The BulleTin • Wednesday, May 12, 2021 A3
TODAY
Today is Wednesday, May 12, the
132nd day of 2021. There are 233
days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History:
In 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the
Berlin Blockade, which the Western
powers had succeeded in circum-
venting with their Berlin Airlift.
In 1937, Britain’s King George VI was
crowned at Westminster Abbey;
his wife, Elizabeth, was crowned as
queen consort.
In 1943, during World War II, Axis
forces in North Africa surrendered.
In 1958, the United States and Can-
ada signed an agreement to create
the North American Air Defense
Command (later the North Ameri-
can Aerospace Defense Command,
or NORAD).
In 1970, the Senate voted unani-
mously to confirm Harry A. Black-
mun as a Supreme Court justice.
In 1975, the White House an-
nounced the new Cambodian gov-
ernment had seized an American
merchant ship, the Mayaguez, in
international waters. (U.S. Marines
gained control of the ship three days
after its seizure, not knowing the 39
civilian members of the crew had al-
ready been released by Cambodia.)
In 1997, Australian Susie Maroney
became the first woman to swim
from Cuba to Florida, covering the
118-mile distance in 24.5 hours.
In 2002, Jimmy Carter arrived in
Cuba, becoming the first U.S. presi-
dent in or out of office to visit since
the 1959 revolution that put Fidel
Castro in power.
In 2009, suspected Nazi death
camp guard John Demjanjuk was
deported from the United States to
Germany.
Ten years ago: CEOs of the five
largest oil companies went before
the Senate Finance Committee,
where Democrats challenged the
executives to justify tax breaks at a
time when people were paying $4 a
gallon for gas. A German court con-
victed retired U.S. autoworker John
Demjanjuk of being an accessory to
the murder of tens of thousands of
Jews as a Nazi death camp guard.
(Demjanjuk, who maintained his
innocence, died in March 2012 at
age 91.)
Five years ago: A divided U.S. Su-
preme Court blocked the execution
of an Alabama inmate so that a
lower court could review claims that
strokes and dementia had rendered
him incompetent to understand his
looming death sentence. (A federal
appeals court ruled in March 2017
that Vernon Madison was incompe-
tent, and could not be executed.)
One year ago: House Democrats
unveiled a coronavirus aid package
totaling more than $3 trillion, in-
cluding nearly $1 trillion for states
and cities to avert layoffs and a fresh
round of direct cash aid to Amer-
ican households. (The measure
won House approval but Senate
Republicans and the White House
rejected it as too costly.) German
photographer Astrid Kirchherr, who
shot some of the earliest and most
striking images of the Beatles and
helped shape their visual style, died
at age 81 in her native Hamburg.
Today’s Birthdays: R&B singer Jay-
otis Washington is 80. Actor Linda
Dano is 78. Actor Gabriel Byrne is 71.
Actor Kim Greist is 63. Rock musician
Eric Singer (KISS) is 63. Actor Ving
Rhames is 62. Actor Vanessa A. Wil-
liams is 58. TV personality/chef Carla
Hall is 57. Actor Stephen Baldwin
is 55. Actor Scott Schwartz is 53.
Actor Kim Fields is 52. Actor Chris-
tian Campbell is 49. Actor Rebecca
Herbst is 44. Actor Malin Akerman
is 43. Actor Jason Biggs is 43. Actor
Rami Malek is 40. Actor-singer Clare
Bowen is 37. Actor Emily VanCamp is
35. Actor Malcolm David Kelley is 29.
Actor Sullivan Sweeten is 26.
— The Associated Press
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
Asian leaders rally against racism in Oregon
New state hotline reflects
national trend this year
of increased hate crimes
against Asian people
BY KALE WILLIAMS
The Oregonian
Liani Reeves was just a teenager
when she realized how the different
parts of her identity intersected.
Reeves was born in Korea and ad-
opted by a white family in Oregon
when she was still an infant. Raised
in a rural part of the state, she was the
target of bullying from a young age be-
cause of her race.
Reeves, an attorney and former pres-
ident of the Oregon State Bar, told her
story to an assembled crowd of several
dozen Asian community leaders who
lined the small lake within the Lan Su
Chinese Garden in northwest Portland
on Saturday, and countless others who
attended virtually, for the Rise Against
Hate Oregon rally.
The gathering came in the wake of
the mass shooting in Atlanta in early
March when a gunman shot and killed
eight people, six of whom were Asian
women. Over the last year, there’s been
an increase in hate crimes and racist
harassment of Asian and Pacific Is-
landers, including more than 6,600
incidents reported to the San Francis-
co-based group Stop AAPI Hate.
As several speakers at the rally
noted, that figure is likely a vast un-
dercount as many incidents go unre-
Kale Williams/ Oregonian photos
Flowers await the attendees of the Rise
Against Hate Oregon rally.
Liani Reeves, former president of the Oregon Bar Association, speaks Saturday at the
Rise Against Hate Oregon rally at the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland.
ported.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen
Rosenblum laid out how her office
is trying to combat the rise in rac-
ism against Asian and Pacific Islander
communities.
Rosenblum noted that Oregon was
among the first states to implement
a hate crime law in 1981, but that the
statute had seen little reform since
its inception. She said her office had
formed a task force, led by members of
communities most impacted by rac-
ism, to improve the law. The work led
to a series of changes in 2019, includ-
ing adding a bias incident hotline and
creating tools for law enforcement to
better prosecute hate crime cases.
Rosenblum said the hotline has re-
ceived more than 1,600 reports of bias
incidents since it went live in early
2020, the majority of which were
aimed at African Americans. Still, she
said, the hotline has seen a 500% in-
crease in bias events targeting Asians
and Pacific Islanders this year.
Lori Stegmann, the first
Asian-American immigrant to be
elected to the Multnomah County
Commission, noted that Oregon’s his-
tory of racism and white supremacy is
still evident today, not only in incidents
of biased harassment, but also in dispa-
rate health outcomes made evident by
the pandemic.
In July, Pacific Islanders had more
than triple the rate of coronavirus cases
in their communities than any other
race in Oregon, according to statistics
from the Oregon Health Authority.
“The pandemic has laid bare the
inequities embedded in our systems,”
Stegmann said.
“From testing to vaccinations, from
health care to housing, from education
to employment, and from the school-
to-prison pipeline to the criminal jus-
tice system.”
LOCAL AND STATE BRIEFING
COCC shares details for
drive-thru graduation
Central Oregon Commu-
nity College will hand out
degrees drive-thru style at
its socially distanced com-
mencement ceremony June
12.
COCC graduates from
both 2020 and 2021 will be
assigned specific time slots to
drive onto campus, depending
on their major, according to
a college press release. Grad-
uates will exit their cars, walk
onto a stage to receive their
degreed or certificated one at
a time and leave campus.
Because each graduate
is allowed only one car, the
event will be livestreamed
online for friends and family
who can’t squeeze into those
vehicles, the release stated.
The college expects to
hand out about 200 degrees
and certificates at the cere-
mony, the release stated.
Dalton Miller-Jones, a re-
tired Portland State Univer-
sity psychology professor and
Bend resident, will deliver a
prerecorded commencement
speech, which will be shared
on COCC’s website in early
June, the release stated.
Miller-Jones is also the
co-chair of the Restorative
Equity and Justice advocacy
group, sits on the leadership
council of the statewide non-
profit Oregon Community
Foundation and helped es-
tablish Cornell University’s
Africana Studies and Re-
search Center.
3 men accused in sex
trafficking of immigrants
Three men are accused
of forcing immigrants from
China into prostitution,
beating them with hammers
and robbing them in hotels
in Portland, Beaverton and
Omaha, Nebraska.
Xinyu Zhou, 21, Yuan Gao,
19, and Arian Esfadiari, 18,
face a federal indictment in
Nebraska and state indictments
in Multnomah and Washing-
ton counties.
The three men were arrested
in Omaha, Nebraska, in De-
cember.
The victims in the Portland
attacks were both Chinese na-
tionals who were brought to
the United States on fraudulent
visas and under misleading
terms, according to Portland
police. Victim advocates as-
signed to the Portland Police
Bureau’s Human Trafficking
Unit have been coordinating
care and recovery efforts for
the victims.
— Bulletin staff and wire reports