Thursday, November 26, 2009

A Chinaman's Chance

Dear fellow Asian Americans:

How many of you have heard the expression, “a Chinaman's chance"
and wondered about its origin?

The historical context of the phrase comes from the Gold rush days of
pre-California, where many Chinese came to work as “coolies,” hard
laborers for gold mining and building the transcontinental railroad.

In this employ, they were sought out for the demanding and
dangerous jobs involving explosives, often for half the pay of the Irish
workers.

Yet the Chinese faced higher taxes, denials of legal status (not to
mention citizenship), and family reunion with their spouses and
family. They did not even have the right to testify in court against
violence and grievous crimes committed against them. The Chinese
were deemed to be so lowly, uncivilized and depraved that the courts
would not debase itself to hear their testimony .

Without recourse to the courts and law, the early Chinese settler’s had
“a Chinaman’s chance” to receive fairness and justice. Many were beaten
and robbed with impunity and some died a violent death.
You
can learn about this early history by watching Bill Moyer’s PBS series
“Becoming American, The Chinese Experience.”

The American Civil Rights movement was preceded by a long history
of gross miscarriages of justice and bloodshed. Like the African
Americans, AsAms have come a long way in the long struggle for
equality. However, the pain of discrimination is still felt in America.
By AsAm being denied equal salary for equal work. . . Denied equal
opportunity for career advancement . . . By our children having to
leap over higher bars in order to gain admission to top schools . . .

80-20 PAC is the single hardest working AsAm organization fighting
day in and day out for your equality. From securing landmark
promises from President Obama to enforce EO11246 to gaining
more AsAm federal judges, 80-20 never shrank away from the
toughest battles and challenges. Yet this national burden is born on
the backs of a mere 2,000 or so dues-paying members.
We
have achieved landmark progress under the leadership of
Dr. SB Woo. We are closer than ever before to realizing our dream,
but this is no time to be complacent; or to rest on our laurels.

In order to succeed, we must present a strong case and persuade
the Dept of Labor to enforce EO11246. This equal opportunity law has
been enforced for Blacks, Hispanics and women—but not yet for AsAms!
We must redouble our efforts, and we need your help to succeed.

If you are one of our loyal dues-paying members, we thank you from
the bottom of our heart. If not, won’t you please do your part TODAY?
Become a dues-paying member NOW at http://www.80-20initiative.net .
Your membership will be good till 12/31/2010 i.e. for the remainder
of this year and the next. Join us in the fight for equal opportunity
and justice, so that this nation we love will become a more perfect Union.

Not sure if you are a member? Find out here:
http://www.80-20initiative.net/about/membership.asp .

In another 10 years, on the 20th anniversary of 80-20, let it be
remembered that YOU did your part; that YOU joined in this noble fight
and made a difference. For yourself, for future generations of AsAms, and
for our nation. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.

Ed

Dr. Edward Lin
Director, 80-20 Initiative
Equal Opportunity and Justice for ALL Asian Americans
e-
mail: elin [at] ingenious [dot] com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/EdwardLin001USA

Monday, November 23, 2009

Closing In on a Record

Will you be one of the 35?

If you are NOT a member, please consider joining today. You will be a
member for the current year and the next for the price of one. Tradi-
tionally, 80-20 has counted NEW members joining after its Nov. Board
election as member of this and the NEXT year. Help 80-20 set a historic
high in membership in tough economic times. That tell people about
what we are made of.

Go http://www.80-20initiative.net/membership/payment.asp . Or 

send your check to 80-20 PAC, PO Box 603, Osprey, FL 34229 


Student: $15, Basic: $35, Family: $50, and Life Member: $1,000

Board Election Results

Over the past week, our members elected 6 of the 8 candidates to be
80-20's Board members. They are: Hilary Hsu (winning 86.2% of votes cast)
Ved Chaudhary (82.5%) , Ed Lin (82.3% ), Yueh-Ting Lee (74.8%),
William V. Uy (68.9%), & Quan Cao (67.4%).

80-20's is proud to announce that its 22 member Board is diverse in
background, composed of dedicated individuals from every major component
of the Asian Am. community.

Important Political Elections - recent past & future

John Liu was elected the Comptroller of the NY City, an important
office in NYC. Sam Yoon dropped out of the Boston mayoral election,
although he ran a creditable campaign.

A very exciting campaign on the horizon is Ted Lieu's campaign for
Attorney General of California. He cares deeply about the Asian Am.
community. 80-20 thinks he has better than a 50% chance to win both
the CA Dem. primary in June, 2010 and the the general election in Nov.,
2010. Keep your eyes on him.

Help Make History

80-20 needs only 35 NEW members to set a historic membership
record. Please be the one to hand us the cigar! Empower yourself and
80-20. Go http://www.80-20initiative.net/membership/payment.asp .

Respectfully yours,

S. B. Woo
Acting Exec. Director (a volunteer), 80-20 PAC, Inc.

Monday, November 09, 2009

To Be Kingmakers

To Be Kingmakers

Are you sitting on a pot of political gold like the Asian Ams. in
NJ? They could have easily been the kingmakers in their gubernatorial
election & through that process won themselves equal opportunity in
NJ's state government.

Here is how.

The difference between the winner and the loser in the NJ governor's
race was only 100,000 votes. Chris Christie got 1,148,800 votes, while
Jon Corzine got 1,048,827.

The Asian Am. population in NJ is about 500,000. The number of Asian
Am. voters is at least 150,000. If there was an 80-20 NJ Chapter directing
political traffic, the Asian Am community could easily have delivered 70%
of those 150,000 votes i.e.105,000 votes to its endorsed candidate.

With that kind political capital in a tight race, one could have easily
gotten each of the gubernatorial candidates to give iron-clad promises that
could possibly include the appointment of Asian Am. Cabinet members &
the breaking of the glass ceiling in the NJ state government and
universities! That is, copy what the 80-20 National did nationally in
last year's presidential election.

Will there be a similar situation in your state? Don't let it
pass. Get ready! See a concrete example below.

Our NW Ohio chapter, only 1 year after its inauguration, interviewed
all the mayoral candidates of Toledo, Ohio and obtained a single word
answer (YES) from all the candidates to all its questions in its
questionnaire -- iron clad promises.

To seize such opportunities in your own state, you need to take a look
at a new pamphlet that the National has just placed on its website. It is a
step-to-step recipe about "How To Achieve An Impact On Your
State/County/City/Local Politics."
Visit
http://www.80-20initiative.net/action/chapter_pamphlet.pdf .

You only need to read the first 4 pages of the pamphlet to get an idea
of what you and your chapter need to do. Let us know, if you are motivated
to organize a chapter in your own state to have an impact in politics! Reply to
this email and say "Motivated!" We'll assist you.

Thanks to you, 80-20 is very close to an annual
membership record, but NO cigar yet.

To join, go to 
 http://www.80-20initiative.net/membership/payment.asp . Or
send your check to 80-20 PAC PO Box 603 Osprey, FL 34229 

Student: $15, Basic:$35, Family$50, and Life Member:$1,000
Try the "automatic renewal option," (which you can cancel anytime),
your membership will be valid for 1 full year.

80-20 GRATEFULLY acknowledges the following generous donors, who displayed
great support for our Membership Drive of the last 15 days.

Steven Chen of Cerritos, CA: $1,00O
Willian Tong of Ellicot City, MO: $1,000
Mon Yin Lung of Houston, TX: b6d $500
Alfred & Shirley Fong of Woodland Hills, CA: $1,500
Suzanna Lin of Osprey, FL: $500
Hsiao-Mei & Ray Wedmeyer of Columbia, MO: $500
Ved Chaudhary of Morganville, NJ: $1,000
S. B. & Katy Woo of Newark, DE: $3,500
George Ow Jr. of Santa Cruz, CA: $1,000
Albert Wang of Fremont, CA: $1,000
Stella Yu of Denver, CO: $500
Dominic & Ellen Ng of Pasadena, CA (to 80-20 Educational
Foundation): $1,000. Congrats to Dominic whose East West
Bank just acquired the United Commercial Bank of SF.

Respectfully,
Directors of 80-20 Initiative (titles are for identification purposes only),

Fel Amistad, San Mateo County Commissioner; Analyst (Finance)
Dr. Beverly Hong-Fincher, Linguistics; currently teaching at the Univ. of
the District of Columbia
Dr. Laura Hsu, retired university administrator
Dr. Chenming Hu, Distinguished Chair Professor, Univ. of CA, Berkeley;
US National Academy of Engineering; Chinese Academy of sciences;
Academia Sinica
Dr. Alice Huang, President-elect, Am. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science,
retired professor, Harvard Medical School, retired Dean, NYU, Univ.
Administrator, Caltech
Frank Lee, former President, Organization for Justice and Equality
Dr. Edward Lin, CEO, Ingenious Technologies Corp, Co-Founder, Gulfcoast
Chinese Am. Assoc.
Dr. Yuko Nakanishi, MBA, Principal & President, Nakanishi Research &
Consulting, LLC.
Linden Nishinaga, Calif. licensed professional engineer & Leadership in
Energy & Environmental Design Accredited Professional
Dr. Roy Saigo, Two university presidencies (Auburn Univ. & St. Cloud St. Univ)
Dr. Kim Song, Assoc. Prof., Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis
Lena Tam, Vice Mayor, Alameda, CA; MPA, licensed Engineer
Kathleen To, Honorary Texas Commercial Attache (1991-93); President & CEO,
KATO Foundation
Joel Wong, President, APAPA-Bay Area Chapter
Hon. S.B. Woo, Lt. Governor of Delaware (85-89), retired Physics prof., U. of Del.
Dr. David Yang, Associate Political Scientist, Rand Corporation
Jing-Li Yu, 3rd yr. law student, Univ. of Chicago; Operation Director, 80-20
(05 -06)
Charles Zhang, President and Managing Partner, Zhang Financial, the only
advisor in the nation selected as a top advisor by BOTH Worth Magazine
and Barron’s each year from 2004-2007.