NAM EthnoBlog

Two Years on, Remembering The Fukushima Disaster

2013-03-11T17:39:27Z

Two years ago the Tohoku earthquake and resulting tsunami devastated the region. They seriously damaged the Fukushima nuclear power plant, sending radiated fumes into the air and leaking radiation into the waters. Nearly 16,000 people were killed by the earthquake and tidal waves, and 2,600 others were missing.

The letter below, written in Vietnamese by an immigrant who was working in Fukushima as a policeman to a friend in Vietnam, was published in newspapers and circulated on the Internet a week or so after the incident. It is an extraordinary testimony to the strength and dignity of the Japanese spirit, and an interesting slice of life near the epicenter of Japan's current crisis, the Fukushima nuclear power plant. I translated and published it on New America Media two weeks after the disaster struck on March 11, 2011. It was subsequenlty translated into at least a dozen other languages and went around the globe. I am reposting it here on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of the Tohoku disaster.

Brother,

How are you and your family? These last few days, everything was in chaos. When I close my eyes, I see dead bodies. When I open my eyes, I also see dead bodies. Each one of us must work 20 hours a day, yet I wish there were 48 hours in the day, so that we could continue helping and rescuing folks.

We are without water and electricity, and food rations are near zero. We barely managed to move refugees to one place before there were new orders to move them elsewhere.

I am currently in Fukushima, about 25 kilometers away from the nuclear power plant. I have so much to tell you that if I could write it all down, it would surely turn into a novel about human relationships and behaviors during times of crisis.

The other day I ran into a Vietnamese-American. His name is Toan. He is an engineer working at the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant, and he was wounded right at the beginning, when the earthquake struck. With the chaos that ensued, no one helped him communicate with his family. When I ran into him I contacted the US embassy, and I have to admit that I admire the Americans' swift action: They sent a helicopter immediately to the hospital and took him to their military base.

But the foreign students from Vietnam are not so lucky. I still haven't received news of them. If there were exact names and addresses of where they work and so on, it would be easier to discover their fate. In Japan, the police do not keep accurate residential information the way they do in Vietnam, and privacy law here makes it even more difficult to find.

I met a Japanese woman who was working with seven Vietnamese women, all here as foreign students. Their work place is only 3 kilometers from the ocean and she said that they don't really understand Japanese. When she fled, the students followed her, but when she checked back they were gone. Now she doesn't know if they managed to survive. She remembers one woman's name: Nguyen thi Huyen (or Hien).

No representatives from the Vietnamese embassy have shown up, even though on the Vietnamese Internet news sites they claim to be very concerned about Vietnamese citizens in Japan - all of it a lie.

Even us policemen are going hungry and thirsty, so can you imagine what those Vietnamese foreign students are going through? The worst things here right now are the cold, the hunger and thirst, the lack of water and electricity.

People here remain calm - their sense of dignity and proper behavior are very good - so things aren't as bad as they could be. But given another week, I can't guarantee that things won't get to a point where we can no longer provide proper protection and order. They are humans after all, and when hunger and thirst override dignity, well, they will do whatever they have to do. The government is trying to provide air supply, bringing in food and medicine, but it's like dropping a little salt into the ocean.

Brother, there are so many stories I want to tell you - so many, that I don't know how to write them all. But there was a really moving incident. It involves a little Japanese boy who taught an adult like me a lesson on how to behave like a human being. Last night, I was sent to a little grammar school to help a charity organization distribute food to the refugees. It was a long line that snaked this way and that and I saw a little boy around 9 years old. He was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts.

It was getting very cold and the boy was at the very end of the line. I was worried that by the time his turn came there wouldn't be any food left. So I spoke to him.

He said he was in the middle of PE at school when the earthquake happened. His father worked nearby and was driving to the school. The boy was on the third floor balcony when he saw the tsunami sweep his father's car away. I asked him about his mother. He said his house is right by the beach and that his mother and little sister probably didn't make it. He turned his head and wiped his tears when I asked about his relatives.

The boy was shivering so I took off my police jacket and put it on him. That's when my bag of food ration fell out. I picked it up and gave it to him. "When it comes to your turn, they might run out of food. So here's my portion. I already ate. Why don't you eat it."

The boy took my food and bowed. I thought he would eat it right away, but he didn't. He took the bag of food, went up to where the line ended and put it where all the food was waiting to be distributed. I was shocked. I asked him why he didn't eat it and instead added it to the food pile. He answered: "Because I see a lot more people hungrier than I am. If I put it there, then they will distribute the food equally."

When I heard that I turned away so that people wouldn't see me cry. It was so moving -- a powerful lesson on sacrifice and giving. Who knew a 9-year-old in third grade could teach me a lesson on how to be a human being at a time of such great suffering? A society that can produce a 9-year-old who understands the concept of sacrifice for the greater good must be a great society, a great people.

It reminds me of a phrase that I once learned in school, a capitalist theory from the old man, Fuwa [Tetsuzo], chairman of the Japanese Communist Party: "If Marx comes back to life, he will have to add a phrase to his book, Capital, and that 'Communist ideology is only successful in Japan.'"

Well, a few lines to send you and your family my warm wishes. The hours of my shift have begun again.
- Ha Minh Thanh

The above letter was originally published in New America Media where Andrew Lam is one of the editors. He is the author of "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" (Heyday Books, 2005), which won a Pen American "Beyond the Margins" award, and "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres".

His latest book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," a collection of short stories about Vietnamese immigrants struggling to rebuild their lives in the Bay Area after a painful exodus, was recently published by Red Hen Press. He has lectured and read his work widely at many universities.

Cover of Birds of Paradise Lost

Nói Chuyện với nhà văn Andrew Lâm

2013-03-07T23:38:46Z

Anna Challet, New America Media

Andrew Lâm, tác giả của cuốn hồi ký "Perfume Dreams: Những Phản Ánh Về Người Việt Hải Ngoại," và biên tập viên thuộc hảng New America Media một thời gian dài hai mươi năm, đã làm nên tên tuổi của mình là một nhà báo và nhà bình luận, nhưng trong cuốn sách mới nhất của ông, quá khứ của mình là một người tị nạn Việt Nam thông qua những câu chuyện ngắn về các nhân vật chạy khỏi Việt Nam và làm lạI cuộc sống mới tại Vùng Vịnh. "Lâm đã ngay lập tức thành lập mình là một trong những nhà văn viễn tưởng tốt nhất của Mỹ,” lưu ý tác giả Robert Olen Butler, trong khi nhà văn Oscar Hijuelos quan sát cho rằng " văn chính xác của Lâm được xuất hiện trong nhiều câu chuyện mê hoặc; và bộ sưu tập là một cương lĩnh hùng vĩ.”

New America MEdia đã nói chuyện với anh Andrew Lâm về việc thu thập, Birds of Paradise Lost (Red Hen Press, 2013), trong tháng này.

Birds of Paradise Lost là cuốn sách đầu tiên tiểu thuyết của anh- làm thế nào anh đến để xuất bản một bộ sưu tập tiểu thuyết sau nhiều năm làm một nhà báo?

Tôi đã viết truyện ngắn cho hai mươi năm nay, từ khi còn học trong chương trình văn bản sáng tạo tại San Francisco State University. Mặc dù sau này tôi tìm thấy một sự nghiệp làm nhà báo và một nhà viết tiểu luận, tiểu thuyết là tình yêu đầu tiên của tôi và tôi không bao giờ bỏ nó, mặc dù đã có không có cách nào dễ dàng để kiếm sống viết tiểu thuyết. Bộ sưu tập này là một lao động của tình yêu và sự tận tâm, và bất cứ khi nào tôi tìm thấy thời gian không bận rộn từ công việc báo chí của tôi, tôi làm việc viết tiểu thuyết hay cách khác, phác thảo về các nhân vật của tôi, và các vấn đề nghiên cứu khác nhau liên quan đến tình huống khó xử của nhân vật của tôi. Sau hai mươi năm và ba mươi câu chuyện, cuối cùng đã được lựa chọn 13 bài và bộ sưu tập đã được sinh ra. Cho đến nay các lời ngưỡng mộ từ Maxine Hong Kingston, Gish Jen, Robert Olen Butler, Oscar Hijuelos, và những người khác rất là khuyến khích.

Anh đã viết nhiều bài tiểu luận cá nhân và tác phẩm phi hư cấu về đến Hoa Kỳ từ Việt Nam. Cảm giác thế nào để mang lại kinh nghiệm đó vào cuộc sống của các nhân vật hư cấu của bạn?

Vâng, tôi luôn luôn nói rằng văn bản phi hư cấu so với viết tiểu thuyết là như kiến trúc so với hội họa trừu tượng. Trong phi tiểu thuyết, bạn phải ở lại đúng với sự kiện lịch sử, có thể là cá nhân hoặc quốc gia... Trong tiểu thuyết, nó là như bạn nhập vào một thế giới trong mơ mà bạn tạo ra, nhưng nhân vật của bạn có ý riêng của họ. Họ không làm những gì bạn muốn họ làm - họ gặp rắc rối, làm người nghiện thuốc, người chiến đấu qua những điều nhỏ mọn, và làm những điều thái quá mà bạn sẽ không muốn trẻ con của bạn làm. Nói cách khác, bạn chỉ có thể cung cấp nền tảng những hạt giống—trong trường hợp của tôi là nền tảng của người Việt tị nạn. Khi một nhân vật trong truyện linh động, người đó không giảng dạy về lịch sử của mình mà sống cuộc sống của mình, họ làm những điều bất ngờ, và làm cho bạn cười và khóc vì sai sót của và những nhược điểm của con người.

Làm thế nào bạn đi lên với tiêu đề?

Birds of Paradise Lost -- Thiên Điểu Phi Xư’- nó là tiêu đề của một trong 13 câu chuyện trong cuốn sách, và nó là một câu chuyện đề cập với cái chết và lòng thù hận và sự phản đối qua cách tự thiêu. Trong câu chuyện, người bạn tốt nhất của người kể chuyện cam kết tự thiêu tại Washington, DC và để lại một lưu ý rằng nói ông ghét chế độ cộng sản Việt Nam và mong muốn cái chết của mình để kêu gọi sự chú ý đến sự tàn ác của cộng sản. Nhưng ông cũng làm bạn bè của mình tại San Jose, California, quay cuồng từ cái chết của ông. Đó có phải là một hành động yêu nước? Một khách du lịch đi qua chụp một hình ảnh của người đàn ông trên lửa, và ngọn lửa nhắc nhở người kể chuyện của hoa Thiên Điểu - như một con chim phượng hoàng, như một ngọn lửa và một đoá hoa.

Tiếng Anh là ngôn ngữ thứ ba của anh, sau khi Việt Nam và Pháp. Làm thế nào mà anh đã đến viết bằng tiếng Anh - "lưỡi mẹ ghẻ" của anh?

Tôi có một câu chuyện vui để nói về tiếng Anh và làm thế nào tôi đã rơi vào tình yêu với ngôn ngữ. Khi tôi đến Hoa Kỳ vào năm 1975, tôi mười một tuổi, và trong vòng vài tháng giọng nói của tôi phá vỡ. Tôi đã tuyệt vọng để phù hợp và nói tiếng Anh tất cả các thời gian. Vấn đề là, trong gia đình tôi nói tiếng Anh đó là một không-không bởi vì bằng cách nào đó nó là thiếu tôn trọng để gọi cha mẹ và ông bà là "you, you" – nó có vẽ như dùng để tấn công bằng tiếng Việt. Nhưng tôi không thể nghe lời.

Tôi đọc quảng cáo như một con vẹt, tôi nói tiếng Anh tiếng không ngừng. Anh trai của tôi một đêm nói là, " mày nói quá nhiều tiếng Anh, đó là lý do tại sao các hợp âm giọng nói của mày tan vỡ. Bây giờ mày nói chuyện như một con vịt.”

Tôi nghĩ đó là sự thật. Tôi từ cậu bé Việt Nam ngọt giọng khi nói tiếng Việt và tiếng Pháp biến thành một thiếu niên lên tiếng vỡ giọng. Tôi nghĩ, "Wow, tiếng Anh là giống như ảo thuật." Nó không chỉ tan vỡ giọng nói của tôi, nó còn thay đổi sinh lý. Tôi tin rằng điều này cho nhiều tháng, tin rằng tiếng Anh kỳ diệu trong ngôn ngữ. Tôi không bao giờ rơi ra khỏi của quan điểm này .
]]> Nhiều nhân vật trong câu chuyện của anh dường như bận tâm với thời gian - nói trong tương lai ("The Palmist"), không thể để cho đi quá khứ ("Bright Clouds Over The Mekong Delta"), sống trong sợ hãi liên tục của những gì ngạc nhiên hiện tại ("Step Up and Whistle"). Anh có thường xuyên thấy mình viết về những nhân vật đấu tranh trong việc đối phó với thời gian?

Tôi đã không nghĩ theo cách đó, nhưng đó là sự thật. Quá khứ luôn luôn hiện diện trong cuộc sống của các nhân vật trong Birds of Paradise Lost. Có lẽ không thể tránh khỏi. Vì vậy, nhiều người trong số họ, hoặc có kinh nghiệm chấn thương - chạy trốn khỏi Việt Nam, xem một người nào đó bị giết chết, hoặc được thừa kế chấn thương từ những người chạy khỏi Việt Nam- rằng quá khứ luôn luôn trôi vào hiện tại. Tương lai của họ là khả năng của họ: có thể chinh phục ám ảnh của quá khứ để bắt đầu để chữa lành tâm linh của mình hay không? Không phải tất làm được trong truyện, tất nhiên, cũng giống như trong cuộc sống thực sự.

Anh được xác định là một nhà văn của văn học di dân. And đã viết rất nhiều về người Việt hải ngoại trong hai mươi năm qua, anh nghĩ gì về các khái niệm văn học di dân đang thay đổi ở Hoa Kỳ?

Tôi nghĩ rằng trong một ý nghĩa lớn hơn, câu chuyện nhập cư là toàn diện và cốt lõi của kinh nghiệm của con người. Không phải là câu chuyện đầu tiên nói với phương Tây là Ađam và Êva, họ cũnglà dân nhập cư quá từ một nơi nào đó, một Eden, một thiên đường bị mất? Chúng ta tất cả bây giờ là du canh, du cư ... Đó là kinh nghiệm bị mất nhà, nhớ nhung về nhà, mà khao khát ý nghĩa và nỗi nhớ sắc quê hương. Trong một thế giới luôn luôn thay đổi, câu chuyện nhập cư và di dân biến thành một câu chuyện Mỹ.

Hôm nay, nhiều người vượt biên giới để tồn tại, để phát triển mạnh, để sống và thay đổi cuộc sống của họ. Thậm chí nếu bạn không vượt qua biên giới, với những thay đổi nhân khẩu, biên giới đôi khi đi vượt qua bạn... Câu chuyện của Mỹ phần lớn là một câu chuyện nhập cư, di cư. Cái này không thay đổi kể từ khi người hành hương từ châu Âu ăn gà tây đầu tiên khoảng 400 năm trước đây, và họ đã là các thuyền nhân ban đầu của Mỹ.

Là một người nhập cư, anh nghĩ gì về các cuộc tranh luận hiện nay về người nhập cư ở đất nước này?

Không may rằng Mỹ, một đất nước của những người nhập cư đã quay lưng lại với người nhập cư. Bầu không khí sau khi 9/11 là độc hại. Trong cuộc chiến tranh chống khủng bố, người nhập cư thường là vật tế thần. Họ trở thành một loại chính sách bảo hiểm chống lại những ảnh hưởng của suy thoái kinh tế. Bằng cách đổ lỗi cho họ, van áp suất được quy định trong thời gian khủng hoảng... Những gì chúng ta có bây giờ là một nhận thức công cộng của so với họ, và một môi trường tổng thể chống di dân đó làm rắc rối và khiển trách về mặt đạo đức. Thiếu trong cuộc đối thoại quốc gia là tiếng nói của các nhà lãnh đạo cải cách và các quyền dân sự, người có thể nói thay cho những người không có tiếng nói ủng hộ nhập cư. Các nhà lãnh đạo, những người có thể nói chuyện với ý tưởng rằng di dân không phải là xa lạ với lợi ích của Mỹ, nhưng rất nhiều lợi ích kinh tế xã hội của chúng ta, cả đến sức khỏe tinh thần của chúng ta. Khi chúng ta chào đón những người mới đến và giúp họ tham gia đầy đủ trong xã hội của chúng ta là tích hợp.

Tôi vui mừng khi thấy các di chuyển đối với cải cách nhập cư toàn diện sau khi cuộc bầu cử năm ngoái. Tôi vui mừng rằng những người nhập cư nói lớn. Tôi hy vọng rằng quốc gia Mỹ trở lại với hướng nhìn người nhập cư trong điều kiện thuận lợi một lần nữa.

Tất cả ba cuốn sách của tôi, "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on The Vietnamese Diaspora", "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres," và "Birds of Paradise Lost," là những câu chuyện kể của người dân -- những giấc mơ, những chấn thương của họ, những cuộc đấu tranh của họ -- và Tôi viết với sự tự tin rằng những câu chuyện, được viết từ trong trái tim, sẽ trong thời gian , thuộc về đất Mỹ.

Grandmother's Last Lesson -- Seeing Time As a Trick of the Mind

2013-02-22T06:40:45Z

Nearing the end of her life and plagued with senility, my grandmother fell into a strange state of grace. At 95, she believed herself a young woman again living in her hometown in the Mekong Delta. One day when I visited her in her convalescent home in San Jose, California, where she lived out the remaining years of her life, I asked grandma to name the names of her four children and she looked a bit astonished: "Children?" She said in her frail, hoarse voice, "Mister, but I am only 17."

Receding from her memories are the years in America, years full of longing and grief for her lost homeland. Lost, too, mercifully, are her memories of the war and the incredible suffering it had caused her. The garden outside her window teamed with life, butterflies and bees hovering over gardenias and roses, but her vision had begun to travel far beyond its walls. In her mind, Grandmother had already gone back to a happier time, rowing her boat down the river in the old country, singing some folksongs, watching white cranes fly above the green rich rice fields, celebrating Tet with relatives and neighbors -- to an unhurried world of long ago.

My parents and aunts sighed and shook their heads whenever they visited, feeling guilty for not being able to care for her at home, sad that their mother no longer knew them. I, on the other hand, took a different attitude altogether. I saw that there was a mixed blessing in her senility and forgetfulness. After all, grandmother had, in her own way, managed to conquer time.

Years ago, when she was still lucid, Grandma bought a wooden clock carved in the S shape of the map of Vietnam from a Vietnamese store in Little Saigon in Anaheim. Above her bed, the clock ticked mournfully, a constant reminder of how long she'd spent away from her home and hearth. Sometimes she would watch that clock tick as she counted her rosary and then cried silent, bitter tears.

Indeed, America's concepts of time only helped to confuse her. She did not know why, for instance, a grandson had to leave home at 18. When I left home for college, she wept. I overheard her protesting to my mother in an incredulous voice: "How can you let him go? He 's immature at 17 and now he's 18, somehow he's mature? Not everyone is a real adult at 18 or 21 either. It's not so simple."

Once, I remember, she asked me how far Vietnam was from California. I shrugged, "Well, I guess it's about 18 hours." Hearing this, grandma, made a scowling face and snapped: "If our country is only less than a day away by your measurement, then tell me how come I've been waiting for 15 years, seven months and eight days now and I am still here in America?"

If since her exile to America at the end of the Vietnam War time had been her enemy, telling her how long she'd been away from the country of her birth, it finally lost its grip on her that last year. That year before she died, she was no longer ruled by the clock. She traveled freely most of the time to the distant past and she seemed, if not happy, then at peace.

The last time I saw her alive, we held hands. Perhaps grandma thought I was a beau from the next village come courting or a distant relative, but she blushed when I told her that she was beautiful.

"Let's hurry," she said, her eyes staring at an impossibly far away place, "we're going to be late for the celebration at the temple."

Perhaps she is there now. As for me, since she passed away I am, I must say, not as fearful of old age as I once was. When I grow old and senile, I, too, should like to forget all the sorrow and sadness in my own life. Memories of heartbreaks and great losses will be dissolved like smoke in the morning wind. Like grandma, I'll relive instead all the moments of intense happiness: walking with my first love down Bankroft Street in Berkeley at dusk; singing silly songs with my siblings on Christmas eve when we were kids; luxuriating in my mother's arms as a child after a warm bath; watching the moonrise with my cousin over the ocean on a tiny island in Thailand.

And above all, I should like to return to that windblown pine hill of Dalat, Vietnam, a plateau of forests high above the sea where I grew up. I will sit again with my best friend in fourth grade, the two of us leaning against a pine tree and looking up at the clouds drifting by, our sweaters and hair stuck with pine needles after a game of hide and seek.

It was on that same hill that I later lost my first watch, a Mickey Mouse watch which I got for my seventh birthday, Mickey's arms pointing at the hours and minutes that slowly led me away from my childhood wonders and eventually my homeland. I had cried for days afterwards, but I now think that it's apt that the watch should lie decaying somewhere on that lovely hill.

For perhaps there is something that the adult forgets and only the very young and very old could know: That time and space are an illusion, a trick of the mind...

See me then as a starry-eyed child among pine trees, staring at the shifting sky, enraptured by an impossible sense of beauty, delighting simply to be in the world.
The above essay was originally published in New America Media where Andrew Lam is one of the editors. He is the author of "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" (Heyday Books, 2005), which won a Pen American "Beyond the Margins" award, and "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres". Cover of Birds of Paradise Lost His latest book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," a collection of short stories about Vietnamese immigrants struggling to rebuild their lives in the Bay Area after a painful exodus, was recently published by Red Hen Press. He has lectured and read his work widely at many universities.

Remembering A Broken Romance on Valentine's Day

2013-02-14T09:48:14Z

What do you do when you graduate from Berkeley with a broken heart and a B.A. in biochemistry? You break your immigrant parents' hearts and become a writer.

In my freshman year at Berkeley I fell hopelessly in love; in the year after I graduated my heart shattered. While working at the cancer research laboratory on campus I took to writing, in part, in order to grieve. Daytime and I bombarded the mammary tissues of mice with various carcinogens to see how they grew; nights and I gave myself to memories, to heartbreak. I typed and typed. I got good at writing, bored with science, so I dropped the test tube and kept the proverbial pen.

Berkeley had indeed radicalized me. But I do not mean that in a political sense. No, the quiet, bookish, apolitical, obedient boy who didn't date in high school left his Vietnamese household and found sexual liberation in college, found carnal pleasure.

More important: I fell in love with "M." In "M's'' embrace and kisses, what I had thought important until then turned out to be trivial. My desire to please my chronically unhappy mother was trivial, good grades were trivial, the path toward medical school, too, was trivial. "M," whose smile made me tremble, who was all there was, stole me away from my familial sense of duty. I found a new country, a new home.

What I remember, too, was an incident during my freshman year that, over time, marked me. A studious Chinese student tried to jump from the Campanile. He was from my dorm unit. He wanted to kill himself because, well, so went the gossip, he had never gotten a B before, until chemistry or some such difficult class overwhelmed him. I remember the entire dorm talking about it. I might have been momentarily horrified. But I was too busy being in love to let it really register. I do, however, remember thinking, and not without a certain vanity, that he wouldn't have considered jumping had he discovered love instead.

Other bubbles are coming up randomly now from under the deep dark waters of my college life: Professor Noyce in organic chemistry dragging on his thin cigarette, the smoke twirling in the air as he draws the nicotine molecules. "Don't ever smoke," he admonishes his audience. "It's bad for you." My roommate, Tony, who plays trumpet in the band, coming home from the big game, '82, crying with happiness. The Bears have just trampled the Stanford Band to score that spectacular and bizarre turn- around in the last seconds. I am walking down Telegraph Avenue at two in the morning and the street cleaner is spinning like some lazy grazing animal and the mist is rising at my feet. The bells of the Campanile ring out one humid afternoon and for no reason at all, I drop my backpack and, while spectators look on, dance.

Above all, though, the salty scent of "M."

Then "M" was gone. And my heart was broken.

Wasn't it then that I began to write? Wasn't it then that I began to bleed myself into words?

Yet it was not the larger world, nor my Vietnamese refugee experience, nor the Vietnam War that I wanted to address. I wrote about my unhappiness. I tried to capture what it was like to lose someone who had been my preoccupation throughout my college life; who was, in fact, my life then. Yet I was too close to the subject, too hurt to do the story justice. But the raw emotions unearthed another set of older memories simmering underneath. When one loses someone one loves, with whom one shares a private life, a private language, a private world, one loses an entire country, one becomes an exile.

But hadn't I been exiled before?

I had. The brokenhearted adult slowly found himself going back further, recalling the undressed wounds of the distraught child who stood alone on the beach of Guam, the camp with its khaki-green tents flapping in the wind, the child missing his friends, his dogs, fretting about his father, whose fate he had no way of knowing, and wondering if he 'd ever see his homeland again.

My sadness opened a trapdoor to the past. A child forced to flee. The long line for food under a punishing sun. People weeping themselves to sleep. The family altar, where faded photographs of the dead stared out forlornly, the incense still burning but the living gone. A way of life stolen, a people scattered. I yearned for all my memories. I wrote some more. I began to go back.

Some years passed...

"These are Andrew Lam's awards," said my mother one after- noon to her friends when I was visiting and eavesdropping from upstairs. Sometimes my parents wouldn't say my Vietnamese name to their guests. "Andrew Lam" became someone else-- related but somewhat remote, and yet important. For visitors, especially if it was their first visit, there would be an obligatory walk by the bookcase before sitting down for tea. On it were the various trophies and awards and diplomas, but chief among them, Andrew Lam's journalism awards.

"My son the Berkeley radical" became my father's favorite phrase when he introduced me to his friends. "Parents give birth to children, God gives birth to their personalities" became my mother's oft-repeated phrase, as a way to explain her youngest son. I don't take offense. I take it that this was their way of accepting how things can turn out in America, which is to say, unpredictable and heartbreaking.

**
I can't remember for sure how long he stood up there, or how he was talked down, that studious Chinese boy from the dorm. I do remember that around that time they put up metal bars on the Campanile so that no one else could jump.

A few years ago, after having revisited the Berkeley campus, where I was invited to give a talk about my books, my writing life and about my various travels as an author and journalist, I had a dream. In it, it is me who finds himself atop the Campanile alone at sunset. I hesitate butI am not entirely afraid. I am not gripped by fear. Below, people are gathering. Before me: a beatific horizon. I leap. And soar high over the old campus before heading out to where sky kisses sea.

I haven't landed yet.

New America Media editor, Andrew Lam is the author of "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" (Heyday Books, 2005), which won a Pen American "Beyond the Margins" award, and "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres" where the above essay was excerpted. His latest book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," a collection of short stories about Vietnamese immigrants struggling to rebuild their lives in the Bay Area after a painful exodus, was published March 01, 2013. He has lectured and read his work widely at many universities.

New Report Shows That Border Benchmarks Already Have Been Met

2013-02-02T00:30:00Z

ImmigrationImpact.com

As the components of what should be included in an immigration reform bill take shape, border security, along with enforcement, is proving to be a key part of the framework. Eight senators released a bipartisan proposal earlier this week that included a path to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States. The catch is that implementation of this provision is “contingent upon our success in securing our borders and addressing visa overstays.” The day after the senators presented their framework, President Obama laid out his vision of what should be included in immigration reform legislation during a speech to labor leaders in Nevada. The president called for a clear path to citizenship that’s not contingent on securing the border, but he said the nation needs to stay focused on immigration enforcement. “That means continuing to strengthen security at our borders,” Obama said during his speech. “It means cracking down more forcefully on businesses that knowingly hire undocumented workers.”

]]> Despite the continued calls to use more resources to reach “operational control” of the border, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) released a report this week finding that the border security benchmarks of the past immigration reform bills have been met or exceeded. Immigration reform bills in 2006, 2007, and 2010 included more border agents and high-tech surveillance, as well as fences along the U.S.-Mexico border and the expanded use of detention. The 2007 measure would have required certain benchmarks that would have to be met before legalization could take place. Although none of these bills became law, they greatly influenced thinking about immigration enforcement in U.S. policy without clear measures of when border security is achieved:

"[A] resource-heavy approach has been implemented and has resulted in a dramatic build-up of border security and a massive expenditure of resources focused on the following: 1) Achieving “operational control” of the border; 2) Increasing border personnel; 3) Increasing border infrastructure and surveillance; and 4) Increasing penalties for border crossers, including prosecution and incarceration. In FY 2012, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) alone was funded at $11.7 billion, an increase of 64% since FY 2006.2 In 2010, Congress passed a special border security bill providing an additional $600 million on top of the amount already appropriated. [...]

Missing from these proposals is a proven way to measure when the border is reasonably secure. For example, lawmakers call for dramatic increases in spending on border agents without stating how many more personnel are actually needed to ensure border security. The 2007 bill proposed raising the total number of border agents to 20,000, but never explained why that number of agents is necessary. In fact, the number of agents on the border has increased steadily for the past several years. In 2011, there were 21,444 border agents, nearly double the number in 2006. Despite these increases, which exceed the number proposed in the 2007 bill, calls for more border agents persist."

The 2006 Secure Fence Act, which aims for the border to be 100 percent sealed, is unattainable, and the Senate framework mentions the apprehension of every unauthorized entrant, which is also an impossible measure. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has stopped focusing on “operational control” as an outcome, and the U.S. has surpassed other benchmarks from the previous bills. There are now 21,444 border patrol agents, which is 1,000 more than what the 2007 bill required. As of 2012, more than 600 miles of fencing has been constructed across the U.S. border, even though the 2007 bill called for 370 miles. Additionally, according to the Migration Policy Institute, the nation spent $17.9 billion on immigration enforcement – almost most $4 billion more than the budgets of all other federal law enforcement agencies combined.

For the last decade, we’ve been doing “enforcement first” immigration policy. The new AILA report is one more reason why Congress and the President need to resist the urge to throw more money and resources at the border when it is unclear that will make our country more secure. Instead, it is time to revamp our broken immigration laws.

Another Name for SFO

2013-01-29T00:24:10Z

On its face renaming San Francisco International Airport after slain gay rights activist and former city council member Harvey Milk makes total sense. In a city known worldwide as a “gay mecca,” it was Milk who in many ways led that charge.

The council will meet Tuesday to vote on the proposal, which right now looks likely to fail.

Still, as a homosexual black man and a native of the city, my own life’s journey has drawn inspiration from other sources apart from Milk, names not as well recognized though no less meaningful.

]]> Oliver Sipple is one such person.

On September 22, 1975, the former marine and decorated Vietnam veteran saved the life of President Gerald R. Ford outside the St. Francis Hotel at Union Square in San Francisco. Sipple was part of a crowd of 200 onlookers trying to get a glimpse of the president. He noticed the would-be assassin, Sarah Jane Moore pull a gun out of her purse and aim it at the president. He then lunged for and held on to her arm as it discharged.

Twenty-four hours later, Milk, the SF Chronicle and its iconic columnist, the late Herb Caen outed Sipple, a private man, against his wishes. The result: of all places, the city of San Francisco, Sipple’s hometown of Detroit and even his parents turned against him as news agencies began to report that it was a homosexual that had saved the life of the president.

God does not roll like that.

A signed thank you note from the president did little to console a man rejected by his family and by society at large.

Entering my teenage years, I was overwhelmed by a flood of negative emotions that I believed then to be tied to my sexuality and to the fact that I am disabled. I grew ashamed, feeling I was seen as somehow less of a man.

Thirty years later, however, that sense of shame was lifted as I came to know of Sipple’s story and those of others whose lives and achievements demonstrated the heights that one could climb, in spite of the rejection.

In 1963, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin helped to organize the now famous March on Washington in which Dr. Martin Luter King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. An openly gay black man, there were many who opposed his central role in organizing the event. His legacy today is one that should resonate throughout the black community, where homophobia still runs deep.

Supervisor David Campos, who first put forward the idea of renaming SFO International, deserves credit for a good idea. In a world where 77 countries still enforce laws against homosexuality -- some carrying the death penalty -- and where evangelical ministers proudly tout their “God hates fags” signs, renaming SFO after an openly gay man would bring greater attention to how San Francisco answers intolerance.

That answer, for me, begins with Oliver Sipple, a man few have heard of but whose life helped transform the life of this writer. For the millions traveling through SFO every year, one can only imagine the possibilities. All they have to do is ask, “Who is he?”

Allen Jones, 56, is a prison reform activist and a native of San Francsico. His work has appeared in the SF Bayview and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Senate's Symbolic Bill Rings Opening Bell on Immigration Reform

2013-01-25T22:31:13Z

ImmigrationImpact.com

This week, the White House revealed that President Obama will lay out a proposal for immigration reform at a speech in Nevada next week. The visit to the home state of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may reflect the strong support Reid and Nevada Latinos have given to Obama. It also follows Senator Reid’s clear message this week of his ongoing intent to press for immigration reform by putting it at the top of the Senate legislative priorities list for the 113th Congress. Although symbolic, the first bill introduced in the Senate this year, S. 1, is a bill to reform America’s broken immigration system or “The Immigration Reform that Works for America’s Future Act.” It contains ten principles for reform that reflect much of the common wisdom on what is needed to create a working and productive immigration system. Now, all we need is the actual bill.

]]> S. 9, The Stronger Economy, Stronger Borders Act, but climbed to sixth place in in 2011 as S. 6, The Reform America’s Broken Immigration System Act. This year, however, immigration tops the charts, with a title reflecting a more forward-looking agenda.

The principles listed in the resolution equally emphasize the need to look forward rather than backward in trying to resolve our immigration crisis. Consequently, the bill declares that it is the “sense of the Senate” that immigration reform should create a roadmap to citizenship for the undocumented, encourage job creation and growth through immigrant investment and improved mechanisms of retaining foreign students, support the DREAM Act and AgJobs, continue our humanitarian traditions of asylum and refugee protection, strengthen the border and ports of entry, and make use of an effective employment verification system to prevent employers from hiring people without work authorization. Many of these same ideas were reflected in the earlier symbolic bills, but the language this time around is more positive and less focused on enforcement, reflecting the growing demand from the public that we stop looking at immigration only through an enforcement lens.

To that end, the principles also list two broader goals, worth quoting in their entirety:

9) implement a rational legal immigration system that promotes job creation by converting the current flow of illegal immigrants into the United States into a more manageable, controlled, and legal process for admitting immigrants while, at the same time, safeguarding the jobs, rights, and wages of American workers; and

10) adopt practical and fair immigration reforms to help ensure that all families are able to be together.

Ultimately, these last two goals reflect both the aspirations and difficulties of getting immigration reform right. We want a system that lifts up everyone—foreign born and native alike, that is fair to workers and to employers and that preserves fundamental American values including the principle of keeping families together.

Clearly, it is still easier to agree at the 60,000 foot-level than on the details of all these issues, and not everyone who supports immigration reform is equally on board with the principles laid out. Still, it’s fair to say that a few chants of “we’re number one,” are in order this week. Now it’s time to see what President Obama proposes, what the Senate introduces, and how far we can go and still get the votes needed to make reform a reality.

Erika Andiola: No More Broken Families

2013-01-14T18:00:00Z

In an open letter to Arizona Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain, undocumented immigrant activist Erika Andiola calls for immigration reform that keeps families together. Andiola's mother and brother were arrested last week in an immigration raid on her home. They were released from immigration detention the next day.

Dear Senator Flake and Senator McCain,

Thursday night I heard a banging knock at the door. I looked through the window and immigration agents asked me to open the door because they were conducting an “investigation.”
]]>
I spent an entire night crying and lonely. At every corner of my house, my mother and brother’s touches and memories were there. The most important people in my life had been taken from me.

At that point I remembered that I am also an immigrant rights advocate and that I have a national community and youth movement behind me. Within minutes I made calls, typed text messages, and signed on social media to tell friends what had just occurred. Pleading, I made a call to action. Almost immediately, community leaders and elected officials from Arizona, Florida to New York and Washington D.C, we activated a national network of political power within the Latino community. The morning after, my brother was released from detention. The same day and three hours later we found out the the bus taking her to the border turned around and my mother was coming back home.

My story is not unique. It occurs every day. But not many have the strength of a national movement behind them. The helplessness is real of 400,000 deportations of families being torn from their U.S. citizen children, spouses, or siblings. You and your children and grandchildren will never experience this pain. But many of your constituents do. It is time Congress concentrate on smart enforcement that truly focuses on terrorists and violent criminals. And this is all under the Obama administration that has not taken leadership on immigration and has adopted failed programs such as Secure Communities and 287-G..

The same activists and everyday Americans, who signed thousands of petitions and made thousands of calls that night, are demanding a system that protects families and protects our rights as human beings. It is for Congress to demonstrate congressional leadership and not wait. Congress must embrace its constitutional power of legislation and lead on immigration policy. This means a policy that will promote family unity and not more enforcement, like in my state of Arizona.

Arizona has been the center of the immigration debate and our state can be a leader on immigration policy that unites families. Senator McCain and Senator Flake, I am asking for your company to meet and hear the story of my family to ensure that your leadership is guided by the real stories of Arizona; the stories of a new generation of Americans and our struggle. The entire country is ready to make America great. Arizonans are ready to move forward into the future. At the same time, we will fight ICE’s arbitrary attack on our communities and continue to ensure that families are not separated.

Over the next few days, we will activate a national network of not just activist but everyday Americans, especially the Latino community, and the media to ensure our elected officials hear our voices demanding modern and humane immigration reform. We hope we can work with you and your leadership to bring real reform in 2013.

Sincerely,

Erika Andiola
Maria Arreola
Heriberto Andiola
Angel Fernandez

More Young Voters Have No Party Preference

2013-01-12T16:49:37Z

LatinaLista

As the nation prepares to swear in Barack Obama as the 45th U.S. president, he will have the distinction of being the 15th Democrat (of those presidents specifically identified as Democrats) to hold the highest office in the country.

But a new study on young voters in California highlights a possible change when it comes to future elections — it will be less about Democrats and Republicans and more about the candidates.

]]>
But that’s not all.

Those stating “no party preference” were the second-largest group after those identifying as Democrats. Young adults are the only group of California voters among whom fewer than 40 percent are registered as Democratic.

There’s probably no time in recent history than today when voters, of all ages, are more disillusioned with both political parties. The ugly rhetoric, the arrogant display of self-rightousness and blatant pandering to extremist factions by political leaders of both parties have been a big turn-off to newbie voters.

Registering online allows the kind of privacy and freedom from pressure that current voter registration drives lack and could prove to not only be a great motivator for youth, and others embracing technology, to become civically active but change the electoral process in a big way — especially when the day voting online arrives.

Who Had the Longest Wait for an Immigrant Visa This Month?

2013-01-09T08:05:00Z

Multi-American

It's a brand new year, but the wait for family-sponsored immigrant visas is about where we left it a month ago. As usual, brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens from the Philippines are enduring the longest waits, followed by these citizens' adult married sons and daughters. Hopeful immigrants from Mexico follow in line.

]]> January 2013 visa bulletin with a similar list we published two years ago, from January 2011.

As of January 2013, here's who's waiting longest for visas:

1) Brothers and sisters of adult U.S. citizens from the Philippines, a wait of more than 23 years (petitions filed April 15, 1989).

2) Married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens from the Philippines, a wait of more than 20 years (petitions filed August 8, 1992)

3) Unmarried adult (21 and over) sons and daughters of U.S. legal permanent residents from Mexico, a wait of more than 20 years (petitions filed November 22, 1992)

4) Married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens from Mexico, a wait approaching 20 years (petitions filed March 8, 1993)

And here's who'd waited longest in January 2011:

1) Brothers and sisters of adult U.S. citizens from the Philippines, a wait of 23 years (petitions filed January 1, 1988): Over two years, a difference of a year and three months.

2) Married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens from the Philippines, a wait of more than 19 years (petitions filed October 22, 1991): Over two years, a difference of a year and two months.

3) Unmarried adult (21 and over) sons and daughters of U.S. legal permanent residents from Mexico, a wait of more than 18 years (petitions filed June 22, 1992): Over two years, a difference of four months.

4) Married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens from Mexico, a wait of more than 18 years (petitions filed October 22, 1992): Over five years, a difference of five months.

For certain hopeful immigrants, the line to come legally to the U.S. moves very, very slowly. The phrase "at a glacial pace" doesn't do it justice.

For the uninitiated, here's why: The United States allots every nation the same percentage of visas from a pool of family and employer-based visas available each year. But there is far greater demand in some nations - those with large numbers of immigrants in the U.S. like Mexico, the Philippines, China and India. This means that hopeful immigrants in these countries compete for the same number of available visas as people in countries where there is less demand. Thus, they wait longer.

What the bulletin shows are priority dates - the dates on which petitions were filed, as visas technically become available to those waiting. Having one’s priority date appear in the via bulletin is great news, but the dates are subject to change. They often do, resulting in an even longer wait for people who thought their number was finally up.

Immigrants defined as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens - spouses, parents, and children under 21 - are exempt from the limits. But others must wait in line until their priority date comes up.

You can see the entire Visa Bulletin for January 2013 here.

Behind Door Number Three: Calamity

2013-01-07T17:26:55Z

The goal of this blog is to help tribal leaders, and tribal communities, prepare for the austerity ahead. Over the next few weeks I want to explore how tribal governments might adapt to this cycle. And look for ways for tribes to mitigate the worst of shrinking budgets.

As I have been writing the choice ahead is severe austerity or austerity light. Either way it's going to be rough on the poorest communities in North America.

Today's post is about the worst of austerity.
]]>
Peek behind doors one and two and you'll see the deep divide that is our body politic; lots of options (ranging from unreasonable to smart), lots of policy differences to debate, and, for me, lots of future posts.

However behind door number three is economic calamity. It's much like Sheriff Bart in Blazing Saddles pointing a gun at his own head and warning people to back off or he'll shoot. When the trick works, Bart says, “ooh, baby, you are so talented! And they are so dumb.”

But the United States Congress pointing a weapon at itself is not an expression of talent. It's just so dumb.

Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been warning Republicans to stay way from door number three. He said on MSNBC's Morning Joe last week that the issue is a “dead loser. Because in the end, you know it’s gonna happen. The whole national financial system is going to come in to Washington and on television, and say: ‘Oh my God, this will be a gigantic heart attack, the entire economy of the world will collapse. You guys will be held responsible.’ And they’ll cave.”

What makes this option so bad? The debt limit is not about spending, it's about borrowing and paying bills already obligated. There are all sorts of serious international consequences, but consider just one, interest rates.

The one good thing about the current state of United States finances is low interest rates. Last week, for example, even with the $16.4 trillion debt load, interest rates were just a little better than zero. On the other hand, if Congress formally defaults on the debt number could quickly spike because interest rates are set at auctions. (Already the cost of debt is expected to more than double from fiscal year 2010 to 2017).

Already debt is a fast growing federal “program.” So rising interest rates will make it worse.

It’s already a difficult challenge for Congress to cut domestic discretionary spending without hurting programs people care about, but if the cost of debt service takes away money, just staying even will be that much more difficult.

Paul N. Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says a failure to increase the debt limit could force abrupt spending cuts of about one quarter. “The Treasury, Secretary Geithner says, could be “forced to stop, limit, or delay payment on obligations to which the Nation has already committed — such as military salaries, Social Security and Medicare, tax refunds, contractual payments to businesses for goods and services, and payments to our investors.” If the situation continued for very long, the drag on the economy would be far worse than the “fiscal cliff” that policymakers have just avoided,” he writes.

But the damage from a default would not just impact federally-funded tribal programs. It would increase the cost of debt across the board (because so many commercial loans are based on the Treasury rates). Everything from economic development loans to personal credit card rates would jump.

This is not a close call: For the good of the country, the policy options behind door number three should be slammed closed.

Mark Trahant is a writer, speaker and Twitter poet. He lives in Fort Hall, Idaho, and is a member of The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Join the discussion about austerity. A new Facebook page has been set up at: https://www.facebook.com/IndianCountryAusterity

DHS Publishes New Provisional Waiver to Help Some Families Stay Together

2013-01-04T20:20:41Z

Immigration Impact

Some families facing long separations from their loved ones because of U.S. immigration laws will have an easier time of it in 2013. Thanks to a new regulation from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), immediate relatives of U.S. citizens will be able to complete part of the processing of their immigration cases without leaving the country. The “Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver of Inadmissibility for Certain Immediate Relatives” rule, often referred to as the new family unity rule, will be published tomorrow (January 3, 2013) and become effective on March 4.

]]> proposed the change in procedure, which allows immediate relatives (parents, spouses, and children) of U.S. citizens who entered the country without permission to apply for a waiver of their unlawful entry while still in the United States, in April of 2012. The change in procedure was proposed as a solution to a growing problem—families were facing months, and in some cases, years of separation because of two conflicting provisions of U.S. immigration law.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), a person seeking to adjust their status to lawful permanent resident must be admitted or paroled into the country if they wish to have their case decided in the U.S. If they entered the country unlawfully, the law requires them to go to a U.S. embassy or consulate for processing of their application. Departure from the United States in many cases, however, triggers a three to ten year bar to re-entering the country, which requires a separate waiver application. Under past practice, an individual applied for the waiver after having been found inadmissible by a consular official and then had to apply to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for a waiver. The process was generally time consuming, inefficient, and often costly, particularly because it lengthened the amount of time families were apart.

For immediate relatives, at least, the new rule will streamline the process because they will not have to depart the U.S. until they have received notification that their waiver application has been “provisionally” approved, which means that they will be able to complete their visa processing in one step rather than two or three at the embassy. Other applicants will continue to follow the standard process, including immediate relatives who may need other waivers for final approval of their Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) status.

For the most part, the key provisions of the final rule remain unchanged from the proposed rule, despite pleas from many commenters to allow more people to take advantage of the new process and to clarify the rules for one of the waiver provisions (regarding proving extreme hardship to a U.S. citizen). DHS argued instead that it intends to take an incremental approach, beginning with a clearly recognizable group—immediate relatives of U.S. citizens—who are not subject to any visa limits under current law. Only after DHS assesses the effectiveness of the program for this group will it consider expanding to other groups, such as immediate relatives of LPRs or to any relative of a U.S. citizen, such as sons and daughters over the age of 21, who are eligible for a visa but are not classified as an immediate relative.

With respect to extreme hardship, which must be proved in order to obtain the waiver, DHS declined to create any regulatory criteria, arguing instead that extreme hardship is based on a totality of the circumstances that can’t be reduced to a single list of factors.

The final rule itself is quite short, but the accompanying summary and response to comments goes on for more than one hundred pages, and offers far more detail and analysis than is often seen in DHS regulations. This is a positive point, as it suggests that the regulators took public comments seriously, including concerns that the cost of the program would be overwhelming. There are detailed cost analyses, as well as projections of how many applications might be filed under the program, all of which will be useful to researchers and others studying the impact of the process.

Unfortunately, many people will still be disappointed, as the final rule doesn’t expand the categories of eligibility, at least for the time being. This is the balancing act, however, that we will continue to see throughout 2013, as the President and Congress wrestle with immigration reform legislation. Finding the sweet spot between expansive eligibility and administrative efficiency is never easy and ultimately leaves some people out in the cold. The challenge will be to continue to press for maximum coverage in all aspects of immigration reform as legislators have far more leeway than regulators to revise the immigration laws.

A Context for the Budget Fights Ahead

2013-01-03T21:22:53Z

It's important to remember that austerity is a global trend, not a national one. Countries across the globe are spending less on government, laying off public workers, and, generally, shrinking economies.
]]> demographics.) Using one measurement, external debt, the United States ranks 20th among industrial nations in its debt burden.

So the idea is to shift taxpayer dollars from programs to paying down debt. At least eventually (but that’s another post).

One way to do pay down debt is to grow the economy, investing in key areas (such as education). The United States tried this. Sort of. The $800 billion stimulus program was supposed to boost the economy. Most economists think that program generally worked. The Congressional Budget Office figured that stimulus did work, adding some 3.3 million jobs to the economy during the second quarter of 2010, and may have prevented the nation from lapsing back into recession.

But that wasn't enough for critics. Republicans argued that the economy wasn't completely back … and therefore dismissed the stimulus as a failure. Instead of growth, Republicans argue that the best way to reduce the U.S. debt is to cut government and to balance the budget as soon as possible.

That's the austerity approach. The idea is to cut government spending so then businesses will respond by hiring more people and then economy will eventually grow.

The conservative government of Britain has been a champion of this policy approach. The result? "The British economy has had the weakest recovery of any major economy," The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

"In the two years following the trough of the recession in 2009—and before the 2012 double dip—the U.K. grew by 2.6%, compared to 3.4% for France and 7.3% for Germany. Of the EU members not directly hit by the euro-zone debt crisis, only Slovenia and the Netherlands have performed as poorly."

But this is the course the United States has already set. (Our choice now is between severe austerity or austerity light.)

The deal this week to resolve the fiscal cliff sets cements the sequester, or across the board budget cuts, and that will begin in March.

Unfortunately Indian Country will be hit by these global forces without any ability to reshape the direction.

The National Congress of American Indians has been calling on Congress to exempt Indian programs from the austerity ahead. Just last month, NCAI President Jefferson Keel said: “Tribal programs make up a miniscule part of the federal budget – for example the Indian Health Service is 0.12% of federal spending and Bureau of Indian Affairs is 0.07%,” Keel continued. “An 8.2% across the board cut would mean deep cuts to critical tribal programs and will disproportionately impact already vulnerable Native communities."

And, in a different climate, the Congress might respond in a positive fashion to this request. But the problem for Indian Country is that the cast of austerity is already hardening.

Democrats have given up on the idea of growing the economy and are now arguing about how to implement austerity light.

"The U.S. will have about $348 billion in austerity measures this year — roughly $200 billion from spending cuts, $125 billion from the end of the payroll tax cut, and $24 billion in taxes from Obamacare. That amounts to austerity totaling 2.1 percent of GDP, a bigger austerity package than Britain, Germany, or Spain has enacted," writes Travis Waldron in Think Progress.

Austerity is coming to Indian Country. Quickly.

Mark Trahant is a writer, speaker and Twitter poet. He lives in Fort Hall, Idaho.

The Deal, The Mess, And a Look Ahead

2013-01-02T22:11:57Z

President Barack Obama said his priority was keeping the current income tax rates in place for most Americans. The deal that passed Congress yesterday did just that. It raised taxes on people making more than $400,000 and pushed the fight over spending back to another day.
]]> For Indian Country the deal is important for several reasons. First, it puts off the sequester until March. That will give agencies, tribes and individuals, time to prepare. The odds are that every federally-funded program will have to shrink and that federal employees will be looking at some kind of furlough in 2013.

The deal also keeps the Special Diabetes Program for Indians going at its current funding level. (I would argue that this program is important for all Americans because figuring out how to reduce diabetes is a critical part of the budget picture. Diabetes is the most expensive disease in America and its growth in the general population is an epidemic to be.) The deal also extends unemployment insurance. The bill also authorized the farm bill for another nine months. And did something about the cuts in payments to doctors under Medicare by delaying for a year automatic cuts, but getting hospitals to pick up part of the cost.

But for most people taxes did go up yesterday. Neither Democrats nor Republicans were keen on doing anything about the payroll tax, which had been set at 4.2 percent for the past two years, now will be 6.2 percent. So look for a smaller paycheck soon.

As I said: Most of the deal was about taxes. The other issues were saved for another day. But that day is coming fast. The United States has already passed its statutory limit on debt. The Treasury Secretary is moving accounts around to skirt the limit, but that won't last long. One day soon there will be "calculation" reported that the U.S. government has hit a ceiling.

The ideal would be for a clean bill that just raises the limit. That will not happen. It's now the Republican's best weapon and it will be used to try and cut more spending. (This is remarkable: No other nation argues about a spending limit after it already spent the money.)

So this one issue alone will again bring us to the brink. Republicans want more budget cuts than are in the sequester. What makes this impractical is that the focus remains on domestic programs and there is not a lot of money to be found there. If Republicans were unified, they would have a huge bargaining chip here. (Had the party been unified, they could have stopped the Senate deal, but the votes were not there. Already the Republican versus Republican debate is intense.)

The second coming fight will be when the continuing resolution -- the ad hoc budget -- expires at the end of March.

Both fights will be rough. And, here is the bad part for Indian Country, any compromises will mean even less money for programs. There is zero chance for more money, even for critical programs such as Indian health. As I have written before, the choice ahead is between severe austerity and austerity light.

Now a quick look at the future.

Ideally there would be a rational discourse, both in Washington and around the country, about our long-term budget challenges. We would figure out what works, what's fixable, and what has to change.

But that's not going to happen. The fights coming over the next couple of months will be nasty and largely about spending that is inconsequential (which really is all of domestic spending).

Unfortunately this deal, which probably had to happen, makes another cliff battle inevitable.

Birds of Paradise Lost: Stories about Vietnamese Immigrants in California

2012-12-27T20:03:23Z

The thirteen stories in Birds of Paradise Lost shimmer with humor and pathos as they chronicle the anguish and joy and bravery of America's newest Americans, the troubled lives of those who fled Vietnam and remade themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past?memories of war and its aftermath, of murder, arrest, re-education camps and new economic zones, of escape and shipwreck and atrocity?is ever present in these wise and compassionate stories.
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Date of publication: March 01, 2013

Praise for Birds of Paradise Lost:

"Andrew Lam's Birds of Paradise Lost brilliantly engages the fundamental theme of much great literary work: who am I and what is my place in the universe? His stories are elegant and humane and funny and sad. Lam has instantly established himself as one of our finest fiction writers."

—Robert Olen Butler

"Read Andrew Lam, and bask in his love of language, and his compassion for people, both those here and those from far away. He reminds us that we have history in common; we can laugh and cry together."

—Maxine Hong Kingston

“While Andrew Lam’s characters share a broader history, each story is an entire world that Lam animates fully with remarkably spare strokes. What these stories have in common is the intelligence behind them, which is at once fierce, compassionate, and wonderfully perverse. Each story pleases and surprises, and the collection as a whole resonates long after the reading is done.”
—Elise Blackwell, author of Hunger

“Andrew Lam is one of a handful of writers who are truly necessary to the emotional and intellectual health of American culture today. Whether exploring the contemporary political ironies of the streets, the fates of individual victims of war, or the indefinable tenderness between lovers, his stories show us truth we may have turned away from or never recognized. Lam’s stories go deep and stay with you a long time.”
—Frank Stewart, Editor, Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing

“These poignant, sometimes humorous, often heart-rending stories gift us with the voices and faces of the Vietnamese-American community: a community that has finally been able to express itself through the fiction of a new generation of writers such as Andrew Lam. Yet this is also fiction which in its universal and human truths pulls off the delicate trick of both including and transcending the ethnic genre and firmly situates Lam among the best writers of American—and world—literature.”
—Wayne Karlin, author of Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam

“Lam has already demonstrated his charisma and wisdom in his essays. With his first collection of stories, he shows that this energy and wit transfers quite easily to his fiction, compelling us with painful, complex stories of perseverance and hope. You will read through these stories quickly, voraciously, and then you will read them again, keeping these characters in your heart, for years to come.”
—Aimee Phan, author of We Should Never Meet and The Reeducation of Cherry Truong

“When I grow up, I want to be Andrew Lam. I want to write with a kind of voice that is both charming and full of sadness and humour. Mr. Lam is an important writer, providing a unique lens into American life. Yes, someday, I would like to be Andrew Lam.”
—Noël Alumit, author of Talking to the Moon, a Los Angeles Times Bestseller

“Lam writes with heart and humor, delivering stories that pack an unexpected emotional punch.”
—Angie Chau, author of Quiet As They Come

“As a fellow Vietnamese American, I don’t read Andrew Lam’s stories; I experience them. There are very few writers who can achieve this for me; Andrew can.”
—Lac Su, author of I Love Yous Are for White People.

“What strikes me the most in Andrew Lam’s short stories is the author’s ability to capture insights about the small but extraordinary moments of life, the various rational and irrational factors that drive people to connect or set apart, and the gap between those who hold dearly to the past and those who can let go of it. Lam does this through refined language and subtle poking at societal norms. The exploration of love, detachment, lust, and the complex family dynamics generated with Vietnamese American successes on the West Coast is both deep and entertaining.”
—Isabelle Pelaud, Asian Americans Studies Professor at San Francisco State University, author of This Is All I Choose to Tell

“Whatever happened to the Vietnamese ‘boat people’ who escaped after the fall of Saigon? ‘A lot’ is the simple answer; for a complicated, often scabrously funny account, read Andrew Lam’s stories. They are so American, so unexpected, so nuanced and robust, that you will be informed, charmed, and deeply moved.”
—Howard Junker, Editor Emeritus, Zyzzyva

“Loss, longing, the riotous, the incongruous: There is nothing predictable here. Lam revels in the unexpected and makes it his country.”
—Gish Jen, author of World and Town

“Grandma is in the freezer, there's Zoloft in the chicken curry, and a man is on fire in Washington D.C. The immigrant story will never be the same again now that it's gone through Andrew Lam's prose – razor-tongued, sophisticated, achingly aware of where it comes from but never imprisoned by its memory. Lam takes the traditional immigrant story and set it ablaze and then serenely rescues from its burning embers what had been there all along – the all-American story.”
—Sandip Roy, commentator, Morning Edition, National Public Radio

About the Author

Andrew Lam is the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, which won the 2006 PEN Open Book Award, and East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. Lam is an editor and cofounder of New American Media, an association of over two thousand ethnic media outlets in America. He was a regular commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered for many years, and was the subject of a 2004 PBS documentary called My Journey Home. His essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, The LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Mother Jones, and The Nation, among many others. His short stories have been widely taught and anthologized. Birds of Paradise Lost is his first story collection. He lives in San Francisco.