For additional and specific details on the information listed
below, please CLICK on the “Titles” listed below.
APA
& MEDIA NEWS
JUDGE
ROBERT TAKASUGI RULING
Los
Angeles U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi, a Democrat
appointed by former President Ford, ruled that the process
by which the government classifies groups as terrorist in
nature deprives the organizations of their constitutional
rights. The rulings come at a time when many Americans fear
more terrorist attacks and feel an urge to display their patriotism
with American flags on their homes, businesses and cars.
His recent ruling on terror groups did not stir the national
outcry of the pledge ("under God) decision, but it too was
based on a reading of the Constitution that protected individual
rights at the expense of government and in defiance of public
attitudes in the wake of Sept. 11. The
federal district judge said the law classifying terrorist
groups denies organizations their constitutional due-process
rights because they are not given a chance to rebut the allegations
before being put on the list.
At the age of twelve, Robert
M. Takasugi was among the 130,000 residents of Japanese
descent who were interned in concentration camps throughout
the western United States. Takasugi's
decision to become a lawyer was spurred by childhood experience.
When he was 11, the U.S. government gave his family two weeks
to vacate their home in Tacoma, Wash., and report for relocation
to an internment camp at Tule Lake, Calif., along with thousands
of other Japanese Americans.
Received a degree from UCLA and joined the US Army. His commitment
to equal justice brought him to law school, where Takasugi
graduated in the top 5% of his class at USC and took to the
streets of East Los Angeles, representing many of the sixties'
civil rights protestors. Judge
Takasugi became the first Japanese American appointed to the
federal bench in 1976. He has authored important opinions
and has been involved with groundbreaking cases while being
a mentor to many law students and attorneys.
"UNDER
GOD" DECISION SUPPORT
Both
Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-VA) and Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA)
joined Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), to cast votes in support of
the court's "under God" decision.
RACIST
POLITCAL CAMPAIGN LETTER IN TEXAS
Mayor
David Chiu (along with State Senator Jeff Wentworth and State
Representative Rick Green) joined the local branch of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) to call for an investigation into a racist campaign
letter.
The unsigned letter, paid for by a group calling itself "San
Marcos Citizens for Traditional Values," was distributed in
San Marcos. It attacked the racial and gender diversity of
the current San Marcos City Council as well as the ethnic
background of several of the candidates running for local
office in the days before the runoff election.
PARTNERSHIP
TO INCREASE GOVERNMENT JOBS
U.S.
Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and Director Kay Coles James
of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management formed a partnership
to identify and increase the number of qualified Asian Pacific
Americans (APA) for leadership and management positions in
the federal government.
This unique partnership will work to overcome two of the challenges
faced by the federal workforce: a major human capital shortage
as the baby boomer generation retires over the next five years;
and an insufficient number of APA's in the workforce -- currently,
only 2.1 percent of APA's serve in the senior executive levels.
UC
TERRORIST TO "STAR WARS' QUEEN
Ayesha
Dharker, who captured the attention of actor John Malkovich
last year when he raved in The New York Times about her performance
in the title role in the 1998 film set in the jungles of Sri
Lanka (The Terrorist) is Queen Jamillia of Naboo in Star Wars:
Episode II Attack of the Clones.
NYC'S
CHINATOWN'S NEW MEDICAL CENTER
A
new state-of-the-art medical center opened at 268 Canal St.
in the heart of the nation's largest Asian-American community
to meet the needs of thousands of mainly low-income, uninsured
or under-insured Asian-Americans in lower Manhattan - many
of whom lost jobs as a result of Sept. 11.
The $5.5 million clinic is named after Charles
B. Wang, chairman of Computer Associates International Inc.,
who personally donated the majority of its funding. It will
provide a variety of basic health-care services, including
treating mental-health and respiratory problems that have
dramatically increased in the neighborhood over the past six
months.
SASSA
LEAVES NBC
Scott
Sassa officially leaves his position as head of all NBC's
West Coast operations, as Jeff Zucker takes over his position
after 18 months as NBC Entertainment president.
Sassa will remain with NBC in a new role that network brass
said would focus on "strategic projects and exploring ways
to extend the corporate brand in new and competitive arenas,"
reporting to NBC chairman and CEO Bob Wright and Lack.
DISCRIMINATION
AT BOEING
A
lawsuit alleging discrimination by The Boeing Co. against
Middle Eastern and Asian-American engineers has been certified
as a class action by a federal judge in Seattle. The
class covers 1,000 to 2,000 engineers in Washington state
whose national origin or ethnic background is from seven countries:
Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan
or Iran. The class is limited to those who worked for Boeing
anytime after October 12, 1996. The
decision by U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik contends that
Boeing discriminated in salary and retention of engineers
from the named countries.
RUTH
ASAWA AND MASASHI MATMUMOTO
Ruth
Asawa and Masashi Matsumoto join other Californian artists
in preparing for a big Christmas surprise for Los Angeles
and San Francisco. They will be changing the boulevards and
plazas of both cities into giant open-air museums with an
exhibition of new paintings on billboards. Other artists include
Ed Ruscha, Mendij, Rick Griffin, Neon Park XIII, D.J. Hall,
Karen Carson, William Wiley, Victor Moscoso, Isabella Kirkland,
Horace Washington, and Paul Whitehead exhibited. Their work
will be seen on a large scale on billboards while the 25th
anniversary of the legendary ARTboard Festival.
UC
BERKELEY INDO-AMERICAN GIVES BACK
Shayna
Parekh, 21, the winner of U.C. Berkeley's top honor for a
graduating senior, the University Medal, has a one-way ticket
to India to volunteer for Veerayatan, a non-governmental organization
that works in education and health at centers in the states
of Bihar and Gujarat and the city of Pune.
Parekh, who grew up in Southern California, will graduate
this month with a B.A. in political science and interdisciplinary
studies with a 3.96 overall G.P.A. Her grandfather immigrated
to Tanzania from India and her parents, an aerospace engineer
and a businesswoman, grew up in East Africa and England, before
immigrating to the U.S. She
was introduced to Veerayatan when she was one of 21 U.S. students
selected by the American Indian Foundation in 2001 to assist
earthquake relief efforts after the massive earthquake in
Gujarat.
BILLIONARIES
A list
of Asian/Asian Pacific Americans on Forbes's "Billionaire
List" are as follows:
