Wen Ho Lee to Be Released
September 28, 2000
Wen Ho Lee to Be ReleasedJudge agrees to bail, scientist to be electronically monitoredBy Sam Chu Lin & Wire ReportsA federal judge has agreed to $1 million bail for a scientist accused of mishandling U.S. nuclear secrets, saying that releasing Wen Ho Lee-who will be under constant surveillance-won’t compromise the nation’s security. |
|
| Also In This Section |
 |
Chinese Émigrés Sue Japanese CompaniesReparations for WWII slavery soughtLawyers pursuing reparations for World War II atrocities sued two Japanese conglomerates on Aug. 22 on behalf of Chinese people used as slave labor. The suit, which seeks class-action status, names Mitsui and Mitsubishi groups as companies which used slave laborers to produce rubber, grain and coal during a period beginning in the 1930s and continuing until the war ended in 1945. |
|
The INS of ‘Deportland’: Government officials investigate a series of problems with the handling of international visitors at the airport, where inspectors reject a far higher percentage of foreigners than at other West Coast airports.White Supremacist Group Threatened by Lawsuit: A lawyer who specializes in bankrupting hate groups is going after the Aryan Nations, whose compound in the Idaho woods has served as a clubhouse for some of America’s most violent racists. Cancer Survivors Seek Inspiration: APIs In the News: Crimes & Court: Washington Journal: |
Letters to the Editor
September 28, 2000
Organization of Chinese Americans Applauds Decision to Release Wen Ho Lee
- Editor’s Note: The following press statement was issued via mass e-mail.
Dear Editor: The Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) is pleased that Judge James Parker has reviewed the evidence and has concluded that Dr. Lee should be released on bail pending his trial.
“Even though Lee will be required to remain at home under surveillance, this is much better than solitary confinement. We will continue to monitor the situation and push for Lee’s right to due process and a fair trial,” said Winnie Tang of OCA’s South Florida chapter.
Victor Hsi, vice president of public affairs for OCA, noted that, “OCA has long argued that the case against Lee has been heavily influenced by biased media coverage, political partisanship, and attempts by investigative agencies to find a scapegoat for lax security procedures at the Department of Energy. In a recent amicus brief submitted to the court by the Asian Law Caucus and to which OCA is one of eight co-parties, we cited a number of actions as well as testimony from witnesses that indicate that Lee was selected for prosecution in part due to his identity as a Chinese American.”
Prior to last week’s bail hearing, OCA submitted to Judge Parker petitions signed by thousands of people around the country calling for fair treatment for Lee and his release on bail.
Testimony by government investigators admitting that they made erroneous statements about Dr. Lee’s actions at an earlier bail hearing were particularly troubling.
“Had government witnesses presented their testimony objectively and accurately from the outset, Lee might not have had to suffer eight months of harsh, solitary confinement.” said Leo Lee of OCA’s New York Chapter. “Judge Parker’s decision has gone a long way in restoring our faith in the judicial system.”
“We are happy that Lee will have the opportunity to go home to await and prepare for trial rather than having to endure further incarceration in a jail cell. OCA will continue to act to insure that Lee receives a fair trial and that he has not been singled out for prosecution simply because he is a Chinese American,” stated George Ong, OCA President.
The Organization of Chinese Americans is a national civil rights and advocacy group focusing on issues of importance to Chinese and Asian Americans. We are headquartered in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit our website at: www.ocanatl.org.
OCA
via the Internet
Asking for Assistance to Find Estranged Brother
- Editor’s Note: The following letter was published in the Nichi Bei Times.
Dear Editor: My name is Christine Hilton Milburn. I am searching for a missing sibling (Edward Hilton) who is of Japanese descent.
Edward was born in November 1950 in Yokohama, Japan. Our father, also named Edward Hilton, was an American GI stationed there. He and Edward’s mother (perhaps named Mickey) were married for several years.
Our father came back to the United States in 1952-1953. I know from the family that he requested that his wife and son return with him. For unknown reasons, however, they didn’t.
In the mid-1960s before our father passed away, he heard that Mickey had remarried and moved to the United States with her new American GI husband and her son, Edward.
Our father died in 1965 and with his untimely death all the memories of my brother vanished.
On May 5, 1999 I was told for the first time in my life of my brother. I have contacted embassies and local government officials here in the United States as well as lawyers in Japan. No one, however, has answered my letters.
I have exhausted all the resources available to me.
Edward is 49 years old now and may not be aware that he has five younger siblings. At the present time, I am the oldest of child. But I wouldn’t mind stepping down if I found my brother.
I don’t know if he would be completely overjoyed to learn he has five younger brothers and sisters. He may not even want to know us. However, I think he isn’t aware we exist. We may have been kept a secret from him.
The past is water under the bridge. Now, I only care about finding my brother. If anyone knows anything about Edward’s whereabouts, please contact me: 3405 Newark Rd., Marion N.Y., 14505. 315-926-0089.
Christine Hilton Milburn
Marion, N.Y.
List Missed ‘N Touch
- Dear Editor: I was extremely disappointed to not find what I consider the most popular bar frequented by Asian Americans in San Francisco in your story, “Cheers! A Roundup of San Francisco’s Asian-Themed Drinking Holes,” (Aug. 23).
On weekends there is almost always a line waiting to enter ‘N Touch. Where else can one find a dance floor filled with Asian Americans ready and eager to find an Asian Americanpartner?
European Americans make up only a small percentage of the patrons, and there is karaoke one night a week. Check it out.
Steve Lum
San Francisco
Correction
- In “Dem. Resources for You,” (Aug. 10) the address given for the Chinese American Democratic Club (CADC) was incorrect. CADC’s correct address is 706 Sacramento St., PMB 134, San Francisco, Calif., 94108.
Gore’s Class Act Gives Him a Post-Convention Lead
September 28, 2000
Convention bounce? Al Gore has been shot out of his Clinton-imposed obscurity like a man out of a cannon. In this circus, he’s no longer the side show. He’s hurtled to the lead or near lead in almost all major polls, erasing a deficit that was as much as 14 points in Bush’s favor. One poll (ABC/Washington Post) now puts Gore ahead by as much as 5 points.
People had predicted some kind of post-convention movement. That’s normal, but this was a raging leap, more than the traditional after-spurt. And somewhere there must be a political strategist trying to bottle whatever it was that made Gore look like an Asian American doing a power-slam over Shaquille O’Neal.
Fans of obscure pre-season basketball magazines, the kind that feature Dick Vitale and hail the likes of Chicago State in the Mid-Continent Conference, know that Gore’s feat is more than the result of training in some springy clod-hoppers that improve vertical leap.
And this should concern all Asian Americans.
Gore did it by carving out a new center for centrists. And guess what? Ethnicity doesn’t mean what it used to mean.
It was all orchestrated at the convention. After almost eight years of deferral, of being the Ed McMahon for the Clinton administration, every one wondered if Gore could stand on his own two feet, in his own spotlight, and register a blip on voters’ radar.
Most were prepared to see Clinton the sequel. “It’s the Economy Stupid: Part II.”
Surprise.
Beginning with the lip smacking he gave his wife, Tipper, Gore was his own man. Imagine that-a man who dares to kiss his wife of over 20 years. But guess what? When he set his tongue for talking, Gore didn’t go to the center to the acknowledged sweet spot of politics. He took sides.
And the new definition is an Al “for the people.” Al, “The Working Man.”
He’s not G.W.’s silver spoon. Gore’s pick-axe and shovel.
“This election is not an award for past performance,” Gore said. “I’m not asking you to vote for me on the basis of the economy we have. “Tonight, I ask for your support on the basis of the better, fairer, more prosperous America we can build together …
“Let’s make sure that our prosperity enriches not just the few, but all working families. Let’s invest in health care, education, a secure retirement and middle-class tax cuts.”
Gore went on: “So often, powerful forces and interests stand in your way, and the odds seemed stacked against you—even as you do what’s right for you and your family … That’s the difference in this election,” Gore said. “They’re for the powerful, and we’re for the people.”
I wonder how all those big corporate donors felt right about then? Do you think one of those protesters outside the Staples Center got to the Tele-E-Prompter guys and switched the speech? By comparison, Clinton on the convention’s first day was typically “New Democrat,” which is to say, somewhat Republican. He even adopted a phrase from the republicans by asking the question: “Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?”
Clinton presumed an all-inclusive yes. But if you answered, “just barely,” Gore stood for you. It’s the class battle: rich vs. poor. Gore strategists are reportedly targeting a new kind of swing voter: the non-college educated, working white female who’s making ends meet, but just barely.
It’s not the relaxed soccer mom of the past, the presentable cover-girl, latte in hand, driving the mini-van. It’s the harried soccer mom trying to figure out how she’s going to get her three kids to three different practices—and piano lessons. And wondering how she’s going to pay for all that and braces.
To the degree that’s us, we’ll be the focus of the rest of the campaign.
Sure, affirmative action, and the need for a hate crimes law comes up in stump speeches. Gore even mentioned Joseph Ileto, the Filipino American postal worker killed by the accused racist Buford Furrow, Jr. a year ago this month. That will win him some Filipino American voters.
But what Gore has done is not-so subtly make election 2000 politics color-blind. In an election where Latino voters had been called the “new soccer moms,” we’re now in a generic pile, lead by the non-college educated white female.
It also signifies a major shift that civil rights activists have been fighting for the last decade. Is it all about race or class? If class wins out and race isn’t nearly as important anymore, expect our issues to go through a major change, from affirmative action on down. Dr. King’s utopian vision may have been for color-blindness, but class has always seemed to offer only short-term remedies. When activists honored the anniversary of Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech last weekend in Washington, the issue was racial profiling. If class offers remedy and solution, then why do blacks and browns driving Mercedes attract equal suspicion by police? Class has its limitations.
But for Gore’s purposes, it’s perfect. It gives him a new center, and it lumps all us troubled souls into the hierarchy of dollars and cents. He doesn’t have to pay too close attention to any of us “ethnics.” Besides he has us all. The latest Field Poll in California showed Gore with a 40 point lead over Bush among Latinos, a 70 point lead among African Americans, and a small 7 point lead among Asian Americans. For years the complaint has been that we’ve been taken for granted. Will that be even more prevalent now? Just one of those things to ponder about. When “class” is king, it creates a subtle but noticeable shift in America’s identity politics. It’s not about the color of your skin anymore. It’s about the size of your wallet.
Who’s That Guy?
September 28, 2000
Every four years, Americans gather around their television sets to cheer on U.S. team members participating in the Olympics. The most popular sports—gymnastics, swimming, diving, for example—garner the greatest media attention, and the winners become instant household names. However, those who compete in less well-known sports, such as fencing, trampoline or shooting—as well as athletes who never make it to the winners’ stand—are too often forgotten, or perhaps never even acknowledged. After all, how many of Asian Americans know that this year six of the eight table tennis team members are API, or that Asian Americans make up about one-third of the fencing team?
In fact, 27 API family members will compete in Sydney. To celebrate their achievements, AsianWeek unveils its first Olympics magazine, complete with full-color photos, statistics and interviews. Look for the insert in next week’s issue.
City Living in a Dilemma
September 28, 2000
Boomtown with no room
By Andrew Lam/PNS
On a windblown hill overlooking the city, I said goodbye to a dear friend who was leaving for another state. We have been friends for over a decade and it was sad, to say the least, to see him go.
But as much as my friend, an artist, loved the city, the bay, its beautiful hills and blue sky, he felt it had somehow betrayed him.
“The city has become too expensive, too homogenized, too…I don’t know, dot-com,” he said. “Besides, I don’t want to be a renter for the rest of my life.”
This has become a common complaint. San Francisco-indeed, the whole Bay Area-is now facing an enormous dilemma: the economy is booming, but there’s no space left.
Housing nightmare stories are everywhere-like this one. A posh apartment with a view is available for $2,500 a month-a steal-and there are a dozen takers. The owner throws up her hands and says, “Well you’re all qualified, I don’t know what to do.”
One would-be renter immediately replies, “I’ll give you two roundtrip tickets first class to Paris.” The woman behind him, without missing a beat, offers, “I’ll do better. A cruise for two in the Mediterranean for two weeks.” Guess who got the apartment?
A caller to a local radio talk show recently said that though he was a technician with a decent job he is living in his van. “I can’t find anything affordable here,” he said. “I’m seriously thinking of quitting and going back to Kansas, where I can actually buy a house with money I saved.”
Simon, a friend from Hong Kong, is now renting out his walk-in closet for $500 to an acquaintance who asked him repeatedly. “I left Hong Kong for America but what I found is another Hong Kong,” Simon observes wryly. “Actually, my room in Hong Kong is at least twice the size of my closet.”
In my own apartment building, the landlord fixed up the basement storage room and rented it to a family. Three people are now living where a dozen bicycles were once kept.
The California Budget Project report shows rental cost tripling in the last four years in the Bay Area. In Silicon Valley, to the south, people have started to rent living rooms on a 12-hour basis.
Thus to live in the San Francisco Bay Area today, one must learn to give up the dream of home ownership, the idea of open space and the yard. One learns to live comfortably in small-even shared-space.
There’s a price to pay for being in the center of the information age. Despite gridlocked freeways, longer commute times, greater air pollution, loss of open space, and, of course, urban sprawl and overcrowding, the young and hopeful continue to flock here.
But is it worth it? One dot-com millionaire in his early thirties told me he is no longer sure. He owns a flat but he waits in line at his favorite restaurant like everyone else, since everyone else is a millionaire, too.
As a writer, my tenuous hold on the city is due to rent control. But I miss all the graffiti artists, musicians, friends who have left for some place where they can afford studio space to paint or perform. I miss, too, the poor working class families who, as if overnight, disappeared to wherever housing can still be had.
I miss, that is to say, the old San Francisco. When I came here 25 years ago, it was a generous city, diverse not only in terms of race but of class. These dot-com days, it belongs to the highest bidders and the dogged homeless who, as if taking revenge, crowd the sidewalks in every neighborhood.
Two young men on scooters glided past me on the sidewalk last week, one Asian, the other white, their arms and legs tattooed, wearing tank tops and baseball hats. As they neared, one said to the other, rather nonchalantly: “Have her resume sent to my secretary.”
I did a double take. So this was it, wasn’t it, I thought? These were the new inheritors of my City by the bay.
Andrew Lam, a commentator for National Public Radio, writes short stories and reports for New California Media, PNS’ ethnic media Web site at www.NCMonline.com.
More Asian American Women Leaders
September 28, 2000
A few weeks ago I wrote about the women who are leading advocacy organizations here in Washington, D.C. After the article was published, several folks wrote to ask why other prominent women were not included. For example, Rose Ochi heads the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, Jeannette Takamura serves as assistant secretary for aging at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Donna Tanoue serves as chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Each of these women supervises hundreds of staff and oversees budgets many zeroes large. They have the power to change important functions that are served by our federal government. And they are bringing female and Asian American sensibilities to their jobs, even though their function has no gender or racial requirement.
I focused on executive directors of Asian American community advocacy groups because contradictions must be overcome in order for an Asian American woman to take these roles. In a society that presumes white advantaged males are competent, those with other characteristics must prove their fitness for the job against a presumption of incompetence. Men are assumed leaders. Women are not. Asian Americans in leadership roles must battle against stereotypes of foreignness, inarticulateness and lack of assertiveness.
Asian American women, then, must not only do as well as other leaders, they must do better. They must overcome stereotypes, as well as real cultural and family lessons that taught them to stay in the background. They must battle men who are threatened by having a female boss. They must battle other women, who, like crabs in a bucket, hold women leaders back from achieving something that other women have not achieved (for those who saw the last episode of Survivor, notice how the men bonded together to help Rich win, while Sue took out her rage and feelings of inadequacy on Kelly).
One Asian American woman told me that the large number of women leading our community’s nonprofits in part reflects individual leadership skills—and a troubling sign that the API community does not value non-profit work.
An unfortunate reality in this society is that women have always worked but that the family-related aspects of female labor are devalued in three important ways: by not paying for it, by referring to it disparagingly as “housework” or “childcare,” and by not including it as part of economic calculations of the Gross National Product (GNP).
Asian American men still face tremendous family and community pressure to succeed economically, and nonprofits pay very low salaries and almost no retirement benefits. Nonprofit work also involves rolling up your sleeves and doing clerical as well as management functions on a regular basis; unfortunately, not enough Asian American males are being socialized to cheerfully assume this less-glamorous aspect of serving the underprivileged (although a new generation of male college students raised after the feminist revolution of the 1970s is helping to change this).
Being the executive director of a group involves pressures that no one can understand who has not been there. For example, you can ot be buddy-buddy with employees over whom you have the power of firing. To do so is a form of boundary crossing that is as bad as a teacher hanging out socially with students over whom they have the power of a grade.
Asian American women in leadership roles rarely see another face like theirs around the conference table. Many have had to forego families in order to keep up with the demands of their jobs. To be restricted from socializing with co-workers is difficult. More groups like the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education (for university administrators) are needed so that Asian American leaders can get together and share experiences in a non-threatening environment.
Asian American female CEOs, like male CEOs and those of other backgrounds, must daily address the demands of staff, board, community, the media and funders. Because community groups operate on a shoestring budget and are usually not organized as paradigms of corporate efficiency, situations often arise where budgets, board meeting packets, or annual meetings can dominate the flow of days or weeks. The ebbs and flows—and the constant pressure—can be debilitating for anyone. So, to be a woman and an Asian American on top of that is stressful. My hat is off to all of them, both those mentioned in my last piece and those I missed, who are all doing the job on behalf of the community.
Women moving outside the community to assume important jobs in the corporate or government sectors are also battling great obstacles, and deserve our collective thanks. For example, Yvonne Lee serves as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and Ruby Moy serves as the executive director for the Commission. They are protecting the civil rights of all Americans, not just Asian Americans. Kendee Yamaguchi and Shamina Singh serve as directors of important programs at the White House, while Ginger Lew has served as general counsel at the Commerce Department and now has made the leap to the corporate sector—as CEO of the Telecommunications Development Fund (www.tdfund.com). Other leaders in second tier jobs at powerful institutions are also making a tremendous impact on our community. For example, Gloria Caoile is special assistant to the International President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the biggest unions in Washington, D.C., and nationally. She is so well respected there that she has helped to convince the AFL-CIO and organized labor to support the Asian American community in a dozen ways. She, personally, and the union, as an institution, have played key roles in the formation of groups such as the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (www.apalnet.org) and the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (www.apaics.org), which serve our community every day in many ways.
In summary, Asian American women in Washington are making great strides not only in top-tier roles in community-based organizations, but are moving into leadership roles in government and industry as well. With the support of Asian American men and their fellow Asian American women, these leaders will certainly transform the landscape in this male-dominated town in the decades ahead.
Crimes & Court
September 28, 2000
Mother Begs for Mercy for Son
- Colorado Springs, Colo.-The three judges deciding the fate of convicted killer George Woldt will consider the testimony of two grief-stricken mothers. Woldt and his former roommate Lucas Salmon were convicted in separate trials for kidnapping, raping and murdering a woman in 1997.
Woldt’s Korean-born mother, who defense lawyers say is mentally ill, testified behind closed doors on Aug. 25. Song-Hui Woldt said that her son hated her because she is Korean. In a recent letter presented in court, George Woldt wrote that he would pay someone to murder his mother if he could videotape it and watch it over and over.
His lawyers claim that his paranoid schizophrenic mother embarrassed him and sexually abused him, causing permanent psychological damage that may have clouded his judgment on the night he and Salmon committed murder.
Estranged Husband Charged in Killing
- Eagan, Minn.-Murder charges were filed on Aug. 23 against the estranged husband of a police homicide worker found shot to death in her home.
Fu Joseph Heu, 38, was charged in Dakota County with second-degree intentional murder in the death of Marie Heu, 34. He was still on the loose on Aug. 23.
A witness who was at the home late on Aug. 21 told police that the couple were arguing and Marie Heu told her husband to get out of the house. The witness heard a gunshot and Marie Heu screaming for help, and Fu Heu yelled that the two of them were “going to die together,” according to Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom. The witness ran out of the house to get help, returning to find Marie Heu dead.
Police sought the public’s help in finding Fu Heu, described as Asian, brown-eyed, 5 feet 3 inches and 165 pounds. Anyone with information is asked to call Eagan police at 651-681-4700.
Hmong Festival Shooter Gets 50 Years
- Green Bay, Wis.-A man accused in the gang-related shootings of two teen-agers was sentenced to 50 years in prison. At the sentencing on Aug. 15, Oconto County Circuit Judge Larry Jeske called Pha Vue, 21, “a menace to society” who acted with “utter disregard for human life.”
Vue, of Wausau, was found guilty in June of two counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide with gang and weapons enhancers. The 1998 gunfire at the Brown County Fairgrounds during a Hmong festival wounded two 17-year-old boys. One of them was struck in the spine and remains partially paralyzed.
Man Accused of Stalking API Women Sentenced
- Dallas, Ore.-A Salem man accused of stalking Asian college women was sentenced to 34 months in prison Monday by Polk County Circuit Judge Charles Luukinen.
Bruce Allen Sitton, 44, apologized for an incident early June 20 at a Monmouth apartment complex but offered no explanation why he crawled through a window into a woman’s bedroom. He pleaded guilty to charges of burglary and unauthorized use of a vehicle in that case but did not admit to any of the other 21 incidents reported in the Monmouth area during an eight-month period.
An additional six incidents were reported in the Corvallis area. All involved women living off-campus from Western Oregon University or Oregon State University.
Final Defendant Pleads Innocent to Assault
- Vestal , N.Y.-The final defendant in the beating of a Binghamton University Korean American student pleaded innocent on Aug. 25 to a misdemeanor third-degree assault charge.
Chad Scott, 18, said nothing as he was arraigned. Scott and two other students, Nicholas Richetti, and Christopher Taylor were initially charged with felony charges of second-degree gang assault in the Feb. 27 beating that fractured fellow student John Lee’s skull. But the gang assault charges were reduced despite demonstrations and pleas from students and the Asian American community both here and in New York City. Richetti and Taylor have pleaded guilty to lesser charges.
Scott was released on his own recognizance. He is being prosecuted as a youthful offender because the charge is a misdemeanor. Already suspended from the college until 2002, he faces a maximum of six months in jail if convicted.
Asian American Awards & Appointments In the News
September 28, 2000
Community Service
- DENVER,CO.-Tom Migaka was awarded the Minoru Yassui Community Volunteer Award, an award that honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the city of Denver, and their community through volunteerism. The award was established in 1976 by the Commission Community Relations, of which Yasui was a member.
Monthly winners are awarded $2,000, which is then distributed to non-profit organizations and charities of the winners choosing. Migaki, president of the Mile-Hi chapter of the Japanese American Citizen’s League and former member of the Asian Chamber of Commerce, plans to divide his award between the two organizations.
San Francisco-Steven J. Doi was honored by the Hokka Nichibei Kai, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, the Japanese American Citizens League of San Francisco and other organizations for distinguished civic service and contributions to mutual understanding and promotion of better relations between the United States and Japan.
Doi received the Kunsho, The Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold rays with Rosette, and conferred by the emperor of Japan.
High-Tech
- SAN JOSE, Calif.-California Assemblyman Mike Honda has been named a High-Tech Legislator of the Year by the American Electronics Association (AEA). The AEA cited his “significant contribution to the advancement of technology in California.” AEA is the nation’s largest high-tech trade organization representing more than 3,000 U.S. electronics, software and information technology corporations.
The organization specifically lauded Honda for his work on a Senate bill that would return flexibility in work schedule for computer professionals in California.
Trade and Commerce
- SACRAMENTO, Calif.-Kathryn Doi was appointed by Gov. Gray Davis as counsel to the secretary of the California Trade and Commerce Agency.
Doi, 39, a native of Davis, was most recently staff counsel for the state’s Commission on Judicial Performance, where she investigated and evaluated complaints of ethical misconduct against state judges.
In her current post, Doe serves as an advisor to Agency Secretary Lon S. Hatamiya, and as lead counsel to the 300-person agency. The Trade and Commerce Agency includes the International Trade and Investment Division, the Economic Development Division, the California Division of Tourism and the Division of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Civil Rights
- MONTEREY, Calif.-Ross Hopkins was honored with Edison Uno Civil Rights Award issued by the Japanese American Citizen’s League. The award was established to honor accomplishments of civil rights activists among its members, as well as its own chapters.
Hopkins was instrumental in making the Manzanar National Historical Site project possible. When the former internment camp site was placed under federal jurisdiction by Congress in 1992, it had not been acquired by the federal government yet. Hopkins had been credited for steering the project through bureaucracy to help the National Park Service in purchasing the land. Congress recently granted funding for the site to continue educating visitors about the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII.
Communications
- SAN FRANCISCO-The Asia Foundation of San Francisco appointed Tami Adachi associated director of marketing, a post in which she will be responsible for developing marketing and communications, external communications and media relations.
Adachi was most recently in governmental and public relations at Pacific Gas and Electric Company in San Francisco.
The Asia Foundation is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization working to advance the mutual interests of the United States and the Asian-Pacific region. Founded in 1954, the organization has 14 offices in Asia, an office in Washington, D.C., and headquarters in San Francisco.
Cancer Survivors Seek Inspiration
September 28, 2000
By Joseph Coleman/AP
Hundreds of cancer survivors and their families sought inspiration this week at the heights of Japan’s most famous landmark: the summit of Mount Fuji. They got what they were looking for.
“A lot of people really cried at the top of the mountain,” said Kimiko Goldberg, a climber who has beat breast cancer-twice. “They never thought that they could do such a thing. It was very moving.”
More than 200 climbers-160 from Japan and about 50 from the United States-started the trek up the 12,460-foot Mount Fuji on Aug. 21 in the afternoon.
The plan was proposed by Andrea Martin, founder of the Breast Cancer Fund, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization, and Dr. Jinroh Itami. Itami is a Japanese oncologist who leads a cancer support group that considers mountain climbing an inspiring metaphor for the challenge of overcoming cancer.
The lesson is especially valuable for victims of breast cancer, which often recurs in past sufferers, said Martin, who has had the disease twice.
“This has helped them so much get back into their bodies and to heal,” she said of the climb. “It’s incredibly empowering.”
The group couldn’t have picked a better spot in Japan for inspiration. Mount Fuji, which rises dramatically in a perfect cone southwest of Tokyo, has drawn Japanese poets and mystics for centuries.
“It’s a tough mountain,” said Martin. “It’s very steep and it requires full concentration, all the way up and all the way down, every step has to be sure-footed.” Not all the climbers-which also included 200 family members and supporters-made it to the top.
The climb was the third for the Breast Cancer Fund. In 1996, 17 patients climbed the 23,000-foot Aconcagua in Argentina, and five breast cancer survivors climbed Alaska’s 20,400-foot Mount McKinley. The Mount Fuji climb had been in the works for a couple of years.
The climb was also aimed at bringing attention to increasing breast cancer rates. According to the Breast Cancer Fund, the disease is the leading cause of death for American women ages 25 to 55.
Each U.S. team member has raised from $5,000 to $30,000 for cancer research, education, patient support and other activities. Martin said the team as a whole raised $500,000.
In Japan, cancer is the leading cause of death and some 30,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year-a growth rate among the world’s fastest. Despite the disease’s prevalence, a tradition that encourages people to feel shameful about their illnesses has kept many Japanese from seeking emotional support.
“Especially in Japan, a lot of cancer patients are in hiding almost,” said Goldberg, a main Japanese organizer of the climb. “By knowing that there are those who are willing to climb, it could give them some encouragement.”
White Supremacist Group Threatened by Lawsuit
September 28, 2000
By Nicholas K. Geranios/AP
A lawyer who specializes in bankrupting hate groups is going after the Aryan Nations, whose compound in the Idaho woods has served as a clubhouse for some of America’s most violent racists.
In a lawsuit that goes to trial this week, attorney Morris Dees of the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center is representing a mother and son who were attacked by security guards for the white supremacist group. The victims are suing the Aryan Nations and founder Richard Butler.
“Put them out of business, that’s what we try to do,” Dees said when the lawsuit was filed last year. He has declined additional comment.
Butler said the lawsuit was brought by enemies of the white race.
“That’s the way it is for the white man today,” said Butler, 82. “I think it’s a rape of the American justice system.”
The case has its origins on July 1, 1998, when Victoria Keenan, 43, and her son Jason, 20, were driving on a country road near Hayden Lake. Their car backfired as it passed the Aryan Nations’ 20-acre compound.
Security guards for the Aryan Nations mistook the backfire for a gunshot, piled into a truck and chased the Keenans, who are part white, part American Indian, for two miles. They fired five bullets into the Keenan car and forced it off the road. Both Keenans were punched and threatened at gunpoint before the guards backed off.
Two of the guards were convicted of assault and are in prison. A third remains a fugitive.
The Keenans are alleging assault, false imprisonment and emotional distress at the hands of the guards, who they contend were agents of the Aryan Nations. They are seeking an unspecified amount in compensatory and punitive damages.
Butler and his attorney Edgar Steele are expected to argue that he should not be held liable for the actions of the volunteer security guards. Steele did not return a call.
In court documents, Steele described the security guards as “borderline derelicts” who were not under Butler’s control.
Butler’s beliefs should not be used against him, the defense documents said, “Demonizing Jews is still legal under the First Amendment.”
Dees has long used lawsuits to destroy the finances of hate groups. In six such lawsuits, the Montgomery, Ala., lawyer has never lost.
In 1987, Dees won a $7 million verdict against a Ku Klux Klan organization over the slaying of a 19-year-old black man in Mobile, Ala., forcing the group to turn over its headquarters building. In 1990, he won $9 million in Portland, Ore., against the White Aryan Resistance in the beating death of a black man by neo-Nazi skinheads.
The Portland case is similar to the Keenan lawsuit, in that Dees argued that White Aryan Resistance founders Tom and John Metzger incited the skinheads to commit murder.
Dees has received death threats in the past, so the Southern Poverty Law Center will have its own security force to augment the tight security promised by Kootenai County authorities.
Butler is pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, which holds that whites are the true children of God, that Jews are the offspring of Satan and that blacks and other minorities are inferior. He presides over weekly services in a chapel where an Israeli flag is used as a doormat.
Over the years, his disciples have included some of the most notorious figures in the white supremacist movement, such as Robert Mathews, Randy Weaver and Buford Furrow, a former security guard at the Aryan Nations compound who is awaiting trial in Los Angeles on charges of killing Joseph Ileto, a Filipino American postal carrier, and shooting up a Jewish day care center last summer.
Butler, however, has been largely able to escape jail time. In 1988 he was acquitted of federal charges that he was involved in a plot to overthrow the government.
Vincent Bertollini, a wealthy former computer executive who lives in nearby Sandpoint, Idaho, sent a mailing to thousands of Idaho households last week attacking Dees as an “anti-white, Jew supremacist.”
“Just think about it,” Bertollini’s mailing said. “A Jew team of lawyers trying to destroy a white Christian church.”
Dees is not Jewish.
Bill Wassmuth, whose Coeur d’Alene home was once bombed by white supremacists, said it is important to hold leaders of hate groups responsible for the actions of their followers.
“Will a successful outcome eliminate hate groups in the Northwest? No,” Wassmuth said. “Will it have an impact? Most certainly.”
The INS of ‘Deportland’
September 28, 2000
Treatment of foreign travelers scrutinized
By Tara Burghart & William McCall/AP
In a letter sent to Attorney General Janet Reno, Gov. John Kitzhaber and other Oregon officials on Aug. 23 accused immigration inspectors of treating foreigners unfairly at Portland International Airport and demanded a federal investigation. In a quick response, Johnny Williams, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Western regional director, said on Aug. 24 that he will meet with politicians and INS officials this week to discuss the recent problems.
The appeal came after Guo Liming, a Chinese businesswoman, was jailed for two days before her passport was found to be authentic. The incident was the latest in a series of problems with the handling of international visitors at the airport, where inspectors reject a far higher percentage of foreigners than at other West Coast airports.
Travelers rejected by INS inspectors in Portland have sometimes been jailed until a flight to their homeland became available-generating negative press in foreign countries and earning the city the nickname “Deportland” in some Asian countries.
In the past 19 months, Portland has had nine such cases, said John O’Brien, INS port director.
Earlier this year, the INS held several meetings with the Japanese Consul General, State Department officials, the business community and the Port of Portland to discuss the problem. They agreed that foreign travelers denied entry because they did not have the right travel documents would be housed overnight in hotel rooms instead of jails.
Many Asian companies and travel agents have begun to advise travelers to avoid Portland, hurting sales for Delta Air Lines, despite INS promises of reforms. Delta has said it is re-evaluating its flights between Portland and Japan.
INS Commissioner Doris Meissner agreed to meet with members of the Northwest congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., next month to discuss INS Portland management, said Joe Shoemaker, a chief of staff for Congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat who represents Washington.
The Aug. 23 letter sent to Attorney General Janet Reno-and signed by Gov. Kitzhaber, Portland Mayor Vera Katz and Mike Thorne, the executive director of the Port of Portland-said, “Inspectors have often been rude, uncooperative, and insensitive to the different cultural values of the foreign passengers passing through PDX…These enforcement practices at PDX have caused serious personal and professional distress to the individuals unfairly affected by this treatment.”
Besides calling for the investigation, Thorne said the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service should remove its district director.
“They’ve made a commitment things are going to improve,” he said. “This tells me they don’t even care about improving it. I’m tired of being misled. I think it’s time the INS gets different personnel to manage this district.”
Earlier last week on Aug. 22, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service managers defended their actions, saying Guo Liming “fit the profile” of attempted illegal immigrants because she was traveling with another person.
Guo, 36, of Guangzhou, China, arrived at Portland International Airport Saturday on a flight from Japan with Hsieh Tsuhui, 43, her fiancé and business partner. The resumed their business trip to New York on Aug. 22.
Inspectors said her passport appeared suspicious because the original clear plastic laminate had been peeled back, making it appear that a photo could have been substituted and a second laminate applied.
“It had all the outward appearances of the kinds of bogus documentation we’ve seen in the past presented by PRC nationals,” the INS district director in Portland David Beebe said. “China has been a problem to PDX in terms of either photo-substituted passports or fraudulent visas.”
Guo said INS inspectors made her strip to her underwear for a search. They interrogated her under oath through an interpreter. Then they handcuffed her for the two-hour drive to jail in The Dalles.
“They owe me an apology,” she told The Oregonian.
INS officials blamed her for not replacing a passport that looked doctored but turned out to be authentic. Beebe said Guo should have replaced her passport after encountering problems with it earlier in Hong Kong.
“If I had that problem, I sure as hell would have taken care of it,” Beebe said.
Guo said that she was unable to contact a lawyer, the Chinese consulate or anyone outside the jail during the weekend. Hsieh, her fiancé, didn’t know where she was until Aug. 21 when he hired Bao Lin Chen, a Portland immigration lawyer, to find her. “They asked me whether we have any human rights protection,” Chen said. “That’s a kind of question a person asks in China, not this country. It wasn’t her mistake, but she was treated like a criminal.”
Thorne said Guo should have been put up in a hotel instead of jailed. “For them to fall back on their old Gestapo-type actions is just unacceptable,” Thorne said. “Enough of this is enough.”
Beebe said he sent a letter apologizing to Guo for the strip search and for inspectors’ apparent failure to notify anyone of her whereabouts during the two nights she spent in jail. He also said he had “strong suspicions” that there was not enough evidence to warrant a strip search of Guo.
He said inspectors were to conduct a pat-down search of everyone taken into custody. If there are suspicions of a concealed item, then inspectors must ask a supervisor to authorize a strip search by an inspector of the same gender as the traveler. A supervisor of the same gender must be present during the search.
Beebe and other senior INS officials in Portland said they did not know Guo was strip searched until an Oregonian reporter told them of her allegation.
On Friday the INS inspectors were under further scrutiny. James DePreist, the conductor of the Oregon Symphony, complained on Aug. 25 about the way he and his wife were treated by federal immigration authorities. DePreist, who is black, and his wife, Ginette, who is white, arrived for an interview at the Immigration and Naturalization office in Portland on Aug. 23 as part of Ginette DePreist’s application for dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship.
When an INS interviewer called Ginette DePreist’s name, Ginette DePreist stood to greet the interviewer. Nevertheless, the woman still asked the couple, “Which one of you is Ginette?” James DePreist said. “At first we thought it was a joke,” James DePreist said. “…But she was absolutely, deadly serious.”
DePreist said he had the sense the interviewer thought that he-the black man-was applying for citizenship, and not the white woman. The conductor said he thought that bordered on racism.
“Those of us who are of color are somewhat accustomed to this,” DePreist said. “But this was shocking, quite frankly,” he said.
Chinese Émigrés Sue Japanese Companies
September 28, 2000
Reparations for WWII slavery sought
By Linda Deutsch/AP
Lawyers pursuing reparations for World War II atrocities sued two Japanese conglomerates on Aug. 22 on behalf of Chinese people used as slave labor.
The suit, which seeks class-action status, names Mitsui and Mitsubishi groups as companies which used slave laborers to produce rubber, grain and coal during a period beginning in the 1930s and continuing until the war ended in 1945.
Barry A. Fisher, a lawyer involved in reparation suits in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, said the suit involving the Chinese and subsequent actions that are likely to involve Koreans may be even larger than the claims made against European companies. He said tens or hundreds of thousands of people may eventually be involved.
“This is a suit on behalf of Chinese people victimized during the war,” Fisher said during a news conference. “There were millions of them and hundreds of thousands are still surviving … In many ways, what the Japanese did far outdistanced the Germans. In the area of biological and chemical warfare, they outdistanced the Germans in atrocities.”
Fisher said the atrocities committed against the Chinese included sending children to work in coal mines, and transporting victims in ships and trains under inhuman conditions.
“Chinese citizens were herded like cattle into trains and loaded into cargo ships,” he said, adding that many died aboard ship and their corpses were tossed overboard.
“During their forced servitude in Japan, the Chinese workers were tortured and starved,” the lawsuit said.
Messages requesting comment on the suit were left on phone machines at a Cypress, Calif., office of Mitsubishi, and the New York headquarters of Mitsui.
Fisher was joined at the news conference by three recent Chinese émigrés to the United States who said they were forced into slavery as small children.
Huang Boshi, 70, said she was only five years old when she became a laborer. She said she is the only survivor of her family, and recalled through tears that 11 of 18 close family members died in her Chinese village.
She spoke in Chinese, which was translated by Ignatius Y. Ding of the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia. A simultaneous news conference was scheduled in Beijing, where other plaintiffs live. Ding said those who appeared at the Los Angeles news conference came to California four years ago with their children.
The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court under a law passed by California last year that allows cases involving World War II slave labor to be filed until the year 2010.
Fisher said the suit seeks payment for labor that was never compensated as well as damages. The suit asks for the companies to turn over “ill-gotten gains” from that era.
The suits by Holocaust victims against Swiss banks and German and Austrian companies arising out of the use of slave labor by Nazi Germany have been settled for a total payment of between $6 billion and $7 billion.
Fisher said he hoped Mitsui and Mitsubishi would settle the lawsuit amicably.
“It’s in the best interest of Japan and the companies. The sooner this is settled in an amicable out-of-court way, the better for the future of relations between China, Japan and Korea,” he said.
The suit did not name the Japanese government as a defendant
Ding said the companies involved have already claimed that their current leadership does not bear responsibility for wartime abuses. But he said that has already been disproved in cases in other countries.
“These companies, even if they change their names, cannot escape responsibility,” Ding said.
The lawsuit may come to include other Japanese firms as well, he said, noting that researchers have already identified 135 Japanese companies that used slave labor.
