California law aims to help immigrants work + Emmys honor Sacramento journalist: Your AAPI Newsletter
It is Thursday, Oct. 29, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter.
Here’s a recap of the stories I’ve covered and ones I’m following:
Getting a professional license in California is complicated. But the process is especially thorny for refugees, asylum seekers and special immigrant visa holders who have to jump extra hurdles such as steep translation costs, language and cultural barriers and, in cases where they had to leave their homes due to emergencies, lost paperwork.
“I knew it was a multi-step process, but I didn’t know it was that complicated,” said Mohamed, who asked not to be referred to by his full name because of his pending immigration status. “It was not as clear as it should have been.”
Before he came to the U.S. as an asylum seeker, Mohamed worked as a licensed pharmacist in his home country in the Middle East for two years. But upon his arrival, he had to start the entire licensure process over again, a process which took him about four years. He was eventually able to obtain a new license and find work in the Central Valley.
Mohamed said he’s actually one of the lucky ones. Many of his friends took far longer to get their licenses.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom last month signed a law intended to smooth part of this process by directing boards within the Department of Consumer Affairs to expedite professional licensing applications for refugees, asylum seekers or those with special immigrant visas. It’s a good first step toward making the process more straightforward, advocates said, but more changes will be needed to really make a significant difference.
“Licensing barriers are consistently a hurdle,” said Sara McElmurry, director of communications, policy and research at Upwardly Global. She said having the support to speed up the process is helpful “but it doesn’t address the full spectrum of support needed.”
Citing “significant concerns” about the safety of the UC Davis Chinese researcher accused of lying about her ties to China’s military, her lawyers are asking a federal judge to let her move out of a Bay Area home where she is under house arrest and into an apartment.
Dr. Juan Tang has been living since Sept. 10 in the home of Foster City attorney Steven Cui, an emigre from China who had never before met or spoken to Tang but offered to take her in to show that the U.S. justice system works fairly.
A judge agreed to release Tang from the Sacramento County Main Jail to live under supervision inside Cui’s home after the attorney agreed to put up $750,000 equity in his home that he would forfeit if Tang fled while awaiting trial on charges that she lied on her visa application to gain entry to the United States.
Since her release, however, growing tensions between the governments of the United States and China over American arrests of numerous Chinese scientists have created concerns for the safety of Tang, Cui and others living or visiting his home, Sacramento lawyers Malcolm Segal and Tom Johnson wrote in a motion filed in Sacramento federal court.
“There has been a steady interest in this case in the local and national press in the United States, in part because of the defendant’s detention,” her lawyers wrote. “There has also been a stream of negative press in the Chinese language media, often very hostile toward Dr. Tang, and toward the Third-Party Custodian (Cui) during and after his appointment.”
In other news
When is it racist to mispronounce Kamala Harris’ name? [The Sacramento Bee]
‘Hopefully our dream is not broken.’ Asian American businesses hit especially hard during pandemic [CNN]
To Reclaim Ancestral Land, All Native Hawaiians Need Is a $300,000 Mortgage and to Wait in Line for Decades [ProPublica]
Hmong voters could be key to winning Wisconsin. Here’s how organizers are reaching them [Wisconsin Public Radio]
Are Asian Americans the Last Undecided Voters? [The New Yorker]
New police unit launched to fight hate crimes [The San Francisco Examiner]
Padma Lakshmi, Aasif Mandvi, Nik Dodani And More Celebrate Kamala Harris As First South Asian VP Candidate, Discuss Power Of Voting [Deadline]
Elevating Asian talent: The 5 best movies we saw at LA Asian Pacific Film Festival (including ‘76 Days’) [USA Today]
California Uber, Lyft measure could take toll on Asians, who are 1 in 3 drivers in Bay Area [NBC News]
Opinion: Setting the record straight on affirmative action [AsAmNews]
This week in AAPI pop culture
Lonnie Wong, a longtime journalist for KTXL FOX40 in Sacramento, was honored by the Emmy Awards on Saturday for a lifetime of achievement in television news.
As an on-air reporter and anchor, Wong has been working at the station for more than 40 years. He joined KTXL in 1980, before the FOX television network existed. During that time, he has covered everything from Sacramento’s first Kings home game in 1985 to local crime and government stories. He’s also reported on the administrations of seven California governors, beginning with Ronald Reagan.
Earlier this year, the Sacramento Press Club named one of its scholarships for college journalists after Wong, who co-founded the Sacramento chapter of the Asian American Journalists’ Association and has served on the board since 1985.
The Silver Circle is a highly prestigious honor awarded each year to broadcast journalists who have spent at least 25 years covering local news and made a “significant contribution” to their local communities, according to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Congratulations, Lonnie!
Got a story suggestion? Please reach out to me at awong@sacbee.com.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter. One of the biggest elections of our lifetimes is next Tuesday - have you voted yet? Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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