[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 21 (Monday, May 29, 2000)]
[Pages 1221-1225]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at an Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies 
Dinner

May 25, 2000

    Thank you very much. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We had a 
wonderful day today at the White House. For all of you who were there, I 
thank you for coming. I thank my good friend Norm Mineta. He thought he 
had retired from public life when he left the Congress, and he found 
that there is life

[[Page 1222]]

after politics, but there's no life without politics. [Laughter] I got 
him back in, and I thank him for that.
    I also want to thank the Members of the United States House who are 
here. I have no glasses and this list--[laughter]--so I'm going to show 
my age here. But the chair of the APA Caucus, Bob Underwood; Lane Evans, 
Shelley Berkley, Julian Dixon, Donna Christensen Green, and Phil Crane, 
thank you all for being here. I'd also like to acknowledge one Member of 
Congress who is not here, who led our efforts on China PNTR, Bob Matsui. 
I thank him as well for what he did. Thank you all.
    I want to thank our Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, 
Bill Lann Lee, who is here. I had a lot of fun today with Dolly Gee. I 
think she's still here; she's not on her honeymoon yet. Thank you very 
much for being here. And I want to thank all the people at the White 
House, but especially Laura Efurd, in my Office of Public Liaison. The 
Director of our office, Mary Beth Cahill, came over here with me 
tonight, and we were laughing that--you may know, I had to go to a 
memorial service for a young friend of mine today in Rhode Island. 
That's why I'm a little late. And when I leave you, I'm going to the 
Sons of Italy dinner. [Laughter] So I said to Mary Beth, ``Here we are, 
two Irish going to the Asian-Pacific dinner and the Sons of Italy 
dinner. Is this a great country or what?'' [Laughter]
    Let me begin by just saying a heartfelt thank you to the members of 
the Asian American Pacific Institute for the support you have given to 
the efforts that Vice President Gore and I have made over these last 
7\1/2\ years. It's meant more than you can possible know. I was here 5 
years ago, as Norm said, when you launched the institute. You've come a 
long way since then. You have embodied the wisdom of the Chinese proverb 
that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And you 
have taken a lot of steps in the last 5 years.
    You've gotten more Asian-Pacific Americans interested, informed, and 
involved in the political process. You've had an impact on a lot of 
vital issues. You've helped to form more unity among the great diversity 
of the Asian-Pacific community in the United States.
    When I was here in '95, I said, if we only understand what an 
incredible resource our people are, we can have more opportunities than 
any other country. I still believe that. I think no nation is so well 
positioned for this new century, for a global economy, and an 
increasingly globalized society, as the United States, if we are 
prepared to make the most of our diverse talents, our heritage, our 
contacts, what we know, what we feel, what we understand.
    The first Japanese immigrants came here in 1843. Their spirit helped 
to build this country. The people who came to build the transcontinental 
railroad, over 130 years ago, and are still throughout the Mississippi 
Delta and my home region, helped to build this country. The people who 
helped to put the first Asian-American in Congress in 1957 helped to 
build this country. And so have all of you.
    Now there are more than 9 million Americans who trace their roots to 
Asia and the islands of the Pacific, more than 25 nationalities, more 
than 75 languages, hundreds of different ethnic groups, all with a long, 
rich legacy of working hard and overcoming obstacles to pursue the 
American dream. You have greatly enriched the quality and the character 
of the United States, and for that I am profoundly grateful.
    You have strengthened our common values of family, faith, and work, 
and our common vision of a better future for our children. For 7\1/2\ 
years, I have tried to reinforce those values and advance that future. I 
am grateful that we are in the longest economic expansion in history, 
with the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years--32 years now--with the 
lowest female unemployment rate in 40 years, the lowest African-American 
and Hispanic unemployment rates ever recorded, a 20-year low in poverty, 
over a 10 percent drop in poverty among Asian-Pacific Americans alone.
    Last year the SBA approved loans to the Asian-Pacific community in 
America exceeding $2 billion, more than 3\1/2\ times the amount approved 
in the year before I took office. I have tried to make sure that we 
would go forward together.

[[Page 1223]]

    I'm grateful that our social fabric is on the mend, something of 
immense concern to all of you--crime at a 25-year low; teen births down 
7 years in a row; adoptions up 30 percent; welfare rolls cut in half, to 
their lowest level since 1968; expanded Head Start; 90 percent of our 
kids immunized against serious diseases for the first time in our 
history; 21 million people took advantage of the family and medical 
leave law; 5 million families benefited by the HOPE scholarships to send 
their kids to college; 150,000 young Americans, many of them Asian-
Pacific Americans, have served their communities in AmeriCorps. I am 
grateful for all of that.
    Our country, I believe, is moving to develop a national security 
strategy for the 21st century which keeps a strong defense but relies on 
cooperation wherever possible. And I do believe that far more important 
than the obvious economic benefits, it is the chance to have a more 
secure future. That was the most important reason for the House of 
Representatives adopting the permanent normal trade relations with China 
yesterday, and I'm very, very grateful to them for doing that.
    Now, having said that, you may have noticed that this is an election 
year. [Laughter] Since it's the first time I haven't been on the ballot 
in 26 years, I've hardly noticed it at all, but--[laughter]--I 
understand. Most days I'm okay about it. And so I want to ask you to do 
something that comes naturally to you, whether you're Democrats or 
Republicans or independents. I want to urge you to use this year to 
mobilize your communities and those beyond your communities to have the 
right approach. Because the great question here is what are we going to 
do with our prosperity? What are we going to do with our increasing 
social harmony? What are we going to do with our relative security in a 
still dangerous world? How are we going to make the most of a moment 
that truly is unprecedented in the lives of all of us in this room?
    And maybe it's never happened to you, but at least I can speak for 
the Irish. Everyone I know over 30 has made a mistake in his or her 
personal or professional life, not because things were going so poorly 
but because things were going so well. Sometimes when things are going 
well, you break your concentration. You think there are no consequences 
to taking the momentary benefit instead of the long-term look.
    And I have decided that I will try to devote myself this year to 
getting the American people to take the long view, to say, ``What are we 
going to do with this magic moment?'' And I think we ought to say, 
``Okay, we can do things now we couldn't do 7 or 8 years ago,'' when I 
was preoccupied, overwhelmingly, with trying to turn the country around 
and get people together and go beyond the divisive politics that had 
paralyzed us into a rhetoric in Washington that I sort of characterized 
as ``I've got an idea. You've got an idea. Let's fight.'' [Laughter] And 
we're trying to move beyond that.
    And that's how we balanced the budget and produced this surplus. 
When I leave office, we will have paid off about $360 billion of our 
national debt. I confess even I didn't think we could do that in 1992. 
If I had gone before the people in '92 and said, ``Vote for me, and when 
I leave office, we'll have 3 years of paying down the debt,'' you would 
have said, ``He seems like a nice young man, but he's a little touched. 
We'd better send him home.'' [Laughter]
    So I ask you to think of that. What are those big questions? Well, 
first of all, in spite of our growing prosperity, there are still people 
in places untouched by it. And we ought to take this opportunity to give 
them a chance to be a part of the American dream. Just for example: 
almost half of all Cambodian-Americans, two out of three Hmong-Americans 
still live in poverty. Over half of the South-Asian-Americans have 
earned a bachelor's degree, far above the 37 percent national average. 
But less than 6 percent of Cambodian- and Laotian-Americans have 
completed college in an age in which getting a world-class education is 
a prerequisite to full participation in the global economy.
    We can't rest until every community, every family, every individual 
has a chance to be a part of this magnificent opportunity that so many 
of you have worked so hard to create. That's why I signed that Executive 
order establishing the Advisory Commission. The Commission will work on 
ways to get the information we need to make the decisions that

[[Page 1224]]

ought to be made to help the discreet groups of Asian-Pacific Americans 
that are still not fully participating. They will help us to lower the 
cultural and linguistic and other barriers to health and social 
services. But we have to do more.
    Just this week we had what I think is a truly historic meeting in 
the White House that was, understandably, sort of overlooked in the 
great amount of attention given to the China vote. But the Speaker of 
the House of Representatives and more than a dozen Members of Congress 
equally divided in both parties came together in the White House, and we 
said, ``Look, we're trying open new markets abroad, but we have to 
create new markets at home. And we want to give people the same 
incentives to invest in poor areas of America and in the people of 
America that aren't fully participating we now give people to invest in 
poor areas throughout the world.'' It's an historic moment. And if we 
pass this legislation--and I believe we will--it could be the most 
significant antipoverty initiative in a generation. I hope all of you 
will support it, without regard to your party.
    What are some of the other big questions? I won't go through the 
answers or what I think are the answers. The important thing is, you 
have to decide what you think the answers are. How are we going to 
guarantee every child a world-class education and make sure everybody 
can go to college? How are we going to make sure that people who work 
for a living don't raise their children in poverty? The child poverty 
rate in America is still about 18 percent, as wealthy as we are. How are 
we going to help people to balance work and family--something that many 
Asian-Americans have been brilliant at, but it's not easy.
    How are we going to make sure that, in this new and difficult world, 
we continue to be a force for peace and reconciliation, and help other 
people resolve their racial and ethnic and religious conflicts that are 
leading to so much turmoil and could disrupt our future? What are our 
obligations to people in the poorest parts of the world that are being 
plagued by AIDS, malaria, and TB, and other problems? All the children 
that are dying out there every day just because they don't have access 
to safe water. If we do something about that, won't that strengthen our 
security and make us more prosperous in the years ahead, because other 
people can raise their children in a good environment?
    And how are we going to build one America here at home, after we 
make our country the safest big country in the world? What are we going 
to do about the aging of America, when two-thirds of our people will be 
working, but one-third will be retired--our adults? Well, maybe more 
older people will work. We lifted the earnings limit on Social Security, 
almost unanimously. It was a very good thing to do. But unless you young 
people dramatically increase your birth rates or we dramatically 
increase immigration when all us baby boomers retire, we have to ask 
ourselves, how can we preserve the integrity of Social Security and 
Medicare--and, I think, add a prescription drug benefit for the 
seniors--in ways that don't burden their ability to raise our children, 
or our children's ability to raise our grandchildren? How can we do 
that?
    And to me, most important of all, still by far, is how can we build 
one America? How can we tear down the remaining barriers between us 
rooted in our differences?
    I have never believed that we should try to homogenize America. I 
think we're becoming more interesting every day. You obviously agree by 
the reaction you had when I told you I was going to the Sons of Italy 
dinner later. [Laughter] The trick is to respect our diversity, to go 
beyond it, to celebrate our diversity, to actually think it's a great 
thing and have fun with it, but to recognize that the reason we can 
enjoy it is because our common humanity and our common respect for the 
values of our Constitution are even more important than our diversity. 
That's the trick.
    And the first thing we've got to do is make sure everybody has the 
chance to participate. That's why we've got 70 Asian-Pacific Americans 
in the administration. That's why I nominated Bill Lann Lee. And I still 
hope the Senate will have a blast of enlightenment and confirm him. I 
keep working on that. Before I took office, it had been 14 years since 
an Asian-Pacific American had been nominated for a Federal judgeship. We 
have appointed five so far.

[[Page 1225]]

    Yesterday the Senate--I want to thank them--I've given them such 
grief because they've been so slow confirming my appointments, but 
yesterday they did confirm 16 judges. So I thank Senator Lott and the 
Senate for doing that, and I hope it is the beginning of a trend. And I 
hope that trend will include Dolly Gee from California.
    I think we should adopt hate crimes legislation. I think we ought to 
pass--I think we ought to pass the ``Employment Non-Discrimination 
Act.'' I think that people--I think that every school in this country 
should have programs which bring different people together. And if the 
student body is not diverse, they ought to bring people in from outside 
to talk, to ask questions, to understand what it is about all these 
myriad people that make up America that are different and what it is we 
have in common. I think this is profoundly important.
    And so I will just leave you with this. I've had a great time. 
You've been good to me. I'm not done. We're going to get a lot of things 
done in the next 7 months. But you, through this organization and other 
efforts, have been brought into the mainstream of American public 
debate. You unite people across all kinds of ethnic and cultural lines 
and religious lines because of your common Asian-Pacific heritage--also, 
different philosophical and political lines. But true to your values, 
you can have a pivotal effect in getting America to take this millennial 
year to ask and answer the question, what will we do with this moment of 
good fortune?
    You know, nothing lasts forever. And that keeps us going through the 
bad times, knowing that nothing lasts forever. But in good times, it 
means we must be careful, vigilant. We must nurture and be grateful for 
these opportunities and make the most of them.
    So I ask you to think about that. If I were to receive a vision from 
heaven tonight that I was going to pass from this Earth tomorrow, and I 
could have one wish, and God said, ``Now, I'm not a genie, you don't get 
three wishes. I'll just give you one.'' I would wish for us to be one 
America, genuinely one America, because we've got hundreds of stories in 
this room that illustrate there is nothing that we cannot achieve if 
we're given a chance, a fair chance, and if we understand that everybody 
matters, everybody has got a role to play, and we all do better when we 
help each other. It's a simple little formula in the digital age, but it 
will carry us right where we need to go. And you can make sure it 
happens.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 9:20 p.m. at the Capitol Hilton. In his 
remarks, he referred to former Representative Norman Y. Mineta, 
chairman, Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies; 
Virgin Islands Delegate Donna M.C. Christensen; and Dolly M. Gee, 
nominee for U.S. District Judge for the Central District of California. 
The President also referred to APA, the Asian Pacific American Caucus.