In lieu of Kal Penn's new job, I wanted to point out that there is an awesomely substantial number of Asian American officials in the White House this term, whose faces we'll undoubtedly see (or not? The media is fickle) for the next four years:

• Eugene Kang - Special Assistant to the President
• Pete Rouse - Senior Advisor
• Chris Lu - Senior Advisor
• Eric Shinseki - Secretary of Veterans Affairs
• Steven Chu - Secretary of Energy
• Kal Penn - Associate Director of White House Office of Public Liaison

Read more about them at Asian Americans for Obama.

This in from OCA and Think Progress:

On Tuesday, State Rep. Betty Brown (R) caused a firestorm during House testimony on voter identification legislation when she said that Asian-Americans should change their names because they’re too hard to pronounce:

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

Yesterday, Brown continued to resist calls to apologize. Her spokesman said that Democrats “want this to just be about race.”

Okay, Betty Brown, let me tell you something: this is not about race; this is about cultural and nationalistic misrepresentation. First, what is this "here" to which she is referring? Southern White America? If so, then I'm sorry, but isn't it a little problematic that Betty Brown seems to believe that a certain territory and population claims ownership over what kind of name is easy or difficult to pronounce? This sounds like hyper-patriotism to me, and not the good kind. Second, what is with this division of "you" and "us"? Who are "you" and who is "us"? Is she referring to "You" as the Asian Americans citizen, and "Us" as the imaginary, unicultural, un-colored citizen? Wake up, Betty. What you're speaking to is a process of selective historicity, in which you blindly believe that this imaginary division that you're creating, between an American culture and an incomplete, partly but not fully American subculture, actually exists. But it doesn't. You need to rethink your categories, of what constitutes an Americanism, inclusivity, and cultural understanding.

	News Alert 5:41 p.m. ET Thursday, March 5, 2009 Sources: Sanjay Gupta Withdraws From Consideration for Surgeon General

Nooo.

The Columbia Political Union will be hosting a debate on affirmative action,between the College Democrats and College Republicans:

Sick and tired of the seemingly endless partisan debate? Well then, you're out of luck! Because, on Monday, February 23rd, the College Democrats and the College Republicans will face off in the first debate of the semester, moderated by the Columbia Political Union.

Debaters will be representing their own personal views and debating the following resolution:

Resolved: affirmative action is a policy at odds with equality and fairness

Okay, I would understand if the primary groups involved in this were debate groups. But they're not. They're political groups. So why are students of color groups (whose members are most directly affected by affirmative action) not directly involved in this discussion?

According to Hyphen Blog:

Apparently, your friend and mine Senator Daniel Inouye slipped a provision into the recently passed stimulus package awarding the $15,000 each the US promised to Filipino veterans last year (if they're US citizens; only $9000 if they're not). Now, all it has to do is survive the committee reconciling the differing House and Senate bills.

... yay?

Interesting article on the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress. Take a closer look at the reporting in the following exerpts.

"NEW ORLEANS — Soft-spoken, retiring and diminutive, Anh Cao does not appear to fit the role of dragon-slayer."

"Mr. Cao was a refugee from Vietnam at age 8, a former Jesuit seminarian, a philosophy student with a penchant for Camus and Dostoyevsky, an unknown activist lawyer for one of the least visible immigrant communities here and a Republican in a heavily Democratic district."

"Mr. Cao is not large, standing only 5 feet 2 inches by his own sheepishly given reckoning. But he is persistent and has the sort of difficult life story that would have made taking on Mr. Jefferson seem like a lesser hurdle."

"He is only a recent convert to the Republican Party, having been a registered independent for most of his adult life, and has no position — at least not one he cares to share yet — on President-elect Barack Obama's agenda. His politics seem less a matter of ideology than of low-key temperament and a Jesuit-inspired desire to “help and serve people,” as he put it. His mother bundled him onto a military transport plane with some siblings as Saigon fell in 1975 — “She shoved me along with a bunch of relatives,” he said — and he was separated from his father, a South Vietnamese army officer sent to a prison camp, for 16 years. He recalls a letter he received from his father at age 9, sent from the prison: Study hard, and give back to the community."

"Mr. Cao left the Jesuits, set up as a lawyer and began advocating for the small Vietnamese community clustered in the eastern section of New Orleans. Like others in the community, his life was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which flooded his house with eight feet of water. And like others, he quickly bounced back, part of a resilience in the community that was chronicled here in the first months after the hurricane hit. "

"The odds did not look good for Mr. Cao, but he was helped by two circumstances. Whites, fed up with the scandals around Mr. Jefferson, who is black, turned out in force, and blacks stayed home. In largely white precincts, turnout was around 26 percent, while in the blackest precincts, it was only around 12 percent, said Greg Rigamer, a New Orleans demographer and analyst."

"Full article: "History and Amazement in House Race Outcome"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/us/politics/08cao.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

By Adam Nossiter