Heroism & Fear Related to 9/11

Our apologies for not getting in touch with you earlier.

80-20's e-mail line located in WTC was cut since 9/11.

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(A) Heroic Act of an APA on 9/11

Right after the first AA Airline plane hit the WTC, Zhe Zeng, who works at Bank of New York on Wall Street, called his mother and said "I'm okay. It's chaotic outside. I'm going to help other people." and he hanged up the phone. Zhe has never been heard from since. A few days later, one of his friends saw Zhe in the Fox News' TV coverage of the rescue efforts around WTC just before the buildings
collapsed.

Zhe is 29 year old and got his MBA from the University of Rochester. Zhe came from Quanzhou to New York with his parents when he was 15 years old. He was a trained and certified rescue worker. While at Styvesant High in lower Manhattan, he was a honor student and was always willing to help the other students specially in math. He was so well liked such that the landlord where his family lived even lowered the rent in order to lighten his family's burden.

Zhe's mother, a former schoolteacher in China, said "Since we have immigrated to America, we have to think this land as our country. I always taught young people to serve their society and its people. I may have lost Zhe, but I'm very proud of what he did. I hope mainstream America will understand that there are Chinese Americans who are willing to sacrifice themselves in order to help others. Now I only want to find out what happened to Zhe. I pray that there would not be war, because more innocent people will be killed"

[The above was reported in The World Journal and translated by Charlie Sie, an 80-20 supporter and member of C-100. See article
(Chinese Big 5 format) ]

(B) Fear -- 1/3 of New Yorkers Support Internment
Camps

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- One third of New Yorkers favor establishing internment
camps for "individuals who authorities identify as being sympathetic to terrorist causes," according to a poll from the Siena College Research Institute.

Fifty percent of those surveyed for the statewide poll said they were
opposed to that idea while 15 percent had no opinion.

Internment camps have been controversial since World War II when the United States ordered thousands of Japanese-Americans into such facilities.

Douglas Lonnstrom, director of the research institute, said that given that World War II experience he found it "startling" that 34 percent of those polled supported the creation of new internment camps.


Lonnstrom said he didn't know if those questioned equated the phrase "sympathetic to terrorist causes" to Arab-Americans.

Doing Our Share

America is under attack. Wounded fellow Americans need blood.

80-20 urges all its supporters to roll up our sleeve, do our share and donate blood!

There are three things you may want to know before giving blood:

1) Call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE or 1-800-448-3543 to find out where to go,

2) You must be 17 or older, and weigh over 110 lb.

We demand equal rights. Therefore we must share equal burden. Many of us are displaying a flag at half staff. Some are wearing a black arm-band.

Above all, please do your share to donate blood. There may be long lines of people donating blood out there. However, if our fellow citizens can wait, then we can wait to do our share.

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Emergency appeal: 80-20's T1 line for sending e-mails to you routed through the World Trade Center and was therefore cut off. Any one who can help provide 80-20 with a broad band communicate line, temporarily or permanently, please contact sbw@udel.edu with a copy to szhang@udel.edu so that we may recover our ability to communicate with our vast number of supporters. Right now we are only communicating with 1/20 of our supporters, with difficulties. 80- 20 will pay the necessary fees. Please help. *****************

Evidence of Our Growing Political Clout

The seeds that you helped sow through 80-20 are flowering.

Politicians, nationally and in cities, counties and states with a large APA population, have gotten the message. The message is this: APAs have demonstrated the ability to organize a bloc vote, therefore we had better given them what is due. They reason: If APAs can organize a national bloc vote in 2000, after just a two-year effort, then APAs will know how to organize a bloc vote locally, sooner than later. They are now showing us respect -- not as much as we deserve, but the rest will come.

Nationally, it started with President Bush.  His appointments
of APAs were significant and in record numbers.  He is not
asking us for inputs regarding his appointments yet, but that will come.  

State-wide, recent development pushed the envelope of our political
clout.  Modeled after the success of the National 80-20, our New Jersey
chapter did an endorsement meeting to choose a gubernatorial candidate. 
Just like the National, its has 33 endorsement-delegates, composed of equal
numbers of Democrats, Republicans and Independents.  

The gubernatorial candidates from both major parties attended the meeting. According to Dr. Steven Ko, Chair of 80-20NJ, "Such a meeting with Asian Americans has never happened before in New Jersey." It probably has not happened in other states either, not even California.

Each gubernatorial candidate made a pitch to be endorsed, gave promises and answered questions for one hour. Mayor James McGreevey won the endorsement. Who will win the election is not important. APAs in NJ will win enhanced attention and respect, provided that 80-20NJ delivers in votes &/or $$$ &/or volunteers.

At the city level, 80-20's Los Angeles chapter endorsed a candidate for LA mayoral, after an endorsement meeting that both top candidates attended. The LA chapter endorsed James Hahn, who won.

After the election, Hahn appointed 9 deputy mayors, three of whom were Asian Americans. Again, Hahn didn't seek input from 80-20LA regarding his appointments. However, as was said before, in time that will come.

Soon the politicians will realize that seeking our input creates a win-win. Appointing APAs who don't identify with our community at heart and who have never gone to bat for our community will not win votes for the politician who make such appointments. 80-20 will recommend those who actually identify with us. Just watch, it's only a matter of time.

Unity is power. Events have demonstrated it.

The mainstream media is agreeing with us. Hardly a month goes by, without a big mainstream media mentioning 80-20. In the last few months, it was Newsweek, LA Times, NY Times, Boston Globe, etc. This month, it was Business Week Magazine. An article entitled "Pols Are Salivating Over Asian Americans" was published in its Sept. 10, 2001 issue, pp 42-43. In the contents page, the same article was referred to as "A Minority's Newfound Clout -- Courting As. Am. Votes."

You are a vital part of 80-20. Together we are making history.

Visit www.80-20initiative.net. We have a user friendly "Job Search Database" page for you. It is produced in association with with IMDiversity.com's Asian-American Village Online.

80-20 is a national nonpartisan Political Action Committee dedicated to winning equal opportunity and justice for all Asian Pacific Americans through a swing bloc-vote, ideally directing 80% of our community's votes and money to the presidential candidate endorsed by the 80-20 who better represents the interest of all APAs. Hence, the name "80-20" was created. For more details, visit http://www.80-20initiative.net.