 Good evening, asking me to join a personal hotspot. I'm Amelia Bundles, and I'm a longtime member of the National Archives Foundation Board, and I welcome you to your National Archives. The Foundation is the nonprofit partner of the National Archives and Records Administration. For more than 30 years, we have supported the important work of this federal government agency and its efforts to make its millions of records accessible to the American public because we believe in the mission of increasing civic engagement for all the citizens of our country. Tonight's program embraces the rich, diverse, multi-dimensional, and impactful history of the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. By telling these stories and all the stories that are preserved in the National Archives, we hope to promote the common ground and dialogue that brings us together as Americans. We are so delighted to welcome such a distinguished panel to celebrate and commemorate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Our Foundation Board and staff thank Verizon for its support of the Archives' civic mission and citizen engagement. We greatly appreciate the partnership that allows us to host programs like this one and our Board Member Rose Cook. Before I welcome our moderator, I just want to say what a joy it was to be able to be at the reception this evening to see the document from the 442nd, and I met two people whose great uncles were part of that regiment, Elise Inouye and Nikki Oka, and when I told them I was going to mention them, they said, oh, but there are several other people who have personal connections, so welcome to all of you. And now it is my pleasure to introduce Mickey Chen, the Senior Vice President and General Council of Verizon Global Networks and Technology. Ms. Chen leads a team that handles the planning, construction, and operation of Verizon's networks and intellectual property. She graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. She is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, a member of the Board of Advisors of Music Corps, the organization that provides music training to wounded veterans, and is a recipient of the Corporate Leadership Award from the Organization of Chinese Americans. Ladies and gentlemen, Mickey Chen. Good evening, everybody. Thank you, Lilia, for that very warm welcome. I feel very honored to be here tonight representing Verizon. Verizon believes deeply in inclusivity. We are committed to creating and sustaining a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion, both within our company and in the communities where our employees and customers live. And to do that, we believe it's critical to understand history. History allows us to appreciate the diversity of cultures. It helps us to understand different perspectives and to foster empathy and tolerance. History plays a crucial role in shaping individual and collective identities. So by understanding history, we gain a deeper sense of the challenges that need to be overcome in order to create a culture of belonging. And of course, history allows us to understand the past so that we can better understand the present and influence our future. There's a lot of Asian-American history that is not widely known, both the stories of our heroes, like the members of the 447th Infantry, and the story of our struggles, discrimination, stereotyping, and violence. Tonight Verizon is honored to sponsor a discussion about the role that historians and the media play in our nation's cultural storytelling and the importance of AAPI stories. We believe that by shining a light on Asian-American history and how our stories are told, that we can help to foster inclusivity and combat racism and bias. On behalf of Verizon, thank you all for joining us tonight for this important conversation. And now I'd like to introduce the deputy archivist of the United States, Jay Bosenko. Jay is a longtime National Archives expert. He first joined the agency over 30 years ago as an archives technician. Before becoming the deputy archivist, he was the agency's chief operating officer for 10 years. In his accomplished tenure at the archives, Jay has helped to create greater accessibility, accountability, and transparency for our nation's records. Thank you, Mickey. Welcome to the National Archives. I am pleased you could join us tonight, whether you're here in person or joining us virtually. This evening's program, Perspectives on History, AAPI Voices in the American Story, at the National Archives kicks off our celebration of Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. As part of that celebration, we have a document display in the East Rotunda Gallery featuring the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of Japanese American soldiers from Hawaii. Known as the Purple Heart Battalion, they fought in seven major European military campaigns during World War II. And the battalion is the most decorated military unit for its size and length of service in U.S. history. Tonight we're excited to host some of the leading voices in the AAPI community as they discuss the role historians and media have played in our nation's cultural storytelling and the impact that AAPI Voices have and will continue to have in the future. Our panelists include attorney, educator, and civil rights leader, Stuart Quo, who is co-founder of the Asian-American Education Project and founding president of Asian-Americans Advancing Justice. Next, we will hear from Dr. Karen Korematsu, daughter of the late civil rights icon, Fred Korematsu, and founder and executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute, which promotes civic participation and education that advances racial equity, social justice, and human rights. Our final panelist, Gisella Perez-Kuzawa is the executive director of the Asian-American Scholar Forum, the non-profit organization promoting academic belonging, openness, freedom, and equality. This evening's discussion is moderated by author and journalist Richard Louie, who is currently anchor for MSNBC and NBC News. We are grateful for the support of the National Archives Foundation and Verizon, and thank you for joining us tonight, and now please welcome our panelists. Sit wherever you'd like. Good evening, everybody. How are we? Hello, DC, and everybody else who is DC remote. We appreciate you being here. I'd like to start, first of all, by thanking the National Archives Foundation, the National Archives, as well as Verizon, and all of our esteemed guests that have decided to spend time with us on this very first day of a heritage month that some folks don't often know about. And what we hope in our conversation today is that we will learn something that we can share, that you will, in the next month, tell one of the stories that they are going to share with us. And I think that is the way that we can truly appreciate part of our American heritage, this month being AANHPI Heritage Month. Yes, that's a lot of letters, and it seems like every year we add one or two to it, and that is very AANHPI. Inside joke. Yes. I'm going to start with you, Karen, if each of you can describe what your organization is and what you're trying to do, and in your case, Karen, you are going to talk about family and remind us about who your father, Fred, remains to be with us today in our history. And also, thank you to Verizon and National Archives for hosting this event this evening because this is all about education, which we all promote here. My father was Fred Korematsu, who had the landmark Supreme Court case called Korematsu versus United States regarding the Japanese-American incarceration. People use the word internment, but education, we're trying to get the euphemisms changed to incarceration during World War II. And after President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 to forcibly remove 125,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, two-thirds American citizens, and a third under the age of 18 years old, my father said no. My father thought it was wrong. All due process of law was denied, being in D.C., I hope you know about those. And so, therefore, he refused to report to the camps, was arrested, and his case went all the way to the Supreme Court. Actually this year is the 80th anniversary of Korematsu versus the United States on December 18, 1944. I'll talk about someone who also shares that date. But my father crisscrossed this country after his federal conviction was overturned in 1983 when they proved there is no military necessity for the Japanese-Americans to be forcibly removed and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton in 1998. So I founded the Fred Korematsu Institute and for education that we now are promoted in all 50 states and have curriculum, and I work with the National Council for Social Studies and all departments of education to be sure that we have a API curriculum and that of the Japanese-American incarceration, the true story. And now I'm also promoting ethnic studies in all 50 states. Now, one of the things I learned, Karen, that I like to share with folks with, I don't know if any of you are Trekkies in here, but a good friend of yours, George Takei, and I remember I was having an interview with him. I've had a couple. And I said, ladies and gentlemen, joining us now, George Takei. And the first thing George says, live on air, says, no, Richard, it's George Takei like gay. The second thing he said, yeah, right, he says that a lot. The second thing he said to me was, do not call these US, or Japanese internment camps, call them American internment camps. And that's an important distinction. Why? Well, because the incarceration happened in this country. The government incarcerated, put in prison, American citizens in this country and created those incarceration camps. There was a, quote, internment in Japan for those people there that were basically considered traitors. But this happened in this country. That's why it's important to say Japanese American. Japanese American. And in American internment camps. In American internment camps. Incarceration camps. Well. And the other one was George Takei like gay. That's the other thing. All right, two bits you can take away for tonight. That's our job tonight. All right, there'll be more. So stick around. Gisela, tell us about your organization and why we're here today. Happy to Richard. So my organization is called the Asian American Scholar Forum. And I would say we are first and foremost a community organization. We represent Asian American scientists, researchers, and scholars who would very much rather be in their rooms researching and doing the work that they love than being out in civic society, getting involved in politics and policymaking. But I think what they found similar to many other Asian American groups is that if you don't engage with civic society, sometimes it catches up to you. And during the rise of anti-Asian hate, we didn't just see people being attacked on the streets. We also saw people experiencing heightened suspicion at their places of employment, at university suspicion from the federal government. And this wasn't something to be considered lighthearted. Many of these cases could have potentially led to decades of time in prison, or potentially losing their jobs and their very livelihood. I had spoken with many professors who started off with their career. Quite happy that they had reached the American dream only to lose everything, arrested in front of their family, isolated from their friends. And unfortunately, many of them were not aware of the rich Asian American history. And part of that led to this intense amount of isolation. They didn't know the Japanese-American history of scrutiny that just because you're of Japanese descent, regardless of whether you're a child or you're a US citizen, you might still be considered not loyal to the United States. And so many Asian American scientists and researchers, particularly of Chinese descent, really became collateral damage as US-China tensions increased. And also, as anti-Asian hate sentiment was on the rise in our country. And so the role of Asian American scholar form is not only to empower this new group so that they can be more engaged and so that they can know their history and be lifted up by our community, but also to really change things for the future. We need to create an infrastructure where we understand that racial profiling and targeting of the ANHPI community is so intrinsically tied to this perception that we're perpetual foreigners, that we may not be loyal to the United States just because we are bilingual, just because we eat different food, just because we have natural ties abroad. This is something that we need to change and we want to make sure, not just in the past and the current, but for many future generations that communities don't have to face this in isolation and they can really challenge many of these perceptions. Thank you. Stuart, you've had many lives and now you're focused on education. Why? Thank you. Well, I joined Karen in thanking Verizon and the National Archives Foundation. It's a wonderful opportunity to be with Gisela and Karen and of course Richard. Richard and I belong to the Committee of 100 which is a Chinese American organization. I was the president of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Los Angeles for 35 years. I built it into, and the board, we built it into a civil rights organization that was over 100 people. Richard emptied several of our dinners of 1,500 people so it's great to come east to see all of you. And just for, in terms of, for folks, it is the NAACP version for our AANHPI community. For those who... Well, we try. What's that? My wife and I both came down with cancer in 2018 so I semi-retired but I still work with them but we had, I had taught one class a year at UCLA, Asian Americans and the Law and I was reminding Karen that I wrote a book that was published in 2009 entitled Untold Civil Rights Stories and I interviewed her dad Fred. And then we, my wife had about 14 teachers and they wrote 12 lesson plans for K through 12 students and then when PBS did their 2020 documentary called Asian Americans, they asked us to write the curriculum. So we did that and then in 2021 because of the surge in anti-Asian violence, people said, unless you promote the curriculum, it'll sit on the shelf. So we decided to create the Asian American Education Project. We felt better and so now we've educated, we've trained about 8,000 educators around the country. We've written a total of about 100 lesson plans. Some of you may have gotten our new comic book which we co-produced with the Asian American Foundation and if you didn't get it, sign up in the front and I'll send you one. This is aimed at sixth graders. What are you saying? Richard said he wants a successful seminar form tonight that you remember a story. For me, it will be successful if you help us get into one school, two schools, three schools. Karen has done a wonderful job but I have 100 lesson plans on all the different Asian and Pacific Islander groups. Every time we go to a new state, the groups say the majority Asian group is this group or that group. So we add five to 10 new stories. But anyway, just yesterday we produced a press release by the Committee 100 because one of the things we started doing is Asian groups have different stories but they're not translated into lesson plans for elementary, middle, or high school. We do that. We have a curriculum team, we have trainers, we have 25 staff, mostly part-time. So they go around the country but we would love to work with you. So to me, success would be get us into a school. And the reason is because of what? The perpetual foreigner dynamic. People look at folks like ourselves and go, oh, you just got here or you're not from here, is that right? Yeah, the story I sometimes tell is we were working with a high school in Los Angeles and the principal said one of the students wasn't coming to class. So she called the student and the student said my relatives, she was non-Asian, said do not interact with Asian American teachers or students because they're spreading the coronavirus. So if people believe these stereotypes or these falsities, what else would they believe? That we're not loyal, that we're foreigners, that we're perhaps a model minority but untouchable. So this is something that we need to correct. Right, let me, quick answers here if you can, all three of you here, 30 seconds. You get asked this, we all get asked this, where are you from? That's right. What are you laughing about? People are here. Answer that question for me, each of you, like we're hanging out and we're having a coffee and I say, oh, where are you from? Where are you from, Karen? I'm from America. No, where are you really from? I'm from America. What's your background? I was born here. But what is your background to share with people? I'm Japanese American and actually I call myself Hoppa because my mother was a Caucasian woman, was born in South Carolina and my father was Japanese American and I grew up with identity crisis and until I went to Hawaii for the first time in actually 1975 and learned that term when a Japanese American, Nisei Woobin, second generation said, why do you, I was buying postcards, why do you buy a postcard? You live here. Said, no, I don't live here. She said, but you're Hoppa and that's how I learned, I didn't know that term before. What does Hoppa mean? It means like you're half Caucasian and half Hawaiian. I wasn't born in Hawaii. You speak Pigeon? Do you speak Pigeon? A little bit. Okay. You can drop all these terms of people saying that. You got a yellow card. Gisela, what about you? How do you answer the question? So I always think of what state I'm living in. So I say I'm from DC but then I also actually like to say but I was born in the Philippines because I want folks to see it. I'm actually very proud of my identity and heritage. I wasn't born in the US, but I am still American. I naturalized and I speak multiple languages and I think this is a wonderful thing. How many languages do you speak? Filipino, Japanese and English. Wow, okay. Great, great, great. And I don't speak Japanese. All right. You did not have to say that. I was not asking you that. But this is a good therapy session, right? Stuart, what about you? My favorite story is I was working on a case against the Ku Klux Klan representing black and white activists several decades ago and I went to a restaurant and this white rachis came up to me and said, where are you from? Where's your family from? And I thought about my mother's side of the family and I said, well, my great-grandfather was a minor in New Mexico. My grandfather was an herbalist and a tailor and Stockton, California. My mom was born in Stockton and she looked at me and she said, and how do you like your new country? So I'm sure my two sons, fifth generation, will get the same question during their lifetimes. How do you like your new country? Yeah. Thumbs up, right? Yes. When I get asked that, I always, it just only happened when I was maybe in my 30s and I remember it was at CNN, I was during a break and I had just done a story on illegal immigration and I was sitting there during a break and I was like, oh, wait, that story's about me because I had three grandparents that came to this great country illegally, which we'll get into as to why. And that felt very interesting during that break and it's not like I came back from a break and I said, the ladies and gentlemen, I just discovered, you know, I did not say that, but it was one of those realizations that I had lived a thematic, a narrative in America that was across many different groups. And so further on along those lines, I also discovered that my real last name is not Louis. It's actually Wong because of the Paper Sun system and purchasing the name, that's how they came to America. The final dynamic was that my grandparents had gone through one of the country's earlier outside of the internment camps detention centers on Angel Island and we talk about it in news today. All of these thematics, which are unfortunately somewhat unfortunate, but also binding. Now, one of those binding experiences that are also quite unfortunate and Karen and the rest were talking about this, I wanna share with you a clip. This is from a fellow journalist and given that we are at the National Archives, it is, I do look to journalists as the recorders of those who document what we are, what we have been and what we will be. And one of my good friends, and I'll call him a mentor just cause I'm gonna make fun of his age, David Ono, has been touring the country with something called Defining Courage. It is a play that is now going around and it is modern, it is today, it is a multimedia, it has singers, it's got film, it has people that are, we also have veterans that do come to be part of this program, but it's happening today and that's the important thing as we look back that we look forward and we look at our contemporary experiences. I wanna share this clip of his play that was actually just had a performance yesterday in Los Angeles. So we'll play this clip first. Story Boldly's Defining Courage shines a spotlight on the remarkable legacy of the Japanese-American soldiers of World War II. Banzai Hill, this is where a fight took place that is beyond description. From the battlefields of France, Germany, Italy and Japan, you'll fly over the exact locations where history was forged. But I thought I was dead. You think it's the last part that you're gonna take? Witness their incredible heroics in a show hailed as masterfully innovative storytelling. And it's not just Bray Aris. They liberated Pietro Santa and now statues and monuments stand in their honor. Celebrate the legacy of true American heroes, Defining Courage. Brown, please do say it. Did play at the Kennedy Center not too long ago. Karen, what is the story of the 442nd and why is that relevant today? Well, as you heard earlier, the 442nd was so special to the Japanese-Americans because they're really, they were disposable soldiers. That's really the bottom line. What do you mean by disposable? Well, because they could get killed during the war and no one would care, because the Japanese-Americans were incarcerated at that time. Worth less than one. Yes, yes. And it was a year after executive order 9066 was issued and when President Roosevelt created this the 442nd military unit, the also part of that was the 100th battalion that was in Hawaii. Those were Nisei, Nisei is second generation in Japanese and they were also trained to fight either in the Pacific Theater or in Europe at the time and so what was so special was that a lot of the 442nd members on the mainland, especially their families were in prison camps, in the Japanese-American prison camps and there was a loyalty oath that was sent to the incarceration camps three months after they were there and question 27 and 28 are probably the most significant because the first, the 27 said, would you disavow your allegiance to Japan and the second one was will you serve in the military and it was a dilemma because here are your parents, here you are in these incarceration camps and many of the soldiers, many of those people in those camps said, you let my family out and then we will fight but the 442nd were very brave and the most decorated unit to this day and they were sent over to together the 100th and the 442nd were at Fort Shelby in Mississippi and part of that story is that there was a conflict between the Hawaiian unit of the 100th battalion and the mainland 442nd or the mainland soldiers I should say and so what one of the military commanders did was he took those soldiers battalion soldiers to Rower, Arkansas and Jerome, Arkansas. Those were the two of the incarceration camps so that the 100th battalion could see that the families of the mainland 442nd were in prison camp and they just couldn't believe it and they stayed there and in fact what people don't know is that these soldiers could see that the people in there on the camps had very little food and they felt really kind of guilty for even eating any of the food that was served and they really didn't want to stay on those grounds because it would take housing away from the people that were incarcerated. That also Stuart falls into another space that people are not aware of and I wasn't until five years ago and Samantha Chang documented quite well those who are of Chinese descent in the Mississippi Valley area who contributed to World War II as well as during the Korean War. What do we know about them? Well there were a lot of Chinese American and Korean American, Filipino American soldiers who fought with the United States during World War II. In fact there were several hundred thousand Filipino American soldiers who were promised citizenship, military benefits and then all those promises were broken. So there's a long story of Asian American contributions to winning World War II. There's a few points that I'd like to just follow up with Karen. I saw the documentary last night in Los Angeles. Defining courage. And she talked about disposable soldiers. I just wanted to give you some sense of this. The hundredth battalion which is mostly Hawaiian. One of their big battles, they had 1,300 soldiers. 500 survived, 800 died. When the Japanese American Nisei soldiers saved 200 white soldiers in the lost battalion in France, one of the, I mean the overall battalion lost over a thousand Nisei soldiers to save 200 soldiers. But one of the battalions had 187 soldiers at the beginning. Eight survived. So this wasn't, this was horrific. This was not just disposable. This was horrific. But the Nisei soldiers I think were honored more in Europe than America. There were grand celebrations honoring the Nisei soldiers because they put their lives on the line. There are just a few follow-up items I just wanna just briefly mention. One is, I think it's important not to separate the resistors from the soldiers. I remember interviewing Fred and he wanted to be a soldier, but they wouldn't let him. So there isn't, both sides, those who resisted getting into the war because of some of the loyalty issues and the people who fought, are both sides were loyal Americans and they were following the Constitution and how they interpreted the Constitution. So I wanted to say that. Secondly, I think it's very important to underscore the cross-racial solidarity issue in this. Asian Americans did not support the Japanese Americans in opposing the incarceration for the most part. It was black Americans who stood up and opposed the incarceration. I remember the NAACP wrote a piece saying, are we next? So black Americans were on the forefront of opposing the incarceration. The last thing I just wanna say is, it's important to understand our history because in 1882, Chinese were excluded. Then that was excluded from coming to the United States, the Chinese Exclusion Act. Then that was supposed to last for 10 years. It lasted until 1943, but then they added all the other Asian groups, Korean, Japanese American, Filipino Americans. In 1924, they added the Japanese Americans. So only 18 years later, the incarceration happened. So I think it's important to understand that this was a period where the United States had an Asiatic barred zone. So people from all over Asian could not come into the United States. So that's important to understand that this was a violent period, a period of legislative as well as physical isolation and discrimination. And the point is, when you talk about the Chinese Exclusion Act, it is the first and only racist law passed by this greatest deliberative body in the world, ever. And I remember when I was on air during the Muslim ban. And there I was on a Saturday covering across the country, the airports, where we saw all of these amazing families being kept away from each other. And I could not but help because my family was directly affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act. That we not, I think the teachable, obvious story from that is, let's not do that again, right? Let's not do that again. We came all gone close. And I remember covering that. And it was a weird for me personally, given my history in the Chinese Exclusion Act that here I was anchoring for hour upon hour of what became very close to be another law of our great land. That was a repeat of that. There's many things that we can pull from modern history as well as the historical moments that you two of you brought up. Gisela, I wanna go to this. You know, as we think about the portrayals of A, A, N, H, P, I communities. And anybody know how many communities, how many origin countries that includes, by the way? I guess, eh? 19? All right, that's okay, that's a start. It's more. 80? No, that's too high. 32. 32? 54, according to, yeah. According to the United Nations in the Asia group, there are 54 countries in the Asia group. And that is, and we're only six to 7% of the population. We can't even really talk to each other. You know, it's tough. Like even in the China group, there's all these, there's a hundred dialects, right? Good luck. And so, Gisela, how has that complexity been portrayed in our culture, our American culture, and our Asian American culture? And what can we do better about it? No, absolutely. And I think the key part is recognizing that that diversity is a reality. In fact, for many Asian Americans and immigrants, we, our countries of origin, have immense amount of conflicts with each other. Not just with each other, but internally. There are minority populations within many of the countries that we make, are places of heritage. And I think, but when we came to the United States, one of the things I mentioned, especially since I work with a community of many first generation immigrants, is we came to the United States and truly experienced being a minority. We experienced directly what it means to be scrutinized by law enforcement or the FBI. We have been targeted, we have been harassed, and we've experienced tremendous amounts of violence. And I think somewhere along the lines, we realized that we needed to come together as a group to really be able to empower each other. I remember, this is back when I was a student, when I first met Mi-Moa, who was the executive director, then at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, AJC. She was speaking at Harvard Law School and the students were divided. There were students from the South American Association that asked, why should we put ourselves into this Pan-Asian American group? We don't feel this fully represents us. And Mi-Moa came with this response, and she said, well, I'm among. There's not many of us there. And if we only focused on just our community, how much power and how much of a voice can we have? And I think that really stuck with me. The idea that within this community that we have created here in the United States, something that is so unique, it has the power to really make sure that we support each other, give each other a voice. And I also think there's a reality that we are a multicultural society. I'm Filipino-American. My husband here, Yasuhiro Kusakawa, is Japanese. My niece is half Chinese, half Filipino. We are going to experience so many challenges and struggles together as a community, and we can really only come out of it together. So the point being that these complexities and these layers are clearly not easy to describe, number one and number two, that we need to try to include them. And I'm not gonna say mainstream, but include or normalize. Those are not the verbs I'd use. I would say include these different storylines. As we sit here at the National Archives, the underline here is the importance of documenting all of America and this community being in the highlight today. Corky Lee was a longtime AAJA member journalist who went to the communities of Asian America for the last 50 years. He passed during COVID, but I wanted to share some of his photos that really encapsulated and documented AA and HPI in America, what that means. The first photo I'd like to show is here of our sick American community. This was taken in Central Park days after, let me see if this is working. I don't know if we can switch it over so I can do the slides. And this photo that I'm about to show you, let's try it one more time, there we go. This is right after the terrorist attacks of 2001. And these sick Americans during a candlelight vigil, they wanted to call attention about how they were being conflated with the terrorists of that time. And the community has suffered yet been so resilient since that time, not only in New York City, but Oak Creek is another example where from tragedy, they really came together to show their strength. Who would like to reflect on this moment? Well, I can say that the day after 9-11, when my father's Supreme Court case, Cormats v. United States was cited by Attorney General and Ashcroft as a possible reason to round up Arab and Muslim Americans and then put them in American concentration camps again. And so what this represents is certainly letting people know that this community really upheld or upholds our American society and our democracy. And all that it means that they want to be just, they're American just like anyone else. Like that's the way my father felt. He felt like he was an American citizen first and that he really upheld this country's values and the Constitution. The one thing, since we sit in the nation's capital, not too far from the capital, is that the first Asian-American member of Congress was also a Sikh American, Delip Singh Song from California. And I think when we look at pictures, sometimes we misunderstand the history that we have together. But our Sikh-American community, an important part of our ANHPI community, again, it needs to be said, have been here a long time. We don't have a lot of time. I'm gonna move to the next photo now, also from the cork at least. This is a 1991 rally in support of Katie Tong. And who would like to reflect on this? This is a 1991 protest in support of a TV anchor in New York. She had been fired from her show, her primetime anchor job on ABC's flagship affiliate in New York City. And station management at the time cited her contract as a reason for her firing. Activists had said that they suspected her age and her Chinese descent were the true reasons behind her release. Any reflections from the panel here quickly? And we are gonna go to Q&A by the way in about five minutes. Well, I think it's very important to speak up. If people don't protest, demonstrate their positions, then you just get smothered. So I think this was very important to speak out. Just going back to the first slide, we have several lesson plans on Sikh-Americans and South Asians. After 2001, there were over 500 hate incidents against South Asians. And several Sikh-Americans were gunned down because just because they were a turban. That's right. I just wanna say, since Stuart mentioned protest, my father said, protest but without violence, otherwise they won't listen to you, but don't be afraid to speak up. So violence is not acceptable and to respect property. I wanna move to this one. Vincent Chen, this is a rally for Vincent Chen. Those of you who may not have heard of him, he was a Chinese-American man who was beaten in the street with a bat in Detroit by auto workers. And it was not a story that was being told. It was not a story being recognized as a hate crime. And if Corky on his own dime flew out to Detroit to take and cover with these pictures. And that's, again, the Vincent Chen rally and story. This is, since we're at the National Archives, the importance of documenting what is in the past and what we are experiencing today. And I wanted to go through some of these particular pictures because without somebody like Corky, we wouldn't have had the memory. We would not have seen that we need to do something different. I wanna go to, each of you have brought a story that you think needs to be told. Then we're gonna go to Q&A. And if you could all keep your description of the picture that you chose to 30 seconds, I would appreciate that so that we can get to Q&A. So, Stuart, this is the picture you brought. Why? This is the story you think we need to know. There's a larger story and the short story that's very important. The larger story is that Asian-Americans truly benefited from the civil rights movement led by black Americans. In 1965, the immigration law was amended to allow Asian-Americans to come into the country equally as Europeans. That was a huge change. In 1970, the population of Asian-Americans in the United States as a whole was about 2 million people. Today, it's close to 24 million. And the main reason was the immigration law change. Before 1965, for example, Chinese-Americans had a quota of 100 a year. This picture is of Filipino nurses who have come in in terms of labor categories and family unification. I gave this story because during COVID, Filipino nurses made up about 4% of the nurses in the United States as a whole. About Asian-Americans, about 9.5% totally. But the Filipino nurses, the 4%, took 31% of the casualties during the COVID epidemic. Who knows this? Nobody knows this. There was a short story on NBC, but nothing else. And so we're working on an additional story to highlight these nurses. They were on the front line. They were front line. They were not saving Filipino-American lives. They were not saving Asian-American lives. They were saving all of our lives. That story needs to be told. Karen, 30 seconds on why you chose this. Well, this is Mitsui Endo. And when I was talking about my 80th anniversary of my father's Supreme Court case, Ms. Endo's case was called Exparte Endo and was heard on the same day of my father's Supreme Court case almost 80 years ago. And her case was a hapeist corpus case, meaning she was incarcerated and camped back. She was in Topaz, Utah, where my father and his family were. And she had a case where she said she was in prison, she was a loyal citizen, and she hadn't done anything wrong. And so the short of it is the day before that both cases were to be heard that the government and the military knew about her case and decided to announce that the incarceration camps were gonna be closed starting in January of the following year. This was 1944, so starting in 1945. And so therefore her case was called Moot. I mean, there was no reason for it to go on. That's why it wasn't a more of a well-known Supreme Court case. But the point being is there are only four really federal cases during World War II. And she and Mitsui was the only woman. So can you imagine she was the only woman that stood up against the government? They tried to get her to back down. They said, oh, you can get out early, your family can get out early. I mean, all these kind of excuses really to get her to back down. And she said no, she wanted her case to be heard by the federal court. And so this year being the eighth anniversary of her case as well, we have our sending letters to President Biden to have her nominated for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She's the only one of the four. My father was first. Gordon Hirabashi and Menya Asuri were posthumously and so now we think we need to kind of complete that circle to right a wrong and especially to uplift the fact that women also objected to the incarceration. Gisela, 30 seconds. Why did you pick this picture that we need to tell this story? Thank you, Richard. So this was actually sent to me by my dear friend, Dr. Gong Chen. He sent me a lot of pictures, but I thought this really represented his spirit. So Dr. Gong Chen had immigrated to this country to pursue the American dream. And I think his story really reflects that when we think about Japanese American incarceration of being scrutinized as a spy, based really merely on your background or Vincent Chen's murder as a result to backlash to US-Japan economic competition, Dr. Gong Chen unfortunately experienced this firsthand. In 2021, he was arrested in front of his wife and daughter, the FBI around 10 agents had barged into his home. And one of the things that he mentioned to me that I still remember is he often speaks Chinese with his wife, but with the FBI agents in front of him, he was just so scared of anything that could make him look less American that he just was completely quiet and wasn't even able to say a word to his wife when they dragged him away. Ultimately, the United States found that there was actually nothing, no grounds in which why his charge should continue and they dropped it. But for 361 days, he said that he and his family was, they were living through hell. His wife still wakes up from nightmares of the day that he was arrested. He still remembers when US Attorney General Andrew Lelling had questioned his loyalty in front of the country. Experiencing being treated like somehow, despite all his contributions to the United States, that he was someone to be suspect, someone who wasn't loyal to the United States. His daughter no longer wants to follow in his footsteps and be a scientist. This is the impact to the next generation. And I think for him, it's important to remember that these historical anecdotes and stories are not a thing of the past. History is still writing itself. Asian Americans and immigrants are still not treated as if they are fully American. And you could be an ordinary person like Dr. Gong Chen and find that the FBI is knocking on your door. The great irony of this, the fact that Dr. Gong Chen experienced this, is that he recently led a team that went on to find one of the best semi-conducting materials in the country. Conducting he 10 times better than Silicon and making the United States even more competitive in a field that they're trying to win here in the global space. And yet we could have lost his talents because racial bias often blinds our country. It blinds not only what would benefit them but also blinds us to our human rights and values. And so we hope that Dr. Gong Chen's story can be something that's told while he's alive and that the injustice that he experienced can be rectified in his lifetime. I'd like to now open up to all of you. Questions, we have two microphones I believe. Who are the microphone holders? Upper left, upper right there. Comments or questions? Have at it. I'd like to bring attention to Representative Mark Ticano who is here, who is the ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. And so you can see how he has personal ties as well as has been working on a lot of legislation around the very API military community that we're talking about and writ large as well. Would you like to say something, Representative? Thank you. I'm kind of connected to maybe all the stories you've been telling, not quite all, but so I represent a portion of the district that Dalip Singh Son represented when he was elected in 1956 as the first Asian American to Congress. I'm very proud of that. I was very conscious of the fact that he once represented the district and was an inspiration for me to run for office myself one day. Stuart Quo talked about the expendable and also Karen about the expendability of the Nisei soldiers. My great uncle Manso was among three great uncles that fought in the 442, Manso Takahashi. He was assigned to the renowned I company. I company was involved in the Battle of the Lost Battalion which saved 200 Texas Rangers. The company was close to 1,000 men. They lost 600 in the campaign for it. He was wounded around that time of that campaign through that part of Eastern France. He died April 10th. So just last month, just a few months short of the E-Day. I had a second uncle who saw combat. Their third uncle returned not seeing much action. I don't think he saw much action. He was too young when he arrived. Wearing the uniform in Seattle, Washington, he saw a clipping or a lean announcement against my grandparents' property in trying to remember Bellevue, Washington, the town square. And the irony of him wearing the uniform and seeing this tax lien. Of course, my grandparents couldn't work that property which was greenhouse property to pay off the taxes. And so they couldn't get the tax payment back on time and they would lose the property. It was five acres of land. The land today is occupied by a red lion hotel to give you some idea of the family loss. But you think of the irony of a man returning in uniform to see his family's property under a tax lien and the injustice of the moment. So I was able to be chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee. I chose that committee to pay it forward to the contributions of my uncle. I'm proud to say that I was able to lead the largest expansion of veterans benefits in two generations under the Honorary Pact Act signed into law in 2022 by President Biden as a way of paying it forward. And Judy Chu and I have fought battles to make sure that the CHIPS Act did not contain harmful reiterations of the very, of Wen Ho-Cheng, all those other scientists that were investigated unfairly. There was a special project under the Department of Justice which they were looking to multiply in what was then Yusika, which was a predecessor for the CHIPS Act. But we worked hard with Speaker Pelosi to make sure that Asian Americans, and to tell you, the Senate was passing a bill by a huge margin, just huge pressure on the House that just passed the bill with these very harmful provisions. So just know that Asian American representation of which there were zero members in during the time of Japanese or American incarceration camps. Today, that representation makes a huge difference. George D'Cay would be happy if you said that representative at the time. Anybody else? Questions or comments? There we go. Good evening, thank you so much everyone for just a wonderful panel. My name is Kat. I'm a librarian at George Mason University where our Board of Visitors is voting tomorrow whether or not to eliminate our DEI office. I'm also on the Executive Board of the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association. Libraries have been facing a record number of book bands in the past year. And as we're talking about historians and media, I think one thing that I cannot get over is why books of all the media that's available to our youth these days are such a battleground for eliminating and suppressing the stories of our culture, our lives, our people. So I wonder if anybody have any thoughts on kind of what we're facing and especially Stuart with the education piece. I mean, it's very linked in there too. So thank you. Thank you for your comment and question and thank you for being a librarian. My mother was a volunteer librarian and relabeled 2,000 books by herself because they did not have anybody else to do it and she would go every single day for four hours after school and to redo that. Comments quickly again from our panel? Yes. Prejudice is ignorance and our most powerful tool that we have is education in this country. And we treat it always at the bottom of the list for funding, for recognition, for teachers. It's just really, that's a crime. And if we need to learn each other's differences so we don't have this book banning. There are people are afraid of what they don't know and that's why books are important and our curriculum is important and teaching about all of us and who we are and sharing our stories. So go away and share these stories and listen. Listen to other people's stories and ask them of their own stories because it sounds simple but that's how we make a difference and how we have to fight against book banning because people are trying to erase history, not just AAPI history, but all history, African-American history, you name it just because they don't agree or don't know or are afraid. And so we are up to us and here's the takeaway to encourage everyone to vote because our elected officials and learn the issues, our elected officials and are going to make the difference. Representation makes the difference. That's how the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which was the official apology to all people of Japanese ancestry by the government and the small little reparations because you don't get anybody's attention unless you throw money at it. But it was the apology and because of the shame that people felt from Japanese-Americans like it was their fault for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. So the representation in Congress, the seat at the table, whether it's US Congress, your state, your community is important. That's how we make a difference. To the point you're making for all of us that are here, share a book. Buy and share a book. That is what you think needs to be learned. That's how you can move, just one book. Send it to somebody, bring it to somebody, put a little note on top and say, this is important that you would read this and understand it. Or just put it on your shelf so people can see it. I think that might be one way, right? Yeah, I think that organizing, getting people to vote is central. The other thing is to recognize where we're at. We have trained about 8,000 educators in two and a half years. I would say 95% of them have, you showed the slide on the Vincent Chin case. I was the only out-of-state co-counsel on that case. People had never heard of Vincent Chin. The ignorance is very deep. It's not the fault of the teachers and the schools. It's that there's no books, there's no lesson plans. There's not anything there to dig into. So wherever you can fight, we'll support you. And I'll share those. By the way, we have this couple of slides. We'll share that at the end from lessons. I wanna go to anybody else with questions, comments. One last one. I'd love to hear from you. Okay, there you go. I'm sorry, she's been waiting. Thank you so much. And again, it's a privilege to be in this space. Oh, you can stand and say, yeah. Hi, everyone. My name is Karina Salvi. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I am the Youth Engagement and Field Associate at API Vote. So I, again, thank you for being in this space and it's a privilege for me to be in this space. My question was more, I appreciate all the stories you shared. And I think for the youth side, especially with this election season, but I think in general, what are the strategic approaches you all suggest for the current youth, right? For the current youth that are struggling to organize, struggling to receive funding, struggling to figure out how to move and navigate through this post-COVID. Either young and age or young and mind. Yes. That's right. Either or. Yeah, they need to work. For our panelists, 30 seconds, I must hold you to this because we're already over, okay? So please go ahead. Well, they need to work together. So working in solidarity and finding like-minded people and groups, you have more power that way. And just never, and as my father said, or demonstrated, he didn't give up for almost 40 years that someday he could reopen up his Supreme Court case, but he didn't know how to do that. So don't give up hope. And to listen also and share ideas. Then that's what's really important. Gasola. Well, I mean, I think the youth are the next generation. They're going to be in these seats of power in the future. And so, you know, I was just at a rally in Florida and one of the reasons that our opposition to one of the legislation was so powerful was because the students joined forces with the professors and faculty members. So I think it's so important for students to do that coalition building with some of the folks in the older generation, but really knowing that it's the student voices that people are listening to. It's their energy because everyone looks at them with a sense of hope. And I think the other thing is just as you recognize your own power, know that this history, this knowledge is so critical in you moving forward. Being able to see that you can be genuinely yourself in this generation, not in the way that in the past we've had to hide parts of ourselves. We're in this scrutinized in that way. And so I think the youth in many ways are our inspiration that we can just be as we are. Stuart, 30 seconds. I think it's very important for you to figure out how to connect the struggles. People are into different struggles, different issues. What your challenge is is how do you connect them? What are the common issues that bind those struggles together? Then people will come together, organize, vote. I'd say bite size. Today, we had stories we all can share. If we can just share one story a month, that's part of engaging. Second idea, volunteer locally for five hours a month. Where your feet move is where your brain goes often. Five hours a month. That's all. You know, this has been a great conversation. I want to finish by showing, if we can flip back to the slides. A couple of you want to take a snapshot of these lesson plans. I do want to share this with folks so we can flip the screen back to the slides. People can take a quick picture. And okay, we're already there. So what I'll do is I'll, these are lesson plans from Stuart's organization, the Asian American Education Project. These are just 10 of the most popular lesson plans that are requested from his organization. And you can go to that website if you'd like to discover the other 90 or so, is that right, lesson plans. And you can share it with your teachers or bring it to your organization. I also want to share this with you. This is also lesson plans from Karen's organization, her institute. Also take a shot of that. You can then pass that on to others who would like to share these stories and teach these very important lessons. I want to thank all of you for taking the time tonight here at the National Archives. Thanks to our great sponsors and supporters and partners Verizon. Thank you for gathering us and convening us. I want to thank, of course, the National Archives as well as the Foundation for supporting this evening. We hope that there were two or three teachable moments in this discussion today. And the idea is that we can walk away appreciating Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. And I would like all of you to say that out loud at least once this month. Because it ain't easy, but say it out loud. A-A-N-H-P-I, say Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. People will, of course, learn by just hearing that within itself. And then if you can also share one of these stories. One time this month. Please do that. Just share one. And you'll be doing your part of what we try to do for all the great heritage months that we have each and every year. And this month being, it happens to be about A-N-H-P-I's. But maybe the lessons that we can learn, we can take it to our Latino Hispanic Heritage Month and our Black History Month and all the other great heritage months that we have to celebrate each and every nook and cranny of our country. So thank you for being here. And I hope you have a good night. Thanks. Thank you.