POLITICAL FIRST

Calif. Assembly Speaker Appoints First Woman, APA Majority Leader

California Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, an Oakland Democrat, has been appointed as the first woman and the first Asian Pacific American majority leader of the State Assembly.

Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson announced late Friday he had selected Chan to the Assembly’s top leadership post.

“Ms. Chan brings with her a wealth of experience I expect to tap extensively as we deal with the significant legislative challenges in the upcoming session,” Wesson said in a written statement.

Chan will replace San Francisco Democrat Kevin Shelley, who is running for secretary
of state.

Chan, 53, was elected to the Assembly in November 2000 and served as Majority Whip during the 2001-02 session. Before her election to the Assembly, Chan served on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

“In my district, I represent everyone,” Chan told the San Jose Mercury News on Friday. “But I think the [APA] community will be very proud and supportive of having representation at the highest level.”

The majority leader is responsible for leading Assembly Democrats, overseeing fund-raising by the Democratic caucus and working with the majority floor leader to make sure sessions run smoothly. The post is key in a state where Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature and all but one statewide office.

Chan is seeking re-election next month. She won in the 2000 election after then-incumbent Audie Bock switched party affiliation from Green Party to Independent.

In the Assembly, Chan has pressed legislation to promote affordable housing, study whether to tax junk foods and exempt Holocaust survivors from paying income tax on reparations. Last year Chan wrote a new law to encourage counties to build school partnerships by donating surplus computers to schools.

She and Palo Alto Democrat Joe Simitian also successfully pushed manufacturers of antifreeze to add a bitter taste to protect children and pets from accidental poisoning.

Chan was born in Boston to Chinese American immigrant parents and graduated from Wellesley College. She earned a master’s degree in education policy analysis and administration at Stanford University.

AIRPORT SECURITY

Protests Could Mean Replacement for Oakland Screeners

Authorities warned Oakland International Airport private screeners planning to hold an early morning 10-minute walkout Oct. 4 that they could airlift replacements and ban the protestors from the new federal security force.

The walkout was called to protest the layoffs of hundreds of screeners at the airport on Oct. 8, when the first members of the federal workforce took over at Oakland’s Terminal One. The current checkpoint screeners, who are employed by Huntleigh USA, will have to reapply for their old jobs and pass federal examinations and screenings. Last Tuesday, the first round of federal employees began replacing private screeners at Mineta San Jose Airport.

Workers, who were already unsure about their futures, backed down from the protest. Kawal Ulanday, of Filipinos for Affirmative Action, said officials at the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Huntleigh threatened to fire any worker who walked off the job at 7:30 a.m. According to Ulanday, one TSA manager said he could fly in federal screeners from Reno and Sacramento airports in less than an hour. Screeners were also told they might lose their unemployment benefits and hurt their chances of being rehired.

Fred Lau, former San Francisco police chief and now the airport’s federal security director, said airport directors acted in a fair manner. He said the only reason authorities intervened was that the walkout came at a time when many passengers would pass through the checkpoints and all workers needed to be stationed at their points to insure security.

“It was not in a threatening manner,” Lau said. “We let them know that if they did walk off, we do have contingency plans, and we had contacted other airports to bring federal screeners in if we needed to.”

A spokesperson for TSA said if the workers had walked out, they would have stood a chance of losing their TSA bonus.

Ulanday noted that at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, only 15 percent of the incumbent workforce was rehired, and that airport has a much smaller immigrant staff than Oakland’s.

Lau said that the TSA would rehire those screeners who meet the new federal guidelines enacted after Sept. 11. He added that there would be enough positions for every incumbent screener who passes the assessment tests.

But current screeners and advocacy groups say the tests favor native English speakers, and fear they will filter out immigrant workers.

President Bush signed into law that all airport workers be federalized after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Nationwide, all screeners must now be U.S. citizens, have a high school diploma, GED or one year’s experience in airport security, to be eligible for a TSA job. Congress has authorized the TSA to hire 33,000 passenger screeners and 22,000 bag screeners by Nov. 19. The TSA is expected to release a report on its workforce in the next couple of weeks.

HATE CRIMES

Vietnamese and Laotian Youth Targeted in Massachusetts

Police have arrested a 14-year-old boy who allegedly beat a Vietnamese student with a bat in what police and school officials say is the latest in escalating violence against Asian Pacific American youth.

The boy, whose identity has not been made public, was arrested Saturday morning on a warrant, officer Ayala Carmen of the Springfield Police Department’s Youth Assessment Center said.

The warrant, issued Friday, charged the teenager with assault with a dangerous weapon and violation of the victim’s civil rights.

Four High School of Science and Technology students, two age 15 and two age 17, were getting off their school bus Monday when they were allegedly set upon by a group of four or five Hispanic and black males making anti-Vietnamese statements, police said.

One of the 15-year-old boys spent two days in the hospital, while the other three were treated and released.

The 14-year-old alleged attacker was charged with civil rights violations because of the anti-Vietnamese statements, Officer Michael Carney told the Union-News of Springfield.

“We want to send a clear message to the community that we will not tolerate this type of behavior in the schools, on or off the buses,” Carney said. “Contrary to what some believe, students go to school to be educated and that’s their civil right and we will protect them.”

Police have asked the state Attorney General’s Office to review the police documents to consider issuing a civil rights injunction, Carney said.

If granted, it would keep the perpetrator from approaching the victims or anyone else in the state he believed to be Vietnamese.

John F. Maloney, who runs the school department’s transportation, said he has been working with police since the last school year to protect APA students.

Maloney said Vietnamese and Laotian students appear to be targets.

Assistant Superintendent Mario F. Cirillo Jr. said school officials have been aware of the situation since last spring and have been working with police to keep students safe.

Chau T. Van, executive director of the Springfield Vietnamese American Civic Association, said he was not surprised by the attack.

“It’s been happening in the community. We want to stop the hatred,” he said.

Police said the investigation is continuing.