GOP 'rising star' mulling over switching parties

Hawaii State Rep. Beth Fukumoto

ASAM NEWS

ONE OF the "rising stars" of the Republican Party, Hawaii State Rep. Beth Fukumoto is considering a switch from the GOP after she was removed from her position as Hawaii’s House minority leader earlier this week.

Fukumoto told NBC News that she no longer felt she was able to defend the Republican Party and its actions. Fukumoto claims she has been receiving criticism from the GOP since her participation in the Women’s March in Honolulu on Jan. 21.

“What ended up being very problematic for me was that my caucus and others said, ‘If you want to stay in leadership, then you need to make a commitment to not criticize the president for the remainder of his term,'” she said. After all of the executive orders that President Trump has signed since his inauguration, Fukumoto did not believe she could follow through with what her party wanted of her.

At the Women’s March in Honolulu, she spoke out against President Trump’s rise to the presidency she said was founded on racism and sexism. “It doesn’t matter to me who you voted for. People cast their votes for a lot of different reasons,” Fukumoto said. “But, no matter who your choice was, the fact remains the same. A man won the White House with anger and hate, and our kids watched it happen. Now, it’s our jobs to make sure they watch us fight back.”

Her speech at the Women’s March led to immediate responses, in the form of messages from her colleagues to meet and calls for her resignation. Republican Rep. Cynthia Thielen defended Fukumoto’s participation in the march at the caucus on Wednesday. Thielen herself also spoke at the march. “Now she is being punished by three-and-a-half of our members for participating in the democratic process,” Thielen voiced.

When another caucus member tried to divert the discussion away from the topic of the march, Thielen responded: “It’s all about the Women’s March. It’s all about Representative Fukumoto standing up for women and human rights.”

Fukumoto’s letter to her constituents this past week expressed her desire to leave the Republicans; she has said she may be joining the Democratic Party.

The face that helped launch a movement

Munira Ahmed, left, was the model for the poster on the right.

YOU PROBABLY saw her face featured prominently in the Women's March on Washington last Saturday. She wore a hijab of the stars and stripes, a defiant gaze looking directly at you. 

The poster featuring 32-year old Munira Ahmed was held by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of marchers not only in the U.S parades but in sister marches throughout the world.

The poster was designed by Shepard Fairey, the same artist that created the iconic red, white and blue Hope portraitof Barack Obama that became popular during the 44th President's campaigns.

“It’s about saying, ‘I am American just as you are,’” Ahmed told the Guardian after returning to New York from Washington, where she took part in Saturday’s huge protest march. “I am American and I am Muslim, and I am very proud of both.” Ahmed, whose parents are from Bangladesh, was born in Jamaica, New York City and grew up in Queens.

RELATED: 

• Why they're marching
• 'We the People'
• More photos of family, friends and others in the march

Fairey’s contributions are in the same simple ink block style as his Obama portrait. He also designed posters of a black woman and a Latina accompanied by slogans: “Women are Perfect” and “Defend Dignity”. The portrait of Ahmed, however, has had the greatest impact.

Over the first weekend of the Trump era, several newspapers featured full-page reproductions of the artwork.

“It’s an honor because of what the picture represents,” Ahmed said. “It’s not anti-anything. It’s about inclusion. It’s about saying, ‘I am American just as you are.’”

The image on the poster is based on a photograph taken 10 years ago by Ridwan Adhami, a New York-based photographer who is also from Queens. The photo is well-known in its own right, generating controversy within the Muslim community as well in  mainstream culture.

LEFT: Shepard Fairy's most famous work is the iconic poster of Obama rendered in red, white and blue.

Day 2 of the Trump presidency: AAPI groups join the march in Washington

ON SATURDAY, Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration of the 45th President of the U.S., Asian/American men and women will join a march in Washington D.C. to give notice to Donald Trump that the progress made by traditionally oppressed or ignored groups will not be undone.

The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) will convene a contingent of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) women and girls from across the country to join the Women’s March on Washington. NAPAWF will join AAPI organizations from other movements as well as reproductive justice partners to send a sharp, strong message to the incoming administration.

“NAPAWF is proud to march with grassroots activists from across the country to demonstrate for women’s rights and social justice,” said NAPAWF Interim Executive Director Sung Yeon Choimorrow. “We will march on behalf of the 10 million AAPI women and girls in the U.S. to demand our rights.”

Representatives from NAPAWF will march with other AAPI organizations to form a contingent of cross-movement AAPI solidarity. Korean drummers will lead the contingent through the Women’s March. NAPAWF activists will carry identifying signs and wear beanies emblazoned, “I Am Not Your Model Minority.”

“AAPI women, girls, queer and trans people stand to be directly harmed by the promises of the incoming administration,” Choimorrow said. “We will march on Washington and continue to build the grassroots movement across the country to work on the issues most important to AAPI women and our families.”

NAPAWF activists from New York will arrive in D.C. by bus, and even more will travel from across the country, including AAPI activists from Georgia, California, Minnesota and Texas. 

Constance Wu

Actress Constance Wu of ABC's Fresh Off the Boat and an outspoken Hillary Clinton supporter will join a contingent of celebrities who have said they would participate, including Katy Perry, Scarlett Johansson, Cher among others.

"I think having a march in Washington that is headlined and frontlined and led by women is a statement about the patriarchal standards that we don’t even see because they are so woven into the fabric of our existence," Wu told The Hollywood Reporter. 

Besides NAPAWF, some of the other AAPI partner organizations are:

• Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta 
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Chicago 
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles 
• Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO (APALA) 
• Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) 
• Council on American Islamic Relations – Connecticut (CAIR-CT) 
• Council on American Islamic Relations – San Francisco Bay Area 
• GABRIELA Washington, D.C. 
• Indian American Democratic Club 
• Korean American Resource and Cultural Center 
• Korean Resource Center 
• Muslim Community Network 
• Muslim Women’s Alliance 
• National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC) 
• Women for Afghan Women

Following the march, at 4 p.m., NAPAWF will host a post-event convening to strategize with other AAPI activists in preparation for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. The convening will provide space for AAPI women and transgender people to debrief the march and reflect and share in community, as well as looking ahead to resistance in 2017.

Other marches will be held throughout the country, London and Germany. In the San Francisco Bay Area, go here; Los Angeles; New York City; Honolulu; Seattle; and Chicago. For information on the march in other areas, just Google the name of the city and "women's march."

Launched by a Hawaii grandmother who was devastated by the results of Nov. 8, she posted on the Pantsuits Nation website, "I think we should march." The idea kept gaining momentum that will culminate on Jan. 21.

"In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore," reads the website for the march. "The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women's rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us."

###