APAPA voter forum recap, Jennifer Nakamoto speech, Hong Kong rally: Your AAPI newsletter

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Good afternoon! It is Wednesday, Oct. 2, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter brought to you by yours truly.

Here’s a recap on the stories I recently covered and issues I’m following:

The 18th Annual California Voter’s and Candidates Forum organized by the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs (APAPA) was held at Sacramento State on Saturday.

Several elected officials, including state Sen. Ling Ling Chang, R-Diamond Bar, Citrus Heights Councilwoman Porsche Middleton and Fremont Mayor Lily Mei, shared their wisdom and stories as leaders striving to improve the community.

Tzi Ma, actor from Mulan and The Farewell, was the keynote speaker at the forum. “We have the power to have the world see us the way we should be seen. So really us in the entertainment industry cannot do it without you, and vice versa, because of your support we are going to be able to represent you the proper way,” Ma said.

Last week was AANAPISI week. “AANAPISI” stands for Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions, which are colleges with an enrollment of at least 10 percent Asian American or Native American Pacific Islander students, and at least 50 percent of the student body must be eligible for federal need-based financial aid. AANAPISIs qualify for federal grants from the U.S. Department of Education to fund support and retention programs for low-income AAPIs and other groups.

The AANAPISI program is a part of the H.R. 2486 FUTURE Act, a bipartisan proposal to protect funding for historically black colleges and universities, tribal colleges or universities and other minority-serving institutions. The mandatory funding provides jobs, programs and financial support for students.

The FUTURE Act ensures that AANAPISIs continue to receive $15 million per year for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, but the funding they are receiving is significantly lower than that of other minority serving institutions. The House of Representatives passed the bill on Sept. 17.

In other news, Jennifer Nakamoto, founder and president of The Nakamoto Group, Inc, testified at a congressional hearing titled “Oversight of ICE Detention Facilities” Is DHS Doing enough?” on Sept. 26. Social justice organizations Tsuru for Solidarity, Densho and Nikkei Progressives condemned Nakamoto’s “misuse of Japanese American history in her efforts to justify the company’s complicity and profiteering off of the mass incarceration of immigrants,” a press release stated. Read Densho’s open letter here and Tsuru for Solidary’s statement here.

The Nakamoto Group is a private inspection company that painted a rosy picture of ICE detention centers whereas state auditors found otherwise, according to an LA Times report. At the hearing on Thursday, Nakamoto said she saw no need to change her business practices.

Read this New York Times opinion article on why it matters that “Emily Doe” in the Brock Turner Case – the former Stanford swimmer sentenced to six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman – is Asian-American.

A 2015 study by the Asian Pacific Institute on gender-based violence found that between 21 percent and 55 percent of Asian-American women experience physical or sexual violence from intimate partners, with rates varying based on ethnicity.

The San Francisco Stands with Hong Kong rally was held on Sunday at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco. Around 500 people came to support the rally, holding slogans that read “Free Hong Kong” and “Hong Kong is not China.” Protesters were orderly and listened to the sharing of protesters who flew in from Hong Kong.

For good stuff in Sacramento, the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center (SEARAC) is organizing their second biennial Moving Mountains: A Southeast Asian American Equity Summit in Sacramento, today through Friday. Workshops include “Why AAPIs Need Intersectional Gender Justice,” “Living History: Storytelling as Survival (for the Second Generation SEAA)“ and more.

On Friday, Amanda Nguyen, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee who penned her own civil rights into existence which led to the unanimous passing of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill Rights, will be the keynote speaker of the event. Read her story here.

There will be a free screening of the movie Imprisoning A Generation, a 50-minute documentary following the stories of four young Palestinians detained and imprisoned under the Israeli military and political systems, this Sunday (Oct. 6) at Arden-Dimick Sacramento Public Library at 1 pm. Adeeb Alzanoon of Palestine American League will hold a conversation with Laura Saunders, activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence.

This month is Filipino American History Month.

Near Sacramento, there is an international festival this Sunday at Central Park in Davis and a fiesta in Livermore.

In the following weeks, there will be a film screening of Delano Manongs, a documentary about farm labor organizer Larry Itliong and a group of Filipino farm workers who initiated the Delano Grape Strike of 1965. There will also be a reading with R. Zamora Linmark and an assembly.

That’s it for this week’s newsletter. For tips, please send to tyu@sacbee.com. Can’t wait to hear from you. Thanks for reading!

This story was originally published October 2, 2019 at 2:42 PM.