It’s a good thing Donald Trump has a real hurricane, a Sharpie, and a fake map to play with.
Yes, the man is no cartographer like Amerigo Vespucci (now there’s a guy with a brand! He put the “A” in USA).
But at least the president has something other than golf to occupy his divine passion for lyin...
I’m driving around the Bay Area, and the talk is that traffic is lighter than normal in San Francisco because everyone who is anyone is at Burning Man in the Nevada desert.
Burning Man is not to be confused with an innocent person caught in the Amazon fires. Nor does it refer to the president, whos...
If you were an Asian American dreaming of an Asian Woman vs. Asian Woman, Elephant vs. Donkey battle royale for the presidency in 2020 in the form of Nikki Haley vs. Kamala Harris, well, you can forget it.
Haley, who occasionally speaks her mind against Trump, is still firmly within the GOP fold, r...
Associated Press - When Amanda Berg heard reports that President Donald Trump mocked the accents of the leaders of South Korea and Japan at a recent fundraiser, it brought back painful memories from her childhood.
Berg, a Korean American who grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, recalled kids doing th...
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) condemns the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) publication this week of its final public charge rule that would deny permanent resident status (“green cards”) to immigrants who use such government services as nutrition pro...
I happened to be driving through Dayton, a step ahead of the president who was starting his “Condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy, I really mean it,” tour. It’s where presidential responsibility as consoler-in-chief meets campaign self-interest.
I’m just trying to get home. Trump’s just tryi...
Center for American Progress - Homeownership and high-quality affordable rental housing are critical tools for wealth building and financial well-being in the United States.1 Knowing this, American lawmakers have long sought to secure land for, reduce barriers to, and expand the wealth-building capa...
The evil that’s gripping the country, the deadly mix of guns, and white supremacy, Asian America has seen it before.
It’s definitely in our history. Just remember the name Fermin Tobera.
In the 1930s, when Filipinos were brought to America as 100 percent legal, colonized U.S. nationals primarily t...
After the first CNN Democratic debate, I noted that it was held in Detroit, the scene of the most famous Asian American hate crime that galvanized Asian American political activism and awareness. But in 2019, we didn’t really show up.
It was the whitest of the two debates, and the one who really pu...
Vincent Chin, the most famous of all Asian American hate crime victims, was murdered in the Detroit area, so maybe that was our way of being present at CNN’s Democratic presidential debate 2019, night one.
We were ghosts.
I listened for us. I didn’t hear Asian Americans mentioned once. Not even in...
I lost my chance to own and possess it.
I wanted it on eBay–but was outbid.
It was one of the original brochures of the 1904 World’s Fair. The one that had the human zoos with the Filipinos, euphemistically called a “Filipino Exposition.”
An expo, what fun!?
A friend of mine found it for me. Dur...
Know your rights! Come to AALDEF’s free immigration clinic on Thursday, July 25, 2019, 6 pm to 8 pm, at Flushing Library, 41-17 Main Street, in Queens. Free legal consultations, assistance with DACA renewal applications, mental health resources and benefit screenings, and information about financial...
Glefen is a Lyft driver I met this week in DC. He immigrated here from the Philippines as a kid, and is in his twenties now. A naturalized American.
He makes me an OG. But what does that make my dad? An OOG?
Glefen has the AC on in DC, where we’re coming up to the hottest day in the last few years...
I finally get out of Iowa, where it’s not inhospitable, but I am reminded of a group of Filipino men and their Japanese American wives and their Filipino-Japanese American kids who showed up in Iowa to live and farm in 1942 and were told to get out.
It happened. It made the news.
In 2019, after my...
I’m hurtling through the heartland where the majority of the time the posted speed limit is 75-80 mph. Then my car broke down.
I’m heading to Washington, DC to do my show, “Emil Amok: All Pucked Up.” (Get your tickets here.)
I just thought replicating my father’s immigrant experience in my own cou...
On June 5, 2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) opened a third notice and comment period for its proposed rule changes affecting the fee waiver application process. These proposed changes would discourage immigrants from filing for fee waivers and immigration benefits and would li...
With the Supreme Court hearing the DACA appeal in the fall, Trump’s decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals will surely a campaign issue going forward. Same with the Census citizenship question that was blocked for now but thrown back to the lower court. And then there’s the 5-4 SCOTU...
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s decision to block the addition of the citizenship question to the 2020 Census in Department of Commerce v. New York (18-966) and remanded the case for further proceedings.
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and the N...
The New York Times has been called “The Gray Lady” for decades, supposedly because its inked front page always gave a gray, bland appearance with few or no pictures.
The digital age has brought more color, but Wednesday morning was exceptional.
The picture said it all.
Facedown in the river were ...
Are you still in that reflective meditative coma I’ve suggested? Or have you busted out, ready to take action?
Five years ago, I proposed a special time– a period of community reflection– as an adjunct to May’s Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, these days reduced to an obligatory and ...
