The American Way to Win Equal Opportunity

You may ask, after reading the last e-mail, why haven't the undersigned who knew of such statistics, tried removing the glass ceiling? We have. However, we found that as individuals our voices were not heard. That's why we searched YOU out, because TOGETHER WE SHALL OVERCOME.

There is a tried-and-true American way through which immigrant groups have gained equal opportunity. THE POLITICAL PROCESS!

A long time ago, when the Irish, Polish and Italian immigrants first arrived in America, discrimination against them was also rampant. The Irish first tried using the ballet box to get politicians to help the Irish get good jobs and succeeded. After that, the Polish and Italians used the same method to win their equal status. In the mid twentieth century, the Jews and blacks followed that recipe to win equal opportunity. More recently, women and Hispanics flexed their political muscles to dislodge their respective glass ceilings. Time is now for Asian Americans to do the same.

First, we must develop a community consensus to vote as a block. That way, we can reward politicians who worked for our equal opportunity and punish those who didn't. Shortly thereafter , most politicians will be working for our equal opportunity.

The African Americans who reside in cities of industrial states vote 9 to 1 in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate. That's one BIG reason why the Democratic party always speaks up for interests of the black community. The Jews have even greater political cohesion. While they voted mostly for Democrats, they could swing, voting in a 8 to 2 ratio, for a candidate of EITHER major political party.

Is our population large enough to have political clout? Mind you, there are only six million Jewish Americans, while there are 10 million AAs.

In e-mail 4, we'll present you with a specific strategy to induce both major political parties to fight for our equal opportunity and form a "more perfect Union."

Sincerely (members of Steering Comm., titles for ID purposes only)
Alex Esclamado, Nat'l President, Filipino-Am. Political Assoc.Kenneth Fong, C.E.O., Clontech Laboratories,Yu-Chi Ho, Harvard Univ., member of Nat'l Acad. of Engineering, Stephen S. Ko, MD, Founder of Asian Am. Political Coalition N.J. Michael Lin, former Nat'l President, Org. of Ch-Ams (1994-98), Henry Tang, Chair , Committee of 100, Chang-Lin Tien, Chancellor, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley (1991-97), Dennis Wong, former Chair, San Francisco-Taipei Sister City Comm., Charles Woo, President, Magatoy, and S. B. Woo, Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (1985-89)

Aren't we accorded equal opportunity already?

Unfortunately, no. Asian Americans (AAs) are not accorded equal opportunity presently.

Equal opportunity means: "For every man, woman and child to go as far and rise as high as their ambition and ability will take them." Statistics, mostly gathered by government studies, show that AAs have only 1/3 the opportunity of all other Americans to rise to the top in the academic world, corporate world, the federal government. There seems to exist an invisible resistance to AAs' developing to the maximal of their potentials -- A Glass Ceiling.

Let's look at a concrete case. A lot of our best people are employed in universities. Their average performance has been outstanding. What's their chance of rising to the top?

University administrators are recruited almost exclusively from the ranks of faculty and professionals already employed in universities. Hence the ratio of [administrators / (faculty + professionals)], broken down to races, is a measure of the opportunity enjoyed by American citizens of different races. Nationwide, that ratio for blacks (non-Hispanic) is 0.21. That is, for every 100 black faculty and professionals there are 21 black administrators. The ratio for Native American is 0.20; for white (non-Hispanic) is 0.16; and for Hispanic is 0.15. However, it is only 0.06 for Asian American. Get on the Web and check it out for yourself! Source: Dept. of Education - , Table B-1f.

The above dismal picture emerges from the supposedly "enlightened" academic world. The situation in the corporate world, state and federal governments is worse.

In E-Mail 3 & 4, we present a strategy to induce the two major political parties to help us fight for equal opportunity and help make our beloved nation "a more perfect Union." If you can't wait, visit our Web site: <>.

Sincerely (members of Steering Comm., titles for ID purposes only)
Alex Esclamado, Nat'l President, Filipino-Am. Political Assoc.Kenneth Fong, C.E.O., Clontech Laboratories,Yu-Chi Ho, Harvard Univ., member of Nat'l Acad. of Engineering, Stephen S. Ko, MD, Founder of Asian Am. Political Coalition N.J. Michael Lin, former Nat'l President, Org. of Ch-Ams (1994-98), Henry Tang, Chair , Committee of 100, Chang-Lin Tien, Chancellor, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley (1991-97), Dennis Wong, former Chair, San Francisco-Taipei Sister City Comm., Charles Woo, President, Magatoy, and S. B. Woo, Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (1985-89)

Please give us a fair hearing -- an appeal from 80-20

Greetings. Whether or not you have heard of "80-20," we hopeyou'd reserve your judgment on this project, until we've directlycorresponded. We want to inform you regarding: what 80-20 isall about, how it has fared in the Asian American (AA)community, and why we seek you out. We seek you out to ask you to lend your leadership. The 80/20 Initiative is a national, non-partisan appeal initiated by a group of Chinese Americans but has expanded to include all Asian Americans. The basic idea is to take advantage of the heavy AA concentration in Calif. -- 7% of the registered voters in a state with 54 electoral votes and an early March, 2000 presidential primary -- to make Asian American voters a swing factor in the next presidential election, thereby inducing both major political parties to work hard to accord AAs with equal opportunity. 80/20 means if 80% of Asian American voters support this idea, we will become a powerful swing vote and through which we shall win our first-class-citizenship. (2) How has the project fared in the AA community? Better than 90% of AAs, whose e-mail addresses we had access to, became supporters. Our rate of expansion was exponential. The 80-20 was formed on 9/27/98 in Foster City in CA. At the time, it had a mailing list of about 500. Today, 11 months later, we have 45,000 supporters. By end of this year, we expect to grow to 100,000. The advantage of relying on e-mail is that it is costless, speedy and reliable. The work and resources that are required for e-mailing a million supporters is not appreciably different from e-mailing one person. In addition, a strong correlation exists between AA registered voters and AAs with e-mail capability and are comfortable to communicate in English. Our statistics are as follows. Less than 5% of AAs requested to be REMOVED from our mailing list upon receiving our first e-mail. About 1% of AAs probably oppose 80-20 even after having received a package of 7 recruiting e-mails from 80-20. All remaining individuals, BETTER THAN 90%, became strong or moderate supporters. We hope to form a Pan Asian American Coalition of equal partners. (3) Why do we seek you out? We seek your leadership to a common effort to fulfill America's noble vision: "with liberty and justice for ALL." (Capitalization added) In the next several days, we'll send you seven e-mails to provide you with more details. You are welcome to forward our e-mail to other leaders of your community. If you don't want to hear from us, send this letter back plus the word : REMOVE. Or, you could send this letter back plus the word: ENLIST. As individual communities, our voices were not heard. However, TOGETHER WE SHALL OVERCOME. We and our children will benefit. America becomes "a more perfect Union." Sincerely (members of Steering Comm., titles for ID purposes only) Alex Esclamado, Nat'l President, Filipino-Am. Political Assoc. Kenneth Fong, C.E.O., Clontech Laboratories, Yu-Chi Ho, Harvard Univ., member of Nat'l Acad. of Engineering, Stephen S. Ko, MD, Founder of Asian Am. Political Coalition N.J. Michael Lin, former Nat'l President, Org. of Ch-Ams (1994-98), Henry Tang, Chair , Committee of 100, Chang-Lin Tien, Chancellor, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley (1991-97), Dennis Wong, former Chair, San Francisco-Taipei Sister City Comm., Charles Woo, President, Magatoy, and S. B. Woo, Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (1985-89)