In 2009, Manny Pacquiao came into AT&T Park like a rock star to throw out the first pitch at a Giants game. It had to be San Francisco’s first all-Filipino battery with Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum, himself half-Filipino, behind the plate. When I had the chance to talk to Pacquiao afterwards, I was ...
As part of its agency plan to improve access for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs), the Department of Education has announced that it is seeking to gather information on how state education agencies, school districts, and higher education institutions disaggregate data...
Oy vey! Did you hear the one about how Asian Americans are the new Jews?
The idea has actually been kicking around for a few years now but has resurfaced in the preliminary stages leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s hearing later this year in Fisher v. University of Texas, the latest threat to a...
The Asian American voice has been slowly growing in the debate around the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a proposed federal law that would give undocumented college students a chance to become legal residents, under strict guidelines.
The Asian American Legal Defe...
Washington Post – Opposition to high-stakes standardized testing is growing around the country, with more parents choosing to opt their children out of taking exams, more school boards expressing disapproval…
In response to a wave of state laws that threaten voting rights of Asian Americans and other voters of color, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) is offering a series of legal trainings in multiple cities reviewing voters’ rights, voter registration, and election rules for ...
Voice of America – Asian-Americans suffer the highest rates of long-term unemployment of any group in the United States, according to a recent study issued by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice (Advancing Justice) — Asian American Institute (AAI), Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), Asian Law Caucus (ALC) and Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) — announced they will ...
That off-again, on-again morning meeting in San Jose between President Obama and a roundtable of Asian American business leaders represents the stark undemocratic reality of today’s politics.
Not only is it closed to the media, but the participants’ names are part of an exclusive list that hasn’t e...
“I disenchanted both sides,” said New Jersey Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman, as he wound up the sentencing hearing of Dharun Ravi, the 20-year-old Rutgers student who was convicted of bias intimidation for spying on his roommate Tyler Clementi.
Whether you were looking for a harsh and extreme se...
On May 18, 2012, during the National Coalition on School Diversity’s (NCSD) second national conference, school diversity experts, along with Congressional and federal officials, gathered to discuss the ongoing impact of landmark education decisions.
In 1945, Latino parents in Orange County, Califor...
The landmark federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has provided a comprehensive approach to domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking for the past 18 years. However, H.R.
4970, the bill introduced by Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) that reauthorized VAWA in the House of Representatives o...
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...
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), which has monitored the voting rights and political opinions of Asian American voters in every major election since 1988, announced that it will monitor poll sites and conduct exit polls in at least 10 states for the upcoming 2012 electio...
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 presiden...
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,...
In 2012, the Supreme Court will hear Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin to determine whether UT-Austin’s policy of considering race in undergraduate admissions should be upheld. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) will be filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in...
After the United States Census Bureau required Queens County to provide language assistance to Indian voters in “Asian Indian” under the Voting Rights Act last fall, the New York City Board of Elections has now selected the specific languages for which various levels of assistance will be provided a...
New York Times – Here’s a variant on the depressingly common phenomenon of restaurants underpaying their low-wage workers: a former employee of the Lower East Side gastropub Spitzer’s Corner has charged in a suit that he was hired into a nonexistent “apprenticeship” and required to work upwards of 9...
Gothamist – An aspiring cook has filed a lawsuit against the chef and owners of Spitzer’s Corner, the popular Lower East Side scenester hangout that’s previously been in trouble for serving booze to minors. According to the lawsuit (in full below) executive chef Sung Park, general manager David Moon...
