By Gil Asakawa, Contributor
‘Thank goodness for technology. And I know that the scientists who we’re going to have as guests today can all attest to the brilliance and the efficiency and the helpfulness that this brilliant technology can afford us,” said actor-activist Tamlyn Tomita, as she welcomed attendees to a Sept. 12 Zoom webinar discussion hosted by Asian Americans for Democracy.
“We’re so honored and very, very humbled to have four world-renowned scientists, including two Nobel Laureate winners, who are working together in conjunction, in community, with all of us at Asian Americans for Democracy to prevent another Trump presidency because of the literal danger that he poses to science.”
Asian Americans for Democracy (AA4D) is an organization that was formed to promote the presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. AA4D is an outgrowth of CAPA21, a political action committee, which is itself an outgrowth of the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans, formed by activist and attorney Dale Minami in 1987. Tomita is the chair of CAPA21.
Clockwise from top: Moderator Tamlyn Tomita; playwright Henry David Hwang & scientist Gang Chen
The scientists who spoke during the September discussion were Gang Chen, an MIT professor who was arrested and prosecuted by the Trump administration on baseless charges that were ultimately dropped; Steven Chu, a Stanford University 1997 Nobel Laureate in Physics and former U.S. secretary of energy under President Barack Obama; Randy Schekman of the University of California, Berkeley, and a 2013 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine; moderator Andrea Liu, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania; and author-activist Helen Zia, who is also a member of AA4D.
The discussion focused on the former president’s handling of anti-Asian and specifically anti-Chinese policies, with Chen, the first speaker, explaining that his 2021 arrest and unjust imprisonment under a Trump administration “China Initiative” was for allegedly failing to disclose ties to Chinese educational programs when he applied for a U.S. grant. He was released a year later when the DOJ dropped all charges. More than 200 MIT faculty signed an open letter protesting Chen’s arrest.
“My story is really an American story,” Chen said. “I was born in China, but I came to the States as a student pursuing the American dream. I came here viewing America as the land of freedom and of unity.”
He said the incident upended his life, and he still hasn’t fully recovered since his return to MIT as the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering and director of the Pappalardo Micro and Nano Engineering Laboratories. He said his family lives in fear, and he is hesitant to travel anywhere out of the country. He no longer applies for federal grants for his research.
The other speakers cited Trump-era anti-Asian sentiments, his demonization of Chinese during the Covid pandemic and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes. Schekman, who isn’t Asian, made the point, which others agreed with, that the dangers of having the former president return to the Oval Office would affect all immigrants.
“I’d like to broaden the discussion. Though this is focused on Asians and Asian Americans, it’s just a piece of a larger picture of prejudice against immigrants in this country,” he noted. “My grandparents, on both sides, emigrated from Eastern Europe.” He added that they would have been slaughtered by the Nazis if they hadn’t come to America to pursue freedom.
The most poignant moment of the September call with scientists came after the Zoom was officially turned off, and Chen admitted to Tomita, “I want to say that the first time I cried when I came to the United States was watching ‘Joy Luck Club’ (the 1993 film in which Tomita was one of the ensemble stars),” he said. “That was the first time I cried.”
Visibly moved, Tomita replied for the three other women who starred in the classic film about Chinese immigrants and their American-born daughters: “I will tell Ming-na (Wen) and Rosalind (Chao) and Lauren (Tom). They would, they would be so touched. Oh, my gosh.”
The exchange brought the conversation full circle, highlighting the lived experiences of Asian immigrants to the U.S., then and now.
In addition, on Oct. 10, Tomita and Zia hosted another “Zoominar,” as she called it, with a group of AANHPI creatives that also shared why they were supporting Kamala Harris’ run for the White House. The panelists included playwright and screenwriter David Henry Hwang; writer and performer Kristina Wong; actor and comedian Amy Hill; filmmaker, director and screenwriter Freida Lee Mock; writer and journalist Jeff Yang; playwright and filmmaker Philip Kan Gotanda; writer, speaker and podcaster Phil Yu; actor Lauren Tom; actor and singer Jon Jon Briones; and writer and performer AJ Rafael.
In particular, Tomita credited Hwang in his introduction for igniting her activism through his plays such as “M. Butterfly,” an Asian-centric reworking of the Puccini opera “Madama Butterfly,” and “Yellowface,” his response to the Broadway megahit “Miss Saigon” (itself a modernized version of the “Madama Butterfly” plot), which originally starred a white actor playing an Asian character.
Hwang talked about the history of hate that Asians have endured in the U.S. For him, in particular, the experience is especially painful, as he was once attacked and stabbed in the neck. He also added, “We’ve had a lot of experience with having to deal with various stereotypes, and some of them have changed over time, but one that has remained very constant is this perpetual foreigner stereotype that is one’s forebears can have been in this country for many generations, and people still go, oh, you speak really good English or whatever — where are you really from?”
He continued, “And we’ve experienced firsthand how this stereotype dovetails with any time there is tension between the U.S. and any other Asian nation, and that Asian Americans are the first people that are caught in the crossfire. All of us experienced this very painfully during the pandemic and the spike in anti-Asian hate that continues to this day.”
The two webinars and other videos are available to view on the AA4D website at https://asianamericans4democracy.org/.
