Aoki and Deportation

I am going to be honest, I had never heard of Richard Aoki before and I was lived in Oakland my whole life. It really took me aback because his impactful resistance should not go unacknowledged. I even had an Asian ethnic studies teacher in high school and she never mentioned Aoki.
A strong and impactful demonstration of resistance and challenging of the status quo came from Richard Aoki and his “I don’t give a f*ck attitude” to fight for anti-racism and anti-imperialism in the 1960’s.  He grew up in a concentration camp where there were a lot of protests and I believe growing up in that environment made him have the need to protest against racism. He started the Asian American Political Alliance in the summer of 1968 and prompted other Asians to become part of the movement. The act alone of creating and labeling yourself a part of an alliance is such a powerful statement of unity to crumble the hegemonic ways. Even though it started off in such small numbers, it grew to become something bigger. A way in which I resist every day is by labeling myself as a proud Xicana and not letting the government or other people label me. I also resist by never forgetting to speak Spanish and never forgetting where my parents came from.
    
Also, it made me laugh when they said that out of the 6,000 Asians at Cal, only 20 were part of the movement and the remaining 5,980 were studying. 

The article “Deporting Cambodian Refugees – Youth Activism, State Reform, and Imperial Statecraft” by Soo Ah Kwan speaks about the injustice of deportation. One thing that bothered me right off the bat is the use of the word illegal aliens. I always put it in the back of my mind but when it is brought up, I get mad at the government for naming them aliens. Ugh! I never thought about the group most affected by deportations, I always thought of broken families and the effect of deportations and that is why it was shocking to read that Cambodian men are the group most affected by deportations. The organization Asian/Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership (AYPAL) is helping to repeal the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. I know this was article was about Cambodian men and the deportation injustices but I just wanted to speak about the words that stuck out to me-- Pacific Islander. I grew up with different Pacific Islanders (Samoans, Tongans, etc) and I was so upset when I found out that not all Samoans have citizenship! Samoa is the only island owned by the United States that can only claim citizenship if they have a parent who was a citizen; otherwise, they have to go through the same naturalization process of non-Americans. Can you believe it? I even wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Samoa so that he could push for citizenship for all of his people because the US is making profit off of them and they don't even have right to citizenship.


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