Last month, two-thirds of President Donald Trump’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders resigned.
The 10 members who left did so in response to Trump’s proposed and signed policies, which ranged from the controversial travel ban and immigrants and refugees to sanctuary cities and healthcare.
Prior to exiting, they had requested a meeting in a letter to the president, asking for a discussion about the Asian Pacific Islander American community. They received no response. Then, after the members left, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus sent another letter to Trump, citing “major concerns regarding how your administration will address a number of pertinent issues impacting [AAPI] communities.”
This, too went unanswered.
According to the CAPAC, it has once again issued a request for a meeting.
In a letter penned by Rep. Judy Chu Wednesday, made on behalf of the caucus, Chu reminds Trump that Asian Pacific Americans stand 20 million strong and have become the fastest-growing racial population in the United States. More immigrants come from the Asia-Pacific region than from any other region, she said.
“Despite the prevailing myth that AAPIs are a highly successful ‘model minority,’ our community faces significant unmet needs,” Chu said. She is right — according to the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, the number of AAPIs who live in poverty rose by 38 percent from 2007 to 2011, and only about 60 percent of those of Cambodian, Laotian and Hmong descent have a high school diploma.
Tung Thanh Nguyen, a UCSF professor who was chair of the advisory commission before he left, told NBC News then that the members had felt their leaving would be even more significant in light of the 75th anniversary of the executive order that ordered Japanese Americans be sent to internment camps during World War II. “AAPIs cannot participate in [the administration],” Nguyen had told NBC News. “Even if the actions [of the administration] may not be specifically directed at one AAPI group or another, we have suffered this kind of discriminatory, exclusionary actions, and we do not want to support any of that.”
Trump has not had a particularly close relationship with the AAPI community nor its congressional leaders — during the election, surveys showed that the Asian Pacific American community was overwhelmingly in favor of the Democratic party, with 67 percent of respondents saying they viewed Trump “very unfavorably.”
The CAPAC, which was founded in 1994, comprises 50 congressmembers of Asian Pacific American descent, U.S. territory representatives and those who represent large AAPI constituencies. Its executive board also includes Sens. Tammy Duckworth, Kamala Harris, Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz, and Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, Pramila Jayapal, Ted Lieu and Grace Meng.
“CAPAC has been proud to work with prior Republican and Democratic administrations on significant accomplishments that are vital to both our community and our country,” Chu wrote. “Our districts are both urban and rural and span from the U.S. territories in the Pacific to the East Coast. We encourage you to use the expertise of our Caucus as you work on policies impacting the AAPI community.”
