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Maria Hidalgo, a PC in Precinct 112, and Ceci Alter, AAPI Caucus Co-lead and also a PC in Precinct 112 presented the fascinating history of Asian Americans in the US during a recent LD9 happy hour.
Using a question-and-answer format, they covered Asian Americans who were first involved in the DREAM Act, birthright citizenship, the rights of farmworkers, and interracial marriage.
The first DREAMER
The original DREAMer was a Korean girl named Tereza Lee who was brought to the US when she was two years old. Her family came to the US on tourist visas from Brazil where they had fled after the Korean war, but there, they were victims of bank theft. Her parents found work to get them by, and her father applied for permanent visas but was denied. Having no money, they couldn’t go anywhere, so when their visas expired, they simply continued living life in Chicago and kept their immigration status quiet out of fear that they would be deported if discovered.
Tereza is a gifted pianist, and when her piano teacher found out she was undocumented, she took her story to Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who was inspired by Tereza and others like her. Durbin wrote the DREAM Act and introduced it in August 2001. There was every indication that they had more than 60 “yes” votes in the Senate to pass the legislation, but then 9/11 happened and everything changed. The senate hearing had actually been set for September 12, 2001. So even though the DREAM Act didn’t pass in 2001, President Obama implemented DACA by executive order in 2012. The program has been upheld by the Supreme Court and Tereza was the first DREAMer out of around 800,000 DREAMers who are now covered by the program.
US citizens at birth
Ceci asked, “what do you think of when you hear the term birthright citizenship?” This means if you are born in the US, you are automatically a citizen.
Maria explained: Birthright citizenship has become the foundational concept of how we define who is American. Did you know that the Supreme Court granted citizenship to anyone born in the US in a landmark case in 1898 because of a Chinese-American man?
Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to immigrant parents. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, his parents were barred from ever becoming citizens. But Wong Kim Ark was born here, so when he was denied re-entry to the US after a trip to China, he sued the federal government. This resulted in the Supreme Court’s decision that the government could not deny citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
United farmworkers
Ceci asked, “what do you think of when you think of the rights of farmworkers?”
Maria replied: Did you know that it was a Filipino-American organizer who first called Cesar Chavez and asked him to join efforts in going on strike for fair wages and the right to form a union? Larry Itliong came to the US at 15 and began working as a farm laborer and in the salmon canneries of Alaska. His heart was set on becoming an attorney and seeking justice for the poor. But the poverty he lived through and the violent racism he and Filipinos encountered barred him from getting the education he initially sought. He never became an attorney, but he became a storied Filipino-American labor leader and organizer, leading labor organizations in Alaska and throughout the West Coast.
Right to marry
“When you think of the right for people of different races to marry, what do you think of?” Ceci asked.
Maria said: Loving v. Virginia, 388 US 1 (1967). The Loving case was won at the US Supreme Court in 1967, and it effectively overturned the ban on interracial marriage in more than 20 states that had laws against it. But in Arizona, a Tucson couple fought our state’s anti-miscegenation law in 1959 — eight years before the landmark Loving case. Hank Oyama, a Japanese American man, US Army veteran, and community leader, fought for the right to marry Mary Ann Jordan, a White woman with the help of the newly formed ACLU of Arizona. They won their case in Pima County. The ruling was appealed to the Arizona Supreme court but the lawyers who litigated the Oyama case said the court decision prompted the law’s repeal by the Legislature before the Supreme Court could hear the case.
To learn more about the Asian and Pacific Islander experience, check out these links:
- Asian American Heritage Month
- Tucson Chinese Cultural Center
- Pan Asian Community Alliance
- Arizona Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Democratic Caucus
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