The Best of the Asian Pacific American Bay Area (Feature) Over 100 APAs Elected to Office in Last Week’s Election (in National News) Filipino American Veterans March for Equity (in Bay Area News) Ultimate Diversions: Inside the Twilight Zone (in Business) Mark Chung: American Soccer’s Coolest Man (in Sports) Local APA Filmmakers Shine at Film Arts Foundation Festival (in A&E) Emil Amok: It Happened in Alaska (in Opinion)

It Happened in Alaska

DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ: As we go to press, MSNBC cites Reuters and other sources that say Iraq has accepted the UN resolution mandating the return of arms inspectors and disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam may be wearing that orange vest after all. But will Bush ease off the accelerator now?

An Iraqi embrace of the resolution didn't look good going into Friday's deadline — especially after the Iraqi Parliament rejected the proposal, leaving it all up to Saddam. Seemed vaguely democratic didn't it?

Saddam does know a thing about democracy — to the extreme. He recently held a referendum on his leadership where 100 percent of the people voted. 100 percent! Imagine that. San Francisco can’t get it together to have ballots at every precinct, but in Iraq, 100 percent turnout to vote — or else. I’m guessing about the “or else” part. I’m sure Saddam just wanted a perfect score. But someone should tell him democracy doesn’t work that way. Not if he wants to make it look legit.

Democracy works like it did here last week, when a handful who care to vote control the many, and where a majority of the few decide what our country actually will do.

That’s as fair as it gets. Who needs a dictatorship when democracy’s imperfect? Just be part of the winning 51 percent. If not, join the other 49 percent who go home crabby.

MY ELECTION OBSERVATIONS: Besides what’s become a de facto war referendum, I must admit I did miss the exit polling of Voter News Service this election season. Since that blown Florida presidential call two years ago, VNS hasn’t been the same. But when it pulled out of exit polling at the last minute without warning, it left many of us in the lurch. For years, VNS has been the only nationwide source for exit polls on ethnic voters. As imperfect as it was, from sampling size to language issues, it was still something.

Now we’re just left to guess.

Some are making hay that there were more Asian Pacific Americans Democratic candidates than Republicans. Of course there are. Or that 51 percent of all APAs won their races. That’s a majority, but is that empowerment? It’s a start.

For me, a true test of empowerment or lack of it was seen up in Alaska. You may not have heard about the election up there, but you may have heard about the 7.9 earthquake that preceded it. It rocked so hard they had to close the Alaskan pipeline.

And then after that, they still had to have the election. Just like the rest of the “lower 48,” as they say in Alaska.

So in just one week, APAs got rocked twice. Once due to mother nature. And the other due to the mothers who believe that politics is a blood sport.

WHAT HAPPENED IN ALASKA: Recently I was invited to speak to a group of 500 Alaskans through the Filipino American Historical Society and the University of Alaska (Go ahead, book me for a speech now.)

The national president of FANHS is former Alaska state legislator Thelma Buchholdt, a woman who is practically the Mother Theresa of the Filipino American community in the Anchorage area.

She’s much too modest to say that of herself, but it was her work in the state that cleared the way for the Asian Alaskan community center, the site of my speech. Buchholdt’s also has been largely responsible for keeping Filipinos, and APAs in general, “in the loop” over the years.

What happened?

She was gerrymandered out of her safe Democrat district a few years back, a true test of how feared you are. Rival legislators redrew the lines, and created a district where only Ronald Reagan could win. It effectively ended Buchholdt’s career as an elected official.

Still, she had a major role in the current Governor’s office. And she hoped to continue when Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer won in her quest for the governorship.

But then came this election day.

Veteran U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski, a Republican, decided to run for governor. While Ulmer gave Murkowski a challenge, Murkowski prevailed last week with over 56 percent of the vote.

On Dec. 2, Thelma Buchholdt returns to practice law with her husband, Jon. And Sen. Murkowski takes over as governor. What do you say when a state is taken over by the perpetrator of one of the most vicious and racist political acts against Filipino Americans in modern history?

Strong charge?

Not if you remember Wards Cove.

RACISM PRESERVED: Wards Cove was the name of one of Alaska’s major canneries and the defendant in a class action employment discrimination suit filed in 1989 by nearly 2,000 workers, many of them Alaskan native and Filipino.

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where the Filipinos got no relief.

But here’s what Justice Harry Blackmun said in dissent:

“The Salmon industry as described by this record takes us back to a kind of overt institutionalized discrimination we have not dealt with in years: a total residential and work environment organized on principles of racial stratification and segregation which resembles a plantation economy.”

Does slavery come to mind? Unfortunately, Justice Clarence Thomas swayed the majority, and the court ruled the burden of proof for these “racially disparate impact” employment cases was on the native and Filipino victims of discrimination — not the discriminating employer.

The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Ninth circuit.

But two years later, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act 1991, the burden of proof shifted back to the employers in these kinds of cases. It seemed like a certain victory for Filipino Americans, right?

It would have been were it not for Senator Frank Murkowski, who submitted an “effective date clause.” It was a move that was as dirty as politics get.

Murkowski, showing his mastery for manipulation, inserted language that effectively excluded the new Civil Rights Act from applying to Wards Cove:

“This Act shall not apply to any disparate impact case for which a complaint was filed before March 1, 1975 and for which an initial decision was rendered after October 30, 1983.”

There was only one case to which the specifics applied: The case of Frank Antonio and the plaintiffs against Wards Cove.

Murkowski protected the packers. The “plantation owners.” Not the people.

And yet on this past election day, before the people, Murkowski was rewarded with the governorship.

Think of Alaska when you consider our political progress. You don’t need to be a dictator to perpetrate Saddam-like evil in a democracy. That’s just the way politics works in America.

Reach Emil Guillermo at emil@amok.com.