Bestselling author, Roya Hakakian upcoming book describes the book as A stirring, witty, and poignant glimpse into the bewildering American immigrant experience from someone who has lived it. Also, a mirror held up to America.

Myself being middle age living half of my life in the USA, I can totally agree with her. I till this day still ask questions on inclusion. A good example was on a Friday afternoon in a downtown San Francisco's retail location men's restroom which was open for the public. Right after using it passed  walking pass  the stalls,  a middle age heavy set Caucasian man assumed I was headed to the walk out the door and yelled to me "washed your hands". I politely showed in my hands my sanitizers and uttered I had it. Most public restrooms in San Francisco's downtown area are not open due to the homeless problem and vandalism and also the lavatories are really extremely dirty and infected with bacteria. At any rate here's an example why I simply raise the statement of inclusion having live half of my life in America. For all you know the guy had good intentions of reminding me simply to wash my hands but here is where the culture's perspectives open up. 

In the San Francisco area, home to the nation's largest and oldest Chinatown, there were at least 18 attacks against Asians in February alone, TODAY previously reported. An 84-year-old Thai American, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was pushed to the ground in January and died from his injuries a few days later, NBC News reported. In 2020, New York City police recorded 28 hate crimes against Asian Americans, up from three in 2019, quoted from https://www.today.com/news/anti-asian-violence-history-anti-asian-racism-us-t210645  Another issue that came up during this Covid-19 is when the term "China Virus" was downplayed by no other than the 45th President of the United States. This has enabled an anti-Asian hate and violence campaign. 

Meanwhile, there's an influx of undocumented children on the southern border trying to enter after Biden rolled back a number of Trump-era immigration policies, including the “Remain in Mexico” policy that advocates say gutted the nation’s asylum system and the "zero tolerance" policy of separating families at the border.  It is extremely hard for politicians based on my personal experiences having dealt with them of their desire for power and wealth to understand the true meaning of "Asylum". If you make from $170,000 to $300,00 and have net worth's of $2M to $10B or more and ambitions to even be the President of the USA you will never need to know the meaning of what it stands or what the word "Immigration" is about in a real democracy.

Hakakian grew up in a Jewish family living in a middle-class neighborhood in Tehran in the 70's in her book and I remember my father serving in the US Army at the same time at the base. She mentioned about her scarf as part of her dress code and when she arrived in New York's subway in 1985 after her asylum she tried to reach for her scarf realizing she had none physically.   Here also shows as immigrants bring memories with us when we settle in the US. 

Just like a few months ago when we had these marches on the boarded windows on the  downtown streets in Portland, Or and San Francisco, CA it reminded me back in the Philippines when  then Ferdinand Marcos was about to declare Martial Law, those were the same pictures, and then again during the EDSA revolution when he again tried to hang on to power before fleeing for asylum and to where, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA through the help of Republican President Ronald Reagan.

In the case of the Iran empire itself, the Shah of Iran eventually went into asylum also in the United Sates for health reasons. This is is how politicians interrelates with the two words mentioned.  Hence for decades is also why this country has not enacted a real Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill.

The topic is huge for discussion but where does one begin?

As  we reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King's  message by revisiting his celebrated I Have a Dream speech in its entirety delivered on August 28, 1963, part if the speech says "It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds". 

Another part of the speech continues, "This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring". 

 

Nearly 400 miles of new border wall system is now complete. Just as important, the Trump Administration is prosecuting and deporting violent criminals, stopping the flow of illegal drugs, and closing the loopholes that help human smugglers while hurting our own citizens, including legal immigrants". Illegal immigration hurts everyone. It empowers criminals, bankrolls human smugglers, and fuels transnational gangs. It costs both legal immigrants and U.S. citizens a shot at the American Dream. It endangers law enforcement officers, makes our communities less stable, and puts law-abiding workers and businesses at a disadvantage.

It is the same narrative, today we celebrate the heroism on Dr. King. He started the fight risking his own life for democracy. January 6, 2020 will be read by generations after our life time when the Supreme leader of White Supremacy led an unsuccessful insurrection to democracy and people of color in the United States of America. 

This hate extends to the undocumented immigrants mostly on the front lines of the dreaded pandemic a lot of which classified as essential workers. A lot of whom are hard working law abiding, tax paying members of the society who cannot even access unemployment or health care in this country. 

As the I have a dream speech mentioned I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. Martin Luther King continued. 

I believe that it is the right first direction to tackle an immigration reform in this country to show the insurrects that people of color are here to stay as part of the land of the free, the greatest democracy in the world and they have to accept we cannot be extinct. 

No one can compete with American workers when they’re given a fair and level playing field, which has not happened for decades.

At this moment and time, the news media writes about the coup intents speculation caused by the the 45th President's failure to concede to the incoming 46th President elect and the worry that the Republican's and the 74 million Trump voters that will hinder the Biden presidency deeming it illegitimate.

At the same, while writing this blog on the eve of the deadline of the stimulus negotiations on Capitol Hill by Congress debates, the news media is also reporting on leak unverified oval office meetings about discussions on the intent of "Martial Law".  If your someone who have not seen Martial Law in a developing country then you wouldn't really understand the realities of this.  However, if you are then the first thing that will come to your mind will be for all these ages, why did America became the riches nation on earth, why did all the immigrants immigrated to America to make land of the free and make rich! As the only dictators that these ideas would even be an idea are the desperate autocrats who will do anything, I mean anything! in a third world country!

Hence is why The United States has a federal law against seditious conspiracy in Tile 18 of the US Code, 18 U.S.C. S. 2384. "The Sedition Act made it a crime, in effect, to criticize the president, Congress, the federal government as a whole, or its measures, whether by press or speech." As a result, Bird has properly called for a re-evaluation of the Act, dismissing previous historians' largely-successful attempts at whitewashing and rightly condemning the Act's powerful supporters, such as Alexander Hamilton, President George Washington, and President John Adams.

This unique and daunting process always involves at least some mistakes—in hiring, perhaps, or in policy priorities, or organizational design. Early blunders can carry serious consequences well into a president's term; minimizing them from the outset is critical. In What Do We Do Now? Stephen Hess draws from his long experience as a White House staffer and presidential adviser to show what can be done to make presidential transitions go smoothly. Here is a workbook to guide future chief executives, decision by decision, through the minefield of transition.

I start with this as in the most recent transition in 2016 was a very good example of the failures right from the start of the transition process. This transition is the most consequential and historical one in our lifetime considering the dynamics, demographics and show of election results in the last 2 nights in our elections. From the Miami Cuban and Puerto Rican  Conservative Latinos in Florida citizens fearing  of socialism, to the new Mexican Latinos in Arizona from California more Liberal, to the African American voter turn out's in Georgia and Texas. Another good point to note is on top of the voter's list is a recognition of the racial divide which is now well showcase on how the results of this elections has come to a divided House and Senate.

Whatever the results of the presidential vote on Nov. 3, the time between Election Day and Inauguration Day seems set to be a dark and terrifying 11 weeks in the history of the United States. However, perhaps there’s some comfort to be taken in the fact that we’ve experienced fraught transitions before—and longer ones. To wit: When Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860 and prepared to take the reins from James Buchanan, who had kept a promise he made in his inaugural address not run for a second term, we suffered through a four-month slog of turmoil, because until the passage of the 20th Amendment in 1933, inaugurations used to take place in March. And during Buchanan’s endless lame-duck period, quite a bit went down: Seven states declared for secession, and Southerners seized forts and garrisons, arming themselves for the war we know now was coming.    Quote from

As we go through the final hours of the last remaining electoral college numbers to get to 270 to solidify our Mr. President Elect, as a nation we should start lowering the temperature and shifting the message to  We should praise whoever concedes as that would make it so much easier to heal and to transition. We should also remember Covid-19 had just reach 100,000 cases. We have to get back to solving the problems on Covid-19 and the stimulus as January 21 is still months from now. Meanwhile, people are sick, cannot pay bills and rent so the sooner a transition gets to work the better while the current administration works on the stimulus.

For Now, Let Us Respect the results, Welcome the President Elect and Thank the President.

"The inability to fully participate in the democratic process translates into a lack of political power—the power to elect candidates with shared values and the power to enact public policy priorities. As a result, people of color, especially Black people, continue to endure exclusion and discrimination in the electoral process, more than 150 years after the abolition of slavery". quoted from the American Progress Organization. 

                               The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the Trump administration can end census field operations early, in a blow to efforts to make sure minorities and hard-to-enumerate communities are properly counted in the crucial once-a-decade tally. The decision was not a total loss for plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the administration’s decision to end the count early. They managed to get nearly two extra weeks of counting people as the case made its way through the courts. 

At issue was a request by the Trump administration that the Supreme Court suspend a lower court’s order extending the 2020 census through the end of October following delays caused by the pandemic. The Trump administration argued that the head count needed to end immediately to give the bureau time to meet a year-end deadline. Congress requires the bureau to turn in by Dec. 31 the figures used to decide the states’ congressional seats — a process known as apportionment.

Apportionment is the process of dividing the 435 memberships, or seats, in the U.S. House of Representatives among the 50 states based on the apportionment population counts from the decennial census.  The apportionment population count for each of the 50 states includes the state’s total resident population (citizens and non-citizens) plus a count of the overseas federal employees (and dependents) who have that state listed as their home state in their employers’ administrative records.

The resident population counts include all people (citizens and non-citizens) who are living in 

the United States at the time of the census. People are counted at their usual residence, which is the place where they live and sleep most of the time.

The resident population also includes military and civilian employees of the U.S. government who are deployed outside the United States (while stationed or assigned in the United States) and can be allocated to a usual residence address in the United States based on administrative records from the Department of Defense.

The resident population counts for the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Island Areas are not included in apportionment calculations (because those areas do not have voting seats in the U.S. House of Representatives), but they are included in other data products.

Note: The resident population counts are available down to the lowest levels of geography (i.e. census block), but only the state totals are used for apportionment. The more detailed resident population data are included in other census data products that are used for redistricting and many other purposes.

On July 21, the White House released a memorandum regarding the 2020 Census with the subject line, “Excluding Illegal Aliens From the Apportionment Base Following the 2020 Census.” In the memo, signed by the president, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is ordered, after the census is completed this fall, to remove from each state’s count the number of “illegal aliens” living there. Only then will the census numbers be presented to congress for the reapportionment of the House.

One target in specific is California. “Current estimates suggest that one state is home to more than 2.2 million illegal aliens, constituting more than 6% of the State’s entire population.  Including these illegal aliens in the population of the state for the purpose of apportionment could result in the allocation of two or three more congressional seats than would otherwise be allocated.” The president is relying on a 2016 Pew Research Center study that stated there was 2.2 million undocumented residents in California. The same study reported that there are 725,000 undocumented residents in New York State.

So let us now focus now on the recent events. From the debates where we have heard  the words, "Stand by and Stand back",, " I'm Speaking", " Ka,,mam,,la, Ka,ba,,la", "Monster", to we have turn the corner. Such words that the only answer would be "democracy requires the full participation of its citizens"

In 2018, The United States Supreme Court gave the approval stamp for voter suppression Husted v. A. Philip Randolph when people skip elections. This is the same tactics being used today in this pandemic to prevent prevent from voting.

The 44th President was the opening for people of color, having the first black Asian minority woman vice presidential candidate can eventually create that opening that will be here to stay which is why it is such a threat unfortunately, But embracing it especially if it leads to victory will start a process of healing. It will not eradicate the persistent problem immediately. The structural reforms and conversations can be started for policies for the future generations not to be also victims.