? Good morning and welcome to The Yappie’s Asian American + Pacific Islander politics briefing! Support our work by making a donation, send tips to [email protected] and apply to join our team.
ICYMI: We’re excited to announce that The Yappie will join a diverse cohort of 10 newsrooms launching reporting projects as part of the Solutions Journalism Network's Advancing Democracy initiative. This opportunity was made possible by our amazing friends and partners at Self Evident and AZI Media, whom we are honored to work with over the next six months. Learn more here.
On the Hill
GREEN CARDS FOR FAMILIES KEEP WORKERS WAITING: A new Senate spending bill would restore to families unused green cards that expired during the pandemic. But that would also mean fewer spots for foreign workers.
- Here’s why: When family-based green cards go unused by the end of the fiscal year, those visas roll over into the employment-based category. More than 80,000 family-based visas expired as U.S. consulates abroad closed during the pandemic, report Bloomberg’s Andrew Kreighbaum and Ellen M. Gilmer. The new bill would hand those extra green cards back to families instead of offering them to foreign workers.
- This matters because… More than 80% of foreign workers on the waiting list are from India and China, according to a Cato institute analysis. The immigration caps and processing delays mean workers can be kept waiting for decades.
UPDATE—SENATE PANEL DEADLOCKS ON SUNG: The Senate Judiciary Committee split 10-10 in a Thursday vote on Jennifer Sung, President Joe Biden’s pick for the Ninth Circuit. GOP lawmakers have criticized her opposition to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Sung’s now-delayed confirmation marks the first time the panel has tied on one of Biden’s judicial nominees.
- What’s next: Sung could still advance if Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) moves to discharge her nomination to a full floor vote. She apologized last month for signing a 2018 letter urging Yale Law School not to support then-SCOTUS nominee Kavanaugh amid allegations of sexual assault.
- Other action: The Senate voted 52-48 Thursday to confirm Tana Lin to the Western District of Washington, making her the first Asian American federal judge in the state’s history. Republicans also grilled Shalina Kumar, who would be the first federal judge of South Asian descent in Michigan, over donations to Democrats earlier this month.
FILIBUSTER FIGHT: Biden signaled Thursday that he would be open to ending the filibuster for voting rights after Senate Republicans defeated Democrats' latest attempt to pass the Freedom to Vote Act.
- Remember: In 2020, AAPIs saw the record high voter turnout, according to AAPI Data. Civil rights activists say a federal voting bill is necessary to counter new GOP-led restrictions, which could disproportionately impact voters of color.
- “To have a truly representative multiracial leadership, we need to remove barriers to voting, instead of making it even harder for minorities to vote,” Ning Mosberger-Tan, co-founder of the Chinese American Voter Alliance, told The Hill when AAPI civil rights leaders met with Biden to discuss the issue in August.
INFRASTRUCTURE BILL COULD BE ‘GAME CHANGER’ FOR HAWAIʻI: Affordable housing advocates say the House-passed Build Back Better Act could make a “huge dent” in the state’s housing needs, though it’s unclear whether billions of dollars in rental assistance and investments in low-income housing will survive Senate negotiations, the Honolulu Civil Beat’s Anita Hofschneider reports.
The Biden Era
MAKING MOVES—Neera Tanden is the new White House staff secretary, the Washington Post first reported Friday. The longtime Democratic adviser was tapped to be Biden’s budget chief earlier this year, but withdrew her nomination after GOP senators attacked her for past tweets.
- Worth noting: As The Yappie previously reported, Democratic Asian American leaders frustrated by Tanden’s failed nomination have urged Biden to pick former Obama administration official Nani Coloretti to permanently lead the Office of Management and Budget. The founder of the AAPI Victory Fund claimed in a CNN piece published Sunday that the White House told him “Coloretti is a top contender for the post,” though Biden still hasn’t named a permanent director.
2020 HATE CRIMES HIGHER THAN FIRST REPORTED: Hate crimes against people of Asian descent rose 76% in 2020, more than federal authorities initially reported in August, per updated FBI data that corrects a technical error in Ohio’s reporting system. Advocacy groups caution that the bureau’s statistics do not capture the full scope of anti-Asian violence, since state and local law enforcement agencies submit data on a voluntary basis.
FIGHTING GENDER INEQUALITY: Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander women and their families are at higher risk of experiencing gendered hate crimes, according to the White House’s first-ever national strategy on gender and equality. AAPI women reported two-thirds of all anti-Asian hate crimes documented between March 2020 and March 2021, data from Stop AAPI Hate shows.
- Don’t forget: Women of color on average are paid the least among all members of the workforce, according to the White House report. AAPI women who work full-time are paid as little as 52 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, according to a study by the National Partnership for Women and Families.
UNC VICTORY RAISES HIGH COURT STAKES: A federal judge has rejected a conservative group’s attempt to scrap an affirmative action policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, ruling last Monday that the school’s race-conscious admission process “did not discriminate against white and Asian American applicants.”
- What’s next: With Students for Fair Admissions vowing to appeal, the closely-watched case now appears headed to the Supreme Court, which is currently considering whether to hear a similar suit against Harvard University. The high court last ruled on an admissions case in 2016, when it decided to allow processes that consider race “in a narrowly tailored way,” the Associated Press’ Mark Sherman notes.
- Reminder: Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Asian Americans support affirmative action, though support is lowest among Chinese Americans. The 2020 Asian American Voter Survey put Asian Americans’ level of support at 70%.
DOJ REBUKES UTAH SCHOOL DISTRICT: The Justice Department has reached a settlement with a Utah school district after the agency’s Civil Rights Division found it persistently failed to respond to “serious and widespread racial harassment of Black and Asian American students,” Shawna Chen reports for Axios.
AAPI Nation
NUMBER OF THE WEEK—$630,000: That’s how much NYC taxi driver Mohamadou Aliyu owes on a $100,000 loan he took out in 2004 to purchase a medallion, a certificate to own and operate an independent cab in the city. He’s not the only taxi driver in debt.
- Dozens of members of the New York taxi workers union, which is roughly 40% South Asian, began a hunger strike for debt relief on Wednesday. Aliyu, who has known nine colleagues that died by suicide, said he has “lost everything.”
Here’s what’s happening across America…
- Basement flooding caused by Hurricane Ida killed 11 New York City residents—nearly all of them AAPI, NBC Asian America’s Kimmy Yam and Sakshi Venkatraman report. Hongsheng Leng, one of the 11 victims, was an artist who spent most of his time in his basement apartment in Queens after retiring due to medical issues. He was found dead along with his wife and daughter following Ida’s wreckage.
- Northern Mariana Islands Lt. Governor Arnold Palacios (R) has announced his candidacy for governor, with Saipan Mayor David Apatang (R) as his running mate. The pair will run as independents in a challenge to incumbent Gov. Ralph DLG Torres (R), whose travel and expenditures are being investigated by CNMI lawmakers, per The Guam Daily Post.
- Nadia Chaudhri, a professor at Concordia University in Montreal who chronicled her battle with ovarian cancer, has died at age 43, writes the New York Times’ Annabelle Williams. Known for advocating for marginalized communities, she raised over $600,000 for minority students to pursue scientific research.
- Comedian Dave Chappelle’s anti-trans comments in a new Netflix special has spurred protests. Trans nonbinary artist Meg Emiko called out Netflix’s “performative activism” and reminded people that Pride means “fighting for the LGBTQIA+ community” all year round. “My trans family and friends will always exist and we will never be silenced,” they wrote on Instagram.
- Over a hundred years after a mob lynched 18 Chinese Americans in Los Angeles in one of the U.S.’s worst massacres, activists are campaigning to build a memorial, LAist's Josie Huang writes.
- In 2019, only 15% of Micronesian students in Hawai‘i were proficient in math. This spring, that number dropped to just 7%, an alarming decline that will require the “entire community mobilizing,” the Honolulu Civil Beat’s Suevon Lee reports.
- CBS Miami ran a segment remembering Peter Wang, one of 17 students killed at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Due to language barriers, his family had not been able to widely share his story prior to meeting CBS Miami’s Frances Wang.
- Conservative host Steven Crowder is facing backlash after making racist remarks about KPIX 5 reporter Betty Yu’s features. Yu spoke out: “What’s most shocking to me is the casualness of the racism, this kind of unbridled hatred and the mockery.”
- Hawaii FoundHer, an accelerator program for Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Asian women entrepreneurs, has announced its first cohort—with businesses ranging from hemp biomass, agritourism, and cloth diaper delivery, Pacific Inno’s Brian McInnis writes.
- Finally… Exit Spring Mountain, a podcast about AAPI communities in Nevada, launched its first episode this week on the reality of language barriers.
❤️ Enjoying The Yappie? Make a donation, forward this briefing to a friend. or subscribe here. You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
