The debt Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders owe to Martin Luther King, Jr.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. is an American hero whose birthday we celebrate today (his real birthdate is Jan. 15). 

While his fight for equality and justice is mostly seen in the context of the black/white paradigm, his role as America's moral conscience in America's goal to become the America in deeds as well as the lofty words of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, affects all of us, even Asian/Americans and Pacific Islanders.

With the racist immigration restrictions that favored European immigrants, it was not until the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act that the great influx of Asian immigration began and continues today to the point where the greatest number of immigrants today are coming from Asia, not Latin America as generally perceived by the public and mainstream media.

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Therefore, most AAPIs living in the U.S. are relatively recent arrivals or are too young to understand pre-1965 America. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act followed on the heels of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson.

Most of the rights and opportunities AAPI enjoy today are the result of that pre-1965 civil rights struggle.

However, the importance of MLK and the Civil Rights Movement that resulted in rights taken for granted today, may be lost on those who did not live in the United States before the mid-60s. These include:

• Immigration: Before the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed, The U.S. immigration policy favored Europeans over other countries from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Now, each country is allowed an equal quota. Today, the largest number of immigrants are coming from Asia.
• Voting rights protection: Bilingual ballots where there are large numbers of speakers of a language other than English and prohibition of discrimination against language minority groups. Today, those rights are threatened by states asking for additional documentation and proof of residency and citizenship.
• Interracial marriage: In the 1967 case of Loving vs. State of Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court banned all laws prohibiting marriage with other races. Previously, each state had to throw out that racist law But it wasn't until 2000 when Alabama becomes the last state to officially legalize interracial marriage.
• Affirmative action: The law allowed educational institutions and government whose workforce didn't represent the general populace to put in place actions or policies to correct that imbalance.

Although there were many Asian American individuals who worked, marched, protested or inspired by King's work, their roles have been left out of the history books and overlooked by mainstream media.

And the majority of the AAPI community who arrived after 1965 don't know that history or the individuals such as Grace Lee, Larry Itliong, Gordon Hirabayashi, Daniel Inouye, Fred Korematsu and countless others whose stories need to be told.

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders still reap from the benefits of the work of Martin Luther King Jr. The AAPI community shouldn't forget that debt. The best way to honor the martyr's life is to publicly acknowledge our indebtedness of the blood that was shed so we may reap the rights that came out of that work. We can repay that debt by continuing  to work towards King's dream by ensuring that those protections remain in place for others to enjoy.

DIOKNO

The blogger visits the MLK Monument in Washington. D.C.

Dr. King was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1968. The same ignorant, fearful beliefs held by King's killer, are still among us today, working to overturn much of King's work by inciting hate and fostering division. It is the same fear that inspired Dylann Roof to shoot nine African American members of a bible study class in Charleston, South Carolina, the same hatred that works to put in voter restrictions in some states, the same ignorance that advocates deporting millions of undocumented immigrants and the same evil that prompts men with guns to take over a bird sanctuary in Oregon; and the same fear that cause he white supremacists he incited to attack the Capitol on behalf of Donald Trump.

MLK Day is not a day for just African Americans. It is a day all Americans need to reflect on King's dream and the journey taken by countless unsung heroes, to where we are today ... some might say we have taken a few steps back ... and how far we still need to travel to reach the "promised land."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Updated Jan. 17, 2021 to include the attempted coup 11 days ago.