Asian Americans Represented
December 25, 2008
Diversity a priority for the Obama transition
President-elect Barack Obama’s team looks like America. He is selecting the best and brightest for his new administration, and I am so pleased that he values diversity and Asian American representation as part of that calculus.
The president-elect has selected Nobel laureate Dr. Steven Chu as his secretary of energy and ret. Army Gen. Eric Shinseki as his secretary of veterans affairs. He has also appointed Asian Americans to his senior White House staff. With representation throughout his ranks, the Asian American and Pacific Islander community has much to look forward to in the new administration.
Chu: Guiding towards energy independence
I am glad that the new administration is demonstrating its commitment to not only diversity, but also to science. Dr. Chu, a pioneer in renewable and alternative energy, is a good friend and fellow Californian. His leadership and expertise will guide us toward our goal of energy independence and sustainability for future generations to come.
I have had the honor of working with Dr. Chu on numerous occasions, including during his service as an executive special advisor to my Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology throughout 2005 and his appearance as a witness at a House Science Committee Energy Subcommittee hearing that I organized in 2006 on the potential of renewable energy technologies.
Dr. Chu is currently the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Under his leadership for the past four years, the laboratory has become a world-class institution in alternative and renewable energy research. Dr. Chu’s own research has earned many awards and international recognitions, including the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light. Dr. Chu’s work continues to lead the way toward revolutionary discoveries to energy independence.
Shinseki: Fighting for our vets
We also have much to look forward to with Gen. Shinseki’s leadership at Veterans Affairs. Gen. Shinseki has the personal experience and dedication needed to fight as hard for our returning veterans as they have for our country. He is a friend and will be a strong advocate on behalf of all veterans, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Gen. Shinseki, who served on two combat tours during the Vietnam War, is the first Asian American four-star general and the only Asian American to serve as the Army’s chief of staff in 1999. In addition to his longtime military service, Gen. Shinseki is also the national spokesperson for Go for Broke National Education Center, a nonprofit dedicated to telling the story of the segregated Japanese American units during World War II.
Blazing Trails
Dr. Chu and Gen. Shinseki are the first Asian Americans named to their respective posts. This is exciting news for the Asian American community. They will follow the trails blazed by Secretaries Norman Mineta and Elaine Chao, to whom we will remain indebted for generations to come.
AAPI representation among White House staff
President-elect Barack Obama also announced three Asian Americans for senior White House positions. Peter Rouse will serve as senior White House advisor; Chris Lu, executive director of the Presidential Transition Team, has been announced as the White House cabinet secretary; and Tina Tchen, a prominent litigator from Chicago, will serve as the director of public liaison in the White House.
Looking forward to 2009
Importantly, as chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, I look forward to governing side by side with the Obama Administration as the president-elect has proved responsive to our communities needs. From strengthening the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to ensuring economic relief for American families, from full equity for our Filipino World War II veterans to ensuring funding for the 2010 census to make sure our communities are counted, from immigration reform to healthcare disparities and passing the Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act, we have a lot of work to do. So let’s roll up our sleeves and welcome an exciting productive year. In the meantime, I wish a very happy holiday and a healthy new year to all.
–
Rep. Mike Honda is the chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and represents California’s 15th District in Congress
Comments
11 Responses to “Asian Americans Represented”
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I had personally met Mike Honda here in CA. He has been tirednessly trying to promoting API to various positions and organizations. This man has one of the best integraty for our community. He works unselfishnessly for our representation, leadership, and visability.
We need to saluate him.
EL
Mike Honda is apparently obsessed with race over qualifications. The hidden message here in “diversity” is a slam against Americans of European descent. The USA is a historically and predominately European country and apparently Mike Honda does not like this. It is no surprise that the USA is in a steep decline when the emphasis is always on race rather than solving problems. Mr. Honda, you are a racist.
Mr. Scott C.
No where in Congressman Honda’s statement is there a slam against anybody or any group. PE Obama’s primary appointments, apparently based on qualifications and not based on ethnic origin, have been praised by leading conservatives and liberals. His centrist decisions are very commendable. To my knowledge, no other president has been so objectively selective in key posts.
Kudos to PE Obama for acting in our nation’s best interest, and not pursuing ideological or party-oriented guidelines.
Dr. Steven Chu was not selected because of his race, but for his brains and past achievements. That’s what we hope all of PE Obama’s selections will be based on.
Some of us did not vote for PE Obama because of his thin record of accomplishments as Senator, but he is clearly showing extraordinary leadership and if he continues to be strong and acts consistently in our nation’s interest, and not succumb to ideological or party preferences, he could turn out to be one of our greatest presidents. America needs a great President in this dark hour of economic downturn.
I hope he doesn’t disappoint me, or our nation.
Roger Dong
Dear Scott C.:
How is it possible for you to believe that Mike Honda OR Asian-Americans can possibly “slam” WASPish Europeans in this day and age or whenever?
You are living in a dream world of a future you fear.
But, for now, your beliefs are laughable. Actually, hilarious.
Race? Qualifications?
Dubya isn’t quallified to be ratcatcher, never mind his legacy of idiocies.
And race and religion have nothing to do with that fact.
He is a malingering nonentity purely on his own recognizanc, and I beg to differ with his “first” “lady.”
No, Scott C., the fact is that one and all should read yesterday’s, Dec. 27, Uri Avnery Engllish-language post, wherein he celebrates his 85th birthday with a ringing challenge to his lessers, IN and OUT of Israel, whose cowardly “leaders” continue the theoneocon travesty on “democratic,” “free enterprise” assaults on humanity and humankind.
P.S.: Avnery is Martin Buber redux. And Israel and the world should make proper obeisance. As in, at the very least, LISTENING.
Yeah, and, furthermore:
Folks, how can we, individually or collectively, stand by and not PROTEST this weekend’s and ongoing genocide in Gaza, in the name of Israeli “security”?
This “settler/Likud/Netanyahoo/AIPAC/Obama-Clinton thrust of shock-and-awe will prove the evil twin to the Rummified ditto in Iraq.
So much for “change.”
Not even “small” chamge as om nickels and dimes.
This medium of exhcnage is in human lives.
Obama ;proclaims he woujld do the same were his two daughters subjected to incoming missiles.
Has he heard about the Palestininan father whose FIVE daughters died under a brick wall felled by Israeli ordnance or jets?
Are Paklestinians “human”?
Is the Pope UNcatholic in his utterings? Mutterings
Obama may yet prove to evince a modicum of “change” domestically, but, so far, his hewing to the official Israeli line is cowardly AND manifestly UNjust.
One and all should read today’s CounterPunch contributor, one Jennifer Loewenstein and the companion piece on Info Clearing House by one Gideon Levy.
These twain, along with Uri Avnery, give the lie to the “Israeli” “spin:” on the current slaughter and estruction in Gaza.
P.S.: Not that i t matters, but, awarthur, please look up, once more, the word “prurient,: And, are you, as you promise fof a future “column,” the subject of the Robert Wone case, positioning y ourself as THE expert in the case? If so, may I assure you that there is NO WAY, and thank God for that, that this case will come close to the still-unsolved “O.J.” case, They got him for nefarious trade in his own memorabilia, and a sad lot THAT is, but, to me at least, no one has proved that Simpson did the deed. Maybe the financing of same, but whjat in the world would be his MOTIVE? He wasn’t that bright, but, then, neither was he more cykoabke than his “betters..” It’s all about celerity and the power thereof and the absolute lack of moral valuations.
P.P.S.: And, yes, folks, today’s online headlines include one that proclaims the thoroughgong and absolute regimen of “corruption” on the Mainland. My question is, WHICH mainland?
Coruruption could not be riper and rifer than it is raht=cheer in our very own Congress and everyday detritus, as in Tennesse coal derivatives and/or freeway shootings and/or domestic mayhem
No, folks, until the day WE begin to understand and acknowledge our OWN
.. . . our OWN culpability, so shall we continue to labor and suiffer u nder our own inadeaucies and idiocies.
P.S/: And a happy new year to you as well. It can’t possibly be worse than the year poast.
Folks:
As I drone ond on, with nary a listener, may I continue”
To wit”
1: The year beginneth as the last one endeth” identical.
2: Jennifer Loewenstein, associate director of Middle East Study Program at the University of Wisconsin,, today, on CounterPunch online, posts a MUST READ piece that passionately proclaims the “truth” about the Mideast “crisis.” Not that it will matter aniy more than this screed. Open political assassination the while the assassins proclaim their interest in a “ceasefire” is as politic and as “moral” as the steady march of the UNhioly ‘Roman Empire in millennia past. And “we,” along with most if not all of the self-anointed “civilized” world, continue in our complicity.
3: Info Clearing House/s Pam Martens piece on our Wall Street financial wizards and speculators.
4: Dr. George Koo’s New America Media lead artiicle on an American/Mainland twofer into a trifecta of global rapprochement and mutual profit. Dr. Koo begins to sound almost like an “official” conduit here.
5:: Today;s early-morn beginning of a new year on BART, at the Fruitvale station, where a shooting may be a killing. Small beer, next to continuing and growing desperations and violences contingent on our mindless espousal of “security” as in self-interest AND our fruitless and counterproductive hegira to hegemony.
The birds will continue to come home to roost. One way or t’other.
Nemisis. We deserve it. Earned it? That too.
P.S.: So, stow it, AsianPresident and fellow travellers, race won’t matter here, only your own individual valuies and valuations and perceptions and acceptances. Fact is, whether or no you accept, history will record itself, with or without us.
P.P.S.:
Allmost forgot, the GOProgramming of a “new” “deisgn” of projection and proclamations.
Ah, those Gollywood magicians, speinmeisters, and con masters.
Long may they gain a buck and lose a clue.
As in, what does it profit ? . . .
Okay, so no one else online here gives a damn.
But I’ll be the last to “apologize.”
Because:
Today, online, NewsWeek actually featured a headline piece entitled: Why Obama Should Get Tough on Israel.
The mlllennium.
At last.
A “mainstream” mouthpiece finally speaks up.
Where were they when Jimmy Carter spoke up?
On second thought, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.
Maybe bama reads NewsWeek.
Maybe he’s heard about the five daughters and the brick wall.
Maybe he’s a mensch in disguise as an AIPAC crawler.
Maybe he’ll even speak up BEFORE more pointless slaughter.
And, maybe, even, there remains a modicum of honor and decency in the Beltway.
I hope, but am not holding my breath.
P.S.: Are Americans “human”?
Scott C.,
If ten african americans are selected to represent their country in basketball, is it racist, against white americans and in favour of african americans.
Is there one american, out of three hundred million, who does not want America to do well? Is there one american who is not touched by the feeling of pride when the national anthem is played, when America won the Olympic gold in basketball? Scott, do you see the point…