U.S.A.
Page 8 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
July 15, 2019
New U.S. citizens sworn in at 9/11 Memorial ceremony
EW YORK — Fifty-two people
became U.S. citizens two days
before Independence Day during
a naturalization ceremony held at New
York’s 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
Families and friends of the new citizens
waved American flags as a recording of the
song “God Bless the USA” by country
singer Lee Greenwood reverberated
through the crowd.
“As citizens of this great country, Ameri-
can history is now your history,” U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services
acting director Ken Cuccinelli told partici-
pants. “Our American future is yours to
help shape. And we expect you to help
shape it.”
Republican President Donald Trump
congratulated the new citizens, who hailed
from 28 countries, in a video message.
“I didn’t expect this feeling of mine. So
now I’m really an American citizen — and
so happy about that,” said 56-year-old
Ancilla Alforque Abella, a native of the
Philippines.
Dahsong Kim, whose family came to the
U.S. from South Korea when she was six
years old, mixed a little pragmatism with
her happiness. She noted that her friends
have been saying, “Welcome to America.”
But the 34-year-old attorney corrected
them: “And I’m like — ‘well, no, I’ve actu-
ally been an American this entire time.’”
CITIZENS SWORN. Philippe Monfort, right, from
Haiti, joins others waving American flags after taking
the Oath of Allegiance during a naturalization cere-
mony at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York
on July 2, 2019. In honor of Independence Day, U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services administered the
oath to 52 of America’s newest citizens. (AP Photo/
Richard Drew)
The difference, she said, is that she’s
now an American “on paper.”
“I wanted to make it known ... that
immigrants are Americans too. And I hope
that sort of plays out in my story in some
way,” she said.
Felix Maria Castillo Lachapelle, who
came from the Dominican Republic, said
he now will enjoy “democracy that I did not
have before.”
Other new citizens came from Albania,
Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Colombia,
Cuba, Dominica, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti,
India, Iraq, Jamaica, Kosovo, Mexico,
Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Romania,
Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey,
Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and
Venezuela.
D.C. police ordered
to collect race data
for stop-and-frisks
Ohio provides $30 million
for development of
proposed “cracker” plant
Taiwanese president will
not visit Wyoming during
Cheyenne Frontier Days
National Zoo: Washington,
D.C. water dragon dies
from blood cancer
WASHINGTON (AP) — A court has
ordered police in the nation’s capital to
start tracking the race of everyone stopped
by officers, regardless of if the stop results
in an arrest or search.
News outlets report that the ruling gives
the department a month to comply.
The District City Council passed legisla-
tion three years ago that required the de-
partment to track race, but it never com-
plied. Advocacy groups sued the depart-
ment, its chief, and city officials last year
over noncompliance with the Neighbor-
hood Engagement Achieves Results act.
Chief Peter Newsham says the depart-
ment planned to implement IT upgrades to
comply by next month, regardless of the
court order. Superior Court Judge John M.
Campbell questioned why a short-term,
low-tech measure wasn’t put in place to
collect the required data in the meantime.
q
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The state’s
private economic development office has
awarded a $30 million grant to Asian
companies
considering
building
a
petrochemical plant in eastern Ohio.
The Columbus Dispatch reports
JobsOhio officials say the grant to a
partnership between Thailand’s PTT
Global Chemical America and South
Korea’s Daelim Industrial Co. is to help
finance site development work.
JobsOhio previously paid $14 million to
cover the cost of dismantling a
coal-burning power plant at the Belmont
County site where the partnership is
considering a multibillion dollar ethane
“cracker” plant. The plant would convert
ethane, a byproduct of natural gas drilling,
into ethylene, the raw material used in
manufacturing
ubiquitous
plastic
products.
Officials have been awaiting the
partnership’s commitment to build a plant
viewed as a spur for future development in
a struggling Appalachian region.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A possible
visit by the president of Taiwan to
Wyoming has fallen through.
Governor Mark Gordon’s office had been
talking with President Tsai Ing-wen’s
office about possibly visiting during
Cheyenne Frontier Days, a celebration of
rodeo and western culture held in late
July.
The annual event draws thousands to
Wyoming’s capital of 64,000 people.
Gordon and Tsai announced that “heavy
logistics concerns” will prevent the visit
from happening, though an eventual visit
to Wyoming remains possible.
Gordon meanwhile has been invited to
visit Taiwan, where Wyoming recently
opened a trade office. Gordon spokesman
Michael Pearlman says there’s a “strong
likelihood” Gordon will visit Taiwan this
year.
The potential visit by Tsai drew
attention when Cheyenne mayor Marian
Orr said Gordon behaved aggressively
during a meeting with her about it.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National
Zoo in Washington, D.C., says the first
documented Asian water dragon to be born
from the DNA of a single parent has died.
The Washington Post reports the zoo
said the two-year-old female lizard died
from blood cancer in mid-June. The lizard
was born in 2016 through a process known
as facultative parthenogenesis, which is
when female creatures that can produce
sexually instead produce offspring on their
own.
The lizard was hospitalized after
workers found it struggling to breathe. It
was later found dead.
The zoo says water dragons are native to
Southeast Asia and have a life expectancy
of up to 15 years. They’re named after their
defensive strategy that involves sub-
merging themselves in water and holding
their breath for up to 25 minutes.
q
By Joseph B. Frederick
The Associated Press
N
Japan official to
Kardashian West:
Kimono belongs to Japan
Continued from page 2
tourist destination.
Kyoto mayor Daisaku Kadokawa, who
wears a kimono at work, said in a June 28
letter to West that kimono are not only
part of Japan’s cultural heritage but also
the “fruit of craftsmanship and truly
symbolize the sense of beauty, spirit, and
values of Japanese,” and that she should
perhaps visit the city to “experience the
essence of kimono culture.
“We think that the name for kimono is
an asset shared with all humanity who
love kimono and its culture, therefore it
should not be monopolized,” said
Kadokawa, who is campaigning to register
kimono as a UNESCO intangible cultural
heritage.
Kadokawa thanked West for her
decision to reconsider the brand name.
Associated Press writer Mari Yama-
guchi contributed to this report.
q
Honolulu Zoo announces
birth of endangered
ring-tailed lemur
Continued from page 7
As of 2013, up to 90% of lemur species
faced extinction within 20 to 25 years, the
organization said.
The main threats to lemurs include
hunting,
trapping,
logging,
wood
harvesting, and the conversion of forests
into agricultural land, the group said.
From hot sauce to pop gloss, U.S. products seep into Iran
Continued from page 4
Sima Najafzadeh, a 21-year-old fellow
student, each drank Cokes, saying they
enjoyed the taste. They also would like to
see more iPhones, McDonald’s restau-
rants, and other trappings of Americana.
“We love Americans,” Najafzadeh said.
That goes for American films as well.
Rezaee acknowledged having to find a
pirated copy of Avengers: Endgame online
as it never played in Iran. Others without a
strong internet connection can find
recently released films like John Wick:
Chapter 3 — Parabellum for under 40
cents apiece on Tehran’s busy Enghelab
Street, where hawkers also sell portraits of
a young Al Pacino. Western pop and rock
music seeps out of the occasional passing
car.
Iranian state television channels even
air older American movies dubbed in
Farsi. The 2000 Dennis Quaid film
Frequency was on one recent night.
At the city’s Grand Bazaar, the capital’s
beating heart, a beach towel showing
Mickey Mouse with a surf board in “So Cal”
— southern California — hung on one
rafter. Stacks of blue jeans were also on
offer, but American brands like Levi
Strauss have largely disappeared in recent
months as Iran’s currency has plummeted.
That’s been a boon for the Par Group, a
local jean manufacturer that produces
some 3 million square meters of jeans a
month from locally sourced and foreign
material. Sales associates at their shop in
the bazaar acknowledged the product’s
roots in American cowboy culture but said
jeans remain popular on the streets of
Tehran.
“All over the world, people want jeans,”
said Amin Moradi, a salesman at the shop.
“Iranians are very fashionable.”
At Tehran’s massive Iran Mall, a store
called TOMSon sells what appears to be
the eponymous slip-on Toms shoes. The
firm did not respond to requests for
comment.
Of all the American imports, the most
unlikely might be the Tehran Research
Reactor, a nuclear gift from America that
arrived in 1967 as part of its “Atoms for
Peace” program, and which still runs
today.
Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi and pro-
ducer Mehdi Fattahi contributed to this report.
ASTHMA
IS
ON
THE RISE.
Help us find a cure.
1-800-LUNG-USA
Even poop is cute at Japanese
museum that encourages play
Continued from page 2
mapping game like “whack-a-mole” to
stamp on and squash the most poops they
can. In another game, participants
compete to make the biggest “poop” by
shouting the word in Japanese, unko, as
loudly as possible.
A soccer video game involves using a
controller to “kick” a poop into a goal.
Toshifumi Okuya, a system engineer,
was amused to see adults having fun. “It’s
funny because there are adults running
around screaming ‘poop, poop,’” he said.
At the end of the tour, visitors receive a
bag to carry home their souvenir poop. If
they want still more, the museum’s gift
shop abounds with more poop-themed
souvenirs.
The museum attracted more than
100,000 visitors in the first month after its
opening in March. It will remain open until
September.
Associated Press writer Mari Yama-
guchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.