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KC: Today is July 19th, 2023. KC: My name is Kevin. AR: And my name is Advika. KC: And we're with the Houston Asian American Archive.

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KC: We're talking today with Representative Wu about Senate Bill 147, which was proposed KC: last year but recently died. KC: And if passed, it would have introduced an alien land law that targeted countries such KC: as China, Iran and Russia.

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KC: So, thanks so much for talking with us today. GW: Thanks for having me. KC: So, to get some of your perspectives and thoughts on the bill, we'd just like to first KC: ask, for those viewing this video who are perhaps not as familiar

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KC: with–with this bill, could you briefly kind of summarize the bill and the reason why it KC: was so problematic? GW: Sure. In Texas, it's called SB 147, but this bill GW: is showing up in probably most of the states, especially Republican-controlled

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GW: states. And the numbers are different in o-other places, but they all GW: do basically the same thing. GW: And i-this is our new form of yellow peril, where people are GW: scared of whatever issues they have with China and other places,

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GW: but they're imposing it onto Americans, American citizens, GW: American immigrants. GW: But all the people who of basically Asian ancestry are gonna feel GW: this—Asian ancestry are gonna–are gonna suffer from this.

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GW: Because what these laws do is create a state-sanctioned GW: discrimination against Asian Americans for land ownership. GW: And usually these are said, like, well, it's, you know, they–they list out China, GW: Russia, Iran and North Korea.

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GW: But in reality, if you listen to them talk, it's only about China. The problem is that we're—not that we, you know, r-really have like strong feelings one way or the other what the U.S.—how the inter—U.S. interacts with China, but the problem is when you want to deal with

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China, but you impose that on Chinese Americans, that's where our issue is. And this law, what it does is it basically s-says if you're these class of people, you can't buy land, you can't own property, and in many

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places like–like Texas, that extends to mineral wealth, including oil and gas, including things that you might grow on the land. And there's just no reason for it. It's–it's ginned up fear, and it's directed at the wrong target.

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KC: So as a state representative, but also kind of reflecting on your own immigrant KC: experience, could you comment on why opposing this bill meant so much to you KC: personally? GW: Yeah, so at a really fundamental level, this is

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GW: my story. GW: Like what–what this bill does is it's the story of every Asian American who's ever GW: come to this country, and most of our community, most of the population are recent GW: immigrants that have came here in like in on the 80s and 90s.

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GW: There's a few that are— families that are older than that, been here longer, but most GW: of our stories involve coming from China, coming from Taiwan, coming from Korea, GW: wherever it is, having very little, studying, working, saving, GW: buying that first home, buying that first business and

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GW: building your career, building your business empire, whatever it is. GW: Every single Asian American can resonate with this story GW: instantly because it's either the story of you or the story of your GW: parents or the story of your grandparents.

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Being able to buy into the American dream is kind of our thing. And when you tell Asian Americans we're going to cut this off, for everyone else, including people who are here right now who have been here for a long time, that's very frightening.

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It–it makes our community a target of not only state-sanctioned discrimination, but it invites external discrimination. It invites people who have already have hate in their heart to do it. Because essentially what this is is it's a green light from the government to say, hey,

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you know, those people that you're scared of, we're scared of them too, you know, and–and–and the people who are not quite right in the head, people are—who already are filled with hate, they're going to take that and say, "I–I can hear what you're saying. I can read between the lines.

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I'm going to go buy some more guns, and I'll take care of this myself." Right? And that's the really scary part. KC: So, Kolkhorst, who proposed the bill, cites these KC: adversarial countries, you know, China, Iran, etcetera.

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KC: So, why—what do you think people like Kolkhorst are afraid of in terms of foreign KC: land purchases and national security? GW: Yeah. So, this is an interesting que-question, right? GW: So realistically, legitimately, China is an adversarial

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GW: nation, and we have strong national security interests when—in dealing with China. GW: But guess what? GW: The state legislature knows nothing about national security, GW: only what they imagine in their minds and what they saw on YouTube.

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GW: That's about it, right because there's no NSA here. GW: There's no CIA. There's no FBI. GW: There's no Secret Service. GW: There's no military intelligence.

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GW: There's no DOJ. GW: What is their information from? GW: What are they basing their fears and concerns out of? GW: Well, they're watching Fox News.

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GW: They're watching stuff on YouTube. GW: They're reading Twitter. GW: Great. Those—none of those are reliable sources of information to GW: make national de-secur-security decisions.

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GW: And that's–that's the really frustrating part because this takes away from GW: legitimate discussions of national security, right? GW: When you spend all your time doing this hokey little thing that does actually nothing, GW: then you waste all that time and effort and people aren't paying attention to the actual

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GW: dangers. So look, foreign governments own a lot of U.S . Land. In fact, foreign governments own about 1% of the total purchasable land in the United States, 1%.

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And out of that 1%, China owns less than 1%. Okay. The rest of the land is owned by—the rest of the foreign owned land is owned by Canada, Mexico, and European countries, but we don't seem to have a problem with

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them, all right. So, this is more politics than it is policy. Just like anti-trans legislation, just like anti-LGBT

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legislation, just anti-CRT legislation, anti-DEI legislation, like all of those things, the enemy and the danger is perception, and it's what's been ginned up in politics to sell in a Republican primary or whatever else it is.

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There are legitimate issues with China, but attacking Chinese Americans makes no sense at all. KC: So, to those that are still, I guess, scared of or KC: concerned about national security, you mentioned some actual dangers, b

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KC: ut what are some more appropriate ways to combat national security threats that KC: don't, you know, involve vilifying a whole group of people? GW: Yeah, so one of the biggest issues outside of the, GW: you know, unconstitutional discrimination against our community—one of the biggest

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GW: issues is simply you cannot have 50 states with 50 different policies GW: where immigrants from state to state do not know what their rights are by moving GW: across state lines. GW: You—it's simply—it's—you can't manage that.

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GW: It's–it just causes mass confusion. GW: And look, Texas of all places, is a huge investment GW: point for Asian companies, not just from China, but from Taiwan, from Japan, from GW: Korea, from all over the Eastern hemisphere, and

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GW: it's not gonna be just Chinese companies who say, you know what, we don't want to be here. GW: We don't need this. GW: We don't need to deal with this. GW: It's going to be all the Asian companies as well, because they don't know if they're

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GW: going to be next. And as much as you want to reassure them, you know, there's–there's not GW: a good way to do this. The right way to do this, if you want to address this in the GW: right way, it should be done at a federal level, right? GW: Because the federal government has purview— constitutional purview over immigration, and

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GW: so you should have the federal government decide what the rights of immigrants are in GW: this country, right? And–and also the U.S. Constitution. But, look, there are already organizations in the federal

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system that deal with this, including a group called CFIUS. That's the Committee on Foreign Investments in–in the United States, and their entire job is to vet high dollar investments in the U.S. from countries that we're concerned about, right?

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That's their entire reason for existence, and they have access to the FBI, they have access to the CIA, they have access to military intelligence and all these different things. They can actually make national security decisions, right?

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And that–that actually makes sense. If you want to do something about it, beef up CFIUS, give them more money, give them more resources, in-increase their purview, make more people have to send their investments through this filter.

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Let them—let the people who actually know what they're doing and have the tools and resources to do that job do the job. That's it. I mean, like, you know, it is absolutely absurd to think that the state of Louisiana, who can barely keep running water

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a-and streets open, that they're going to do national intelligence assessments, okay. It is mind-blowingly stupid. KC: You touched on this previously, but beyond promoting anti-Asian

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KC: sentiment in this sort of us versus them mentality, what are some other KC: broader social consequences of this bill that extends beyond just the–the Asian KC: American population? GW: Well, I mean, wa-wa-wait.

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GW: Before I move outside of the Asian population, let me–let me just talk about GW: this one more thing. Okay. GW: And I think fundamentally at the core of this GW: issue, we still return to the same old problem

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GW: for Asian Americans, and that is one simple thing: that the GW: stereotype, the racial stereotype against Asian Americans is that Asian GW: Americans are never truly Americans. GW: And Asian Americans have dealt with this problem from the day there was such a

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GW: thing as an Asian American. GW: And this whole idea is what—it provides the foundation for GW: this type of law and all the other laws that discriminate against Asian Americans in the GW: past, right?

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GW: This idea that Asians can never fully integrate into the society, we GW: can never fully be a part of American society. GW: We can never fully be American. GW: We can never be trusted to be loyal citizens.

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GW: We can never be given the opportunity to fully GW: ingratiate—in-ingrain ourselves into the society, and we have to be kept at a arm's GW: dist-arm's length. And we saw this back in the 1800s when they GW: passed very clear laws saying Chinese and Japanese people cannot own businesses,

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GW: they cannot get married, they're not allowed to have children. GW: We have it—we saw that in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, GW: right? To say these people, we don't like these kind of people, right? GW: We'll tolerate the black people.

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GW: We'll tolerate the–the Mexicans. But there's something really different about those people with yellow skin and slanty eyes, right? There's–there's something animalistic about them.

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We don't trust them. They're loyal to their home governments. And then fast forward to the er-late 1800s, early 1900s. States are passing anti-alien land laws, the same exact laws that we're talking about right now, right?

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Chinese people, Japanese people cannot purchase property. Why do they do that? You know the reasons given in Texas—Texas passed its laws when Chinese immigrants moved to South Texas to start farming

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because they were farmers, and that's all they knew how to do. And in response, the community said, these people, we don't really trust them. We don't really think they could become Americans. They can't really—they–their–their food is too weird.

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They–they talk strange, and I mean, just look at them. And they said we—it's better policy for us to keep them out of our community than risk any kind of future danger. And so they passed Texas's alien land law, right?

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About 100 years ago that said Chinese people, Japanese people are not allowed to purchase land in the state of Texas. Fast forward to World War Two, we have one side of the country where the U.S . Government looks at one side of the country and says, well, obviously German Americans

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are loyal Americans. They're real Americans and we don't have any concerns about them. And so only about 10,000 German nationals, German citizens were rounded up during World War Two.

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And the government looked at the other side of the country and looked at all the people with the yellow skin and slanty eyes and said there's something inherently different about these people. There's something we don't trust.

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There's something un-American about them. We don't think they can fully integrate into our society. We don't–we don't really think that they're Americans. And so the jap-so the American government rounded up 120,000+

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Japanese Americans, two thirds of whom were natural born U.S. Citizens. Why this discrimination? Why this disparity?

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Right? You want to go forward to Vincent Chin? Right? Where we have issues with Japan. People are upset, and they don't bother caring if somebody's actually Japanese.

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Vincent Chin was a convenient target he looked Japanese enough, and it's okay to go after him because he's not really an American. Asians can't really be Americans, right? And they're not really a part of our society.

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It's okay to beat them up. It's okay to attack them. We wouldn't attack one of our neighbors, but Asian Americans aren't really Americans. And here we are 2023,

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and we have laws across the state—I mean across the nation that affect the rights of Chinese Americans and Asian Americans in general. And people say, what's the big deal? National security is really important.

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I mean, we don't really trust these people kind of in the first place because, I mean, just look at them. Look at the way they look. Look at the way they talk. Look at the weird food that they eat.

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They can't really be Americans. And we–we pass these laws. So, this is where we are, and we can't fight these laws and fight the other

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things that will–that will continue to happen to our community and continue to repeat in history until we deal with this concept, this racist concept, that Asians can never truly be American.

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And that is the real fight, right? It's not just this law. If it's not this law, it'll be another law. If it's not th-that law, it'll be something that happens as a society.

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And we have to fight back on this concept that there is—that w-we would not accept this as a racial stereotype for any other group, right? If you just made broad, sweeping stereotypes about African Americans, Latinos, women, LGBT, you would get blasted, but if somehow

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to say that, well, we just—I think all Asian immigrants are suspect. That's okay. That's okay to say because that's what these bills are, right? To say that all Asian Americans are just inherently suspect, right

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? Wer-without regard to what they've done individually. And so here we are, over 100 years later, still fighting the same battle. And I, for one, would like this—would like to finally win this war.

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I'm tired of fighting this. And I need—what I want is for Asian Americans, number one, to stop playing up the myth of the model minority. And I know this is not y'all, but this–this is our parents, right?

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Our parents do this. They're saying, "Oh, we're the good ones." And it doesn't matter if you're–if you're East Asian, South Asian or whatever it is. It happens across our community to say like, "Oh, you know, honey–honey,

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we're–we're the good ones. We don't protest. We don't scream and yell. We just work hard.

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And we–we just–we just keep our heads down and we–we suffer." Well, the problem with that is, you know what Americans do when they get upset? They scream and they yell and they protest, right?

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And they don't sit there quietly and just work hard while they're being discriminated against. 200 years of this nation's history is Americans being pissed off and fighting back. And if we want our community to be accepted as Americans, we have to start acting

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like Americans. Americans are not quiet. Americans are loud, and we're obnoxious, and we will scream and yell and shout until we get what we want.

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And that's what we have to do. And–and before we have any other discussions about other people, we have to address our own community. We have to stop our own parents from repeating those same racist stereotypes

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that they think benefits us but ends up hurting us in the long run, right? A-and I'm not gonna get too–too deep in this, but like when, you know, when we say Asian Americans, oh, they're good workers.

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They're good at math. They're so hard working. They're so stoic. It also means that Asian Americans aren't gonna be good leaders. We're not going to be good for other jobs.

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We're—well, just keep them as workers. They don't need to be manager. They don't need a promotion. Just keep them working. They're happy. They don't complain, right?

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And so we kind of have screwed ourselves with—by perpetuating this, and I can come up matter fact for another interview if you wan-e-ever want to talk about—go more in–in depth about that. But look, I know it sounds like a long jump to go from myth

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of the model minority to alien land laws, but that's what it is, right? This concept that Asian Americans are never truly Americans, we cannot trust them is how we get to a law that says, well, we're going to flag

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all immigrants from these Asian countries as suspect. Because we don't trust them. All right. I'm sorry. I–I kind of like overrode your question. KC: No worries–no worries. So you mentioned this long—very long

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KC: and upsetting lineage of anti-Asian legislation, you know, throughout the KC: years and even today we have this widespread across state borders, KC: across many states. KC: So do you—I guess my first question is, do you foresee this pattern of

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KC: legislation supporting kind of this anti-Asian KC: or anti-foreign nation—adversarial countries sort of legislation continuing in the KC: future? And it seems that in recent years, I guess this goes into my second question, KC: in recent years there has been a great uptick in it, whether that be due to the

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KC: pandemic [GW: Yes.] or otherwise. KC: I guess, why do you think that is? KC: I guess, are there [GW: Yes.] concrete causes beyond just KC: long term.

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KC: [GW: So—] Yeah. GW: I–I get your question. So let me–let me start off with this. GW: Like, would you agree with me if I said our relationship with China right now GW: is just as bad as–as it's ever been, right?

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GW: Would that be a fair–fair statement? GW: Like, I–I don't think it's better than it used to be, and–and I don't think it's really GW: worse than it used to be. GW: Like our relationship China is just as bad as it's always been, like under Obama, China

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GW: knocked down a s-spy plane. GW: That was a big hassle. GW: There's, you know, other administrations, people caught Ch-Chinese spies. GW: They caught U.S. Spies, whatever it is.

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GW: Relationships between the U.S. GW: And China have always been like, not awesome, right? GW: And–and sometimes bad, right? GW: And that's–that's not—nothing's really changed about that, right?

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GW: It's–it's About—it's—the temperature is about where it is—has always been. GW: So what's the difference? GW: Well, the difference—and again, I–I want to preface this by saying that, look, I'm–I'm a GW: politician, I look at things through a political lens and so that's–that's my caveat

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GW: on my take on this, okay? GW: So, I think two main factors affect this. GW: One is Covid, right? GW: And I think Covid was more of a catalyst and sped things up more than

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GW: anything else, but I don't think that's a main driver, but one of the–of the things GW: I've talked about repeatedly is that the United States goes through these periodic GW: waves of anti-immigrant anti-Asian sentiment. And we've–we've seen this like 1800s—the mid 1800s have one wave.

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Then you—coming of 1882 and–and the alien land laws, there's another wave. You head off to World War Two, that's another wave. You head into the 1970s, and there's another wave. And then now you are here 30, 40, 50 years later in

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2023, and really it started a little bit earlier than that, but a-another wave of anti-immigrant anti-Asian sentiment, alright. And these things like kind of come and go, but overall, right, nothing has really

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changed, but now because of Covid, people already have this sort of like anti-China anti-Asian feeling that is now exploitable, and it's–it's already—we're—the wave already started forming. And what this legislation really does is it just rides this

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wave, right? Because—and again, this is–this is I-I'm a partisan. I'm a–I'm a Democrat, and so I'm biased on this, but my perspective is the Republican Party always finds groups of people to make

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enemies, to make into monsters, to say, look at them, those are monsters. You should be scared of them. And we did—they do this for LGBT. They did this against Muslim Americans.

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Th-they're now doing it against tra-the trans community. They're doing it against DEI and all this other stuff saying, look—oh look at all these black people trying to take stuff away from you, right? And they're creating monsters out of people who are sometimes misunderstood and

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require maybe a little more sympathy. Maybe a lot of people—probably a lot of people in the Republican sphere don't even know any Asian Americans—don't know any Chinese people, all right. Or they've taken great pains to not know them.

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And so the Asian community has always been an easy mark because our community is small, it's often misunderstood. It's easy to make up stuff about our population cause' most people just don't know a lot of Asians and they say, "well—well, Chinese people eat babies" and

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like half the people go, "oh, that's really stupid." And then the second half goes, "really?" You know? And that's where it kind of starts, right? Because you don't—like back before, you know,

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the–the–the equality movement for the LGBTQ community—you know people say like, oh—oh gay people, you don't know any gay people. And people start spreading all these things about what gay people do and how scary they are and all these other things, but it changed when people actually started meeting

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gay people. Gay people started coming out and saying, "hey, I'm gay. You've known me for years. What's the problem?" Right? But still, for Asian Americans, we—we're mostly centered around

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large population centers, right? So there's a lot of our country who's probably never even met an Asian American, right? It's only recently that Asian Americans have gotten into mainstream media, right?

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Joy Luck—Joy Luck Club, well, was a long time ago and it kind of bombed, but we didn't have, like, Asians in contemporary mainstream media for a long time, right? And with the advent of Crazy Rich Asians and all this other stuff, Shang-Chi

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and—right? For the first time, Asian Americans are seen as contemporary, but it hasn't been long, there's plenty of people out there who–who, you know, like who still hate gay people. So it's easy to ride this wave,

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and part of the problem is, as I complain about all the time, is our community is pretty quiet about it when this wave comes, and we kind of just say, well, we'll just suffer quietly and we'll work hard and we'll move on, and that is

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not the right way to handle it. And we can't keep handling it that way because these waves will keep coming and coming. So, we're—in short, the Asian

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community is an easy target. This is happening because we're an easy target, we're an easy punching bag, right? KC: So a couple more questions before I pass the baton to Advika. KC: So what do you say then to the people interested in immigrating

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KC: to the States or who have family that are interested in immigrating to the States who KC: are maybe perhaps discouraged by the current social climate in the US? KC: Can and should immigrants stay optimistic about this American dream? GW: I'm not sure what to say to them.

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GW: I don't think I need to say anything to them because they are all paying attention. GW: We've had a number of people come to us and said, look, we're about to close this GW: deal with the companies that's gon-make a multi-million dollar investment or even GW: billion dollar investment, and they're pulling out cause' even though the

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GW: law didn't pass, they don't want to risk it. GW: They said, like, if you're going to pass this kind of law, even think about it, then GW: this is not a right environment. GW: Why—why would we sink hundreds of millions of dollars, if—if not billions of dollars,

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GW: into a place that in two years we may not know that GW: we can still run our business? GW: Why would you do that? GW: Why wouldn't you go to California or New York or Chicago or some—some other place that

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GW: doesn't have these type of like inclinations? GW: And this is what I've said from the very beginning. GW: The danger of this legislation has already been done, right? GW: Even if you don't pass this law, the message has been sent,

00:28:00.120 - 00:28:14.430

GW: and it's not a message to the Chinese government. GW: Chinese government could not give a shit, right? GW: The message is for the people who actually listen to this stuff and that's businesses. It's–it's people who are considering what state to settle in after they finish their

00:28:14.670 - 00:28:32.840

PhD in robotics or PhD or their master's degree in—in mathematics and physics, right? And my concern—you know, right now in the hard sciences, the ha-like hard sciences of mathematics, physics,

00:28:32.840 - 00:28:50.870

chemistry, something like 80%, 80 to 90% of the graduate level students, Ph-especially PhD students in those fields, are not U.S. born. They're mainly coming from China and India and other parts of

00:28:50.870 - 00:29:09.560

Asia, and if we're saying to people that we desperately need to maintain the dominance of our economy to maintain our innovative tech field. If we–if we want to maintain those things, but all of our gra-master's degrees

00:29:09.560 - 00:29:20.720

and PhDs are saying, you know what? Screw it. I can go make money in China. I can go make money in India. Why do I need to stay somewhere where they're telling me openly that I'm not wanted

00:29:20.720 - 00:29:37.670

and I might be in physical danger? Why would you stay? I mean, we had people who–who that–that were interviewed around here in Texas that said like, look. If this law had been passed or even considered passing ten years ago

00:29:37.670 - 00:29:50.240

when–when they–when they were trying to deciding where to settle, they simply wouldn't have come here. I guarantee you this law has already had an effect, right? And the fact that it didn't pass doesn't matter.

00:29:51.890 - 00:30:06.530

If it passed, it would have been much worse, but this sends a very clear statement. Look at–look at–look at Florida, right? Look at that—not just–not just their alien land law, but look at the Florida Show Me Your Papers Bill, right?

00:30:06.530 - 00:30:18.960

And a bill that even its most ardent supporters say, "well, we didn't really mean it. We—it was meant as a message. It was just politics." It doesn't matter.

00:30:20.270 - 00:30:36.900

It's politics to you, but it's life and death for us, and we're not going to go be somewhere where the government says we're openly hostile to you and I'm fearful not for—not just for the state.

00:30:37.290 - 00:30:55.030

I'm fearful for our country because once we lose the diversity and the—once we stop attracting the best and the brightest from around the world, when they no longer see this place as a land of opportunity, when they no longer see America as–as–as a defender of freedom, they'll

00:30:56.900 - 00:31:07.290

go somewhere else, right? It's a global economy. So, sorry, I wish it wasn't more depressing. KC: No, thanks for sharing that.

00:31:07.440 - 00:31:19.450

KC: I think that's all the questions I have from me. KC: So, Advika has some more questions for you. GW: Okay. AR: Okay. Thank you. I just want to ask a little bit about your current involvement in the

00:31:19.450 - 00:31:34.840

AR: issue. So despite the bill ban-aiming at banning property AR: ownership by citizens of China and three other countries, you saw support amongst AR: Asians, African-Americans and others denouncing the measure. AR: What hope do you see in coalitions in support like this across minority groups of

00:31:34.840 - 00:31:44.020

AR: diverse racial backgrounds? GW: This is a great question, but I have to—I'm sorry. GW: [AR: Go ahead. No, that's [unintelligible]] This is a great question, and I—but I have to GW: correct one thing. Okay.

00:31:44.320 - 00:32:02.140

GW: I would really like for everyone, when we talk about this, not to say citizens of other GW: countries, but this affects immigrants to our country, right GW: ? Under U.S. Immigration law, everyone, every single immigrant, no matter how long you've GW: been here, no matter what your status is, you are a citizen of another country until

00:32:02.140 - 00:32:20.020

GW: the very day that you are sworn in as a U.S. GW: citizen, and–and your citizenship doesn't drop off until GW: that day. And in fact, if you're an Iranian citizen, your citizenship in Iran GW: does not drop off at all because your–your Iranian citizenship is a

00:32:20.020 - 00:32:33.640

GW: function of your parentage, not of–of your U .S. GW: citizenship, right? GW: Most Ir-most Iranians, if they're recent immigrants, are dual GW: citizens, and so I want to make

00:32:33.640 - 00:32:47.230

GW: sure that our discussion is not—we don't label people as well you're just citizens of GW: those countries. No, these are immigrants in our country. GW: These are Americans, right? GW: These are people who have chosen to get a visa, to–to study here, to invest, or to be a

00:32:47.230 - 00:33:00.940

GW: permanent citizen. These are green card holders. GW: These are people on their pathway to citizenship. GW: Okay. So, that being said, I am very GW: proud of the coalition that has formed up to help

00:33:01.870 - 00:33:14.980

GW: fight against this law, right? GW: From the very beginning, the moment we found out about the Texas bill, we called all these GW: different groups and immediately the black community GW: was the first to step up, right?

00:33:15.700 - 00:33:26.220

And a-of–of all the groups and, you know, the Asian community and black community do not have good relationships, right? And we're trying to fix that. And one of–and this is one of the ways to fix it.

00:33:26.230 - 00:33:36.800

And the black community immediately came in and said, we will support you on this. We will defend you against this because you know what? They've done this to us. They've done this to us.

00:33:36.800 - 00:33:47.320

They've redlined us. They've used land purchasing policies to hurt our community. They've done this to us. We don't want it did to you, right?

00:33:47.320 - 00:34:07.740

And immediately Latino communities came in saying—said the same thing. LU-LULAC, NALEO, people are with us because they said we understand because they've done it to us too. The Jewish community, the Muslim community also immediately

00:34:07.740 - 00:34:22.880

stepped in because of all the groups, they understand what it's like to be singled out for things and–and–and use this type of policy against them. Now, you want the irony of this legislation?

00:34:23.150 - 00:34:41.050

We, the Texas legislature, passed a bill just last session, just like a—just two years ago. SB 30 that said—that created a way for people to remove their racist deed restrictions that have been on the books since like the 1950s

00:34:41.050 - 00:34:51.040

and 60s or whatever it–it was. The—like restrictions said, well, this land can't be sold to black people, can't be sold to Latinos, and can't be sold to Jews. And sometimes they said no Chinamen either.

00:34:52.720 - 00:35:09.740

Like we created a pathway to remove those deed restrictions that–that have been in those deeds for like 100 years, and to come back the next session and say, we're going to do—we're going to reinstate all those things is just absurd.

00:35:09.760 - 00:35:24.600

So, look, civil rights is an ongoing fight. It is, as we have seen time and time again—I mean the Asian community has already dealt with the alien land laws.

00:35:24.630 - 00:35:40.420

We fought those in court and won, and to have to come back like a hundred years later and do the exact same thing is just i-it's so disrespectful. Like, come on, guys, we're worth a new type of discrimination.

00:35:40.420 - 00:35:58.790

At least come–come at us with something new, right? But the fact that all these different communities immediately saw themselves in what they were trying to do is proof that the fight for civil rights is an ongoing battle and that we

00:35:58.790 - 00:36:13.520

cannot do it alone, that we have to join —that outside of this, the Asian community needs to join with the African-American community and fight for black rights. We need to join with the Latino community. We need to join with the–the–the Jewish community, we need to join with the Muslim

00:36:13.520 - 00:36:28.850

community. We need to join with the LGBTQ community and say when you lose rights, we lose rights. And I tried to explain this to the Asian community back when Trump did the Muslim ban. I said, we got to protest this.

00:36:28.850 - 00:36:39.920

You got to be out and–and protest this. And a lot of Chinese people were like, I'm not–not Muslim. I'm Chinese. I'm not Ea-Middle Eastern looking. I'm not worried about it.

00:36:40.370 - 00:36:55.830

And I always said to them, like, it's not your name yet, but one day it will be, and that came to fruition not even a decade later. Not even ten years passed before I was proven right again.

00:36:57.610 - 00:37:14.400

So if–if there's anything that I could ask people to take away from watching this, it's—I–I would say two things. One, Asian Americans can no longer be quiet.

00:37:15.310 - 00:37:31.940

If we're quiet, that's going to be our end. Silence equals death, and the second thing is we have to be a part of a bigger picture. We can-we can't just fight for ourselves.

00:37:31.940 - 00:37:48.440

We're—there's not enough of us. We have to have other people behind us, and in order for other people to be behind us, we have to be behind them. So, you know, when we have discussions about Black Lives

00:37:48.440 - 00:38:06.420

Matter, when we have discussions about fighting anti-trans issues, when we have discussions about anti-Semitism, Asian Americans need to voluntarily step up to the table and says, we're with you. We have seen the discrimination against us, and it is

00:38:06.420 - 00:38:28.810

just as awful as the discrimination against you. So, I hope that our community will learn from this and we'll–and we'll learn to fight and learn to fight for others as well. AR: Thank you. You said earlier that the federal government should take on

00:38:28.810 - 00:38:41.080

AR: national security and immigration issues. AR: What role did the federal government play in this whole battle? AR: Did they have any control over this law at all? GW: Oh, absolutely not. I mean, I think if the federal government had anything to say, they

00:38:41.080 - 00:38:52.710

GW: would say like, hey, why are you guys messing with this? GW: You guys have no idea what you're doing. GW: You're going to ruin things. GW: You know, the–the irony is—it shouldn't be lost that

00:38:52.710 - 00:39:09.330

GW: even though that these laws are directed at like the Chinese government, GW: the Chinese government really doesn't care. GW: Most of the Chinese government and any foreign government, their right to purchase GW: land and their right to–to—and–and make acquisitions is based off of like

00:39:09.510 - 00:39:21.260

GW: U.S. Treaties that override any state law. GW: Like, you know, foreign governments that are affected by this like just look at like state GW: law versus national treaty. GW: What takes precedence?

00:39:21.260 - 00:39:34.620

GW: Like, well, you know, you can–you can decide for yourself. GW: And it's just, I–I don't know. GW: It's laughable. GW: It–it would be funny if it wasn't so cruel.

00:39:37.300 - 00:39:49.880

That's it. I mean. And I–I–I think I–I have to reiterate what I said at the beginning is this type of law is waving a knife in

00:39:49.880 - 00:40:08.070

front of the neck of the American dream for our community, right ? This is how we all got here. This is the story of the Asian-American experience. Coming to this country, working hard, buying property.

00:40:09.660 - 00:40:19.290

That's how we're here today. That's how I'm standing in front of you. That my parents did that. That's how you're on–on your Zoom because your parents did that.

00:40:20.200 - 00:40:37.880

And to say we're going to cut that off is not just cruel, but it's–it's–it's openly offensive to every single Asian American who's poured blood, sweat and tears into building this country.

00:40:43.080 - 00:40:55.560

AR: So talking about actively battling this bill, there have been ralli-rallies AR: opposing this bill in many major cities of Texas. AR: How effective do you think this was and what are your next steps regarding this issue, AR: even though the bill has died?

00:40:56.500 - 00:41:10.330

GW: Well, one of the big issues is now we're afraid the bill is going to come back. GW: We–we kind of always knew that the bill come back next session, but now is the concern is GW: the bill would be set on the special session and probably GW: later on this fall.

00:41:10.990 - 00:41:27.850

GW: And bills are easier to pass on special—during special sessions because GW: the–the attention is more focused. GW: But, you know, while–while people in the community like GW: say, "hey, Gene Wu helped kill this bill," I'm–I didn't

00:41:27.850 - 00:41:38.210

GW: really do much of anything, right? GW: It wasn't me. I didn't–I didn't, you know, bring like a–a thousand GW: people to come protest. GW: The community did that, right?

00:41:38.210 - 00:41:53.560

GW: I-I didn't bring 120 witnesses like a his-historic number of Asian GW: Americans to come testify against the bill. GW: The community did that, right? GW: I–I wasn't the one who made thousands of phone calls, text messages,

00:41:53.590 - 00:42:07.150

GW: emails, social media posts. GW: I didn't do that. GW: That was the community, and I am, and–and I keep saying GW: it again and again, I'm extremely–extremely proud of what

00:42:07.150 - 00:42:22.250

GW: our community has done and what communities around the nation have–have gotten together GW: to do. GW: Now, while other places weren't successful in defending against it, we–we were for GW: now, but whether this stuff moves forward or not

00:42:22.800 - 00:42:40.020

GW: is going to be on our community. That our community that has been so—has been silent so long, when we come out and finally scream and shout, people actually listen. And I think that's an important message for the community to learn is your voice actually

00:42:40.020 - 00:42:57.480

does matter. Like you have a voice, and you can use it and it matters and people listen to it, and we have to keep doing it. And if there–i-if there was a greater call for–for our community to register to

00:42:57.480 - 00:43:13.060

vote, to get out and vote, to–to support people who defended us, to vote against people who–who attacked us, if there was not a greater reason to do that now, I don't–I don't know what it is, right?

00:43:13.060 - 00:43:28.950

This is–this is our existential crisis because it will never end at just these laws. If they had passed this law this session, guess what? They would have come back with another law, an even more extreme law next session

00:43:29.610 - 00:43:46.050

until the community swats 'em on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and say no. It'll keep happening again and again and again because silence is acceptance. Silence is acquiescence.

00:43:46.080 - 00:44:01.760

Whatever you want to call it. AR: Let's say like, god forbid, this law is passed in the special session AR: . What can or should citizens do afterwards? AR: Is there anything they can do?

00:44:02.300 - 00:44:18.590

GW: I mean m-just like Florida—Florida passed its law just a couple of GW: months ago, and many Asian groups immediately GW: sued, immediately filed suit in federal court. GW: The court actually had one of its first hearings, I think, yesterday or the day

00:44:18.590 - 00:44:35.360

GW: before. And we would need to do something right, and—but GW: granted that we're in the Fifth Circuit and that's not always that hopeful, GW: but it's something that our community must do. GW: And even before this law passes, what I want us to do is be organized.

00:44:35.780 - 00:44:44.270

GW: We should have more organization in—within the Asian community. GW: Texas is a big place. GW: There's lots of big cities. GW: I'm really familiar with Houston.

00:44:44.270 - 00:44:57.110

GW: I don't—I know the Dallas people kind of well. GW: I don't know anybody—any Asian people in Fort Worth. GW: I don't really—I know more than a handful of Asian people in–in San GW: Antonio and, you know, a handful in Austin.

00:44:57.320 - 00:45:06.530

GW: We can't do that. These are huge Asian communities. GW: We have to unite everyone. GW: There has to be groups within those cities, and we have to have a national—or a state GW: level group that unites all these groups together.

00:45:07.100 - 00:45:26.170

GW: And–and I really want to call on our brethren, GW: our colleagues within Asian community, within the Pan Asian diaspora, GW: right? We need our South Asian friends to join us. GW: We need our Vietnamese friends who say like, well, this doesn't affect us I'm not Chinese.

00:45:26.180 - 00:45:40.430

GW: We need you to join us too, right? GW: We need everyone to join because, like I said, you know, this GW: isn't gonna just affect Chinese people. GW: This is going to affect all Asians because when this law goes in effect—when the laws

00:45:40.460 - 00:45:55.660

GW: around the nation go into effect, people who are looking to comply with the law, GW: they're not going to just say, oh, I know the difference between Chinese people GW: and Taiwanese people and Japanese people and Koreans and whoever GW: else.

00:45:55.940 - 00:46:09.410

They're gonna say, well, everybody, you know, if I'm selling this property, everybody with yellow skin and slanty eyes, don't bother coming in. We don't–w-we don't know what your immigration status is. We don't know where you're from.

00:46:09.430 - 00:46:26.740

It's easier po-policy to say no Asians. That's going to be the reason why other Asian communities need to join us. Just like the, you know, like during Covid, the attack at a Sam's Club in–in Odessa, right?

00:46:26.740 - 00:46:43.890

A man walked into a Sam's Club and started stabbing an entire family—husband, the father, the child, everybody. And all the while screaming anti-Chinese slogans, catch phrases, whatever you want to call them.

00:46:44.580 - 00:46:55.180

And the family was Burmese. And like most Asian people were like, we would never mistake Burmese for Chinese. It's like completely different parts of the world. They look–look nothing alike.

00:46:56.670 - 00:47:13.780

But to know—most non-Asians, they don't know to tell the difference. And more importantly, they don't care. Just like Vincent Chin was not Japanese, but it didn't matter. Asian is Asian.

00:47:15.140 - 00:47:25.730

And one target is as good as another. And that's the real danger. That's the real fear. And just like talking about the Muslim ban and Chinese Americans basically saying we

00:47:25.730 - 00:47:39.940

don't care, if other Asian communities say we don't care, it's still going to affect you. It's still going to come after you. You're just Asian. Nobody–nobody outside of your own community cares what kind of Asian you are,

00:47:39.940 - 00:47:54.220

right? For the rest of America, for people who have—are filled with hate, Asian is Asian. One is as good as another. So, you know, we–we need to–we need to push back on

00:47:54.220 - 00:48:14.880

this. AR: How do you think this issue regarding alien land laws and anti-Asian sentiment is going AR: to be played out based on who wins the White House in 2024? GW: I think if we have somebody in the White House who understands that intentional

00:48:14.880 - 00:48:31.690

GW: discrimination is wrong, they could at least be a backstop to GW: any type of legislation that goes too far. GW: You know, we're asking for the federal government, we're asking for our members of GW: Congress to support a law that overrides all of these state laws, right?

00:48:31.690 - 00:48:44.070

GW: Preempts all the state laws. GW: But how they do it and what kind of restrictions they–they do actually put into GW: place, we still don't know, right? GW: And that could be a real–that could be a real danger and pitfall in itself.

00:48:44.070 - 00:49:00.730

GW: And, you know, if they come back and say, like look, a-all Chinese investments GW: must be funneled—what must be vetted through CFIUS or GW: otherwise the FBI will get involved. GW: Great. Fine. Don't care, right?

00:49:00.730 - 00:49:16.470

GW: But if then—if the–if the go-federal government themselves starts putting GW: in—saying like, well, Chinese and Visa holders can't buy land or green card GW: holders can't own this type of thing, then we have real problems, right? GW: And then we say like, no, that's just—it's just the same discrimination, you're just

00:49:16.470 - 00:49:35.320

GW: doing it on a federal level, right? GW: And I'm hoping, look, if it's–if it's Biden, who GW: ha-who is–who has Asian Americans on his—in his cabinet, who ha-who GW: listens to the Asian American community and respects our community versus one of the

00:49:35.320 - 00:49:49.960

GW: Republican candidates who has openly said, you know, who—Governor DeSantis, who passed GW: the Florida–Florida law, right? GW: Or Donald Trump, who has done all this crazy shit in the past and has been very GW: carefree about the discrimination.

00:49:50.380 - 00:50:14.750

GW: You know, this is–this is an easy–easy decision. AR: Thank you. Can we just ask a few questions about your experiences as a representative? GW: It's been a long, strange journey, GW: and it's been–it's been difficult being a minority within the

00:50:14.750 - 00:50:25.700

GW: minority and, you know, at the same time trying to GW: defend the Asian community and do all this other stuff. GW: It's been rewarding at times. GW: It's been very frustrating at times.

00:50:25.700 - 00:50:40.130

GW: I—you can't really see it in the video, but I think I have a—quite a few more gray hairs GW: after this year. GW: But, you know, I–I GW: really hope that more young Asian Americans decide

00:50:40.730 - 00:50:57.400

GW: that you don't have to listen to your parents and go to law school or go to med GW: school, that you—or–or you can go–go do the things, but you can still GW: run for office, right–right? GW: And—because if there's no Asians in office, then there's no one to defend us.

00:50:57.940 - 00:51:11.790

GW: So, you know, I–I hope that the young people can GW: find their voice. GW: I hope young people can realize that we can't just rely on our GW: parents to do what's needed to be done.

00:51:11.800 - 00:51:18.790

GW: And sometimes we have to pick up the mantle and say, "mom and dad, I'm going to protect GW: you." That's it.