May 16, 2012 1:39 PM
It's cap and gown time, and along with it come thoughts that threaten to break apart Asian America. You'll notice it when you are at your child's commencement this graduation season (my Jillian, the rock star, gets her B.S in Geology this week at San Francisco State, where the graduation speaker is Mayor Ed Lee).
It's hard to imagine there are some unhappy Asian Americans, given the number you are likely to see on campus.
But what if after four years, you are graduating from your "fall back" school and not your number one choice?
Instead of joy, some Asian American parents are actually wondering how differently they would feel if their kids were not at UC This and Cal State That, but at their real number one choice, that private school or that Ivy League place, the one that rhymes with kale?
That's the school that said no to your offspring's resume of perfect grades, SATs, and tireless extracurriculars, and instead let in a few others who couldn't hold your son's high school jock.
What's next to come as Asian American adults--more discrimination?
That's the logic that's going through the minds of many Asian Americans these days as they grapple with this question: Should race-neutral policies replace affirmative action?
More than anything else, it's the single biggest threat to the notion of an Asian American community. And it's brought out the opportunists who want to use Asian Americans to break up the solidarity on the issue among people of color. The Asian American group 80-20 launched an online petition drive and now claims it has 50,000 signatures of Asian Americans who want to end the unfairness of it all.
They are sadly deluded.
It all comes about as the Supreme Court contemplates the latest assault on affirmative action, Fisher v. Texas, later this year.
If the Sandra Day O'Connor-less court swings further rightward, it would mark the real end of a policy that has assured Asian Americans equal opportunity in education for decades.
LOWELL HIGH SCHOOL
San Francisco has dealt with this issue in the past with the caps on Asian American admissions at my alma mater, Lowell High School. I said back then that the issue is not about race, but about limited resources. Besides, if a super-majority white population is not considered good, why would a super-majority of Asian Americans be any better? The answer in my mind has always been to make more Lowells.
But how would you do that on a national level? It's harder given all the budget cuts on education, but adding resources, not dumping race-based admissions, is still the real answer.
In California, where the alternative to affirmative action--race-neutral admissions--has been the law and upheld since the passage of Prop. 209, inequality still exists. All 209 did was codify the ideal (a colorblind world), but it de-codified the groups that are less than equal now. The colorblind 209 has left us with a policy that gives us results like UCLA, where 91,000 applicants vied for 5,400 spaces.
The numbers don't work.
Qualified applicants will still be denied, not just Asian Americans. Race-neutral approaches don't come close to addressing the real problem of the need for more resources.
In addition, the race-neutral system only exacerbates the problem of inequality. When it comes to Asian Americans, the political umbrella term includes 24 ethnic groups, and all have varied experiences based on when the first immigrants arrived. Asian Americans are far from being just Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. Among Southeast Asians, for example, 40 percent of Cambodians and Laotians in California haven't finished high school, double the state rate. After 209, those groups continued to be severely underrepresented.
As President Obama said last week, the day before he came out for marriage equality, he urged a group of the wonkiest Asian Americans at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies dinner in Washington to consider the importance of affirmative action:
"And I know it can be tempting--given the success that's on display here tonight--for people to buy into the myth of the "model minority" and glance over the challenges that this community still faces. But we have to remember there's still educational disparities like higher dropout rates in certain groups, lower college enrollment rates in others. There's still economic disparities like higher rates of poverty and obstacles to employment," said the president. "Dozens of different communities fall under the umbrella of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and we have to respect that the experiences of immigrant groups are distinct and different. And your concerns run the gamut."
Any real solution needs to address all of us, not split us apart.
But there are those who have lost that community feeling and can only see public policy as it applies to me, myself and I.
80-20 is circulating the story of "Martin," with his weighted 4.35 GPA, four subject SATs, 10 AP tests, ranked 7th out of 455, captain of the tennis team, city teen council member, president the last two years, volunteer tennis coach, and paid camp counselor.
His results: Rejected by Harvard, Penn, Cornell, Georgetown, Duke.
But he was accepted at UC Berkeley? Is the difference the virtues of race-blind admissions?
Well, maybe yes and maybe no. We've already seen the inequities 209 has left us with.
And what about the Southeast Asians who remain underrepresented?
College admissions are imperfect. It's not simply a matter of rounding up the top scores and letting just those people in. Building a vibrant, diverse student body is far more complicated than that. And if it is all about resources, budget cuts on education, which are being imposed throughout the land, certainly are counter-productive.
But in dealing with these issues, Asian Americans, and all Americans, need to understand if you're not for affirmative action as the continuing remedy to educational inequality, you are really for the non-diverse America we've left behind, a country where segregation and inequality ruled the day.
Going forward, as Americans, can we really afford to stand for that?
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Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, @emilamok.
May 9, 2012 11:16 AM
The Asian American community has an umbrella problem. And maybe President Obama is the one to fix it.
If Toni Morrison can call Bill Clinton "America's first black president" in 1998, then surely we can dub Barack Obama our nation's "first Asian American president."
Has there been another president who has a better sense of the Asian American experience?
The president may have served up the dog-eating jokes for the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but there was none of that when he spoke at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) dinner in Washington.
For Obama, the APAICS gala, a key Asian Pacific American Heritage Month event, was "like coming home."
Within the opening moments of his keynote remarks came a "Mahalo" and shouts of "Aloha" from Obama's extended Hawaiian Ohana (family). The man knows Asian America.
"This is a community that helped to make me who I am today," Obama said. "It's a community that helped make America the country that it is today."
Some might dismiss the president's overall remarks as mostly a "feel-good" speech that highlighted the accomplishments of Asian American political heroes like Norm Mineta, Patsy Mink, and Dan Inouye.
That it did.
But Obama also showed us how few presidents before him have had as deep an understanding of the Asian American back story. And it's a story that even Asian Americans need to be reminded of.
"No matter when it began, no matter where it began, your stories are about someone who came here looking for new opportunities not merely for themselves, but for their children, and for their children's children, and for all generations to come," said Obama.
"Few of them had money. A lot of them didn't have belongings. But what they did have was an unshakeable belief that this country--of all countries--is a place where anybody can make it if they try."
In other words, in the Asian American struggle, it doesn't matter if you were first generation or fifth, we're part of the same continuum.
But some in the community still squabble over issues like affirmative action and race-based admissions to colleges. Such fights make the community lose sight of what truly makes us great.
And then there are others who use us and our individual successes as a ploy to split us all apart.
"And I know it can be tempting--given the success that's on display here tonight--for people to buy into the myth of the "model minority" and glance over the challenges that this community still faces," said the president. "But we have to remember there's still educational disparities like higher dropout rates in certain groups, lower college enrollment rates in others. There's still economic disparities like higher rates of poverty and obstacles to employment. There are health disparities like higher rates of diabetes and cancer and Hepatitis B. Those who are new to America--many still face language barriers. Others--like Vincent Chin who we lost three decades ago--have been victims of horrible hate crimes, driven by the kinds of ignorance and prejudice that are an affront to everything America stands for...So those are real problems, and we can't ignore them."
Perhaps at the base of our problem is the political term that identifies us all: Asian American, or the more inclusive Asian Pacific American, or Asian American and Pacific Islander.
AA, APA, AAPI. Whatever you choose, they're all about us: Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipino, Cambodian, Laotian, Taiwanese, Pakistani, Hmong, Korean, Bangladeshi, Thai, Indian, Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Japanese, Malaysian, Burmese, Nepalese, Bhutanese... to name just a few.
The president acknowledged the problem.
"And if we're going to do a better job addressing them, then we first have to stop grouping everybody just in one big category. Dozens of different communities fall under the umbrella of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and we have to respect that the experiences of immigrant groups are distinct and different. And your concerns run the gamut."
There, he said the term. Umbrella.
Our umbrella isn't perfect. But we certainly shouldn't throw it away.
It provides cover and strength for us all---when we need it. We just need to use it better. And not forget who's under there with us.
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Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, @emilamok.
April 30, 2012 4:11 PM
As the weekend began, I had the good pleasure of talking to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee in a social setting (the Asian Law Caucus 40th anniversary dinner). I'll say this for the Mayor. He's far more charming and charismatic than the mainstream's portrayal of him as some milk-toast bureaucrat.
Still, I can't see Ed Lee telling a dog-eating joke.
Until another dinner on Saturday, I'd put President Barack Obama in the same category.
But, boy, was I wrong.
If President Obama is telling dog-eating jokes, then it can only mean one thing for the Asian American community: Obama is openly declaring his Asian American-ness.
Even though the president recently stopped in Chinatown for take-out, in the old days, Obama would simply trot out his half-sister Maya and her Chinese American husband to gain Asian American street cred.
But rocking the dog-jokes at such a public event as the White House Correspondents' Dinner? The president sounds like he's gearing up for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May.
I mean, surely, you didn't hear Obama during Black History Month telling watermelon and fried chicken jokes, did you?
But dog-eating? Bring it on.
It was a bit surprising to hear it from a guy who doesn't like to wear race on his sleeve all that much, if at all. But surely there was no hesitation this weekend.
The joke? Obama set it up saying as a young boy in Indonesia his stepfather had fed him dog.
Said Obama: "That's pretty rough. But I can take it, because my stepfather always told me, it's a boy-eat-dog world out there."
It wasn't really that much of a revelation since he had owned up to tasting dog in his memoir on his father.
But was the joke really all that funny?
I've told dog-eater jokes before for shock value 20 years ago. Dog-eater jokes are the special province of Asian American humor users who want to use the stereotype as a weapon to expose others' racist sentiments.
In other words, if we're all dog-eaters, then as James Brown would say, "Say it loud, I'm a dog-eater and proud."
Unfortunately, this often confuses the more common users of the dog-eater jokes, the ones who use the stereotype to make fun of Asian Americans. These are the individuals who see the use of the joke as license. They end up laughing so hard they choke on their bacon burgers.
Like the debate on who can use the "N" word, who can tell a dog-eating joke takes some sensitivity.
It helps to be Asian American. Or the president.
Therefore, the only real way to take Obama's dog-eater joke is to say, amen. It's good to have an Asian American in the White House.
I had other issues with the president's other dog joke, about the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull.
Said the president, "A pit bull is delicious."
OK, so we're serving up Palin burgers too?
I surely don't like Sarah Palin as much as some of Obama's former Secret Service guys. And I was critical of the "Today Show" for renting her recently to be Matt Lauer's lap dog. But the joke was a bit odd for me. Even a replay of the laughter showed many people weren't sure how to take the joke.
But here's where Obama showed his humor chops. He hung in with the joke. Like a matador staring down the crowd, he milked that laugh like he was Shecky Obama. If you laughed, it wasn't because the joke was funny, it's because Obama is so likeable.
But in the end, I cringed a bit as well.
What's going on here?
I recall seeing Bill Clinton on the "Letterman Show" soon after he left office for good. He was honest and relaxed and funny, and it was really the beginning of Clinton's rehab and resurgence as the most popular politician on the planet. And while he did accomplish much leaving the government in surplus, he was far more effective being a presidential personality than he was being president.
Obama seems to want to go right to the talk show couch before his first term is even up.
An entertaining president is not necessarily a bad thing. But going for the laugh is easy. A sense of timing helps. But with Obama, he's pinning on the "likeability" meter. He shouldn't think that's all it takes to get re-elected.
A few more accomplishments on the economy, on immigration reform, on civil rights, on civil liberties would all be nice too.
Then we can all laugh a little easier.
***
Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, @emilamok.
April 25, 2012 9:53 PM
I guess U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. thought racial profiling just wasn't sexy enough for the Supreme Court.
Or maybe it was too obvious.
And then I suppose when you get to the high court, you want to impress the justices with the finer points of constitutional law, which leads you to such ideas as the usurpation of federal rights by the states, especially on international matters such as immigration. It's not a bad strategy, to preempt the state getting into the immigration business. It's narrow. It seems understandable. It could work.
But maybe the more human approach would have worked better.
On Wednesday, Verrilli went before the high court with the intention of tearing down SB 1070, Arizona's controversial anti-immigration law.
I don't think he succeeded.
Parts of the law have been blocked for two years because of its highly contentious components.
The four main parts include requiring police to verify the immigration status of everyone they stop who they might reasonably suspect may be here illegally---even if a suspect could be incarcerated for days or weeks.
A second provision would allow the state to arrest any foreign citizen suspected of committing a deportable crime.
A third provision would force foreigners to carry registration documents.
A fourth provision would make it illegal for an undocumented worker to seek or perform work.
Before the fireworks started, Chief Justice John Roberts asked Verrilli if racial profiling would be a part of the argument. Just to make sure. I mean, it is an issue that would seem to be a fairly obvious one, no?
But Verrilli admitted that racial profiling wasn't part of his case today. Not for this SCOTUS showdown. Too bad. By their later comments, Justices Roberts and Scalia seemed to understand where parts of Arizona's harsh law might lead to discrimination.
When Verrilli was describing the law's effects, even Justice Scalia commented, "Sounds like racial profiling to me."
Instead, Verrilli tried to take down the law on the basis that states can't do what's not in their purview. He argued that only the federal government can enforce immigration laws.
The justices weren't buying it.
They seemed to suggest: why can't states help out the Feds with their own laws?
From the hearing transcript:
JUSTICE SCALIA: Anyway, what -- what's wrong about the states enforcing Federal law? There is a Federal law against robbing Federal banks. Can it be made a state crime to rob those banks? I think it is.
GENERAL VERRILLI: I think it could, but I think that's quite --
JUSTICE SCALIA: But does the Attorney General come in and say, you know, we might really only want to go after the professional bank robbers? If it's just an amateur bank robber, you know, we're -- we're going the let it go. And the state's interfering with our--with our whole scheme here because it's prosecuting all these bank robbers.
GENERAL VERRILLI: Well, of course, no one would --
JUSTICE SCALIA: Now, would anybody listen to that argument?
GENERAL VERRILLI: Of course not.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Of course not.
GENERAL VERRILLI: But this argument is quite different, Justice Scalia, because here what we are talking about is that Federal registration requirement in an area of dominant Federal concern, exclusive Federal concern with respect to immigration, who can be in the country, under what circumstances, and what obligations they have--
JUSTICE KENNEDY: Now, are you talking about now or --
GENERAL VERRILLI: Yes.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: -- or does this argument relate to 2 as well?
GENERAL VERRILLI: This is an argument about section 3.
That's the kind of day Verrilli had. He wasn't helping himself.
Surprisingly, not even the justices you'd figure would be receptive to Verrilli's arguments were propping him up.
After Verrilli asserted that "systematic cooperation" was wrong, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said candidly, "You can see it's not selling very well. Why don't you try something else?"
You mean like racial profiling?
If SB 1070 is upheld by the justices in a decision expected in June, immigrant groups may yet get to play racial profiling and the law's discriminatory nature as a trump card.
It certainly wasn't played by Verrilli this week.
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Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, @emilamok.
April 18, 2012 3:28 PM
Here's a trend I call "false hope" for xenophobes: What if all the foreign-born and their offspring actually pick up and go home?
Well, it's not quite happening in such massive numbers that the Tea Party will choke on its good cheer. But it is happening enough to notice. I'm not talking about people here illegally. I'm talking about genuine Asian Americans, both native and foreign-born, who've discovered something quite natural--the urge to go "home."
And it's not just to vacation, but to live and work.
This is the kind of thing that would force Horace Greeley, our American compass, to literally turn in his grave. He had the direction wrong.
I'm sure we all know at least one or two Asian American friends who have "gone east," at some point.
By my own unofficial count, I can name ten without even trying.
The very first ones I can recall from the '70s were all foreign-born Asians educated in America and sent back home to be the rightful patricians in their domestic societies.
Around the '80s came more American-born corporate types sent to open up China for their corporate clients, like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dunkin' Donuts. That's what Asian American MBAs did back then.
But then when recessions hit in the '90s and later, I did notice there were more American-born Chinese who, without corporate prodding, simply made the genetic decision.
Two acquaintances of mine found their way to Hong Kong, one as a journalist, the other as a fashion designer. The designer is back, the journalist has stayed and thrived. Anecdotal, sure. But some 12 years later, The New York Times has done a story on this idea, and now we have a bona fide mainstream trend.
Ed Park, the head of Asian Pacific American Studies at Loyola Marymount University, told the Times it's now gone beyond anecdote. And I believe him.
When I talked to him the other day, he said there is still some difficulty quantifying the movement from West to East, but he said he can tell institutionally that the west to east phenomenon is taking hold. He mentioned how international schools in Seoul are loaded with Asian Americans looking to go back. "They've put a cap on the number of Korean nationals who attend those schools (to make room for all the Asian Americans)," he said. "Just look at their yearbooks, and you'll see how many Asian Americans have returned."
He also mentioned the throngs of Japanese Americans and other Asian Americans who for years have taken part in the teaching English programs in Japan (I know at least three people who've done this in recent years). The movement from West to East has been developing over time. In fact, Park notes that increasingly the idea of "the American" to an Asian audience is more and more the face of a Gary Locke, or another Asian American. Douglas MacArthur? Not anymore.
While there's a "Roots"-like adventurousness and curiosity driving this phenomenon, the Times story is primarily economic. Given the opportunities in the U.S., or lack thereof, even for some in the "Model Minority," Asian Americans seem to have a nice built-in option.
But the idea that Asian Americans are looking to Asia to seek their fortune really turns the immigrant model on its head. What does it say about the times when the Third World is better than the U.S.?
It's the anti-Gold Mountain idea.
It's always been the hope of the immigrant that the "grass is greener...," but what if it weren't even that, and the mountain we were seeking to climb was really in Asia all along?
The immigrant dream is being revised by a global generation.
This notion may be anathema to many older hard-working immigrants who see their kids toying with the idea. But this is the immigrant version of the sense many Americans feel, that their children will have a much harder time replicating the success of their parents. That is, unless you're a young buck or buckess from immigrant stock, and then you can shift your boat in reverse and head to Asia.
It does bring up some interesting questions. What if we all just stayed put in the first place?
Can you picture America as 90 percent white? Oh, yeah, in some suburbs, it still is. But what if all of America looked like Iowa circa 1950?
I think I'd be heading to Asia now too.
There's also the idea of "home." What is that?
I went to the Philippines for the first time to cover the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino in the '80s. But I'm sad to say I haven't been back since. Not even to see my relatives. My relatives immigrated here to see me.
I was a kid from 1632 Fulton Street in San Francisco's Western Addition who grew up in the Mission. That's what I mean when I say "home."
But we all have this sense of a "blood home." And for me that will always be the Philippines of my late parents.
Would I go back? For vacation, yes. To live? Not sure. I have a friend who lives in California but has a second home in his home province.
When he went for a visit this year, he was advised to stay in the big city, Manila. It was just too dangerous in the old province town.
When you have dollars in a peso world, you are a marked man. You need your dollars to buy private security, or bribe someone for safety. The cost of living abroad?
As my friend found out, your face and blood may be Asian, but your wallet is still American. And they can tell. Especially if you're ten pounds overweight by their standards.
Another couple I know is happy with their new San Francisco condo. Retire in the Philippines after almost 40 years in America? After a visit, they discovered just how American they were.
There are some real economic incentives to go to Asia to live and work. If you're young and are sent abroad by an employer, there's a $91,000 ceiling on money earned that is not subject to taxes (check with your tax advisor). But for many, the ideas of money and values are commingled. How exciting to have a hand in developing an emerging China, Vietnam, India, the Philippines? As a young immigrant or native born, a foreign scenario may offer better and
more meaningful opportunities than anything in the U.S.
If you do "Go East," just keep your American passport handy.
"It's your insurance policy," said Park, who said the value of citizenship is made all the more important.
Carlos Bulsosan may have written "America is in the Heart." But if you're living and working abroad, it's in your breast pocket.
Your passport provides you with the American's backup. You can always come home.
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Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, @emilamok
