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National AAPI Leaders Denounce Gutting of Historic Executive Order
Community Leaders Call on President Bush to Retain Focus on
Improving the Quality of Life of Underserved Asian Americans and Pacific
Islanders
Washington, D.C. - May 14, 2004 -
Today national leaders in the Asian American and Pacific Islander
(AAPI) community criticized the "Increasing Economic Opportunity and
Business Participation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders"
Executive Order issued by President Bush on Thursday, May 13th. Fully
one year late, the Executive Order renews the President's Advisory
Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, but drastically
reframes and restricts the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and
Pacific Islanders, both originally established under Executive Order
13125, issued in 1999.The original Executive Order issued by President
Clinton and renewed for two years at the beginning of President Bush's
term, had a broad mandate to "improve the quality of life of Asian
Americans and Pacific Islanders through increased participation in
Federal programs where they may be underserved (e.g., health, human
services, education, housing, labor, transportation, and economic and
community development)." The White House let that Executive Order expire
a year ago, terminating the Commission then chaired by Dr. John Tsu, a
well respected educator from California.
The May 13th Executive Order moves the Initiative from the Department of
Health and Human Services to the Department of Commerce and drastically
narrows the mission of the Initiative and the Commission from broadly
helping underserved AAPI communities to solely focusing on the
development of AAPI small businesses. Specifically the new Executive
Order instructs the Commission to "improve the economic and community
development of Asian American and Pacific Islander businesses through
ensuring equal opportunity to participate in Federal programs, and
public-sector, private-sector partnerships, and through the collection
of data related to Asian American and Pacific Islander businesses" and
"increase the business diversification of Asian Americans and Pacific
Islanders, including ways to foster research and data on Asian American
and Pacific Islander businesses including their level of participation
in the national economy and their economic and community development."
"The quality of life of the AAPI community cannot be adequately improved
by limiting the improvements of one facet of AAPI policy priorities,"
said Christine Chen, Executive Director of the Organization of Chinese
Americans. "Limiting the purpose of the Executive Order ends any
advances in education policy, for example."
"The Initiative has been seriously under-funded over the past few
years," said Karen K. Narasaki, President and Executive Director of the
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. "The changes make it
likely that even fewer resources will be made available. Narrowing the
focus of the Initiative signals a lack of commitment to support
important efforts to ensure the federal government is adequately
addressing the needs of the most vulnerable and underserved in the AAPI
community."
The National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA) sent a letter to
the President in march raising concerns about the direction the White
House was taking the Initiative but received no response before the new
Executive Order was issued. After the new Order was issued and the new
White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
Director, Eddy Badrina, was announced, AAPI leaders spoke to him and he
offered to set up a meeting.
"The severe economic disparity in the AAPI community is in peril of
being overlooked," said Gloria T. Caoile, Executive Director of the
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance. "To truly empower AAPI
communities, the White House must commit to health care, children,
community development, and civil rights protections, not just small
businesses."
"The White House Initiative must continue coordinating outreach and
education efforts to the AAPI community," said Jeff Caballero, Executive
Director of Association of Community Health Organizations. "Productive
solutions can only be found when addressing all the issues facing the
AAPI community."
EunSook Lee, Executive Director of the National Korean American Service
& Education Consortium said, "We are disappointed that President Bush
has chosen to reintroduce an executive order that does not appropriately
reflect the specific and critical needs of the diverse AAPI community.
Korean Americans for example, have one of the highest rates of uninsured
in the nation at 54% and a recent HUD study showed they suffer from the
highest rate of housing discrimination among all ethnic groups in Los
Angeles."
"While we appreciate the focus on economic and community development,
efforts to improve the quality of life for AAPIs needs to involve all
sectors, not only businesses and will require policy and programmatic
changes in multiple federal agencies such as HHS and HUD," said Lisa
Hasegawa, Executive Director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific
American Community Development. "National CAPACD urges the
administration to maintain an equal focus on increasing participation of
non-profit community based organizations serving underserved AAPI
communities.
"Within our community, there are APA women and children who struggle in
poverty, whether on welfare, working in garment factories or as domestic
workers, or limited by lack of language access or limited English
skills. The original intent of the Initiative was to bring to light the
various social welfare and economic well-being issues that affect the
APA community and to address those issues in a comprehensive manner. The
reintroduction of this Initiative falls far short of addressing the real
needs in our community and how they impact APA women and children," said
Kiran Ahuja, Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American
Women's Forum.
"The move to Commerce seems to be motivated by the belief that health
needs have been addressed," stated Gem P. Daus, Director of Policy for
the Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum. "The previous
commission wrote a health report that barely skimmed the surface. Now is
not the time to lose momentum in the effort to address disparities in
health in AAPI communities."
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