Saturday General Session

Convener: Peter Chau Nguyen, Nguyen Ba Hoc Cultural and Educational Center

Introduction of Keynote Speaker, Dr. Edward K. Fujimoto

Dr. Edward K Fujimoto is currently the Deputy Director of Communications, Office of the Secretary/Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Education. Prior to joining the Department, Fujimoto held a number of communications and executive positions in government, the private sector and academia. He served as the Communications Director for the late United States Senator Spark M. Matsunaga; Director of Government Affairs for Isuzu Motors of America, Inc. in Washington, D.C.; Executive Assistant to former Mayor Herbert T. Matayoshi of the County of Hawaii; and chaired the Communications Department at the University of Hawaii, Hilo Campus. Fujimoto also possesses a background in administration and human resources management. He served as Chief of Administration and Human Resources Management at the Shimadzu Scientific Instruments Company in Columbia, Maryland, and was Chief of Administrative Services at the Oakland Army Base in Oakland, California.

In addition, Fujimoto taught at the Ohio State University, Central Michigan University, California State University at Los Angeles, University of Hawaii at Manoa and University of Hawaii at Hilo. He also served on the Hawaii Education Commission, the Hawaii Higher Education Commission, the Hawaii Vocational-Technical Commission, and is a current Board member of the Johns Hopkins University's Leadership Development Advisory Board. Fujimoto earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (1965 and 1967, respectively) and his Ph.D. at the Ohio State University (1971). He is married and has three daughters.

Keynote Address: Dr. Edward K. Fujimoto, U.S. Department of Education

"API Initiative"

Thank you for the warm and kind introduction.

My colleagues and friends…you know that I can’t get started adequately without greeting you in the Hawaiian tradition.

So, please respond as I say to you…Aloha Kakahiaka…ALOOHA!

Thank you for that warm exchange…it’s like "blood in the veins" or at least a "shot of orange juice in the morning" before you begin your day.

Today, let me focus on a discussion of Executive Order 13125 which created the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. But before we enter this discussion, let us stop to consider that this Executive Order was only the second Executive Order on Asian Pacific Americans to be issued in the history of our country.

The first Executive Order was the infamous 9066 which forced 120,000 men, women and children to become uprooted from their homes and placed in concentration camps in 1) the swamps of Arkansas, 2) the bitter cold of Heart Mountain, Wyoming and Minidoka, Idaho; 3) the dust bowl of Topaz, Utah or 4) the desert land of Manzanar, California. Yes, these may be wonderful states that I mentioned, but picture the worst environment in these states, and you will have an idea where these Japanese American citizens were interned.

The American Civil Liberties Union has called this story the worst wholesale violation of civil rights of American citizens in the history of our nation.

But, despite this treatment, within 2 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Americans petitioned for the right to become an all-volunteer unit to serve their country. The petition was granted, and the 100^th Battalion/442^nd Regimental Combat Team proved with their blood that Japanese Americans were loyal Americans, and this famous combat team has long been recognized as the most decorated unit of its size in all U.S. military history.

The most recent count (because many of this unit’s members who were given the Distinguished Service Crosses, the nation’s second highest medal, had really done heroic deeds commensurate with receiving our country’s highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor) was:

	20 Medals of Honor
	48 Distinguished Service Crosses
	560 Silver Stars
	4000 Bronze Stars
	9,468 Purple Hearts

U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye won his Distinguished Service Cross Medal, recently upgraded to the Congressional Medal of Honor, after he single-handedly attacked three German machine gun positions. As he attacked with a grenade in his right hand, he soon realized that it was blown off. Without hesitation, he kneeled on the dismembered right arm, pried the grenade loose, and with his left hand continued his attack. He also stayed in the field to direct his troops after taking this action. Now, if this isn’t an act of extraordinary heroism commensurate to the Congressional Medal of Honor, I don’t know what is to be considered worthy of our nation’s highest medal.

This is the "right stuff" that makes our nation great. And this "right stuff" is part of our honored past. But, other than on the second floor of the American History Museum in Washington, D.C., where is this historical act to be found? It certainly is not in the pages of the history books used in the schools throughout our nation. And why is it that people from throughout our nation are shocked to learn about the internment camps and the heroism of the Japanese American veterans?

This is only one example among many others that can be given on why the second Executive Order issued by President Clinton on June 7, 1999, is just the opposite of the first executive order and so critical to all Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in our nation. It gives all Asians Americans and Pacific Islanders, for the first time in the history of our nation, a "place at the table of opportunity." This executive order was issued to improve the quality of life of all Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders through increased participation in federal programs where they are under-served.

Executive order 13125 led to the establishment of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that will utilize two major working components to assemble reports on Asian American and Pacific Islanders issues to the President: one is a fifteen-member commission that has just been selected by the President, and the other is an intergovernmental working group made up of all the deputy secretaries for federal departments and agencies along with one contact person selected by the secretary of every department to gather essential information on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from their respective departments.

I am indeed honored to have been selected by Secretary Riley as the contact person on APA data and information for the U.S. Department of Education. Working in this capacity has been simply cathartic for me: in the past, I had to "squeeze" out data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from offices within the department. But now, with the President’s mandate, providing the requested APA data receives a high priority and the needed information is more readily available.

I can report that we have currently put together a fact sheet on our Department’s research on APAs’ educational profiles that includes Dr. Samuel Peng’s National Center for Educational Statistics’ (NCES’s) Report using the over-sampling of longitudinal studies data from 1986 and 1988 to focus on the problem of the "Minority Myth": the over-sampling studies clearly shows that while APAs performed above the national average in reading and math as a minority group, disparities in academic performances existed in the APA subgroups that performed below the national average. Critical assistance can now be requested for these subgroups because their needs have been identified.

How is this "Minority Myth" hurting APAs in other ways?

Recently, as you may be aware, the College Board submitted a report entitled, "Reaching the Top" which discussed the Board’s assessment on minority achievements in the nation. The primary mission of this report was to convey the results of their study to higher education institutions across the nation so these institutions could work more effectively to increase the enrollment of underrepresented minority students into highly selective colleges and universities. There was, however, one major problem with this report – it did not include APAs as a minority group to be included in this study,

I am pleased to report that Congressman Underwood immediately called a meeting with representatives from the College Board, the U.S. Department of Education, representatives from Congressional offices and APA organizations to discuss this serious matter with the College Board and to initiate other initiatives on the problems APAs face with the "Minority Myth" being perpetuated in our society.

Further, opportunities for APAs are even developing within my own Department for APA outreach: I recently had a meeting with the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Intergovernmental and Interagency Affairs who had a great report on our Department’s outreach efforts to our Hispanic population.

When he was asked about our Department’s outreach efforts towards serving our APA population, he suggested an exciting plan to utilize the same outreach infrastructure established for the Hispanic population to do APA outreach. We are currently discussing how our Department’s satellite town meetings, newsletters, and information on our latest initiatives can reach APA communities and school districts with proper translators and translated materials, and how we can create effective partnerships with the APA businesses and communities to make this outreach efforts assist APAs with their educational needs and concerns.

I also had an opportunity to present a similar outreach plan to both the Interagency Working Group and the newly sworn-in commission of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders on how our Department can use our current partnership to disseminate education initiatives through the structure created by the Executive Order, and have also learned about many other proposals being put forth by other departments and agencies that supports the APA opportunities agenda. These efforts will undoubtedly be combined into a national APA movement in which we can all become value-added supporters.

Are we just dreaming? Are these long-awaited opportunities for APAs really possible? We can be assured that they are, but as Shamina Singh, Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders mentioned when she was first appointed, our mission is similar to the one accomplished by the famous pilot, Chuck Yeager, who was the first man to break the sound barrier with his X-1 jet in 1947. We APAs have a "window of opportunity" to "break the barriers" for all Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and be an integral source of support for breaking all cultural barriers that exist in our nation.

As one man put it, "it is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dreams of yesterday are the hopes of today and the realities of tomorrow." And let us always be mindful of the significance and power of political involvement and empowerment. For this is the force that both led us into some of the mistakes made in our nation on one hand, and also the force that will enable these mistakes to be corrected for the future of our nation.

But, in our precious democracy, we are free to "step up to the plate"…and we owe it to our past to become politically empowered to help us pave the way for our future.

My warmest Aloha and best wishes to all of you for a challenging and meaningful session.