In Defense of Civil Rights: The 40 Year History of the Asian Law Caucus

By Sam Cacas

Far too often, the traditional Black-white paradigms of race relations in America have ignored the contributions of Asian Pacific Americans to the U.S. civil rights movement. Academic classes that cover civil rights at all levels of American education have left out seminal cases such as the first federal criminal conviction overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court (U.S. v. Korematsu), the first Asian Pacific American class action employment discrimination case (United Pilipinos for Affirmative Action v. Blue Shield of California), and the first case ever to hold a garment manufacturer liable for shop conditions (Ha v. T & W Fashions). “In Defense of Civil Rights: The 40 year history of the Asian Law Caucus” by Sam Cacas sheds a bright light upon these and other ignored highlights of American history which Asian Pacific Americans have been involved in and which the Asian Law Caucus pioneered.

Author Sam Cacas has written about Asian American issues for Asian Week, Today’s Black Woman, American Demographics, Philippine News, International Examiner, Yolk, Oakland Tribune, and San Francisco Bay Guardian. He currently resides in Northern California with his wife, Dora Love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam Cacas
• Release date: Sep 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9780615696607

Sam Cacas

Sam Cacas is a native of Washington, D.C. He is the author of “BlAsian Exchanges, a Novel” (2008) and his articles on civil rights issues have appeared in Asian Week, San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Advocate, Bay Area Reporter, International Examiner, Aonline.com, Human Rights, Filipinas, Philippine News, American Demographics, Oakland Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle. He currently resides in Northern California with his wife, Dora Love.

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In Defense of Civil Rights: The 40 Year History of the Asian Law Caucus

by Sam Cacas

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Sam Cacas

First printing, September 2012

Cover design by Sam Cacas with the assistance of Dora E. Love

Proofreading by Dora E. Love. All images including those on the cover were photographed and formatted by Sam Cacas.

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In Defense of Civil Rights: the 40-year history of the Asian Law Caucus Sam Cacas

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One: An Experiment in the Alternative

Chapter Two: Ensuring Criminal Justice

Chapter Three: Fighting for Workers’ Rights

Chapter Four: In Defense of All Immigrants

Chapter Five: Breaking the Silence

Chapter Six: Reversing a Wrong

Chapter Seven: Preserving affordable housing

Chapter Eight: Challenging National Security Civil Rights violations

Conclusion

About the Author

A work such as this one would not have been possible without the cooperation of countless persons who contributed their time and effort toward making this narrative as in-depth and substantive as it is. Special thanks to Dale Minami and Audee Kochiyama-Holman for their early encouragement of the idea of writing this book. Special Thanks also to Bill Tamayo, Madge Kho, Jee Hyung Kim, Ling Woo Liu for reviewing and commenting on draft versions of the manuscript. Further thanks to Ken Kawaichi, Dennis Hayashi, Gene Lam, Harvey Dong, Lora Jo Foo, Titi Liu, Paul Igasaki, Emil DeGuzman, Omar Calimbas, Don Tamaki, Garrick Lew, Dennis Roberts, Michael Wong, Stan Mark, Don Tamaki, Chris Punongbayan, Carlo De la Cruz , Winifred Kao, Larry Lowe, Paul Ocampo, Melanie Chan, Karen Korematsu, Marwa Elkady and Niki Moore for their input.

Very special thanks to Dora E. Love for her love and support during the 21-month marathon, and her innumerable helpful suggestions, cover design development and editorial contributions. Very special thanks to my parents for their early shaping of my progressive political directions, particularly to my late father, Clemente Cacas who, in my teens, constantly reminded me of the racial segregation conditions he lived in during the 1930s by driving me to Bell Vocational High School which he attended in D.C. and to my mother, Maria B. Cacas, who has repeatedly instilled in me the importance of standing up to injustice including the many times classmates called me offensive names like Jap or Chink and especially the one time in first grade when a classmate wrote Jap on the back of my shirt.

I am further indebted to the staff of the Asian and Main Branches of the Oakland Public Library, the Chinatown Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, the Ethnic Studies Library at U.C.-Berkeley, and the main branch of the Berkeley Public Library for their assistance.

Introduction

It is an axiom of social change that no revolution can take place without a methodology suited to the circumstances of the period. – Martin Luther King, Jr. (1)

The original concept of an Asian American community-oriented law firm was a response to the fact that the traditional large firms did not include many or any Asian Americans. Recall that Asian exclusion acts led to legislation prohibiting citizenship, and one had to be a citizen to become a lawyer. Furthermore, as a result of bad experiences, most Asian Americans did not trust the law and felt no attraction to become a legal profession. – Ken Kawaichi (2)

The Asian Law Caucus had no other group in the Asian American community to serve as it's model when it opened in 1972. It did, however, have the benefit of a socio-political environment conducive to social change with organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Black Panther Party, United Farm Workers, American Indian Movement (AIM), Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund (MALDEF), already fighting for civil rights. Asian Americans, up to that time, had experienced a long history of discriminatory treatment based on skin color as well as racially assumed foreignness. This systemic marginalization included anti-Asian immigration laws like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans (two thirds of whom were American-born citizens during World War II as well as periodic anti-Asian hate violence and recurrent police harassment against Asian Americans commonly perceived as gang members by law enforcement authorities. The difficulty in addressing these and other social justice issues for Asian Americans prior to the 1970s was that unlike Latinos and African Americans, Asian Americans had no voice in the form of an influential nationwide organization or leader that could articulate an Asian American position on issues.

It didn’t help their cause that Asian Americans – whether American-born or foreign-born – were typically associated with many negative racial stereotypes (e.g., Asians undermine union wages and working conditions by accepting sub-market wages and sub-human working conditions, Asians steal jobs from Americans workers, Asians are not loyal or less loyal than other Americans because they are politically tied to Asian countries America has fought against in wars or other military conflicts) and benign ones (Asian Americans are well-educated and successful and thus are the model minority for Latinos and African Americans and therefore do not need affirmative action or other government help). (3) Tied to this lack of a political presence was the relatively small size of the Asian American population. Despite the fact that Asians worldwide made up more than half of the world population in 1970, the Asian American population in the U.S. numbered only 1,526,401– less than one percent of the total U.S. population. And the only Asian American ethnicities that existed in any large numbers at the time were Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans who were mostly residing in big cities on the West Coast. Also, more than half of the Asian American population at that time was American-born. And because Asian American identity was not a firmly grasped self-characterization among Asians at the time, Asian Americans stood in a sea of persons who primarily, if not exclusively, identified with their Asian ethnicity if they chose to identify at all. All of these conditions and more made Asian Americans vulnerable to problems that stemmed from racial perceptions. We Asian Americans represent a distinct racial minority, one that is perhaps the least understood, but sometimes the easiest to blame for anything, wrote former ALC attorneys Bill Tamayo and Paul Igasaki in a 1992 ALC newsletter article. (4) What distinguished the 1970s distinct from prior decades for Asian Americans was that the U.S. was fighting a war in Vietnam that was unpopular at home as well as abroad - and its unpopularity was well-publicized. The nightly news television coverage of social justice movements of African American, women, gay and lesbian, and other groups coincided with coverage of the killing of unarmed Vietnamese women and children by American troops. Many younger Asian Americans on college campuses saw this as a reason to join the anti-war and other social justice movements that decried these war atrocities which caused them to realize their political unities with African Americans, Latinos, and other groups on civil rights issues like police harassment, affordable housing, immigration, and employment discrimination. Around this time, the term Asian American began to be used to express a higher level of consciousness and unity: that Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, and other Asian Pacific Americans in America face a common, collective experience as people of color, an Asian American experience of constantly having their nationality and skin color racialized to their socio-economic disadvantage. Additionally, Asian American students were influenced by the Black Panther Party as well as the civil rights movement. The Panthers had traced all oppressed people’s problems to imperialism, a theory that was then gaining currency with left-leaning students and especially Asian American students whose families originated from Asian countries (e.g., Vietnam, Philippines, etc.) victimized by American imperialism and colonialism. Consequently, it was such conditions that set up the creation of the Asian Law Caucus. The further evolution of these conditions since the 1970s has transformed the Caucus into an established institution in the Asian American community and a nationally recognized civil rights force known for advancing minority positions on key issues by focusing on Asian American concerns in the context of strategic litigation, community organizing and education campaigns, legislative advocacy, and collaboration with other groups and individuals. Indeed, the Caucus has dynamically re-visioned and expanded its original 1970s mission of providing free legal representation to youth stopped/detained by police in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Now in it's 41st year, it addresses the local, regional, and national levels, teaming with international human rights groups to challenge a widening scope of issues that include the pre-emptive policing policies of federal-local law enforcement targeting Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans, supporting the rights of mentally disabled immigrants in immigration deportation proceedings, and advocating for the rights of Asian American tenants or property owners who seek greater financial stability by renting out in-law units.

The Asian American civil rights arena would have had a very different history if there was no Asian Law Caucus. The Asian Law Caucus was the first to set up a certain set of values and philosophies, a very progressive agenda that people could relate to. We were the first ones to say we were going to represent all people regardless of their immigration status. – Bill Tamayo (5)

The ALC has frequently emphasized the necessity of a salient political voice on issues that impact Asian Americans, especially when the Asian community is ambivalent or silent on such topics as the media, government, and other influential institutions demonstrate insensitivity to Asian concerns. Most recently, the Caucus has further nationalized its influence and broadened its political power by formalizing a national network affiliation with three other Asian American civil rights groups – the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (Los Angeles), the Asian American Institute (Chicago), and the Asian American Justice Center (Washington, D.C.) – in order to better respond to attacks on the rights of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in other parts of the country where AAPI interests are underrepresented. All four groups have begun representing themselves as part of the Asian Americans for Advancing Justice.

This book is a chapter-by-chapter thematic presentation of the ALC’s most important cases, campaigns, and initiatives over four decades from 1972. By looking back in time and focusing on the learned lessons of the past, the process of moving forward and addressing present and future occurrences becomes less mysterious and less overwhelming as we continue to address recurring issues with differing complexities coupled with manifestations that parallel the past. More significant are the personal human interest stories and anecdotes of the people – clients, attorneys, volunteers, and many others – who are part of the history and who give a human perspective to the ALC. After all, history is not just a delineation of events influenced by a few elite individuals; it is the story of people from all walks of life. With that mindset, this narrative seeks to shine a reflective light on clients as well as lawyers, volunteers, staff, and many others who have sacrificed so that their fellow human beings would not have to endure the same unequal and inhumane conditions others were exposed to. This narrative recounts how the ALC’s theory of change through community lawyering – an empowerment process combining legal advocacy with community education – has repeatedly been applied in the group’s chosen initiatives, campaigns, and legal actions with transformative results.

The intention of the Asian Law Caucus from it's inception was to make the law subordinate to the empowerment of the people it targeted for service. All law is political. - Dale Minami (6)

Chapter one is an exploration of the socio-political climate and immediate circumstances that encouraged the formation of the study group which evolved into the Caucus. This chapter also describes the ALC’s community lawyering methods in applying the theory of change to issues the group has pursued over the years.

Chapter two discusses the key criminal justice cases including Chann v. Scott, Yost v. Vietnamese Fishermen's Association, and the Wen Ho Lee v. U.S.

Chapter three highlights the Employment and Labor project’s main accomplishments including the first-ever class action employment discrimination case brought by Asian Americans, trendsetting cases on behalf of garment workers, and the settlement of major accent discrimination cases.

Chapter four details the Immigrant Rights Project’s key campaigns, initiatives, and cases including the reasons why the ALC has always supported the rights of all immigrants including undocumented immigrants.

Chapter five reviews efforts to counter anti-Asian violence including the Vincent Chin case, development of hate crime and hate violence policies nationally, regionally, and locally.

Chapter six delves into the historical background to the Coram Nobis cases that successfully reversed the criminal convictions of the three Japanese Americans who had challenged the World War II imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans.

Chapter seven discusses key efforts to maintain affordable housing and community development for poor and immigrant communities including the International Hotel case, the Ping Yuen tenants strike, initiatives supporting in-law tenants, and the Columbus United Cooperative campaign.

Chapter eight addresses the campaigns against national security civil rights violations that targeted Arab-American, Middle Eastern, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities following 9/11. Campaigns against the Secure Communities program and challenges to the Department of Homeland Security’s over-intrusive airport screening of AMEMSA and other Asian Americans are also covered in this chapter.

Where content in one chapter intersects with another chapter’s coverage of the same content, such content has been cross-referenced to the other chapter with additional appropriate discussion related to that particular area’s coverage of the content.

Notes

(1) Why We Can’t Wait (New American Library: New York 1964) by Martin Luther King, Jr., 24.

(2) April 20, 2011 interview of Ken Kawaichi by the author.

(3) Success Story: Outwhiting the Whites, Newsweek, June 21, 1971.

(4) In The Loop newsletter (ALC Circle of 100 publication), Fall 1997.

(5) ALC Reporter, July 1992, 1.

(6) May 26, 2002 interview of Dale Minami by the author.

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