APIAVOTE Urges Responsible Reporting

By John | Monday, September 3, 2007 | No Comments

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I got this email / press release titled, “APIAVote Urges Responsible Reporting in Coverage of Asian Americans and the Political Process” the other day. If you haven’t been following the latest campaign news, there has been a recent report this past week by The Wall Street Journal (“Big Source of Clinton’s Cash Is an Unlikely Address
” – 8/28/07) reporting Democratic campaign donations of over $200,000 since by an Asian American family of modest means from a modest home address in Daly City, San Francisco, coordinated and matching donation amounts and dates by a New York businessman Norman Hsu (who happened to be apparently a “fugitive” for 15 years after he was charged with grand theft. Mr. Hsu just turned himself in on Friday at the San Mateo County court and is out on $2 million bail.)

“Leaders of Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote), a nonpartisan nonprofit civic engagement organization, today urged media outlets to examine how their ongoing coverage of allegations involving political campaign donations by individuals of Asian descent may wrongly generalize the civic engagement of Asian Americans in the political process.“

This is a HIGHLY sensitve subject for Asian Americans involved in politics and should be a concern for all Americans. Back in the nineties, there was a lot of controversy of over political donations to the Clinton & Gore campaigns by Asians and Asian Americans, with a good overview given in this Wikipedia entry “1996 United States campaign finance controversy.”

The most memorable and probably most damaging example was Al Gore attending an event at the Buddhist Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, California in 1996, which turned out to be a fundraiser. The whole series of “exposes” on Asian American political donors had a detrimental effect on Asian Americans becoming involved in politics as well as donations. The plain fact is that money talks, and when Asian Americans don’t donate, we have no political voice.

As APIAVote has publicized in their press release, let’s hope there is fair reporting on Norman Hsu.

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