I’m no oracle, but in yesterday’s column, I wrote about the urgent need to do something about AAPI gun violence. And that if we didn’t, we would see the likes of Monterey Park shooter Huu Can Tran again, as our community assimilates into the American gun narrative.
I just didn’t figure it would hap...
When I think of Monterey Park, Calif., I think of Monty Manibog, who was elected to the city council in 1976 and became the first Filipino American elected official in Southern California. It was considered a milestone in Asian American Filipino empowerment. Manibog served for 12 years, including a ...
This was not the Lunar New Year news we expected. The rabbit year portends peace and hope, not fear and dread.
And then came the mass shooting that left ten dead in Monterey Park.
“There is a male suspect that fled the scene, and remains outstanding,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert G. Luna...
Take a good look at 56-year-old Billie R. Davis from Indiana. The piercing glance. The eyes. Because she’d probably look at you a little differently if you’re Asian American.
Davis has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery, and battery by means of a deadly weapon.
She stabbed an 1...
Robert Hur is the AAPI Person of the Hour. Maybe for the next couple of years. For Fox News Republicans drooling over any potential Biden misstep, Hur will be seen as their go-to guy as they seek to bury the president.
That’s what happens when Attorney General Merrick Garland appoints a special cou...
In this age of ugly politics, we must start this piece with a sense of hope.
It’s good news that Buffalo Bills football player Damar Hamlin–who actually died of cardiac arrest on a football field last week but was revived by defibrillation–is now walking and talking on his road to recovery.
As for...
What’s happening in Congress to Kevin McCarthy hasn’t happened since 1923,100 years ago. But it’s nothing like what’s happened to Asian Americans in that Congress.
Still, that’s not the history people will focus on today.
Instead, they’ll be talking about the history of January 6 and how in 2021, ...
As 2022 ended, a Pope emeritus (Benedict) and a woman broadcaster who kicked open the “white men only” doors for all (Barbara Walters) have died. Asian Americans were touched by both, and I was going to comment on their passing. I was also going to update you on what the new Purdue president, the Ho...
The racist slur of Chancellor Thomas Keon, the CEO of Purdue University Northwest, remains a cloud over Asian America, but it seems like many people want to pretend it doesn’t matter.
But it really does.
And the one person who can make it right, ironically, is Mung Chiang, an Asian American immigr...
Thomas Keon, Chancellor of Purdue University Northwest in Hammond, Indiana doesn’t speak Chinese, or any Asian language. He only speaks it for laughs. But he does not tell good jokes. Not for being the head of Purdue University’s regional campus south of Chicago. Despite his apology for not being fu...
Asian Americans should keep celebrating the passage and signing of the Respect for Marriage Act beyond the weekend.
You had a more important role than you realize in that historical Supreme Court case in 1967 that legalized racial intermarriages.
I know because I talked to the guy who argued the c...
Life is full of hard things and easy things. Let’s take the hard things first.
If you’re a science-type Asian you’ll appreciate why Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm used one of Pres. Joe Biden’s pet phrases to describe what was accomplished by American science today.
The phrase is “BFD.” And the...
The big takeaway from Georgia? People are noticing us. Asian American Pacific Islanders.
In Georgia, we’re there. At an estimated 133,000 voters, we’re relatively small in number, but we can help coalitions win big politically.
I noticed that when I visited my daughter in Albany, not CA, but GA, a...
The Senate Runoff in Georgia has a new mantra. On Tuesday, you just GOTA vote.
GOTA?
Get Out the Asian Vote, at least in Georgia.
If you know someone in that state, remind them that early voting ends on Friday. As I write, more than 1.1 million Georgians have already voted. Once early voting ends...
Excuse me. I had to wait a few days. Nov. 27 is both political and personal for me as an American Filipino.
It is the day I celebrate the birth of my cousin, Stephen, a next generation Filipino immigrant in my family, who in 1984 was 27 and about to finally graduate from college.
But then he was...
The runup to Thanksgiving is predictable. Like clockwork, President Biden has pardoned Chocolate and Chip, two North Carolina turkeys. But think about the other 45 million unpardoned birds and just go vegan. It’s not impossible to go beyond the cruelty of the Thanksgiving meal. You’ll still be full,...
A week ago, there was no Red Wave. Was there a Blue one?
If you look at other exit polls, not as much as there could have been.
BIPOC voters were seen and heard on election night. And their unity was the key.
But from the numbers, it appears the coalition is beginning to fray a bit.
Overall, whi...
I knew it wasn’t going to be a “red wave.”
I was watching Republican Allan Fung, dubbed by Fox as one who could flip Rhode Island’s decidedly blue Congressional District 2. When he lost, I knew some election day prognosticators would be confounded.
America did not exit from democracy on Tuesday. V...
Asian Americans know why our families are here. It wasn’t just economic opportunity. It was democracy.
Whether you or your family originally came on a boat or a plane, after a stint in a refugee camp, or after a decades-long wait for visa approval, we all have our story of why we came to America. W...
There’s a photograph in the news of a young Asian American woman holding up a sign at the Supreme Court last Monday
The sign said “My race is my story.”
It is all our stories.
It is more important than grades and test scores, really. It’s what we overcame to get where we are.
That’s what an admi...
