ACTION ALERT– ACTION ALERT – ACTION ALERT – ACTION ALERT

Young Artists Send Good News from the U.S. Capitol:

"Health Care for All Kids is Gaining Momentum!"

Background: On Friday, January 23, participating exhibit artists met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Jay Rockefeller and learned that the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill will be voted on the Senate Floor next week --- possibly as early as Monday evening. At that same meeting, both Senators publicly affirmed that the inclusion of legal immigrant children is a priority. Separately, in a meeting with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's senior staff, the young delegation learned that the House considers ICHIA (a provision that lifts the five-year bar for legal immigrant children & pregnant women) to be a non-negotiable item.

Stand Up for Legal Immigrant Children's Healthcare: Starting with the removal of the five- year bar for legal immigrant children & pregnant women, the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama are close to passing legislation that will reauthorize SCHIP. This stands to be an important victory after two years of stalling on a program that has helped millions on families raise healthy children in the face of a worsening economy.

Several Senators have agreed to support the Senate Finance Committee's version of a bill with a key provision including coverage for legal immigrant children and pregnant women, a provision that the American public supports.  These Senators also agreed to reject amendments that would threaten coverage for immigrants. Please thank them for their support.

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Senator. Tell him or her:

"Support an SCHIP bill that ends the bar on legal immigrant children and pregnant women. It is both the right and the smart thing to do - we all benefit when everyone in our community is healthy.

"Oppose any amendments that would undermine this important provision or enact new barriers to health care for all children."

Senators that need pressure from constituents:

Alexander, Lamar (R-TN)
Begich, Mark - (D - AK)
Boxer, Barbara - (D - CA)
Mikulski, Barbara A. - (D - MD)
Cochran, Thad (R-MS)
Klobuchar, Amy - (D - MN)
Landrieu, Mary L. - (D - LA)
McCain, John (R - AZ)
Pryor, Mark L. - (D - AR)
Shaheen, Jeanne - (D - NH)
Tester, Jon - (D - MT)
Udall, Mark - (D - CO)
Udall, Tom - (D - NM)
Warner, Mark R. - (D - VA)
Johnson, Tim - (D – SD)
Roberts, Pat (R-KS)

Thank these Senators for Standing Up for Immigrant Children and Pregnant Women:

Begich, Mark (D-AK)                     
Feinstein, Dianne (D-CA)
Carper, Thomas (D-DE)
Kaufman, Edward (D-DE)
Akaka, Daniel (D-HI)       
Inouye, Daniel (D-HI)
Durbin, Richard (D-IL)    
Kerry, John (D-MA)        
Kennedy, Edward (D-MA)
Snowe, Olympia (R-ME)
Collins, Susan (R-ME)
Levin, Carl (D-MI)           
Baucus, Max (D-MT)       
Tester, Jon (D-MT)          
Menendez, Robert (D-NJ)
Lautenberg, Frank (D-NJ)
Bingaman, Jeff (D-NM)
Reid, Harry (D-NV)
Schumer, Charles (D-NY)
Wyden, Ron (D-OR)        
Merkley, Jeff (D-OR)      
Warner, Mark (D-VA)      
Webb, Jim (D-VA)
Murray, Patty (D-WA)
Cantwell, Maria (D-WA)
Feingold, Russell (D-WI)
Kohl, Herb (D-WI)
Rockefeller, John, IV (D-WV)       
Murkowski, Lisa  (R-AK)

For more information contact Hemi Kim at 202. 339. 9318 / hkim@nakasec.org or G Smith at 206.931.5738 / or go online to www.iwanttobehealthytoo.org.

Located at 4646 Michoud Blvd Suite 2 in New Orleans

Between 99 Supermarket and Ba Mien Restaurant

What are we going to talk about?

Versailles Vietnamese New Year's Festival Booth

Fri, Jan 30th; Sat, Jan 31st; Sun, Feb 1st @ Mary Queen of Vietnam Church

VAYLA is running a dunk tank this year for the Vietnamese New Year's Festival in Versailles.  Now is your chance to dunk someone!  We are still looking for ideas for our second game-booth, so bring your best one to the meeting!

Urban Bush Women Dance Performance

Thu, Feb 4, 7PM @ Tulane

Urban Bush Women will have a free performance at Tulane!  It's a free event and definitely is one to check out if you are interested in dance, theatre, and performance.  VAYLA will be providing transportation to the event at 6:00PM

Youth Organizing Campaign: Terrebonne Parish School Board English-Only Protest

Tue, Feb 17 @ Houma

What would you do if your free speech was in danger?  How would you feel if you cannot speak your native language?  VAYLA is mobilizing and organizing the youth to speak up against the English-Only Policy that was proposed over Summer 08 as a result of two co-valedictorians using Vietnamese in their graduation speeches.  Learn more about what you can do at the meeting.  

College Seminar

Sat, Feb 21st @ Loyola (Location may change)

AASIA is hosting a College Seminar for high school students who want to receive more information about and prepare for college and higher education.  Learn about how to apply and transition to college, leadership, and identity!

VAYLA Youth Retreat!

Sun-Tue, Feb 22nd-24th OR Fri-Sun, Mar 20th-22nd

VAYLA is having a Youth Retreat for its members, and we want you to be a part of it!  We have two dates that will be up for a vote at the general meeting.  The themes of the retreat are leadership development, teambuilding activities, and family bonding.  Learn more about it, and come to the next retreat planning meeting will be on Friday at 6PM.  

Undoing Racism Workshop

April/May 2009

The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond is an anti-racist community organization founded in 1980, and they will be working with VAYLA to host workshops in the near future that will teach us where racism comes from, how it works, why it persists, and how it can be undone.  This is important in order to build bridges with other communities so we can work together to fight against oppression.  

Safe Space 

Thu, Jan 22nd 7PM @ VAYLA

Got something you want to get off your chest?  Dying to talk about something?  We will be having safe space sessions at VAYLA on Thursdays to talk about whatever is on your mind in a positive and confidential way.  

Cell: 714-856-2384

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New America Media, News Report, Eric Tang, Posted: Jan 17, 2009

Editor’s Note: Twenty years after a gunman opened fire on a schoolyard of mostly Southeast Asian children in Stockton, Calif., the Cambodian American community tries to heal from that violence, and the larger issues affecting refugees to America. Eric Tang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies and the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Illinois. His forthcoming book is titled 'Unsettled: America’s Refugees and the Struggle for a Just Resettlement.'

STOCKTON, Calif. -- “Going back to teach at the school was my way to letting go of it all,” said Rann Chun, a third-grade teacher at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, Calif.

Exactly 20 years ago, on January 17, 1989, Chun was a nine-year-old student at Cleveland when a lone gunman opened fire on the schoolyard, killing five and injuring 30 before taking his own life. Chun’s six-year-old sister, Ram Chun, was among those killed.

Before Columbine or Virginia Tech—indeed before “school shooting” became familiar phraseology in American culture—there was the Stockton schoolyard incident.

Few outside of Northern California recall this tragedy in which 24-year-old gunman Edward Patrick Purdy emptied 105 shots from an AK-47 assault rifle into a schoolyard of approximately 450 schoolchildren. Fewer still recall that at the time of the shooting, Southeast Asian refugee children comprised 70 percent of Cleveland’s student body. Among the five fatalities, four were Cambodian Americans—including Ram Chun—and one was a Vietnamese American. Their ages ranged from 6 to 9 years old. The families of these children had recently resettled in Stockton in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia.

Twenty years ago, the tragedy brought forth divergent – if not competing – analyses and lessons. Racial justice advocates demanded that the attorney general consider the incident a hate crime. Others took the occasion to call for stronger gun control laws. But for the mostly Cambodian-American survivors, there was another lesson gleaned: The struggle for peace and survival does not end with resettlement in the United States.

According to Stockton community leader Sovanna Koeurt, those who lost their children had to “either let go and build something new and for the better or they didn’t survive.”

Chun’s father found this impossible to do. Though he had had lost loved ones to the Khmer Rouge, he could not pull himself together after the killing of his youngest daughter.

“He didn’t survive,” Chun said. Within 10 years of the shooting, the father passed away, succumbing to deep depression and heavy drinking.

Three years ago, Chun returned to Cleveland Elementary to become a first-grade teacher—incidentally, this was the grade his sister was in during the time of the shooting. He now teaches third grade.

“I went back to be role model for change, for a new beginning,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave it behind as a place where my life changed for the worse, but for the better.”

According to Koeurt, Chun’s story exemplifies not only triumph over tragedy, but also the way in which a young man can beat the odds in a community plagued by poverty and gang violence.

“Resettlement to America was just another verse, another phase, in our story of refugee survival,” said Koueurt, who is the founding director of APSARA, a social service agency and community development corporation created in the wake of the shooting. She is referring to how life in the United States presented a new set of hardships and tragedies, and how refugees had to draw on the skills from their past lives in order to survive. Indeed, the schoolyard shooting has not been the only hurdle to overcome in the past 20 years.

Long Keo, 27, was among the 30 wounded during the shooting, having sustained a bullet wound to the abdomen. He recalls multiple surgeries throughout his childhood, going in and out of hospitals for years after the incident. And yet, when he looks back on his adolescence, surviving the shooting is not his defining struggle. Instead, he recalls the gang violence that gripped Stockton and nearly took his life on more than one occasion.

Several years ago, his living room was riddled with bullets from a drive-by shooting. Then, this past summer, his mother learned that the family would be evicted from their home. They were renting from a landlord who was on the brink of foreclosure. When I came to speak with the family about the 20th anniversary of the shooting they, understandably, were more interested in talking about their current housing crisis.

These smaller tragedies that have dotted the lives of Stockton’s Cambodian Americans perhaps explains why, there is little fanfare surrounding the 20th anniversary of the shooting. This is not to say that community members have become inured to violence and tragedy, but rather that there is a broader context of immigrant and refugee life in which the shooting must be discussed.

Still, on Friday night the Children’s Museum of Stockton held a small, invitation-only memorial event for the victims and heroes of 20 years ago. Today, the city’s local paper, The Stockton Record, will run a feature article looking back on the incident. And then there are those, like Chun, who find ways to “honor my sister’s memory everyday.”

“I could have taught at another school in the district,” said Chun. “But I chose to be here. Being here helps me let go of the tragedy, but still hold on to her.”

Related Articles:

A Vietnamese Journey Toward the American Dream

Standing Between Exploited Girls and the Streets

Fearing the Stigma of HIV

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Gong Xi Fa Chai and Chuc Mung Nam Moi!!!  Happy Chinese and Vietnamese New Year!!!

 
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day also!!! 

 

 

News 1: APAS General Membership Dinner

Date: Saturday January 31, 2009

Location:  Five Happiness Imperial Room * 3605 S Carrollton Ave * New Orleans, LA 70118

Admission:  $26 per person (cost of dinner)

Time:  6-9pm

 

This year is a special year for us all.  We are celebrating APAS' 30 years of history and accomplishments.  Your Executive Committee will be planning a memorable year in celebration of this note-worthy milestone.   Come join APAS Board and volunteers to induct the incoming chair and executive committee and hear about our accomplishments for the last two years.

Your attendance is requested and will be appreciated.  Please RSVP directly to Sokcheun Chau 504-914-8112 or email her at sokhoeun_chau@yahoo.com

 

 

News 2:  Vietnamese New Year Celebration in New Orleans Metro Area

 

There are celebrations at multiple locations:

 

St.Joseph the Mission
6450 Kathy ct Algiers,La 70131
 Evening of the 19^th and all day 20

St.Agnes Le Thi Thanh
6851 Le Thi Thanh st Marrero, La 70072

Jan 24 and 25

 

 

News 3: New Orleans Filipino American Lions Club Mardi Gras Ball 

Date: Friday January 30, 2009

Location:  1785 Carol Sue Avenue in Gretna , LA

Admission:  $35 per person in advance

 

There will be a Mardi Gras King and Queen Drawing, with Food, Fun and Dancing!
Formal Attire or Costume (required to be selected King or Queen).  This event has been a lot of fun every year, so please do not miss it.

Proceeds to benefit Fil-Am Lions Charities.

For information or tickets, Call
Kenner/Metairie: 504-466-0875 (Lita & Robert)
Westbank: 504-361-3260 (Aida & Bob); 504-392-6138 (Lily & Dion);
504-250-8258 (Emma Moreau); N.O./CBD: 504-566-7081 (Ely)
Northshore: 985-674-0293 (Emma & Rudy)
Or e-mail to oremor_intl@cox.net or FilAmLions@aol.com

 

 

 

News 4: Monthly Merit Making with the Thai Community  

Date:  Sunday, February 15

Location:  3805 Lake Winnipeg Dr., Harvey, LA 70058

 

A monthly Thai Merit Making for February will be held on Sunday, February 15 at 3805 Lake Winnipeg Dr., Harvey, LA 70058.  Donations for Wat Wimuttayaram Buddhist Meditation Center of Louisiana are welcome.  Please visit the website at wimuttayaram.igetweb.com to learn more about this effort.