A day after the Washington football team’s trademark of the Redskins name was cancelled, activists are cheering, but the effect is the same.
We are still far from home on the range, or anywhere else, where seldom is heard a disparaging word. So the deer and the pro bono attorneys can still play.
A...
Father’s Day is closing in on us. And while I love to talk about baseball and my dad (see a reprise of my traditional Father’s Day essay here), my dad really was all about the Sport of Kings.
That’s right, horse racing. And you can bet he’d have something to say about what happened to California Ch...
You could tell by his face–Seattle Pacific University student Jon Meis was at least part Asian American.
But the mainstream media mostly used one word to describe him: hero.
Meis wasn’t a victim, like my cousin Stephen in San Francisco on May 3.
Or the gunman, like half-Asian Elliot Rodger in I...
I thought I was pretty hardened after my cousin Stephen Guillermo’s recent shooting death. But when I heard about the Isla Vista rampage and the 7 dead and 13 wounded, I realized Stephen’s case was just a subset of the larger picture of gun violence in America.
Once you’ve experienced the pain and ...
The Guillermo family buried its dead last week.
In a bit of justice for my 26-year-old cousin Stephen, thank goodness I checked my email during the funeral.
Dr. Sophie Clavier, his advisor at San Francisco State, had informed me the school would grant his degree in International Relations posthu...
China Daily USA - Thirteen Chinese garment workers have been awarded $1.2 million in damages for unpaid wages while working at a clothing factory between 2005 and 2010 in New York’s Chinatown.
Federal Judge P. Kevin Castel in Manhattan issued the award on Wednesday in a lawsuit brought in May 2011 ...
Today, a Manhattan federal judge awarded 13 Chinatown garment workers over $1.2 million in damages for unpaid minimum wage and overtime pay owed between 2005 to 2010. The plaintiffs were represented by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF).
The 13 Chinese immigrant garment wo...
We all know how elusive justice can be. But just try seeking it after a family member has been murdered–a victim of gun violence.
Amisi Kachepa, the self-professed killer of my cousin, 26-year old Stephen Guillermo, was released from San Francisco County jail this week. The SF District Attorney Geo...
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) commends the joint guidance released today by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education to state and local school districts, emphasizing their universal obligation to provide all children with equal access to elementary and secondary p...
Let’s not bury the lead. I already have to bury the dead.
Stephen Guillermo, 26, my first cousin, once removed, was shot and murdered in his apartment building early Saturday morning after a night on the town with friends in San Francisco.
There’s no crime being drunk if you’re responsible enoug...
May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Is everybody AAPI?
Perhaps not, especially if we are forced to revisit the Vincent Chin murder reinterpreted by someone who is not Asian and was not a direct participant in any of the events of June 19, 1982.
But it happened this week, and it ...
With his media conference in New York on Tuesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver elevated his game for America.
There was much talk that this would be a defining moment for the league. How about society?
By his actions, Silver was more than just NBA Commissioner.
He was the country’s de facto Race,...
A strike? Boycott? Talk of a union?
Not exactly what you’d expect to hear from a humble Nepalese sherpa. But these days, the Sherpa wants to be seen more as an elite mountaineer and less of a lowly manservant/mule.
Indeed, if Twitter were around during Sir Edmund Hillary’s historic scaling of Mt. ...
If you love petitions, the initiative process, and direct democracy, you’ll love the latest U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Schuette.
The Supreme Court didn’t negate affirmative action in its 6-2 opinion in Schuette, Attorney General of Michigan v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration a...
First, the good news of Good Friday, at least in terms of Asian American firsts.
In a small town in California, the first Hmong American judge in the nation will be sworn in. Paul Lo will take the bench as a Superior Court judge in Merced County in California’s Central Valley, where more than a thi...
Today, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) filed a complaint against the Philadelphia City Commissioners for refusing to provide language assistance to Asian American voters, in violation of the Philadelphia Fair Practices Ordinance (FPO).
Jerry Vattamala, staff attorney in...
Tired of that old positive stereotype? You know, the “Model Minority”?
If you are, then the FBI sting operation involving California State Senator Leland Yee and 28 others is something of a godsend.
The case is an all-encompassing model minority buster.
Don’t care much for the “good at math” ster...
White House Blog (op-ed) – Khin Mai Aung is being honored as a Cesar E. Chavez Champion of Change. I began my legal career in the San Francisco Bay Area during the “dot com boom” of the late 1990s…
Over the course of the past week, a controversy has escalated surrounding Stephen Colbert’s joke during a Colbert Report segment, and the tweet it spawned on the @ColbertReport account. The segment was focused on mocking the Washington football team’s owner Dan Snyder and his refusal to change the c...
Fox News Latino – The labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, who would have turned 87 on Monday, was remembered by the White House with “Champions of Change,” an event that honors community leaders who embody the spirit…
