Immigratioin: Foundational principles of our country are weakening on many fronts

DONALD TRUMP is hammering away at the principles that have been the foundation of the United States. While some actions such as the Muslim Ban garners headlines, it is the little things that will make a profound and lasting difference in the way we view our government and our country.

It's the little things:

The lead U.S. agency tasked with granting citizenship to would-be Americans is making a major change to its mission statement, says The Intercept.

In an email sent to staffers on Wednesday (Feb. 21), obtained by The Intercept, US Center and Immigration Services director L. Francis Cissna circulated the agency’s new mission and said that “this simple, straightforward statement clearly defines the agency’s role in our country’s lawful immigration system and the commitment we have to the American people.” 

The new statement also excluded the word “customers,” which previously described those the agency served, claiming that the term’s use “leads to the erroneous belief that applicants and petitioners, rather than the American people, are whom we ultimately serve.” When asked about the exclusion of the “nation of immigrants” phrase, USCIS said that the “statement speaks for itself.”

The USCIS' new mission statement reads:

"U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values."

USCIS’s previous mission statement, still available on the agency’s website Thursday, read:

"USCIS secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system."

Note the difference? The old statement emphasized the "service" provided to "customers."


“As U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services' name clearly states, its purpose is to serve citizens and immigrants, not function as law enforcement," said the Asian Americans Advancing Justice in a statement. "This change is just one of a daily onslaught of attacks on immigrant communities that is rooted in nativism and fear-mongering about immigrants. Director Cissna can change the words on a website but he cannot change our nation’s core values as a nation of immigrants.

With the new statement, the Trump-appointed leaders of the USCIS give the agency the image of a law enforcement agency with the task of keeping people out.

Cissna solidified this impression in the rest of his email: “I believe this simple, straightforward statement clearly defines the agency’s role in our country’s lawful immigration system and the commitment we have to the American people.” The director highlighted, specifically, the removal of the word “customers” from the new mission statement, making the case that the word gave a false impression.

“What we do at USCIS is so important to our nation, so meaningful to the applicants and petitioners, and the nature of the work is often so complicated, that we should never allow our work to be regarded as a mere production line or even described in business or commercial terms,” Cissna wrote. 

“In particular, referring to applicants and petitioners for immigration benefits, and the beneficiaries of such applications and petitions, as ‘customers’ promotes an institutional culture that emphasizes the ultimate satisfaction of applicants and petitioners, rather than the correct adjudication of such applications and petitions according to the law.” 

Cissna added -- and this is important-- “Use of the term leads to the erroneous belief that applicants and petitioners, rather than the American people, are whom we ultimately serve.”

“All applicants and petitioners should, of course, always be treated with the greatest respect and courtesy, but we can’t forget that we serve the American people,” the director wrote.

Again, Trump and his people, have his very narrow view of who and what "the American people" that they purport to represent, is all about.

In poll after poll, survey after survey, report after report, the overwhelming majority of Americans see our country as "a nation of immigrants." We believe and espouse the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty that starts, ""Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

"The American people" Trump represents is actually in the minority -- a segment of the U.S. population that is getting smaller and smaller as we speak. 

"The American people" are not only Trump supporters. The majority of Americans voted against the charlatan candidate in November of 2016.

As Pew reports, "The American people" are increasingly coming from Asia. and whether or not Trump likes it or not, they're also coming from Africa and Latin America. Yes, the very countries he called "s--hole countries."

Without mainstream media looking over their shoulders, it's the little things that we tend to miss or overlook in this Trump administration. This is not the first time the government under Trump has sought to change the duties and priorities of the government. 

Since Trump has taken office, these "little thing" have been implemented. This is timely, one of the very first things Trump did when he took office, was that he rescinded the Obama-era rule that restricted weapons sales to the  mentally ill. Besides weakening the Affordable Care Act, rewriting the tax code to favor the rich and proposing massive changes in who's allowed to immigrate to the U.S., among the "little things" enacted or proposed by the Trump peope include:

• Removal of any reference to "climate change" from government websites;
• Allowing oil companies to drill off our coasts.
• Rescinding parts of the Clean Water Act  to exclude certain water sources that had been under federal protection.
• Appointing scores of judges who reflect Trump's anti-immigrant, pro-ultra rich, anti-labor, anti-environment. racist and xenophobic values.
• Removing thousands of acres of historic and cultural significance from National Monument designation and opening them up to drilling and mining;

 Little things ... that make a big difference.

(UPDATED: Feb. 23, 11 a.m. to add AAAJ statement, links and minor editing.)

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Legal rights group urges media to drop use of "chain migration"

WORDS MATTER. Some words are so fraught with emotion, such as racial epithets, the mere utterance of which could spark a fight.

Other words are so hurtful, when directed at a fragile individual, could drive one to suicide or to retaliate with violence.

In the last few election cycles, Republicans have proven to be masters at wordsmithing. They can turn ordinary words and phrases to mean something they don't, into insults, into curses or smirks.

Republicans have managed to turn "liberal" and "San Francisco" into dirty words, "patriot." to them means a partisan Republican, "job creators" into saviors of the American way of life, and "family values" into God-fearing, GOP-loving, anti-abortion values held by true-blue "patriots."

They continue to twist words and load them with fear and hate.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice, has written an open letter to mainstream media to bring their attention to a new term coined by Donald Trump and used liberally whenever the discussion turns to immigration - "chain migration."

"Please refrain from using this term in your news segments about immigration reform," says the letter. "Family-based immigration is the proper term that is used by the Department of Homeland Security."

"There are a few other terms such as family reunification, family-based sponsorship, or family preference categories that accurately describe this portion of our immigration system," continues the letter.

Chain migration, AAAJ says, is "incorrect terminology and outright derogatory."

"The administration uses the offensive term of “chain migration” as a means to avoid using the word family and to dehumanize immigration for the public. Terms like the one used by the administration are dog whistles to the white supremacists signaling that they are trying to keep out people of color."

"Families are bonded by love, not 'chains.' We ask that you do not let another newscast go forward where your viewers, listeners, and readers hear or see the term “chain migration.” It is a marketing term that we would argue is propaganda, used by the Trump administration that is meant to dehumanize immigrants and demonize the same immigration system that brought many of your ancestors and ours to America," concludes the letter.

READ the entire letter here.

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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.

RELATED: Talking about race - Ferguson is in the heart

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.

RELATED: #OscarsSoWhite - the sequel

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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President signs bill banning 'Oriental' in legislation

WITHOUT FANFARE, President Obama signed the bill that would ban the use of the word "Oriental" in federal legislation.

Rep. Grace Meng

“The term ‘Oriental’ has no place in federal law and at long last this insulting and outdated term will be gone for good,” the author of the bill, Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), said in a statement Friday. 

RELATED: 'Oriental' reinforces the Western point of view

President Barack Obama signed H.R. 4238 on May 20, which amends two federal acts from the ’70s that define “minorities” with terms that are now insensitive or outdated. 

Two sections in the U.S. Code written in the 1970s governing public health and civil rights attempted to define minority groups by using the outdated terms. 

Thanks to the new law, references to the term “Oriental” will be replaced with “Asian American” and the word “Negro” will be changed to “African American.”

'Oriental' reinforces the Western point of view; bill would do away with the word in federal legislation

WHENEVER I hear the word "Oriental," I cringe a little - even when we refer to rugs.

It is an example of the Euro-centric world view that is drilled into U.S. children from the time we first watch the commercials on TV and continues at school and at the mall. It places Europe (and the U.S.) at the center of the world. Everything is either west, east, south or north of that center and that perspective.

New York Congressmember Grace Meng

From a West Coast perspective, the so-called Far East (Asia's east coast) is actually West of us and the  are we call the Middle East is really the other side of the world.

A bill seeking to strike derogatory terms like "Oriental" from federal law has passed both chambers of Congress unanimously and is heading to the president’s desk.

H.R.4238, which Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y. introduced in December, passed the House in February and the Senate on Monday.

The bill seeks to “modernize” terms in federal laws relating to marginalized groups, and would replace the word “Oriental” with the phrase “Asian American.” 

“I thank my colleagues in the House and Senate for understanding that the time has come for our government to no longer refer to Asian Americans — or any ethnicity — in such an insulting manner,” Meng said. “Repealing this term is long overdue. ‘Oriental’ no longer deserves a place in federal law, and very shortly it will finally be a thing of the past.”

The proposed law seeks changes in two specific lines in the U.S. code written in the late 1970s that attempted to define minorities. 

In the law that established the Department of Energy, a sentence regarding the Office of Minority Economic Impact describes a minority as “a Negro, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Eskimo, Oriental, or Aleut or is a Spanish-speaking individual of Spanish descent.” 

Secondly, a line in the Local Public Works Capital Development and Investment Act regarding minority business enterprises establishes minorities as “Negroes, Spanish-speaking, Orientals, Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts.”

Both phrases containing the words “Negro” and “Oriental” will now be replaced with “African American” and “Asian American.” “Native Hawaiian” and “Pacific Islander” will additionally be included in the new descriptors.

“Spanish-speaking” will also become “Hispanic”; “Eskimo” and “Aleut” will be changed to “Alaska Natives”; and “Indian” will turn into “Native American.”

Other parts of the government, from time to time, revise their definitions of groups - most noteworthy is the Census Bureau. For example: 

According to the census graphic, the 1790 survey offered just three racial options for a household: "free white females and males," "slaves" and "all other free persons." By 1850, the available categories were "black; mulatto" or "white." Native Americans do not show up on the form until 1860 — as "Indians" — the same year "Chinese" first appears. People whose ancestry traces to India don't have an option until 1920, when "Hindu," a religious identity and not an ethnic one, appeared for the first and only time. There are no Latino or Hispanic options on the questionnaire until 1930, when "Mexican" appears. But that option went away after that survey, and all Latino/Hispanic choices completely disappear from the form for the next several decades. They don't show up again until 1970.

The Huffington Post wrote that In one of its more prominent changes, the Census Bureau announced in 2013 it would no longer use the word “Negro” on its forms after almost a century of use.

When Meng was in the New York Assembly in 2009, she authored a similar bill removing "Oriental" from state laws.

To be called an Oriental denotes an "otherness" without giving any indication of your identity or heritage, except to say you are in the "out" group.

By inference, then, who's in the "in" group? Self-named, self-appointed Westerners, Occidentals or Europeans and their descendants.

Words matter - a lot.

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

Anchor babies: Bush switches target from Latinos to Asians

UH ... I guess we're supposed to feel better that presidential hopeful Jeb Bush's use of the term "anchor babies" is referring to Asian babies, not Latino ones.

What?!? Thank you, Jeb. I'm so relieved you cleared that up.

Over the weekend, Jeb got into trouble trying to match rival Donald Trump's outrageous statements on immigration supported perhaps abolishment or weakening of the 14th amendment. The Citizenship Clause of the amendment states:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Wong Kim Ark's 1898 passport photo.

Throughout the centuries, that clause has been widely interpreted to mean that if you were born in the U.S., you are automatically an American citizen, even if your parents are not.

Does Bush have advisors or is he making this up on his own? I guess he feels it's alright to insult Asians rather than Latinos. Perhaps, his wife had a good talking to him when he got home. As a Mexican/American, his wife was probably very offended with Bush's original use of the term.

He - and/or his staff - most likely is not aware of the history of the amendment and its why the Asian American community may be sensitive to any weakening of 14th Amendment.

Originally intended to put an end to the debate whether or not recently freed slaves were full-fledged American citizens, the 14th was widened to include all people in an 1898 case involving Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco and whose Chinese parents were not allowed to have citizenship because of the country's racist laws in effect at the time. 

The question of Wong Kim Ark's citizenship went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark that “the amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born within the territory of the United States of all other persons (except children born to enemy aliens and diplomats), of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.”

What Bush is referring to are the babies born to tourists from China in an illegal activity called "birth tourism." In most of those cases, the babies return to China with their mothers. Their hope is in the future, if things get dicey in China or the child wants to go to college in America, citizenship will make returning to the U.S. easier. Entering the U.S. on a tourist visa and giving birth is entering the U.S. on false pretenses by lying on your visa application. That violation shouldn't be lumped in with the children of undocumented parents, who are referred to with the derogatory term "anchor baby." 

At a campaign event in Colorado  today (Aug. 25) a voter asked Bush if he regretted "scapegoating" Asians by suggesting they are most at fault for entering the country illegally to give birth so that their children can be U.S. citizens.

"I was talking about a very narrowcasted system of fraud where people are bringing ... pregnant women in to have babies to have birthright citizenship," Bush answered.

Bush's backtracking on the use of "Anchor baby" was awkward and obviously an attempt to blunt the outrage from the Latino communities. All he's done is offend another constituency; a constituency, I might add, that has a faster rate towards citizenship (ie. new  voters) than any other immigrant group.

Thanks, Jeb, but, no thanks!

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

For the sake of irony! Enjoy and listen to the words.

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