Ep.3: Undocumented, undaunted; Emil Amok talks to Asian Am.DACA recipient invited to see Trump speech
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
Release Date: 03/04/2017
Ep. 105: Little Manila Rising For All; Exec. Dir.Dillon Delvo with Emil Guillermo
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
Dillon Delvo, executive director of Little Manila Rising, talks to Emil Guillermo about how the Stockton non-profit has expanded its mission to do more and to help more people in South Stockton. From preserving Filipino American history and historic buildings, the LMR's mission now includes public health initiatives and environmental efforts in community air monitoring. Beyond that, the non-profit has its eyes on owning and developing land and projects to benefit the broader South Stockton community. Delvo said Little Manila Rising just wants to do what other groups are doing around the state,...
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Ep. 104: Asian American Filipinos' Continuing Trauma Over the U.S. Colonization of the Philippines
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
Emil Guillermo talks with Eleanor Wikstrom, an editor/writer with the Harvard Crimson, about her article on the open secret of the U.S. colonization of the Philippines and the role Harvard and higher ed elites played in educating the people on their own history from a white perspective. Wikstrom describes the impact of learning that history has had on her as a young American Filipina. Guillermo shares his story of Harvard (1970s) to show the generational impact of colonial history. More at www.amok.com
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Ep. 103: Environmental Justice Warriors: Little Manila Rising's Matt Holmes
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
Little Manila Rising is a non-profit based in Stockton, Calif. focused on environmental justice. LMR fights for the people of their community to abate the pollution from the area's freeways and ports. It has begun to work with UC Merced on air monitoring. Matt Holmes, along with Dillon Delvo heads up the environmental effort. He talks to Emil Guillermo.
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Ep. 102: "Try Harder" Director Debbie Lum
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
"Try Harder" director Debbie Lum talks to Emil Guillermo about Lowell High School and the college admissions process captured in the film's profile of five students. What are AAPI going through to get to the elite colleges of their choice? Emil, a Lowell alum, compares his experiences with those of the students in the film.
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Ep.101: Little Manila Rising Goes Door-to-Door to Get Out the Vaccine; Protects the Community by Fighting Misinformation.
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
Amy Portello Nelson talks with Emil Guillermo about Little Manila Risings' "Get Out the Vaccine" drive. Modeled after the "Get Out the Vote" idea, the program goes door to door to give people good information about the virus and vaccines. And it's working, vaccine rates went from the low 30 percent range to more than 50 percent in the zipcodes canvassed. Now the plan is to keep going through the end of November. But it's not easy. Some are hesitant, and one resident even pulled a gun.
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Ep. 91: Little Manila Rising's Youth: From Stockton to Stanford And Back On a Mission
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
Little Manila Rising is an non-profit organization in Stockton, Calif. servicing primarily the South Stockton community. After a recent youth conference, Emil Guillermo talked with Celine Lopez, a recent Stanford graduate, who hopes to use her senior thesis in Urban Studies as a foundation for policy-making in her hometown. Celine talks about how she rediscovered her pride and self-worth as a Stocktonian at Stanford and why she wants to return to the Central Valley.
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Ep.81: How Little Manila Rising, An Environmental Justice Advocate in Stockton, CA, Makes A Difference
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
A Filipino American group called Little Manila Rising is part of a "people-powered" Green Revolution that's changing how the community gets involved in environmental justice. Recently, community members, empowered by state money through AB617, rejected a $5 million proposal from the Port of Stockton. The community stood up to the polluters. LMR's Dillon Delvo tells how and why it happened, and about how LMR transformed its mission to fight for environmental justice.
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Ep. 71: Do You Know Angelo Quinto? He's the Asian American/Filipino American George Floyd
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
Angelo Quinto died after a policeman had a knee to the back of his neck for 5 minutes. Emil Amok is Emil Guillermo, journalist, commentary, performing artist reads from the column he wrote on www.aaldef.org/blog about Quinto, the need for re-thinking policing, and what this means for Asian Americans. Prof. Dan Gonzales of SF State Univ joins in to comment on this, the recent rash of anti-Asian hate incidents in the U.S., and other news. For more go to www.amok.com #angeloquinto
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Ep.70: Phil Tajitsu Nash on E.O. 9066 and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
Japanese Latin Americans were left out of the redress settlement, but now they have standing to go forward to seek justice. Emil Amok Guillermo talks to Phil Tajitsu Nash, professor, lawyer, and activist about why FDR signed E.O. 9066 that incarcerated Japanese Americans in the first place. And about the case of the Japanese Latin Americans (JLAcampaignforjustice.org). Also discussed: how society allowed internment, and the solidarity movement for justice. Go to amok.com
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Ep.67: Farewell to Corky Lee-- My goodbye and my 2017 interview with Corky
Emil Amok's Takeout from Emil Guillermo Media
Corky Lee died on Jan.27 of Covid. He was 73. Journalist and commentator Emil Amok Guillermo gives his farewell to Corky, a photojournalist who documented the Asian American experience and dedicated his life to what he called "photographic justice."
info_outlineIt's not every day an undocumented person gets to sit in the chamber of power and listen to the president.
But that's what happened to Angie Kim.
Emil Guillermo talks with Kim, a community organizing fellow at the Minkwon Center for Community Action in Flushing, Queens, NY.
Brought to the U.S. at age name by her parents from South Korea, Kim qualified for President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals program (DACA), in 2012.
It gave her the right to get a work permit and stay in the U.S. Now 32, her future is in jeopardy, as President Trump has yet to say what will happen with DACA recipients. In recent days, some DACA recipients have been apprehended by ICE under new broad guidelines.
Kim, invited to the speech by Congresswoman Grace Meng, didn't get a shout out like the widow or Ryan Owens. Kim shares her thoughts on the politics of the night and how she uses her activism to deal with the fear she faces as the only undocumented person in her family
Emil Guillermo write for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund blog. He is an award-winning journalist who was once an NPR host, newspaper columnist, and TV reporter.
See his work at www.aaldef.org/blog
Or at www.amok.com
Emil Amok on the Speech. amok.com March 1, 2017
It wasn’t exactly a State of the Union, more like a Trump state of mind.
But that means the best thing you could say about Trump45’s address before Congress is this: At least the TelePrompTer didn’t break.
If it did, who knows what we would have seen on speech night.
“Campaign Trump”?
Or “Twitter Trump”?
That’s the Trump who has been the real enemy of the people.
But this speech was slightly more tempered. Milder. And he didn’t veer off wildly.
The president showed us all— he could read!
Sad.
And just for doing that, 78 percent of viewers in a CNN/ORC poll gave Trump positive marks.
Now that’s something Trump understands. Ratings.
Governing, however, has been a mystery. But now Trump will learn from experience that if you give a political speech that’s long on promises on things like jobs, education, infrastructure, and Obamacare, without a stitch of detail on how to keep those promises, let alone pay for them, ratings can go up.
And maybe he’ll start acting normal?
That’s something both to welcome and to fear.
Welcome because he’s not 100 percent in your face.
Fear, because he’s figured out how the game works.
And that of course, makes Trump more dangerous than ever.
There were two things specifically I was looking for in the speech, that left me pretty disappointed.
Though Trump began the speech talking about Black History Month and civil rights, he really could have condemned the threats to the Jewish Community Centers and the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries much stronger than he did.
And he could have dwelled on the shootings of Indian Americans in Olathe, near Kansas City. One man, Srinivas Kuchibhotla died. Another Indian American was wounded.
A Caucasian man, Ian Grillot,24, was wounded trying to disarm the shooter, another Caucasian male, Adam Purinton, 51, who started it all by hurling racial slurs at the Indians.
These are the kind of things Trump45 has brought out in America since the start of his presidency.
We should have seen a passionate denunciation of these acts. Instead, rump simply read the prompter then bathed in the shower of self-congratulatory applause.
It was as if just by being gracious makes him a hero.
But what did Trump do since he’s taken over?
With his anti-immigrant, build-a-wall, nationalistic rhetoric, he has given a segment of America a signal that hate is OK in America.
The O-KKK.
Trump’s victory unleashed all that on America.
But the president acknowledged it with just a single line: “While we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.”
It didn’t seem sincere. Not after the first 40 days. It seemed hollow.
He didn’t even mention the Asian Americans by nationality or name.
It was just a shooting in Kansas City.
Not good enough.
Of course, later in his speech, Trump milked another sentimental moment to honor Navy Senior Chief William “Ryan” Owens, who died in Yemen during a raid last January.
The military is always a safe bet. So honor a Gold Star family, and deplete the domestic budget in favor billions for the military.
But for the Jews, or for the murdered Indian immigrant?
Trump gave them short-shrift.
It’s the reason Trump’s big pre-speech “leak” that he would be calling for a bi-partisan immigration reform seemed just like an insincere tease.
After the travel ban fiasco, and the new ICE policies that have resulted in round ups of undocumented immigrants around the country, a real push for a compromise on immigration would have been a great headline.
But there was “no there, there.”
Not when Trump’s speech contained more talk of a border wall, references to “illegal immigrants,” and borders as “lawless chaos.” And then, as he is likes to do, Trump mixes border security with national security and all that entails, and creates for us all one big fear: “Radical Islamic Terrorism.”
And he used that exact counter-productive term, once again, despite advice to refrain.
By the time he got around to his pitch for a bi-partisan immigration “compromise,” Trump had no credibility with minority communities and those close to the immigrants who are living in fear.
Immigration has always been humanitarian based for political or economic reasons for the immigrant. The benefit to the U.S. has always been the extra.
Trump’s idea is for a merit-based immigration. He wants to cherry-pick the best, because the best will make money for Trump, the U.S., and that’s all he really cares about.
Once again, he could have made a better case had he mentioned the Indian man who died in Olathe, that suburb of Kansas City.
His name was Srinivas Kuchibhotla. He was a tech worker at Garmin, the gps company.
He was one of the immigrants Trump likes.
But not enough to mention in a major speech.
There were other glaring things Trump said. Like calling education the “civil rights issue of our time.”
Really? So is that why Betsy DeVos–the voucher queen hell bent on destroying public education–the new secretary of education?
And what about that travel ban? After the speech, Trump cancelled again the announcement for the new executive order that was to supercede the one held up by the court in Washington state.
Reports had it that Iraq would come off. Would other countries be added?
I worry for the Philippines.
This is the week the militant group Abu Sayyaf, home based in the Philippines, revealed a video showing the beheading of a 70-year-old German hostage.
Trump didn’t mention it at all.
But it was in the subtext when Trump said, “We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America—we cannot allow our Nation to become a sanctuary for extremists.”
Stated or unstated, you knew that the beheading in the Philippines, reported in the New York Times on speech day, could potentially be more fuel for Trump’s xenophobic fire.
And this was a toned down speech.
So if you hear people praise Trump about this speech and the polls giving him good marks for his performance, don’t be fooled.
All he did was stick to the TelePrompTer.
And act presidential. Remember, he’s all showbiz.
It’s still the same old Trump.