Remarks on Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 29, 2000

Dolly, stand up there. [Applause]

Before I took office, it had been 14 years since the last Asian-Pacific American had been appointed to the bench. I've had the honor to appoint five, and Dolly would be six. Six is a nice round number, and she ought to be part of it.

I thank her for her service in Los Angeles, serving with great distinction on the Federal Service Impasse Board helping to mediate labor disputes. And again I say, in addition to that, in her distinguished career as a civil litigator, she has, nonetheless, languished with her nomination for more than a year in the Senate. The quality of justice suffers when people like Dolly are denied a hearing and a vote. So I hope we will get it.

Third, building one America means rooting out discrimination in all its forms. Part of that means healing the wounds of the past. Our budget includes almost $5 million to preserve a number of World War II internment camps. Part of what I know about this stems from the fact that one of those camps was in my home State. We must never forget that sad chapter in our history or let fear and prejudice jeopardize our rights and our liberties.

I'll never forget when I went to Hawaii to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific; I played golf with a number of World War II veterans. And one of them told me that--he said that he was the only good example of what happened in an internment camp. He was sent to our internment camp in Arkansas, and there was--the only place that he could find anyone who made his native food was across the river in Mississippi. So he went over there and met a young woman who became his wife. They let him out of the internment camp, and he joined the military and served with distinction in our armed services. I have never forgotten that. And I still can't believe it happened. And that may be the only good story that ever came out of one of those things.

So I would say that we need to do our best to preserve those camps so that there will never be any new ones in America, and our children don't forget what happened--and the cautionary tale of how quickly good people can do bad things.

I am also really looking forward next month to awarding the Medal of Honor to 21 Asian-Pacific American veterans of World War II, including Senator Inouye. It is long overdue.

Finally, let me say, we have to do more to combat bate crimes in our society. We see case after case across our land: a man dragged to death in Texas because he was black; a young man beaten and left to die in Wyoming because he was gay; children shot in Los Angeles because of their Jewish faith; a postal worker gunned down in California because of his Filipino heritage. Hate crimes target people not because of what they do but because of who they are. And because of that, they strike at the heart of who we are as Americans. I hope we can pass the hate crimes legislation, and I hope you'll help us to do it.

I recently received a remarkable book called, "Asian American Dreams." In the book, the author, Helen Zia, notes that Asian-Pacific Americans, and I quote, "are a people in constant motion, a great work in progress, each stage more faceted and complex than before. As we overcome adversity and take on new challenges, we have evolved. Our special dynamism is our gift to America."