Impact of AAPI community on elections, student bullying, Newsom’s veto: Your AAPI newsletter
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It is Wednesday, Oct. 23, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter, brought to you by yours truly.
In California, up to 63% of AAPI survey respondents said they “don’t know” or “haven’t heard enough” about some Democratic candidates, a report released by AAPI Data shows.
AAPI voters make up roughly 1 out of 6 voters in California. As of Feb. 10, there were 19,978,449 registered voters in California, meaning about 3 million are Asian American and Pacific Islanders. They also made up one-third of the national AAPI population.
Their votes can make a difference.
More AAPI voters cast a ballot in the midterm elections in 2018 than in 2014. National voter turnout for the nation among Asian adult citizens jumped from 28% to 42%. Similarly, turnout among Pacific Islanders rose from 33% to 44%.
Read more in my full story here.
In other news, a Sacramento Bee report shows that 40 percent of Muslim students in California reported being bullied because of their faith, more than twice the national average for bullying in school for all students.
About 72 percent of Muslim students reported feeling comfortable openly identifying as Muslim, a 5-percentage-point decrease over the last three years. About 70 percent of students feel safe, welcome and respected at school, a 1-percentage-point improvement from 2016, but a 13-point decline since 2014.
Currently, no federal law directly addresses bullying.
Officials with Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Congress to pass the Safe Schools Improvement Act, an amendment which would prohibit bullying and harassment based on religion, race, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. The law would also require that states report data on bullying and harassment to the Department of Education, and Congress would release the data every two years.
AAPI inmate population ballooned by 250 percent in the 1990s, following the mass settlement of Southeast Asian immigrants after the Vietnam War. Southeast Asian immigrants are comparatively three to four times more prone to be deported for old criminal convictions. California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill last week that would have prevented the prison system from using resources to help private prison corporations conduct immigration arrests, NBC News reports.
Nonprofit Asian American Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus sent a cease-and-desist letter to the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on Tuesday to call against the immigration practices that had been warrantless, and is awaiting a response from the governor.
This New York Times article reports how Young Kim is back for a rematch less than six months later to represent Orange County in Congress as one of two Republican women of color.
“A lot of people agree that the economy is the number one issue for them, and Donald Trump is doing the right thing in this area,” Kim told The New York Times. She said many voters in the district tell her they support Trump’s efforts to take apart many federal regulations.
“That’s a key issue for all voters and especially women,” she said. “We’re going to need to focus on the results.”
Three top staffers who oversee class-action lawsuits are quitting the Asian Americans Advancing Justice-LA branch to protest against budget woes and major layoffs. AAJA-LA is a national Asian American advocacy organization addressing civil rights issues, pushing for outreach to underrepresented communities for the upcoming census, and promoting Asian American voting participation. A GoFundMe page has been set up for the laid-off employees in the most dire financial situations. More than $21,000 has been raised so far.
The Bay Area’s Kearny Street Workshop has been the reclaiming the narrative of what it means to be Asian American since 1972, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. It’s APAture program, a multidisciplinary arts festival featuring Asian American performers and artists, has been a platform for stars Ali Wong and Hasan Minhaj. Here’s the story.
I came across this list of 20 best Asian American Films of the last 20 years curated by the L.A. Times, and have been obsessively saving these titles on IMDb for later. Heard a lot of compliments for director Bing Liu’s “Minding the Gap,” the story of three childhood friends sharing the passion for skateboarding growing up in small-town Illinois.
AAPI Progressive Action is calling for AAPI representation in moderators for the Democratic debates, in a petition addressing broadcasting giants DNC and MSNBC. There have been zero AAPI moderators, an odd-one-out among other racial groups, in the history of Democratic debates since 1956, the organization’s Varun Nikore wrote.
For fun things to do in Sacramento, make sure you don’t miss the upcoming “Chinatown Rising” film showing at 7 p.m. Thursday at Tower Theater, by filmmakers Harry and Josh Chuck.
What is your favorite Filipino comfort food? Mark your calendars for the Philippine National Day Association’s Filipino Fork 2019 Food Festival on Oct. 30 at Turn Verein.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter. Please send tips to tyu@sacbee.com. Can’t wait to hear from you.
Thanks for reading!