After Estrada: The Philippines in Transition
February 16, 2001
Will investor confidence recover with the economy?
by Ron Chepesiuk
January 22, around noontime in Washington, D.C., 54-year-old George W. Bush, Jr. took the oath of office that made him president of the United States. Meanwhile, at noon local time in Manila, Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, one year Bush’s junior, also took an oath of office, pledging to “accept the privilege and responsibility to act as president of the Philippines.”
The two heads of state are the offspring of former presidents, and both are moving on crises that divided their countries. George W. Bush, Jr. got off to a good start healing the political wounds caused by the 2000 election, while Arroyo has experienced a honeymoon after her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, was swept out of office last Jan. 21.
That honeymoon, however, is expected to be short-lived, as she gets down to the tough job of trying to revive the Philippines’ sinking economy, and getting the country back on the path that many thought would transform it into an Asian tiger. Vital for the Philippines’ recovery is implementing a reform program that will revive foreign investors’ confidence in the country’s economy.
With Arroyo, the Philippines can do no worse, and, most likely, a lot better than Estrada, economists and political analysts told AsianWeek.“Estrada squandered what was left to him,” said Dana Dillon, a policy analyst on Southeast Asia for the Heritage Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based think tank. “The Philippines was not affected as much by the 1997 Asian crisis as some of the other countries in the region, and, in terms of economic reform, the country didn’t have far to go. But Estrada is the major reason why the Philippines economy has nosedived.”
The country’s economy actually began rebounding this fall, that is, until the Estrada political crisis put it into reverse. According to reports, the economy picked up from July to September 2000, with the agriculture and industry sectors spurring the growth. Dr. Cayetano Paderanga, Jr., director of the Institute for Development and Ecometric Analysis Inc., a Philippine think tank, told the Philippines BusinessWorld that the manufacturing sector contributed 6.7 percent to the country’s growth rate. The list was headed by the electrical machinery and footwear/apparel sectors, which grew 1.9 and 1.6 percent, respectively.
The stabilizing peso and the good economic performance of the third quarter encouraged the Philippine central bank to cut key interest rates by 0.5 percentage points last December. Just two months before, the bank had increased interest rates by 4 percentage points to strengthen the peso after it fell to a historic low of 51 pesos to the U.S. dollar.
The rebounding economy was not a result of anything Estrada did, but rather in spite of him, according to analysts. “I don’t think he had any knowledge or interest in his country’s economy,” Dillon said. “The only things that interested him were gambling and stealing from the government.”
During Estrada’s two-and-a-half year administration, efforts were made to reform the economy, but according to Marcus Noland, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for International Economics, “While Estrada didn’t oppose those measures, he also never had the strength of leadership to push them through.”
Impeachment or Tragedy?
The former actor’s troubles began last October when a former drinking friend, Luis Singson, said he had given Estrada $12 million in bribes and kickbacks. Later, during Estrada’s impeachment trial, a bank officer testified that she saw Estrada give a false name on a secret bank account. Other tales about Estrada-related corruption came out during the impeachment trial.
Alfred W. McCoy, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, and an expert on Philippine history, described the corruption as “pretty sensational.” “As vice president, Estrada was head of the President’s Anti-Crime Commission, which was supposed to crack down on kidnapping and bank robbery,” McCoy explained. “But he had gangs working for him, which meant that, as vice president, Estrada earned a big income from crime. Estrada also used his control of the police while vice president to impose a take on the underworld.”
So, how devastating to the Philippines was the corruption during Estrada’s administration? “Estrada was the worst president the Philippines ever had,” was McCoy’s blunt assessment. “Corruption has always been a fact of political life in the Philippines, but it was done discretely and within the legal economy.”
A New Era
Arroyo already is considered a big improvement over Estrada. The experts describe her as capable, well-educated with a degree in economics from Georgetown University, and politically experienced in the ways of Philippine politics.
The Business Times of Singapore described Arroyo as an “economic liberal” in a profile appearing in the magazine last Jan. 31. “As a senator she played a key role in the Phillippines’ entry into the World Trade Organization and favors pro-competition policies, including competition from abroad… This bodes better for the Philippines’ relationship with the International Monetary Fund and for the priority Manila will attach to international investor concerns.”
Arroyo’s leadership abilities will be put to the test, and what he does in the coming months will have a big impact on foreign investor confidence. As Rob Guozden, sovereign research analyst for Lehman Brothers in New York City put it: “We believe that nothing will stimulate foreign investment interest in the Philippines as much as an immediate and consistent demonstration of the new administration’s ability to pursue legislative and administrative reforms.”
Arroyo has tried to get off to a good start and gain the trust of the Philippine people and the confidence of the international community. In a symbolic move to show that her administration would be different, Arroyo signed an exclusive order that bans all government agencies from transacting business with her family and members of the cabinet, and she has set up a search committee to get the best candidates for the top posts.
Her first act was to name the experienced Alberto Romulo as her finance secretary. Romulo holds a doctorate from the University of Madrid and has a long history of public service, including a stint as senate majority leader from 1992 to 1996. He is untainted in terms of corruption, and has budget experience working in the administration of Corazon Aquino.
“Arroyo is appointing competent people to key positions, several of whom served under former President Felix Ramos,” Dillon explained. “She hasn’t been appointing friends and cronies.”
Arroyo has acknowledged that the Philippines will be in for some serious belt-tightening in the coming months. Alex Magno, a senior adviser in the presidential transition team, told the press, “We have to cut 60 billion pesos ($2 billion) from the budget… That will be painful.”
Arroyo will also have to get the big public deficit under control, reduce inflation, and restore confidence in the currency that began a free fall last October, then stabilized after Estrada was impeached. She will also have to develop programs that will revitalize the country’s moribund business sector.
Recent economic indicators have been encouraging, but statistics show that the Philippines continues to lag behind its East Asian counterparts in growth rate. For instance, GDP posted a 4.5 percent growth in the second quarter of 2000, which was much lower than the growth performances of Hong Kong (14 percent) and Singapore (8 percent).
“There are a lot of interests pulling at her [Arroyo],” said Larry Niksch, a specialist in Asian Affairs at the Congressional Research Office in Washington, D.C. “Trying to put a workable reform program in place is going to be a test of her leadership ability and political skills.”
The Philippines does have many economic and political problems, but political analysts are optimistic about the country’s future. The Philippines remains a good place to invest compared to many other countries in Asia, they say. “A few years ago, several investors told me that the Philippines was the Asian country to invest your money in, but then Estrada came to power and the country went downhill,” Dillon said. “Investors will come back in droves if the country can get its act together.”
Romulo has said it will take two years for the Arroyo administration to turn the country around. If the administration fails to achieve its objective, it won’t be because of anything the international community might do. “Arroyo is going to receive a significant amount of goodwill from the international community,” Noland predicted. “The IMF (International Monetary Fund) is going to cut the Philippines some slack. Two years is a lot of time, and if Arroyo makes the right moves, we can see much substantial improvement in the Philippines during that period.”
Business reporter Ron Chepesiuk is a Rock Hill, SC, journalist. He can be reached at 110423.2656@compuserve.com.
Internet Tax Issue Unresolved
February 16, 2001
By Ron ChepesiukThe 107th Congress will deal with many important business issues — the high cost of health insurance, the future of the estate tax, consumer information privacy. However, none will have such significance as the question of an Internet tax.
In 1998, Congress enacted The Internet Tax Freedom Act, which provides for a three-year federal ban on the state taxation of Internet transactions. The moratorium expires next October, and legislators are expected to vote on whether to extend the ban or make it permanent. Their decision will affect Asian American brick-and-mortar and e-commerce businesses.
“This issue impacts on any business selling goods and services over the Internet, and we at Nano are keeping an eye on the issue to see where it’s headed,” said Wellie Chao, vice president of business and technology strategy at Nano, a New York-based software company founded in 1999.
Sidney T. Yee, President of the New York-based Cyberasia, a technology communications company that focuses on marketing Asian multiculturalism, said that the Internet taxation issue doesn’t directly affect his company.
“As an Internet professional, I would like to see the issue carefully considered and resolved,” Yee added.
The to-tax or not-to-tax question has been hotly debated during the past three years as e-commerce has grown and struggled to establish itself. On one side are those who argue that the Internet needs to be nurtured if it is to reach its full potential. “I believe in the free spirit of the Internet and I don’t want to see it compromised,” said Shahab Ahmed, the Indian American owner of Cy-Info.com, an Internet development company .Tax proponents, on the other hand, contend that not paying a sales tax on goods sold over the Internet is unfair to brick-and-mortar businesses, which must collect that tax. As Judith Lee, a partner in the Washington D.C.-based law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, pointed out, “Governments don’t think it’s fair to have their tax base eroded by the business being conducted in cyberspace.”
According to recent studies, the money that government could be losing by not taxing the Internet is substantial. In a February 2000 report, Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass.-based marketing research firm, estimated that, of the nearly $13 billion in taxable retail goods sold online in the United States in 1999, only 20 percent was taxed by states.
States losing the greatest amount of online sales tax revenue were California with $73.8 million in missed revenue; Texas with $51.9 million; Illinois with $32.6 million; Florida with $30.3 million; and New York with $26.6 million.
By not taxing e-commerce, Colorado could lose more than $700 million in sales tax by 2005, the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments, a government advisory group, warned in January. Nancy McCalllin, director of the Colorado Office of Placement and Budget, said the money the Council estimates Colorado would lose represents about 67 percent of the projected sales tax revenues for the period.
GETTING THEIR SHARE
The fact that government is not getting a cut from cyberspace transactions has prompted some states to introduce legislation that would make businesses operating within their jurisdictions charge sales tax on online transactions. In California, Internet sales tax supporters have tried to push a bill known as AB412 through the legislature, but Governor Gray Davis vetoed it in September. The bill would have required businesses with both a physical and online presence to levy the same taxes on all their sales.
“For the Internet to reach its full potential as a marketing medium and job creator, it must be given time to mature,” Davis said in a statement he made to the State Assembly. “At present, it is less than 10 years old. Imposing a sales tax on Internet transactions at this point in time in its young life would send the wrong signal about California’s international role as an incubator of the dot-com community.”
Supporters of AB412, however, say they haven’t given up, and vowed to introduce the bill in the State Assembly. “The veto message is inaccurate,” Carol Migden, D-San Francisco, told E-Commerce Times. “The bill doesn’t expand taxation for electronic sales. It just reaffirms existing law today. I believe big business and small business should abide by the same laws.”
Actually, it’s not accurate to say that the current U.S. moratorium on Internet taxation bans taxing goods sold on the Internet. “States can tax [Internet transactions] if they want, because the Internet Tax Freedom Act doesn’t really prohibit them collecting sales tax from online purchases,” said Catherine Mann, a Research Fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for International Economics and the author of Global Electronic Commerce: A Policy Primer.
Mann pointed out that the Act prohibits taxes on Internet access, taxes on specific products sold online that are not taxed offline, and duplicate taxes on transactions that two or more states could tax.
E-merchants are only required to collect a sales tax if they are physically located in a purchaser’s state. If no sales tax is collected on a purchase, consumers are required to report their purchases to their state revenue department and pay a tax equal to the amount of the sales tax that would have been collected if the purchase had occurred in their home state.
Some states have made little effort to collect the Internet tax, while others ask out-of-state businesses to report sales made to residents in their states. When states reserve that right, they notify residents that they are liable for the tax.
NO NEW TAXES
Many Asian American e-merchants and e-company executives contend this isn’t the time for states to collect Internet tax. They point to the current downturn in e-commerce and to the many dot-coms that have gone bankrupt or out of business. Mie-Yun Lee, owner of Buyerzone.com, a premier Internet purchasing hub for small and medium size businesses, would like to see the Internet made a tax-free zone.
“It will give a boost to e-commerce,” she said. “Besides, anything that can be done at this point to further the well-being of the medium can only help the overall economy.”
David Carroll, CEO and CFO of the New York-based BestEdeal, a price comparison-shopping Web site founded by Kenneth Chen, agreed. “From our perspective, we think taxation would be very damaging to Internet development because it’s growing slower than expected,” Carroll said. “People are still easing into e-commerce. Even today, you don’t see many consumers making online purchases. They are making smaller purchases at well-known sites.”
Alex Chang, vice president of strategy at Nano, believes that brick-and-mortar stores benefit from e-commerce. “The Web is convenient for shopping, so many people go to it for information and then to the local brick-and-mortar store to buy the goods or services,” Chang explained, “so in that way, e-commerce benefits brick-and-mortar companies.”
Chang, like many others in e-commerce, would support the idea of paying an Internet tax if money were put back into Internet development, to help the medium strengthen its infrastructure.
But according to independent analysts, a tax would have little effect on the Internet’s growth. As Mann explained, “The problems facing e-companies has nothing to do with taxes. It has more to do with the fact that many dot-coms haven’t come up with viable business models, and with sound strategies that ensure consumer trust.”
CRUNCHING NUMBERS
In November the 300,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU), a nonprofit, non-partisan organization working for lower taxes, released a study that found actual losses due to uncollected Internet taxes are minuscule. The shortfall amounted to only .06 percent of all 1999 state and local tax receipts. Moreover, e-business contributes billions in corporate income, property, personal income and other tax revenues to the state treasuries. Revenue has pushed state and local sales receipts up thirty percent over the past five years, the NTU report revealed.
“Many politicians feel the urge to ‘do something’ about Internet taxes, but that should be no excuse for a massive expansion of sales tax collection that also undermines free trade federalism,” said Paul Gessing, NTU policy associate and the study’s author. “Leaving e-commerce alone may be the best option for the future of our economy.”
Internet tax opponents also contend that it would be excessively burdensome to collect and remit taxes to thousands of different taxing bodies that presently exist in the U.S. Once again, there is sharp disagreement.
“My gut feeling is that the issue is so complicated that nothing is going to change for a while,” explained William A. Tanebaum, Chair of Technology and E-commerce Group at the New York Kaye, Scholer law firm, which specializes in Internet law. “Congress has struggled with the issue’s complexity, and that’s why legislators have felt that it’s probably best to postpone any decision.”
This past December, however, a coalition of states voted to approve a plan to simplify their sales tax codes, which could pave the way for states to collect revenue from Internet sales and catalogs. The member states of the so-called Streamlined Sales Tax Project (California wasn’t one of them) voted 27 to 0 to approve the plan, which calls for third-party companies to determine and administer the sales tax on e-commerce and catalog transactions, in hopes that some states will pass it into law in the 2001 legislative session.
At a congressional hearing of the Streamlined Sales Tax Project held last October, witnesses testified that developing a database to calculate the correct sales tax based on the purchaser’s zip code is doable. Robert Molloy, vice president and assistant general counsel of Staples, the office supply company, testified that his company was already doing it.
But a simplified sales tax for the U.S. doesn’t help the Internet taxation issue at the international level. How does the global community go about taxing transactions between countries, when cyberspace knows no physical boundaries? “It will be almost impossible to harmonize the tax codes of countries,” Mann said. “The principal form of taxation in the U.S. is the income tax, while in the rest of the world it’s the value added tax. In the past, the differences in the tax regimes have made it difficult for countries to deal with cross border taxation issues.”
So don’t expect any big changes on the Internet tax issue any time soon. The bet is that Congress will most likely extend the moratorium on an Internet tax when it votes on the issue this fall. “I don’t think Congress wants to do anything right now, given the volatility of e-commerce and the stock market,” said David Weiss, director of marketing for E-Touch, a San Jose-based application service provider.
Chang agreed. “There are so many disparate views in Congress on the subject, and that’s going to make it tough to push a tax through,” he explained.
Sources, however, believe that some form of tax will eventually be imposed on the Internet. Two major reasons make it inevitable, according to Tanebaum. “Every brick-and- mortar company is going have an e-commerce component, and it’s going to be difficult for those companies to accept being taxed when the pure online ones aren’t,” he explained. “Further, as more companies go online, the individual states are going to want to recapture some of the revenue they are losing from their tax base. I have no doubt that there is going to be a concerted effort to level the taxation playing field.”
Business reporter Ron Chepesiuk is a Rock Hill, SC-based freelance journalist. He can be reached at 110423.2656@compuserve.com.
Who Are the Community Stakeholders?
February 16, 2001
Executive David Lee and Chairman Douglas Chan have reinvigorated the non-partisan Chinese American Voters Education Committee (CAVEC). On Feb. 8 Lee reported that his group had registered or re-registered over 15,000 Asian American voters this past year. Their reward was an event led by Warren Hellman, which raised $100,000.
Despite all that work, Hellman had to remind the 500 people attending that the Chinese American community has been a stakeholder for as long as the history of the city itself.
“By any measure,” said the financier, “Chinese in San Francisco ought to be running the show. But you are not.”
Instead of gaining two additional Asian American supervisors, the API community lost two representatives under district elections and was left with Leland Yee, the only Asian American on the Board.
Hellman urged Chinese Americans to become active, develop leadership in civic and community affairs, and get out and vote. Hellman is no stranger to Chinese American causes. He was instrumental in supporting CAVEC, and supported the local acquisition of the San Francisco Examiner by the Fang Family. Moreover, he donated money for the recount in District 7, where Mabel Teng lost by 38 votes.
As Hellman said, Chinese Americans aren’t running the show — they aren’t even stakeholders in the governance of the city.
Chinese Americans aren’t even stakeholders in CAVEC. Among the organization’s major donors, Asian American corporate or individual donors are scarce. The top 16 donors were Chevron, Wells Fargo, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Host Marriott, Levi Strauss, Norcal Waste Management, State Farm, and Hellman.
The only sponsors with an Asian American connection were Providian, which is headed by South Asian American Shailesh Mehta; the Asia Foundation; and New California Media, which supports ethnic media outlets.
Among the smaller sponsors were the S.F. Apartment Association, Coalition for Better Housing, and the Committee on Jobs. These groups have recognized that the Asian American community empathizes with their concerns for more balance in the landlord-tenant debate on rent control, for land use/development issues such as Propositions K and L, and for fiscal conservatism. “The City has everything to gain from your community’s healthy doses of common sense and moderation, enterprise and vitality,” Hellman said.
To compare, most of the 10 supervisors present at the dinner tend to be pro-tenant, want to slow down or stop development, or favor a tax-and-spend laundry-list such as Board President Tom Ammiano’s “people’s budget.”
In a decade, corporate contributions have reaped returns. Chinese American turnout was a major factor in the 1991 and 1999 mayoral victories of conservative Frank Jordan and centrist Willie Brown, respectively. Both mayors have sought balance on rent control and development issues.
If Asian Americans registered and voted, then last year’s Board of Supervisors’ election could be considered a fluke. Asians, who make up 40 percent of the population, were only 20 percent of the vote. In the future, CAVEC could help double that registration rate.
Other contributors to CAVEC included State Senator John Burton, Supervisor Gavin Newsom, as well as former and future political candidates Douglas Chan, Meagan Levitan, Justin Tin, Darryl Honda, and AsianWeek’s Fiona Ma. They have become stakeholders because their political futures depend, in part, upon CAVEC’s ability to increase the Chinese American vote.
At the fundraiser, Mabel Teng was honored. “I am going to spend my little break from public service working with CAVEC to register more people to vote, to get out the vote, and to educate people how to vote,” said Teng. “I am not done with politics. I’ll be back.”
The emergence of Latino politics in the 2000 election was motivated in part by dot-com and live-work over-development in the Mission District. However, a revamped board with new Supervisors Matt Gonzalez and Gerardo Sandoval, and a slowing economy may have alleviated threats to the Latino community.
Should Asian Americans wait for a major catastrophe, before they become stakeholders at City Hall?
The New Corporate Ethnic Media
February 16, 2001
Communication giants aren’t stupid; they know where demographics are going
Here are some scenes from the ethnic media that struggle to remain the authentic voice of our community: An overworked editor tries to cajole a freelancer, not to get his/her work in on deadline, but to do the story for less than a dime a word. A greenhorn reporter tries to make sense of a complicated story, and gets lost in the details. A salesperson tries to convince another restaurant to pay cash for an ad instead of bartering for meals.
It’s the mom and pop world of our major ethnic media.
The Electric Company
February 16, 2001
By Neela Banerjee
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors took a big step toward creating a local public power system at Monday’s meeting when they placed a measure on November’s ballot that would create a municipal utility district (MUD).
The decision came after more than an hour of debate, with the supervisors questioning whether the creation of a MUD would be the best way for San Francisco to deal with the crippling energy crisis that has been rocking the region.
Municipalization would mean that local government would have to acquire and maintain its own wires, service boxes and power system. According to a San Francisco Superior Court ruling last year, the MUD would be run by an elected board, to be approved by a Local Agency Formation Commission and voters. It must also cover more than one city, which is why Brisbane has been included in the proposal.
Over 24,000 citizens in San Francisco and Brisbane signed a petition, authored by the Coalition for Lower Utility Bills (CLUB), which called for the issue to be on the ballot.
Joe Ventresca, co-chair of CLUB, and many other pro-MUD representatives made a loud presence at Monday’s meeting. Ventresca handed out information that explained how there are over 2,000 communities across the country, including 45 in California, that have chosen to provide for their own electrical power. Ventresca claimed that public power is a “century-old American tradition that now provides reliable electricity at low, stable rates to one out of seven Americans.”
But experts say that the creation of a MUD will not automatically lower utility prices, and the city attorney cautioned against the board acting before the city’s Local Agency Formation Commission properly reviews the proposal.
Supervisors Tony Hall and Gavin Newsom voted against the measure, expressing concern over the litigation that the city is most likely to face from PG&E, who has tried to block any attempt at the creation of a MUD for years.
“A new progressive Board of Supervisors has stood up to a powerful and corrupt private power monopoly and met its legal responsibility to call an election,” Ventresca said.
In other news, the supervisors also approved a six-month moratorium on the construction of live-work lofts in San Francisco and passed a rule that would make commercial developers more responsible for affordable housing.
“During the recent construction boom, developers have taken advantage of gaping loopholes in our planning code to build projects that are clearly out of step with the housing objectives of our general plan,” Supervisor Tom Ammiano said.
The board has faced criticism for the moratorium from those saying that bringing an end to loft building will not automatically solve the problem. But the proposal, co-sponsored by Supervisors Ammiano, Chris Daly and Sophie Maxwell, calls for supervisors to work with community activists to come up with a plan to create more truly affordable housing.
The Board passed the legislation 9 to 1 yesterday (with Hall dissenting), which is enough to override a mayoral veto that could have threatened the proposal.
The Board also approved the “Jobs-Housing Linkage Ordinance,” which will impose appropriate fees on new commercial developments to fund affordable housing construction in the city.
“The principal is straightforward,” Ammiano said. “If you build office, retail, entertainment or hotel development in San Francisco that add new jobs, you share some of the responsibility for providing affordable housing for these new workers.”
Along with these monumental decisions, the supervisors continued to look out for their own. Supervisor Leland Yee requested a hearing regarding the excessive noise created by new MUNI buses, saying that he has received numerous complaints from residents describing the noise as similar to a “banshee.”
Supervisor Aaron Peskin proposed that an interdepartmental task force be created to look at traffic and parking problems in District 3, one of the main issues that was raised at a community meeting that was held over the weekend.
Blast from the Past
February 16, 2001
Last Thursday, a diverse group of almost 400 students, alumni, faculty, and supporters converged on the administration building at the University of California at Davis, protesting recent incidents of anti-Asian hate violence and racial epithets on campus. Asian American students, who represent a third of the enrollment at Davis, led the protest, supported by faculty from all the ethnic studies programs — Asian American Studies, Native American Studies, Chicano Studies, and African American Studies. The student-ethnic studies resistance to racism at Davis is a symbol of the history of Asian American student activism that was planted in the San Francisco Bay Area almost 35 years ago.
On the heels of the Black Power movement in 1968, Asian American students joined African Americans and Latinos in protesting the lack of ethnic studies at San Francisco State University and U.C. Berkeley. These students and faculty supporters challenged the college education convention, arguing that the Euro-centric curriculum failed to recognize the diversity of the nation and the validity of their communities.
The initial responses of Berkeley and S.F. State officials were completely negative, maintaining that ethnic studies subjects did not belong on campus. In fact, S.F. State President S.I. Hayakawa (ironically, a Japanese American who was later elected to the U.S. Senate) is often remembered for the combative stance he took against student protestors. In a protracted student strike at S.F. State in 1969, Hayakawa had students arrested, and called in the National Guard in an attempt to bring order to the institution.
Across the bay in Berkeley, the Third World Strike and demonstrations were also greeted by arrests and police reinforcements from the National Guard, as well as the Alameda County Police. Tear gas, shattered windows, cars overturned and torched were common sights on campus.
In the end, the multicultural demonstrations at Berkeley and S.F. State led to the establishment of ethnic studies programs at both schools. Both institutions can boast having the oldest Asian American studies programs in the nation as a result of the efforts of student protestors.
The tradition of Asian American student involvement in campus protests has continued.
At Northwestern University in 1995, 17 Asian American students camped out in three tents in front of University Hall and engaged in a hunger strike for several days, demanding the creation of an Asian American studies program. Throughout the 1990s at U.C. Irvine, where Asian American students make up more than half of the enrollment, students engaged in protests, hunger strikes, and strikes until an Asian American studies program was established.
At Columbia University, more than a hundred students engaged in a sit-in in the marble-and-oak lobby of the main college building, exasperated by the university’s unwillingness to take Asian American and Latino studies as seriously as African American studies. At India University in 1996, students and 32 campus organizations staged a protest demanding the opening of an Asian American culture center; three years later, their demands were rewarded.
In 1989, 60 Stanford students were arrested after a peaceful sit-in at the president’s office protesting several racial incidences, including a campus sorority that had pledges act out an “Indian” dance in front of the Native American student center. Similarly, in 1995, at Grinnell College in Iowa, Asian American students were among 70 students who protested alleged racism on campus, including charges that student spectators yelled racial slurs at a black basketball player during a game.
At the University of Connecticut, Asian American students led protests against discriminatory policies at McDonald’s and Denny’s restaurants near campus. And at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, campus authorities met with students and agreed to reprimand the staff of Mass Media, an independent campus paper that published a picture of a woman of Asian descent performing a sex act.
Racism Still On the Law Books,University of Cincinnati law students work for Alien Land Laws’ repeal
February 16, 2001
By Joseph Hong
After uncovering so-called alien land laws that are still on the books in Florida, New Mexico and Wyoming, law students working on the staff of the University of Cincinnati College of Law’s Immigration and Nationality Law Review are trying to persuade legislators in those states to introduce bills to repeal these last vestiges of sanctioned discrimination.
After Prop. 209
February 16, 2001
Initiative to ban state from gathering race information, next on Connerly’s agenda
By Associated Press
Backers of the 1996 initiative that ended most state affirmative action programs in contracting, employment and education are working on a related initiative for the March 2002 ballot.
Ward Connerly’s American Civil Rights Coalition has submitted an initiative to the Attorney General’s Office that would keep the state from collecting race information in all but a few cases.
Coalition spokesman Kevin Nguyen said the initiative would rid forms such as those for college admissions and state employment of “silly little boxes” asking for the applicant’s race.
“On most government forms, information is collected for the simple reason of government curiosity. At the University of California, the question is still on application forms even with the ban on race-based admissions,” Nguyen said.
School districts that collect the information to gauge the progress of minority students could continue to collect the information under several exemptions in the initiative, Nguyen said. The Legislature would be allowed to permit the collection if it served some important state purpose.
The initiative should be in circulation by April, he said. Supporters of the initiative must get about 420,000 signatures from registered voters to get the proposition on the ballot.
Supporters say it is not the role of the state to collect race-based information. Nguyen said the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was made easier by government records that showed where Japanese people lived.
But opponents of Proposition 209 say the new initiative would cause more problems.
“It is a racist initiative that is designed to prevent the tracking and monitoring of discrimination,” said Michelle Alexander, director of the Racial Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s intended to gut the capacity of the Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office, as well as civil rights organizations, to enforce existing civil rights laws.”
“It’s just going to hinder the state from any attempt to address racial inequality,” said Michael Chavez of Californians for Justice, a Long Beach-based group working on inequality in schools.
He said the initiative would make it harder to collect information to determine if a problem exists, such as in recent accusations of racial profiling of blacks and Latinos by police.
Internet Tax Issue Unresolved,By Ron Chepesiuk
February 16, 2001
The 107th Congress will deal with many important business issues — the high cost of health insurance, the future of the estate tax, consumer information privacy. However, none will have such significance as the question of an Internet tax.
Anna May Wong
February 16, 2001
Screen Legend and Fashion Icon
By Ji Hyun Lim
Glamour and grace in the silent screen era seem necessities, not accessories. When East meets West, exemplifying non-status-quo beauty can be an art form. Anna May Wong (1905-1961) was an Asian American pioneer of style and statement on the silver screen.
Wong was born Wong Lui Tsong on Jan. 3, 1905, to parents who ran a laundry in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. Her beauty and grace were so apparent at a young age that she became a photographer’s model as a student at Hollywood High School. Wong became drawn to the movie industry almost instantly. When she was almost 14, her actor cousin showed a photograph of her to a director who offered her a small part in the film Dinty in 1918. In 1921, Wong appeared in Shame and Bits of Life. The latter film gave her billing before the public. These movies jumpstarted her career as a silent screen actress, and by the 1930s, Wong made the successful move into ‘talkies’, which made her a legend as a glamour icon.
Wong’s lithe figure and sleek style expressed composure, restraint, and sophistication. In many of her movie roles in the 1920s, she used every tool available to express her uniqueness without compromising the depth of her characters. Her clothes echoed many of the conservative, yet alluring facets of those roles. For example, in The Thief Of Bagdad (1924) she wore a mesmerizing two-piece outfit; in The Bombs Of Burma, Wong made even a plain mandarin-collared dress look elegant. Her mannerism and ability to entrance the audience became assets that helped turn Wong into a star.
Hollywood dressed Wong’s characters with gowns that left lasting impressions of 1920-40s style. Her gowns were adorned with both Eastern and Western influences. The form-fitting silk bodices, embellished with beading and embroidery, would impress any designer today. She wore a variety of styles ranging from elaborate gowns with sequins, intricately woven into floral designs to short-sleeved, plain cotton dresses with mandarin collars. Her delicate features and dark hair complemented Asian clothing and contrasted well with a bolder Western style.
It is important to note that during the 1920-40s, Asian American actors were rare. Although audiences delighted in the exoticness of non-Western actors like Wong, Caucasian stars such as Marlene Dietrich, who starred in Shanghai Express (1932) with Wong, were the icons of beauty and style. Wong was predominantly typecast in “ethnic” roles of mystery and other-worldly allure, in movies such as Daughter of the Dragon (1931). But in her struggle to break through the glass ceiling of Hollywood, she showed that an Asian American could carry the stage and screen. Ideal beauty would have remained sadly homogenous without Wong. Even today, she is an image of style and sophistication. She has strongly influenced designers such as Vivian Tam who uses East/West fusion in her designs. In retrospect, Wong epitomized the most beautiful women on screen.
Explosion Kills University Student
February 16, 2001
By Ji Hyun Lim
U.C. Santa Barbara freshman Patrick Wen Tsu Hsu was found dead after an explosion in his parents’ San Jose home. Although friends and family members of Hsu have said the 18-year-old seemed like an unlikely target for retaliation, there is an on-going investigation for a motive and police haven’t ruled out a possible homicide.
“We have detectives to see if there were any threats against him, but so far we haven’t found anything,” said San Jose police spokesman Steve Dixon.
The front window of the bedroom where the blast took place was shattered when Hsu’s mother discovered the body late Saturday afternoon. The bomb squad responded immediately and determined an explosive device caused the death. There were no other injuries or casualties in the incident.
Investigators speculate that the blast was triggered when Hsu inserted batteries into a toy robotic dog that was delivered in a package via the U.S. Postal Service to his parents’ house a month earlier. The San Jose bomb squad is working with the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau to determine whether the explosion was caused by a chemical or powder reaction.
Hsu’s father, Chen Hsu, is uncertain about the specifics of the investigation, but he did say police confiscated all evidence, such as the robotic dog and its packaging, for the investigation. Chen Hsu said that his son had returned home Friday evening for a routine vaccination required by U.C. Santa Barbara. He was uncertain whether Patrick’s classmates knew about his whereabouts for the weekend. However, it seemed like a typical weekend home, he said.
A number of family members and friends have stressed that Patrick was well liked by his peers, and Chen Hsu said the family is shocked to think that Patrick could have been the target of an attack.
“He was involved in team sports like surfing, swimming, snowboarding, and soccer,” Chen Hsu said. “He was an excellent student at Oak Grove High School and his relationship with his family was great. Patrick and his older sister got along well with each other too.”
Given Patrick’s reputation, detectives have yet to determine if the explosive could have been meant for someone else, and in their investigation for a motive, they are also looking at individuals close to Patrick.
“He had no enemies, no threats. Classmates, relatives could be the target,” Sgt. Dixon said.
Nothing, however, will bring back Chen Hsu’s son. Chen Hsu believes friends and family will miss Patrick’s easy-going and peaceful nature most of all. “I can’t believe how popular my son was,” Chen Hsu said. “I think yesterday, over a hundred kids came to my home.”
Hate Crimes Galvanize U.C. Davis Students,By Neela Banerjee
February 16, 2001
Responding to months of anti-Asian violence and increased racial tensions, hundreds of U.C. Davis students voiced their demands at a teach-in last Thursday, highlighting the need for stronger institutional support for the Asian Pacific Islander community and a more effective response to hate crimes.
“The hate crimes were sort of a surprise to me, because Davis has this notion of being a really safe and liberal school,” sophomore Jihan Ejan said. “You would think things like this would never happen in the 21st century.”
