Nation Briefs
December 29, 2006
Student Found Guilty in Sister’s Death
KENOSHA, Wis. — A jury found Trang Tran, a Vietnamese university student, guilty on a reduced charge of negligent homicide in the shooting death of her sister at their off-campus apartment where they lived while attending the University of Wisconsin at Parkside.
Tran, 24, had been charged with second-degree reckless homicide with a weapon, carrying up to 15 years in prison, in the fatal shooting of her 21-year-old sister, Bao Tran, in the early morning hours of May 27.
Trang Tran could face deportation to Vietnam when sentenced in February in Kenosha County Circuit Court. The charge carries up to five years in prison.
A criminal complaint said Tran told police she was only trying to “play detective and scare her sister,” and she did not realize the gun was loaded.
Be the Next Generation
EVENT: The Next Generation: Leadership in Asian Affairs
DESCRIPTION: National Bureau of Asian Research invites recent master’s and professional degree holders to apply for yearlong fellowship at NBR’s headquarters. One-year fellowship designed to further professional development and learn about Asia and U.S. foreign policy-making process.
DETAILS: Application deadline is Jan. 15, fellowships begin June 4 and concludes May 30, 2008.
CONTACT: www.nbr.org/NextGeneration
APAICS 2007 Summer Internships
EVENT: Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies 2007 Summer Internships
DESCRIPTION: APAICS invites college students to apply for its summer internships in Washington, D.C. Interns are placed in congressional offices, federal agencies and nonprofits.
DETAILS: Internship will last from June 4 to July 27. All application materials, including application form, résumé, transcript, cover letter, writing sample and two letters of recommendation, must be submitted by Jan. 31.
CONTACT: apaics@apaics.org, www.apaics.org
APA Health Leaders Meet
Representatives from 13 national APA community health and community organizations met with Health and Human Services Department Secretary Michael Leavitt in Washington, D.C., where Leavitt announced he would create a transagency workgroup to coordinate his department’s various services and programs to increase the visibility of APA communities.
“We stressed to the secretary the myriad health challenges our community members face,” said Dr. Ho Luong Tran, CEO of the APIA Health Forum. “The general lack of affordable health care, coupled with limited culturally competent and linguistically appropriate services have negatively impacted the community members’ access to general medical and specifically mental health services. Combined with the lack of aggregated and ethnic-focused data collection from the federal government, this has rendered our communities invisible to health care providers and policy-makers.”
The workgroup’s first collaboration will be on the Hepatitis B initiative.
Atlanta Zoo Names New Panda Cub
ATLANTA — Children sang and performers put on a lively dance as Zoo Atlanta unveiled the name of the nation’s newest panda cub, Mei Lan.
Mei Lan, which means “Atlanta Beauty,” was the most popular name in an online poll at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s website out of 10 names chosen by the zoo, media organizations and residents in China’s Sichuan province, where the Chengdu panda refuge and breeding center is located.
Little Peach and Bright Star were among the other choices in the poll that drew 57,000 online votes.
Chengdu director Zhang Zhihe said Mei Lan, pronounced “may-lan,” has male overtones, a gift Chinese parents bestow on female children whom they want to step outside traditional roles for women.
APAs Less Likely To Seek Help
Social psychologists at UC Santa Barbara have found that Asian Americans, especially immigrants from Asia, are actually less likely than their European American counterparts to seek support from their peers during times of stress.
Researchers said that while some view collectivistic cultures as closer, and therefore assume that Asian Americans would be more likely to turn to their support network for help, the opposite was repeatedly found in the study. Asian Americans are more likely to simply spend time with those to whom they are close instead of directly asking them for help, said the researchers.
The research suggests that Asian Americans fear that asking for help would burden others, disrupt harmony of the group, and bring shame to the person facing trouble or his or her family. Whites, however, may view asking for help as a proactive way to solve the problematic situation.
— Sampan
Internment Camps Preservation Bill Signed
WASHINGTON — President Bush signed legislation establishing a $38 million grant program to preserve notorious internment camps where Japanese Americans were kept behind barbed wire during World War II.
The money will be administered by the National Park Service to restore and pay for research at 10 camps, helping to preserve them as stark reminders of how the United States turned on some of its citizens in a time of fear.
The camps housed over 120,000 Japanese American U.S. citizens and residents under an executive order signed by President Roosevelt.
Co-sponsors of the bill included the two current members of Congress who spent time in the camps as children: democratic reps. Mike Honda and Doris Matsui of California.
Watada Rallies Support Before Trial
HONOLULU — Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who challenged the Bush Administration’s reasons for going to war in Iraq and then refused to deploy, says he has followed his sworn duty and moral compass.
Addressing more than 100 supporters, Watada, 28, said he followed his heart and understands that to live with a clear conscience he’ll have to face the legal repercussions.
“As leaders, as officers, we must stick our necks our and take that first step,” he said.
Watada said he couldn’t participate in what he considers an “illegal war.”
Despite the possibility of a prison sentence, he followed the oath he took as an officer to follow the Constitution, Watada said, receiving several standing ovations.
Immigrants Resort To Lawsuits for Green Cards
OKLAHOMA CITY — Immigrants demanding an answer on their requests to become permanent U.S. residents have filed at least 30 lawsuits this year in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.
Chao Li filed a lawsuit this fall. The Chinese doctor had been waiting for permanent residency status for over two years. Until he got his green card, he could not apply for grants, which are vital to his career as a researcher at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Under the terms of his employment-based visa, he could not change jobs.
Immigration officials told him numerous times they were waiting for an FBI name check. He filed the lawsuit on Sept. 29, demanding that the government provide an answer to his request for permanent residency. A month later, he had his green card.
Akaka Honored for Filipino Vets
WASHINGTON — Filipino American veterans and the Philippines government presented a Certificate of Appreciation to U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawai‘i) for his support of Filipino veterans.
“I will continue to do everything within my power to help Filipino World War II veterans gain the equity that they so richly deserve,” noted Sen. Akaka. “I plan to have Filipino veterans-related issues on the agenda during my tenure as the Chairman of Veterans’ Affairs, which begins in a few short weeks.”
Costs deterred passage of an Akaka amendment to the 2007 Congressional Budget Resolution to provide pension benefits to the Filipino World War II veterans. Akaka and Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawai‘i) are respectively co-sponsor and sponsor of S.146, the Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2005.
Korean Families Are Hurt by Internet Porn
SAN FRANCISCO — Increasing numbers of Korean Americans are becoming addicted to online pornography and gambling sites.
Hae Wang Lee, a counselor at the Korean American Center for Addiction Recovery, says even though Internet addiction is not currently recognized as a medical condition, Lee expects it will be very soon.
“The divorce rate is growing in the Korean community,” says Lee, “in part because of this addiction to the Internet.”
Out of approximately 83 million Internet users in the United States, 11 million suffer from addiction. In addition, researchers say that 6% of all users experience marital or other related problems, which stems from excessive amounts of time spent at the computer.
— Korea Times
Families of Campers Who Died Sue
SEATTLE — In two federal lawsuits filed, the families of five people who were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning while camping in southwestern Washington’s Lewis County this year say the bright orange warning labels are not clear about what “well-ventilated” means, and that simple manufacturing changes could have saved the lives of their loved ones and at least 75 other people who have died using Coleman heaters around the country.
In one case, the guardian of 5-year-old Cody Ongpituk is suing because his father, mother and 13-year-old sister died in May after using the same model heater in the panel truck where they sometimes slept. The Ongpituks, of Seattle, were staying in Lewis County to sell their Thai food during a Memorial Day festival.
The lawsuits seek damages for pain and suffering and lost wages, as well as punitive damages against Coleman.
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