9-11: Asian Pacific America Recounts a Year of Struggle and Healing (Feature) Who’s Getting the Message? (in National News) Putting Our Health Center Stage (in Bay Area News) Ultimate Diversions: Kingdom Hearts (in Business) Chinese American Volleyball Tournament Comes to San Francisco (in Sports) Collateral Damage: ‘Asian Americans On War & Peace’ (in A&E) Emil Amok: Chicken-hearted Patriotism in Fremont (in Opinion)

Chicken-hearted Patriotism in Fremont

The anniversary of Sept. 11 is upon us. This is no time for pussy footing. Time for some strong and direct words in the war against terrorism.

Against the terrorists? No, silly. Against the government.

It’s our right.

And yet there was Gus Morrison, the mayor of Fremont, Calif., on the tube this week looking like he was having a hard time keeping a straight face about it all.

“We’re very careful not to have a foreign policy in Fremont,” he said before the local TV news cameras, holding back a wry smile. It wasn’t a bad line. Small town mayor, upholding the virtues of “smallishness.” But it just wasn’t amusing enough to offset the gravity of the moment.

Is it really “foreign policy” to take a stand against a bad federal law that was designed to target the citizens of your own community?

Morrison and the town’s leaders wrestled this week with a subject that goes well beyond the quotidian issues of small town government, that of potholes and stop signs, public urination and bird doo-doo.

Fremont’s city council considered a resolution that condemned the USA Patriot Act — the mess of a law passed in the wake of Sept. 11 that gives the Feds more authority to detain and question people suspected of terrorism.

It’s a nice acronym, which stands for some kind of bureaucratic goobledy-gook, cloaked in Paul Revere-drag that can be used to go after anybody with a vengeance.

It gives the government the right to go down the street and yell, “The X are coming, the X are coming.” And the government gets to fill in the X. That’s what modern Fremonters are worried about.

It’s serious stuff. But there was Morrison, on the side of the pussyfooters. People who don’t want to rock the boat. I got news for Morrison. The boat’s been rocked.

Once a little working class burb with a Bart stop and an auto plant, Fremont’s no white-bread community off the freeway.

Fremont is one of those “cities of the world” that exist in California to the extreme. It’s not unusual to find a whole census tract where more than half are foreign born, recent immigrants, representing India, Mexico, China, Afghanistan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Viet Nam, Korea, Ukraine, Russia, England, Guatemala, Panama, Iran, Samoa, Canada …

You get the point.

There’s more variety in Fremont than there is at your average mall food court. But these folks aren’t “citizens of the world.” They’re citizens of Fremont. And since Sept. 11, many of them know first hand what it’s like to live within the United States in fear.

Their fear is derived from reactions to their turban, or headwrap, skin-color, accent or foreign sounding name. To be called names. To be shunned. Because we all know what 100 percent Americans look like, don’t we?

These days “American” actually looks more like Fremont. But the town’s leaders still act like it’s the 1950s.

Dear Fremont: “Leave It To Beaver” doesn’t live there anymore.

It’s now “Leave it to Mohammed.” And Tarun, and Kai Ping, and Genady, and Esteban. And they’re all American.

So faced with a very specific appeal from Fremonters to condemn the detaining and questioning of Muslim, Arab and South Asian Americans in the United States, the council decided to duck. There was no reason to duck.

The council voted 4-1 on a watered down resolution upholding civil liberties and the constitution. Great, but aren’t they supposed to do that already?

What we have here are pussyfooting, chicken-hearted politicians unwilling to take a stand and be modern day patriots. That takes courage and there was none of that this week in its brand new council chambers.

Instead, when good citizens turned to their small town leaders for comfort and reassurance, here’s what their leaders had to say.

“It’s not my job.”

Dog poop and public urination, they can handle. The protection of innocent Americans, well, that’s some heavy lifting, by golly. Condemning the Patriot Act is one thing worth doing as we approach the anniversary of Sept. 11. But more than likely we’ll see more examples of fake patriotism and sentimental goo next week.

An Asian Pacific American artist will put up a banner of the American flag along the Golden Gate. That’s likely to be the biggest public demonstration in the Bay Area. Though frankly, the gesture reminds me more of Christo’s “Running Fence,” not Osama’s hell-bent terrorism.

The Sikhs up in Fairfield are staging an event that I call a Sikh-In, where the turbaned Sikhs will host whomever wishes to come and learn more about their community and people. That’s not a bad thing. Seeking out the Sikhs.

So what are you going to do? I’m a good Catholic. But this is AsianWeek, so I ask, ”WWBD?” Or simply, “What would Buddha do?” He’d probably just sit, which may perhaps be the most Asian thing to do. To stop, and do nothing. Merely pause and engage in some serious thinking, peacefully. We’ll hear and see enough media noise throughout the day. We shouldn’t let the cable news whip up some momentary consensus rage that could very well propel this country down a path of vengeance.

Quietly, we need to summon the courage to act in the most just and sensible way, and let the drum-beaters know, there is no answer in war.

Reach Emil Guillermo at emil@amok.com.