All I needed to see was the headline “New Jersey Nurse killed in Times Square,” and I just reacted.
Had to be a Filipino American, I said to myself.
She was.
Last Friday night, Maria Ambrocio, 58, was pushed by a perp who had just snatched another woman’s phone and was trying to get away. He didn...
After the Facebook meltdown at the beginning of the week, the good news came at the end of the week: Maria Ressa.
To Maria Ressa, hearty congratulations are in order.
Ressa’s the Asian American Filipina journalist, the CNN reporter turned media entrepreneur as CEO of the website Rappler, based in ...
History usually stays in the past because much of it is hurtful, bad stuff. Society is all too willing to let it stay buried, the deeper the better. That is, until someone decides it’s just too immoral to continue to ignore it all. And then the history comes alive, and makes news.
That’s happening ...
My essay on “South Pacific” in “Bigotry on Broadway,” an anthology edited by the noted author Ishmael Reed and his wife Carla Blank, officially launches this week. “South Pacific” was how Asians appeared on Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s, but it wasn’t nearly the condemnation of bigotry people like...
It’s Shang-Chi’s world. So why don’t I feel better, especially after seeing the Emmys?
This is the year Asian Americans got the Marvel superhero treatment, and from all accounts, the spell is working at the box-office. In its third weekend, “Shang-Chi” is the top movie in the nation bringing in $21...
“Recall Repulsed Convincingly in California.” That would have been my election night headline.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, elected three years ago by the largest margin in nearly 70 years, can now stay in office to lead the state with the most Asian Americans in the nation.
Out of 17 percent of eligible As...
The 2020 Census data release has made the scale of demographic change in the United States crystal clear. More than ever before, communities of color are fueling the country’s population growth. It is imperative that the communities leading this growth be front and center as states and local governm...
NEW YORK, New York — Today, the New York State Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) released two sets of draft redistricting maps that have the potential to drastically shift power for voters in New York. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) is concerned that the IRC’s ...
NEW YORK, New York — The UNITY MAP COALITION, a consortium of three leading legal voting rights advocacy organizations fighting for equitable electoral districts for over three decades, continues our historic watchdog role over New York State’s redistricting map with preliminary comments on the draf...
“Get vaccinated,” President Joe Biden said in a kind of tough love, aggressive whisper, as he ended his speech on Thursday.
It’s the speech that could get us over this nasty Covid surge gripping the nation. All the numbers from new cases, to hospitalizations, to deaths, show America still hasn’t le...
On the weekend that Asian Americans are given the full Hollywood treatment–not just “Crazy Rich Asians,” but crazy super-empowered Asians, Marvel style–America could really use an Asian American hero. When I feel comfortable in a movie theater again, I’ll catch “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten R...
“SB 1 is an extremist anti-voter bill that raises even more barriers to voting and specifically targets vulnerable communities.”
AUSTIN, Texas — Civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit today challenging anti-voter Senate Bill 1 (SB 1).
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of the League of Women Vo...
There are times when being Asian American matters. And then there are times when we are just plain Americans.
This is one of those times. When our country loses a war, we become “we.”
We weren’t going to get a countdown. Or a ball drop.
Surely, there would be no crowds cheering at Time Square to ...
As people in the United States and around the world watch scenes of chaos and tragedy unfold in Afghanistan, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) calls on the Biden administration to keep its commitment to evacuate broad categories of Afghans seeking protection. These categor...
Peter D. Lederer died on August 8 at the age 91 at his home in Connecticut. He was an AALDEF board member from 1987 to 2017 and supported many other organizations in the Asian American community, including Japanese American Social Services, Inc. (JASSI) in NYC.
(Peter Lederer, left, with AALDEF bo...
New York, NY – Today, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund joined a group of 346 organizations and faith groups to sign a letter calling on President Biden to support all Afghans in need of humanitarian protection and assistance. Refugee Council USA organized the letter and delivered ...
If you’re thinking about making remarks about an Asian American with a dash of that secret sauce—racism—I’m going to give you a way to think about the apology you will undoubtedly be forced to give.
Think of it as a model apology.
I realize society needs one of those after listening to the b.s. ap...
Javed Rezayee is what I’d call an Asian American Afghan. An AAA. A triple-A.
So, he’s one of us. An Asian American brother. He came to the U.S. more than a dozen years ago as a student, and now he’s an American citizen. He voted for Biden. But he told me the president was wrong to abandon Afghanist...
I have been waiting for this moment since I first heard of the phrase “diversity,” or the idea of “minorities becoming the majority” in the 1980s.
And now according to the Census, we are here about eight years sooner than demographers expected. Our population is up by 24 million people, to more tha...
By Annika Kim Constantino/CNBC
The battle to redraw U.S. congressional districts is taking place for the first time in decades without certain federal redistricting protections, raising concern that voters of color could get sidelined even as they have become a larger share of the population.
The ...
