Sunday Read: Jose Antonio Vargas - Wary undocumented citizen on a book tour

JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS

JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS is on a cross-county book tour promoting his memoir, looking over his shoulder for ICE agents.

The U.S.'s best known undocumented American has written a memoir about his journey to America and what has happened to him since he revealed his immigration status after winning a Pulitzer Prize.

Vargas has been on the move since Donald Trump took office after his landlord in L.A. advised him to leave out of fear government actions against Vargas.

“The building manager was like, 'Hey, this might not be a good idea for you to stay here because we don’t know if we’ll be able to protect you if ICE showed up,’” Vargas told NBC. “The moment he said that, it captured my predicament in a way that I have a home, but it’s not really my home.”

He went off the grid. Not only for his own safety, but also to collect his thoughts and write his memoir.

At one point, after Trump's 2016 election, he broke out of hiding. After careful consideration and discarding the suggestion of friends to move to Canada, Vargas popped up publicly as the guest of Rep. Nancy Pelosi for Donald Trump's first State of the Union in 2017.

Now he is on the move again. This time the Filipino American journalist and activist is on a tour promoting his book, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, which has received great reviews considering the timeliness of the subject.

“l cried reading this book, realizing more fully what my parents endured,”  endorsed Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club.

Vargas came to the U.S. as a 12-year old boy living in the San Francisco Bay Area with relatives. He was sent here by his mother, something that he explores in his book about feelings of abandonment and the power of a mother's love.

Interviewed by NBC, he said writing a memoir is akin to "performing an emotional root canal on one’s self without novocaine." Vargas said the book essentially was a work of personal exploration and self-realization.

“Working on this book gave me the kind of clarity that I needed to face and see as a 37-year-old man who has been displaced and because of that displacement has displaced himself. Once I got closer to the end, I realized I wasn’t only hiding from the government, I was hiding from myself,” he said. “I also realized in the process that home isn’t something I shouldn’t have to earn. It’s actually a basic right to have a home — to feel like you belong in a place.

Vargas won his Pulitzer in 2008 as part of the Washington Post team that covered the shootings at Virginia Tech.

He is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and a leading voice for the human rights of immigrants. He is the founder and CEO of Define American, the nation’s leading non-profit media and culture organization that fights injustice and anti-immigrant hate through the power of storytelling.

In 2011, the New York Times Magazine published a groundbreaking essay he wrote in which he revealed and chronicled his life in America as an undocumented immigrant. A year later, he appeared on the cover of TIME magazine worldwide with fellow undocumented immigrants as part of a follow-up cover story he wrote. 

He then produced and directed Documented, a documentary feature film on his undocumented experience. It aired on CNN, streamed on Netflix, and received a 2015 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Documentary. Also in 2015, MTV aired White People, an Emmy-nominated television special he produced and directed on what it means to be young and white in a demographically-changing America.

Vargas is a proud graduate of San Francisco State University (’04), where he was named Alumnus of the Year in 2012, and Mountain View High School (’00).

An elementary school named after Vargas will open in his hometown of Mountain View, California in 2019.

Thus far, there have been no problems on his nationwide book tour. He plans to stick to his schedule  (See attached.) fully aware that he's letting ICE know his whereabouts.

Vargas eventually came to the conclusion to abandon the move to Canada: 

From his memoir, he writes: "I refused to let a presidency scare me away from my own country. I refused to live a life of fear defined by a government that doesn’t even know why it fears what it fears. Because I am not a citizen by law or by birth, I’ve had to create and hold on to a different kind of citizenship, something more akin to what I call citizenship of participation. Citizenship is showing up. Citizenship is using your voice while making sure you hear other people around you. Citizenship is how you live your life. Citizenship is resilience."
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Immigration sidebar: In case of deportation, be prepared, know your rights.

IF YOU or a member of your family is under threat of being deported from  the U.S., it is best to be prepared.

Define America has created a short tutorial on what documents to have at hand and what steps to take if ICE agents knock on your door or visit your place of empployment, where to go to find an immigration lawyer,  Take notes:

Define America is an organization founded by undocumented American Jose Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist turned immigrant advocate.

RELATED: June is Immigrant Heritage Month

Help make your parents become U.S. citizens

Rep. Gene Wu in the Texas House of Representative

By Rep. Gene Wu
REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF NEW AMERICA MEDIA
LIKE MILLIONS of other immigrant families, my family came to this country with not much more than the change in our pockets. Born in Guangzhou, China, I was four years old when we moved to the United States. I grew up in southwest Houston, where I now have the honor of serving as a member of the Texas House of Representatives.

While my family’s specific story may differ, our experiences echo those of other immigrants. Our fathers suffered long and brutal days working for little money in jobs that didn’t respect their intelligence or education. Our mothers scrimped and sacrificed to make ends meet, and to give us the best education possible. Our parents endured the physical hardships, endured the insults of people strange to them, and continued demeaning jobs because they believed in something better. Something better for us.

Over the decades, hard work and perseverance has lifted our family into middle class. Today, I am an attorney and state representative in one of the most diverse cities in America. Our family’s story is the story of immigrant families repeated countless times across the United States. Today, our families run successful businesses, employ millions of people, and we have a lifestyle envied by the entire world. We owe a debt of gratitude to our parents that is often unsaid, but felt deeply in the bonds of our families.

There is one perfect way to pay our parents back: give them power, give them respect, give them voice. Help them become citizens, and take them to vote.

In the nine years that I have been a volunteer with our monthly Citizenship and Immigration Forum, I have meet thousands of eligible people who have lived in this nation for decades without applying for citizenship. Some didn’t know that the law only required that they have a Green Card for five years, some never applied out of complacency. But, no matter the reason, the result has been that millions of immigrants are forgoing citizenship. 

Citizenship means respect. As a citizen, you are a formal member of American society. You are able to vote and direct our democracy. You are able to enjoy the benefits and respect of being a citizen. You can look that one guy in the eyes and, when he asks you where you’re from for the third time, you just say: “the United States of America.” 

Citizenship is voice. None of the horrible things that have been said about immigrants in this election year are new. They were said to our parents’ faces, and whispered behind our backs. The difference is that it’s now being said at a national level. Voting is a way to yell back at those who mock and demean us. While your voice may not feel very loud on its own, when enough people are shouting, it starts adding up. Voting will give your immigrant community political power that is far greater than its physical presence.

I come from a culture where, even as an elected official, my parents cautioned me not to “rock the boat.” But, America is a nation where no one will address your community’s issues unless you are willing to create some waves. I and many other officials from immigrant communities would not have been elected without the help of voters from those communities. The only effective way to combat those who attack our communities is by voting. We must elect people who hear our voices, and are willing to engage in our causes.

In honor of Citizenship Day, Sept. 17, organizations across the country and collaborations like the New Americans Campaign are hosting workshops to provide free and low-cost help to those applying for citizenship. If your parents have not been naturalized to become U.S. citizens, ask them why. Find a citizenship workshop near you where you can get help applying. Push them to fill out the forms. Help them get it in the mail. If you and your family are already citizens, make sure you’re registered to vote. Then take them to vote this fall. Tell them it’s time for them to speak up and be respected, be powerful, and be heard. They have built a wonderful life in America; help them stand proud.

Gene Wu is a member of the Texas House of Representatives, representing District 137 in Houston. This column is part of a series of op-eds by public officials about citizenship, published by New America Media in collaboration with the national, nonpartisan network New Americans Campaign. For more information about upcoming citizenship workshops near you, go to: newamericanscampaign.org/events.

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The merger of race and politics spells an uncertain future for U.S.

IT'S LABOR DAY, 2016, the traditional start of the campaign season but this election cycle has been far from traditional. In fact, it would be safe to say, we have not seen anything like it in recent memory.

It has almost been a year when Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the President of the U.S. and the country has not been the same ever since. Even if the businessman/showman (of known worth) doesn't win, he's already done enough damage to the U.S. that will take years to recover from.

I know my friends and family get tired of me talking about race all the time ... but it is a hard topic to avoid these days. Everywhere I turn I'm cursed with viewing the world through the particular lens of an Asian/Filipino/American/Californian.

I try not to depress my friends about the current state of race relations so out of courtesey and in order to keep their friendship, I try to avoid the topic -- and get on some non-controversial topics like the movies or TV. Oops. There it is again - #OscarsSoWhite and #WhiteWashedOut tend to bring the conversation back to race - or the lack of substantial roles for AAPI actors; or romantic lead roles for Asian/American men and/or the proliferation of ass-kicking Asians.

How about education and the classes my young friends are taking or teaching? Darn it! It's hard to talk about education without dipping into the topics of affirmative action and the necessity for ethnic studies. Of course, there's that model minority thing still haunting Asian Americans where we're all supposed to be good in math, science and medicine and poor in the arts and creative expression.

Even when talking about the seemingly apolitical subject of sports, it is impossible to avoid the topic of race. Well there's the whole kerfuffle surrounding 49er backup quarterback Colin Kapernick and his refusal to stand during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner because, he says, how could he support a country that oppresses people of color? And the mascot of the Washington DC's NFL team is pure racist.

Politics -- well, there's no escaping the subject of race in this presidential election cycle. Race has dominated the political discussion ever since Trump declared his candidacy in a manner that ripped asunder common decency by berating Mexican immigrants. A fascinating article by Lee Drutman appeared in Vox recently and one of the things he pointed out that our attitudes towards African/Americans and Latino/Americans is closely tied to our political views. (Once again, another well-intentioned pundit ignored Asian/Americans.)

Take a look at the following two graphs indicating the feeling towards Hispanics (Latino/Americans) and Blacks (African/Americans) as it pertains to political persuasion.

Drutman correctly points out that in the past, we've had our racial differences and we had our political differences, but this year, the two seem to have merged. To read the complete Vox piece, click here.

I would love to see what the chart looks like for Hispanics after Donald Trump's immigration speech last week loaded with coded words and phrases intended to fire up his core group of apparently threatened white males, afraid of the demise of their exalted position on top of the heap and with it, the diminishment of their power and influence.

I was talking with another friend - at least, one of my few remaining friends - the other day and we both lamented the fact that the race-baiting and hate-filled rhetoric coming from the alt-right and repeated by their candidate for consumption in the print and broadcast media, have set back race relations by years, if not decades.

You'll note in the chart above that for African/Americans, today, they are looked upon even more poorly than the mid-1960s when we saw the passage of two historic pieces of legislation: the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, when Jim Crow laws and segregated schools were still socially accepted in large parts of the country.

The downward trend began with the ascendancy of the non-compromising, religiously driven Tea Party conservatives in 2004 and the curve became a slippery slope when the 2008 election came around that saw the election of the first African/American president. That may have been the last straw for the ultra-ultra conservatives. There are certain elements in our country who cannot bear having an African/American as the leader of the Free World and have vehmently denied that reality since Barack Obama was elected president.

During the ensuing eight years, the data being released by demographers was the last straw, pushing white nationalists, or the alt-right, into a frenzy - they were losing what they perceived as "their" country. By mid-century, non-Hispanic Whites (Euro/Americans), would be less than 50 percent of the U.S.

RELATED:

• The GOP's new Southern Strategy with immigrants in the Willie Horton role
• America's challenge is learning to live with itself
• Report says hate groups on the rise

By the time 2016 rolled around, by comparison, even the ultra-conservative Tea Party looked moderate compared to the new conservative radicals. They had to come up with a new name for the far, far, far right wing, the alt-right, which had been biding their time waiting for their candidate to make his appearance. Along came this loud, boisterous, media-savvy demagogue who fit their purposes perfectly.

Donald Trump opened the door to the alt-right, white supremacists, or white nationalists, as they sometimes call themselves, who for decades kept their dark views to themselves in polite society. As Trump discovered his base, he began fueling their fears with his anti-immigrant, anti-refugee hate rhetoric that is his trademark. The alt-right had found their messiah. 

With Pandora's Box opened, the KKK, survivalists, ultra-conservative evangelicals, fascists and neo-Nazis have come out of the dark corners of our society and all that pent-up racism has been unleashed because Trump, with the media unwittingly giving him a national platform, has made racism socially acceptable again. 

RELATED: Asian Americans lean towards Democrats

It is no wonder that people of color are shifting their allegiance to the Democrats, who appear to be more welcoming to the legions of African/American, Asian/American, Latino/American, Native Americans and Muslim/Americans. Asian/Americans, because of their entrepreneurship and perceived wealth in comparison to other groups, were once seen as prime candidates for the GOP but because of the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from the right, even traditional conservative Vietnamese/Americans have no other choice but to lean towards the Democrats.

My hope is that the Democratic Party's apparent acceptance of people of color is more than just an Aikido-like strategy vs. the Republicans -- taking the GOP driving away minorities and pulling them into the Democratic fold -- simply as a means of defeating the other party. If the Democrats really want to represent the myriad peoples of our country, we will have to wait and see after the election. If Hillary Clinton wins, the people she chooses to surround herself will give us a good indication of her and the Democrats' sincerity and priorities. (No disrespect to Judge Merrick Garland, but an Asian/American on the Supreme Court would deflect a lot of doubt.)

What's being forgotten with all the attention  given to race: That is the widening chasm between between the rich and the poor, the shrinking middle-class and the economic inequities this income inequality creates. The growing disparities may be even a stronger discord than that caused by race.

Where race and wealth inequity intersect, most noticeable among the lower income of all races and ethnicities, we create the perfect mix of anger, social tension and an uncertain future, a bubbling cauldron that could explode in our faces.

With the changing demographics of the United States, we wonder if the Republican Party -- at least the moderate Republicans that I grew up with -- can survive the increasingly vitriolic demands of Trump's supporters surrounding the issues of race.

With its vicious internal three-way struggle for control between the alt-right, Tea Party and what's left of the moderate wing, there are those who are gleefully anticipating the demise of the Republican Party. I caution those who would applaud the GOP's disintegration: Be careful what you wish for. With the resurgence of the far ultra-conservatives, what steps into the void of our traditional two-party system might be even more frightening.

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Rise in Islamaphobia is creating new political awareness among Muslim/Americans

Ghazala and Khizr Khan's speech at the Democratic National Convention was one of the surprise impactful moments in the event held last July in Philadelphia.

THE PUSH to get more Muslim/Americans to vote has been going oneven before Donald Trump said he would ban all Muslims from entering America in order to get a handle on the terrorist threats that might be coming into the U.S. The proposed ban injected a sense of urgency to the campaign.

But it was the appearance and speech of a mild-mannered man and his wife at the Democratic National Convention and the aftermath that really underscored the need for more voter registration among the Muslim/American population.

When Khizr Khan spoke about the loss of his son, 27-year old Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed while serving in Iraq was going on smoothly uneventful when Khan challenged GOP candidate Donald Trump to read the Constitution. Many thought that might have been the unexpected emotional highlight of the convention. He pulled a copy of the Constitution out of his suit pocket, waved it in the air and offered to loan it to Trump. 

By then, he had the attention of all the delegates. "Have you ever been to Arlington cemetery?," asked Khan, looking directly into the TV cameras. "Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one." Standing ovation!

In response, Trump belittled Khan and the silence of his wife, Ghazala, who stood at Khazr Khan's side but was too emotional to speak.

RELATED: 

• Backlash against Trump after he attacks the Khans
• Muslim/American offers powerful, emotional moment at the DNC

Trump's attacks drew the wrath of America's veterans and parents of soldiers who died in the Middle East. It threw Khan and his wife into the middle of the presidential campaign and gave a face and rallying point for the Muslim/American community. Trump's poll numbers plummeted from which he has yet to recover.

Robert McCaw, CAIR’s director of governmental affairs for the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told Yahoo News that since 2012 there have been a number of failed attempts to launch Muslim voter registration initiatives. And while he agrees that the Trump campaign has certainly motivated more Muslim voters to get involved in the election process this year, McCaw argues that the rise in registered Muslim voters is also partly the “gradual result of Muslim community becoming more engaged with electoral process.”

When CAIR launched its 2016 Muslims Vote campaign, the goal was to lead 1 million Muslim constituents to the voting booths.

American Muslims are the most diverse religious community in the country, said McCaw, noting that African-Americans make up one-third of the Muslim community, while the other two-thirds comprise immigrants — or the children of immigrants — from the Middle East and South Asia.

“It’s taken some time for immigrant Muslims to connect and work with domestic groups like the African-American community,” McCaw told Yahoo. “Only now are we getting to see the fruits of that labor.”

At the same time, McCaw said, Trump’s anti-Muslim agenda seems to be pushing the Democratic Party to work “twice as hard to engage Muslim voters,” who, although composing only 1 percent of the country’s population, are highly concentrated in key battleground states like Ohio, Virginia and Florida.

“I don’t know if there would have been half as many Muslims speaking onstage at the DNC if Trump had not brought them into the spotlight,” he said.

According to CAIR, 78 percent of Muslim voters cast their ballots for Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush in 2000, but ever since Sept. 11, 2001, American Muslims have been making a steady exodus from the GOP. Results of a CAIR poll of Muslim voters following the Super Tuesday primaries in March revealed that 46 percent supported Hillary Clinton, 25 percent backed Bernie Sanders, and only 11 percent favored Trump. The poll also found that the top issue concerning Muslim voters was rising Islamophobia in the U.S.

Like other AAPI voters, although their numbers are relatively small when compared to other ethnic groups, in some areas and states, Muslim voters could tilt elections.

According to the Pew Research Center, Muslims represent just 1 to 2 percent of the country’s population, but they tend to live in strategic places — swing states like Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

“When the vote is close, then in fact, the Muslim vote in those swing states can play a significant role. They ... will be seen as a significant minority community,” Georgetown University Islamic studies professor John Esposito said.

Esposito, who directs the university’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, said, “There certainly are Republican Muslims but they are a significant minority, and given [Republican presidential nominee Donald] Trump’s position with regards to Muslims … I don’t see many Muslims being attracted to Trump.”

To McCaw, as well as the leaders of the New Jersey Muslim Voter Project, 2016 marks the beginning of a new era of Muslim involvement in American politics.

Once registered, groups like the NJMVP and CAIR will need to work hard to get them to the polls this November. Past experience in their original countries may have tainted their voting experience, say Muslim/American leaders.

“The South Asian Muslim community is the least involved in politics because most of them are first-generation immigrants,” said Shawn Butt, one of the founders of the NJMVP with a small group of local Muslim leaders. In their countries of origin, said Butt, "We’ve seen absolute levels of corruption in politics, and we kind of bring that mindset that ‘It didn’t work back home, it’s not gonna work here, so why bother?’”

For many Muslim Americans — who have been the target of vitriol and discriminatory policy proposals throughout much of the 2016 campaign cycle — there’s never been a more important time to get out the vote.

“It’s the divisive rhetoric that makes us feel we’ve got to prove ourselves,” said Butt. He described its mission as “(mobilizing) the Muslim population, get them registered to vote, and push them to go out and vote come Election Day.”

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Turns out, 'Superstore's' Filipino/American character is undocumented

Reprinted from AsAm News
FOR THE FIRST TIME on network TV, a regular character is being depicted as an undocumented immigrant, reports the Inquirer.

Filipino/American Nico Santos plays Mateo on the NBC comedy Superstore, which already broke ground by introducing Mateo as gay.

In the Olympic episode which aired recently in prime time right after the Olympics' closing ceremony, Mateo learns for the first time he is undocumented.

Nico Santos

It’s a good bet Superstore will return to this plot line in the future, although NBC has not confirmed this.

RELATED: Asians-on-TV revolution continues into 2016

Define American, a nonprofit which strives to improve the portrayal of immigration in the media, posted the above clip on YouTube. In the description beneath the video, Define American wrote:

“On the premiere of season 2 of NBC sitcom, Superstore, Mateo, a gay character from the Philippines, discovers that he is an undocumented immigrant. In humorous form, he discovers that the green card he has is fake. This strains an already contentious relationship with Glenn, his manager. While Mateo tries to convey this fact to Glenn, his boss; he is supported enthusiastically without real comprehension about his status.”

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#WashingtonSoWhite: Paul Ryan selfie puts spotlight on lawmakers' staff diversity

IF WE WANT to increase the presence of Asian//Americans and other minorities in the marbled halls of power in Washington, we need to elect more minority politicians to office.

Short of that, we need to get more people of color in senior staff positions -- you know, the people who do the real work of governing, meeting with constituents, attending countless policy meetings in those back rooms on Capitol Hill, reading the pages and pages of bills, research issues and help shape the positions their bosses eventually takes.

According to a study published in December, “Racial Diversity Among Top Senate Staff,” found only 7.1 percent of top Senate staffers were nonwhite, and minorities represent approximately 35 percent of the U.S. population. 

Of the 336 people who hold top Senate staff positions, only 24 are people of color: 12 Asian/Americans, seven Latinos, three African/Americans and two Native Americans. 

“Each office — those of all 535 members of Congress as well as assorted committees and offices — hires its own staff, so there’s no centralized tracking of hires,” according to the Washington Post.

It also appears that Democrats are as guilty of this disparity as Republicans, according to the study. 

The workforce of Capitol Hill looks a lot like the selfie that House Speaker Paul Ryan took with a roomful of interns, most of whom are Republicans.

Ryan recently took a selfie with this year's crop of interns working for Washington's politicians and it underlined the problem -- you had to look really, really hard to find a person of color. Of over 200 interns in the picture, perhaps two of them were people of color. It is possible that number may increase if some of the interns pictured were white Latino/Americans.

The Instagram selfie created a firestorm on social media for its obvious lack of diversity.

Back to the Ryan selfie, RJ Khalaf, an intern for Democratic congressman Andre Carsonn, told USA Today that the photo included interns from both parties. 

The event was a speech for the Congressional Summer Intern Lecture series and students were selected by a lottery, Khalaf added. However, the July 14 seminar at the Capitol Building was arranged by the House Republican Conference and titled “Interns Today, Leaders Tomorrow,” according to the Daily Mail. The “overwhelming” majority of interns in attendance were Republican.

In response, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, (Texas) took a picture with hundreds of Democratic interns. Note the difference?

A pretty good number of the people who take make up the lawmakers' staff start their public service careers as interns. Most internships are unpaid positions. Therein lies the problem.

“If your parents are living paycheck to paycheck, how are you going to do (an unpaid internship)?” said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that focuses on labor and economic issues, in a July 5 interview with the New York Times.

 “It restricts access to jobs in government to a narrower group of people.” It skews the  perspective of people who are making policy. Staffers are human beings and like all human beings, they have a perspective based on their own life experiences that affect the decisions they make. If you've never gone to public school, never associated with communities of color, never had to work two or three jobs to pay for your education, never had to translate for your parents, never met an undocumented immigrant - your experiences are quite limited.

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For more news about Asian/Americans & Pacific Islanders, read AsAm News.

Undocumented Asian immigrants eligible for DACA. not taking advantage of program

Asian/Americans demonstrated in support of President Obama's immigration reform policies that were being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court last Spring.

Reprinted from AsAm News

Annette Wong, Chinese for Affirmative Action
 Director of Programs, speaks at a DACA press conference
in San Francisco .

MUCH CONFUSION and uncertainty may be overwhelming undocumented immigrants seeking a path to citizenship, reports New American Media.

Last month’s 4-4 split decision in the U.S. Supreme Court was a blow to DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents) and the expanded DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) programs.

Still in effect is the original DACA program which protects eligible undocumented immigrants from deportation for two years and allows them to work legally in the United States. Those that qualify must have entered the United States before age 16 and be under the age of 31. Expanded DACA would have eliminated the upper age limit.

RELATED: Asian/Americans condemn SCOTUS  ruling on immigration

Many of those who were under the original DACA program must now renew their application as their two years is nearing an end. However, with the uncertain political climate, some have expressed fears that they may put themselves in jeopardy if the new president ends DACA.

“There is no evidence of this,” said Sally Kinoshita, deputy director of Immigrant Legal Resource Center. “There have been numerous programs like this, and there is no evidence of the government going after you.”

Since 2012, 728,000 have received DACA, however researchers say Asians have been severely underrepresented in the applicant pool.

Only 18,000 people from South Korea, the Philippines, India and Pakistan have applied.

RELATED: Asians are part of the immigration debate

Among eligible Filipinos, just 24 percent have applied. The application rate among eligible Indians is 21 percent, and just 17 percent among eligible South Koreans have applied for DACA. The Chinese American application rate is so low it didn’t make the list of the top 20 countries of DACA applicants.

RELATED: Dreaming with the American dreamers

The accompanying graph from the Center for American Progress compares the application rate of those from Mexico to those from South Korea.

Some blame a cultural stigma attached to being undocumented for the low application rate among Asians. Others point to a language barrier with Asians in the U.S. having the highest rate of limited English-proficiency. Efforts among AAPI groups to increase the application rate have so far not been successful.

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July 4th: America can be as beautiful as we want it to be

One of the singers in Coke's "America, the Beautiful" commercial.

OPINION

I'm a sentimental sap. Despite 28 years as a journalist - having to deal with tragedies, liars, bigots, criminals, despots, PR spinmeisters and countless examples of people's inhumanity towards man and woman - I never let the "bad" news turn me into a grouchy, old cynic, an unfortunate occupational hazard.

I still get a lump in my throat when the "Star Spangled Banner" is played as the TV camera focuses on the faces of our Olympic athletes; I stand a little straighter when veterans get honored; I struggle to compose myself when I talk about the struggles our AAPI pioneers had to endure, and I get teary-eyed when I see and hear this multi-lingual version of "America, the Beautiful." Among the languages used in the commercial to sing "America, the Beautiful" are Tagalog, Mandarin, Hindi and Farsi.

Mrs. Dolores Baso

One of the images in this long version of the Coke commercial,which includes scenes and interviews with everyone involved in its making, there's a brief image of a former neighbor of mine, the late Dolores Basco, an immigrant from the Philippines. If you don't look for it you'll likely miss it. I was surprised to see it and had to go back and freeze the frame with her image. There she was!

Mrs. Basco - that's what I called her - always had a smile for me. Her wisecracks about other people in our Filipino/American community are part of my fond memories of her. She always pitched in when my parents hosted an event at our house, using her kitchen as an auxiliary when the food prepping got too big or the four burners on our kitchen range was not enough. Her kids babysat our daughters.

Mrs. Basco is also the grandmother of Dante Basco, the very same actor who played the groundbreaking role of Rufio, leader of the Lost Boys, in the movie Hook. The Basco family's fourth generation are also shown in the clip's swimming pool sequences.

RELATED: America's challenge is learning to live with itself.

When the 30-second commercial was first shown during the 2014 Superbowl, the bigots and faux patriots came out in droves, especially on the Internet "How dare Coke! 'America, the Beautiful' should only be sung in English!" was the gist of their outrage.

To its credit, Coca-Cola resisted the xenophobes, defended the concept, doubled down and aired a 90-second version of the commercial during the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics a couple of months later.

Behind the scenes of the Coke commercial: America, the Beautiful.

I wish they would air the commercial again during the Republican Convention this summer just to tweak the white supremacists who have flocked to their candidate. During this presidential campaign when so much hate and fear is being stirred up, it's easy for people of color to become despondent, disappointed and cynical.  Our country has a lot of flaws - (a lot!) - but the biggest flaw it suffers, is not living up to its lofty self-image. 

RELATED: The GOP's new Southern Strategy based on racism

I know, it's a Coke commercial and it's hard to justify the amount of sugar in one serving of the soft-drink - but what better way to celebrate America's birthday than by mixing capitalism with patriotism? To many people around the world, Coke is as iconic a symbol for America as the Red, White & Blue or Statue of Liberty. Try to think of the message, not the soft-drink. The real product the commercial is selling is what America can be; what American should be. 

RELATED: Dear White America ...

The message of the "America, the Beautiful" commercial needs to be heard again. Forget the soft-drink and focus on the message: America is a country of diverse peoples; you don't have to be an English-speaker to love America; you don't have to be white to be an American. It is not a nostalgic longing for the past, but a reach towards the future of our country.

I can almost see Mrs. Basco sipping coffee in our kitchen, saying, in her wisecracking manner, "Let America, be America!"

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Uproar over racist detergent commercial from China

OK, let's get to it.

This TV commercial for a Chinese laundry detergent is out and out racist - disgustingly racist.

The detergent commercial airing in China made me so angry that it took me a week to gather my thoughts.

The ad for Qiaobi laundry detergent drops shows a black man entering a room and attempting to flirt with an Asian woman. He is carrying a pail of paint, wears dirty clothes and has a soiled face. She feeds him a detergent drop and stuffs his body into a top-loading washer. When the cycle completes, a fair-skinned Asian man in a clean white T-shirt emerges to the delight of the woman.

Shanghai Leishang Cosmetics Ltd. Co. said it strongly shuns and condemns racial discrimination but blamed foreign media for amplifying the ad, which first appeared on Chinese social media in March but was halted after it drew protests following the international uproar.

"We express regret that the ad should have caused a controversy," the statement issued late Saturday read. "But we will not shun responsibility for controversial content."

"We express our apology for the harm caused to the African people because of the spread of the ad and the over-amplification by the media," the company said. "We sincerely hope the public and the media will not over-read it."

While we're being honest, let's also admit that too many Asian people, including those who have recently immigrated to the U.S., harbor negative images of African/Americans.

When I first saw the ad, I viewed it with my African/American co-workers and I was aghast as they were. I was also embarrassed because it confirmed what many believe - many Asians from Asia have racist attitudes towards Africans in general, African/Americans specifically.

Some will try to excuse the attitude to the fact that Asian countries are largely homogeneous and have very little interaction with Africans or African/Americans. To be fair, most foreigners are viewed with suspicion in those Asian countries, but those sentiments are most expressed towards Africans and African/Americans.

But why does this prejudice exist?

In most of Asia, light skin is a sign of beauty. Skin whitening products about. Women will go to great lengths to avoid being out in the sun. Heaven forbid they get a tan. Some of it is cultural. Dark skin, or tanned skin, is a sign of the lower class: the class of workers who have to work outdoors, on the farm, in the fields, on construction jobs, tending the elephants or water buffalo, cleaning up the refuse of the upper classes. 

Light skin means you are probably rich enough that you don't have to work in these menial jobs for a living. 

And while we're talking straight here: Light skin in some countries mean you probably have some caucasian blood in your past, be it Spanish, Portuguese, British or American. Even though these nationalities can have people of all races, white is the popular image of the colonial master - the so-called, self-anointed upper crust of humankind. In the words of British poet Rudyard Kipling, Europeans and "Americans" (nee whites) need to take up the "White Man's Burden" to save the souls of the "half-devil, half-child" people of color.

The commercial is not the first time racist attitudes came to the fore. As the Los Angeles Times reminds us of Darlie, a toothpaste popular in parts of Asia, formerly known as Darkie. In the 1980s when the product was introduced, commercials featured a smiling black minstrel in a top hat.

"The Darkie-Darlie name swap was more or less imperceptible to the average Chinese consumer and was mostly a move to keep English-language media from criticizing the company," wrote the N.Y. Times. "Today, the toothpaste is still marketed as 'black man toothpaste.'"

Darlie is made by Colgate-Palmolive, an American corporation, who wouldn't dare air a similar commercial in America but deems it OK in Asia.

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While it may be tempting to blame the racism in China on the U.S., let's not underestimate the influence of the media images emanating from American pop culture.

Wall St. Journal columnist Jeff Yang writes:

In fact, a study jointly conducted by researchers at Washington State University and Towson University found that attitudes among high school students in China toward African-Americans were generally more positive than their stereotypes of Americans in general -- with the exception being students who had extensive exposure to U.S.-based media, who were more likely to perceive African-Americans as "poorer," "less moral," "less polite" and "less intelligent" than other Americans. The researchers ultimately concluded that the results "can be explained by how African-Americans are portrayed more negatively in American media."

It is not to say that racism doesn't exist among the Chinese and other Asians and I certainly don't want to excuse the commercial makers for their ignorance, but let's just say that the African/American image does not fare well in the  movies, TV programs and news stories created here (as a portrayal of America) and consumed abroad.

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And that brings us back to why we spend so much time bemoaning the lack of diversity in the movies and television. The America the world sees through these media is not the America we live in.

It is no accident that when foreigners and recent immigrants refer to the "Americans," they are really referring to Euro/Americans (white Americans).  As I have often said in my posts, words matter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the picture of our country needs to more reflective of reality.

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