A Note from our COO
My mother immigrated from South Korea to the United States in 1980. Without knowing any English, her family moved to Houston, Texas. In high school, my mother faced immense challenges being scrutinized as “the foreigner” by her peers. She experienced discrimination based on her appearance, speech, diet, and mere presence. My mother encountered racism in the form of hate speech and offensive jokes. While walking home from school, students called her derogatory names. She only packed sandwiches for lunch to prevent her peers from making fun of the smelliness of her food. Teachers gave her no support in helping her learn English. She continued to face one microaggression after another.
Because of the discrimination and the hate that she received, she wondered what her identity would be moving forward as someone living in this limbo of America. Although she knew she was American, she didn’t know if her voice would be heard or if the country would protect and support her rights and those of the people she loved and cared for. After all, America has a long history of racism towards Asian Americans.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 established a precedent that Chinese Americans were not allowed in this country. Although this act was abolished in 1943 (a full 61 years later), the sentiments behind a policy with targeted hatred towards Asian Americans remain in the form of macro and microaggressions.
Fast forward to 2020, as Donald Trump, then-president, fostered hatred towards Asian Americans from the fears and uncertainty of the pandemic and referred to COVID-19 as the “Kung-Flu virus,” many elderly Asian Americans experienced physical and verbal hate crimes, harassment, and/or institutional racism. Although my mother has lived in the U.S. since the 80s, the news serves as a reminder that not much has changed since her first time in the States. The same hate language she experienced in high school remains prevalent throughout the country, and policy supporting the protection of the AAPI community is lacking. Continuous political advocacy remains crucial to protect the well-being and safety of Asian Americans.
Listening to my mother’s experiences, I became passionate about advocating for individuals who faced similar challenges and fighting for the voices of future generations. Even in 2024, I am still trying to find my identity as a Korean American in this country and continue to face microaggressions in my everyday life—an experience that all generations of Asian Americans share. Considering the hardships my mother and other immigrants endured, I knew U.S. policymakers needed to take more action to support and protect the rights of the AAPI community. After graduating college, I looked for opportunities to become more politically engaged within the community. That’s when I found ALLY.
When I first read the mission and goals of ALLY, I was very excited as it aligned with my mission, to advocate for AAPI rights through leadership and community. The methodology and theory of change of ALLY has both short- and long-term impacts. ALLY brings together young leaders to advocate for the rights of the AAPI community through participation in political engagement and the cultivation of important skills. To that end, ALLY and I found it critical to have ongoing dialogues about key political, policy, and legal issues that affect the AAPI community from the perspectives of the younger generation.
We created this page to do just that. Please watch out for ALLY members to analyze current issues, disrupt the status quo, and provide radical solutions to the problems AAPI community members currently face.
Mandatory certificate of residence that Chinese people were required to carry
A Note from our Co-founder
In 1893, the United States arrested Fong Yue Ting, a Chinese person, and subjected him to deportation. Fong called up witnesses to prove he was in the United States legally. But because his witnesses were Chinese and not white, his immigration judge ruled against him (the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 required Chinese people to have white witnesses to stay in the country). The judge sentenced Fong to a year of hard labor and then deportation. Fong fought back, arguing that the Chinese Exclusion Act is racist and violates the Constitution. And, he was right. The Constitution prohibits discrimination based on race, deprivation of liberty without due process, and the right to an attorney for criminal proceedings. But the Supreme Court approved his deportation anyway. How?
The nine-judges of the Supreme Court based their decision on race, asserting that Chinese people were dishonest by nature. Specifically, it stated that the testimony of Chinese persons was untrustworthy as past cases were “attended with great embarrassment, from the suspicious nature, in many instances, of the testimony offered to establish the residence of the parties, arising from the loose notions entertained by the witnesses of the obligation of an oath.” Therefore, the Chinese Exclusion Act’s requirement of requiring “at least one credible white witness” made sense, and as such, Fong Yue Ting’s deportation was valid.
Amazingly, this egregious decision from the 1890s is still the foundation of our modern deportation system. One important legal ramification of this case is that the Supreme Court ruled that deportation is a civil proceeding, not a criminal proceeding. In other words, it created a binding precedent that deportation is not punishment. See, e.g., Santelises v. Immigration and Naturalization Serv., 491 F.2d 1254, 1255-56 (2d Cir. 1974) (“It is settled that deportation, being a civil procedure, is not punishment and the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment accordingly is not applicable.”); This meant that the protections of the U.S. Constitution do not apply to Fong Yue Ting or to anyone being deported.
These protections matter because without them, marginalized communities are particularly at risk and exposed to inhumane conditions. For instance, 35,000 people, the vast majority of whom are people of color, are in ICE detention today. They do not have the right to an attorney, the right to challenge their detention, and most have not been convicted of any crime. Regardless, they are stuck in detention for months or even years, especially people with disabilities. During this time, they often lose their jobs, housing, and access to their families.
I love telling this story. Fong Yue Ting, a court case from the 1890s, with sheer racism as legal justification, is still the foundation for tens of thousands of people to be locked up without trial every year. What a revealing fact about our legal system. Here, hatred of Chinese people in the 1890s led to a policy that devastates all immigrant communities today. And it is just one of dozens of examples in American history of white supremacy-driven racism towards one group causing suffering down the line for all communities of color. The rights of the AAPI community have always been under attack in the United States, from the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the internment of Japanese Americans in World War 2, to the rise of AAPI hate crimes in 2020, to Florida’s recent law punishing Chinese people who purchase property in the state with a felony charge.
The Asian Youth Liberty League (ALLY) fights back by training young AAPI students to be better leaders, so they can take the front lines in the fight for our civil rights. This year, ALLY is hosting a policy competition with submissions due Sunday, July 28. ALLY implores you to bring forth your voice, and the voices of your community, to create meaningful differences and reimagine issues into solutions. If you participate in the competition, I hope you dream big, argue passionately, and suggest policies that bring equity and justice to the AAPI community and our POC allies.
Competition Flyer
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