Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media: Recent Episodes
Emil Guillermo
Award-winning Journalist, commentator, and humorist, Emil Guillermo gives his take on race, society, and politics from an Asian American perspective. A former NPR host, Emil's commentaries can be read at http://www.aaldef/org/blog His work has appeared on radio, TV, and print nationwide. His book "Amok:Essays from an Asian American perspective," won an American Book Award. Twitter: @emilamok
Dillon Delvo, executive director of Little Manila Rising, talks to Emil Guillermo about how the Stockton non-profit has expanded its mission to do more and to help more people in South Stockton. From preserving Filipino American history and historic buildings, the LMR's mission now includes public health initiatives and environmental efforts in community air monitoring. Beyond that, the non-profit has its eyes on owning and developing land and projects to benefit the broader South Stockton community. Delvo said Little Manila Rising just wants to do what other groups are doing around the state, go beyond marginalization to have a say in the future development of their community by accessing power and funds previously denied them.
Listen to the Emil Amok's Takeout Live, M-F 2pm Pacific live, on Facebook/emilguillermo.media; Emil Guillermo YouTube channel; Twitter@emilamok; Recordings on www.amok.com
In California, 2022 brings new requirements for ethnic studies at the community college and high school levels. It could become a model for schools around the country. It's too late for one Oakland student who has since graduated and gone to Harvard. But even there, Eleanor V.Wikstrom has found learning about her Filipino history has not been easy. There are no Tagalog or Pilipino language classes taught there. And Filipino American history is an afterthought, despite the role the U.S. played in the colonization of the country. In her recent essay in the Harvard Crimson, Wikstrom wrote about the part Harvard played in the Philippines. She went deep into the stacks at the Pusey Library and uncovered some of the open secrets about how Harvard and American higher ed elites played a role in giving Filipinos not only English, but their own history in a textbook written from a white academic perspective. Wikstrom's journey of discovery reminded me of my own experience 40 years ago as a young Filipino American at Harvard, trying to put together the history we were never meant to see.
See more of my columns at www.aaldef.org/blog.
See/hear Emil Amok's Takeout--The Livestream, M-F, 2p Pacfic on Facebook @emilguillermo.media; YouTube; Twitter @emilamok; and recorded on www.amok.com
See Eleanor Wikstrom's article in the Harvard Crimson.
Note: See Index below for quick access
Little Manila Rising, a community non-profit in Stockton, Calif., is taking an aggressive stand to protect its Filipino American community from environmental racism. Matt Holmes heads up the environmental effort and talks about a new project with UC Merced to make sure the air in Stockton and the valley is monitored. He also talks about the ways the pollution from the freeways and port is being mitigated. The situation is dire, Stockton has one of the worst air pollution profiles in the state, and not coincidentally, the worst asthma rates in California, as well. This is Part 4 of an ongoing look at how Little Manila Rising is evolving to serve its community and to not give up on Stockton.
This is the podcast of Emil Amok's Takeout. See the Daily Livestream at 2p Pacific on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter@emilamok. See replays at www.amok.com
INDEX
0.58: Little Manila Rising intro
3:30: Crosstown Freeway/Pollution
4:23: Matt Holmes intro
5:20: Interview begins (Starts with Dawn)
6:38: First project NPS
7:56: Launching historical park/Richmond
9:12: Air quality work
12:36: Hired by Little Manila Rising
14:43: Environmental racism
15:29: Environmental violence (Transportation planning)
17:17: Public health outcomes
18:00: Warehouse for the Bay Area/impact of trucks
21:30: Racism and advocacy
22:22: Projects
24:32: Who is responsible?
27:30: Bureaucratic Hurdles
29:00: Funding from AG’s office to monitor air pollution
29:32: Seachange in technology
30:09: Regulatory Framework only intervenes on permitting, not community harm.
31:02: Update on community air monitors
32:14: Pollution causes genetic damage
32:43: Volkswagen Settlement
34:25: Bringing science and medicine to the people with the people
37:00: The tradition of air monitoring (50 km grids, historical data)
37:44: The promise of community monitoring, granular actionable information
39:00: Inland port burns the dirtiest fuel
39:55: We know a lot when it benefits powerful people
41:10: The Port is the most amenable actor to partnering to solve the problem
42:13: CARB - California Air Resources Board
43:18: Healthy communities are designed
44:14: 85% of biomass being burned comes from Vineyards
44:41: Drive for short term profits has led to global climate instability and hyper local public health outcomes
45:27: Global climate instability is especially threatening to low income communities of color
45:44: White environmentalist movement
46:50: The importance of Dawn
49:14: Architects of CA freeways(Environmental Racism)
50:09: Problems of wealth and power
51:49: Dawn program
52:55: Sky Watch
53:25: Transformative climate communities work, Urban greening
56:18: The power of trees and nature based solutions
"Try Harder" director Debbie Lum talks to Emil Guillermo about Lowell High School and the college admissions process captured in the film's profile of five students of diverse backgrounds.
What are AAPI going through to get to the elite colleges of their choice? And how are their parents dealing with it?
Is it possible that the African American parent wins the "Tiger Mom" competition?
And what of the white student who knows he has no chance to compete?
Everyone wants to go to an elite college but no one ever asks if it's a right fit. The kids grow up as the film progresses. When it's over, you'll want to know why some got in, and others didn't.
Emil, a Lowell alum, also compares his experiences with those of the students in the film.
Find out where the film is showing at www.tryharderfilm.com
Listen to Emil Amok's Takeout Live at 2pm Pacific on Facebook, Twitter @emilamok, and on YouTube.
Copyright 2021-2
Amy Portello Nelson talks with Emil Guillermo about Little Manila Rising's "Get Out the Vaccine" drive. Modeled after the "Get Out the Vote" idea, the program goes door to door to give people good information about the virus and vaccines. And it's working, vaccine rates went from the low 30 percent range to more than 50 percent in the zipcodes canvassed. Now the plan is to keep going through the end of November. But it's not easy. Some are hesitant, and one resident even pulled a gun. But it's important work that Little Manila Rising is committed to doing. It's part of the evolution of Little Manila Rising, going from an educational and cultural focus to environmental and social justice issues to public health. And sometimes being all of those things as the community's needs change.
Contact Emil Guillermo Media, www.amok.com
Copyright, Emil Guillermo
Little Manila Rising is an non-profit organization in Stockton, Calif. servicing primarily the South Stockton community. After a recent youth conference produced by Little Manila youth, Emil Guillermo talked with Celine Lopez, a newly-minted Stanford graduate, who hopes to use her senior thesis in Urban Studies as a foundation for policy-making in her hometown. Celine talks about how she rediscovered her pride and self-worth as a Stocktonian at Stanford and how that fueled her desire to return to the Central Valley.
She talks about how she wants to reverse the brain drain, and help restore the day when Stockton seemed to be the hub of life.
LIsten to Emil Amok's Takeout--Live @2pPacific M-F on Facebook Watch and on FB@emilguillermo.media.
You can see recordings of the daily show on www.amok.com
Listen to the longer podcasts interviews wherever you get your podcasts.
An Earth Day/Earth Month Special!
A Filipino American group called Little Manila Rising is part of a "people-powered" Green Revolution that's changing how the community in Stockton, Calif. gets involved in environmental justice.
Recently, community members, empowered by state money through AB617, rejected a $5 million proposal from the Port of Stockton. The community stood up to the polluters. They were all tired of being dumped on.
LMR's Dillon Delvo tells Emil Guillermo how and why it happened, and how LMR transformed its mission to fight for environmental justice.
See more of my work at www.amok.com
Angelo Quinto died after a policeman had a knee to the back of his neck for 5 minutes. Emil Amok is Emil Guillermo, journalist, commentary, performing artist reads from the column he wrote on www.aaldef.org/blog about Quinto, the need for re-thinking policing, and what this means for Asian Americans.
Prof. Dan Gonzales of SF State Univ joins in to comment on this, the recent rash of anti-Asian hate incidents in the U.S., and other news.
For more go to www.amok.com #angeloquinto
Why were Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II? President Franklin Roosevelt's signing of Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942 paved the way. And while some where given redress payments in 1988, the battle continues for a few hundred Japanese Latin Americans who were also incarcerated at the same time but left out of the settlement. Phil Tajitsu Nash, U.Maryland Asian American Studies professor, lawyer, and activist talks to Emil Guillermo about the ongoing fight for justice. Nash talks about the circumstances around E.O.9066 and how more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up in the first place. Also, why Asian Americans were actually split about the incarceration with many Filipinos and Chinese in America were eager to disassociate themselves from the Japanese Americans. Nash talks about the need for solidarity among Asian Americans today and all people of color. Nash says many of those rounded up were American citizens, and none were ever convicted of espionage against the U.S. For more listen to episode one of "Emil Amok's Takeout."
For more on the Japanese Latin Americans: www.JLAcampaignforjustice.org
For more information: www.amok.com
See column on the AALDEF blog.
Corky Lee died on Jan. 27 of Covid. He is now the undisputed Asian American photographer laureate. There was no sense of a modern Asian American civil rights movement before Vincent Chin inspired a generation to stand up and be seen. Corky Lee documented it all. I talk of my friendship with Corky as I read my post from the AALDEF blog. Then, I reprise my 2017 interview with Corky where he talks about the photograph he saw as a young boy of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Golden Spike united America but the photograph didn't show the people who built it all--Chinese Americans. That slight birthed the photographic justice that inspired Corky's life's work.
See more on my amok website.
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More on Corky at www.amok.com
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Corky's inclusive pictures of the Transcontinental railroad.
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my piece on Corky's death.
--Emil Guillermo
Emil Amok's Takes on the latest Covid news, Dorothy Velasco's passing, Pete Hamill, Race, Environment, affirmative action, opening of schools, Harvard, Emil's speech and his friend Ted.
Read more at amok.com; Or at https://www.aaldef.org/blog
Emil Amok is the moniker of Emil Guillermo, the Asian American journalist of Filipino descent, who is the writer of the longest running column on Asian America in the ethnic media.
Trump wasn't yelling, "We're No. 1." when the country surpassed 150,000 Covid-19 deaths. He didn't even bother to show up at John Lewis' funeral. Emil talks about the news and more. Plus another experiment into Covid friendship as he has a reunion with a college classmate, now a philosophy professor, Ted Schatzki.
See Emil's columns at http://www.aaldef.org/blog.
Twitter @emilamok. Watch for his shows at ww.zoomcomedian.com
and at amok.com
Emil Guillermo talks to Simon Tam of the Slants about how his case to trademark what was thought to be a disparaging name didn't hurt but helped in the battle to change the name of the Washington NFL team. Emil also talks to author, journalist Jacqueline Keeler, who led activists through her group EradicatingOfensiveNativeMascotry.
See his columns at http://www.aaldef.org/blog.
Twitter @emilamok. Watch for his shows at ww.zoomcomedian.com
and at amok.com
You are not alone.
Emil Amok Guillermo is a journalist, commentator, and humorist. Emil Amok's Takeout is where he works out his talk show days and gives you his take on everything.
See his columns at http://www.aaldef.org/blog.
Twitter @emilamok. Watch for his shows at ww.zoomcomedian.com
and at amok.com
Journalist/commentator/humorist Emil Amok Guillermo gives his take on everything from Trump's "Make America Sick Again" rally, Father's Day, White Privilege, and Juneteenth. He talks to a friend he hasn't seen in more than 40 years named Ted, who is a philosopher.
Listen to more shows on amok.com, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
Read Emil's columns
Emil Guillermo has written his "Amok" column covering race, culture and ethnicity for the last 25 years in the Filipino and Asian American media.
Professor Daniel Phil Gonzales of SF State's College of Ethnic Studies talks about George Floyd, the protests, #BLM, Trum['s future, gassing innocent people, and more...including the PBS "Asian American" documentary, and stories about growing up Filipino.
Listen to more at amok.com.
Read emil here.
Visit the Filipino American National Historical Society Museum in Stockton, California once the COVID quarantine is lifted.
Contact Twitter @emilamok
or at amok.com
Emil Amok Guillermo talks with his old friend, University of Kentucky Philosopher Ted Schatzki about life, Covid, and George Floyd.
They met at college and last saw each other when Emil gave a shocking speech. They reunited after 40 years when the pandemic began. This is their third conversation trying to make sense of life.
Twitter @emilamok
Contact: www.amok.com
A special Filipino American National Historical Society Museum program as Emil Guillermo, museum director, talks to author Peter Jamero, one of the first Filipinos born in America. Filipinos were first brought to America in large numbers in the 1920s and 1930s. But because of discrimination, few were able to either marry or intermarry in order to start families. Americans born here were treated no different than immigrants.
Visit the FANHS National Museum in Stockton, CA. Facebook @fanhsmuseum
This podcast is part of our FANHS National Museum virtual history program.
Contact: emil@amok.com
Is America too big to fail? Should the government do all it can to prop up the little guy as it has Big Business? Some of the questions in part 2 of "Emil Amok talks to a Philosopher About our Lousy Covid Life." Check out Emil's columns on at www.aaldef.org/blog , and at www.amok.com
Also a speech for 2020 graduates, as Emil contemplates his alma mater's virtual graduation.
We're colonized by Covid but we're fighting back--by staying home! Professor E.J.Ramos David, author of "Brown Skin, White Minds," talks to Emil about colonial mentality, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and skin-whitening. David is also featured in promotional clips on the new PBS documentary on Asian Americans. Emil Amok begins with a rant on a variety of topics including, Stephen Miller, Mother's Day, and staying true to the quarantine ethic.
Read Emil at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Twitter @emilamok
See more at http://www.amok.com
Listen to Emil on The PETA Podcast.
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in 2020 is like no other because of the Covid Crisis. We talk to Gem Scorp, an essential Asian American, and Filipino nurse, about fighting the virus as a nurse in NYC's Elmhurst Hospital. But then faces racism on the subway when someone calls him "Chinese." Also featured: Seattle's Monyee Chau; NYC photographer Corky Lee; Asian American Studies Professors Daniel Phil Gonzales, and Phil Tajitsu-Nash, and more.
See Monyee Chau's work.
See more at www.amok.com and at www.aaldef.org/blog
Originally released May 1, 2020
Prof. Ted Schatzki is in the Philosophy Department of the University of Kentucky. A former classmate of Emil's, the two talk about Covid and the future.
Shelter long enough and it becomes a philosophical question.
See Emil's writing at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
And at http://www.amok.com
This is a special Filipino American National History Museum editon of Emil Amok's Takeout. Host Emil Guillermo, museum director, talks with Mel LaGasca, a Filipino American Community leader whose life exemplifies how the Filipino middle class developed in America. LaGasca grew up working in the fields, followed the migrants to Alaskan canneries to work, then finished college and had a distinguished career at Sandia Labs that lasted 34 years.
Emil interviews the community and conducts storytelling shows and workshops at the Stockton based museum. Since the pandemic, the museum has been forced to close since March 14, and has lost attendance and donations. With your help, we are developing more ways to keep the museum virtually connected to you.
Click the link: Donations are fully tax-deductible.
Thank you!
See the video of the conversation here.
Visit the FANHS Museum website.
And the FANHS Museum Facebook page, @fanhsmuseum
Released originally 4/19/2020
Contact Emil on twitter@emilamok
Emil Amok was a columnist for Asian Week, at one time the most read Asian American publication in the U.S. Phil Nash, a longtime civil rights attorney and activist, was a fellow columnist. Nash, now a professor in Asian American Studies at University of Maryland talks about life for Asian Americans under Covid-19.
See the show on video at http://www.aaldef/org/blog
Originally released 4/16/2020 Copyright @2020
Emil Amok's Takeout talks to Gem Scorp an RN at Elmhurst hospital in New York about what he's seen on the frontlines fighting the virus.
Scorp, an 18-year nursing vet, describes the virus' effects up close and how people can die suddenly from new symptoms, showing how the virus mutates and attacks. He also talks about the shortage of PPEs, how he stays positive, and how he saved himself using a natural approach.
He says at his hospital the nurses were at least 80 percent Filipino. In the news at least one Filipino nurse has died fighting the virus.
Come to the free virtual conference April 15, 2020
Register: bit.ly/covidaffectsusfilipinos
Go to http://www.aaldef.org/blog
or to http://www.amok.com for more.
Twitter @emilamok
After a long hiatus, Emil Amok's Takeout is back with a new show. And all because of the virus. The threat to Asian Americans isn't Covid-19. It's POTUS-45, Donald Trump. His insistence on calling the virus "The Chinese Virus," and now "The Wuhan Virus" is only causing a new wave of anti-Asian American violence from coast-to-coast. Nearly 700 cases have been reported to a website started by Asian American Studies Professor Russell Jeong of San Francisco State. At Stop-AAPI-Hate, individuals have come forward with almost 100 new reports daily; 61 percent of the victims non-Chinese Asians; Women three times more likely to report than men. Listen to Emil Guillermo's interview with Russell Jeong. And check out Emil's column on the website of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (http://www.aaldef.org/blog).
See more at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
And at http://www.amok.com
Dr. Helen Hsu, the president of the Asian American Psychological Association talks to Emil about the status of mental health in the AAPI community.
We're not accessing services. We are trying to DIY mental health. And it's a big mistake.
Dr. Hsu talks about how things are changing to empower the community to seek services and not to be quiet and keep problems to themselves.
Topics discussed. Suicide. How low-income and well-to-to-families both underutilize services. How beating the stigma that keeps people quiet and away from mental health services, starts with talking openly to each other about dealing with the system and seeking care. When no one talks, no one seeks out mental health services.
See more at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
And at http://www.amok.com
Emil Guillermo: The striker who became the teacher—Podcast with Asian American Studies professor Daniel P. Gonzales on how ethnic studies was birthed at SF State University
Over the Easter weekend, Donald Trump was resurrecting his anti-immigrant rhetoric in tweets and off-handed comments. First, he blasted California for issuing pardons to a group that included three Asian Americans subject to deportation. Then he tweeted he’s changed his mind on DACA and that he would end NAFTA to force Mexico to pay for his fantasy wall. He topped it off with a comment how people were crossing the border to become eligible for DACA.
Mr. President, DACA is for young arrivals who came years ago. He’d know that if he didn’t revise history with every utterance or tweet.
Enter the scholars and historians of ethnic studies. They know all that what we’re seeing from Trump is nothing new. There’s a pattern in history from the way Chinese were excluded, to the rescission politics regarding Filipino colonization and military service. Trump’s DACA stance is fairly typical.
But Dan Gonzales, doesn’t think ethnic studies scholars are as tuned in politically as they should be.
Gonzales was one of the coalition of students that included Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in 1968 at San Francisco State. One of the demands of that strike—said to the longest student strike in the nation’s history—was the formation of a college of ethnic studies.
Gonzales never left and became a fully tenured professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. He was a speaker at the Association of Asian American Studies held in San Francisco this past weekend, and urged the scholars to be more connected to what’s happening in today’s politics.
“We need to have our faculty invested in the political nature of ethnic studies and they have to include it within their own teaching practice references to political process,” Gonzales told me on our podcast, Emil Amok’s Takeout. “They have to understand the politics of the campus and be able to guard against well in advance issues that could be an existential threat to the cause of ethnic studies or any of its member departments.”
And how do professors do that today?
“Be skilled enough to be able to organize well and form alliances with other colleagues on campus,” Gonzales told me. “Because that’s the only way you get anything done. And that’s the best way to protect your own best interests is to form good strong alliances based on principal. That’s what we need.”
Spoken like a strike veteran who helped lay the strong foundation for a college of ethnic studies--not just a department, not just for a program, or a few classes--but a whole school at SFSU, 50 years ago.
See more at AALDEF.org/blog
Emil Guillermo: California Legislator David Chiu on the most Asian American state being sued by the Feds; calls Trump “the most xenophobic and racist president in modern history.”
Stormy Daniels, Kim Jong Un, and trade-war inducing tariffs? The Trump administration is a never-ending three-ring circus, where chaos is Trump’s best friend. How can the American public get a grip on any of the really big issues like gun control after Parkland, or the on-going Russian investigations, when our heads keep spinning daily?
For Asian Americans, the lesson during this ADHD presidency is to stay focused on our key issues, which for the moment remain immigration and DACA.
This past week, Mr. Art of the Deal didn’t even bother to push Congress on DACA and the Dreamers, letting his self-imposed March 5 drop-dead date pass. Without the votes in Congress, it was the only thing Trump could do. That and blame Democrats.
For now, the courts have also blocked the administration from ending DACA, and for the time being, the program lives on. Those who are eligible can still apply and even extend their protection.
But just so Trump isn’t seen as a total loser to his base, the lull in the immigration fight has given Trump’s beleaguered Attorney General Jeff Sessions a chance to score some brownie points with his boss.
Sessions showed up in Sacramento this week to file a lawsuit against the state over its sanctuary policies. The feds are particularly targeting three state laws that protect immigrant families and workers. California State Assemblyman David Chiu of San Francisco wrote one of the three laws, and told me the state is ready to defend them against the feds.
“Trump is engaged in an un-American war,” said Chiu in a phone interview Friday, indicating the state is prepared to battle in court.
Chiu said the laws were carefully crafted to honor federal law but also to protect the Fourth Amendment rights of immigrants in the state from ICE agents raiding workplaces without proper authority.
Chiu also clarified what “sanctuary” is a d isn’t.
He said that Trump wants to deputize local law enforcement to be ICE agents. On the surface it sounds like a good idea. But immigration isn’t the job of your local cop. Chiu said Trump’s plan would only raise distrust among immigrants, who consequently won’t report crimes for fear of deportation.
Chiu said that’s already happening in the Los Angeles area.
Chiu said that if the feds are able to get away with heavy-handed enforcement activities that trample on the rights of people in California, then ICE will make the tactics standard throughout the nation.
Chiu said in that sense, the fight in California is really a national one for the rights of immigrants.
As for his advice to those in the community who are in fear of more ICE raids like the recent ones that netted more than 245 people, Chiu was unwavering.
“We have your back,” he said. But he added that people need to know their rights if and when ICE shows up.
Listen to my phone call with David Chiu on this special edition of Emil Amok’s Takeout.
See more at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
A bipartisan effort in Congress may not work on DACA.
But it has worked on winning a Congressional Gold Medal for all Filipino Veterans of World War 2.
Emil Guillermo talks with Ben DeGuzman about how the resolution was passed and approved Oct. 25 as the day the first 1,000 vets get medals. As many as 250,000 medals may be given to military personnel, or their heirs.
To see if you or your loved one who served qualifies for a medal, go to http://www.filvetrep.org
Read Amok at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
TRT: 55:33
See Emil's latest at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
This podcast on Emil's DACA take, plus clips from the news call of UC President Janet Napolitano on the lawsuit seeking to protect DACA recipients.
Also Tom Wong of UCSD talks about his survey of DACA recipients
And Luis Quiroz, one DACA recipient hints at how Trump's action has bred a new distrust.
A betrayal of Trump?
Emil thinks it may be Trump's ruse to slap down another Obama legacy an rebrand DACA as the Trump Action for Childhood Arrivals.
From DACA to TACA?
A prediction.
Listen to the podcast for what you need to know about DACA and the upcoming Oct. 5 deadline for eligible renewals.
Even with the UC lawsuit, the deadlines aren't apt to change for now.
For DACA help go to http://www.aaldef.org for information
Read Emil's latest at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.
His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was an Ivy Orator and class humorist.
Check out the blog at http:/www.aaldef.org/blog
You can donate to help Asian American Harvey victims here:
http://www.ocahouston.org/harveyrelief
Emil Guillermo interviews:
Jessica Kong, who evacuated from her home with her brother and mother the first Monday after the storm hit.
Steven Wu, a Katrina survivor who now lives in Houston.
Martha Wong, the first Asian American city council person in Houston's history. She talks about the post-Harvey politics.
Emil Guillermo: Three Asian Americans on Harvey: A stranded evacuee, a Katrina survivor, and a Trump booster
September 2, 2017 8:53 PM
If you're a president known for tweeting, of course, there's only one way to show any empathy.
You do selfies.
It was Trump in what would be known as a "mulligan" in golf--his second visit to Houston since Hurricane Harvey demolished Texas. Trump arrived on Saturday at the NRG shelter in Houston and on the make-good finally seemed to understand his role as comforter-in-chief.
When he spoke to reporters, he seemed impressed by what he saw.
"Very happy with the way everything's been done, a lot of love," said the president about the aid effort.
Trump likes to throw that word "love" around these days. Let's see if he finds any for DACA recipients on Tuesday.
But on this day, Trump said people he talked with at the shelter were happy.
"It's been a wonderful thing," he told reporters. "As tough as this was, it's been a wonderful thing. Even for the country to watch and the world to watch."
Of course, the whole world saw the state of American infrastructure under Trump. People in high water trudging along as if the U.S. were a developing country in denial of climate change.
Will this Trump show of empathy reverse first impressions?
Sure, he's promised a personal donation of a million dollars to help. And he's asking Congress for $79 billion for Houston's recovery. So he's done what's expected.
Will it be enough to undo what could be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history?
EVACUEES STILL WAIT FOR WATER TO RECEDE While some residents were able to pick through the debris of their material lives on Saturday, that didn't include Jessica Kong and her mother and brother.
The home where they live to the west of Houston in Katy--where the reservoir releases made Harvey's impact even more formidable--was still underwater.
The Kongs lived in one of the estimated 200,000 homes in Houston damaged by Harvey.
Since Monday, August 28, the family voluntarily evacuated, when the water was just thigh high.
"I really don't know when we'll be back," Jessica told me by phone on Friday. She shared a picture of her home that a neighbor took on Thursday.
"The water is still high," she said. "We have no flood insurance."
Her family has already applied for FEMA relief online. Reports say more than 450,000 have already registered. The Kongs have also contacted their homeowner's insurance company. After staying in a shelter in the local middle school, they've since relocated to Jessica's older sister's suburban home, which did not suffer from Harvey's rains. And even now, as she contemplates the laborious task of rebuilding after Harvey, she marvels at how strong her core family has been throughout the whole ordeal, relying on each other, friends, neighbors, and extended family.
She feels that the storm has prioritized the importance of things in her life.
She paused as she thought of a friend who lived in Dickinson, a more heavily hit area toward the coast.
That friend, a young woman, had been diagnosed with cancer this year. And she lost everything in the storm.
It's a reminder to Kong of her relative good fortune.
As she and her family rushed out of the house, they took only what was necessary. But one item she had to leave behind was a special portrait of her mom that her late father, who died of cancer in 2005, commissioned for her 50th birthday.
"It was too big," Kong said. They placed it on the second floor of the home and hoped for the best when they return.
Whenever that might be.
On the podcast Emil Amok's Takeout, she talked about how the family left her home when the water was still about thigh high and shared what she thinks her lasting memories of Harvey will be. And she contemplated the actions of Donald Trump, and if a show of compassion to Harvey victims could force his hand on DACA or expose him as a hypocrite. Kong said she's been disappointed by Trump's performance to date and doesn't expect much.
Listen to what she said on the podcast, Emil Amok's Takeout. KATRINA SURVIVOR DOESN'T WANT TO SEE SAME MISTAKES IN HOUSTON Also on the podcast is Katrina survivor Steven Wu, 25, who talks about how the experience helped him to both cope and assist his neighbors in his new hometown, Houston.
"I have an idea how to help, " he said on an interview conducted Aug. 31 for the podcast, Emil Amok's Takeout.
He talked about the power of the group hug, as he witnessed the love shared by volunteers who comforted Harvey victims in the shelters.
Wu, working as a volunteer for the Organization of Chinese Americans, said there were 17 shelters set up in churches and community centers in the west part of the county specifically to help out Asian Americans who needed language assistance. Some even offered the comfort of Asian food.
Such a detail can be important in limiting the trauma that comes with mass evacuations during natural disasters. Wu said that his Katrina experience as a 13-year-old made him "grow up quickly." He worries about the kids who will have to deal with the trauma of Harvey, because he knows how Katrina impacted him.
He's also worried about FEMA and the insurance process.
"FEMA was a trainwreck," Wu said about his Katrina experience. which included life in a FEMA trailer outside his damaged home, eating MREs and living with an inconsistent water supply. The memory of that motivates him to help out for as long as necessary in the place he's called home the last three years.
"I want to make sure it's as easy a process as it should be," Wu told me. "We went through this before as a region and a country. We shouldn't make the same mistakes in Houston."
The biggest lesson Wu learned from Katrina is that a community can rebuild, although it will take many years. Because he's seen it before, he offered some tips. "Conserve your energy," Wu said. "This is a marathon."
He also added this for those who may feel personally overwhelmed by the losses from Harvey.
"We need you to be positive and to tell yourself not to give up," Wu said. " Please don't give up hope now."
Listen to Wu on our podcast, Emil Amok's Takeout. HOUSTON'S FIRST ASIAN AMERICAN COUNCILMEMBER EVER--MARTHA WONG Martha Wong, 78, is an Asian American political legend. The first Asian American woman elected to the Texas state house, she was also the first Asian American member of the Houston City Council.
She's also a Republican. Wong wasn't a Trump supporter at first, but became one by the election. She said Trump may not be great as far as empathy goes, but she was still satisfied by his first visit.
And she has no doubt Houston will be back on its feet.
She was untouched by Harvey, living in a high-rise next to Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church. We talked about that and other things, including Houston politics and how small government conservatives might sing a different tune in post-Harvey politics. And we talk about why Houston floods so much.
Listen to my conversation with Wong on the podcast here.
NOTE: OCA of Greater Houston, which AALDEF represented in a voting rights case in Texas, has helped to establish the Harvey AAPI Community Relief Fund. Help the Asian American community in the Houston area by making a donation: http://www.ocahouston.org/harveyrelief. * * Emil Guillermo is an independent journalist/commentator. Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, and like his Facebook page. The views expressed in his blog do not necessarily represent AALDEF's views or policies*
Ed Gor is a Houston resident and the president of the nation's oldest Asian American civil rights organization.
Gor talks with Emil Guillermo about Harvey and how Asian Americans are impacted.
Emil also discusses how President Trump was slow to show any real compassion or empathy for those victimized by Harvey.
See more at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Come by the I-Hotel/Manilatown Center, 868 Kearney St. SF,CA
Friday, Aug. 4 to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the eviction.
Emil will moderate a panel and Curtis Choy will screen his film. 6pm - 9pm. PDT
See more at
http://www.aaldef.org/blog
See more about Curtis Choy, director of "The Fall of the I-Hotel."
http://www.chonkmoonhunter.com/Asian-American-History.html
Emil Bio:
Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.
His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was an Ivy Orator and class humorist.
Find out what he's up to at www.amok.com.
See more info at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Eddie Huang at the Asian American Journalists Association convention.
Speaks candidly on race and identity.
See previous story on Huang:
http://aaldef.org/blog/emil-guillermo-is-fresh-off-the-boat-historical-or-the-taming-of-eddie-huang.html
Emil bio:
Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.
His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was an Ivy Orator and class humorist.
Find out what he's up to at www.amok.com.
See more about my conversation with B.D. Wong at http://www.aaldef.org/blog Emil's bio: Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.
His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was Ivy Orator and class humorist.
Find out what he's up to at www.amok.com.
Emil Guillermo: The Slants' Simon Tam speaks candidly on PODCAST: "The cure for hate speech isn't censorship...let communities decide, not government."
July 10, 2017 6:58 PM
It's been a big summer for Simon Tam, musician and founder of the Slants, now trademarked, reappropriated, and unanimously affirmed by the Supreme Court.
He also got married recently in his native state of California, so there's been much to celebrate.
And yet it seems there still some who aren't cheering his nearly eight-year-long battle to trademark his band's name and use the disparaging term "slant."
People of color remain divided since the Slants' victory is certain to allow for the Washington NFL team to continue using its disparaging name.
Tam told Emil Amok's Takeout, he's aware of that and it bothers him.
"It makes my skin crawl, it's terrible," Tam said. But he ultimately feels the decision was a win for all, protecting vulnerable communities who have had no say in the trademark process until this case. "Our identities were used against us," said Tam, who feels it will now be up to the marketplace and our own communities to say what's inappropriate, rather than the government.
"The cure of hate speech is not censorship," said Tam, who believes that the First Amendment allows for a deeper and more nuanced approach than simply to say some words are good, and others are bad.
In recent reports, some Asian American legal groups like NAPABA and AAAJ have criticized the Supreme Court decision. (AALDEF and other Asian American groups joined the ACLU amicus brief and supported the Slants.) But Tam has held steady and rejects the "slippery slope" notion of critics who believe that an avalanche of hate speech will result from the decision. In an open letter to his critics, Tam sees the decision as advancing legit reappropriation.
"In fact, now communities can be equipped to protect their own rights and prevent villainous characters from profiting and misleading people with these same terms," Tam wrote.
In his open letter, Tam cited the case of Heeb, a Jewish publication on pop culture, granted the registration for their magazine, but when they applied for the exact same mark in the categories of t-shirts and events, were denied for "disparagement."
As Tam points out, it meant when a group of Holocaust deniers sent harassing communications to subscribers, inviting them to Heeb Events, the organization was unable to stop them. "Had Heeb not been wrongly denied a registration, they would have been able to get a cease and desist order. This case now allows a just procedure against other people wrongly profiting from racial slurs or countering the work done by reappropriation."
Tam concludes: "Laws, like words, are not always inherently harmful. It depends on how they are used. It is like a sharp blade: in the hands of an enemy, it can inflict pain and suffering. However, in the hands of a surgeon, it can provide healing. The law I fought against was a large sword used by the government to haphazardly target "disparaging" language, but the collateral damage was on the free speech rights of those who need protected expression the most. Like other broad policies around access and rights (be it stop and frisk or voter ID laws), there was a disparate impact on the marginalized." That logic may still not satisfy those conflicted by the decision, especially when it leads to a result like affirming the use of the Washington NFL team's slur.
But the bottom line is still the First Amendment, which Tam is busy expressing in the studio on the follow up to the group's last EP, "The Band Who Must Not Be Named."
The new disc will definitely be named, eponymously, the group's first ever under its proud SCOTUS affirmed banner. For Tam, in the name of the broader Asian American community, it was worth it. Hear the Slants here. Hear Simon on Emil Amok's Takeout here.
Emil Guillermo is an independent journalist/commentator. Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, and like his Facebook page. The views expressed in his blog do not necessarily represent AALDEF's views or policies. Emil Guillermo: Oh no, "Hawaii Five-0" and what it means to all of us
July 6, 2017 4:18 PM
When I first heard about Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park leaving "Hawaii Five-0," I couldn't believe it.
The stars of the long-running TV crime procedural based in the 50th state simply asked for pay equity. They got the cold shoulder instead. Their exit leaves CBS with what it deserves. Hawaii Five-nothing.
(photo by Loren Javier)
I'm not watching a show with zero Asian American stars going into the eighth season.
Really, how do you just let your top Asian American cast members on a TV show set in the nation's most Asian American state just pick up and leave?
It's easy if you don't value diversity. Or to be more specific, equality.
Here's the deal the white co-stars get that the Asian American stars don't. More pay. And a cut of the series profits. As if the white stars are the draw that carried the whole show.
They're not.
I don't even know who the co-stars Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan are.
Frankly, I couldn't pick them out in a line at a Panda Express.
But, of course, CBS Television Studios, the show's producers, wouldn't budge.
And this is in a show that I would say was equally Kim's and Park's.
All this proves is Asian American leverage in showbiz remains zero. Unless you're married to the boss like Julie Chen, who has climbed to the top on the shoulders of "Big Brother." But for the majority of Asian Americans who appear on the glassy side of the camera, the message is pretty clear. Just be happy to get SAG/AFTRA scale. Know your place. Don't overreach. You're the hired help.
As my old friend Guy Aoki of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans told Hollywood Reporter, "the racial hierarchy established in the original 1968-1980 series remained intact in the 2010 reboot: Two white stars on top, two Asian/Pacific Islander stars on the bottom."
It's sad that at this time in history, in what should be a vehicle for Asian Americans. this is how Asian American stars are treated.
If you can just let a guy like Kim, arguably one of the top male Asian American stars in Hollywood, just leave, that's a major message to someone like me who wants to be the next Victor Wong. Or Amy Hill.
Despite all the window dressing and Asian American stars you can point to, showbiz remains as racist now as it ever was.
I'm particularly depressed by this after coming off a short run at the San Diego Fringe Festival with my one-man show, "Amok Monologues."
My one good review made it worthwhile.
Still, I'm a journalist and storyteller by trade. I combined the theater at this juncture in my life because I studied acting and drama a long time ago when I was in college and in grad school.
Back then, I even thought about going into acting. But when the only Filipinos I saw played beach boys and drivers, I thought better of my stereotype. In fact, the best role I ever got was playing the white guy in black theater. But then maybe that's because my college roommate was the director and he owed it to me. I realized early on that it wouldn't happen for me in showbiz unless I write my own stories. But for me, the urgency of journalism outweighed the lure of show business. I felt the facts needed to be established before I felt comfortable telling stories on stage. That meant turning to journalism to tell our stories, even with hairspray and makeup, as I did when starting in TV. I thought TV would provide the right balance between showbiz and journalism. At KXAS in Dallas, I worked with Scott Pelley. (Would he have ended up like me had his name been Pellicito?) At KRON-TV in San Francisco, I worked with some of the most talented folks in the business. Oddly, my career climbed to its furthest point the more people couldn't see me--- in radio, where I could sound as white as anyone. But my life in the media shows, you still can't escape what Aoki calls that "racial hierarchy." Whites still control. And if being Asian American is important, or being deracinated sounds hideous to you, you're out of luck. Some make the compromise anyway, and hang on. Temporarily. But it catches up to you. You are who you are. And that can be a factor in how far you go in media. Maybe there are enough Asian American anchors around (predominantly women), so you can debate me and insist that things are changing. But that may be all show. If salaries were revealed, like in the "Hawaii Five-0" situation, I bet we're still being lowballed. So what does it mean to everyone else not in showbiz or journalism? Plenty. If you don't play in the ensemble, or play the lead in fake TV life, don't think you'll get a fair shot in real life quite as easily.
TV helps create the stereotypical reality. When we don't show up in the image-making machinery of our culture, it's much harder to show up anywhere. Did CBS care that Hawaii was the most Asian state in the nation?
When a show can get away with dumping its key Asian stars just like that, it will surely embolden those in other industries.
Gains don't come without a challenge. For as long as necessary. Look at American history. And look at the current backslide on major issues from affirmative action to voting rights.
"Hawaii Five-0" is TV giving us a reality check, just when we thought we had made some progress. I mean, more than 50 years after the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, you'd figure we would get a break on things that are pretend. But somewhere on top of the heap, someone has made a decision. Paying two Asian American actors what they're worth isn't good business. So Kim and Park are gone. The white fantasy of "Hawaii Five-0" lives on.
In the meantime, I'm not watching a Kim-less, Park-less 5-0.
I encourage you to do the same, and to support Asian American actors, producers, and writers in their projects.
And I'm doing what others are doing these days. Writing my own stuff. Telling my own stories. It seems to be the only way to beat the racial hierarchy of Hollywood.
I'm on the road, but I can still podcast.
My "Amok Monologues" are at the San Diego International Fringe Festival.
Get your tickets for the final show Thursday, the 29th at 10:30pm. ( I know, last minute, but then I'm less self-absorbed than normal).
Or buy a ticket and I will send you an audio of the show! Just $10!
https://sdfringe.ticketleap.com/amok-monologues/
Got a great review too. "Excellent," says the San Diego Story arts journal.
READ THE WHOLE REVIEW HERE
I talk about my show, others' shows, my niece the survivor, and how the Fringe has brought us together after more than 20 years. Still time to see some great shows. There's acrobatics/circus style dance shows. Solo performances. One Acts. The fringe has it all.
I've also enjoyed detoxing from the news. I haven't seen cable news TV for more than ten days. I don't miss Wolf Blitzer. I like him. But I am happy to have not seen him for 2 hours a day lately.
I talk about the news hits I've absorbed, like a short Vincent Chin post mortem, and the victory of the Slants, both which I will revisit with interviews next week.
But the show's the thing here, the "Amok Monologues." Invite me to your city, town, college, office, church group, Filipino dance club, whatever.
I will be there!
www.aaldef.org/blog
www.amok.com
Chin estate trustee provides insight on how difficult it was to get justice for Vincent Chin. The Asian American community was small and reluctant to speak up. Even civil rights organizations weren't sure about Asian Americans in a black and white world. It may also explain why Asian Americans have reacted differently in recent years to hate crimes that should be considered as significant as Chin's but have failed to get traction with a now larger, divided and complacent Asian American community. Show Log: :00 Intro, the basic factsa about the death of Vincent Chin, update from Helen Zia, and observations about the case.How the civil rights community was sometimes at odds with Asian Americans. 10:21 Audio portion of interview with Helen Zia 23:26 Emil reads from his 2012 column where Chin's killer Ronald Ebens apologizes for the murder. 34:04 End Emil Guillermo: Lessons from Vincent Chin murder 35 years after; Podcast interview with Helen Zia; and thoughts on my interview with Chin's killer, Ronald Ebens
June 18, 2017 8:40 PM We have now arrived at the 35th year of these essential Asian American facts: On June 19, 1982, Chinese American Vincent Chin, 27, who was with friends at his own bachelor party, was mistaken for being Japanese by two white auto workers, Ronald Ebens and his stepson Michael Nitz, at a Detroit strip club. Ebens told me Chin sucker-punched him. The fight was taken outside, but then broken up. It would have ended, but Ebens and Nitz pursued Chin by car and found him at a nearby McDonald's. In the parking lot, Ebens brutally beat Chin with a baseball bat.
Chin was comatose for four days and pronounced dead on June 23. For that crime, Ebens and Nitz, his accomplice, were allowed to plea bargain. They pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, were sentenced to three years' probation, and fined $3,720. There was no prison time for the murderers of Vincent Chin. The Asian American community was outraged, which led to a federal civil rights prosecution against Ebens and Nitz. Ebens was found guilty on one charge and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He appealed to the Sixth Circuit, and a second federal trial was moved from Detroit to Cincinnati. Ebens was acquitted by a Cincinnati jury that found no racial motivation in the killing of Chin. That's where the story has been for the last 35 years: The perps are free. And Asian Americans can still be victims of extremely violent hate crimes, like Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an Asian Indian mistaken for a Muslim. This year in Olathe, Kansas, Kuchibhotla was allegedly killed by a white gunman who yelled, "Get out of my country." For the 35th year marker of Chin's death, I called to get an update from the writer Helen Zia, who is also the trustee of the Chin estate.
Zia said the Chin family was awarded a $2 million judgment in civil litigation against Ebens back in the '80s, and continues to monitor Ebens, now 77 and retired in Nevada. "The judgment has been continued," Zia told me. She said that with interest and penalties, the judgment could be in excess of $8 million, but Ebens has "not paid a dime." Zia said she's philosophical about recovery. "The guy did what he did," she told me. "He's a killer. He got away with murder. But the things that need to be done on behalf of the community don't depend on him or his death. It will bring closure. But it doesn't mean hate crimes have ended." An edited portion of my interview with Zia is in my podcast, Emil Amok's Takeout. Besides being the trustee of the estate, Zia was right there in the thick of the Chin case in Detroit. A journalist with legal training, she wrote for the daily newspaper there, but refrained from writing about the case so she could be one of the founders of American Citizens for Justice, the group formed to fight for Chin. It was just a handful of Asian American lawyers and activists. At that time, there were few Asian Americans in the law or in journalism. And there was no one with the expertise to do a federal hate crime case. Thirty-five years later, Zia said that what strikes her the most are the things people don't bring up about the case.
The human stuff, like the late Lily Chin, Vincent's adoptive mom. "She died feeling that if she hadn't adopted him, he'd be alive," Zia told me. "It's so sad to me to think about it that way." But the human stuff also includes the human opposition to the case within the community and the backlash that existed at the time. "We had civil rights people who said, 'We'll support you because Vincent was Chinese and thought to be Japanese, but if he were Japanese, we won't support because he would've deserved it,' " Zia said. "I said 'What? You're kidding?' The Michigan ACLU and the Michigan National Lawyers Guild strongly opposed a civil rights investigation because Asian Americans are not protected by federal civil rights law. That was something we had to argue." Fortunately, the national offices of those legal groups prevailed and forced the state chapters to comply. "Here were some of the most liberal activist attorneys saying Asian Americans shouldn't be included under the civil rights law. Vincent was an immigrant. We had to establish he was a citizen, with the implication there might not have been a civil rights investigation if he had not been naturalized. All of this stuff...these were hurdles we had to overcome with major impacts today," Zia told me. "Can you imagine if the Reagan White House had followed the National Lawyers Guild's Michigan chapter and the ACLU of Michigan and said, 'Why should we look expansively at civil rights? We shouldn't include immigrants and Asian Americans.' And at that time, that would include Latinos too, because at that time if you were not black or white, what do you have to do with race? Those were the things people would say to us." Zia said after 35 years, a quick telling of the Chin case rarely discusses just how difficult it was to fight for justice. But she says those are the enduring lessons of the Vincent Chin case, because it has contributed to a modern sense of social justice for every American. "Every immigrant, Latinos. Every American," Zia said. "Hate crime protection laws now also include perceived gender and disability. It was the Vincent Chin case when we had to argue civil rights was more than black or white." Zia said the case was also more difficult because it was during a pre-digital, non-computer, pay-phone age. Communication occurred slowly. But the case was also slow because Asian Americans were a micro-community. We're 21 million now and feel empowered. In 1980, the Asian American population was just 3.7 million nationwide. And most were timid, non-boat rockers. "In the Vincent Chin case, people were incredibly reluctant to become involved," Zia told me. "They had never gotten involved before. And I think that's what gets lost [in the retelling of the story]. Exclusion didn't end till about 1950, and so what that meant was Asian Americans of every kind, from Chinese to Filipinos, everybody, were pretty much totally disenfranchised till the mid-20th century." "So when Vincent Chin was killed 30 years later [in 1982], the communities had. . .I think of it as stunted growth. There weren't people running for office. If there were, it was a miniscule number. There weren't people standing up; we didn't have advocacy organizations." A right to justice, and a community's sense of empowerment, was a difficult thing to imagine for many Asian Americans. "Not only did we not have it," Zia said, "People didn't even recognize it was something we could have. The idea we all came together with the Vincent Chin case and sang 'Kumbaya' and took over and went to the Reagan White House and the Department of Justice and got all these things to happen. . .that's a mythology. And I think it's a disservice to the next generations to think this." Helen Zia knows what was happening in Detroit in the '80s as the fight began for Vincent Chin. More of her thoughts on Emil Amok's Takeout. RONALD EBENS I don't know what Vincent Chin's killer did for Father's Day. I last talked to Ronald Ebens in 2015, around the June 23 anniversary of Chin's death. "I'm doing fine," he told me then, adding quickly he had a good Father's Day with his kids.; I asked him then if he ever thought about the anniversary. "Like what?" he said. "I never forget it." Never? "Of course not." It was 2015. "I'm 75 years old, and I'm just tired of all that after 33 years." He's 77 now, and Helen Zia doesn't want him ever to tire or forget the truth. "He will never spend a day of his life without knowing he has a huge debt to society and a huge debt to Vincent Chin's family," Zia told me. "And one day, he will pay for it." The very first time I talked to Ebens was in 2012, on the 30th anniversary of the Chin murder. On the podcast, I read aloud the column that I wrote on June 22, 2012. It has Ebens explaining himself and describing what happened that night. He was reluctant to talk to me, but he did. And during our conversation, he apologized for the murder.
"I'm sorry it happened and if there's any way to undo it, I'd do it," he told me in my exclusive interview. "Nobody feels good about somebody's life being taken, okay? You just never get over it. . .Anybody who hurts somebody else. If you're a human being, you're sorry, you know." But Zia, who read my column at the time, has never bought that as an apology. "I stood next to this guy in court, and I see his face, over and over, read his words, and frankly, I don't see a shred of sincerity," Zia told me. "[He's really saying] 'I didn't even mean to kill, why should I have to go through this.'" And then to me, Zia said, "It would take more than you interviewing him saying, ' I'm sorry, I killed him.' Let's see how sorry he is and set an example for future people who are thinking of killing a Muslim student in North Carolina, or a man in Kansas. These killers who kill out of hatred and go to justify their killings, it takes more than saying I'm sorry." http://www.amok.com http://www.twitter.com/emilamok http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Show Log 00: Open, intros, Emil comments on news, including the week's gun violence and the NBA champion Golden State Warriors. 14:35 Karthick Ramakrishnan, UC Riverside, School of Public Policy; AAPI Data 15:52 Interview begins 1:01:20 On bias against South Asians 1:02:49 On Vincent Chin Anniversary 1:07:10 Emil reads his Father's Day Essay Emil Guillermo: Who is Asian American? On AMEMSA, Vincent Chin, and my Amok Monologues for Father's Day. PODCAST EXTRA: Karthick Ramakrishnan
June 16, 2017 11:57 AM
Say Asian or Asian American, and people think "Chinese."
Most people know that's not the case, but that tends to be the prevailing stereotype. And not just among whites, blacks, and Latinos.
It's harder when even Asian Americans believe in the stereotype.
"East Asians need to recognize that Southeast Asians and South Asians are Asians too, " Karthick Ramakrishnan told me on Emil Amok's Takeout. "If you combine the Southeast Asian and South Asian categories, all these nationalities together, they're the overwhelming majority. East Asians are now a minority within the Asian American category."
Ramakrishnan is Professor of Political Science and Associate Dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside. He directs the National Asian American Survey, which recently revealed the jaw-dropping finding that some Asian Americans don't consider South Asians as Asian American.
Previously, I spoke with his NAAS cohort Jennifer Lee about this survey question here.
In my interview with Ramakrishnan, we discuss who has the power to define who is Asian, and how the "Asian American" umbrella is being threatened. Is an AMEMSA--Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian--category inevitable?
"If you're brown and someone thinks you're Muslim, you get a different racial experience," Ramakrishnan told me on Emil Amok's Takeout. "That's what "AMEMSA" captures.
But what happens then to the broad Asian American category of 21 million and growing when 5 million South Asians can't identify and adopt a new category?
Ramakrishnan also talks about how the NAAS findings may explain why there wasn't a massive mobilization from Asian Americans to protest the murder of Srinivas Kuchibhotla earlier this year.
While Vincent Chin's murder inspired the activism of Asian Americans 35 years ago, the ire over the Kuchibhotla hate crime has not had a similar impact on the community. Ramakrishnan said it should have, and the fact that it didn't reveals Asian America's implicit and explicit biases.
"It's kind of a game of whack-a-mole," Ramakrishnan told me. "Unfortunately, when particular parts of our community are getting whacked, other parts of our community don't stand up nearly as much and are not nearly as vocal as we should be."
Uh-oh. We're reverting back to the other prevailing stereotype. Non-boat rockers. Just get on the boat. Don't miss it. Get off the boat. Just don't rock it.
But maybe we should. The upcoming 35th anniversary of Vincent Chin is the time for some reflection.
In 2014, I wrote about how the entire community should use the days Chin was in a coma from June 19 to June 23 to think about what it's like to be Asian American.
We are coming up to that time.
It's a wide ranging Emil Amok's Takeout, including a special treat: I read my annual Father's Day essay, part of a story in my "Amok Monologues: A short history of the American Filipino--NPR, Harvard, Death on Mission St.," which I'm premiering at the San Diego International Fringe Festival, June 23 to 29. Buy your tickets here: https://sdfringe.ticketleap.com/amok-monologues/
If you're in San Diego, come on by! It's another part of my exploration of the solo performance form. It's funny. It's tragic. It's amok! contact: http://www.amok.com http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Ep.16: Emil Amok's Takeout---Show Log
:00-show open; Emil's take on Trump's tweets, climate change accord, Kathy Griffin, James Comey, Trump as hood ornament.
15::40 The NAAS Survey's finding that Asian Americans often exclude South Asians, Central Asians. Our xenophobia problem.
17:00 Prof. Jennifer Lee, Columbia Univ. on her research with Dean Karthick Ramakrishnan, UC-Riverside
58:25 Prof. Pawan Dhingra, Tufts University, reacts to the findings.
Show ends with my Warrior Prediction for Game 3!
AALDEF blog for the week:
Emil Guillermo: Paris Accord pullout? Trump's twitter logorrhea impacts our political climate even more; and a Podcast on our community conundrum: Are South Asians really Asian?
June 5, 2017 9:30 PM
Too much terror, too much news. And the really important event of last week--Trump's nose- thumbing at world unity on climate change by pulling out of the Paris Accord-- is practically forgotten.
Not that Trump would like us to dwell on that.
That was a classic Trump communication boner.
The Washington Post Fact-Checker, co-written by Michelle Ye Hee Lee with Glenn Kessler, pointed out Trump's basic misunderstanding of the accord. It's a non-binding deal. He can change Obama's goals on his own. That's a kind of deal the slippery Trump should love.
But his misreading of the accord led to wrong assumptions, like whether China and India could end up building more coal plants than the U.S. No, they can't. In fact, China has just curtailed more than 100 coal plants this year. Truth is optional with The Donald. He made up his mind on the Paris Accord with the wrong facts.
Being morally wrong is bad enough. It's worse when it's compounded by being factually wrong.
And that was just a few Trump misstatements from last week's accord pull-out speech.
It was just the pre-weekend warmup.
After the London terrorist attacks, Trump's tweets turn out to be a lot more dangerous than any greenhouse gas--to the political climate.
Maybe the president needs better pictures to understand the issues. He got things completely wrong when it came to London's Mayor Sadiq Khan, who was trying to calm his city after the latest attacks. The mayor told his citizenry not to get alarmed by the massive police presence.
Khan wasn't downplaying terrorism.
Trump, of course, totally misunderstood and had to tweet it out.
"At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is 'no reason to be alarmed!'" Trump said in a tweet, misconstruing the statement of Mayor Khan.
Another tweet was more offensive. "Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his "no reason to be alarmed" statement. MSM [mainstream media] is working hard to sell it!"
And then he used the occasion to further advocate for his travel ban, because in Trump-think, if we banned Muslims we could stop terrorism. Only this time ,Trump was unequivocal in his belligerence and xenophobia.
"People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!"
The caps are all Trump's.
This is the kind of misunderstanding that can lead to real tragedy--armed conflicts, major wars.
Even conservatives are starting to indicate that a Trump Twitter intervention may be needed. After Kellyanne Conway defended the president on morning TV by trying to downplay the tweets, her husband, Filipino American attorney George Conway, was appealing to the level-headed.
"These tweets may make some ppl feel better, but they certainly won't help OSG [Office of the Solicitor General] get 4 votes in SCOTUS, which is what actually matters. Sad." Yes. Sad.
Trump stands by Twitter as a way to talk directly to the people. But that's precisely why journalists must cover the statements and take them seriously. Surely, world leaders are concerned about the uncensored thoughts coming through Trump's twitter logorrhea.
That's the precise word for it.
We should all be concerned.
ARE INDIANS AND PAKISTANIS ASIAN AMERICAN? Trump isn't the only one with a xenophobia issue. In some alarming findings, the 2016 National Asian American Survey found that many non-Asians don't think South Asians are Asian American. Worse, many in our own big tent group, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, don't think so either.
Jennifer Lee, Columbia University sociology professor and Karthick Ramakrishnan, Dean of Public Policy at UC Riverside, published the findings in The Society Pages.
Most whites, blacks, and Latinos held the view that only East Asians from China, Japan, and Korea were Asian American.
Filipinos were tweeners, with anywhere from 15 to 17 percent of different groups thinking Filipinos weren't Asians. (Maybe Mexicans?)
But ask all groups about Indians and Pakistanis from South Asia, and Arabs and Middle Eastern people from Central and West Asia, and embarrassingly large numbers don't see them as Asian American at all. Among whites, 41 percent said Indians are not likely to be Asian American, and 45 percent didn't see Pakistanis as Asian American.
Here's the jawdropper. Even among Asians, the numbers who didn't see Indians or Pakistanis as Asian American were in the 30-40 percent range.
It's actually very Trump-like of the Asian Americans surveyed.
You'll recall the February murder of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Kansas City tech engineer who was allegedly gunned down at a suburban bar by Adam Purinton, 51, a Navy veteran and former air traffic controller, who saw Kuchibhotla and yelled, "Get out of my country."
That was on Feb. 22.
It took six days before the president even acknowledged it in a brief mention in his joint speech before Congress.
It could have been an opportunity for real leadership. But everything the president has done has emboldened violent white nationalists. We saw it recently with the violent stabbings in Portland. And certainly we saw it in Kansas City when Kuchibhotla was gunned down.
At the time, I thought the murder would galvanize the broader community of 21 million Asian Americans to stand up united against the hateful political sentiments of Steve Bannon being channeled through Trump and that's been empowering folks like Adam Purinton.
And now, because of the insights of the survey on how we see ourselves, I know why it didn't.
"To fail to see Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis as Asian--especially when they see themselves as such--is to silence their voices," wrote Lee and Ramakrishnan in the Society Pages. "It also risks promoting an incomplete portrait of Asian Americans that ignores more threatening, dangerous and even deadly forms of anti-Asian discrimination."
Jennifer Lee called it "drawing boundaries on Asian America."
Or maybe a wall?
That NAAS research shows it's happening, and that in a serious way, Asian Americans have our own sense of xenophobia.
Like Trump, we fear each other. We're just not tweeting about it as much as he does. Listen to my interview with Lee on the East Asian/South Asian divide and the findings of the survey on our podcast, Emil Amok's Takeout, coming soon.
* * Emil Guillermo is an independent journalist/commentator. Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, and like his Facebook page. The views expressed in his blog do not necessarily represent AALDEF's views or policies.* Posted by:Emil Guillermo
Show log Emil Amok’s Takeout Ep. 15
:00 Emil’s opening rap
1:46 San Diego Fringe Festival and SF Marsh shows
2:30 Coming up intros of top stories
5:05 What made me go amok this week
6:25 Martial Law in the Philippines? Oh, just “Partial Martial”?
18:12 Intro Celestino Almeda, the 100-year old Filipino WW2 Vet still
Fighting for his equity pay
24:12 Interview with Almeda
42:28 Intro and interview with Association of Asian American Studies President-elect Theo Gonzalves,
University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
1:30:00 MY NBA FINALS PICK
Emil Guillermo: Emil Amok's Takeout Podcast - No rest on Memorial Day for a WWII Filipino Vet; and a conversation with AAAS President-elect Theo Gonzalves on APAHM
May 26, 2017 7:36 PM
Memorial Day always winds up the annual observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
And what better way to remember the one story (along with the Japanese American Internment) that lingers as the moral compass of the community.
For that reason, this Memorial Day will be a special one for Filipino WWII Veteran Celestino Almeda.
Despite many vets seeing an equity pay windfall in 2009, a handful like Almeda are still in appeals.
His fight for justice with the U.S. government has been the bureaucratic version of the Bataan Death March.
hat's no disrespect to the survivors of that historic event 75 years ago.
Almeda certainly will remember deceased friends like retired U.S. Air Force Major Jesse Baltazar, a former POW who survived the Bataan Death March in 1942, and died just last year at age 96.
Baltazar often accompanied Almeda, fighting side by side in the latter's bureaucratic battle with the VA over equity pay.
Almeda was a young soldier in the Philippine Army reserve, when he answered the call of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the Philippines with the U.S. Armed Forces of the Far East. The added lure was full benefits as a soldier, including U.S. citizenship.
As you'll hear in my interview with him on Emil Amok's Takeout, Almeda, the reservist, was made active for a year.
He was then made inactive when Gen. MacArthur retreated to Australia as the Japanese took over Manila.
Almeda has official Philippine Army documents signed by U.S. officers to document all that. What he doesn't have is the record that he served in the guerrilla forces, which Almeda says were only verbal orders.
Once the war was over, he was made active again and served side-by-side Americans.
There would be no problem until President Truman signed the Rescission Act of 1946. which stripped the Filipino veterans of any right to the benefits that had been promised for their service.
Ever since then--for more than 70 years--Filipinos like Almeda have been fighting piecemeal for a restoral of all the benefits due them. Almeda's service has been good enough to help get him U.S. citizenship in 1990. He's even been given a VA card for medical benefits.
But it wasn't until President Obama in 2009 finally came through with a lump sum payment of $15,000 to Filipino veterans living in the U.S., and $9,000 for those still in the Philippines, that Almeda found himself in the bureaucratic battle of his life.
The VA has approved more than nearly 19,000 cases, according to its website. The payout has been more than $220 million.
But it's also rejected close to 24,000 cases.
There's about $56 million left in the pot.
But that doesn't mean the VA is willingly giving it out, at least not to Almeda.
The VA wouldn't honor his Philippine Army documents, though he has kept the originals in pristine condition. He's still currently in appeal, but in the meantime, he's taken to public protests like one last year when Robert McDonald, the VA Secretary under Obama appeared in public. In the Q&A part of the program, Almeda tried to appeal to McDonald but had his mic turned off.
MacDonald's reaction got a stern rebuke from retired General Antonio Taguba, the general who led the investigation into Abu Ghraib.
Taguba additionally pointed out that updates to the law--PL 111-5, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation)--directed the Secretary of VA to consider all forms of evidence of service and not just those originally considered.
"This amendment has not been fully executed by the VA," Taguba complained to Mc Donald. Now a year later, McDonald's out, a new VA head is in, and Almeda is still fighting for justice, seemingly locked in the Bataan Death March of appeals, hoping to get approved for his lump sum before he turns 100.
It's Memorial Day, but his taste for justice has not died.
Listen to him tell his story on Emil Amok's Takeout. Days before his 100th birthday, Almeda's still got a lot of fight left. AAAS President-elect Theo Gonzalves on the relevance of Asian American Studies today On my recent trip to Washington, DC, I was able to talk to an old friend, Theo Gonzalves of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and the president-elect of the Association for Asian American Studies.
What are they doing? How has Asian American Studies stayed relevant? How valuable is the AAS degree?
Use the fast forward and listen to Gonzalves, where he thinks Asian American Studies is going, and the importance of APAHM. And if you want to read my Emil Amok column on Martial Law
https://usa.inquirer.net/4026/martial-law-not-needed-can-stop-dutertes-destiny
Contact Emil at http://www.aaldef.org/blog, the site of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
If you like what you see, consider clicking the "DONATE" button. AALDEF is a 501 C3 and your contribution is tax-deductible.
Give us your feedback there, or at www.amok.com
Leave a voice message on Speakpipe. We might use it in a future show.
Consider subscribing for free on iTunes, where you can rate and review.
You'll also find us on YouTube, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.
BIO
Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.
His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country. His columns are seen in Asia and around the world, on Inquirer.net.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was named Ivy Orator as the class humorist.
Thanks for listening to Emil Amok's Takeout!
http://www.twitter.com/emilamok
http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Links to columns touched on by Emil in Podcast No.14:
http://aaldef.org/blog/emil-guillermo-last-fable-day-asian-americans-emmy-snub-fresh-off-the-boat-easter-xua.html
http://aaldef.org/blog/emil-guillermo-is-fresh-off-the-boat-historical-or-the-taming-of-eddie-huang.html
http://aaldef.org/blog/emil-guillermo-wong-kim-ark-gop-anchor-baby-suzanne-ahn-award.html
http://aaldef.org/blog/emil-guillermo-asian-americans-no-1-by-2065-immigration-pew-report.html
Emil Guillermo PODCAST: Randall Park at the APAICS gala for AAPI Heritage Month talks about Asian American representation in the media
May 22, 2017 10:19 AM
On Emil Amok's Takeout, I corner Randall Park at the gala dinner of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS). a/k/a Asian Prom.
Listen to my short conversation with the "Fresh Off the Boat" star, as well as an excerpt from his speech accepting the 2017 APAICS Vision Award.
Oddly, I forgot to ask him if politics was in the cards for him. Writing and producing was. But politics? He does play a governor in HBO's "Veep."
As I flew into D.C., I noticed at the airport magazine racks the conservative National Review trying to make the case for a presidential bid by "The Rock"--a Republican.
President Rock?
Dwayne Johnson hosted the season finale of "Saturday Night Live" this past weekend, and was joined by Tom Hanks.
Hanks said if they ran as a ticket, he'd "get them the senior vote because he fought in WWII--in ten different movies.
The Rock added that he'd get the minority vote, "because everyone just assumes, I'm, well, whatever they are."
It got a big laugh. It sounds like a joke, but given the rise of a reality show star to the presidency and the immense popularity of Johnson and Hanks, you never know.
And with that, the SNL banners unfurled to reveal the slogan "Johnson Hanks 2020."
Considering that The Rock and Hanks seem like stable personalities with decent vocabularies, anything would be an improvement over the present White House occupant. Emil Guillermo is an independent journalist/commentator. Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, and like his Facebook page. The views expressed in his blog do not necessarily represent AALDEF's views or policies. Contact Emil at http://www.aaldef.org/blog, the site of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
If you like what you see, consider clicking the "DONATE" button. AALDEF is a 501 C3 and your contribution is tax-deductible.
Give us your feedback there, or at www.amok.com
Leave a voice message. We might use it in a future show.
Consider subscribing for free on iTunes, where you can rate and review.
You'll also find us on YouTube, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.
BIO
Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.
His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country. His columns are seen in Asia and around the world, on Inquirer.net.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was named Ivy Orator, the class humorist.
Thanks for listening to Emil Amok's Takeout!
http://www.twitter.com/emilamok
http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Ep. 13
Emil Guillermo: "Mommy, I need you," a Mother's Day podcast memory; plus Trump grows more Nixony by the day May 12, 2017 3:04 PM
From the AALDEF blog:
http://aaldef.org/blog/emil-guillermo-mommy-i-need-you-mothers-day-podcast-trump-nixon.html
I wrote an essay about my mother that was in my collection of Emil Amok columns in my book Amok back in 2000.
I read it here, along with a preamble on the podcast, because I've too often given short shrift to my mom's story, in favor of my dad's. But my mother's story was pretty incredible too. She survived the Japanese occupation of Manila during WWII and found her way to the U.S. with the help of an angel, a Spanish aristocrat who was unrelated, and whom I remember as having so much makeup on her face that she she looked like a ghost. I only knew her as Lola Angelita, world traveler.
My mom is in this picture, on the left. Another one of her comadres, my Lola Rosie, is holding me. I'm just horribly disoriented looking for the right nipple. And probably crying. All that and more on the podcast for Mothers Day in May, which is also AAPI Heritage Month. Here's a shoutout to The New Yorker for its funny, satirical cover, the positive yellowfacing of Dr. David Dao, who is replaced by the ousted FBI chief James Comey.
It's funny, not racist, as some have suggested. It's a recognition of how we felt about Dao, and how we should all feel about what's happened to Comey.
In Trump-speak, the Comey thing is as important as the Russia thing, and so much more important than any email thing. In the firing, Trump as Nixon was pretty obvious from Day 1. But Trump doesn't leave well enough alone. He's compounded it with subsequent steps that only create a growing credibility gap between his White House and the American public. Where is the Truth about the firing of Comey? We have several versions, at this point. One too many for a real democracy. And if Trump isn't getting really Nixony, why did he tweet about the possibility that conversations with Comey were taped?
Follow Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
5:26 AM - 12 May 2017 So our democracy under Trump is getting shakier and shakier, especially when Trump feels his people must be loyal to him and not the American people.
King Donald?
It leaves us with motherhood to hang on to for now, while we can. Show Log: 00: Opening :20 About our show 1:15 My theater performance 1:56 This episode 3:17 New Yorker spoof: Comey as David Dao 4:29 More on Trump 10:26 Preamble on my Mom, followed by the "Mom's Sundae" commentary from my Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective
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- Emil Guillermo is an independent journalist/commentator. Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, and like his Facebook page. The views expressed in his blog do not necessarily represent AALDEF's views or policies. Contact Emil at http://www.aaldef.org/blog, the site of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
-
If you like what you see, consider clicking the "DONATE" button. AALDEF is a 501 C3 and your contribution is tax-deductible.
Give us your feedback there, or at www.amok.com
Leave a voice message. We might use it in a future show.
Consider subscribing for free on iTunes, where you can rate and review.
You'll also find us on YouTube, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.
BIO
Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.
His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country. His columns are seen in Asia and around the world, on Inquirer.net.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was named Ivy Orator, the class humorist.
Thanks for listening to Emil Amok's Takeout!
http://www.twitter.com/emilamok
http://www.aaldef.org/blog
SHOW LOG:
:00 Opening rap
3:25 Health care vote
8:15 Duterte and Trump
11:42 Corky Lee intro
18:20 Corky Lee interview
From the blog at http://www.aaldef.orgblog
By Emil Amok
My late mother, the wise Filipina, would always say, "Your health is your wealth." And when her health failed, she was thankful for her health care through Medicare. And now after today, we're a step closer to the danger zone. I talk about #TrumpNoCare on the podcast. But we won't let the threat to health care mar Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. And if you're wondering, yes, Donald Trump did tweet about it. His proclamation mentioned Dr. Sammy Lee, the great Olympic diver and the first Asian American man to win an Olympic gold medal in the 1948 Olympics. He also mentioned Katherine Sui Fun Cheung, who embodied the spirit of this month. In 1932, she was the first Chinese American woman to earn a pilot license at a time when only one percent of all pilots in the U.S. were women. Trump, of course, likes any One-percenter of any kind. Trump's proclamation was fairly boilerplate, as you'd expect from a man who thinks diversity is identity politics and not a hallmark of a nation that believes in equality. Trump even cites Public Law 102-450, which makes May each year "Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month." He's not going to try to repeal it like, say, Obamacare. (Listen to the podcast for my take on that.) "I encourage all Americans to learn more about our Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander heritage, and to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities," Trump proclaimed Let's see if he takes his own advice, and learns how many Asian Americans will be threatened by his #TrumpNoCare. Or we can just go back in history with that legendary picture of the railroads and the Golden Spike uniting America by rail. You've seen it, right?
Photographer Corky Lee saw it when he was a kid growing up in New York. It was the first mention of any Chinese people that he saw in his history books. The text said Chinese people helped build the railroad. But Corky didn't see any Chinese in the picture. On the AALDEF podcast, Emil Amok's Takeout, Corky said he bought the best magnifying glass he could find at Woolworth's. And he still couldn't see any Chinese. "We were excluded again," he told me. May is quite a month. May 6 is the 135th Anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur in 1882. Important, no doubt. But May 10 is the 148th anniversary of the photographic exclusion that has been bothering Corky since he first saw that picture of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah. On May 10, Corky will stage a flash mob photo, hoping for people coming in period dress to do what people have done for years. Only Corky wants to make a picture with actual Chinese people--like the people who built the railroads.
He's been doing it as a matter of tradition for the last few years, his build-up to a grand 150th anniversary shot. But every year, there's something special besides "the picture." One year, it was the Buddhist ceremony at the Chinese Arch, believed to be the first one ever.
Go ahead, make a pilgrimage to Utah for AAPI Heritage Month. I doubt if The Donald will be there. Find out more by going to Corky Lee's Facebook page. Listen to the podcast on how Corky developed his sense of "photographic justice," and how the activist's heart merged with the photographer's eye to produce some of the most memorable photographs of modern Asian American life ever taken. Corky talks about his first camera and his father's style of teaching. And several times throughout, he talks about the picture that has been his driving force to include Asian Americans in everything he sees through the lens. Contact Emil at http://www.aaldef.org/blog, the site of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
If you like what you see, consider clicking the "DONATE" button. AALDEF is a 501 C3 and your contribution is tax-deductible.
Give us your feedback there, or at www.amok.com
Leave a voice message. We might use it in a future show.
Consider subscribing for free on iTunes, where you can rate and review.
You'll also find us on YouTube, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.
BIO
Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.
His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country. His columns are seen in Asia and around the world, on Inquirer.net.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was named Ivy Orator, the class humorist.
Thanks for listening to Emil Amok's Takeout!
http://www.twitter.com/emilamok
http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Show notes (index at bottom)
Korean American community leader John Lim from the KCCD/MyKoreanStory.org series on "Sa-I-Gu." Go to www.saigue429.org. Also, how Chinese Takeouts in Philadelphia are being discriminated against in another story that involves Asians and African Americans pitted against one another. Councilman David Oh details how what started with home invasions has progressed into harassment by police. Oh, a Korean American, says he gets guidance from the brutal death of his cousin in Philadelphia in 1958. Beaten by black youths, In Ho Oh died, but his family rejected revenge in favor of forgiveness. And it's the third year after the murder of my cousin, Stephen Guillermo.
http://aaldef.org/blog/emil-guillermo-trumps-100-days-la-riots-cousins-death-asian-pacific-american-heritage-month-david-da.html
Emil Guillermo: Trump's 100 vs. real anniversaries: the LA riots, a cousin's death, and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month; PODCAST: Will Dao get a tax cut? And more... April 27, 2017 4:44 PM
I guess Dr. David Dao didn't want to drag it out. He didn't need 100 days. Neither did United. CEO Oscar Munoz continues his apology tour in the media with a new report that heralds changes in service, including an increase in fees from $1,350 to $10,000 for bumped passengers. Dao's settlement amount hasn't been disclosed. Frankly, I would have dragged it out in the media, what with court delays and every story accompanied by the shrieking doctor being treated like a sack of rice. So, good for United. But not necessarily good for the consumer, because now the pressure is off of United to live up to its word.
For now, we're left to wonder if Dow will benefit from that Trump Tax plan. TRUMP'S 100 The obsession over Trump's 100 days is natural. It's a round number check-up, the first benchmark we have to contemplate the big question: Did America make a mistake electing Donald Trump? But most of us knew the answer on Nov. 9. And there is no political "morning-after-pill." So more than an arbitrary thing, the 100-day window lets everyone give the victor the benefit of the doubt and show us he's legit.
With 100 days, it's even rigged in favor of the president. Mind you, the "honeymoon" phase is when the president's capital is said to be at its highest (largely because he hasn't screwed up yet). Rightfully then, we can expect the "100 days" to give us a good sense of the absolute best an incoming president can do. In other words, it's never going to be any better. This is it. Which makes it troublesome that as we approach the 100th day, the best we can say is, "Can we get an annulment?" No, here's what can be said. Trump knows how to be a boss. He just doesn't know how to be president. He knows closely-held family businesses and is all too willing to appoint inexperienced family members to influential positions. Democracy? It's an alien notion to Trump. LIke his towers, he likes to be the big bully, above it all. With three immigration executive orders held up in federal court (two on travel bans, one on sanctuary cities), it's clear he doesn't know the limit of his reach. His tax cuts are like his public payout for your silence. Raising the standard deduction for individuals may put a few hundred bucks in your pocket. But it's nothing compared to the corporate tax cut. And according to Trump, it's all made up by growing the economy at 3 percent. It's a variation of "trickle down" economics. Over the last 30 years, we've already learned that "trickle down" theories don't work well in practice. Cutting taxes on the rich so they reinvest in jobs and it all magically trickles down throughout the economy is a nice fantasy. But it doesn't work (not if companies merely use cash to buy back shares and pay the top execs). The plan enriches the 1 percent and practically guarantees the growth of budget deficits, putting the country in the red--if the fantasy doesn't come true. Couple all that with Trump's huge military budget, and his 100 day penchant for using missiles in Syria and Afghanistan like he's trying to outdo Kim Jong Un, and you see where this could all be heading. It's not the middle class, let alone America first. The tax cut is bad policy. Don't let Trump buy your silence. It's not like a money back guarantee. Besides, your vote in our democracy is worth way more than that. Resist. Insist on tax fairness. Trump said in his campaign he'd raise taxes on the rich. Make him live up to that. Either that, or it's just another Trump lie. A typical flip-flop like we've seen in the first 100 days. From China, to trade, to NATO, to his bad appointments, to his aggressive military stands without Congressional approval, the president has done more in 100 days to discredit himself than to reassure us in his presidency. Hence, my grade for Trump: F. And that doesn't stand for Filipino. And if you still believe, like Trump, that the 100 day marker really doesn't matter, well, it does mean this. America still has a healthy sentence remaining for which there is no parole. You can mark it on the wall with chalk, but it's better simply to act up and resist. After April 29th, we've got 1,360 days left. That includes the lost days if Trump's politicking results in a government shutdown.
What can you expect from Trump but the best kind of gridlock we've ever seen? IN LOS ANGELES, ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY: 25 years, or 9,125 days later In Korean, the phrase being used is "sa-i-gu," or 4-2-9, the date most Korean Americans will never forget. If you were in Los Angeles, you were at ground zero. They call it a riot. They call it an uprising. There was plenty to be upset about. The Rodney King verdict--which acquitted four police officers caught on videotape beating King--was the flashpoint. But it also allowed a community to vent about everything else, including the case of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old girl who was shot and killed by a South Korean store owner. Soon Ja Du, the liquor store owner, was convicted of manslaughter, fined, given five years 'probation, but no prison time-- even though the jury suggested Du get 16 years.
That, combined with the King verdict, is said to have triggered six days of unrest. It left 55 dead, 2,000 injured, 11,000 arrested. And it was the Korean American community that bore the brunt of the outrage. On the AALDEF podcast, I play a clip from the Korean Churches for Community Development's (KCCD) partnership with KoreanAmericanStory.org. The first story is from John Lim, who was the president of the Korean American Bar Association in 1992. He says Korean Americans, by virtue of their businesses, were misperceived by the media and the public as reaping economic benefit from the African American community and "not giving back."
Because of that, Lim says Korean Americans were unfairly victimized during the riots. They were harshly treated in the aftermath when liquor licenses were taken away, and families not compensated. Lim doesn't see why a struggling Korean American community, most of them newly arrived post-1965, should have been blamed for the hundreds of years of social injustice endured by African Americans in society. The KCCD Commemorative service is one of many to be held this weekend in Los Angeles at the Oriental Mission Church, at USC, and UCLA. Listen to Lim on our podcast: coming soon! IN DEFENSE OF TAKEOUTS, and In Ho Oh I've named our podcast "Emil Amok's Takeout," and that means we have a soft spot in our heart for Chinese takeouts. In Philadelphia, takeouts are under siege by overzealous cops who often ticket them unfairly for being open after 11 p.m.
I talk with Philadelphia councilman David Oh about the situation. Are Chinese takeouts no different than the Korean liquor store owners of Los Angeles? Oh talks about that. And he tells his own personal story of his cousin beaten to death in 1958 in Philadelphia. It was a Korean/African American story that was felt from Philadelphia to Seoul. The story of In Ho Oh has become a motivating factor for David Oh in the modern racial disputes he sees. It teaches him to seek the high road--by rejecting revenge and offering forgiveness. As you'll hear in the interview, it didn't take the family 100 days in 1958 to show its compassion MY COUSIN STEPHEN--1,095 DAYS LATER Finally, on the podcast, Oh speaking about forgiveness makes he consider my own cousin's murder. Stephen Guillermo was gunned down May 3, 2014 when he entered the wrong apartment by mistake. The resident, an African immigrant, was armed and shot him with a single bullet. I've written about it here.
The murderer was known, was arrested, and then released. The DA wouldn't touch the case. My cousin remains a victim, with no real resolution or sense of justice. But a story like In Ho Oh's offers some comfort and guidance as we approach May 3rd, 1,095 days after Stephen's murder. In these key anniversaries, we remember as we approach Asian Pacific American Heritage Month how easy it is to slip into an unwitting divide-and-conquer mindset. No one wins, if we take the bait and fight each other. After hundreds of days, in these painful instances where the poor are pitted against the poor, maybe our best options always come down to this: forgiveness, understanding, and empathy. *
Emil Guillermo is an independent journalist/commentator. Updates at www.amok.com. Follow Emil on Twitter, and like his Facebook page. The views expressed in his blog do not necessarily represent AALDEF's views or policies. SHOW LOG
:30 Hello
1:45 Prevue on LA Riots
2:30 Prevue of Takeout Discrimination
4:00 Dr. Dao Settles with United
6:30 More on Trump's 100 days and the tax plan
11:56 25 years after the LA Riots, on 4-29 Sa-I-Gu
14:40 John Lim from KoreanAmericanStory.org, and their Sa-I-Gu project
28:46 Chinese Takeouts discriminated in Philly
Philadelphia David Oh intro
30:06 David Oh talks about how the situation began.
1:01:00 Oh's cousin, In Ho Oh
1:04:00 Act of Forgiveness
1:06:00 Stephen Guillermo
1:12:30 Wrap up on Stephen
Contact:
http://www.aaldef.org/blog
http://www.twitter.com/emilamok
http://www.amok.com
Thanks for listening to Emil Amok's Takeout
Don't tell the Laotian community in Richmond, CA that environmental racism doesn't exist. They've been fighting corporate polluters and making them listen to their voices for years. Miya Yoshitani of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) talks about their story fpr Earth Day as an inspiration for other Asian Americans to take action in the Trump era
Shownotes:
2:50 Emil Amok's take on Trump
5:19 On Bill O'Reilly's ousting
7:30 On Earth Day
8:00 Intro to Yoshitani interview
17:00 Fighting an incinerator in Chicago
18:40 On Environmental Racism
21:00 On toxic waste and race
26:00 The Richmond success story
27:25 The Laotian Organizing project
29:30 The need for multi-lingual communication
32:54 Environmental activism means engaging in democracy
36:00 The environment provides our common ground
56:00 How Asian Americans can fight Environmental Racism
1:11:00 The smelly dog food factory
1:11:20 Staying optimistic
Read more from Emil Guillermo at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Leave a comment at http://www.amok.com
Leave a voice mail on Speakpipe while you're there.
Tweet @emilamok
Thanks for joining us on "Emil Amok's Takeout."
Emil Guillermo: Dragged United passenger Dr. David Dao is no Rosa Parks, but he could be a poster boy for all consumers
April 13, 2017 4:45 PM
When the U.S. drops the "mother of all bombs" on Afghanistan as a worldwide message, it's time for a little sobering perspective.
Maybe we could take a little more time to treat all people with a little more respect, fairness and dignity in our everyday lives. Person to person. And certainly, corporation to consumer.
Which brings us to the viral bombshell of a story that won't die.
If United, or anyone else, thought the dragging of Dr. David Dao was a short-term headline that would go away with a simple apology, they were sorely mistaken.
Dao's tale is bigger than anyone thought. It's soon to become the last stand for the modern global consumer.
Dao, the 69-year-old man dragged off a United flight so that the airline could seat its own employees, has hired Thomas Demetrio, a top-notch personal injury lawyer based in Chicago. At a press conference Thursday, Demetrio made it clear how he saw things.
Demetrio didn't think the case was about race, even though Dao in one of the now numerous cell phone videos could be heard asking if United was asking him to leave the plane because he was Chinese. (At the press conference, Dao's daughter, Crystal, clarified that Dao immigrated from Vietnam.)
To further his point, Demetrio shared with the media an e-mail he'd received from someone suggesting that Dao was the "modern day Asian Rosa Parks."
"I don't think that's the case at all," Demetrio said. "What happened to Dr. Dao could have happened to any one of us."
Demetrio said Dr. Dao "has come to understand that he's the guy to stand up for passengers going forward."
In other words, he's the universal little guy.
But race did come into play in one significant way when Dao told Demetrio how he felt about the dragging. On one of the phone videos released, Dr. Dao was seen crying out, "just kill me, just kill me." A reporter asked what Dao meant by that?
"I asked him that question; here's what he told me," said Demetrio. "He said that he left Vietnam in 1975 when Saigon fell. And he was on a boat. And he said he was terrified. He said that being dragged down the aisle was more horrifying and harrowing than what he experienced in leaving Vietnam."
If there's a lawsuit coming, and indeed there is, I don't think United stands a chance.
As a writer on race issues in America, I've often wondered what one factor in our society could become our common ground and end the pain of discrimination. Twenty years ago, I thought age would allow us to see beyond race. The ageists of the world have proved me wrong. In Dao, a 69-year old loving father with multiple grandchildren, I think we have the answer.
He's the battered consumer in this angry, short-tempered society, standing up to the corporation.
Race? Not primary. It may have helped the Chicago Airport cops to see him as an "other" so they could drag him away with zeal. But basically, race is irrelevant.
Dao was a seated ticket holder, a profit center to the corporation. And when it didn't need him anymore, it violently bullied Dao and treated him like crap.
We can all relate to that. It's what I thought on Monday when I first heard the story.
Now Dao is poised to become the one who fights for what all consumers deserve.
Demetrio said there were three things every consumer should demand: fairness, respect, and dignity. "That's it," Demetrio said. "I hope [Dao] becomes the poster child for all of us."
It's not the position that most Asian Americans willingly seek out. Most hold on to the stereotype--unless you are chosen, and it's beaten out of you.
And then there's no other option but to speak up. You take a stand, and become what I've long called since my Asian Week days: a "Public Asian."
Dr. Dao wasn't at the press conference.
Demetrio said he was at a secure location and appreciated if the media would leave him alone. Ultimately, Dao will return to Louisville, but probably by car. Said Demetrio: "He has no interest in ever seeing an airplane."
Hear bits of the media conference in Ep.9 of the ALDEF podcast, Emil Amok's Takeout.
I also interview an Asian American from Kentucky, Mimi Hwang. She talks about the local reaction to Dao, who lives in the Louisville area, and gives her own perspective as a business owner and as someone who has experienced what it feels like to be bullied due to her Asian background. It happened to her family in 2015. She also says that while the Dao story is empowering, the micro-community of Asians has little voice and no support from social justice organizations.
I even mention if the community has heard from Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation, who happens to be the wife of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell.
No, Hwang said. But she'd welcome Chao's support in the community.
Show notes
Opening
1:54 The Shriek
5:08 “I am not going…”
5:34 Thomas Demetrio, Dao’s lawyer
5:53 Rosa Parks?
6:13 Opening of Press conference
11:58 Dao’s the guy
12:25 On United CEO’s Apology
14:20 Crystal Pepper, Dao’s daughter
15:46 On seeing Dad dragged on video
16:00 Dao’s injuries
17:41 “Just kill me.”
19:06 The first 20 minutes of the whole conference (including a repeat of the first 6 minutes).
39:00 End of conference
41:48 Mimi Hwang at her martial arts studio, talk about the Louisville community where
Dr. Dao is from and about her own experiences with racism.
1:06:51 Emil’s conclusion.
Contact Emil at http://www.aaldef.org/blog, the site of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
If you like what you see, consider clicking the "DONATE" button. AALDEF is a 501 C3 and your contribution is tax-deductible.
Give us your feedback there, or at www.amok.com
Leave a voice message. We might use it in a future show.
Consider subscribing for free on iTunes, where you can rate and review.
You'll also find us on YouTube, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.
BIO
Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.
His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country. His columns are seen in Asia and around the world, on Inquirer.net.
His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.
Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news.
As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations.
After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.
Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.
Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.
In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was an Ivy Orator and class humorist.
Thanks for listening to Emil Amok's Takeout!
Emil Amok's Takeout is the podcast/radio program of award-winning journalist and commentator Emil Guillermo.
Read his takes on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund blog at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
And at http://www.amok.com
On this episode, he is astonished by the sudden change in Trump. Yes, Syria is a grave situation. But Trump, the man of walls, the man who would chop off 24 million from Obamacare, and pass along any savings to his generals, has never shown anything but a tough, hard bottom-line approach to life. So forgive me for being skeptical of his jingoism because he was moved by the victims of Syria's Assad.
Let's see if Trump says anything at all about the Bataan Death March.
It's iconic and yet, no one really knows a whole lot beyond the name. The Filipinos in America know how important it was. And now a move is on to make sure it's in the California high school curriculum. April 9 marks the 75th anniversary of the death march where 10,000 Filipinos lost their lives compared to about 650 U.S. soldiers. Daniel Gonzales, professor of Asian American Studies at SF State University is interviewed. (At 9:30).
Bonus material: "Ghost in the Ship" flopped in its opening week. And we know why! Jenn Fang's favorite anime growing up has been blasphemed by Dreamworks' live action approach. She said it's even worse than she could have imagined. Hear her discuss the problems. Spoilers? The movie comes pre-spoiled. (Starts around 54:00)
That's it.
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If you liked what you've read or hear on the podcast, share with a friend. Or even make a tax-deductible donation on the blog page. AALDEF is a full non-profit serving the Asian American community.
You might know about Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII, but did you know the U.S. also rounded up Japanese Latin Americans, mostly from Peru.
They were held and imprisoned in the U.S. to be used as pawns of war. About 2,200 were rounded up.
On Emil Amok's Takeout, I talk to two survivors, Art Shibayama, 86 , and Blanca Katsura, 86. Both were 12-years old and living in Peru when their families were taken from their Latin American homeland and placed in a camp in Texas.
Recently, Shibayama brought his case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at the Organization of American States. The hope is to force the U.S. to give a proper apology and reparations equal to the Japanese Americans who were interned during WWII. Because of their foreign status, Japanese Latin Americans were offered a fourth of what Japanese Americans received.
Show Notes:
2:00 Emil's take on Trumpcare defeat
5:00 How to Fix Obamacare
8:00 Art Shibayama calls it kidnapping.
14:20 Blanca Katsura felt she was without a country.
16:11 Phil Tajitsu Nash, civil rights activist and AALDEF board member talks about the significance of the case before the IACHR.
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Emil Guillermo
In an exclusive interview, host Emil Guillermo talks with Profs. Scott Kurashige and Emily Lawsin about their discrimination lawsuit filed against the University of Michigan.
See more on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund blog, http://www.aaldef.org/blog
The lawsuit paints a broad picture of discrimination and exclusion at the school that Kurashige previously documented in his writing and in the media. The suit alleges his outspokenness on exposing the school’s discriminatory demographics (e.g., only 4.1 percent Black, 4.6 percent Hispanic, 0.2 percent Native American in 2015; only 4 percent of students from low-economic status in 2014) led to his termination as director of the Asian and Pacific Islander American Studies Program in 2013.
Kurashige, a tenured professor and a winner of the American Historical Association’s Beveridge Award, alleges he was blacklisted by colleagues and forced to resign in 2014.
Lawsin was also harassed for attempting to expose discriminatory practices at the school. While on protected leave to care for a baby with Down syndrome in 2015, she alleges the school began layoff proceedings that turned into a move to terminate. Lawsin has since been barred from teaching her classes for the winter 2017 semester.
Their lawyer, Alice Jennings said the university had no cause for action against Kurashige or Lawsin.
“As is usually the case where an individual is championing the rights of others and refuse to accept racial and sex discrimination aimed at them, the institutional process, by individual leaders or administrators, creates pretextual allegations against the person or community of persons to give a logic to their discriminatory or retaliatory actions,” Jennings told me.
Jennings continued: “I think what occurred with professors Kurashige and Lawsin is precisely what occurs in an academic culture that is systemically racial and sexist and geared to perform in a protect manner against people of color who will not allow themselves to be undercompensated, -evaluated or humiliated, degraded and treated with disrespect, where others — non-people of color, similarly situated are treated more favorably.”
“We will vigorously defend the university against this lawsuit,” University of Michigan spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald said in media reports.
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Thanks for listening to Emil Amok's Takeout
With just hours before the Travel Ban 2.0 was set to take effect, federal judge Derrick Kahala Watson in Honolulu halted it nationwide by issuing a temporary restraining order to the listed plaintiffs: the State of Hawaii and Ismail Elshikh.
You heard a lot about Hawaii, but not much about Elshikh in most of the news reports.
Elshikh was critical to the important issue of standing to file the lawsuit.
Hawaii's claims were similar to the state of Washington's in the suit that stalled the first travel ban. Like Washington, Hawaii's universities would suffer monetary harms, as would the state as a whole--especially its important tourism industry.
But Elshikh was the named human face in this suit.
Read more at http://aaldef.org/blog/emil-guillermo-thanks-to-hawaii-and-ismail-elshikh-travel-ban-20-blocked-for-now.html Also important was the anti-Muslim rhetoric of Trump during the campaign, which the judge noted as indicative of the travel ban's real motive. Maybe the administration will learn that even a "watered down" version of Islamophobia is still Islamophobia and no way to fight terrorism. That's especially true when the hateful rhetoric inspires hateful actions as it did in Olathe, Kansas recently. I play an interview I did with Jenn Fang just days after the murder of Srinivas Kuchibhotla. We talk about the president's reaction, how the Vincent Chin case compares, and why Asian Americans should care about Islamophobia. See the SAALT report here: http://aaldef.org/blog/emil-guillermo-is-srinivas-kuchibhotla-the-vincent-chin-for-south-asians.html Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist, columnist, commentator, broadcaster, and talk host. See all my blog posts at http:/www.aaldef.org/blog and at http://www.amok.com Thanks for listening to Emil Amok's Takeout. http://www.aaldef.org/blog
In Emil Amok's Takeout, host Emil Guillermo, writer on the Asian American Legal Defense and Educaton Fund blog (www.aaldef.org/blog) talks about the new travel ban.
Even sanitized, the ban is an attack on Muslims and Muslim Americans.
Beyond the travelers it specifically bans, it authorizes a provision to create a data base of foreign nationals in America and the crimes they commit.
A score card! What better way to criminalize an innocent community. It's another wrongheaded attempt by Trump 45 which will only alienate and anger Islamic people, not just from the six countries in the ban, but all Islamic countries and the communities where they live in America.
Good job, Trump!
Emil also talks to Deepa Iyer, author of the book, "We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim,and Sikh immigrants shape our multi-racial future."
Iyer says immigrant communities are already in fear. She denounces the travel ban, and talks about how it fans xenophobia in the U.S.
Specifically, she talks about the shooting death in Olathe, Kansas, where one Indian engineer was killed and a second on injured in February.
Iyer says the killing has impacted the Indian community, which she says is "becoming woke."
Go to Emil Amok's bio at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
It's not every day an undocumented person gets to sit in the chamber of power and listen to the president.
But that's what happened to Angie Kim.
Emil Guillermo talks with Kim, a community organizing fellow at the Minkwon Center for Community Action in Flushing, Queens, NY.
Brought to the U.S. at age name by her parents from South Korea, Kim qualified for President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals program (DACA), in 2012.
It gave her the right to get a work permit and stay in the U.S. Now 32, her future is in jeopardy, as President Trump has yet to say what will happen with DACA recipients. In recent days, some DACA recipients have been apprehended by ICE under new broad guidelines.
Kim, invited to the speech by Congresswoman Grace Meng, didn't get a shout out like the widow or Ryan Owens. Kim shares her thoughts on the politics of the night and how she uses her activism to deal with the fear she faces as the only undocumented person in her family
Emil Guillermo write for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund blog. He is an award-winning journalist who was once an NPR host, newspaper columnist, and TV reporter.
See his work at www.aaldef.org/blog
Or at www.amok.com
www.twitter.com/emilamok
Emil Amok on the Speech. amok.com March 1, 2017
It wasn’t exactly a State of the Union, more like a Trump state of mind.
But that means the best thing you could say about Trump45’s address before Congress is this: At least the TelePrompTer didn’t break.
If it did, who knows what we would have seen on speech night.
“Campaign Trump”?
Or “Twitter Trump”?
That’s the Trump who has been the real enemy of the people.
But this speech was slightly more tempered. Milder. And he didn’t veer off wildly.
The president showed us all— he could read!
Sad.
And just for doing that, 78 percent of viewers in a CNN/ORC poll gave Trump positive marks.
Now that’s something Trump understands. Ratings.
Governing, however, has been a mystery. But now Trump will learn from experience that if you give a political speech that’s long on promises on things like jobs, education, infrastructure, and Obamacare, without a stitch of detail on how to keep those promises, let alone pay for them, ratings can go up.
And maybe he’ll start acting normal?
That’s something both to welcome and to fear.
Welcome because he’s not 100 percent in your face.
Fear, because he’s figured out how the game works.
And that of course, makes Trump more dangerous than ever.
There were two things specifically I was looking for in the speech, that left me pretty disappointed.
Though Trump began the speech talking about Black History Month and civil rights, he really could have condemned the threats to the Jewish Community Centers and the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries much stronger than he did.
And he could have dwelled on the shootings of Indian Americans in Olathe, near Kansas City. One man, Srinivas Kuchibhotla died. Another Indian American was wounded.
A Caucasian man, Ian Grillot,24, was wounded trying to disarm the shooter, another Caucasian male, Adam Purinton, 51, who started it all by hurling racial slurs at the Indians.
These are the kind of things Trump45 has brought out in America since the start of his presidency.
We should have seen a passionate denunciation of these acts. Instead, rump simply read the prompter then bathed in the shower of self-congratulatory applause.
It was as if just by being gracious makes him a hero.
But what did Trump do since he’s taken over?
With his anti-immigrant, build-a-wall, nationalistic rhetoric, he has given a segment of America a signal that hate is OK in America.
The O-KKK.
Trump’s victory unleashed all that on America.
But the president acknowledged it with just a single line: “While we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.”
It didn’t seem sincere. Not after the first 40 days. It seemed hollow.
He didn’t even mention the Asian Americans by nationality or name.
It was just a shooting in Kansas City.
Not good enough.
Of course, later in his speech, Trump milked another sentimental moment to honor Navy Senior Chief William “Ryan” Owens, who died in Yemen during a raid last January.
The military is always a safe bet. So honor a Gold Star family, and deplete the domestic budget in favor billions for the military.
But for the Jews, or for the murdered Indian immigrant?
Trump gave them short-shrift.
It’s the reason Trump’s big pre-speech “leak” that he would be calling for a bi-partisan immigration reform seemed just like an insincere tease.
After the travel ban fiasco, and the new ICE policies that have resulted in round ups of undocumented immigrants around the country, a real push for a compromise on immigration would have been a great headline.
But there was “no there, there.”
Not when Trump’s speech contained more talk of a border wall, references to “illegal immigrants,” and borders as “lawless chaos.” And then, as he is likes to do, Trump mixes border security with national security and all that entails, and creates for us all one big fear: “Radical Islamic Terrorism.”
And he used that exact counter-productive term, once again, despite advice to refrain.
By the time he got around to his pitch for a bi-partisan immigration “compromise,” Trump had no credibility with minority communities and those close to the immigrants who are living in fear.
Immigration has always been humanitarian based for political or economic reasons for the immigrant. The benefit to the U.S. has always been the extra.
Trump’s idea is for a merit-based immigration. He wants to cherry-pick the best, because the best will make money for Trump, the U.S., and that’s all he really cares about.
Once again, he could have made a better case had he mentioned the Indian man who died in Olathe, that suburb of Kansas City.
His name was Srinivas Kuchibhotla. He was a tech worker at Garmin, the gps company.
He was one of the immigrants Trump likes.
But not enough to mention in a major speech.
There were other glaring things Trump said. Like calling education the “civil rights issue of our time.”
Really? So is that why Betsy DeVos–the voucher queen hell bent on destroying public education–the new secretary of education?
And what about that travel ban? After the speech, Trump cancelled again the announcement for the new executive order that was to supercede the one held up by the court in Washington state.
Reports had it that Iraq would come off. Would other countries be added?
I worry for the Philippines.
This is the week the militant group Abu Sayyaf, home based in the Philippines, revealed a video showing the beheading of a 70-year-old German hostage.
Trump didn’t mention it at all.
But it was in the subtext when Trump said, “We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America—we cannot allow our Nation to become a sanctuary for extremists.”
Stated or unstated, you knew that the beheading in the Philippines, reported in the New York Times on speech day, could potentially be more fuel for Trump’s xenophobic fire.
And this was a toned down speech.
So if you hear people praise Trump about this speech and the polls giving him good marks for his performance, don’t be fooled.
All he did was stick to the TelePrompTer.
And act presidential. Remember, he’s all showbiz.
It’s still the same old Trump.
In this episode, recorded days before the announcement of Trump 45's new travel ban, journalist and commentator Emil Guillermo talks to Erika Lee, the director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. She's the author of the book, "The Making of Asian America."
If you’re Asian American, not a visa overstay, nor a DACA recipient, you may have your head down and not be paying attention to all the new proposals on immigration and border security.
But a new proposal could impact Asian Americans and their families and friends.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has proposed this idea: to collect private social media from Chinese visitors entering the U.S. on tourist and business visas.
National security is again the stated fear, even though there’s little evidence to justify such an invasion of privacy.
This unfair scrutiny based on race and national origin could result in unjust harassment, detention and should be a chilling reminder to Asian Americans whose ancestors were the first major group to be targeted and banned from the U.S.
“These types of actions do affect Asian Americans,” historian Erika Lee, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, told me on the AALDEF podcast, “Emil Amok’s Takeout.” “Asian immigrants are the fastest, not only immigrant group in the United States, but the fastest growing undocumented immigrant group in the United States. So they are directly impacted by these interior enforcement and border security propositions and policies.”
Collecting information from Chinese business and tourist visa holders could just be the beginning of a greater overreach by the government.
On the week when a new revised travel ban is expected, Lee warns: “If any of our international relations with Asian countries get even more rocky, who knows who will be added to the travel ban.”
Lee adds: “I don’t think that class status or national origin protects new Asian immigrants from these policies. But certainly as Asian Americans, whose families have lived through (the consequences of previous bans like Chinese Exclusion), the need to act up is imperative. The need to talk about solidarity, and show solidarity couldn’t be more clear.”
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Feb. 19 is the 75th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin Roosevelt. It was the start of a nightmare for Japanese Americans who were rounded up and placed in internment camps during World War II.
How did it happen? And could it happen again to another group?
Phil Tajitsu Nash is an Asian American history professor at the University of Maryland, a civil rights lawyer, and a board member of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
He talks about how Roosevelt came to sign 9066 despite information that should have negated any sense that Japanese Americans represented a threat.
He also talks about how the internment personally impacted his family.
Read more on the blog at http://www.aaldef.org/blog
Virginia Beach dentist Allan Bergano, an Asian American of Filipino descent wasn't going to go down without a fight.
A city road widening project was forcing him to move. But after spending more than $400,000, he went to the city for relocation costs and was denied.
Officials said there decision was final. There would be no appeal.
Bergano sued the city in Federal Court. But it wasn't easy.
It was his sense of the historical discrimination faced by Filipinos in America that kept him focused on the fight.
Listen to the podcast. Read his story on the AALDEF blog, http://www.aaaldef.org/blog