Breaking: This Nov, Calif. voters will be asked to scrap the state’s 24-year old ban on affirmative action.
Senate just ratified #ACA5 which would allow for consideration of race & gender in public education and public hiring & contracting.
Senate vote was 30-10.
#ACA5 needed a 2/3 vote to pass. It got 3/4. The vote would have been straight down party lines -- but for Republican Jim Wilk of Santa Clarita, who voted to put the issue of affirmative action before voters Nov. 3.
#ACA5 backer @SteveBradford of Gardena challenged his white colleagues about race.
"There's not enough fingers & toes in this building to count the no. of times that me & my colleague from LA (Holly Mitchell) have walked into a room & we're the only ones that looks like us."
On the "no" side: Diamond Bar Republican Ling Ling Chang @LTwoC drew parallels btw #ACA5 & the Chinese Exclusion Act.
"The problem w/ACA 5 is that it takes the position that we must fight discrimination with more discrimination."
Ching referred to an anti-ACA 5 petition on Change.org started by some Chinese Am activists that has 131,000+ signatures.
@HollyMitchell countered that some 40M Californians should be allowed to weigh in on affirmative action.
Some background on why an attempt to bring back affirmative action in 2014 to California's public universities didn't make it as far as ACA 5 has: laist.com/2020/06/12/aff…
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There's never been a complete list of the people of Japanese descent incarcerated during WWII.
So a team of scholars & volunteers scoured 10's of 1000's of historical documents to come up with all the names — a way to give them back their identities. laist.com/news/wwii-monu…
In news stories, we use the estimate "more than 120,000" when describing the number of Japanese Am's and nationals incarcerated during WWII.
The team has now confirmed 125,284 people by name. The list is printed in a 1,000-page book that will be @jamuseum for the next year.
The team thinks they've got the list 99.5% right but to get it to 100% they're asking survivors and descendants to offer any corrections/omissions.
Aside from the "Book of Names," there's a searchable database going live this weekend: ireizo.com.
Dr. John Cheng, the 52-yr-old man killed in the Laguna Woods shooting yesterday, had tried to disarm the gunman. Other parishioners were able to then hogtie the suspect. "W/o the actions of Dr. Chang, it is no doubt that there have been numerous additional victims in this crime."
OC Sheriff say it's believed the suspect David Chou "was upset about political tensions between China and Taiwan" when he attacked the Taiwanese American Presbyterian congregation in Laguna Woods on Sunday, killing 1 and wounding 5.
FBI has opened a federal hate crimes investigation into Laguna Woods shooting to determine what type of fed'l charges can be brought against David Chou b/c "we have discovered evidence that the individual was motivated by some type of hate."
Up until several years ago I didn't know one of the worst massacres of Chinese people happened in downtown LA.
So many times without knowing it, I've walked past spots where people were strung up and shot. Apparently, I wasn't alone. laist.com/news/la-histor…
LA's 1st Asian Am councilmember Mike Woo is part of a group trying to get a memorial built for victims of the 1871 massacre.
Hard to say where. The attacks played out across LA. But they started on Los Angeles Street, near El Pueblo. Only marker now is a sidewalk plaque.
On Oct. 24, 1871, there was a gunfight btw 2 Chinese men. A white rancher who entered the fray was shot dead. That led a mob to form around a building (no longer there) where many Chinese men were seeking refuge. They were shot at and dragged outside to be hung.
CA has $5.2 BILLION to give out in rent relief. You can get 100% of back rent paid from April 2020 thru this Sept if you've struggled financially bc of covid & are income-eligible.
Applying can be hard if you don't know English well. Here’s ways to make it easier:
If you text “rent” to 211211, you can get help figuring out if you qualify in one of 11 languages.
Aid is available to those who earn no more than 80 percent of the median income for their area. For a family of 4 in the LA area, that’s just under $95,000.
You can also call for interpreter help: 1-833-430-2122. It’s available for Vietnamese, Mandarin, Spanish, Korean, Tagalog and Cantonese.
San Gabriel Valley is coming out big tonight for the victims of the Atlanta shootings. I’d estimate 1000+ btw 2 vigils.
People feeling the loss hard in this swath of LA Cty, which has 1 of the country’s largest concentrations of Asian residents. 10 cities have Asian majorities.
Leaders from these Asian-majority cities - Arcadia, Rosemead -- kick off a vigil in downtown San Gabriel.
Emotions run strong.
San Gabriel’s mayor Chin Ho Liao shouts “We have to stop the hate! We are Americans!”
Crowd in San Gabriel is older, more immigrant (I hear Mandarin and Cantonese being spoken) than those attending another vigil happening next door in Alhambra.
That one is being put on a 22 yo first-time organizer Betty Hang. Will come back to hers.