OPINION
Page 6 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
September 4, 2017
Volume 27 Number 17
September 4, 2017
ISSN: 1094-9453
The Asian Reporter is published on
the first and third Monday each month.
Please send all correspondence to: The Asian Reporter
922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, OR 97217
Phone: (503) 283-4440, Fax: (503) 283-4445
News Department e-mail: news@asianreporter.com
Advertising Department e-mail: ads@asianreporter.com
General e-mail: info@asianreporter.com
Website: www.asianreporter.com
Please send reader feedback, Asian-related press releases, and
community interest ideas/stories to the addresses listed above.
Please include a contact phone number.
Advertising information available upon request.
Publisher Jaime Lim
Contributing Editors
Ronault L.S. Catalani (Polo), Jeff Wenger
Correspondents
Ian Blazina, Josephine Bridges, Pamela Ellgen, Maileen Hamto,
Edward J. Han, A.P. Kryza, Marie Lo, Simeon Mamaril,
Julie Stegeman, Toni Tabora-Roberts, Allison Voigts
Illustrator Jonathan Hill
News Service Associated Press/Newsfinder
Copyright 2017. Opinions expressed in this newspaper are
those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication.
Member
Associated Press/Newsfinder
Asian American Journalists Association
Better Business Bureau
Pacific Northwest Minority Publishers (PNMP)
Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of Oregon
TALKING STORY IN ASIAN AMERICA
n Polo
Correspondence:
The Asian Reporter welcomes reader response and participation.
Please send all correspondence to:
Mail: 922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, OR 97217-2220
Phone: (503) 283-4440 ** Fax: (503) 283-4445
News Department e-mail: news@asianreporter.com
General e-mail: info@asianreporter.com
A SPAMI response
to our times
SUBSCRIPTION RATES (U.S. rates only)
Individual subscription (sent bulk rate):
q Half year: $14
q Full year: $24
q Two years: $40
Individual subscription (sent first class mail):
q Half year: $24
q Full year: $40
q Two years: $72
Office subscription (5 copies to one address):
q Half year: $40
q Full year: $75
q Two years: $145
Institutional subscription (25 copies to one address):
q Half year: $100 q Full year: $180
q Two years: $280
NEW SUBSCRIBER / ADDRESS CORRECTION
INFORMATION FORM:
Subscriber’s name:
Company name:
Address:
City, State, ZIP:
Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:
Mail with payment or Fax with credit card information to:
The Asian Reporter, Attn: Subscription Dept.,
922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, OR 97217-2220
Phone: (503) 283-4440 * Fax: (503) 283-4445
q q q
For VISA, Mastercard, or American Express payment only:
Name (as it appears on the card):
Type of card (circle):
VISA
Mastercard
Card number:
American Express
Security code:
Expiration date:
Address of card:
The last four issues of The Asian Reporter are available
for pick up free at our office 24 hours a day at
922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, Oregon.
Back issues of The Asian Reporter
may be ordered by mail at the following rates: First copy: $1.50
Additional copies ordered at the same time: $1.00 each
Send orders to: Asian Reporter Back Issues,
922 N. Killingsworth St., Portland, OR 97217-2220
The Asian Reporter welcomes reader response and
participation. If you have a comment on a story
we have printed, or have an Asian-related personal
or community focus idea, please contact us.
Please include a contact name, address, and
phone number on all correspondence. Thank you.
am a SPAMI (Spanish Pop/Asian Mom/Muslim
Islandboy). Saying so may sound exotic, pero
you know, we’re not a big deal where we’re
from. Indonesia, where families live and love in 700
languages.
Another fun fact: Ethnic ambiguity provides
SPAMIs with certain secret super powers. Among
them, our ability to flow in and out of River City’s 70
or so vigorous ethnic streams and our robust
mainstream. We are by nature and nurture, an
observant and flexible folk.
For the record too, I’m one of those smart-alecky
Affirmative Action admits, a beneficiary of
monumental 1970s American social engineering
that produced a generation of ethnic minority and
immigrant mechanicos. A national mood swing that
landed our crew smack in the middle of many of our
nation’s most destructive and most instructive
intersections. Our cohort has sorrowed and
celebrated a lot. We are consequently, tried and true
blue believers in America. Our shared America.
For all that, our generation of community
mechanicos has arguably earned some perspective
on early morning White House tweets. And about
that, please let me suggest this: Our nation’s 45th
chief exec doesn’t matter so much. Not really.
Yes of course, President Trump has let andjing
buruk (unruly dogs) off leash. But just as certainly,
most Americans are good. Our institutions are good.
Good evidence
Evidence? Here’re three bites.
Soon after our household resettled in Oregon, I
received notice to report to the Selective Service
System. To join a war in the very neighborhood our
familia just fled. Evidently, congress had decided to
fund this system in an effort to more equitably
distribute the burdens of soldiering among all
American social classes. That’s good, right?
Bad for sure was the string of U.S. presidents who
had committed tons of treasury and misery to
crushing several Southeast nations’ families where
they sleep, work, and shop. But balancing all that
was Oregon’s senior senator — whose modest
church sponsored our refugee family — quietly
counselling our father to send me to our grandpa in
the Netherlands. Wait there, he said, until
President Nixon winds down the draft and his ugly
I
Sure, President Trump has let
andjing buruk (unruly dogs)
off leash. But just as certainly,
most Americans are good.
Our institutions are good.
war. The beauty of democracy is in its mix.
America’s institutional goodness righted our
ship’s really bad starboard list.
Next example: Fast forward to a lovely Oregon
autumn morning in 1997. A friend is returning our
son after a sleepover. As she parks curbside, she and
her son and mine see me facedown on S.E. 21st
Avenue. A young blonde cop is cuffing me. Her knee
is planted on my back. Alhamdu’lillaah, none of
them saw her a minute earlier, dangerously
adrenalized, her gun in my face.
After a year of trying and trying to ask her, her
sergeant, their precinct commander, and their
bureau boss, who on earth she thought she was
taking out, I gave up. Maybe she was after a
dangerous Mexican or an angry Arab. That ethnic
ambiguity thing has a downside too.
A month later a former Portland police chief,
asked me to lunch. He said he was sorry. He said I
was a good man. I cried. We laughed. Over fragrant
Viet noodle soup, this broad-shouldered, big-
hearted, blue-collar white guy and I talked about
our shared decade of him believing in our ethnic
streams’ belief in participating in local governance.
We talked about how he and we had made
community policing work. About how these braided
beliefs, like our city’s confluence of rivers Willam-
ette and Columbia, make our idea of Portland
possible.
Settled and New Americans’ expectations of the
best, our very best, always make it happen.
My last example: Our national and state consti-
tutions’ nail-biting insistence on free individual ex-
pression has long permitted certain Portlanders
their racist rants. On April 25 of this year, 82nd
Avenue of Roses Parade organizers cancelled their
annual celebration for fear of mayhem from
opposing ultra-right and radical-left demon-
strators. After police dispersed both groups on April
Continued on page 13
Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication.