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#285 Meeting Today; Immigrants and Pets; Yanping Chen; Project 2025; Florida Home Sale; +

In This Issue #285

·       2024/10/07 APA Justice Monthly Meeting

·       Rhetoric about Immigrants and Pets Revives Dangerous Historical Tropes

·       Appeals Court Sets Hearing Date of Dr. Yanping Chen's Case

·       Project 2025 and the Census: Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future

·       Florida Home for Sale

·       News and Activities for the Communities

 

2024/10/07 APA Justice Monthly Meeting

The next APA Justice monthly meeting will be held today via Zoom, starting at 1:55 pm ET. In addition to updates by Nisha Ramachandran, Executive Director, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) and Gisela Perez Kusakawa, Executive Director, Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF), confirmed speakers are:

·       Grace Meng, Member, U.S. House of Representatives;  First Vice-Chair, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus

·       Gene Wu, Texas State Representative

·       Min Fan, Executive Director, U.S. Heartland China Association

The virtual monthly meeting is by invitation only. It is closed to the press. If you wish to join, either one time or for future meetings, please contact one of the co-organizers of APA Justice - Steven Pei 白先慎Vincent Wang 王文奎, and Jeremy Wu 胡善庆 - or send a message to contact@apajustice.org.

 

Rhetoric about Immigrants and Pets Revives Dangerous Historical Tropes

 

 

 

 

The recent inflammatory rhetoric accusing Haitian immigrants of “eating dogs and cats” in Springfield, Ohio, has been thoroughly debunked and widely condemned, yet it has had severe repercussions, including bomb threats, school closures, and hospital lockdowns. This false claim shook not only the Haitian community but also sparked national outrage. In response, Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine, with close ties to Springfield, criticized the baseless accusations made by former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, the Republican presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate, in an essay for the New York Times.

 

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, the first Chinese American attorney general in the U.S., echoed these concerns in a piece for the Connecticut Post. Drawing on his own family’s immigrant experience, Tong highlighted how such rhetoric perpetuates harmful stereotypes and treats immigrants as outsiders who “do not belong here.” He argues that dehumanizing language fosters hatred and violence, making it easier for people to commit harm. Tong cited several tragic outcomes of this rhetoric, such as the Atlanta shooting that killed six Asian American women, the murders of two Indian men in Kansas, and the mass shooting of 23 Latinos in an El Paso Walmart. He also pointed to past policy failures driven by this type of rhetoric, including the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, the separation of immigrant families, and efforts to deny birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants.

 

Guardian article framed this rhetoric against Haitian immigrants as part of a long-standing political trope used by white politicians to incite fear and target immigrants of color, particularly those of Asian descent, dating back to 1852 when a Mississippi newspaper alleged “the Chinese still eat dog-pie.” The article referenced Professor May-lee Chai of San Francisco State University, who explained how this dehumanizing tactic was used against Chinese immigrants in the 19th century, culminating in discriminatory laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

 

On September 25, 2024, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), and the House Haiti Caucus released a joint statement condemning the harmful rhetoric. They noted that these claims are “rooted in xenophobia, racism, and anti-Blackness” and warned that such lies have dangerous consequences. The caucuses called on members of Congress to reject this “vile rhetoric” and instead promote policies that recognize the dignity and humanity of all individuals, particularly the most vulnerable members of society.

 

 

Appeals Court Sets Hearing Date of Dr. Yanping Chen's Case


 

The U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit has scheduled oral arguments for Dr. Yanping Chen's case on November 18, 2024, at 9:30 am ET.  Details about the judges on the panel will be posted on the court's website http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/ 30 days before the hearing. The time and date will not change unless the court decides otherwise. A separate order will be issued later to explain how much time each side will have for their arguments.Dr. Chen is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China.  On December 21, 2018, she filed a privacy lawsuit against the FBI and Departments of Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security.  On February 29, 2024, Judge Christopher Cooper held Catherine Herridge, a former Fox News reporter, in civil contempt for refusing to divulge her source for her 2017 series of Fox News reports. Judge Cooper imposed a fine of $800 per day until Catherine Herridge reveals her source, but the fine will not go into effect immediately to give her time to appeal.  Catherine Herridge appealed.On July 29, 2024, the Asian American Legal and Education Defense Fund (AALDEF) and a coalition of 11 organizations filed a 43-page amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals in support of Dr. Chen. The brief addresses issues of racial prejudice and the negative stereotyping of Asian Americans, particularly in the context of government actions against Dr. Chen.  AALDEF also issued a press statement: https://bit.ly/3WCm06i.Jane Shim, Director the AALDEF Stop Asian Hate Project, gave an update on Dr. Chen's case during the APA Justice monthly meeting on September 9, 2024.  Read the meeting summary: https://bit.ly/3zzWcjR.  Read the APA Justice website on Dr. Chen's case: https://bit.ly/3Xi4hms

 

 

Project 2025 and the Census: Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future


According to The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights on September 19, 2025, Project 2025 would compromise the integrity of the decennial census and other federal data collection efforts. The proposals would politicize and weaponize federal data collection by blocking the government from collecting data that the authors think might bolster liberal causes, while establishing intrusive new data collection in other areas to achieve partisan goals.These actions would fundamentally weaken the federal data infrastructure, leading to politicized, inaccurate, and unreliable datasets, rendering it impossible to understand the true underlying nature of our society, enforce civil rights, advance equity agendas, or engage in evidence-based policymaking.The policies set forth with respect to the Census Bureau are a retread of efforts we have seen before, are seeing right now, and will see again — regardless of who wins the elections for president and control of Congress in November.The Leadership Conference highlights several key concerns:

 

·       Politicization of the Census Bureau by replacing experts with political appointees.

·       Addition of a citizenship question to the census, leading to inaccurate data.

·       Skewing Census Bureau programs and data to favor certain communities over other (often underserved) communities.

·       Potentially reversing vital updates to statistical standards on race and ethnicity data.

·       Depriving the Census Bureau of adequate funding.

 

On September 21, 2024, MSNBC reported that Project 2025’s section on the Census Bureau spells out a detailed plan to politicize the Census Bureau. The Heritage Foundation’s plan for the next conservative administration proposes adding a citizenship question in the 2030 census, which Trump attempted (and failed) to implement during his presidency. The citizenship question, along with a series of other proposals will likely lead to significant undercounts of already vulnerable populations, leading to unequitable congressional representation and inequitable allocation of federal funds. What happens when communities are undercounted in the census?  Maya Wiley, President and CEO, Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, was interviewed in the MSNBC broadcast."The census is not supposed to be a political tool. It is supposed to be an unbiased, apolitical, objective collection of data.  It is supposed to be a trustworthy dataset by which we get an accurate read of what the country looks like,"  MSNBC reported.Read the Leadership Conference blog: https://bit.ly/3MMQCh8.  Watch the MSNBC report: https://on.msnbc.com/4gxtG34 (11:05) 

 

 

Florida Home for Sale

 


 

According to AsAmNews on September 22, 2024, Wayne Chan is putting one of his homes in Ocala, Florida, for sale.  There is one catch - Chinese citizens are not welcome because Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill (SB) 264 into law in 2023.This law makes it a crime for Chinese nationals to purchase property in Florida, citing national security concerns related to the Chinese Communist Party.  It does not effectively solve its intended problem and instead targets Chinese citizens unfairly, prompting Wayne Chen's decision to sell his property in Florida."Why would anyone put together a poorly crafted bill that doesn’t effectively address the problem they’re trying to solve? What other reason could there be to create a rule that keeps Chinese citizens and practically threatens all Asians from Florida?" Wayne Chen asked.  "I can only think of one answer, and that’s why I’m selling my home in Florida."Read about the two lawsuits that have been filed to overturn the Florida alien land law SB 264: https://bit.ly/43epBclRead the AsAmNews report: https://bit.ly/3BnuA1M

 

News and Activities for the Communities

 

1.  APA Justice Community Calendar


 

Upcoming Events:2024/10/07 APA Justice Monthly Meeting2024/10/07-10 Cato Surveillance Week 2024/10/08 Media Training for Election Season2024/10/10 China in the Heartland: Building a Balanced Approach2024/10/11 China and the World Forum2024/10/11 Reverse Brain Drain: A Threat to U.S.Technological Leadership2024/10/13 Rep. Gene Wu's Town Hall Meeting2024/10/16 Rebuilding Trust in Science2024/10/20 Rep. Gene Wu's Town Hall Meeting2024/10/25-27 Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the American Studies NetworkVisit https://bit.ly/3XD61qV for event details.

 

2. APA Justice Newsletter Web Page Moved to New Website


As part of its continuing migration to a new website under construction, we have moved the Newsletter webpage to https://www.apajusticetaskforce.org/newsletters.  Content of the existing website will remain, but it will no longer be updated. We value your feedback about the new web page. Please send your comments to contact@apajustice.org.

October 7, 2024

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