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May 16-22, 1997

Dump APA Heritage Month

What are we celebrating this May anyway?

Here's a cultural check. Did anyone greet you with the salutation, Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month? Did you forget? There's still time. We're half-way through Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 1997, and here are the most popular gifts so far:

* A hand-delivered subpoena.

* A "get out of jail free" card.

* A small "token of appreciation" in your name to the Fred Thompson for President campaign.

(Sen. Thompson is running the Senate part of the upcoming congressional hearings. At this point, it is unclear exactly where "token of appreciation" would fall under current campaign finance law.) Yes, a certain theme emerges this year and it has to do with the (gong, please) Asian Campaign Donation Controversy, what I like to call the community's ACDC problem.

As the investigation goes deeper, and as more and more Asian Americans seem ready to take the Fifth, it's absolutely devastated the one thing Asian Americans could look forward to each and every year: a whole month to celebrate us. That's what May used to be.

Oh, it's also been the month for Mother's Day, Armed Forces Day, and Memorial Day. Not to mention first communions, graduations, and the Kentucky Derby. It's always been a crowded month. But now it's the month people are just waiting to see if a friend will show up on C-SPAN to answer questions on campaign donations. Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month?

The ACDC problem has only made the reality of the month clear. It's too political. It doesn't resonate among the people, Asian or otherwise. It doesn't have the kind of community support of a Black History Month. It's become the month for politicians to feel good about Asian Americans so they can be ignored the rest of the year. Unfortunately, this year ACDC has turned Asians into pariahs. Not only is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month barely acknowledged in the community, politicians see embracing Asians as a liability.

Case in point: Bill Clinton. There's such a pall on festivities this year, the president didn't even show up at the annual black-tie dinner of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Institute (CAPACI) in Washington last week.

Okay, let's be fair. Clinton had been the keynote speaker the previous two dinners, rousing events that supercharged the community. This time around, the president was in Mexico. Conveniently. So was the vice president. So who did the White House offer up to give the keynote address to the huge crowd of Asian American leaders? Bob J. Nash.

Who?

Bob J. Nash--a man more anonymous than Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Asian Americans, bloodied publicly in the last year, were desperately in need of a moral lift. All they were looking for was a sign of encouragement and support, a sign that all is not lost in the political constellation.

Clinton could have made a special trip back, maybe even arrange for a satellite chat. Just a few days earlier he had issued a proclamation hailing the congressional act, Public Law 102-450, which designates the month of May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. The word proclamation uses four syllables to describe something that most people reserve for two letters straight out of Sesame Street: B and S. As Clinton states in the document: "I call upon the people of the United States to observe this occasion with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities."

Does that include sending Bob J. Nash to the CAPACI gala?

With all due respect, Mr. Nash is an accomplished Washington bureaucrat. He is White House personnel director. And though many Asian Americans want jobs in the White House, they'd rather see Bob J. Nash in an office putting a star on their résumés and not up on a podium. You want the personnel guy at the podium? What's he going to tell you? How to pick the best HMO in the benefits plan? The personnel guy? Why not send the White House chef to compare noodle recipes?

If the White House wanted to be practical it could have sent the guy making all the phone calls to the Asian names on the contributions list. "Hey, Wang, Huang, Wan, whatever your name is. You got foreign money?" Most of the big donors were at the dinner. But that kind of efficiency is lost on the White House. Being direct is too painful. And too practical. Politics is not practical. It's evasive. So go to Mexico and send in Bob J. Nash. You've got your cover.

Never mind that offering Bob J. Nash is like sending Marshall Applewhite to pass out pairs of Nikes. By not showing up, Clinton couldn't have telegraphed a clearer message: Asian Americans are somewhere behind Hale-Bopp, far out of sight, and falling fast. In other words, politically dead. Hell, take the cultish metaphor all the way. Our current political voice can be aptly described as castrato.

To its credit, the CAPACI leadership gnashed its teeth and wisely refused Nash as a speaker. He was probably relieved. CAPACI folks pressed on without the president, or his proxy. The group ate its fish or chicken, and heard from both the Democratic and Republican National Committee chairs. Another big event in the feel-good month of May.

Who needs it? Maybe it's time just to acknowledge the failure of the month to take hold. It's penance month for politicians. Unless, of course, it's seen as a bigger sin to support Asian Americans. That's the pathetic thing. When the politicians don't even show up to Heritage Month celebrations, Asian Americans are in trouble. It's time to dump the month, and demand respect, 365 days of the year.

Emil Guillermo, a former host of NPR's All Things Considered, is an independent journalist and regular contributor to AsianWeek. E-mail him at emilamok@aol.com.