] jobs and the economy. [On this], John McCain has been disengaged for 24 years.”
Parraz highlights the gap between the minimum wage and the living wage, saying that “people should be paid for the work they’re supposed to be doing.” Parraz criticizes the existing system, which he characterizes as a virtual “black market” of workers who are paid below the minimum wage. He further observes that Wal-Mart is Arizona’s largest employer, using this to support his argument that Arizona must attract high-tech jobs to provide sustainability for the state’s job market. But, again, Parraz avoids details when asked how we might accomplish this. Parraz says that, if elected, he would work to figure out if the state properly leverages its federal stimulus money in the fields of energy, healthcare and tourism. He further would like to examine how we might attract small businesses to the state by re-examining federal regulations on affected industries. Finally, Parraz would like to “engage the private sector.”
In fact, on many issues, Parraz seems intent on “engaging the private sector” – this was a phrase he repeated over and over again throughout the interview. On his website, Parraz emphasizes the failing quality of public education and suggests improving federal and private funding of Arizona’s public schools. When asked what role the private sector could have in public education, Parraz cited existing programs that allow private corporations to “create committees that provide computers and networking, and to adopt certain schools.” Parraz seemed surprised when I questioned whether inviting private corporations to sponsor schools could result in increased numbers of fast food outlets and vending machines in public school hallways, saying merely that part of the private sector would also be interested in reducing obesity and improving the health of our children.
The one substantial platform point I could find on Parraz’s website was on a proposed “financial transactions tax”. In brief, Parraz supports implementation of a tax on any purchase or sale of stocks or bonds, which Parraz feels would “provide a pot of money to deal with some of the damage done by financial institutions.”
“Banks have been getting a free ride,” comments Parraz, summarizing the nation’s general ill-will towards big banks. But, when asked about the effect such a tax might have on the nation’s economy, Parraz provided only limited discussion. The tax, which has generally been described in economist circles as a small fee to slow the market (and thereby discourage the kinds of strange distortions that can cause a market crash) can, by definition, slow economic growth by discouraging trading. Parraz seemed unaware of his proposal’s potential effects. Surprisingly, he also dismissed suggestions that the cost of the tax might be passed on by banks to consumers, saying only, “the tax will not bankrupt large banks.” When asked if a capital gains tax, rather than a financial transactions tax, might better accomplish his goal to target big banks and increase revenue, Parraz admitted he didn’t know much about capital gains taxes.
 The press conference in 2008 was conducted the morning after Parraz was arrested by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's officers during a peaceful protest. Finally, I asked Parraz about his stance on science research and technology. Again, Parraz was only able to fire questions back at me. Although he supports stem cell research, Parraz had no particular thoughts on how to improve federal funding of scientific research. He cited the fact that federal stimulus money has supported new research proposals (it has), but suggested that as senator, he would address additional lack of research funding by looking at what other research projects needed money. Never mind that the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation are the clearinghouses for research proposals – it almost sounded like, as senator, Parraz would be interested in adopting a side job as a grants reviewer.
I’ll admit that prior to this interview, I knew virtually nothing about Randy Parraz and his campaign to be Arizona’s U.S. Senator. In fact, I only knew of Parraz’s candidacy through the attacks of his online supporters against front-runner Rodney Glassman (incidentally, on this point, Parraz’s campaign only touts the freedom of bloggers to write whatever they choose – a position I’m generally in favour of). But, I figured that if Parraz was able to attract such fervent support in political bloggers – who tend to be a thoughtful and intelligent bunch – he must not be too bad.
And indeed, Parraz seems like a genuinely good guy, who won’t intentionally do wrong by Arizona in the U.S. Senate. Sadly, I think Arizona needs more than just a man with the right values to fix the problems in this state. We need a senator with the right ideas and the right values, who is capable of articulating both why we need a change and what we can do to tangibly affect that change. Parraz might have enough heart to be our senator, but with less than ten days left until the Democratic primary election, it may be too late to prove to voters that he’s also got the thoughtfulness to back it up.
Cross-posted: Blog for Arizona
Posted in Arizona, Blogging at Blog for Arizona, Elections, Local, Politics | No Comments »
 Cuts sustained by Tila Tequila at Gathering of the Juggalos Tila Tequila, reality TV star and aspiring musician, was allegedly mobbed Friday night at The Gathering of the Juggalos, a music festival for hardcore fans of Insane Clown Posse. Tequila was performing a set as part of the festival’s Ladies Night.
According to Tequila’s own account of what happened, video of the first few seconds of the attack, statements by law enforcement, and Tweets from festival-goers, the audience was riled up within minutes of Tequila appearance on-stage. Tequila attempted to calm the audience down by baring her breasts, which only seemed to infuriate the audience more. Tequila was pelted with thrown objects, including rocks and beer bottles, causing multiple cuts and bruises all over her face and body. She left the stage to hide in her trailer, which was quickly surrounded by the mob who smashed its windows. Only when she escaped the trailer did the violence die down.
Look, I’m no fan of Tila Tequila. I think she’s an embarassment to the Asian American community, and her attempts at a music career are laughable.
But no one deserves to be physically assaulted, particularly not in what may have been an organized attack by uncaring music fans trying to intimidate and threaten her. Tila Tequila may not belong at an Insane Clown Posse music festival, but girl doesn’t need the message sent in the form of a brick to her head.
Posted in Asian Americans | 3 Comments »
 Charles Djou, Congressman from Hawaii Republican and Chinese-American Congressman Charles Djou, from Hawaii, has an opinion piece on the Wall Street Journal today defending the 14th Amendment. The article is protected by subscription access, but VDARE has graciously reposted an excerpt:
“The 14th Amendment is one of the crowning achievements of the Republican Party. Following the Civil War, the 14th Amendment guaranteed due process for every person under the law and helped to reunite a fractured nation. It pains me to think that we may start tinkering with this fundamental fabric of our union.
The problem of illegal immigration is a difficult one, touching deeply held beliefs and emotions. But the president and both parties in Congress have a responsibility to engage in a good-faith effort to reach a consensus on an approach that enforces the law, expands legal immigration, and closes the door on illegal immigration.
In the midst of this complex debate, I have faith that the same political process that created the 14th Amendment can produce sound immigration policy that respects our borders and the people who cross over them. I have faith that “We the people” will ultimately move us closer to a “more perfect union.”
As the son of legal immigrants, Djou recognizes that the issue of illegal immigration can only be resolved by encouraging legal immigration. This must involve reforming the current immigration system, making it simpler to navigate immigration law and shortening wait and processing times for applicants. To me, Djou’s position is a textbook example of why improving political representation for minority communities is important; here, Djou’s racial and ethnic background informs his position on the immigration debate in such a way as to provide diversity of thought even within the Republican party.
That being said, Djou also makes a couple comments that seem ahistorical, at best. First of all, while it’s important to recognize the 14th Amendment as a crowing achievement of the Republican Party, we must remember that the Republicans of the Civil War era are not the same Republicans as today. Furthermore, as VDare points out, the “political process that created the 14th Amendment” included a bloody Civil War that fractured the country. Although America is currently politically divided over immigration, advocating a second Civil War seems a wee bit impractical.
I’m hopeful that we can reach comprehensive immigration reform without pulling out our muskets.
Posted in Asian Americans, Immigration, Politics | 2 Comments »
 Tom "Standing Next To Books Makes Me Look Smart" Horne Arizona School Superintendent Tom Horne has lost his ever-loving mind.
In yet another example of state politicians abusing their power to harass the state’s minority population, Horne has filed a subpoena against researchers at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. The subpoena seeks the release of confidential, personal information that can identify participants in a study looking at the effect of the state’s English Language Learning (ELL) policy.
Here’s the deal: Arizona’s ELL programs require that all ELL students be segregated from general classes for four hours every day, and taught English language skills, until the student is capable of passing a standardized English test. Critics of the program, however, assert that ELL classes provide sub-standard teaching of course material, causing ELL students to lag behind their English-speaking peers.
Researchers at The University of Arizona and Arizona State University addressed this question by looking at the quality of education in ELL classrooms. One investigator assessed ELL implementation in 18 classrooms in five school districts and found the instruction to be inferior than that received by other students. In January 2000, Arizona was cited by the U.S. District Court for Arizona for failing to provide equal funding for ELL classes compared to non-ELL classes, thereby violating the Equal Educational Opportunities Act.
Currently, the January 2000 decision is being reconsidered in a federal court case, Horne v. Flores, which contends that changes in Arizona’s ELL policy and funding once more make the program compliant with federal regulations. However, the studies cited above are being used as part of the case against Arizona’s ELL classes.
Which is why Horne’s lawyers have filed for a subpoena, demanding that the researchers involved turn over their raw data, which includes the names and addresses of study participants.
The problem is that it would be unethical for investigators to turn over their data. All researchers who work with human subjects — every single one — must have their studies reviewed and approved by their institution’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). This is a lengthy and detailed process that includes a requirement that the identities of subjects be protected under all circumstances. There are even instances in some studies where the identities of study participants (or other sensitive information) are even protected from certain investigators.
Horne’s lawyers argue that they require the raw data from the studies in order to determine if they were appropriately collected and analyzed. Magaret Dugan, Arizona’s Deputy School Superintendent, suggested that study authors may have deliberately picked school districts critical of ELL, and thereby biased their study.
However, Dugan and Horne fail to acknowledge that the study methodologies of these studies have been peer-reviewed by the IRB committees of their respective institutions. Any issues of bias or sample size have already been addressed by these scrupulous reviewers. Furthermore, if the study is to be published (I’m not sure if it has been), than the methodology will undergo a second round of peer-review. It’s naive for Arizona’s Superintendents to insinuate that the investigators in this study deliberately biased their sample, and that none of the study’s peer-reviewers caught on; they are, in essence, accusing an entire community of researchers of conducting bad science.
In fact, the accusation would be insulting, if it weren’t hilariously ironic. Explaining the state of Arizona’s reasoning for requesting release of the study participant’s information, Dugan characterized the classroom selection as“slanted”. She further said, “At least I would like for them to have surveyed districts and teachers who are positive about the model.”
In other words, Dugan takes issue not with the possibility that the studies were biased… but that they were biased in the wrong direction! And how should we correct it? Choose to sample classrooms in such a way as to fix the outcome.
I don’t think Horne and his colleagues can even spell “scientific method”, let alone recognize the flaws in Ms. Dugan’s proposed solution.
(And Ms. Dugan is running to replace Tom Horne as Arizona School Superintendent, folks. This state is so fucked.)
Posted in Arizona, Elections, Local, Politics, Science | 5 Comments »
(H/T Angry Asian Man)
 This is my "badass" face. This has to be the most brilliant video game review I have ever read. Boing Boing managed to get three current, honest-to-God members of the yakuza, to play and review Yakuza 3, a Grand Theft Auto-style videogame inspired by the infamous Japanese gangsters.
Yakuza 3 follows the story of protagonist Kazama Kiryu, a retired yakuza who runs an orphanage in Okinawa. Unfortunately, plot events conspire to force Kiryu to return to his yakuza ways, so that he can defend his orphanage from corrupt real estate developers.
Jewish-American reporter Jake Adelstein was joined by three yakuza members (given nicknames for the purposes of the article) to play through the Japanese version of Yakuza 3 and review its authenticity. Although their gameplay was hampered by missing fingers (which apparently makes holding a PS3 controller difficult), the three yakuza members managed to finish the game.
Boing Boing recounts their reactions to various elements of the videogame. Here was my favourite:
FIGHT SCENES
Author’s note: Midoriyama gets very excited during the fighting sequences, standing up from the couch at points and actually lurching towards the screen. Kuroishi never loses his cool playing the game and keeps practicing combinations until he gets it right. Shirokawa curses under his breath, but whenever he wins he yells “Yatta!”. They all agree that the combat is strictly fantasy material, with some exceptions.
S: Nobody ever dies. It’s unrealistic.
K: Kiryu is fighting all the time. He’s gotta be a fucking idiot. No yakuza is going to run around getting into fistfights like that. Especially not an executive type. He’ll wind up in jail or in the hospital or dead, maybe even whacked by his own people for being a troublemaker. These days, he’d probably get kicked out before even going to jail. Guys like that start gang wars and nobody wants that now. When a yakuza gets into a fight, it’s serious business.
M: A real fight–it’s short and it’s brutal. Over in a minute. Nobody goes around trading blows and crap like that. Usually the first guy to punch wins.
K: I like that you can grab things like ashtrays or billboards and beat the crap out of the punks bothering you. Or smash their faces into car windows. That’s what you’d really do in a fight, grab something and use it as a weapon.
S: Why doesn’t he just shoot them?
K: That would be unrealistic. Nobody is going to waste a bullet on some street punk, like the ones that keep bugging Kiyru.
M: If they wanted to make it realistic, he’d pull out a gun and shoot it and miss! Or the damn thing wouldn’t fire. That would be realistic. (They all laugh).
K: Shooting people sends a message.
M: So does shooting anything. Shooting people gets you sent to jail.
K: That’s part of the job description.
I don’t know if this review makes me want to buy and play Yakuza 3, but it sure as heck makes me want to read other video games reviewed by yakuza. Could you imagine? Metal Gear Solid 4 as reviewed by yakuza. Dynasty Warriors as reviewed by yakuza. Super Mario Brothers as reviewed by yakuza. Dance Dance Revolution as reviewed by yakuza. Monkey Ball as reviewed by yakuza. There should be a whole blog devoted to this subject.
Posted in Asian Americans | No Comments »
 Who could possibly hate this baby? Oh, I know -- Republicans. Last week, I wrote a piece for Change.org entitled 3 Ways You Can Help End the GOP’s War on Undocumented Immigrants. In it, I identified three strategies that Right-wing fundies are using to wage a war on illegal immigration — by attacking the rights of their citizen children. I think this subject is so important, I’m re-summarizing the post here. Learn more about how the GOP is targeting children in their war on illegal immigration, and participate in the linked petitions:
1) Birthright Citizenship: Top Republicans from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham are calling for Congressional hearings on the 14th Amendment. Their hope? Alter the Constitution to put a caveat on birthright citizenship such that citizenship is awarded based on the citizenship status of a child’s parents. However, as I write in my post, the 14th Amendment was penned to eliminate the possibility that one group might be able to determine the citizenship — and thus the political rights — of another group. Prior to the 14th Amendment, citizenship did depend on the status of parents: the children of slaves were not considered American citizens, regardless of birthplace.
As Jeff Yang writes in his Asian Pop column this week, without the 14th Amendment, countless Asian Americans whose families entered the States as “paper sons” would find their citizenship in question today. Birthright citizenship is one of the few, unequivocably brilliant political ideas unique to North America; since its passage, it has helped ensure political and civil equality for all citizens. It’s a travesty for Republicans to even suggest dismantling the 14th Amendment.
Act Now! We need to protect the 14th Amendment from hysterical nativism. Sign this petition targeting GOP lawmakers, urging them not to attack birthright citizenship in this country.
 "Being brown is not a crime." 2) The SB 1070 of Public Schools: Here in Arizona, a virtually unknown piece of legislation has snuck its way through the State Senate, and is now being held in the State House. I charitably refer to this bill — SB 1097 / HB 2382 — as the “SB 1070 of public education”. Just like SB 1070 deputizes local and state law enforcement to check the immigration papers of anyone who engages with police, SB 1097 deputizes school administrators to check the immigration papers of any child enrolled in public schools.
Why? Well, the idea is that public funds being used to educate non-citizen children costs taxpayers money, so Arizona Republicans (many of whom authored SB 1070) introduced SB 1097 to require schools to determine the number of non-citizen children enrolled as students, and to report that information to the state. Forget that in Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court determined that the state could not deny a child a public education based on immigration status.
The true effect of SB 1097 goes beyond the mean-spiritedness and misguidedness of the bill. If put into effect, SB 1097 would cause illegal immigrants to pull their children from public schools for fear of being identified and deported. But, since federal money to public schools is dependent on the number of enrolled students, this would actually cause Arizona schools to lose money. And we all know that less money means less teachers, fewer books, less extracurricular activities, and a poorer education for all of Arizona’s children.
Act Now! SB 1097 is currently being considered in the State House as HB 2382. Sign this petition addressed to the Arizona State House, urging our legislators not to pass HB 2382.
 I *heart* ethnic studies, too. 3) Attacking Teachers with Accents and Banning Ethnic Studies: In Arizona, the state department of education has fired hundreds of teachers with accents, after recruiting these teachers several years ago as part of English Language Learning classes. State legislators passed HB 2281, which bans the teaching of ethnic studies in public schools. While both actions have most directly affected Spanish-speaking teachers and Chicano Studies, the impact of these policies on teachers of all races and ethnicities is obvious.
The responsibility of teachers is to help students learn, by any means necessary. Sometimes that means connecting with students through a non-English language, sometimes that means engaging students with content that they find relevant to their own lives. A thriving classroom is one that is focused on the needs of students, and that can offer learning opportunities that speak to those needs. The banning of ethnic studies and the firing of teachers with accents renders the classroom less student-focused, thereby reducing learning.
More importantly, this applies to all students, and not just Latino students. Any student who wants to learn about American history from the perspective of Chicano Studies, African American Studies or Asian American Studies cannot do so if they are enrolled in an Arizona public school. They are forced to learn about their history through the lens of only one group — that of the mainstream. Arizona has one of the largest Latino populations in the nation — how does it make sense that this diversity is not reflected in the curriculum of public school classes?
Act Now! Sadly, the ethnic studies ban has passed in the Arizona State Legislature, and the teachers with accents have been fired. However, please sign this petition urging the current candidates for Arizona School Superintendent to make a public pledge that, if elected, they will work with the Legislature to reverse the ban on ethnic studies. Hey, it’s a start…
Please share this post — and my original post over at Change.org – with your friends and families. Arizona is being used as a testing ground for divisive, misguided legislation. Already, some states are considering their own versions of SB 1070. If Arizona empowers school administrators to check immigration status or bans ethnic studies, it won’t be a question of if similar legislation appears in other states, it’ll be a question of when. We need to draw our line in the sand here.
Cross-posted: Blog for Arizona
Posted in Act Now!, Arizona, Blogging at Blog for Arizona, Immigration, Local, Politics, Politics of Race, SB 1070 | 2 Comments »
 Fred Korematsu My latest post over at Change.org:
Tell Gov. Schwarzenegger to Support Fred Korematsu Day
From Arizona’s SB1070 to anti-government rhetoric spouted by the Tea Party, this election season, threats to our basic civil liberties abound. Against this political backdrop, it seems more important than ever to remember the civil rights heroes and champions who paved the way ahead of us.
Fred Korematsu was one such champion — if an unrecognized one.
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed Executive Order 9066, ordering the round-up and imprisonment of thousands of Japanese Americans along America’s West Coast. Families of Japanese Americans were herded into temporary internment camps, and later into permanent relocation camps that dotted the deserts of the Southwest.
An American citizen who was born in Oakland, California, Fred Korematsu refused to abide by E.O. 9066. As families across the West Coast were forced into barbed-wire camps, surrounded by armed guards, Korematsu refused to report for internment. In 1942, he was arrested and convicted in a federal court for violating a military executive order and forcibly detained at a series of internment camps. But that didn’t stop him from appealing his case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1944 on the grounds that E.O. 9066 was “racist.”
Fred Korematsu, who passed away on March 30, 2005, dedicated his entire life to fighting for civil rights. Now, it’s our turn to honor him.
Read more
Act Now! And here’s the associated petition you can sign, inspired by the work of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education.
Posted in APA History, Act Now!, Asian Americans, Blogging at Change.org | 3 Comments »
 Angel Island Immigration Center Jeff of “Asian Pop” has written a brilliant column this week, exploring the irony of the GOP’s war on birthright citizenship on the centennial anniversary of Angel Island. Jeff eloquently recounts how the ”paper son” phenomenon re-shaped the American landscape, and provided the basis for the Asian American community. Here’s an excerpt:
For his part, Wong’s father rarely talked about his paper son status at all. The remembered humiliations of detention and the lasting guilt at having borne false witness had created walls of shame around his Angel Island story, as restrictive as those that had jailed him decades before.
That desire to forget the past comes with its own price, Genny Lim notes. “My mother and father and sister all came through Angel Island, and I never even knew that until I started to do research on the subject,” she says. “My father even accused me of digging up something that shows our community in a very negative light — that we came here illegally, that we violated the law. His psychology is marked by this trauma that we Chinese are unwelcome here, that we are never going to be bona fide Americans. So he and my mother were afraid to participate in politics and in the civic process, because they never felt they had the right to do so, and were afraid that they would be condemned if they did.”
In 1980, Lim was moved by her parents’ plight to write a play about the Angel Island experience, “Paper Angels,” which still stands today as one of the most vivid and important illustrations of this painful era in immigration history. Written as a series of sharply drawn vignettes, it follows a group of detainees of varied background and purpose as they undergo ruthless cross-examinations, attempt to reconcile the bright promises made to them and the miserable reality of their internment, and ultimately, survive or succumb to stress, rage and frustration.
It ends with a resonant moment, as young, pregnant Mei Lai delivers her baby — a son, blessed by accident of geography with the right to U.S. citizenship; this leads the warden to release of Mei Lai and her husband out of “special consideration” for her status as the mother of a newborn American.
It is a hopeful ending to an otherwise bleak narrative, but one that highlights once again the dangerous rhetoric that has entered into recent discourse on immigration. In our contemporary era, Mei Lai’s son Yang would not be seen as a symbol of new hope in a new nation, but an “anchor baby” — an ugly term in an even uglier debate.
There’s little evidence that our borders are being threatened by an invasion of pregnant women, seeking to use their offspring as a tether to America (and the legal reality is that illegals still face deportation even if they have American-born citizen children).
Nevertheless, this alleged phenomenon has inspired leading Republicans like Sen. Lindsay Graham, Sen. Minority Whip Jon Kyl and Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to call for hearings to discuss repealing or altering the 14th Amendment to eliminate jus solis, the standard of citizenship for any and all born on this nation’s soil and under this nation’s laws. It should be noted that without jus solis as laid out in the 14th Amendment and upheld in the Wong Kim Ark decision, some 90 percent of the Chinese American population might not exist today — and nor, in essence, would America.
That’s because birthright citizenship is a quintessential part of what makes our nation what it is — a free and democratic society that abhors tyranny and welcomes its victims; that treats people as individuals and respects their civil and human rights; that does not discriminate based on race, culture or country of origin.
Read the whole article here: Born in the U.S.A.
Posted in APA History, Asian Americans | No Comments »
 Kimberly Yee, newly appointed AZ State Rep for District 10. She is the first Asian American woman to serve in the Arizona State Legislature. Kimberly Yee made history in Arizona by becoming the first Asian American woman to serve in the Arizona State Legislature, nearly 50 years after the first Asian American – Wing F. Ong – was elected to the Arizona State Legislature in 1964.
Yee is a Republican who was appointed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to replace former Representative Doug Quelland as State Representative for District 10. While living in California, Yee served in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Cabinet as Deputy Cabinet Secretary, and has been active in Arizona politics in Maricopa County since returning to Phoenix.
It’s great to see an Asian American woman making such headway in the political sphere, particular in a state with such regressive racial politics as Arizona. Sadly, I disagree with Yee on virtually all of her politics: she’s pro-life, pro-guns, pro-privatized healthcare, and pro-charter schools . Further, I’m kind of disappointed that the first Asian American woman to serve in the Arizona State Legislature fails to even acknowledge her racial and ethnic background on her official biography.
But, as I said when I was talking about Barry Wong, I have a soft spot for Asian American politicians, even if I completely disagree with their politic and would never, ever vote for them.
So, kudos, to Representative Yee. May you revise your political stances while serving in the State Legislature.
Cross-posted: Blog for Arizona
Posted in Asian Americans, Awesome Asians, Feminism | 6 Comments »
 Goodwin Liu, Associate Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, has been nominated by the Obama administration to the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit. The GOP is trying to obstruct his nomination. My fellow blogger over at Change.org, Chris Santiago, has written an excellent piece about how the GOP is trying to stall the nominations of two highly qualified Asian American judges, Goodwin Liu and Eric Chen.
Liu, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, and Chen, a federal magistrate in San Francisco, have both cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee. By nominating both Liu and Chen, the White House had hoped to correct the historical underrepresentation of Asian-Americans on the federal bench. But apparently, the GOP doesn’t want that to happen.
As the L.A. Times explains, the Senate must agree to carry over pending nominations when it goes on a 30-day recess. But Republican leaders have objected to carrying over Liu’s and Chen’s nominations. Or, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (who recommended both Liu and Chen to President Obama) puts it, ”The Republicans are obstructing and, in effect, trying to kill these nominations….It is tragic because these are very worthy nominees who deserve to have their nominations debated and put to a vote.”
In truth, Asian Americans are extremely underrepresented in the nation’s judicial system. When I wrote about Judge Denny Chin’s nomination to Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, last year, there were no Asian American judges at the federal level. Chin’s confirmation to the Court of Appeals made him the first Asian American federal judge to serve in the U.S. Court of Appeals in American history. Prior to Chin’s confirmation, Judge Edward Chen made history last August by becoming the first Asian American judge to serve at the federal level when he was confirmed as a U.S. District Court judge in Northern California.
This consistent pattern of underrepresentation in the nation’s judicial system is incredibly deleterious to our community. Here’s what I wrote last year:
[M]any of the country’s landmark civil rights cases throughout history were brought by Asian Americans against the state of California or the federal government. Here are those listed by Lee and Kawaichi in their article:
- In Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, one of the earliest civil rights cases in American history, the Supreme Court in 1886 struck down a discriminatory San Francisco ordinance targeting Chinese Americans.
- In Wong Kim Ark vs. the United States, a landmark immigration case in 1898, the Supreme Court applied the 14th Amendment to grant citizenship to an American of Chinese ancestry born in the United States.
- In Korematsu vs. United States, one of the most infamous civil rights cases in American history, the Supreme Court upheld the forced exclusion and detention of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II without the right to notice of charges, the right to attorneys or the right to a trial. Forty years later, in 1984, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the Northern District court overturned Korematsu’s conviction, ruling that there was no good justification for the internment.
- In Lau vs. Nichols, a suit brought by Chinese American students living in San Francisco, the Supreme Court expanded the rights of all students throughout the country with limited English skills by requiring language accommodation.
Asian Americans are not merely impacted by decisions made in federal courts, we have been instrumental in changing the face of the United States for the better throughout this nation’s history. Yet, Asian Americans are yet to be adequately represented in the positions that actually make these critical rulings.
The GOP’s obstruction of the nominations of Goodwin Liu and Eric Chen represent a serious blow to Asian Americans and the justice system. Republicans are just playing politics; yet our community is caught in the crossfire.
Act Now! Chris has started this petition over at Change.org, telling the GOP not to stall Liu and Chen’s nominations. Please join me in signing the petition.
Posted in Act Now!, Asian Americans | 1 Comment »
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