Thread: Activists aim to bring Asians into debate

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Posted on Thu, Jul. 13, 2006

Activists aim to bring Asians into debate
WIDER CONSTITUENCY IS SOUGHT ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CHANGES
By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News

There are as many as 180,000 undocumented Asians in the Bay Area, but the recent national debate about illegal immigration feels as if it's strictly a Latino issue, some legal advocates said.

``Immigration reform is not just a Latino issue,'' said Christopher Punongbayan, advocacy director for Filipinos for Affirmative Action, an Oakland civil rights group. ``There is still work that needs to be done in our communities, to let people know that these issues affect us and that we have influence over public policy decisions.''

Hoping to engage more Asians in the public immigration discourse, a panel of lawyers and community leaders today will discuss how reform proposals now being considered by Congress and the Senate could also affect Asian immigrants in the United States. The panel discussion, part of a local monthly series, will be held at the United Way Building in San Jose.

``It's clearly an issue that has local and national impact,'' said Joren Lyons, a staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus, a legal advocacy group in San Francisco. Lyons will also be on the panel.

``We want to dispel the myth that what's going on in Washington is all about Latinos,'' Lyons said. ``There are undocumented Asians. They're out there. We want people to recognize that the community has a stake in this.''

The Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., has estimated there are 1.5 million undocumented Asians in the United States. In the Bay Area, according to some local estimates, there are between 80,000 to 180,000.

Larisa Casillas, policy director for Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN), said that critical Asian perspectives on immigration reform has been largely silent, perhaps overshadowed by the Latino perspective.

Casillas, who is moderating the panel discussion, said she is pleased that work to spread public awareness of the issue is now being done.

The discussion is being sponsored by Vision New America, a San Jose non-profit that works to increase participation of Asians in civic and community activities; and South Bay First Thursdays, a monthly dinner series focusing on issues affecting Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders.

``There's a stereotype that all undocumented immigrants are Latinos,'' Casillas said. ``So we're taking our mandate to inform different immigrant communities.''

Casillas said she was surprised by the estimated size of the undocumented Asian population in the United States and the Bay Area.

But as immigrant advocates have long reported, the undocumented population, contrary to the stereotype that it's all Latino or all Mexican, is varied. There are Filipinos with expired tourist visas, Indian and Chinese engineers with lapsed H-1B visas and relatives with expired visitor's visas.

Among immigrant groups, Filipinos, Indians and Chinese have the longest wait, some as long as 25 years, for a visa for relatives, Punongbayan said. A provision in the Senate bill under consideration includes a reduction in the visa backlog that could help re-unite many Asian families, he said.

The seeming reluctance of Asians to jump into the immigration reform debate may stem from a lack of awareness about the impact of proposed legislation in Congress, some advocates said.

However, a practical reason may be greater difficulties in community outreach, Lyons said. With Latinos, he said, information is dispensed in one language, Spanish. With Asian-Americans, advocates face a daunting task of translating information into a dozen languages.

``It's extremely time-consuming,'' Lyons said. ``It does slow down the organizing effort.''


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IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

The panel will be held at 6:30 p.m. in room 105 of the United Way Building, 1922 The Alameda, San Jose. Additional information is online (www.firstthursdays.org). To reserve a seat, call Tamon Norimoto at (40 373-8119.


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Contact Jessie Mangaliman at jmangaliman@mercury news.com or (40 920-5794.

Bring them out.... and they can get deported too