If you are satisfied with where we are with civil rights in America, then I’m sure you’ll enjoy the next 50 years.
If we can manage to stay status quo.
That’s because the next 50 years we’re likely to be in a fight to keep what we have.
Or lose it all.
That’s what’s at stake this election year.
So while I was disappointed to not join in on the 50th anniversary gala of AALDEF, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education in New York this week, I already was getting a sense of the next 50 years.
I was in Florida doing my show, “Emil Amok, Lost NPR Host, Wiley Filipino, Vegan Transdad.”
Florida is like Hawaii, the most tropical state on the mainland. But here’s what I found. Filipinos had no clue about the history of racism toward Asians and Filipinos, a general theme in my play.
In “Emil Amok,” I talk about the colonized Filipinos brought to the U.S. to replace the Chinese victimized by the Chinese Exclusion laws.
One of them was my father born under the American flag. As a colonized “American National” my father couldn’t vote, own land, or intermarry. Was he free? Just free to work and take the abuse of xenophobic white males. Filipinos would take their jobs and endure white male rage.
And then when they would dance, date, consort, and even marry white women, often Filipinos were beaten, lynched, or shot dead.
It’s a part of American history few know about. And of course, in a state like Florida, where they have low-information voters, you also have the blowback on so-called “critical race theory,” creating a population with a low-history mindset.
The Filipinos At The Orlando Fringe “I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know a lot of our history,” said Emily Janninck, a Filipino American who recently retired from the medical field. She came to my show and was both entertained and informed.
Janninck was born in the Philippines and was left with her grandmother as an infant as her parents became the first to leave for the U.S. after the historic 1965 Immigration Act lifted the racist quotas that kept a large Asian American community from forming.
Her parents were in Brooklyn and were divorced when Janninck was reunited just with her mom. As a unique 1.5 Filipino generation, she moved with her single mom to Chicago where she grew up and met her husband Jim. For the last 20 years, they’ve been in Orlando.
Clearly, waiting for the arrival of “Emil Amok.”
Another, Asian American in the Fringe audience was Jennifer Chandy, a Filipino Pakistani.
Chandy’s mom, like many of my Filipino relatives in the Philippines, was forced to go to Saudi Arabia to find work. That’s where her mom met her dad, who came from Pakistan to also find work. Together, they started a family that eventually found its way to the U.S.
And now Chandy is a “Pakipino.”
“There’s not too many of us,” she said. “But we have great food!”
These are the Asian Americans who come to my show. They get the history, but few others understand that the rights of Asian Americans are still threatened like they were 100 years ago.
The Civil Rights Fight The Next 50 Years; Fighting The Unraveling The 1924 Immigration Act was the most racist immigration act and was in play until the 1965 law ended the zero quotas for Asians.
The exception, of course, was the colonized Filipinos.
But as I’ve said, no aliens, including the colonized were allowed to vote, become citizens, intermarry, or own property.
That last part, owning land or property, is still being fought today.
In Florida, SB264 would ban many Chinese immigrants from buying homes throughout the state. It’s a xenophobic reaction to Chinese people who are seen as possible threats to national security.
It’s the fight from 100 years ago is back.
“Florida’s alien land law specifically targets Chinese individuals in a clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause,” said Bethany Li, legal director of AALDEF.
She hoped that the recent halting of the law would keep copy-cat laws from coming up in other states to ban property sales to more than just Chinese.
“As a country, we should be making progress and passing laws that protect all communities rather than going back in time and reviving antiquated laws.”
Bethany is soon to be the executive director, taking over for Margaret Fung, a co-founder of AALDEF who helped build it to its legendary status as the Asian American civil rights fighter. Fung retires later this year.
What I’m seeing in Florida is an example of the kind of fights Asian Americans will be forced to wage in the coming years.
We climbed the mountain once. We will be forced to climb the mountain again.
It’s the lesson for the modern Asian American activist.
As we’ve seen in issues like abortion rights and voting rights, the rights game requires perpetual vigilance. Nothing seems settled anymore in America.
There is always someone willing to take away our rights at a moment’s notice.
So while I regretted not being able to see the sunset on the Hudson to celebrate the first 50 years of Asian American civil rights, I was happy to be in Florida where I can see what the battle looks like the next 50 years.
We’ll be fighting the undoing of all major victories. And of course, fighting for gains in areas where no one thought we had any rights at all.
But the last 50 years got us to this point. And for that, we all must be grateful.
First Stop Hawaii The sakadas were the first to leave the Philippines for Hawaii in the early 1900s, when Hawaii was not a state.
The ones who were born in that era got paradise, but a different experience in the plantations of Hawaii compared to the 30,000 like my dad who came directly to the mainland in the 1920s.
I learned more about the sakadas when they were celebrated in 2007. One of the sons of that movement was a longtime friend and fellow broadcast journalist Lloyd LaCuesta.
Lloyd and I worked in the San Francisco Bay Area as pioneering Filipino American journalists. He was the first at the local independent KTVU in the 70s.
I was the first at a network affiliate KRON in 1981. Lloyd would later become a San Jose bureau chief for his station. I moved to Washington, where I became the first Filipino to host a national news show, NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
As reporters, we would often see each other at stories and share tales about our fathers. When he talked about Hawaii, I often thought how unlucky my dad was to have skipped paradise. But as we know, it was hard work in the sugar and plantation fields.
This week I was pleased to hear that Lloyd was bestowed an honorary degree from the University of San Francisco to which his current wife’s family are major donors. Congratulations to Lloyd.
EMIL GUILLERMOis a journalist, commentator, and Asian American storyteller. He has written a column on Filipinos and Asian America on a regular basis since 1991. Contact him at www.amok.com.
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