Sept. 21 - 27, 2001 AsianWeek.com: "South Asians Face Violent Backlash After 
WTC Attacks"
    As Sikhs, other South Asian Americans and Arab Americans expressed their 
collective grief and patriotism nationwide last week, they also had to deal with 
backlash from the terrorist attacks, which erupted into an unprecedented amount 
of hate violence. In one week, the New York-based civil rights organization Asian 
American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) documented over 100 
bias-related incidents, half of which were of a violent nature.
    In Mesa, Ariz., a gunman pulled into a gas station and killed Indian American 
owner Balbir Singh Sodhi, then went to a second gas station and fired repeatedly 
through a window, but missed his target: the clerk who is of Lebanese descent. 
The shooter then went to an Afghani American home, where he fired several 
shots. No one was injured at the last two locations.
    Mesa police Detective Tim Gaffney said Frank Roque, 42, was booked on one 
count of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and three counts 
of drive-by shooting. Roque made his initial court appearance Sunday and bail 
was set at $1 million.
    Sodhi, 49, a former Bay Area taxi driver, was a Sikh. Police are investigating 
the possibility that the crimes were motivated by last week's terror attacks and 
are still trying to determine whether to add hate crimes charges.
    Sodhi's relatives pointed to the fact that the gas station wasn't robbed as 
evidence that Sodhi was targeted because of how he looked. Male Sikhs 
traditionally wear turbans and have long facial hair.
    Another reported murder, this one in Dallas, is under investigation for possible 
hate crimes. According to the Dallas Morning News, 46-year old Waqar Hasan, 
a Pakistani American, was found dead in Mom's Grocery Store where he worked 
late on the night of Sept. 15.
    Since nothing was stolen from the store, Hasan's family fears that the killing 
may have been in retaliation to the terrorist attacks. While the police have notified 
the FBI, they said, "there is nothing to prove that it was a hate crime, but nothing 
to disprove it."
    Hasan left behind a wife and four daughters, ranging from 10 to 17.
    Sin Yen Ling of AALDEF said that these cases fit the profile for most hate-
related crimes because there is no other tangible motive. "I have only read the 
newspaper reports about these crimes, but with no criminal motive, they really 
seem to be motivated by bias."
    Ling said that since last week's attacks, AALDEF had been receiving reports 
of hate crimes and bias-related incidences every hour. Many of the incidents 
target South Asian Americans, especially those of Sikh descent, because of 
their visibility. The Sikh religion originates from 16th century Punjab in northern 
India. Today, Sikhism is the world's fifth largest religion with 20 million followers. 
According to sikhs.org, the Sikh religion is based on devotion and remembrance 
of God and denounces superstitions and blind rituals.
    Often the attackers in these bias-related incidents will yell out anti-Arab and 
anti-Islamic sentiment, while Sikhs have nothing to do with either culture.
    "We look identical to Arabs in the East who have turbans and beards," 
Gurmeet Singh, of Hayward, Calif., said. "But here, Arabs don't dress like that. 
So here, people watch the reports on the news, see us and think, 'Oh, there are 
those guys.'"
    Singh is an active member of the International Sikh Youth Federation that 
works with the community to further the teachings of Sikhism among youth.
    "Right now, we are trying to educate the community about ourselves, invite 
them into our prayer services and show them that our religion is based on 
equality and peace," Singh said. "As well as that, we are raising aid for those in 
New York and Washington."
    Singh, whose three children were born in the United States, said that he had 
never seen real discrimination in America until now, and he fears for the safety of 
his family and friends.
    As investigators look for clues and suspects in the terrorist attacks, cases of 
police racial profiling have also been affecting the South Asian American 
community. On Sept. 12, as the nation fought to recover from the attacks, Sher 
JB Singh was returning home to Virginia from a business trip to Massachusetts 
by train. Singh, who is Sikh, said that he was following the guidelines of the 
government, which were urging everyone to keep moving ahead, as he was 
returning home to be with his family in this time of crisis.
    When the train stopped in Providence, R.I., the police and other law 
enforcement agencies began an extensive search in the train. In a statement 
issued at a press conference in Washington D.C., on Monday, Singh said: "Two 
police officers came into my coach with their handguns pointing towards me, and 
using extreme profanity, took me outside the train. Once outside the train, I was 
handcuffed and stripped of my wallet and began to be treated as if I were the 
fleeing terrorist whom they were looking for."
    Singh was very upset, saying that the Providence police department assaulted 
him with derogatory remarks against his religion and appearance, despite his 
repeated explanations. After bringing a lawyer in on his behalf, Singh was 
released.
    Legal experts have already been expressing concern over incidents just like this.
    "I'm very worried about what's going to be done in the name of security," said 
Kevin Johnson, a racial profiling and immigration expert at the University of 
California at Davis Law School. About a dozen travelers of Middle Eastern 
descent were detained at two New York airports on Sept. 13, only later to be 
cleared of any connection with this week's terrorist attacks. It is illegal for law 
officers to target someone based on ethnic appearance. Historically, courts have 
also ensured that foreign nationals are guaranteed the same civil rights as U.S. 
citizens.
    Ling said that one of the main reasons that AALDEF is so carefully 
documenting these incidents is so they can follow up with legal assistance.
    "We are trying to monitor the New York Police Department," Ling said. "There 
are many cases where Sikhs are being profiled."
    In both New York and Washington D.C., civil rights groups are working hard to 
outreach to the communities and provide a place for people to come together. 
On Sept. 15, AALDEF helped organize a meeting for the larger community to 
strategize. In Washington D.C., on Sept. 19, a large coalition of people in the 
South Asian, Asian Pacific Islander American, and Arab American communities 
came together at the Japanese American World War II memorial to rally together.

9/20/01 Chinese Daily
http://www.chineseworld.com/publish/010920/11_0900.4w/a/4was(010921)01_sg.ht
    Summary: Right after the first AA Airline plane hit the World Trade Center,
Zhe Zeng, who works at Bank of New York on Wall Street, called his mother and 
said "I'm OK. It's chaotic outside. I'm going to help other people" and he hanged 
up the phone.  Zhe has never been heard from since. Few days later, one of his 
friends saw Zhe in the Fox News' TV coverage of the rescue efforts around WTC just
before the buildings collapsed.
    Zhe is 29 year old and got his MBA from the University of Rochester. Zhe
came from Quanzhou to New York with his parents when he was 15 years old. He
was a trained and certified rescue worker. While  at Styvesant High in lower
Manhattan, he was a honor student and was always willing to help the other
students specially in math.   He is so well liked such that the landlord
where his family lived even lowered the rent in order to lighten his
family's burden.
    Zhe's mother, a former school teacher in China, said "Since we have
immigrated to America, we have to think this land as our country. I always
taught young people to serve their society and its people. I may have lost
Zhe, but I'm very proud of what he did. I hope  mainstream America will
understand that there are Chinese Americans who are willing to sacrifice
themselves in order to help  others. Now I only want to find out what
happened to Zhe. I pray that there would not be war, because  more innocent
people will be killed"


Sept. 14-20, 2001 AsianWeek.com: "APIA Leaders Fight to Keep San Gabriel 
Whole"
    West San Gabriel Valley is developing into the new battleground for Asian 
Pacific Islander American political representation. Last week, APIA community 
leaders blasted the state Legislatures' redistricting plans - which would divide 
the area into three congressional districts and reroute voters to four different 
Senate districts - all but silencing the APIA voice.
    Working with members of the Mexican American Legal Defense and 
Education Fund, Kathay Feng, an attorney with the Asian Pacific American 
Legal Center and a representative of the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans 
for Fair Redistricting, helped draft an alternative plan that, she said, reflects 
the true makeup of the District 49 - Monterey Park, Rosemead, Alhambra and 
San Gabriel.
    "No community should gain at the expense of another," testified Feng before 
the Assembly Committee on Sept. 4.
    While APIAs make up about 41% of the 49th District, Latinos comprise the 
largest minority group, representing 42% of the population. After 10 years of 
Latino leadership, in May Judy Chu won the district's Assembly seat - 
becoming one of four APIAs elected to the 120-member state legislature. 
Following tradition, Chu captured the seat by working with the Latino and APIA 
communities, and forming alliances with members of both communities.
    While her victory was reason to celebrate, others point out that with APIAs 
representing 13% of California's population, Asian Pacific Islander Americans 
are still inadequately represented in government. Currently, there are no APIAs 
in the State Senate.
    Feng said the proposal she worked on keeps Chu's district mostly intact, 
with Latino and APIA populations at 42% and 41% respectively.
    The plan aims to "build a foundation for [the future] because ... we ought to 
have 10 Assembly members and five more senators, and clearly, [the APIA 
community is] so far off from that," she said. "It's just laughable."
    Redistricting - the redrawing of California's voting lines - comes with the 
recent release of the 2000 National Census Data. Last week, public hearings 
were held on the Legislature's proposal, which must be passed before the week's 
end to take effect in the March primary elections.
    Though Voting Rights Laws were created to prevent legislators from "diluting 
minority voting strength," drawing new district boundaries always threatens to 
silence the voices of people of color.
    As proposals to move voting district lines are being considered, some 
legislators are concerned that changes may end the Latino community's political 
muscle in District 49, and have taken their grievances to the redistricting board.
    The history of the district is rooted in multiculturalism; Monterey Park was the 
first city to strike down "restrictive covenants" in the 1970s. These clauses, 
written into property sales contracts, effectively prevented homes from being sold 
to certain minority groups. As the first city to do away with these stipulations, 
Monterey Park became a haven for minority groups and immigrants, developing 
two strong communities, APIA and Latino, which have lived side-by-side and 
grown together.
    When asked about concern over the Legislature's plan, Speaker of the 
Assembly Bob Hertzberg's spokesman remained diplomatic and noncommittal, 
stating "we still view this as a project in flux" and a "work-in-progress."
    Feng remains positive, not only optimistic about the future, but also proud of 
past accomplishments.
    "We, as an Asian American community, have to reach a certain level of 
participation and maturity to be taken seriously. Now we have four elected 
officials and that's a huge step forward," she said. "In 1998, we had nobody."

9/13/01 San Jose Mercury News: "Assembly members back plan to split 
neighborhood,"
    As California legislators work to redraw the state's political boundaries 
this week, several Assembly members are embracing plans to split up San 
Jose's growing Asian-American community to shore up their holds on their 
seats.
    Manny Diaz and Rebecca Cohn, both elected last year, have endorsed a 
redistricting plan that divides northeast San Jose's Berryessa neighborhood 
into four different Assembly districts, potentially hobbling the political influence 
of the area's Asian-American population.
    The maneuvering has infuriated many state and local leaders in the Asian-
American community as well as other elected leaders in Silicon Valley, who say 
that the gerrymandering of Berryessa is the most egregious disenfranchisement 
of Asian-American voters in the state. Concentrated in one district, Berryessa's 
Asian-Americans could assert considerable influence over who is elected in their 
district.
    The dispute has also thrown an unflattering light on the tension between the 
political ambitions of some of the region's politicians and the political aspirations 
of the state's growing minority communities.
    ``They are thinking so much about creating a political machine that they have 
forgotten about representing the whole community,'' said Kathay Feng, an 
attorney for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, which has been leading the 
fight to ensure that California's Asian-American population is represented in 
Sacramento and Washington, D.C.
    ``They have played the race card, and there will be long-term consequences,'' 
Feng warned.
    Diaz, a San Jose Democrat, has denied trying to exclude any voters from his 
district, though several sources say that he has worked hard in recent weeks to 
increase the number of Latino voters in his East San Jose district.
    And Cohn, a Campbell Democrat, said Wednesday that she believes the 
current plan is a fair one. ``I think the Asian community should be happy that 
Cupertino is being joined with Sunnyvale and Mountain View,'' she said.
    Under the current plans, which could be voted on as soon as today: Diaz's 
district would expand slightly to the west to take in more areas of central San 
Jose; Cohn's West Valley district would expand east in a long arm that would 
stretch through a portion of Santa Clara and into northeast San Jose; and Elaine 
Alquist's district would move north to take in more of the Peninsula and east to 
also take in a part of northeast San Jose.
    Unlike earlier plans, which divided the city of Santa Clara in half and drew 
intense criticism, the latest plans appear to do a better job of joining communities 
together.
    San Jose's prosperous and suburban Evergreen neighborhoods, for example, 
which earlier were to join a largely rural district that included parts of San Benito 
and Monterey counties, have been reunited with the rest of San Jose.
    Most of Santa Clara is now back in Alquist's district, but Mayor Judy Nadler 
said she is still concerned that her city is being split between Cohn's and Alquist's 
districts.
    Several Asian-American leaders said the division of the Berryessa 
neighborhood, which is home to San Jose's greatest concentration of Asian-
Americans, is so extreme that they are considering legal action if it is approved 
by the Legislature this week.
    ``At first glance, this proposed redistricting scheme looks like a deliberate 
attempt to sabotage any attempt at developing the political power of Asian-
Americans,'' said Anna Wang, executive director of the Vision 2000 Foundation, 
a non-profit organization working to boost civic participation of Asian-Americans.
    Joining Wang are the local chapter of the National Association for the 
Advancement of Colored People and several local politicians, including Chuck 
Reed, a San Jose City Council member who represents the Berryessa 
neighborhood.
    Much of the group's anger has been directed at Diaz, who told many people 
in the Capitol and the valley that he had been concerned that his district went 
from being 48 percent Latino to being 43 percent Latino under the original 
redistricting plans that did not fragment Berryessa as dramatically.
    That plan also boosted Asian-American residents in his district to 34 percent.
    Diaz has denied trying to boost the number of Latino voters in his district, 
which he narrowly won last year.
    The latest plans make Diaz's district 47 percent Latino and 27 percent Asian-
American.
    Feng said she does not take issue with efforts to bolster the region's Latino 
representation.
    ``If this was about balancing communities, I could understand that,'' Feng said, 
explaining that she and others are not simply trying to create a district that could 
elect an Asian-American Assembly member.
    ``But I think this is about a legislator taking a very narrow view of what is a 
winnable district rather than trying to unify a community.''

9/12/01 Los Angeles Times: "Asian Americans Flex Growing Political Muscle: 
Once a negligible force, the group's clout has grown with election wins in the 
state and nation"
    Enough shovels of earth--a mountain.
    Enough pails of water--a river.
    That Chinese proverb as much as anything explains the growing political 
empowerment of Asian Americans across California and particularly in the San 
Gabriel Valley. Election by election, and without fanfare, the ranks of Asian 
American elected officials statewide have swelled from 106 in 1980 to 503 in 
1998. That figure, compiled by the Public Policy Institute of California and the 
most recent available, does not include some recent gains. Two longtime San 
Gabriel Valley city councilwomen have joined the Assembly: Carol Liu of La 
Canada Flintridge, elected in November, and Judy Chu of Monterey Park, who 
took office this summer.
    With two other Asian American Democrats in the Assembly--Wilma Chan of 
Oakland and George Nakano of Torrance--they form the Legislature's largest 
Asian American caucus ever. It may be only four members strong, but the 
Capitol's black caucus has only seven. In fact, the institute found that Asian 
American officeholders outnumber African American officials in California by 
2 to 1.
    It's been a gradual progression, driven by demographics, multiethnic coalition 
politics and the changing attitudes of Asian Americans and others toward 
electing people of Asian descent.
    "Ten or 15 years ago, a meeting of Asian American elected officials could 
have been held around the kitchen table. Now we're talking a small banquet hall," 
said Joaquin Lim, a city councilman in Walnut. Lim heads the 33-member 
organization of Chinese American Elected Officials, which includes current and 
former officeholders and trains potential candidates.
    The San Gabriel Valley--a 300-square-mile "ethnoburbia" east of Los Angeles 
with 29 cities and about 1.7 million people--has proved to be fertile ground for 
ethnic politics before. Inside its city halls and on its school boards, Latinos 
showed they could flex their political muscle a decade ago.
    The number of city council and school board members and other elected 
officials of Asian descent in the valley has climbed in a decade from six to 17. 
There have been as many as 20, but three stepped down to seek even higher 
office.
    "What we're seeing in the San Gabriel Valley reflects a larger trend of Asian 
Americans becoming more involved in politics," said Don T. Nakanishi, head of 
the Asian-American Studies Center at UCLA. And even if they aren't winning, 
more Asian Americans are getting their names on the ballot.
    "The number of Asian American candidates is exploding," said David Lang, a 
political consultant. "Chinese Americans running for office used to be news in the 
San Gabriel Valley. Now we're talking 10 to 15 candidates every election cycle."
    At a candidates forum in Monterey Park on Aug. 31, five of seven council 
contenders were Asian American.
    "When I was A little girl, my mother told me those who are fortunate should 
contribute to the community," candidate Lisa Yang told the crowd.
    Packing the council chambers for the event was a virtual who's who of Asian 
American politics, including West Covina Mayor Benjamin Wong, Monterey Park 
Councilman David T. Lau and state Board of Equalization member John Chiang.
    Hosting the event was a growing collection of Asian American political 
organizations, including the Chinese-American Elected Officials, the Indo-
Chinese American Political Action Committee and CAUSE/Vision 21.
    CAUSE/Vision 21, created by the merger last year of two Asian American 
political groups, was formed to register voters and help train Asian American 
candidates. The Chinese Americans United for Self-Empowerment, founded 
in 1993 and known as CAUSE, teamed with Vision 21, founded in 1998. With 
an eye toward the future, they arrange internships in Sacramento for young Asian 
Americans.
    In July, more than 250 people attended a CAUSE/Vision 21 political meeting 
in Alhambra, including Secretary of State Bill Jones and Matt Fong, a former 
state treasurer.
    The number of Asian American officeholders remains small: 6% statewide. 
The number of Asian Americans among registered voters in California has 
climbed to 6%--up from 3% a decade ago--but is still the lowest rate of any 
ethnic group. But once registered, they are frequent voters and they have logged 
successes at the polls.
    San Francisco's Chinese community, which dates to the Gold Rush, has held 
as many as three county supervisorial seats there. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, 
Oakland has two Chinese American City Council members, as well as 
Assemblywoman Chan. And San Jose is home to Rep. Mike Honda. Pockets of 
Asian American electoral power can be found in Cerritos, where those of Asian 
descent are the majority, and Gardena, where four of five City Council members 
are of Asian decent.
    Nationwide, the number of elected and appointed officials in the Asian Pacific 
American political roster is 2,200, up from 700 two decades ago.
    Population growth is helping to fuel some of these gains. Asian Americans 
account for 13% of California's population and are the state's fastest-growing 
minority group. It is a population that has doubled every decade since 
immigration restrictions were eased in 1965.
    Nowhere is this growth more evident than in the San Gabriel Valley, where 
Asians outnumber all others in Monterey Park, Rowland Heights and Walnut.
    But political growth has taken more than bodies, it has required Asian 
Americans and others to change their minds about electing those of Asian 
descent.
    Some Say Asians Don't Vote
    The cost of noninvolvement has been high, said Paul Zee, 50, a former South 
Pasadena mayor and a recent Republican state Senate candidate.
    "I overheard two politicians talking. One said, 'But what about the Asian 
response?' The other guy just looked at him and said, 'I don't have to worry about 
the Asian response, do I? They don't vote,' " Zee said.
    The treatment of Taiwan-born scientist Wen Ho Lee, who became entangled 
in allegations of passing nuclear secrets to China, underscored the need for 
activism, said Marian Tse, a former member of the State Board of Education.
    Much as Proposition 187 galvanized the Latino community in 1994, Lee's legal 
battle drew slices of America's diverse Chinese American population into politics 
that had long ignored it, she said.
    Lee's experience resonated so deeply, said Tse, because he was portrayed 
as a foreigner--a familiar stereotype. The Lee case echoed the controversy over 
political contributions by Asian Americans during the Clinton administration. The 
Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights became a symbol of the controversy after 
Vice President Al Gore attended a fund-raiser there in 1996.
    "Now is time for politics," said Tse, a Taiwan-born Monterey Park resident. 
"New immigrants initially had to take care of the family, their business. Now they 
are looking to contribute to the community."
    In Zee's view, the rise of Latino politicians serves as a model for Asian 
Americans.
    "We need a machine like the one Richard Polanco built for Latinos in Southern 
California," he said. Assemblyman Polanco (D-Los Angeles) spent years 
cultivating candidates and positioning Latinos to run outside traditional Latino 
strongholds. Thanks partly to openings created by term limits, Latinos now hold 
20 seats in the Assembly, contrasting with just four in 1991.
    Latinos also made gains through redistricting and, for the first time, Asians are 
playing a serious role in California's redistricting debate. Last week, Asian 
leaders testifying in Sacramento demanded that the Legislature abandon a 
redistricting plan that they said would undermine growing Asian American 
political strength.
    And the new Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans for Fair Redistricting is 
lobbying for Assembly districts that could help elect Asian Americans in as many 
as 10 seats.
    "Asian Pacific Islanders wouldn't be in the majority but a plurality that, together 
with other groups, could form coalitions," said Kathay Feng, an attorney for the 
Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California. "Judy Chu in the 
49th District and George Nakano in Torrance were elected this way."
    "You have to be a candidate for all the people," said Chu, a 13-year Monterey 
Park councilwoman whose Assembly district is a cultural mix, with nearly half the 
population Latino and more than a quarter Asian. For Chu and others, one key is 
to campaign on quality-of-life issues, such as promoting parks or opposing 
billboards.
    In April, Annie Yuen became the first minority person elected to the school 
board in Arcadia, ousting a four-term incumbent. Yuen built a reputation as a 
parent activist, helping create Mandarin-language parenting classes but also 
leading that most American of institutions--the PTA.
    Some Resented the Asian Influx
    "People now look beyond skin color," said Arcadia Councilman Sheng Chang, 
the city's first elected Asian American. "A few years ago they didn't."
    Still, the influx of people of Asian descent into the San Gabriel Valley has 
tested the attitudes of some non-Asians.
    A decade ago, Walnut had a fledgling Anglo-American Assn., created in 
response to the growing Asian presence. Today, two council members are Asian 
Americans.
    "People used to say an Asian couldn't get elected in Walnut," said Councilman 
Lim. "Well, I smashed that glass ceiling and the glass is cracking everywhere 
these days."
    In that respect, the San Gabriel Valley, with its multiracial quilt of residents, 
might be ahead of the country, analysts say. A nationwide survey this year found 
that although Americans admire many qualities of Chinese Americans, one in 
four held negative attitudes toward those of Chinese ancestry and a third 
questioned their loyalty to the country.
    Issues still exist. The Asian Pacific American Legal Center alleges that, during 
the presidential election in November, some poll workers in San Marino often 
asked Asian American voters for proof of citizenship--questions they did not ask 
non-Asian voters. The county registrar-recorder is investigating.
    Four months later, Matthew Lin, an orthopedic surgeon, was elected to the San 
Marino City Council, becoming the first minority to join that body.

9/11/01 Sacramento Bee: "Redistrict boundary criticized: Minority and womens 
groups say the new lines ignore their interests"
    As the Legislature moved closer to voting on new Assembly, Senate and 
congressional district boundaries, minority and women's groups Monday 
accused Democratic mapmakers of ignoring them and threatened to sue.
    A conference committee of Assembly and Senate leaders could meet as early 
as today to review weekend revisions to the redistricting plans, setting the stage 
for votes in both chambers before Friday's legal deadline.
    The revisions tweaked some boundaries, including the 9th Assembly District, 
represented by Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. But the changes were not 
enough to satisfy Latino, Asian American and women's groups that testified last 
week against the plans.
    The revisions largely rejected suggestions made by advocates for Asian 
Americans, who contend many of their communities were fragmented to dilute 
their influence.
    "If a community interest could be met without running against the (Democratic) 
party or an incumbent, they were," said Kathay Feng of the Coalition of Asian 
Pacific Americans for Fair Redistricting. "But otherwise, we were ignored."
    Latino groups remain especially opposed to the congressional plan, which 
they contend dilutes the burgeoning Latino population in the San Fernando Valley 
and Latinos' ability to elect a candidate of their choice. Under the revised plan, 
Latinos there remain spread between districts held by Rep. Howard Berman, 
D-Valley Village, and Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks.
    "We will file a lawsuit if changes are not made," vowed Amadis Velez, 
redistricting coordinator for the Mexican American Legal Defense and 
Educational Fund, who said the plans do not reflect Latino population growth.
    Lawmakers must redraw the districts every 10 years to reflect population 
changes revealed by the federal census. Democrats control the process this 
year because they hold 76 of the 120 seats in the Legislature. But Democratic 
dominance has not stopped intraparty squabbling from breaking out since the
initial proposals were released two weeks ago.
    Responding to complaints by African American groups, the revised plan calls 
for Meadowview to remain in Sacramento's 9th Assembly District. Critics had 
charged that moving about 36,000 minority voters out of south Sacramento into 
the more rural 17th Assembly District would reduce the chances of an African 
American candidate succeeding Steinberg, who faces term limits in 2004.
    "We consider this a victory not only for common sense but for the voting rights 
of all in Sacramento," said James Reede, co-chairman of the Sacramento-area 
2001 Redistricting Project, who worked to stop a similar shift a decade ago.
    The initial plan this year was intended to shore up the numbers of Democratic 
voters in the 17th Assembly District, represented by Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy. 
Under the revised plan, Matthews' district would pick up Democratic voters by 
extending farther south to include all of Merced County.
    The revised plan also appears to assure Republicans of maintaining the 30 
Assembly seats they have been insisting on in return for providing the two-thirds 
votes that would head off a threatened GOP referendum challenging the plans.
    Under the plan, the 26th District, represented by Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, 
would now have a Republican voting majority. Cardoza earlier had a favorable 
Senate seat carved out for him -- the 12th Senate District, currently held by Dick 
Monteith, R-Modesto. Monteith, who will be forced out by term limits next year, is 
expected to try to change seats with Cardoza next year by running for the 
reconfigured Assembly seat.
    Such incumbency-protection trade-offs have angered Latino, Asian American 
and women's groups, which charge they are being held back by the Legislature's 
"old boys' network."
    "We're extremely disappointed, but they have until Friday to save the plans," 
said Lillian Raffel, co-chairwoman of the Women's Political Committee, whose 
members include influential Hollywood political activists.
    A group of Democratic assemblywomen complained last week that they were 
drawn into Republican state Senate districts, blocking their path to higher office. 
Despite behind-the-scene negotiations, the revised plans did little to address 
most of their concerns. One relieved legislator was Assemblywoman Carol Liu, 
D-South Pasadena, who was drawn back into 21st Senate District, now 
represented by Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena.
    Conversely, the 19th Senate District that Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth 
Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, had been eyeing received more Republican voters 
in the revised plan. Jackson was one of the plan's most vocal critics.
    Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, has said the 
Senate plan enhances the futures of many Democratic assemblywomen, 
including Matthews, Patricia Wiggins of Santa Rosa and Wilma Chan of Oakland.

9/6/01 Los Angeles Times: "Revised Districts Hinder Minorities, Critics Say. Politics: 
They say the proposal carves up the San Gabriel Valley and prevents Asian 
Americans from gaining power."
    Minority community leaders demanded Wednesday that the Legislature 
abandon redistricting plans that would "slice and dice" the emerging political 
power of the expanding Asian American community in the west San Gabriel 
Valley.
    Representatives of Asian American, Pacific Islander and Latino organizations 
zeroed in on the proposed "carving up" of Monterey Park, Rosemead, Alhambra 
and San Gabriel.
    The comments came during the final day of public hearings on redistricting 
plans for the Assembly, Senate and Congress. The bipartisan plans, which would 
protect incumbents and preserve the Democratic-dominated status quo in the 
Legislature and House, must be passed by Sept. 14 to take effect for the primary 
election March 7.
    Asian American and Pacific Islanders are the fastest-growing minority in 
California and constitute 13% of the state's population. There are now four Asian 
Americans in the Assembly--a record--but none in the Senate.
    Since the early 1990s, the four valley cities have been united in a "community 
of interest" fashioned by the state Supreme Court for Assembly, Senate and 
House districts.
    Kathay Feng, a Los Angeles attorney representing the Coalition of Asian 
Pacific Americans for Fair Redistricting, characterized the west valley region as 
the cultural and political heart of the Asian American community in Southern 
California. Only this year did the area manage to send an Asian American to the Legislature--Assemblywoman Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park).
    The area, Feng testified, constituted the "gateway for a new generation of 
Asian American communities outside the enclaves of Chinatowns, Koreatowns 
and Little Tokyos."
    She endorsed the mostly unchanged Assembly boundaries for Chu's 49th 
Assembly District, but attacked lines proposed for the area by Senate and 
House map makers.
    The Senate plan, Feng charged, would carve up the area's population and 
spin it off into four other Senate districts while the House map would divide it 
into three congressional territories.
    She said the Assembly plan, which she called "a true balance of interests," 
would maintain Latinos at 42% of the Assembly district's population, while Asian 
American and Pacific Islanders would remain about steady at 41%. Latinos 
would represent 32% of registered voters and Asian Americans would constitute 
28%.
    Other Groups Join in Criticism
    Representatives of other community groups agreed with Feng.
    "You have basically sliced and diced the Asian community," said Alan Clayton, 
a demographer for the California Latino Redistricting Coalition, and a resident of 
Chu's district. He warned that the Senate and House plans may violate the 
federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting strength of the region's citizens.
    "If I was a racist and wanted a map that would deliberately dilute the voting 
impact of the Asian Pacific Islander community, this is the map I would propose," 
said another critic, Joel Szabat of the Chinese American CEOs of the Silicon 
Valley.
    John Longville (D-Rialto), chairman of the Assembly redistricting committee, 
said the complaints would be considered before a final vote on the plan. But he 
warned against the prospect of a wholesale overhaul.
    "You definitely are being listened to. I cannot guarantee the results," Longville 
told witnesses at one point.

9/5/01 e-mail from S.B. Woo, co-founder of the 80-20 Initiative:
    The 80-20 New Jersey chapter held an endorsement meeting to choose a 
gubernatorial candidate.  It had 33 endorsement-delegates, composed of equal 
numbers of Democrats, Republicans and Independents.  The gubernatorial 
candidates from both major parties attended the meeting.  According to Dr. 
Steven Ko, Chair of 80-20NJ, "Such a meeting with Asian Americans has 
never happened before in New Jersey."  Each candidate made a pitch to be 
endorsed, made promises and answered questions for one hour.  Mayor James
 McGreevey won the endorsement.   
    80-20's Los Angeles chapter endorsed a candidate for LA mayoral, after an 
endorsement meeting that both top candidates attended. The LA chapter 
endorsed James Hahn, who won.  After the election, Hahn appointed 9 deputy 
mayors, three of whom were Asian Americans.  
 

9/5/01 Sacramento Bee: Appeals court rejects four programs: The laws targeting 
racial and gender gaps are ruled illegal under Prop. 209.
    A California appeals court Tuesday struck down four state programs directed 
at minorities and women, declaring them illegal under a controversial ballot 
measure that passed in 1996.
    The decision marked the latest turn in the serpentine journey of Proposition 
209, the 5-year-old ballot initiative that aimed to remove race- and gender-
based preferences from the California landscape.
    The laws in question range from affirmative action programs within state 
agencies to minority hiring practices at community colleges. In most cases, the 
court ruled against diversity goals and timetables, saying they implicitly lead to 
use of illegal preferences.
    Civil rights groups and state agencies, which have defended the statutes, are 
expected to appeal to the California Supreme Court, delaying any effect the 
latest decision would have.
    Most lawyers were not surprised by the ruling.
    "Regardless of the burdens or benefits imposed by or granted under a 
particular law, the use of a racial classification presents significant dangers to 
individual groups, racial groups and society at large," the justices noted.
    The court ruled as invalid laws that:
        - Encourage the California State Lottery to maximize its contracts with 
           businesses whose owners are among "socially and economically 
           disadvantaged" groups.
        - Require affirmative action programs in state agencies and departments.
       - Set goals for the state treasurer to sell bonds to businesses owned by 
           minorities or women.
       - Require the state's community colleges to hire women and minorities.
    But supporters Tuesday defended the programs as constitutionally sound.
    The lawsuit dates back to 1996, when then-Gov. Pete Wilson first challenged 
five state statutes on grounds that they violated federal equal protection laws. 
After Proposition 209 passed later that year, it became the new basis for the 
case.
    While the appeals court reversed the lower court decision, it defended the 
collection of race and gender data in nearly every instance as an important tool 
for public policy decisions.

9/2/01 Sacramento Bee: "Japanese American population fading: The reasons
include intermarriage, a low birthrate and aging."
    Sacramento's Japanese American community is disappearing due to 
intermarriage, low birthrate, aging, and only a trickle of immigration.
    "About 80 percent of us marry 'out.' How more integrated can a group be? That 
means that the number of people with some Japanese DNA is not really 
decreasing, but the direct lineage to the old country is stretched pretty thin." said 
Dr. Richard Ikeda, president of Sacramento's Japanese American Citizens League.
    The 2000 census reports 7,175 people of Japanese descent in the city of 
Sacramento, including 533 who said they were part Japanese. In 1990, when 
people were allowed to check only one race, the city's Japanese American 
population was 8,103.
    During the same period, Sacramento's overall Asian population -- fueled by 
immigration from China and Southeast Asia -- grew 28%.
    This pattern is repeated across California and the nation, says Hans Johnson, 
a demographer with the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California.
    "In 1970, Japanese were the largest Asian group in California," Johnson said. 
"By 1990, they were not even in the top three."
    One explanation for the decline is shrinking family size. In his recent study on 
fertility rates, Johnson found that California's American-born Asians have one 
of the world's lowest birth rates: only 1.2 children per woman.
    "Among those (American-born) Asians, Japanese women have the lowest 
birth rate of all," Johnson said.
    California's statewide birth rate is 2.25 children per woman; a rate of 2.1 is 
necessary to keep population levels steady.
    Death rate -- due to the graying of the Japanese American community -- is 
also a factor, said Larry Shinagawa, a professor of multicultural studies at 
Sonoma State University who studies the Japanese American community.
    "The Japanese Americans of the Nisei (second) generation are dying off," 
Shinagawa said. "You have to look at our history here to understand the situation. 
Immigrants are typically young, but most Japanese immigration occurred decades 
ago."
    Japanese immigration peaked between 1900 and 1920, when 213,000 came 
to the United States, far more than from any other Asian nation.
    Times have changed. In 1998, according to the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service, 41,000 immigrants arrived from China, 34,000 from India, and 33,000 
from the Philippines -- but just 5,600 people emigrated from Japan.
    At the same time Japanese American numbers dwindle, Shinagawa said 
intermarriage has played a role in diluting the group's distinctive identity.
    "About two-thirds of Japanese American females tend to marry whites," the 
professor said. "The question is how do you incorporate their children into the 
(Japanese) community and give them identity?
    "Ethnicity is keyed to community, to concentration in terms of numbers, and to 
physiognomy -- what you look like. If any one of those three are missing, you don't 
tend to identify with the ethnicity."
    The situation grieves Shinagawa.
    "These are tough, tough issues," he said. "Japanese Americans are 
disappearing -- literally. I feel sad about that. They're becoming white. I don't want 
to see our Japanese American heritage lost. There's a bond of attachment that 
gives meaning to one's life. But how do you preserve it?"
    Reverence for old traditions cannot be forced on children, said Terry Teruko 
Makisima, 74, who grew up in then-rural Florin's large Japanese American farm 
community. She was interned with her family in Colorado, but after the war she 
returned to the Sacramento area, where she raised four sons.
    "Some children are interested in the culture, some are not," she said. "There's 
not much you can do if they're not.
    "There are so many dynamics to this community," said Rev. Bob Oshita of the 
Sacramento Buddhist temple. "Consider World War II, the relocation, being a 
visible minority, dealing with resentment and negative sentiment. When people 
came out of the internment camps, they really pushed their children to 
Americanize. The third generation -- the Sansei -- were encouraged to assimilate, 
to speak English well, to succeed as Americans.

8/28/01 Associated Press: "JACL Faces Questions About Future Shrinking 
Membership,"
    Lillian Kimura speaks to New Jersey middle school children about the 
hardships she suffered as one of 120,000 Japanese-Americans forced into 
camps by the United States during World War II. Matthew Tatsuo Nakata works 
with Americans of Japanese, Chinese and Filipino descent on voter registration 
and education drives.
    Both Kimura, 72, and 24-year-old Nakata are members of the Japanese 
American Citizens League, the oldest Asian-American civil rights group. Yet 
Kimura's life has made her fiercely protective of her Japanese heritage, while 
Nakata -- the son of parents born in the United States -- thinks of himself more 
as Asian-American than Japanese-American.
    Their views reflect a philosophical split within the league, headquartered in 
San Francisco, as it also struggles with a cash crunch and shrinking membership.
    League leaders are trying to accommodate both those who want to preserve 
Japanese-American culture, and those who want to broaden the JACL's agenda 
and recruit members from other Asian-American groups.
    ``The struggle goes back to how much of our organization do we need to 
preserve with regard to Japanese-American culture, history and heritage,'' said 
Nakata, who lives in Seattle and sits on the JACL's national board of directors. 
``A lot of the younger generation would identify more with being Asian-Pacific-
American than they would with their respective ethnic groups.''
    Founded in 1929, the JACL had as many as 33,000 members in the 1980s, 
but is now down to 24,000. The drop is blamed on low immigration from Japan 
and Japanese-Americans marrying people from other ethnic groups, sometimes 
lessening the bond with one particular culture.
    Nisei, the Japanese word for the first generation born in America, account for 
many of the JACL's members. About half of its members are 60 or older.
    A committee is scrutinizing the JACL's direction and is expected to make 
recommendations to the national board in October.
    The group's most high-profile campaign culminated in 1988, after more than 
10 years, when Congress apologized and authorized monetary reparations to 
Japanese-Americans interned during World War II.
    Kimura points to this as proof there is still a need for advocacy groups with 
national ties. ``On the internment issue, I don't see other Asian-Americans 
working as hard as we would,'' said Kimura, who was the JACL's first female 
national president from 1992-94.
    But Nakata said the JACL has much in common with other groups. He has 
worked with other Asian-Americans to condemn racial profiling and advocate 
for redistricting so that Asian communities are not divided.
    National Executive Director John Tateishi, 62, said the JACL is already 
moving toward a pan-Asian focus. The shift started in 1982 when Vincent Chin, 
a Chinese-American, was beaten to death by two unemployed autoworkers. 
Witnesses said Chin's attackers mistook him for Japanese, and made remarks 
about Americans losing jobs to Japanese automakers.
    Chin's slaying made Asian-Americans realize ``we were all targets and we 
were all vulnerable,'' Tateishi said. ``Most white people don't see us as any 
different from each other.''
    Creating solid coalitions between groups may be tricky, however. The Asian-
American community has diverse languages, cultures and immigration patterns.
    Sonny Le, a Vietnamese-American public relations consultant, says more 
established Chinese- and Japanese-American groups should give more visibility 
to South Asians and Filipino-Americans. ``They've got to understand you have 
to make room for up-and-comers,'' he said.
    Tateishi acknowledged that while he is proud of his Japanese ancestry, the 
future may lie in finding a middle ground between ethnic pride and pan-Asian 
unity.
    ``Unless the JACL can accept both parts of who we are, our survival will 
come into question,'' he said.

    Regarding your August 21, 2001 story on the conflicting court rulings on 
affirmative action at the University of Michigans law school and undergraduate 
school, I was shocked your story omitted any mention of Asian-Americans.
    I publish "Asian-American Politics" at www.asianam.org. From 1992 to 2000, 
the number of Asian-Americans has increased from 4% to 9% of the students at 
the University of Michigan Law School. It is possible that Asian-Americans now 
outnumber the combined total of African-American, Hispanic and Native-American 
students at the University of Michigan Law School. Ignoring 9% of the students 
indicates your reporter and producer have lost their impartiality, if not their grasp 
on reality.
    When race based admission policies at universities were banned in California, 
Texas, Massachusetts, and Florida, the number of Asian-American students 
admitted to universities in those states increased by 20-40%, which indicates that 
bigots for the left were previously engaging in reverse discrimination against 
Asian-Americans.
    Ignoring Asian-Americans implies:
    1) Asian-Americans dont exist;
    2) Asian-Americans dont matter;
    3) Bigots for the left can engage in reverse discrimination against Asian-
Americans with impunity, and the liberal media wont report it;
    4) Bigots for the left condone discrimination in favor of African-Americans, 
Hispanics and Native-Americans at the expense of Asian-Americans;
    5) the liberal media is conspiring to hide reverse discrimination against Asian-
Americans in order to persuade Asian-Americans to support affirmative action.
    I challenge you to run a story on the effect of affirmative action on Asian-
Americans and how the elimination of race based admission policies has 
benefited Asian-Americans.

Don W. Joe
"Asian-American Politics"
www.asianam.org.

8/12/01 Associated Press: "APA Coalition Seeks Redistricting To Unify Ethnic 
Communities: Although Making up 13% of California in Census 2000, Asians 
Hold Only 3% - 4 of 120 of the States Legislative Seats"
    In an attempt to unify its different ethnic communities, Asian-American groups 
unveiled a statewide redistricting plan that they hope will give them more political 
clout.
    The plan released Thursday is an unprecedented move for California's many 
Asian ethnicities, which are increasingly joining forces to make their voices heard. 
They will have to compete for attention with Latino organizations that drew their 
own map, but both groups say their proposals are similar.
    At press conferences in Los Angeles and Oakland, members of the coalition of 
Asian Pacific Americans for Fair Redistricting said Asian-Americans have lost 
political power because Assembly boundaries drawn a decade ago split their 
communities into two and sometimes three pieces.
    ``Because we are divided, finding legislative support and building community 
unity is difficult,'' said Diane Poon, executive director of the Chinatown Service 
Center, representing a Los Angeles community that is split into two Assembly 
districts.
    The coalition's proposal would bring together divided ethnic communities 
including Chinatown, Koreatown and Filipinotown in Los Angeles and Orange 
County's Little Saigon and Koreatown. In other areas, including Sacramento, San 
Diego and San Francisco, the proposal would organize several Assembly districts 
around ethnic areas with common needs and concerns.
    Kwoh said the coalition prepared its map with months of cooperation with Latino, 
black, gay and lesbian and other groups, as well as legislative officials.
    The plan increases the number of districts with at least 30% Asian, Latino or 
black populations. It also would increase the number of ``safe'' Assembly districts 
-- ones in which one major party has at least a 10% advantage over the other -- 
from 42 to 46 for Democrats and from 13 to 14 for Republicans.
    The Asian population in California rose nearly 54% over the last decade, to 
nearly 4.4 million. But although they made up about 13% of the state in the 2000 
Census, Asians hold only 3% -- four of 120 -- of the state's legislative seats.
    Communities united by common interests ``should not be divided, should not 
be fractured, and their votes should not be diluted,'' said Stewart Kwoh, president 
and executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern 
California.
    ``If we don't say anything, they will definitely divide our communities again, 
because they don't even know where are communities of interest are most of the 
time,'' Kwoh said.
    Two Hispanic advocacy groups -- the Mexican American Legal Defense and 
Educational Fund and the William C. Velasquez Institute -- released their own map 
last month, but Asian and Latino activists said the two plans have much in common.
    ``Logistically it's very difficult to do, because you have to work with so many 
different groups,'' said Zachary Gonzalez, redistricting coordinator for the Velasquez 
Institute. ``But as far as minority communities concerned, we're all working toward 
the goal of fair and equal representation.''
    Thursday's proposal reflects the growing power Asian-American groups are 
wielding in California politics, said Karin Mac Donald, director of the Statewide 
Database at the University of California, Berkeley, which collects and analyzes 
data used in redistricting.
    As rising numbers of Asian-Americans put more money and effort into political 
efforts, they could see ``a little bit of the squeaky wheel syndrome,'' Mac Donald 
said. ``They didn't have the funding or organization to do that before.''
    In working with the coalition, officials in Sacramento ``have said they're amazed 
by the level of participation in the Asian-American community,'' Kwoh said. ``Now 
the crucial question is whether they'll listen.''
    The coalition will submit its proposal to the Legislature by Wednesday.

8/1/01 Associated Press: "Study: Filipino Vets Need Military Benefits"
    A survey of Filipino soldiers who fought in World War II showed that they are 
dying at a much greater rate than their American counterparts.
    Advocates for the Filipino veterans released a report Tuesday describing the 
economic plight and health problems facing the group. They hope the veterans will 
eventually receive military benefits from the government.
    Many of the estimated 200,000 Filipino soldiers believed the U.S. government 
would grant them military benefits for their World War II service. But a 1946 act 
prevented all but a handful of Filipinos from receiving those benefits.
    The survey, conducted by Filipino-American Service Group, polled 400 Filipino 
veterans who live in California. The study found that half of those surveyed report 
chronic blood pressure and hypertension and are dying 57% faster than American 
soldiers who were in World War II.
    The study also revealed that the average monthly income among Filipino 
veterans is $698.
    ''The average income is horrifying and shocking,'' said Assemblywoman Jackie 
Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, a supporter of the vets. ''You cant rent a nice garage 
for that amount in L.A.''
    The study was commissioned by the California Endowment and the California 
Wellness Foundation, said Susan E. Maquindang, executive director of the 
Filipino-American Service Group.
    The veterans would have to prove they were either wounded in battle or served 
with the Old Philippine Scouts, a unit created before the war started, to be eligible 
for military benefits.
    According to Department of Veterans Affairs documents, only 950 of the 
14,000 Filipino World War II vets still alive in the United States receive benefits. 
Less than 10% of World War II vets living in the Philippines receive benefits.

7/24/01 Yahoo! News: "Conan's `Late Night' Apology,"
    After taking heat from Asian-American activists for a racial slur that aired on his
show two weeks ago, Conan O'Brien, the self-deprecating late-night talker has 
apologized and vowed to be more vigilant in monitoring what his guests say so 
as not to offend viewers at home.
    "The ultimate responsibility...on something like that is mine. It's my show," 
O'Brien said at the semiannual Television Critics Association meeting in 
Pasadena, California. "If I had to do it over again, I understand that word is 
offensive to people, it hurts people. I would say, 'Let's drop audio on it.' "
    Comic Sarah Silverman's use of the word "chink" in a July 11 bit on Late Night 
with Conan O'Brien sparked a demand for an apology by the civil-rights watchdog 
Media Action Network for Asian Americans, which called the term "offensive" and 
"inappropriate."
    Responding to the uproar, NBC issued a mea culpa, calling the broadcast of the
epithet a "mistake," and promised the incident would never be repeated.
    "We have a lot of different voices come on the show, we have a lot of really 
intelligent, bright people, and I'm very reluctant to edit people," O'Brien said. "In this 
case, we clearly should have done that. To those people who got hurt hearing that 
word, I apologize."
    Guy Aoki, president of the Media Action Network, said he was satisfied with 
O'Brien's response.
    "It was nice. I was glad that he did choose to take responsibility for this and I'm 
at least glad he [apologized] to the critics," said Aoki. "I do wish he addressed 
[the issue] on the show where he appeared to condone it. But I'm happy that he's 
done it."
    The slur--an ugly remnant of 19th and 20th century anti-Chinese bias--is 
considered one of the worst for all Asians. Aoki, who's family hails from Japan, 
says the "chinks" tag gets applied to all Asian races, and is as offensive to 
Koreans, Thais and Japanese as it is to Chinese.
    Aoki noted that while his group hopes to educate the public about such offenses 
so they can take responsibility for their own actions, it's up to NBC's office of 
Standards and Practices and O'Brien to ultimately police themselves.
    Phone calls to Silverman's manager were not returned.

7/23/01 Reuters: Conan O'Brien Issues Mea Culpa for Slur,"
     NBC late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien has apologized for not bleeping a 
racial slur uttered by a comedian on his program, saying he takes responsibility for 
airing the epithet.
    ``The ultimate responsibility ... on something like that is mine,'' O'Brien told a 
group of television critics last Friday while appearing in Pasadena to help promote 
NBC programs for the upcoming fall lineup. ``It's my show ... so I take the hit for 
failing to drop audio on the offensive word.''
    During the July 11 broadcast of ``Late Night with Conan O'Brien,'' comic Sarah 
Silverman twice used a derogatory term for Chinese people while telling a joke 
about trying to avoid jury duty by making it look like she was a bigot.
    The uncensored joke drew a protest from a watchdog group called the Media 
Action Network for Asian Americans, which demanded an apology. NBC issued a 
statement last week saying it erred in broadcasting the slur.
    Silverman issued her own statement saying that a joke intended as social 
satire had been taken out of context and was not intended to offend.
    In his remarks Friday, O'Brien agreed with Silverman that ''context is everything'' 
in comedy and added, ``I don't believe she has a racist bone in her body.''
    ``We have a lot of really intelligent, bright people (on the show), and I'm very 
reluctant to edit people,'' he said. ``In this case, we clearly should have done that.''

7/21/01 Dallas Morning News (AP): "China Plans Trial Before Powell Visit: U.S. Based Scholar Charged with Spying,"
    A U.S.-based scholar accused by China of espionage will go on trial next week just days before Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Beijing for a visit aimed at improving strained relations.
    Bai Xuebiao, a lawyer for sociologist Gao Zhan, said Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court scheduled the trial to begin Tuesday. The timing suggested that China did not want Ms. Gao's case to cloud Mr. Powell's visit, his first as secretary of state.
    China's detention of Ms. Gao and other scholars and business people with U.S. links have added to tensions between Beijing and Washington. Ms. Gao, who works at American University in Washington, was detained Feb. 11 at Beijing's airport during a family trip to China.
    Her detention caused a diplomatic uproar because Chinese authorities also temporarily held her 5-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, without notifying the U.S. Embassy as required by treaty.
    If convicted of espionage, Ms. Gao could face between three years and life imprisonment.
    But Mr. Bai said he was heartened by a court's decision on July 14 to deport another scholar, Li Shaomin, convicted of spying in a case linked to Ms. Gao's.
    "It will have an effect," Ms. Bai said. "These two cases are connected. The handling of Li Shaomin reflected how seriously the court regarded the case. It wasn't extremely serious."
    Ms. Gao will be tried by the same court. But Mr. Li is a U.S. citizen, while Ms. Gao is Chinese and has only permanent residency in the United States.

7/18/01 San Francisco Chronicle: "Bilingual students have edge on exam: Possible cultural bias in SAT II language test"
    Latino and Asian students who speak a second language at home may have an advantage in getting into the University of California and other institutions, testing and education experts say -- and African American students may be the losers in the equation.
    Many colleges and universities across the country allow the SAT II language achievement test to be used in admissions, considering it along with grades and the SAT I verbal and math aptitude tests.
    According to data from the College Board, which administers the SAT, Latino and Asian students in California do significantly better on the language exams than white and African American students.
    POSSIBLE CULTURAL BIAS
    "I'm not sure if this was by design or by lack of proper planning, but it seems to me that we really have built in a cultural bias," said UC Regent Ward Connerly, who was one of the architects of the state's 1996 voter-approved ban on affirmative action.
    Connerly, who said he would raise the issue at today's regents meeting in San Francisco, said the impact might be especially severe on African American students because they had no similar language advantage. In addition, they often attend poor schools that do not adequately prepare them for the other subjects.
    A new eligibility index places twice as much weight on the SAT II achievement exams as on the SAT I basic aptitude exams. Connerly questioned the conclusion reached by UC representatives, who said the change had a minuscule impact on the ethnic composition of the entering class.
    Last year, Latino students had an average score of 691 out of 800 on the Spanish exam; the average was 550 for whites and 494 for African Americans. Similarly, Asians scored an average of 697 on the Japanese test, while whites had an average of 540, and African Americans had a 507 average.
    THE ADMISSIONS PROCESS
    All students applying to UC have to take the SAT I aptitude tests, as well as SAT II math and writing achievement tests. They have to choose a third subject from among 18 achievement tests, including languages. The three achievement tests are counted equally.
    Latino and Asian students generally score much higher on the optional language exam than those students taking other subjects for the third exam.
    African Americans scored an average of 529 in biology, 452 in world history and 493 in literature last year. Whites scored an average of 590 in biology, 543 in world history and 574 in literature.
    "There should be similar opportunities for all students in the admissions process, and the current formula does not provide that for African American students," said Marc Bernstein, president of K-12 learning services for test preparation company Kaplan Inc.
    NOT "EQUAL THINGS"
    UC spokesman Brad Hayward said that the 13 percent increase in Latino admission this year was largely a result of a new program that automatically admits the top 4 percent of every high school, stepped-up outreach efforts and a growing college-age Latino population.
    According to the College Board, the language exams are academic tests that assess a mastery of vocabulary, grammar and diction and reading comprehension skills -- skills that students may not pick up just learning the language at home.

7/17/01 Los Angeles Times: "Racial Epithet Used on `Late Night'"
    An Asian-American watchdog group demanded an apology Tuesday from 
NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien because a comedian used a racial 
epithet  on the show.
    There is no excuse for something like this to have made the air, said Guy 
Aoki, president of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans. The group 
also  called for an apology from comedian Sarah Silverman for using the term 
chinks.
    While bantering with O'Brien on the show July 11, Silverman said she had been 
called for jury duty but didn't want to serve.  "My friend is like, why don't you write 
something inappropriate on the form, like 'I hate chinks,'" Silverman said.  But she 
didn't want people to think she was racist, she said, so I just filled out the form and 
I wrote 'I love chinks' and who doesn't? 
    The term is the most offensive possible reference to a person of Chinese 
descent, Aoki said. "It's not constructive to use such a hateful  word and play it off 
for laughs. It just gives people permission to continue  to use it," he said. She 
obviously chose to target a group of people that she  felt she could get away with 
insulting. We're not standing for it. The network  would have removed a similarly 
offensive reference to any other ethnic group,  he added.
    A spokesman for O'Brien's show had no immediate comment. A call to
Silverman's manager, Geoff Cheddy, was not immediately returned Tuesday.
    Aoki said his group contacted NBC's vice president for diversity, Paula 
Madison, last Friday but did not receive a return call.  A message for Madison 
was not immediately returned Tuesday.


7/14/01 Associated Press: "China Expels American Professor,"
    China convicted an American business professor Saturday of spying for Taiwan and then ordered him deported, apparently trying to remove an irritant in relations with Washington.
    Li Shaomin's conviction came a day after Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics.  The timing suggested China had put off the conviction to avoid drawing attention to human rights during its intense lobbying campaign before the Olympic vote Friday in Moscow.
    Li is one of five Chinese-born intellectuals with U.S. ties accused by China over the past year of spying for rival Taiwan. Detained Feb. 25, he was the first to go on trial in the crackdown, which has spread unease among China scholars.
    President Bush made it known that the United States was pleased by Li's release.
    ``The president welcomes this action,'' said Jennifer Millerwise, a White House spokesman.
    ``This has been a matter of great concern to many people in the United States and one that we have raised at high levels with the Chinese government,'' a State Department official said. ``We continue to urge the Chinese government to promptly resolve the cases of those who have been similarly detained ... so that they may also be reunited with their families in the United States.''
    Li was convicted in a closed trial at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court. The official Xinhua News Agency said the court had a ``large amount of confirmed evidence'' that he spied for Taiwan and damaged Chinese security, but it gave no details.
    Chinese officials said before the trial that Li had confessed. His wife denied the accusations and said has she doesn't even know which activities Beijing considered suspicious.
    The U.S. Embassy was allowed to send a diplomat to watch Li's trial but wouldn't give any details of the proceeding. A spokesman said late Saturday afternoon that Li was still in China and that the Embassy didn't know when he would be expelled or to where.
    The spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Embassy wouldn't comment on why Li was deported instead of receiving a prison term. Under Chinese law, spying can carry a sentence of three years to life in prison.
    Li, 44, went to the United States in 1982. He later became an American citizen and received a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has lectured in China and worked as a U.N. adviser to Beijing.
    The U.S. Congress passed a resolution last month demanding Li's release. China specialists in Hong Kong issued a statement in May saying the case had left many researchers - especially those from Hong Kong - uneasy about visiting the mainland.
    Beijing has indicated in recent weeks that it wants to restore amicable relations. But four Chinese-born intellectuals with American ties - one of them a U.S. citizen - are still in Chinese custody on spying charges.
    They include Gao Zhan, a sociologist at National University in Washington. She was picked up Feb. 11 at the Beijing airport during a family trip to China.
    Gao's detention caused a diplomatic uproar because Chinese authorities also temporarily held her 5-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, without notifying the U.S. Embassy as required by treaty. Gao is a Chinese citizen but has U.S. permanent resident status.
    Gao's husband says academic contacts with Taiwan might have attracted the attention of Beijing, but he insisted she wasn't involved in espionage.
    China has regarded Taiwan as a renegade province since the two split amid civil war that ended in 1949, and the two sides actively spy on each other.
    Another detainee is Wu Jianmin, a naturalized U.S. citizen and writer from New York City who was picked up April 8 and accused of espionage.

7/8/01 New York Times: "Immigrants Battle to Stay in High School" 
    Last September, Ms. Wan Shan Hu was one of five Chinese immigrants who were told by an assistant principal to leave Lafayette at the start of their senior year because they had completed the basic requirements for graduation. Three weeks later they were allowed to return, after Board of Education officials had intervened and a spokeswoman acknowledged that there was no early-graduation rule for students who had met all the requirements.  Ms. Hu graduated as her class's valedictorian.  Some parents in the the audience grumbled that it was always an immigrant who got the award.  Others booed outright.
    But that incident and several others, including the recent beating of a Pakistani student in front of the school and charges of insubordination against an Asian-American guidance counselor have led some parents and teachers to accuse several Lafayette officials of discrimination.  The school's acting principal, Kenneth Sinclair, declined requests for an interview, as did the assistant principal, Rosemary Assenso. 
    Lafayette, a high school of about 2,100 students in Bensonhurst, is not the only school where ethnic tensions have surfaced as the city's immigrant population has grown significantly in the last decade, according to officials of community and immigrant advocacy groups. In Brooklyn alone, the Chinese and Indian population rose by more than 75 percent from 1990 to 2000, according to the Census Bureau. Citywide, the Pakistani and Bangladeshi population more than doubled in that period. Chinese and Pakistani students are two of the fastest growing groups in the city's public school system.
    Ms. Hu's problems began shortly before the school year started, when her guidance counselor, Anna Eng, helped her choose her senior classes. Ms. Eng said that when she went to Ms. Assenso's office before school began, Ms. Assenso, one of several assistant principals at Lafayette, told her that Ms. Hu had automatically graduated at the end of her junior year because she had completed the work required for graduation. 
    When Ms. Eng told Ms. Assenso that Ms. Hu had to return to Lafayette because she had not yet applied to colleges or for financial aid, the assistant principal replied: "She can go to Kingsborough Community College," a two-year-school with open admissions. Ms. Eng said she protested that Ms. Hu could get into several Ivy League schools, but that Ms. Assenso replied, "No, she cannot get into Yale or Columbia." Ms. Hu was accepted to Columbia in April. 
    On the first day of school, according to Ms. Hu and another of the five students, Qian Mai, Ms. Assenso handed both of them their diplomas and told them to leave the school immediately. "She just cut my school I.D. card like that, in front of my eyes," Mr. Mai said. Ms. Hu remembers being shocked and frightened. "My parents couldn't speak English that well," she said, "so they couldn't come to school to speak to the principal." 
    Over the next two weeks, according to at least a dozen students and teachers, Ms. Assenso informed three other Chinese students - Wen Jie Li, Lafayette's math team captain; Rong Li, and Kakit Leung - that they would have to leave for the same reason: they had done everything necessary to graduate. All five students had earned extra credits in part by taking on more than the usual course load. The teachers and students said that they knew of other students who had met graduation requirements early, but those students were not asked to leave. 
        Mark Talo, who taught English as a second language at Lafayette but quit at the end of the recent school year, said the assistant principal had pulled two of the three Chinese students from his classes to deliver the news.  "The atmosphere at the school was very depressing," Mr. Talo said. "It was like being in the Deep South during Jim Crow."  
    Several Chinese-American teachers at the school said that after the five students left, the teachers called reporters at four Chinese-language newspapers in New York City.
    Last Sept. 28, the five Lafayette students, along with dozens of Chinese students from other high schools, rallied in front of Board of Education headquarters in downtown Brooklyn chanting: "Back to school. Back to school." A board spokeswoman at the time, Pamela McDonnell, came outside and told them there was no rule that students meeting minimum graduation requirements had to leave school before completing their senior year.
    A few hours later, the five Lafayette students were escorted back to the school by a delegation that included the Board of Education's superintendent of student monitoring, Ronald Woo, and Rose DePinto, then the superintendent for high schools in Brooklyn and Staten Island. The following day, all five began advanced placement classes.
    A similar problem occurred in February, when several Chinese students in the 11th grade received transcripts indicating they had been promoted to 12th grade and would graduate by January 2002. Two of the 11th-graders, Chen Yan Fen and Chen Jia Xin, have filed a complaint with the city's Human Rights Commission. A spokesman for the commission said it was evaluating the complaint, but would not comment further. 
    Ms. Eng, the guidance counselor, also filed a complaint with the commission, accusing Ms. Assenso of harassment. Ms. Eng said that after she ignored Ms. Assenso's order not to help Ms. Hu and Mr. Li, the math captain, with college applications, Ms. Assenso placed "many" letters in her personnel file, including two in June accusing her of insubordination. "I just wish they would stop putting these letters in my file," Ms. Eng said, "so I can transfer out." 
    In April, seven Chinese parents were elected to the parent-teacher committee that was to evaluate candidates, including Mr. Sinclair, to become Lafayette's permanent principal. But that election, which was open to all parents of Lafayette students, was nullified because of a technicality. A new election must be held, but Mr. Sinclair has withdrawn his application. 
    Students and teachers say they are bewildered and demoralized by the last year's events at Lafayette. "A coincidence here, a coincidence there, and it keeps happening," said a veteran teacher who also asked that his name not be used because he feared retaliation. "You start to think it's a premeditated persecution of Asian students." He said that he hoped to transfer by fall. 
    Ms. Hu was also looking forward to fall and starting college. She plans to study computer science at Columbia.


7/6/01 Dallas Morning News: "Bush phones China president: He raises concerns about U.S. scholars detained by Beijing," 
    President Bush spoke Thursday with Chinese President Jiang Zemin for the first time, raising the plight of U.S. citizens and legal residents detained by China while urging that the two countries strengthen cooperation in trade and other areas.
    Earlier, Chinese officials confirmed that trials had begun for two detained scholars on charges of spying for Taiwan.  U.S. officials said they had few details about the proceedings against American University researcher Gao Zhan, a permanent U.S. resident, and Hong Kong business professor Li Shaomin, a U.S. citizen.
    In his conversation with Mr. Jiang, Mr. Bush broached the topic of detained scholars without discussing specific cases, according to administration officials.  At the same time, Mr. Bush impressed upon Mr. Jiang his wish to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.
    Mr. Bush also told the Chinese president that he was looking forward to his scheduled visit to China in October. 

7/5/01 Los Angeles Times: "Segregation of a New Sort Takes Shape: In a majority of cities, Asians and Latinos have become more isolated from other racial groups,"
    A Times analysis found that while African Americans remain the most segregated group in the nation's top 25 metropolitan areas, Latinos and Asians are beginning to close the gap.
    In 21 of 25 population centers, Asians were more likely to live apart from other races in 2000 than in 1990, according to the dissimilarity index, which calculates how evenly ethnic groups are spread within communities. Latinos became more segregated in 19 of 25 areas.
    Demographers define places as at least moderately segregated if more than 50% of a group's population would have to move to become evenly distributed in that place.
    Some 21 of the nation's 25 largest metropolitan areas registered as moderately segregated or worse for blacks in 2000, down from 22 in 1990. Eleven now meet this criteria for Latinos, up from six a decade earlier. Seven do so for Asians, an increase from five in 1990.
    Asian clusters became rapidly more Asian throughout Southern California, particularly in Orange County.
    The 2000 figures illustrate the obstinacy of ethnic divisions in older cities such as Boston and New York, where the Asian and Latino communities were among the most isolated in 1990 and became more so by 2000.
    In Houston, which ranked as the seventh-most-segregated metropolitan area for Asians, Vietnamese poured into apartment complexes near William P. Hobby Airport, making one patch 82% Asian.
    To some extent, the increased intensity of Asian and Latino enclaves is not surprising.
These populations grew far more swiftly than other groups in the last decade, fueled by immigration, family reunification and higher birthrates. Massive undercounting in 1990 also may be a factor.
    Immigrants typically have lower incomes and less education, which means fewer choices of where to live. Like the waves of Europeans who arrived 100 years before them, today's newcomers usually settle near friends and relatives, in areas where neighbors speak their language and where there are social service agencies and job networks.


7/3/01 Wall Street Journal: "Passport to Freedom,"
    As we prepare to celebrate this Fourth of July, the meaning of American citizenship is right now under siege in a Chinese jail.  We are speaking of Li Shaomin, arrested in China back in February; absent due course of justice, he now faces a show trial that could lead to years in the Chinese gulag.
    In many ways, Mr. Li symbolizes what it means to be an American.  We are a nation made great by immigrants.  Mr. Li is one.  Born in China in 1956, he came to the U.S. in the 1980s to study sociology, eventually earning a Ph.D. in Princeton.  His wife, Liu Yingli, also born in China, joined him in this country.  In Feb. 1995, together, they took the oath of U.S. citizenship, renouncing all loyalty to any other nation.  It was an exhilarating moment, recalls Ms. Liu: "Finally, we were in the free world, for real."
    He was working with AT&T in New Jersey and she for Rutgers University.  Then in 1996 Mr. Li took a teaching job at a university in Hong Kong; two years later his wife followed.  In doing this, they joined the 50 million Americans now holding valid U.S. passports in order to travel and work abroad.  Mr. Li's main field of study is China's demographics, and in a climate of growing commercial and scholarly exchanges between the U.S. and China, he went there often.  And as a U.S. citizen, he traveled on the same blue passport that we all carry and depend upon to ensure safe passage when we visit other lands.
    It was with that blue passport that Mr. Li, on Feb. 25, entered China at the border crossing with Hong Kong.  Chinese state security agents picked him up and sent him to a prison in Beijing, just one victim of what has recently become a pattern in China of arrests of U.S.-based scholars.  These prisoners include another U.S. citizen, Wu Jianmin, and two U.S. permanent residents, Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang.   
    China has formally charged Mr. Li with spying for Taiwan.  China has produced no evidence, and has cut off Mr. Li from almost all outside contact.  Mr. Li has probably become a pawn in the politics of China's decaying Communist regime.
    Mr. Li's nine-year-old daughter Diana (also of course a U.S. citizen) wrote to President Bush  in April, asking his help to rescue her father.  By letter dated June 19, President Bush wrote "we are very concerned" and that the Administration had asked China's government to release Mr. Li "on humanitarian grounds so that he may be reunited with his family."
    Certainly there are humanitarian issues involved in the anguish of Mr. Li and his family.  But perhaps something more than "concern" is warranted.  The deeper principle here is that Mr. Li is, quite simply, an American.  Indeed we wonder if Mr. Li would rank much higher on the White House priority list were he, say, a white American grabbed off the streets in China.
    We cannot allow China's disrespect of Mr. Li's American citizenship to stand.  In today's global concourse of both goods and ideas, one of the pillars of wealth and progress is the prerogative of Americans to travel on their passport abroad with the assurance that if we observe reasonable norms of conduct, our country will do all in its power to ensure that we receive "all lawful aid and protection."
    Anything President Bush does or does not do will send a message about how America views the case of Mr. Li.  In defending our own freedoms, we also uphold the universal values that are the best hope for a better world for all.
    When the people of China had a fleeting chance 12 years ago to speak out, during the Tiananmen protests of 1989, they built their own statues of liberty, modeled on ours - in Shanghai and in the heart of Beijing.  The Chinese government destroyed them.  Our own Statue of Liberty still lifts her torch, not far from the Newark, New Jersey, government office where Mr. Li six years ago became a citizen.  If we are to honor what that stands for, it is vital that this message include a clear reminder of the true meaning and high value of Li Shaomin's U.S. citizenship.    

June 29- July 5, 2001 AsianWeek.com: "Democratic National Committee Revamp: Terry McAuliffe sets goals to attract Asian Pacific Americans, "
    Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said one of his top priorities is to hire Asian Americans to fill leadership roles. Gail Stoltz, political director at the Democratic National Committee, is currently reviewing resumes and interviewing candidates for such leadership positions. The DNC is also launching a new effort to encourage Asian Americans to run for political office.
    "Were going out and aggressively recruiting candidates who are field organizers to our state parties," McAuliffe said. "We will provide the financial, technological and personnel resources to help them run and win elections. We really havent done that aggressively in the past, but I am committed to do that as we move forward."
    Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA) reminded McAuliffe that the Asian American community is still struggling to get past the campaign fundraising scandals of the 1990s, during which several Asian Americans were prosecuted for making illegal contributions to the Democratic Party. Fearing further probes by Republicans, Democrats returned checks cut by those with Asian surnames. Leaders in the API community point to this as evidence that Asian American donors were unfairly targeted.
    "I told Terry that particular issues put a chill on the participation of Asian Pacific Americans in politics," Honda said. "The DNC did not handle the vetting of the checks that came in ... The party could have caught the mistakes and avoided a lot of mistakes."
    Honda said Asian Americans "have to be assured that it wont happen again. The DNC has to make sure the checks are done properly, and we have to go out of our way to reassure people they will not be embarrassed and that we will do our job."
    McAuliffe, however, offered little reassurance, instead emphasizing that "weve got to move forward." And he blamed Republicans for instigating the scandal.
    Said McAuliffe: "What I say is, Lets not forget, it wasnt the Democrats. It was investigators who worked for Republican Sen. Fred Thompson and Rep. Dan Burton, who were calling everybody with an Asian name, and asking intimidating questions."
    He pointed out that "80 percent of the APAs elected today are Democrats. Obviously, were successful because were paying attention to the issues that matter most to the API community," he said.

6/21/01 Wall Street Journal: "A New China Crisis"

June 8-14, 2001 AsianWeek.com: "Judicial Watch Questions Matt Fong,"
    Judicial Watch, a public law firm that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, alleges that Matt Fong President Bushs nominee for undersecretary of the Army may be a security risk to the United States.
    Fong accepted a $100,000 donation from Ted Sioeng, an Indonesian businessman, to pay off debt from his 1994 campaign for California Treasurer. Fong later discovered that $50,000 came from Sioengs personal account and returned the money immediately.
    Fong is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Reserve. 
    Larry Klayman, president of Judicial Watch, warned that the Sioengs donation was illegal and that Fong is a security risk.  It needs to be thoroughly investigated before he is made Secretary of the Army, Klayman said.  Klayman said that Fongs qualifications are not the issue. Because Fong accepted money from someone who is an agent of Communist China, the importance of his potential position to national security should require Congress to further investigate Fong.
    Asian Pacific American civil rights organizations such as the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NFFAA), and the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) defend Fong.
    Its a level of racial profiling, said Vincent Eng, Legal Director of the Asian Pacific Legal Consortium, [Klayman is] targeting his distrust for Asians in general. He is making wild accusations. There was never any issue that questions his loyalty. If he was any other type of background, I dont think it would ever be an issue.

June 1-7, 2001 AsianWeek.com: "Rep. Wu Refused Entry to Energy Dept.: Guards suspicious of congressman's citizenship,"
    Last Wednesday, guards stopped Wu from entering the Department of Energy headquarters.  The only Chinese American ever elected to the House, Wu was there to deliver a speech in honor of the APA Heritage Month.  Instead, he was asked two times if he were American.
    Wu and his aide, Ted Liu, showed the guards their congressional identifications, but guards refused to accept them.  After about 15 minutes, the two requested to talk to a supervisor and a lieutenant was summoned. Only after that, was Wu allowed in.
    Most strikingly, I was asked a couple of times whether I am a U.S. citizen or not, Wu said. This was both after I showed my congressional ID and after Ted Liu showed him his staff ID. I just find that incredibly ironic because I was going down there at their invitation to try to help them with its Asian Pacific American Heritage celebration.
    After Wu told colleague Michael Capuano about the episode, the Massachusetts representative and his two aides went to the Energy Department the next day to test security.  Unsurprisingly, he was not subjected to the same treatment.
    According to DOE officials, Wu was questioned about his citizenship, as are all people wishing to enter the building.  It was also explained that congressional IDs are easy to fake.  But Wus communication director Holly Armstrong said she contacted Capitol Police and was told there was only one incident of identification forgery. That happened over 20 years ago and was never proven.
    Department spokesperson Jeanne Lopatto denied Wu and his aide were treated differently from others who enter the building. She said the mix-up occurred because Wu entered through a basement entrance, instead of the first-floor entrance, where a host was waiting for him. Everyone who comes to the building has to check a form stating whether or not they are American citizens, she added.
    Wu said he has visited the White House and other high security areas without any problems. In the wake of the Wen Ho Lee incident, he said he is wondering if this is the tip of the iceberg of a larger, broader problem at the Energy Department.

5/2/01 Reuters: "U.S. Chinese-American Lawmaker Delayed at Agency,"
   Rep. David Wu, the first Chinese-American in the U.S. House of Representatives, said he was stopped by security guards at the Energy Department this week and asked repeatedly if he was an American citizen, despite showing his congressional identification card.
   ``The ultimate irony is that I went to the Department of Energy two days ago to give a talk, at their request, about the progress of Asian-Americans in America,'' the Oregon Democrat said in a speech on Friday on the floor of the House.
   The Taiwanese-born Wu, 46, was elected to Congress in 1998.   He sent a letter of complaint to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
   The Energy Department (DOE) said the guards were following standard procedure when they inquired about Wu's citizenship during his visit on Wednesday.
   Wu had gone to the DOE to participate in an Asian-Pacific Island heritage month event. He said his staff explained to the guards that he was a member of Congress and an invited guest. But only after his staff asked to speak to a supervisor was he finally escorted to the event, he said.
   ``It was a mix-up,'' DOE spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto said. ''We're very sorry about the delay, but we do have certain security procedures that guards have to follow, and we will continue to do so.''  Lopatto said Wu waited about 15 minutes before a DOE escort arrived to meet him.
   In a meeting with Wu on Friday, Abraham apologized and said he would review security procedures at the DOE, ABC News reported.
   In a statement released on Friday, Wu raised concerns about ''racial profiling'' at the department.  ``Many of the DOE's top scientists are Americans of Asian descent. Any evidence of racism or racial profiling at DOE will have serious effects on the United States and our national security,'' the statement said.
   The DOE has come under fire from some Asian-American advocacy groups because of its treatment of former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen.  Lee was fired from the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in March 1999 amid spy allegations. Activists charged that Lee was portrayed as a spy for China because of his race.  Lee, 60, spent nine months in solitary confinement and was released with an apology from a federal judge who blasted the U.S. government for ``embarrassing our entire nation'' with spying allegations that were never proven. He pleaded guilty to one count of downloading nuclear weapons design secrets to a non-secure computer. The government dropped the remaining charges.

4/25/01 Los Angeles Times: "Study Finds Persistent Negative Perceptions of 
Chinese Americans," 
    One in four Americans hold "very negative attitudes" toward Americans of 
Chinese ancestry, and a third question their loyalty to the United States, according 
to a nationwide poll. An overwhelming majority of Americans admire Chinese 
Americans for their devotion to family, emphasis on education and diligence, but 
nearly a quarter would not approve of marriage to a Chinese American. 23% of 
Americans said they are uncomfortable with the idea of voting for an Asian 
American candidate for president, compared to 15% for an African American, 
14% for a woman and 11% for a Jew. 34% said Chinese Americans have too 
much influence in the U.S. technology sector. Virtually the same proportion said 
Chinese Americans are more loyal to China than to the United States. 
    The Committee of 100, the Chinese American leadership organization 
sponsored the telephone survey of 1,216 Americans. The group's better-known 
members include cellist Yo-Yo Ma and architect I.M. Pei. The telephone survey, 
conducted March 1-14 by Yankelovich Partners in consultation with the Anti-
Defamation League and the Marttila Communications Group, has a margin of 
sampling error of 3.1 percentage points. 
    The main thrust of the study was to probe the public's attitudes toward Chinese 
Americans. The survey also tried find out whether attitudes toward Chinese 
Americans were largely the same or different from those toward Asian 
Americans in general.  It asked 1,002 respondents their opinions about 
stereotypes of Chinese Americans; 214 were asked about identically worded 
stereotypes of Asian Americans, according to the study. The answers were nearly 
identical, suggesting that prejudice against Chinese Americans is a subset of 
broader prejudices against Asian Americans, the researchers said.
    Asians Americans were second only to African Americans as undesirable 
marriage partners. 33% said they disapproved of marrying blacks, compared to 
24% for Asians, 21% for Latinos and 16% for Jews.
    As for housing, Americans preferred to be neighbors of Asians rather than 
blacks and Latinos. 17% of the respondents said they would be upset if an Asian 
moved into their neighborhood, compared to 21% for Latinos, 19% for blacks 
and 9% for Jews.
    7% of Americans would not want an Asian American chief executive for a 
Fortune 500 company, compared to 4% who would not want an African American, 
3% a woman and 4% a Jew.  And the highest percentage of those surveyed objected 
to having an Asian American supervisor--6%, compared to 3% to 4% for the 
other groups.
    A telephone survey of 1,216 Americans age 18 and older conducted March 
1-14 asked about views of Asian Ameri-cans and Chinese Americans.
    
    Attitudes toward Chinese Americans
    Very negative: 25%
    Positive: 32%
    Somewhat negative: 43%

    Positive sentiment toward Chinese Americans (% who said "probably true")
    Have strong family values: 91%
    Are as honest as other businessmen: 77%
    Are as patriotic as other Americans: 68%
    Place a higher value on education than do most other groups in America: 67%
    Have contributed much to the cultural life of America: 56%

    Negative sentiment toward Chinese Americans (% who said "probably true")
    Have too much influence in the U.S. high-technology sector: 34%
    Always like to be at the head of things: 32%
    Are more loyal to China than to the U.S.: 32%
    Hard to get close to, make friends with: 28%
    Taking away too many jobs from Americans: 24%

Note: Margin of error plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Source: Committee of 100

4/19/01 Sacramento Bee: "Racial Policy at UC targeted: Cruz Bustamante says he'll ask
regents to overturn the racial preferences ban," 
    Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante said he will push for University of California regents to vote on
a repeal of the system's controversial ban on using racial preferences in admissions at its
May meeting.  If the regents were to eliminate the policy, the UC still would be bound by 
Proposition 209, the state's prohibition of affirmative action.  But without the policy, known as
SP 1, campuses would no longer be required to comply with rules that require 50% to 75% of students to be admitted solely based on grades and SAT scores.  Since the regents passed 
SP 1, the number of African American, Latino and American Indian students enrolled at a UC 
have declined. At UC Berkeley they have declined 45%.

4/17/01 AsianWeek.com: "U. of Florida Students Rally Against Hatred,"
A University of Florida frat sponsored an Asian theme party where the
brothers dressed as GI'ss and escorted women dressed as Vietnamese
prostitutes.  The incident was just one in a string of events that prompted
a diverse group of students, concerned with racial strife, intolerance, and
discrimination, to march across campus on April 6 in a Rally Against Hate.
About 500 students, many carrying signs and banners, chanted as they
marched from the Reitz Student Union to protest several incidents on the
UF campus, including the spray painting of racial epithets on the side of the
Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures.

4/14/01 San Francisco Chronicle: "Crisis Inflames Bias Against Asians
Ethnic stereotypes in broadcast, print media prompt protests,"
    Political cartoons, radio high jinks and satiric skits that feature Chinese characters with thick glasses, buck teeth and heavy Asian accents sound like a throwback to an era when American society lacked sophistication and tolerance.
    But these scenes played out across the country after China detained 24 Navy crew members whose spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet. Some observers say the backlash rivals the anti-Asian sentiments of World War II and before.
    Especially disconcerting, experts said, is the fact the stereotypes have emerged in the news media -- whose organizations of late stress diversity within their ranks. Among the recent incidents was a skit during a meeting of top newspaper editors.
    BAY AREA BROADCAST
    Even the Bay Area, where Asian Americans are about 20 percent of the population and where people pride themselves on tolerance, has not been immune.
    Radio talk show host Don Bleu spoofed the spy-plane standoff April 6 in what he called a "fry over."
    He then called a restaurant in China and teased the person who answered, who apparently could not speak English, as music from the Oscar-winning Chinese film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" played in the background, according to listeners.
    Listener Christine Rivera said she called Bleu's station, Star 101.3 FM, to complain that she was "repulsed and offended by these ignorant remarks." The station offered a "generic apology," she said.
    The stunt prompted Philip Ting, president of the Organization of Chinese Americans in San Francisco, to call for a public apology.
    "Xenophobic climates lead to persecution, hate crimes and murder," he wrote in a letter to the station. "Your insensitivity to throwing more fuel on this fire is all too glaring."
    Neither Bleu nor station managers could be reached for comment yesterday.
    DISTURBING INCIDENTS
    Ting said that elsewhere in America, radio commentators have called for Chinese American internment. A station in Springfield, Ill., suggested boycotting Chinese restaurants. Another commentator called people with Chinese last names and harassed them.
    Outspoken Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Pat Oliphant, who once said political correctness "drives me crazy," enraged Asian Americans with a cartoon that appeared this week in many Bay Area newspapers.
    The cartoon, which The Chronicle declined to run, portrays a buck-toothed Chinese waiter delivering cat gizzard noodles to a customer who concedes he had been "slowly getting used to doing business with China."
    The waiter trips, dumping noodles on the head of the customer, who says the waiter must have been waiting for an apology. The waiter jumps up and down while saying, "Apologize Lotten Amellican!" The customer, who gets up in a huff and leaves, is Uncle Sam.
    OLIPHANT ACCUSED
    The 1,700 member Asian American Journalists Association said Oliphant's work "crossed the line from acerbic depiction to racial caricature" and yesterday demanded that he stop using racial stereotypes in his work.
    Editorial cartoonists are given some leeway in material, association President Victor Panichkul said, but "this in no way excuses base ethnic insult. Gross racial parodies cannot be explained away as merely 'tart' opinion."
    Oliphant, a nationally syndicated cartoonist, could not be reached to comment.
    EDITORS LAUGH AT SKIT
    Another glaring example of racial stereotyping was a skit during the opening of last week's American Society of Newspaper Editors convention.
    The skit, by the renowned Washington, D.C., satirical troupe Capitol Steps, featured a white man dressed in a black wig and thick glasses impersonating a Chinese official who gestured wildly as he said, "ching, ching, chong, chong."
    The room full of top editors, predominantly Caucasian, laughed heartily. But Amy Leang, a Chinese American student photographer assigned to the cover the skit, saw no humor in it.
    Leang said she was so upset by the incident that she awoke the next morning crying. She was encouraged by members of ASNE to write a story about the experience, portions of which were cited in news stories nationwide.
    Experts said the skit was well out of bounds.
    "Here we have the leading opinion makers -- the ones who dictate what goes into the papers -- laughing like a bunch of 5-year-olds," said Helen Zia, an East Bay author and expert on Asian American affairs. "It sends a message to editorial teams. What they think is appropriate is discouraging, in the middle of a potential international crisis."
    Capitol Steps initially defended the skit as "a satirical portrayal of a Chinese official encountering an equally satirical portrayal" of President Bush. Yesterday, the troupe offered regrets to Leang and the Asian American community.
    "We are sorry anyone was offended. This was only meant to provide laughs during a tense situation," producer Elaina Newport said.
    ORGANIZATION WON'T APOLOGIZE
    Others have called on ASNE to apologize. Association President Tim McGuire, editor of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, rejected the suggestion.
    "Very few people reacted the way (Leang) did," he said. "I don't think we can make an apology because we didn't control anything."
    Did he laugh at the skit?
    "Of course I did," he said.
    The skit was particularly embarrassing in light of the organization's efforts to increase newsroom diversity.
    "We're encouraging people to get into the business and we let something like this happen under our watch," said the association's diversity chairwoman,
    Carolina Garcia, managing editor of the San Antonio Express News. "We're not doing our job."
    Many Asian American experts have said similar stereotyping probably would not occur against gays or African Americans or Latinos.
    "There's a certain amount of knee-jerk racism when it comes to China and other countries in Asia," Zia said. "This is degrading and tapping into a real level of hostility people have on the street. It's bullying and it's harassment."

3/30/01 cnn.com: "Rising minorities find political clout elusive,"
   Census 2000 numbers show a dramatic rise in the number of Hispanics and Asians in the United States, but scholars and political observers say it remains unclear whether these increases have translated into increased political power.
   Hispanics now outnumber blacks as the nation's largest minority, 35,305,818 compared to 34,658,190 African-Americans. The number of Asian-Americans grew 48.3% from 6,908,638 to 10,242,998 in the 1990s.
   California's Hispanic and Asian populations grew so rapidly in the 1990s that the state no longer has a majority of any group, including whites, who now comprise 47% of the total, down from 57% in 1990. Hispanics comprise 32.4%, Asians 10.8%, and blacks 6.4%. In New York, Asian-Americans are now the fastest-growing minority, increasing 56% in the 1990s.
   "Part of the problem is how the lines are drawn," Glenn Magpantay, attorney for the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, said. "The city council district [in New York] for Chinatown represents all of Chinatown, but also goes into heavily white, economically affluent neighborhoods. So, Asian voters are overwhelmed by non-Asian voters. The lines have to be redrawn. The question is whether the lines will be drawn to give Asians meaningful representation."
   New York has the second largest Asian-American population in the country, according to Magpantay, but none has ever been elected to city council, to the state legislature or to Congress.
   James Lai, a political science professor at California's Santa Clara University, said it is still unclear whether Asian-Americans are fulfilling their political potential.
   Asian-Americans, nearly 70% of whom were foreign-born as of 1990, historically have relied on "politics by other means," Lai said. That is, "participation that excluded traditional forms of political behavior, such as running for elected office." Instead, they remain politically active mostly by making campaign contributions, he said.
   Trends over the past decade, Lai said, indicate this group is beginning to show signs of greater political incorporation. He said Asian-Americans have achieved a great deal of "firsts" in the past decade.
   "In 1996, Gary Locke [in Washington] became the first Asian-American mainland governor," Lai said. "In 1994, Tony Lam became the first Vietnamese-American elected official in the United States when he was elected to [the city council of] Westminster, California. In 1998, Chanrithy Uong, a Cambodian-American, and Joe Bee Xiong, a Hmong-American, became the first elected officials from their communities to be elected to Lowell, Massachusetts, and Eau Clair, Wisconsin, respectively."
   The actual number of Asians, blacks and Hispanics may not affect minority political power as much as voter eligibility.
   The issue of citizenship is a problem in the Asian-American population. Sociologists and academics say immigration has fueled the increase of Hispanics and Asians into the United States. But it takes an immigrant between five to six years to become eligible for citizenship.
   And even if they do become citizens, said Dan Ichinose of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, they tend to be unaffiliated with any political party until they are more familiar with the system. APALC is a group that provides Asians and Pacific Islanders with legal services and civil advocacy.
   "You have a phenomenon where Asian-Americans may be 8 or 9% of the city, but only half will be eligible to vote," said Karen K. Narasaki, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, a group that works to advance the legal and civil rights of Asian-Americans.
   "And Asian-Americans tend to be registered independent," Narasaki said. "In many areas, in order to vote in the primary election, which determines the runoff, you have to register with a party."
   One Asian-American elected official, Dr. Judy Chu, said she ran for office to fight an "English only" movement in the 1980s. She is on the city council in Monterey Park, California, a city where the majority of the population is Asian-American. Still, she said, her position was won with the support of Asians as well as Latinos and whites.
   Pei-te Lien, a political science professor at the University of Utah, says that in Monterey Park the population is 60% Asian but only half are citizens, and even fewer are registered to vote.
   According to a survey by Lien, among Asian-Americans who are registered nationwide, 80% come out to vote. "One problem is that concrete numbers are difficult to get because we don't have a good recording system," Lien said.
   Chu has been elected to her post four times, but she says Asians are still under-represented at the state and federal levels.
   "In my first race, there were so many stereotypes, a kind of fear," she said. "Now, I would say the population in Monterey Park accepts the fact that an Asian-American can be a good leader for the city."
   The number of Asians and Pacific Islanders voting in congressional elections increased by more than 366,000 to 1.4 million voters between 1994 and 1998, according to a report by the Census Bureau last year.
   "While the number of voters nationwide dropped by 2.6 million, the number of Asian and Pacific Islanders going to the polls went up significantly between the 1994 and 1998 elections," said Jennifer Day, co-author of a U.S. Census Bureau report, "Voting and Registration in the Election of November 1998."
   Despite comprising 12% of the population in California, Asian-Americans make up only 2% of the state assembly. And in the race for mayor of Los Angeles, a city with large Asian-American and Hispanic populations, the front runner is Jim Hahn, who is white.
   Lien said Asian-Americans have a problem winning support because they cannot count on their base. Adding to the problem, Guiterrez said, is a resistance to embracing a population that is not mainstream.
   "Asians are still considered more foreign than [American]," Lien said. "Our senatorial candidate [in California], Matt Fong, was confronted with a loyalty question. He was asked if China invades America, which side would he side with. He's a third or fourth generation Chinese-American."
   Lien said Asians have a disadvantage compared to Latinos, who are strong Democratic Party supporters and enjoy the support of unions. They also share the same language, and often, the same religion.
   "Asian-Americans," she said, "don't speak the same language and don't necessarily identify with the Democratic Party. That's cutting into our bloc-vote potential. And the bloc vote is behind the assumption that redistricting is necessary."
   The reasons for the increases in voting are as varied as the populations themselves. Experts attribute some of it to outreach efforts stressing the importance of registration and participation. Litigation has become a tool as well.
   The Asian American Legal Defense Fund challenged the congressional redistricting in one Asian community in New York City. In Diaz vs. Silver, the AALDF argued that two Asian communities in one New York City district constituted one community because the people had the same ethnicity, spoke the same language and were all poor or working class. A panel of three federal judges in New York ordered the district redrawn to include both communities, and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision.
   Hispanic and Asian-American voters do have some characteristics in common. Those who are not as well educated, who have lower incomes, and who are younger do not participate as much as older, wealthier and better-educated community members.
    According to Gold, the reverse was true with immigrants in recent elections. In 1996 and 1998, voter turnout rates among Latino immigrants were higher than those of Latinos who were native-born.

3/28/01 NY Times: "U.S. Court Bars Race as Factor in School Entry,"
A federal judge in Detroit ruled yesterday that the race-conscious admissions system of the University of Michigan's law school is unconstitutional, contradicting a December ruling in a parallel case that upheld the university's affirmative action policy for undergraduate admissions.     
    The earlier ruling, by another judge on the same court and now on appeal, was seen as a flicker of hope for a movement fallen out of vogue while the new ruling joins a string of defeats for affirmative action over the last six years. 
    The undergraduate approach is far more explicit about using race, yet the law school's more subtle system was struck down, as the judges offered sharply divergent views of the importance of diversity in higher education.
    "All racial distinctions are inherently suspect and presumptively invalid," Judge Bernard A. Friedman of the United States District Court in Detroit wrote in his decision yesterday. "Whatever solution the law school elects to pursue, it must be race-neutral." 
    The current push against affirmative action began in 1995, when the Regents of the University of California banned the use of race in admissions. A federal appeals court outlawed the practice in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana the next year, and since then, voters in California and Washington have rejected affirmative action in both higher education and state contracting.
    The debate over race-conscious policies is one of the most contentious in higher education today, and the closely watched Michigan cases are widely expected to send the issue back to the United States Supreme Court for the first time since 1978.
    The class that entered the law school, one of the nation's most competitive, last fall was about 85 percent white and Asian, 15 percent black and Hispanic. Lawyers from the Center for Individual Rights, the Washington organization that brought the Michigan lawsuits on behalf of white applicants who had been rejected, celebrated the ruling as a "vindication" and a "clear repudiation" of affirmative action. They noted that Judge Friedman's decision came after a 15- day trial, whereas the previous ruling by Judge Patrick A. Duggan (both are Reagan nominees) was on summary judgment, meaning he heard no witness testimony.
    The crucial question in both Michigan cases is whether racial and ethnic diversity in higher education is, in legal parlance, a "compelling state interest" that demands a race- conscious remedy. 
    The dueling decisions by the federal judges in Detroit turn on contrary interpretations of the landmark 1978 Supreme Court decision in University of California Regents v. Bakke, which struck down the admissions policy at the Davis medical school, but said universities could consider race as one of several "plus factors" in selecting applicants. The tricky part is that Bakke was a 5-to-4 decision in which Justice Lewis Powell broke a deadlock by agreeing with four of his colleagues on some issues and the other four on others. In declaring that diversity "clearly is a constitutionally permissible goal for an institution of higher education," Justice Powell stood alone. 
    Universities have based their admissions decisions on his rationale ever since, and Judge Duggan in December relied on it to embrace Michigan's use of affirmative action. 
    But Judge Friedman said yesterday "the diversity rationale is not among the governing standards to be gleaned from Bakke."
    Jeffrey S. Lehman, the dean of Michigan's law school, said the two opinions are "completely irreconcilable." (Judge Friedman's echoes the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit's 1996 decision in Texas v. Hopwood, which the Supreme Court declined to review, that affirmative action is unconstitutional.) The law school plans to appeal the decision.
    Beyond the question of the importance of diversity, Judge Friedman said the law school's admissions system would be illegal in any case because it was "indistinguishable from a straight quota system." The "haphazard selection of certain races is a far cry from the `close fit' between the means and the ends that the Constitution demands," he wrote, noting that the policy favored African-Americans and mainland- born Puerto Ricans but not Arabs or Eastern Europeans.
    "If the law school may single out these racial groups for a special commitment today, there is nothing to prevent it from enlarging, reducing, or shifting its list of preferred groups tomorrow without any reasoned basis or logical stopping point," Judge Friedman wrote. 
    The split decisions in the Michigan cases are surprising because the undergraduate admissions system uses race more blatantly than the law school's and therefore seemed more vulnerable to attack. In admitting freshmen, the university gives black and Hispanic applicants a 20-point boost on a 150-point scale; the law school's approach is more subjective, with only vague guidelines about the importance of having a "critical mass" of minority students. 
    While white students have been more likely to gain admission to the law school than their minority counterparts - 38 percent of white applicants were accepted last year compared with 35 percent of African- Americans - a comparison of students with similar grades and test scores shows the advantage given to minorities. For example, in 1995, all four African-American applicants with an undergraduate grade point average between 2.75 and 2.99 and scores on the Law School Admissions Test of 161 to 163 were accepted, while none of the 14 white applicants in those ranges were admitted. Among those with a G.P.A. between 3.25 and 3.49 and L.S.A.T. scores of 154 or 155, four of five African-Americans were admitted, compared to just one of 51 white applicants.
    "The evidence indisputably demonstrates that the law school places a very heavy emphasis on race in deciding whether to accept or reject," Judge Friedman wrote. As to the testimony showing that without affirmative action far fewer black and Hispanic applicants would likely gain admission to the law school, Judge Friedman suggested alternate routes to diversity, including paying less attention to grades, test scores, and whether an applicant's parents had graduated from the school. Judge Friedman also dismissed the case presented by the intervening students, who testified at length about the discrimination they had experienced in inner-city high schools, white-dominated colleges, and in taking standardized tests. "The effects of general, societal discrimination cannot constitutionally be remedied by race-conscious decision-making," he wrote.

3/27/01 Reuters: "Lawmakers Renew Push for Hate-Crimes Measure," Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) introduced hate crime legislation which would give the U.S. Justice Department jurisdiction over crimes of violence motivated by sexual orientation, gender or disability. Current law only covers hate crimes based on race, religion and national origin. In addition to strengthening federal hate crime laws, the legislation would provide financial assistance and federal expertise to state and local authorities investigating hate crime cases and provide training assistance to local authorities. More than 50,000 hate crimes have been reported over the last five years. In the House, supporters said they should be able to garner the votes for passage, but conceded it would prove difficult overcoming opposition from Republican congressional leaders, who blocked a similar measure last year. During the presidential campaign, President Bush backed a narrower version of the legislation sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that critics say would not protect gays and lesbians. Republican opponents questioned whether the legislation was needed, asserting that current law was adequate in most cases and that an expansion would tread on state prerogatives.