Good morning, and welcome to The Yappie’s AAPI politics briefing — your guide to the policy news and activism affecting Asian Americans + Pacific Islanders. Send tips and feedback to [email protected] and support our work by making a donation.
— Edited by Shawna Chen
The Biden Era
WHITE HOUSE RELEASES SACRED SITES ADVISORY: A new guide produced by the Department of Interior aims to provide best practices and contextualization for federal agencies working with tribal and Native Hawaiian sacred sites.
- The guide, developed by a working group after listening sessions convened by theWhite House Council on Native American Affairs, outlines specific procedures for the proper “management, treatment, and protection” of sacred sites—with an emphasis on honoring Indigenous knowledge and co-stewardship—as well as strategies for overcoming obstacles to federal protective measures.
- The “spiritual and cultural significance of sacred sites to Tribes and the Native Hawaiian Community remains dynamic and vibrant over time and is directly tied to Tribal identity, language, and way of life,” the guide notes. “Sacred sites are not frozen in time and can evolve with future identification of sacred sites in honor of recent events and spiritual dynamics.”
- Federal agencies should regularly consult and engage with Indigenous communities and maximize opportunities for them to “meaningfully participate in the management of co-stewarded lands, rather than serving in a solely advisory role,” the guide adds. That includes limiting public access to a sacred site if it interferes with Indigenous communities’ use or customs.
- Of note: Many Native Hawaiians say they won’t be satisfied until they have full sovereignty over their lands and view the U.S.’s military presence as a continuation of imperialist agendas that decimated their ancestors. The Maui wildfires earlier this year renewed criticism of federal management.
MORE IMPORTS FROM CHINA BARRED OVER UYGHUR FORCED LABOR: The Department of Homeland Security announced that three more China-based companies have been added to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List.
- What this means: The move restricts imports from the companies—including food, textile, and technological products—to the U.S. The full list covers 30 companies associated with ongoing human rights violations, including forced labor, targeting Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.
- Uyghur American advocates have been vocal about the need for sanctions against imports from Chinese companies.
- In their words: “Together we can stop products made with Uyghur forced labor from entering into U.S. soil and make this genocide costly on China,” Elfidar Iltebir, president of the Uyghur American Association, said in a testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China earlier this year. “We, as Americans, need to eliminate our inadvertent complicity in this ongoing genocide.”
- Beijing denies all accusations of human rights violations and has stated that it will “take effective measures to firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.”
COFA AGREEMENTS ADVANCE TO CONGRESS: President Joe Biden has sent five agreements with two Compacts of Free Association (COFA) nations—the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands—to Congress.
- Under COFA, the American government allows citizens of the Pacific Island nations to freely migrate to the U.S. in exchange for military rights over each Pacific nation’s land. The agreements have been signed by the State Department and now await approval from Congress.
- The legislation aims to strengthen U.S. ties in the Indo-Pacific and includes funding for government services such as health care, education, and infrastructure.
On The Hill
BIPARTISAN PUSH TO RECOGNIZE HMONG VETERANS: Lawmakers who represent the Midwest are leading a bipartisan effort to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Hmong veterans who served in the Vietnam War, Idaho Capital Sun’s Samantha Dietel reports.
- The Hmong Congressional Gold Medal Act was introduced by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) and Gary Peters (D-Michigan) in November.
- “Wisconsin is proud to be home to so many brave individuals who are dedicated to liberty and freedom and opposed to government tyranny,” Johnson said in a press release. The award would “ensure the Hmong people get the recognition they deserve for their dedication to the fight against communism.”
- Context: According to the Hmong Association of Washington, the death rate of Hmong soldiers, over 30,000 of whom served during the Vietnam War, was ten times higher than that of American soldiers. When Laos fell to communist forces in 1975, the U.S. military left behind thousands of Hmong people who had served the CIA despite pulling out its own soldiers.
- Where things stand: Roughly 150,000 Hmong have since fled Laos, according to the Hmong Association of Washington. The Hmong population in the U.S. reached 327,000 as of 2019, per analyses by the Pew Research Center. Most are concentrated in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
POST-CHINA INITIATIVE RESEARCH REPORTING: Rep. Judy Chu (D-California), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), is calling on lawmakers to join her in opposing legislation that would require institutions of higher education to adhere to stricter reporting mandates for financial gifts and contracts that involve foreign countries “of concern,” such as China and Russia.
- “Adversarial countries are using America’s college campuses to undermine our nation’s interests. The DETERRENT Act is a crucial step towards transparency and protecting American education and students from malicious foreign influence,” the Committee on Education and the Workforce wrote in a fact sheet for the bill.
- Chu has warned that the legislation would further hurt the Asian American academic community, which is still navigating the aftermath of the Department of Justice’s China Initiative.
- “From the incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II to racial profiling of Chinese American scientists under the failed China Initiative, countless Asian Americans have had their lives destroyed because our government falsely accused them of being spies. Already, 72% percent of Asian American academic researchers report feeling unsafe,” Chu said in remarks on the House floor last week, referencing a recent study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
ICYMI—FIRST-EVER ALL AANHPI BENCH IN U.S. DISTRICT COURT: Micah W.J. Smith and Shanlyn A.S. Park’s confirmation as federal judges for the District of Hawai‘i marks the first-ever all-AANHPI district court bench in America. Park also makes history as the first Native Hawaiian woman to serve as a federal judge.
- Smith and Park were both recommended by Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawai‘i) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) earlier this year.
Campaign Watch
MCCARTHY’S RETIREMENT THREATENS STEEL, KIM SEATS: Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-California) ouster as House speaker and planned retirement at the end of 2023 will be a setback for GOP fundraising and campaigning throughout California, analysts say—especially for Orange County incumbents Reps. Michelle Steel (R-California) and Young Kim (R-California).
- McCarthy played a key role in building up GOP campaigns in California. He was the “last card holding up the house that we call the California Republican Party,” Republican consultant Mike Madrid told the Los Angeles Times’ Erin B. Logan.
- Though McCarthy said he will continue fundraising for the party, his fall from power will make it much harder. “He was the last reason any money—any serious money—was actually moving through the operation,” Madrid said.
- First elected in 2020 to serve districts that voted for Biden, Steel and Kim both won close re-election races in 2022 against Asian American Democratic challengers. Early fundraising efforts have bolstered both lawmakers’ profiles—by July this year, Steel had hauled in $1.1 million, more than any other House member in a competitive race, while Kim also raised over $1 million—but with McCarthy stepping back it’s unclear whether the momentum will continue.
- Several Vietnamese American Democrats have announced challenges for Steel’s district in 2024, where almost 20% of the population are of Vietnamese descent.
- On our radar: Garden Grove City Councilmember Kim Nguyen-Penaloza, the daughter of a Vietnamese refugee and Mexican immigrant who is campaigning for Steel’s seat on abortion access and housing issues, has already nabbed endorsements from Rep. Katie Porter (D-California), Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawai‘i), and three other congressional Democrats.
ADDRESSING APPROPRIATION ON THE BALLOT: A new San Francisco Department of Elections policy is prohibiting candidates from registering with Chinese names unless the candidate can demonstrate an “established use” of the name for at least two years prior, NBC Asian America’s Kimmy Yam writes.
- In San Francisco’s 2022 special election, District Attorney candidate Brooke Jenkins, who is Black and Latina, used the Chinese name “謝安宜” with characters that roughly translate to “safe” and “proper” in a bid to appeal to Chinese voters. Other candidates who are not ethnically Chinese have also taken on Chinese names with favorable interpretations.
- Yes, but: The practice has caused conflict with ethnically Chinese candidates, who have alleged that doing so appropriate the names.
- Case in point: Democratic County Central Committee candidate Emma Heiken took the Chinese name 馬凱勤—with two of the same characters as her opponent Natalie Gee, whose Chinese name since birth has been 朱凱勤. Gee told NBC Asian America that her mother gave her a rare name that means “working hard will lead to victory”—凱勤—after taking inspiration from historical Chinese literature. Heiken used a different Chinese name following an email from Gee, Xueer Lu reports for Mission Local.
- The new policy implements a 2019 state law requiring ballot materials translated to character-based languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean to contain a phonetic transliteration of candidates’ names unless that candidate has a separate character-based name assigned at birth or “has been known and identified within the public sphere by that name over the past two years.”
ASIAN AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT DECLINES OVER TIME IN COUNTRY: While 62% of Asian American voters overall lean towards Democrats, a Pew Research Center study shows that the figure varies depending on whether a voter is U.S.- or foreign-born and how long they’ve been in the country, Hope Kingof Axios writes.
- By the numbers: 42% of foreign-born Asian Americans who have been in the country for over 20 years support Republicans, compared to 32% of those who have been in the country for 11 to 20 years. 78% of second-generation Asian Americans support Democrats, but that drops to 58% for voters who are third-generation and later.
- Of note: King points to rising anti-Asian discrimination and anti-China rhetoric as a possible factor that could influence how Asian Americans vote and are treated by politicians in future elections.
- Growing push-and-pull: Asian Americans, the fastest-growing ethnic group in the U.S., have played increasingly outsized roles in politics over the years, but they’ve also faced repercussions in response to their voting power. AAPIs helped Georgia to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in nearly 30 years in 2020; subsequent voter suppression laws passed in the state have disproportionately affected AAPI voters.
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