Bay Briefs
September 24, 2004
CEDG Funds Visitors Center
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco’s new board members of the Chinatown Economic Development Group (CEDG) have rehired its executive director, Sally Leung, and authorized or modified various community grants after recovering $140,000 last week, as reported in AsianWeek (“Chinatown Panel Gets $140K Back,” Sept. 16).
The visitor’s center, represented by a Koban on Grant Avenue, will receive $25,000, less than the $45,000 requested by the CEDG to employ youth as staffers.
The board rescinded $20,000 to fund a Chinese Culture Center exhibition on Macao and asked the center to seek other sponsors to share the cost.
The Clean Council Sunday Cleaning Program will get $10,000. With the city cleaning streets only Monday through Saturday, the grant will fund cleaners to work five hours earlier every Sunday morning.
More money was directed into the Chinatown night-market program to attract more evening tourists and city residents.
As much as $64,000 will be used to rent space from the Chinese Culture Center, Star Theater, or Portsmouth Square and hire another part-time employee to help with office work.
City Administrator Bill Lee said he has concluded his investigation on the $140,000 transaction; another investigation concerning a transaction of $270,000 is still ongoing.
Nakajo Endorses Mirkarimi for District 5
SAN FRANCISCO — Community activist and Fire Commission vice president Steve Nakajo endorsed Ross Mirkarimi for the position of District 5 supervisor last week. “Ross is an amazing coalition builder,” Nakajo said. “No one is better prepared than Ross to fight for Japantown and for all the working class families in District 5.”
Nakajo has been an activist for more than 25 years and is the founder and executive director of Kimochi Inc., which provides a support system for Japanese American seniors in San Francisco.
Angel Island Bill Passes House Committee
SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) announced the approval of bill HR 4469 by the House Resources Committee to restore the historic Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay.
Asian immigrants passed through Angel Island from 1910 to 1940. Following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, many Chinese were held in detention at the island for months and sometimes years.
“We are a nation of immigrants, and we must treasure that history while remembering that every individual must be treated with dignity and respect,” Pelosi said
ABA’s 28th Annual Awards Banquet
EVENT: Asian Business Association’s 28th Annual Awards Banquet
BACKGROUND: John Kobara, head of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of L.A., will keynote. David Ono, anchorman for KABC7 in LA, will present the awards, including Business of the Year, Corporate of the Year and Advocate of the Year.
INTERESTING: Assembly members Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), Carol Liu (D-La Canada/Flintridge) and George Nakano (D-Torrance) will attend.
DETAILS: Oct. 27, Hilton Universal City, Universal City, Calif., (323) 264-ABA7 or email info@aba-la.org.
Unocal Suit Revived on Myanmar Abuses
LOS ANGELES — Superior Court Judge Victoria Gerrard Chaney kept alive a human rights lawsuit that claims energy giant Unocal Corp. should be held liable for the alleged enslavement of villagers during the construction of a gas pipeline in Southeast Asia.
The 1996 lawsuit alleges that soldiers in Myanmar (formerly Burma) forced male villagers to help build the $1.2 billion Yadana pipeline into Thailand. El Segundo-based Unocal was a partner in the project.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers representing 14 anonymous villagers also allege that soldiers murdered a baby, raped women and girls, and forced people out of their homes to clear the way for the pipeline’s route during the 1990s.
The case against the oil and gas giant is considered a key test of the legal issue of multinational corporations and their potential liability for alleged atrocities committed abroad.
Infant Dies, Suicidal Woman in Coma
WEST OAKLAND, Calif. — A 3-month-old infant died and his mother is in a coma following the mother’s suicide attempt.
Hui Zhu, 42, had suffered from postpartum depression and could face homicide charges in the death of her son, Jason Situ. Police said Zhu had made previous attempts to kill herself since her son’s June 8 birth.
Zhu sealed the bedroom of her West Oakland home with tape and plastic. Then she heated charcoal in a pot on a propane-powered portable stove while she lay next to her baby. Called “burning the charcoal,” it is a suicide method sometimes used in China.
Zhu and her husband immigrated to Oakland about eight years ago. Her husband worked in construction and Zhu was employed by an East Bay rubber stamp business.
Torrance Immigrant Killed in Iraq
Spc. Edgar Daclan Jr., a 24-year-old medic, was killed in Iraq on Sept. 10.
“Wherever the troops were, that’s where he was,” said Iris Daclan, 26, his older sister. “He knew it was dangerous. His platoon commander told us that he never saw fear in his eyes.”
Daclan, the only boy of five siblings, moved to the United States from the Philippines in 1993. He was a student at California State University at Long Beach. His tight-knit extended family lived in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance.
In 2002, he and three cousins moved to Cypress, where Daclan took on the role of head of household.
“He decided to live with us so he could take care of us,” cousin Rashel Daclan, 23, recalled. “He was really proud because he loved this country.”
“He sacrificed so much for us, and there’s still a lot of shock,” said cousin Jovie Daclan, 20. “We are still holding on to him.”
Fualaau Wants to Wed Letourneau
LOS ANGELES — Twenty-one-year-old Filipino American Vili Fualaau, who had two children with his former sixth-grade teacher, Mary Kay Letourneau, 42, said the two would like to marry.
Letourneau was a 34-year-old elementary school teacher in suburban Des Moines, Wash., and a married mother of four when she began her relationship with Fualaau, then 12. She served seven and a half years in prison for child rape and was released this past August. At that time, a judge granted Fualaau’s request to lift an order barring Letourneau from contacting him. Since then, Fualaau claims he has been “seeing her every day.”
APIASF Selects First President
SAN FRANCISCO — Timothy Leong of Orinda, Calif., is the first president/executive director of the Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund.
“Mr. Leong brings many years of experience in corporate, community and media relations. Additionally, he is passionate about providing opportunities for students of Asian and Pacific Islander American descent who otherwise may not have the means to attend college,” stated Robert Underwood, interim chairman.
Leong, 50, has worked at San Francisco’s Pacific Gas and Electric Company since 1989 in corporate-community relations. He was previously a public-affairs producer/reporter at KRON-TV and Sacramento’s KCRA-TV.
For more information about the scholarship fund, go to www.apiasf.org.
Malkin Applauded for Defending Internment
BERKELEY, Calif. — Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin chastised shouting UC Berkeley protesters and won a standing ovation for her defense of racial profiling and World War II internment camps.
Author of the newly published book In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling, Malkin said relocating Japanese Americans to camps during World War II was militarily justifiable and that later condemnation of the evacuation has prevented an appropriate use of racial profiling to stop terrorists.
She attacked “civil liberties absolutists” who play the “internment card” to trump racial profiling, which would allow authorities to subject young Muslim men, for example, to greater scrutiny than other people.
Her book has been criticized by several historians and by the Japanese American Citizens League.
Connecting Cultures by Connecting Media
EVENT: New California Media Expo & Awards
BACKGROUND: There will be over 60 exhibit booths representing ethnic media from the Inland Empire Central and Northern Valleys, and community leadership awards selected by ethnic media from Valley California.
INTERESTING: Panels and workshops include “Freedom of the Press in a Post-9/11 World,” “Hmong Media” and “Women in Ethnic Media.”
DETAILS: Sept. 24, Ernest Valdez Hall, The Fresno Convention Center, 848 M St., Fresno, (415) 503-4170 or www.ncmonline.com/expo/fresno/register.
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