    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [May 25, 2000]
    [Pages 1025-1028]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the Observance of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
    May 25, 2000

        The President.  Thank you. Thank you very much, and good afternoon.
        I want to welcome all of you here. And a special word of welcome to
    a former Congressman and now our chair of the Commission, Norm
    Mineta. Daphne Kwok, Jin Sook Lee, Karen
    Narasaki, Senator Akaka, Senator Thomas, Representative
    Becerra, Representative Eni
    Faleomavaega, Representative
    Underwood, to Bill Lann Lee and all the members of the administration who are Asian-
    Pacific Americans. We just had a picture of over 60 of us, about--not
    quite 90 percent of the total.
        I want to thank those of you who work in the White House and to say
    a special word of appreciation to Laura Efurd,
    who worked very hard on this event, and to our Director of Public
    Liaison, Mary Beth Cahill, for her
    work and support. And I want to say a special word of appreciation to
    the Asian-Pacific American whom I have known the longest in this group,
    Maria Haley, who helped me put the
    Commission together. I thank her for her work.
        I am very proud that I've had the opportunity to appoint more Asian-
    Pacific Americans than any President in history. I am proud of the
    difference you make every day. Whether you're enforcing our civil rights
    laws, administering our Medicare program, representing America overseas,
    or in many other countless ways, you make a profound difference.
        This month we celebrate the accomplishments of more than 10 million
    Asian-Pacific Americans in every aspect of our Nation's life from
    engineering to education, science to sports, public service to the
    performing arts. You might be interested to know that one of the
    performing arts is speechmaking, and the speechwriter who prepared this
    was Samir Afridi, one of the Asian-
    Pacific Americans in our administration.
        You may be fifth-generation Americans or newcomers to our shores,
    but you have all enriched our country and reinforced our values of
    family, work, and community. We should recognize that, not just in one
    month but every day. Thanks to the inventiveness of people like Vinod
    Dham, we celebrate it whenever we use a computer with a Pentium chip. We
    celebrate when we read the works of writers like Amy Tan; when we visit
    the haunting Vietnam Memorial, designed by Maya Lin; when we benefit
    from the pathbreaking medical research of Dr. David Ho and from
    countless other Asian-Pacific Americans who are leading us to new
    frontiers of science and technology.
        And I also want to say that just as we are enhanced when we tap the
    strengths of all Americans, we are diminished when any American is
    targeted unfairly because of his or her heritage. Stereotyping,
    discrimination, racism have no place. And if we can overcome it, America
    has no limit to what we can achieve.

    [[Page 1026]]

        I am proud of the progress that we have made together over the last
    7\1/2\ years, both here and around the world. This spring I was the
    first President in over 20 years to visit South Asia. Just yesterday we
    took an historic step toward normalizing trade with China and continuing
    our prosperity at home, and I think most important of all, giving us the
    chance to have a very different 50 years with the Asian-Pacific region
    in the future than the 50 years we have all just lived through.
        I am very proud of the contributions of Asian-Pacific Americans to
    the longest economic expansion in history, to the lowest unemployment
    rate in 30 years. I am proud that we have worked hard to spread these
    benefits more equally across our society--poverty at a 20-year low and
    poverty among Asian-Pacific Americans declining by more than 10 percent
    since I took office. Last year the SBA approved loans to Asian-Pacific
    Americans entrepreneurs totaling over $2.1 billion, more than 3\1/2\
    times the number of loans guaranteed in 1992, the year before we took
    office.
        We beefed up our commitment to the enforcement of civil rights laws.
    And we know that, in spite of all the successes, we still face
    challenges to building the one America of our dreams. So today I'd like
    to touch on just a few of those, if I might.
        First, we face the challenge of ensuring that every American is part
    of our prosperity. The Asian-Pacific American community is the fastest
    growing racial group in our country; also among the most diverse, with
    more than 30 different ethnic groups, with roots that stretch from
    Pakistan to Polynesia, Thailand to Tonga, Hong Kong to Hawaii. Some have
    referred to your community as a so-called model minority. But that
    label, like any one, while it has its truths and strengths, masks the
    rich diversity and the diversity of challenges and disparities we find
    within the Asian-Pacific American community.
        For example, cervical cancer rates among Vietnamese women are nearly
    5 times higher than those for white women. Why is that, and what can we
    do about it? Over half of South-Asian-Americans have earned a bachelor's
    degree, but less than 6 percent of Cambodian- and Laotian-Americans have
    completed college. Why is that, and what can we do about it? Despite the
    strong economy, almost half of all Cambodian-Americans and two out of
    three Hmong-Americans live in poverty. Why is that, and what are we
    going to do about it?
        Let me say just sort of parenthetically, I was very, very grateful
    that amidst an otherwise very busy week dominated by the news about our
    discussions on China, we announced an historic bipartisan accord, thanks
    to the good work and good faith of the Speaker of the House, between
    Republicans and Democrats to launch an initiative to develop new markets
    in America--to give people the same incentives to invest in poor
    neighborhoods and people and places that have been left behind here, as
    we give them to invest around the world. And I hope the Asian-Pacific
    American community will, number one, help us pass this legislation as
    soon as possible, and number two, close the disparities in educational
    and economic performance within all the groups that make up your richly
    diverse community.
        I signed an Executive order last year establishing the White House
    Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and an Advisory
    Commission headed by Norm Mineta. One
    particular focus is going to be on how we can improve our data
    collection to better identify the specific needs of discreet
    populations. In a larger sense, the work of this commission is an
    extension of the new markets approach.
        We do not have a person to waste in America. We all do better when
    we help each other, and that's what the White House initiative and this
    Commission's work is all about. I want to thank Norm and all the Commissioners here and those throughout our
    Government for being a part of it. But a special thanks to those of you
    who have agreed to serve on this Commission. We wish you well, and we're
    all committed to helping you succeed.
        A second challenge we face in building one America is making sure
    that our Government reflects our growing diversity. I am proud to have
    nominated Bill Lann Lee as our Nation's top
    civil rights enforcer, the first Asian-Pacific American in that post. I
    still hope the Senate will do the right thing and confirm him.
        Yesterday I nominated Norman Bay as U.S.
    Attorney for the District of New Mexico. And I also want to say a word
    about judges. I have appointed the most diverse group of Federal judges
    in history. They have garnered the highest percentages of top ratings
    the ABA has given in 40 years. We have shattered the myth that diversity
    somehow diminishes quality.

    [[Page 1027]]

        Today I want to thank the Senate for the progress made yesterday in
    confirming 16 judges. But we still have too many nominees who have
    waited too long.
        One of them is a woman named Dolly Gee. I
    met with her yesterday; I'm going to embarrass her a little bit now. I
    nominated her for the U.S. District Court for the Central District of
    California. She has some good news in her life:
    She got married last weekend. The bad news is she's supposed to be on
    her honeymoon. [Laughter] The worst news is her husband is on her honeymoon--[laughter]--in London. But
    because she wanted to be here with you, she sent him there without her.
    [Laughter] And I think every one of you should take it as a personal
    responsibility to try to persuade the Senate to confirm her.
        Dolly, stand up there. [Applause]
        Before I took office, it had been 14 years since the last Asian-
    Pacific American had been appointed to the bench. I've had the honor to
    appoint five, and Dolly would be six. Six is a
    nice round number, and she ought to be part of it.
        I thank her for her service in Los Angeles,
    serving with great distinction on the Federal Service Impasse Board
    helping to mediate labor disputes. And again I say, in addition to that,
    in her distinguished career as a civil litigator, she has, nonetheless,
    languished with her nomination for more than a year in the Senate. The
    quality of justice suffers when people like Dolly are denied a hearing
    and a vote. So I hope we will get it.
        Third, building one America means rooting out discrimination in all
    its forms. Part of that means healing the wounds of the past. Our budget
    includes almost $5 million to preserve a number of World War II
    internment camps. Part of what I know about this stems from the fact
    that one of those camps was in my home State. We must never forget that
    sad chapter in our history or let fear and prejudice jeopardize our
    rights and our liberties.
        I'll never forget when I went to Hawaii to celebrate the 50th
    anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific. I played golf
    with a number of World War II veterans, and one of them told me that--he
    said that he was the only good example of what happened in an internment
    camp. He was sent to our internment camp in Arkansas, and there was--the
    only place that he could find anyone who made his native food was across
    the river in Mississippi. So he went over there and met a young woman
    who became his wife. They let him out of the internment camp, and he
    joined the military and served with distinction in our armed services. I
    have never forgotten that. And I still can't believe it happened. And
    that may be the only good story that ever came out of one of those
    things.
        So I would say that we need to do our best to preserve those camps
    so that there will never be any new ones in America, and our children
    don't forget what happened and the cautionary tale of how quickly good
    people can do bad things.
        I am also really looking forward next month to awarding the Medal of
    Honor to 21 Asian-Pacific American veterans of World War II, including
    Senator Inouye. It is long overdue.
        Finally, let me say, we have to do more to combat hate crimes in our
    society. We see case after case across our land: a man dragged to death
    in Texas because he was black; a young man beaten and left to die in
    Wyoming because he was gay; children shot in Los Angeles because of
    their Jewish faith; a postal worker gunned down in California because of
    his Filipino heritage. Hate crimes target people not because of what
    they do but because of who they are. And because of that, they strike at
    the heart of who we are as Americans. I hope we can pass the hate crimes
    legislation, and I hope you'll help us to do it.
        I recently received a remarkable book called ``Asian American
    Dreams.'' In the book, the author, Helen Zia, notes that Asian-Pacific
    Americans, and I quote, ``are a people in constant motion, a great work
    in progress, each stage more faceted and complex than before. As we
    overcome adversity and take on new challenges, we have evolved. Our
    special dynamism is our gift to America.''
        Thank you for sharing that gift and renewing our Nation. Thank you
    for moving us closer to the America of our Founders' dreams, where we
    don't just tolerate but celebrate our differences, share our rich
    heritage and history with others, always reaffirming our common
    humanity.
        Now, I would like to ask the next speaker to the podium, a World War
    II internment survivor, the first Asian-American to be a committee
    chairman in Congress, the founder of the Asian Pacific Institute for
    Congressional

    [[Page 1028]]

    Studies, the chair of my Advisory Commission on Asian American and
    Pacific Islanders, and my friend, Norm Mineta.
        Norm, come up.

     [At this point, Mr. Mineta and Daphne
    Kwok, chair, National Council for Asian Pacific
    Islanders, made brief remarks. Ms. Kwok then presented the President
    with an award.]

        The President.  Thank you. I want to thank again the Members of
    Congress for coming, give them a chance to make their exit. We're
    adjourned. Let's just stand up and have a good time.
        Thank you.

     Note: The President spoke at 1:05 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Jin Sook Lee, secretary, and Karen
    Narasaki, treasurer, National Council for Asian Pacific Islanders;
    Special Assistant to the President and Presidential Speechwriter Samir
    (Sam) Afridi; and Albert Wong, husband of judicial nominee Dolly M. Gee.
    Executive Order 13125 of June 7, 1999, on increasing participation of
    Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Federal programs was published
    in the Federal Register at 64 FR 31105. The Asian/Pacific American
    Heritage Month proclamation of April 29 is listed in Appendix D at the
    end of this volume.