School Board Blog

A Recap of 2011, Best Wishes for 2012!

2012-01-01T08:46:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,

What a year it has been! From joining a bi-partisan political delegation to Southeast Asia to winning re-election with the top vote, it has been a memorable twelve months. I look forward to sharing the highlights with you and I am excited by what 2012 will bring.

Jay Chen’s 2011 Year-in-review

Getting sworn-in for a second term by State Controller John Chiang on December 8, 2011

I am pleased to report that Hacienda-La Puente Unified had another great year thanks to our outstanding teachers and staff. For the first time our district Academic Performance Index broke the coveted 800 markand we now have four schools scoring over 900. We are also the only district in California with two National Distinguished Principals!

Prudent fiscal management allowed us to weather another round of state budget cuts without layoffs or furloughs, while allowing room to expand courses; I am thrilled that we broke ground on a new culinary arts program I advocated for that will provide job-ready skills to students.

I am also proud to have made our district the first in California to recognize Fred Korematsu Day; NBC news visited Los Altos High School to report on how we incorporated Mr. Korematsu’s brave fight against WWII discrimination into our curriculum.

The need to teach tolerance was highlighted when opponents of our Mandarin language program tried to recall me, claiming the program was Communist. Thanks to strong community support, the recall fizzledout without garnering a single signature.

Seeking to raise student awareness of the political process, I organized a scholarship competition in April that asked students to formulate their own law to fix a societal problem. Hugely successful, more than 80 students from the San Gabriel Valley participated.

My free college application seminars continue to grow in popularity; volunteers helped a record 70 seniors at La Puente High School with intensive one-on-one college application and career advice.

One of the most memorable events of the year was representing the United States in a bi-partisan political delegation to Southeast Asia. It was fascinating to learn about the politics and culture of Indonesia and Malaysia, and the amazing food still haunts me!

Back home I was honored to be chosen the Democrat of the Year for my region, and I was humbled to be invited to meet President Obama at the White House; a once-in-a-lifetime experience I will never forget.

My year ended on a busy note; after a dedicated campaign I was re-elected to the board with the top vote! I am honored to have strengthened the public’s confidence in me.

However, all of the excitement of 2011 pales in comparison with what will happen in 2012; Karen and I will be getting married in Antigua, Guatemala. Thank you for sharing in our happiness, and I wish you and your family a fantastic 2012!

Sincerely,

HLPUSD Board President Jay Chen's Free College Application Review Session

2011-10-24T23:01:00.001-07:00

5 vie for 2 seats on Hacienda La Puente school board

2011-10-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

5 vie for 2 seats on Hacienda La Puente school board

Steve Scauzillo, Staff Writer

Posted: 10/10/2011 03:40:38 PM PDT

HACIENDA LA PUENTE SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATES

GLORIA ALDERETE
AGE: 62
OCCUPATION: retired school principal
PUBLIC OFFICES HELD: none
FAMILY: single
EDUCATION: B.A. from Cal State Los Angeles; M.S. from Cal State Fullerton; graduate of La Puente High School
What is one thing working at the district and one thing you would change?: The high district API (802) is due to the leadership of the superintendent, Barbara Nakaoka, and the teachers. Our business department, led by Gary Matsumoto, has kept the district financially sound. We have had no furlough days and no layoffs of teachers during these difficult times. What is not working well is the perceived division within the district - the north side vs. south side. More money and projects get allotted to the south side than the north side of the district.
—
JAY CHEN
AGE: 33
OCCUPATION: small business owner
PUBLIC OFFICES HELD: school board member (incumbent)
EDUCATION: B.A. from Harvard University, graduated from Wilson High School
What is one thing working at the district and one thing you would change?: Our district API score broke 800 this year, and the number of schools scoring over 900 has more than doubled compared to when I first entered office... We are also one of the few districts in the region that did not furlough or layoff any teaching staff... There is always room for improvement. We have aging and temporary facilities that need to be updated or replaced. I think it is important that the district improves the lines of communication it has with local stakeholders.
—
CINDY GREENUP
AGE: 48
OCCUPATION: media center aide in Hacienda La Puente Unified
PUBLIC OFFICES HELD: none
EDUCATION: B.A., secondary teaching credential, Whittier College
What is one thing working at the district and one thing you would change?: The district's focus on student achievement is working very well as evidenced by the overall API. While the district has done a great job preparing students for college, our 13.6 percent dropout rate indicates that they are not servicing all of the students. While it is desirable to prepare all students to go to college, the students who for one reason or another can't or don't want to go to college need to be offered opportunities to become successful members of our community.
—
SANDRA M. KEAT
AGE: 73
OCCUPATION: retired corporate manager, English language tutor
PUBLIC OFFICES HELD: none
EDUCATION: B.S. from Cal State Los Angeles; graduate studies in education at Cal Poly Pomona
What is one thing working at the district and one thing you would change?: Superintendent Barbara Nakaoka has been vital in raising our schools' API scores. The community feeling is that La Puente schools are not being offered opportunities that are offered to Hacienda Heights schools. A free clinic to help students prepare for SAT exams was initially offered to Hacienda Heights and not to La Puente.
—
GINO KWOK
AGE: 48
OCCUPATION: attorney
PUBLIC OFFICES HELD: none
EDUCATION: B.A. economics, UC Riverside; law degree USC law school; graduate of Los Altos High School
What is one thing working at the district and one thing you would change?: Booster groups have expressed grave concern at the ramifications of a recent legal settlement against the state claiming public schools were violating the state's constitution by charging fees for various programs. The issue is whether it is possible to maintain the quality of certain student activities (for example, performing arts) if they are financially compromised. After reviewing a summary of this settlement agreement, I believe there is a possible solution that can be implemented to maintain these programs.

After enduring 16 months of spirited debate, the glare of the national spotlight and an ill-fated recall attempt, things have quieted down in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District board room, even though a school board election is just one month away.The race among five candidates for two school board seats has not re-lit the fuse of past fireworks for several reasons.
Opponents of the two Confucius Classroom language programs, one at Wedgeworth Elementary and the other at Cederlane Middle School, did not obtain a single signature on a petition to recall board members Anita Perez, Joseph Chang, Norman Hsu and Jay Chen, who all voted for the program. The recall fizzled in June when chief opponent Rudy Obad, 74, said, "we'd be better off ... getting two people who think like us" elected on Nov. 8.
Also diminishing the flames was Hsu's decision to retire and not run for re-election. Hsu, who served for 20 years on the board, supported the Confucius Classroom program and was seen as the venerable leader of the Chinese-American community in Hacienda Heights.
Jay Chen, 33, has enthusiastically defended the Chinese-language program. Elected in 2007, Chen is the only incumbent running for re-election on Nov. 8. The Harvard graduate called opponents of the program racists and said their short-lived recall effort was "a smear campaign" that was destined for failure.
The district softened incoming criticism by voting not to accept any teachers or teachers's aides from China and to turn down the $30,000 a year that was promised from the Chinese Language Council International to fund the curriculum.
Though Obad, who would often appear in his Marine uniform to lambast the board as pro-communist, is on the ballot, he said in an interview earlier this week that he is no longer running.
"I am not running. I went back to (the county Registrar-Recorder) to try to take my name off the ballot but I could not. I'm not campaigning. I'm not putting any signs out," Obad said.
Obad, 74, said he dropped out after he did not receive the endorsement of the California School Employees Association (CSEA) despite having worked as a classified employee in Montebello schools for 32 years. The CSEA endorsement went to his opponents, Chen and challenger Gino Kwok. The duo also received the endorsement of the teachers union and the SEIU Local 99.
Chen said he supports the teaching of Mandarin and would work to "strengthen and enhance" the program. He would favor starting a Spanish language program if the community wanted it. He's been an ambassador for the Confucius classes and even appeared on national television's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" to defend the program.
Chen has gone to Washington to meet with the Obama administration on reworking the No Child Left Behind law and recently came back from a trip to Malaysia sponsored by the American Council of Young Political Leaders. He's backed by Democratic office holders Rep. Grace Napolitano, state Sen. Ed Hernandez, and state Controller John Chiang.
He touted the district's solid financial standing and said he'd like to continue working on a deal with developers to replace temporary classrooms at Wedgeworth with permanent classrooms that could involve a land swap.
Kwok, 48, a practicing attorney, said his campaign is based on his knowledge of the district, its issues and his community ties. He moved to Hacienda Heights as a child from El Salvador, where his father taught chemistry at the university. He attended Los Altos High School and his daughter attends a district elementary school.
Kwok wants to create a mentor program for current students made up of district graduates.
"When people stop me and say, can you help me and my kids, how could I ever go back on that?" he said. "I want to unify the district that includes Hacienda Heights and La Puente."
Two other candidates spoke about unifying the two-community district, the largest in the San Gabriel Valley.
Sandra Keat, 73, said she feels the Hacienda Heights side of the district is favored over the La Puente side. "I feel we have an unbalanced board that is not representing all of us," she said.
Gloria Alderete, 62, the former principal of Grazide Elementary, the highest performing school in the district, also mentioned a perceived division. "I want to bring unity. I don't always see that," she said.
As to Confucius classroom, Keat said any foreign language instruction should be reserved for middle and high school. "I have a problem teaching Mandarin at the grade school level," Keat said.
Alderete said the program should be "configured differently," with an emphasis on teaching English first from pre-K to 5th grade. She favors offering Mandarin or another foreign language in middle school and high school "as an elective." Alderete's been endorsed by former superintendent John Kramar, a main opponent of the Confucius Classroom.
Cindy Greenup, 48, is a media aide at the district. She spoke about the latest HLPUSD issue - the moving up of the school year's start from Aug. 23 to Aug. 7. The idea is to give students more instruction time between statewide assessment tests and the Advanced Placement tests taken by 11th and 12th graders.
"All the research has not been done yet," Greenup said, so she's reserving judgment. "While other districts have gone to the early start, I have to see how it affects the API and AP test scores."
Chen said he favors the early start because it gives students a true break in the winter and will help high school teachers prepare students for the AP tests.
Greenup says the district needs to listen to parents and stakeholders before making a decision on the calendar. She said during the controversy of the Confucius classroom, many members of the community were discounted. "We need a new focus in our school district," she said.
steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
626-962-8811 ext. 2237

Hacienda La Puente Teachers Association endorses Board President Jay Chen for re-election

2011-09-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

I am proud to have won the endorsement of our hard-working Hacienda La Puente Teachers Association! It is an honor to be supported by all three of our district's employee associations, including SEIU Local 99 and CSEA. Thank you for the vote of confidence. If you can walk, call, or live in the district and can place a yard sign, please let me know!

Principal Fraumeni wins National Distinguished Teacher Award

2011-09-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Principal Fraumeni for winning the National Distinguished Principal award. She will be an honored guest at the White House soon! Hacienda La Puente Unified is the only school district in California to have TWO National Distinguished Principals, the second being Bonnie Wilson. For more details on Principal Fraumeni's work, read the story below:

http://www.sgvtribune.com/highlanders/ci_18894467?source=rss

Principal Penny a national treasure in Hacienda La Puente Unified

By Richard Irwin, Staff Writer

Posted: 09/14/2011 01:57:30 PM PDT

Principal Penny Fraumeni is hugged by her students at Fairgrove Academy in La Puente. (Staff Photo by Keith Durflinger)

A penny for your thoughts may not sound like much, but when this Penny offers her thoughts, it's a treasure trove of educational advice.
You see, Penny Fraumeni is California's 2011 National Distinguished Principal. And the Hacienda La Puente Unified principal is getting ready to fly to Washington, D.C., for a White House reception, thank you very much.
"I'm excited about going to the White House, maybe I'll get to meet President or Michelle Obama," Penny said. "I also want to meet Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education."
Pretty rarified heights for a long-time resident of Hacienda Heights. But anyone who knows Penny, knows what she has achieved in the 39 years of working in education.
"This year's

Principal Penny dyed her hair purple and blue(school colors) and rode Rosie the elephant as a reward to students for reading 40, 000 books. (file photo)

selection was particularly difficult in that the finalists for the award were all truly exceptional, each having led her school through the process of making and sustaining very significant gains in student achievement," said Elementary Ed Council Executive Mike Bossi. "Despite our growing challenges, there are some wonderful leaders in California making a huge impact on instructional practice and student achievement."Hacienda La Puente Unified is the only district in the state with two National Distinguished Principals - Bonnie Wilson and Penny Fraumeni.
It would be fair to say that teaching is Penny's "dream job." Last spring, she celebrated her 65th birthday by jumping into a pool of Jell-O after her students reached

their reading goal.And while there may be room for Jell-O, there's no room for failure. Penny holds administrators, teachers, students, parents accountable for academic success.
"We're all responsible for seeing that our kids get a good education. And our test data has to prove that we're succeeding," Penny said.
Along the way, the erstwhile administrator has turned an underperforming school into a top-ranked academy.
"Our test scores were in the 600s when we

Fairgrove Academy principal Penny Fraumeni jumped into a pool full of JELLO as part of reward to students for reading thousands of books. (Raul Roa)

opened the academy in 1996," Penny recalled. "Now second and third graders are scoring over 900 in the Academic Performance Index."A great turnaround for an average school. A remarkable one for a Title 1 school, where 84 percent of the students get a free or reduced-price lunch.
Fairgrove got 860 overall in a new API report, a growth of 19 points from last year. It met its goals in all subgroups too. This year's goal is 875.
But the proud principal admitted that it's been hard work to earn this success. Her "dream" school started as a nightmare.
"When I asked Superintendent John Kramer, if I could start a magnet academy for the arts and technology, he said it would have to be an open enrollment school available to anyone in the district," Penny remembered.
The academy was given a beaten up, rundown adult education campus in La Puente.
"The paint was peeling off the walls, there wasn't a blade of grass," she said.
Fortunately, Hacienda La Puente was able to get a grant to modernize the old school.
"They gutted the buildings, only the wall studs remained. The contractor had only nine months to renovate the whole school," she said.
When the academy opened in the fall of 1996, there was no cafeteria, no library, no office, no furniture.
"The new furniture hadn't arrived, so the students sat on the floor for the first three weeks. I'm glad we had new carpeting," Penny recalled with a grin.

Penny Fraumeni spent a morning in a gorilla suit. (file photo)

The Fairgrove principal handpicked the staff of 42 teachers, selecting 16 veteran educators and 22 new instructors.
The excited staff tried traditional teaching with a touch of performing arts and a little high tech razzle-dazzle. It didn't work, test scores didn't improve for the students, who were 93 percent Hispanic.
In 2001, Fairgrove Academy was labeled a low performing school.
"We were devastated. We had spent four years of hard work and still hadn't figured it out," Penny admitted. "So we all had a good cry, then met at the Newport Marriott to refocus our efforts."
Failure was no longer an option, results would drive the academic atmosphere.
The academy would target perfect attendance.

Students at Fairgrove Academy make a human banana split out of their principal Penny. (Staff Photo by Keith Durflinger)

The students have to be in class to learn anything."So we decided to reward students with perfect attendance. We take them to the movies in November and April. Then at the end of the year, those with perfect attendance spend a day at the beach," Penny said.
Attendance skyrocketed, climbing to 98.7 percent attendance. In fact, 400 of the 900 students recorded perfect attendance last year.
Next, the staff decided their "non-negotiables," Penny said, instructional practices they would follow in every classroom.
"One of them is that lesson plans are a team project. The teachers sit down and plan their lessons together, then implement across every class in that grade level," she explained.
Every year, the staff analyzes the latest learning data, then redefines the non-negotiables based on changing student needs and new educational techniques.
"Then the teachers sit down with every student and their parents to explain their individual test scores. They show them areas for improvement and how they will accomplish the new goals," Penny said.
This year, the teachers have to complete 926 conferences by Oct. 21. The principal pointed out that more than 75 percent have already been finished.
In a recent article in the newspaper of the Association of California School Administrators, Fairgrove teacher Danita Wallace said Fraumeni "walks the walk and talks the talk, never asking or requiring her staff, parents or community to do anything that she would not do herself to improve education and the achievement of students."
Data consultants are hired to mine the new test data and break it down for the Fairgrove staff. Goals are set for areas of improvement.
The academy really is a collaborative effort. Teachers run their own staff meetings.
"Staff meetings aren't even mandatory. But every teacher usually goes to give their input and share new educational techniques that they've tried," Penny said.
A visitor only has to walk around the sprawling La Puente campus to see that this really is an art academy. Vibrant murals decorate the walls of every building. Students add new ones every year. Last year, the students painted "The Four Freedoms" by Norman Rockwell.
This year, Fairgrove is hiring professional dancer Michael Ball as its artist in residence. Ball will teach creative dance and movement.
"The kids love the arts, that's why they come here every day. We couldn't keep their attention if we didn't offer something the students enjoy doing," Penny commented.
Technology is also used. Every fourth- and fifth-grader has a laptop computer for writing classes. Laptops are also available in sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade classes.
The school has a gigantic tech lab with its own multimedia instructor. There, the students learn advanced graphics and animation.
The award-winning K-8 school promotes literacy through contests and incentives. The students earn prizes for reaching their reading goals.
Of course, the biggest prize every year is making the principal do something silly on her birthday.
"The students pick something they want me to do at the end of the year if they meet the school's reading goal," Penny said. "I've ridden elephants, worn snakes, swum with baby sharks and sat on the roof in a gorilla suit."
Which explains the Jell-O incident last year.
This year's reading goal is 40,000 books or chapters. What will be the kids' reward?
"I'm leaning toward the elephant again," Penny said.
Which probably won't go over big in a Democratic White House.
richard.irwin@sgvn.com
www.sgvn.com/highlanders
626-962-8811, ext. 2801

Nearly all Hacienda La Puente schools gain in API

2011-09-13T21:58:00.000-07:00

I'm proud of the accomplishments of our district, and the excellent teamwork between parents, students, teachers, classified, and administrators in pulling off consistent gains each year. We broke the 800 mark this fall, which is the goal set by California, but we won't stop there! The Tribune produced a great article which you can read here or below.

-------

Steve Scauzillo, Staff Writer

Posted: 09/12/2011 04:21:54 PM PDT

Read more:http://www.sgvtribune.com/ci_18879567#ixzz1XtpYi6tO

The Hacienda La Puente Unified School District has for the first time in its history cracked the 800 level in the Academic Performance Index, the target set by the state for student proficiency.
Student testing data released Aug. 31 shows the district, the largest in the San Gabriel Valley, improved from 791 last year to 802 API. Almost 75 percent of the schools in the two-community district saw API scores rise.
"We are very pleased and proud of what our students have done," Superintendent Barbara Nakaoka said.
Out of HLPUSD's 35 schools, all but six saw increases in their API scores.
The biggest drop occurred at Sierra Vista Middle School, which declined by 30 points. The score at Wedgeworth Elementary

dropped by 5 points, but at 930 it still has the highest API score in the district.Other schools that dropped were: Workman Elementary (-8 to 817); Bixby Elementary (-7 to 780); Los Altos High School (-3 to 778) and Puente Hills High School, an alternative school (-39 to 480).
Glenn A. Wilson High School's score rose 21 points from 794 to 815; La Puente High School rose 16 points from 680 to 696 and Workman High School rose by 1 point, from 697 to 698.
Most of the elementary schools posted gains.
Los Molinos Elementary, a school of only 291 students, saw its API score rise 26 points, from 902 to 928. This is the second year in a row it saw student scores rise, for a two-year increase of 52 points.

"What sets us apart is that we are afforded a more intimate setting because we are smaller," Los Molinos Principal Angela Lin said.
Besides the benefits of a smaller school community, Lin attributed the improvements to teachers who've been assigned to teach subjects that are their strengths. If a teacher feels stronger in math, he or she teaches math to all students in the school. If its science, he then teaches it to all students, she explained.
In addition, laying out the welcome mat to parental volunteers is key to Los Molinos' success, Lin said. The parent volunteers have their own room filled with construction paper, a copying machine and other materials to make posters promoting school events or for grading papers.
"It's like their home away from home," Lin said.
Other elementary schools posting remarkable gains include: Sparks (+34 to 856); Nelson (+22 to 800); Palm (+22 to 805); Sunset (+19 to 799); California (+17 to 776); Fairgrove Academy (+19 to 860) and Del Valle (+16 to 794).
Districts usually see gains from second through fifth graders taking statewide tests in English and math, then scores flatten out in middle school and decline in high school. HLPUSD did not see much decline, however.
"Our seventh graders did better on writing assessments than our fourth graders did," Lin said. "that is a huge accomplishment."
Ninety percent of fourth graders across the district scored from basic to advanced in English language arts. The figures dropped slightly, to 87 percent of ninth graders. In math, 92 percent of fourth graders scored in basic to advanced categories, while the number dropped slightly to 86 percent of seventh graders.
Nearby Walnut Valley Unified School District scored a 903 API, more than 100 points higher than HLPUSD.
Rowland Unified School District overall posted no gain, staying at 792.
steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
626-962-8811, ext. 2237

Read more:http://www.sgvtribune.com/ci_18879567#ixzz1XtoItL7r

Board President Jay Chen endorsed by SEIU Local 99

2011-09-09T18:12:00.000-07:00

I am honored to have earned the endorsement of SEIU Local 99 for my re-election campaign. The classified staff at HLPUSD are among the hardest working in our district and I learned this firsthand while working with Joyce Garcia at the La Puente High School cafeteria. I wish to thank the members of SEIU 99 for this great endorsement of my four year body of work as a school board member.

Sparks Middle School Highlighted for Teacher Collaboration

2011-09-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

Great article in Miller-McCune about the strides made by Sparks Middle School beginning five years ago, with much of the success attributed to teacher collaboration. An excerpt:

Sparks scored 807 points out of 1,000 on California’s Academic Performance Index during the 2009-2010 school year, making it No. 1 on the list of the state’s 100 middle schools serving low-income minority children. Last year, Sparks officials conducted 10 tours for visitors from other districts who wanted to learn the secret of their success.

“Every year, the teachers say the single most important thing that’s made a difference in student achievement is collaboration,” Franson says. “Any other school like us could do the same thing.”

Get your students immunized for Whooping Cough!

2011-09-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

The Tribune reports on our effort to meet the state requirement of having all students immunized for the whooping cough. If your child is not immunized by Sept 23rd, they will be excluded from school. Don't gamble with your child's education, their health or the health of other students and make sure they get immunized.

Jay Chen endorsed by California School Employees Association

2011-08-24T08:28:00.001-07:00

I am humbled and honored to have won the endorsement of the California School Employees Association with 76% of the vote. When participating in the "Walk a Day in Our Shoes" program via SEIU 99, I had the opportunity to work with our classified staff in the cafeteria of La Puente High School and got to learn firsthand their important contributions to our students. A video of my experience is below.

Hacienda La Puente district completes science lab renovations in time for new school year

2011-08-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

Hacienda La Puente district completes science lab renovations in time for new school year

Richard Irwin, Staff Writer
Posted: 08/22/2011 10:43:37 PM PDT

Teachers at La Puente High School meet Monday in the school's new science classrooms, which are part of a $12.5 million Hacienda La Puente Unified School District program to improve its science labs throughout the district. (Leo Jarzomb Staff Photographer)

The start of the new school year marks the completion of a $12.5 million project to modernize science labs in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District.
The money came from a $100 million general obligation bond passed in 2000 to modernize the district's schools.

La Puente High is the final school to open its renovated science classrooms. Science teachers at the school have been busy moving into the new labs, completed this summer.

Senior Johnathan Kalta helped one instructor move into the nearly $3 million renovation.

"The new labs are really nice," the 16-year-old said. "Last year, we had science class in the old auto shop. This year, we have modern labs."

Biology teacher Leonor Pineda said the classrooms have been a long time coming.
"When I started here seven years ago, I was teaching in a portable classroom," Pineda said. "Last year, I taught biology and earth science in an art room."

Pineda was impressed with her new science lab.

Large lab tables line the classroom's walls, each with its own sink and gas and air hookups.

A vented vapor hood stands in one corner, while an emergency shower towers in another. And soft walls allow instructors to place posters anywhere.

The expansive classroom also offers a lot of storage in hanging cabinets.

"The difference is night and day. Before, the whole class had to gather around one sink to see our work," Pineda said. "Now I have

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an Epson digital projector to show our experiment and everyone can see it from their own lab station."
The science wing at La Puente was completely gutted to build the modern labs. The project included: new insulation, lighting and utilities.

The project cost $2.9 million, according to Mark Hansberger, the district's facility director.

Last spring, Wilson High in Hacienda Heights opened eight remodeled science labs. Two labs were built out of an old shop room.

Wilson's biotech classes have drawn the attention of educators from across the state. Last spring, teachers from the region gathered at the school for a biotech workshop.

The Wilson labs cost $3.9 million, Hansberger said. Another $2.5 million was used to renovate the science labs at Workman High School in Industry.

Two years ago, Los Altos in Hacienda Heights was the first high school to receive new science classrooms, at a cost of $3.4 million. There, two modular buildings were trucked onto the school site, and a large crane assembled the science labs.

richard.irwin@sgvn.com, 626-962-8811, ext.2801

Kiwanis Club of Hacienda Heights wants to stuff a school bus

2011-08-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Kiwanis club for being such a great supporter of our schools and students!

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The Kiwanis Club of Hacienda Heights is trying to literally stuff a bus with school supplies to help local children get a good start this school year.

The school bus parked in front of the Industry Wal-Mart on Saturday, Aug. 13, won't be for passengers. It's part of the Stuff the Bus school supplies drive sponsored by the Kiwanis. The club wants to make it an annual event.

Come stuff the bus from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the Wal-Mart parking lot at the corner of Azusa and Gale Avenues.

The Kiwanis Club got a generous donation of $500 from the City of Industry Manufacturers Council to help kick-off this event.

The club will be working its youth clubs, Key Clubbers and KIWIN's from local high schools as well as Builders Clubbers in the middle schools to fill the bus with your donations.

School supplies will be donated to the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District.

Suggested supplies include: backpacks, three ring binders, loose-leaf notebook paper, spiral notebooks, pocket folders, glue sticks, pencil boxes and pencils as well as crayons, markers, rulers and scissors.

Consider stopping by to purchase your school supplies and buy a few extra to donate to the school district.

For more information, call Dave Wallach at 626-333-8426 or 714-328-2410.

Free lunch policy

Hacienda La Puente Unified School District has announced its policy for providing free and reduced price meals for
children served under the National School Lunch Program and/or School Breakfast Program. Each school and the central office have copies of the policy, which may be reviewed by any interested party.
The household size and income criteria will be used to determine eligibility for free, reduced-price or full-price meal benefits. A full explanation of income eligibility criteria is available at local schools and the district office.

Children who receive Food Stamp (FS) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs), Kinship Guardianship Assistance Payments (Kin-GAP) or Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) benefits are automatically eligible for free meals regardless of the income of the household in which they reside.

An application needs to be submitted with a case number indicated for consideration. Foster children can be included on the household application.

Application forms are being distributed to all households with a letter informing them of the availability of free and reduced-price meals for enrolled children. Applications are also available at the principal's office in each school.

To apply for free or reduced-price meal benefits, households must complete an application and return it to the school or Food Services Office for processing. Applications may be submitted at any time during the school year.

The information that households provide on the application will be used to determine meal eligibility and may be verified at any time during the school year by the program officials. Applications are now available online at www.schoollunchapp.com.

For households that do not list a Food Stamp/SNAP, CalWORKs, Kin-GAP or FDPIR case number, the application must include the names of all household members, the amount and source of the income received by each household member and the signature and corresponding last four digits of the Social Security number of an adult household member.

If the household member who signs the application does not have a Social Security number, the household member must indicate on the application that a Social Security number is not available.

Under the provisions of the free and reduced price meal policy, the determining officials, as designated by the Food Services Department, shall review applications and determine eligibility. Parents or guardians dissatisfied with the eligibility ruling may discuss the decision with the determining official on an informal basis.

Parents may also make a formal request for an appeal hearing of the decision and may do so orally or in writing with: Gary Matsumoto, chief business officer, Hacienda La Puente USD, 15959 E. Gale Ave. P.O. Box 60002, City of Industry, CA 91716-0002. The telephone number is 626-933-3920.

Parents or guardians should contact their children's school for specific information regarding the name of the determining official and/or hearing official for a specific school.

If a household member becomes unemployed or if the household size increases, the household should contact the Food Services Department. Such changes may make the children of the household eligible for benefits.

Popular Taiwanese bakery to open in Hacienda Heights

2011-08-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

Bethania Palma Markus, Staff Writer
Posted: 08/08/2011 08:06:22 PM PDT

HACIENDA HEIGHTS - San Gabriel Valley food lovers are hailing the opening of 85°C Bakery Cafe, a Taiwanese chain known for adventurous fare like sea salt coffee and frozen marble taro that draws long lines of hungry customers.
The chain's only current U.S. store is in Irvine. The second one will open Saturday at 10 a.m. at 17170 Colima Road.

"The one in Irvine, we have crazy lines and a lot of our customers on the weekend are all from this area - Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, Arcadia," operations manager Stephanie Peng said. "We figured since a lot of them come from up north, this would be a good location."

There are only a handful of the bakeries outside China and Taiwan - four in Australia and now two in the United States, Peng said.

"When I received word that they were opening in Hacienda Heights I was very, very happy," said Jay Chen, life-long Hacienda Heights resident and president of the Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District Board of Education. "Definitely there was a tinge of pride that they had chosen our community because they would be welcome anywhere they went."

The region along Colima Road is rich in authentic Asian cuisine and had long been overlooked, Chen said.

"Hacienda Heights actually has a lot of really good restaurants and really discerning consumers here," he said.

Favorite establishments include ramen houses Daikokuya and Ajisen and Japanese restaurant Honda Ya, he said.

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"Out of all the bakeries in Southern California, I think they have a very unique selection in terms of the breads and pastries," said Ricky Choi, co-founder of Foody Field Trips, a walking tour of restaurants in Pasadena and Culver City. "I see the San Gabriel Valley has become a mecca for Asian cuisine. More and more of these popular eateries are moving in to the San Gabriel Valley."

Choi's favorites at the bakery include garlic cheese bread and sea salt coffee.

And aside from its famous coffee, smoothies and pastries, the Hacienda Heights location will offer pre-made sandwiches, Peng said.

Resident and former Hacienda Heights Improvement Association board member Mike Hughes said he looks forward to the new addition.

"It's fun to get something new and trendy that's not the same thing," Hughes said. "We can always use a successful restaurant. If we can have one that's different and fun, that's great."

bethania.palma@sgvn.com, 626-962-8811, ext. 2108

Hacienda-La Puente school board member Chen returns from Malaysia, Indonesia exchange trip

2011-07-25T22:46:00.000-07:00

HACIENDA HEIGHTS - Last year, Hacienda-La Puente school board member Jay Chen got a lesson in what he called xenophobia when community members became enraged over a Chinese language and culture program being offered by the school district.

This year he got a lesson in international relations instead.

Chen was chosen as one of seven delegates to Indonesia and Malaysia for an annual trip sponsored by American Council of Young Political Leaders.

The exchange program started in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on July 15 and returned home Friday. While overseas, the delegates met with political leaders, dignitaries and members of human rights groups.

The group hit the ground running.

"Just before we arrived in Malaysia there were protests, rallies for clean elections," Chen said. "The opposition believed the ruling party hadn't engaged in fair election practices."
Chen said he also got to witness governments in Indonesia and Malaysia actively develop policies.

"It was very interesting for me to see them working through their system," Chen said. "In Indonesia they can still tinker with their constitution."

The American Council of Young Political Leaders sponsors about 30 groups every year. They visit countries all over the world, including groups from other countries who visit the United States, said Griffin Greenberg of ACYPL.

"We want to introduce young leaders that are going to go on and become national leaders at some point in their career to a sense of their counterparts in other countries," Greenberg said. "Our goal is to give them a sense of what's going on in other parts of the world."

The trips are funded by the U.S. State Department and private donations, said Libby Rosenbaum, director of outreach and development for ACYPL.

The groups sent overseas are bipartisan, she said. Chen's group consisted of three Democrats and four Republicans.

The delegates are selected by nomination, she said.

"We look for people that are moving up in the world and believe in international relations and affairs," Rosenbaum said.

Chen, who has traveled to 40 countries and speaks fluent English, Spanish and Mandarin was nominated by the Asian Pacific American Council.

Last year Chen and the school board found themselves in the national spotlight after coming under fire from residents who thought the China-funded Confucius Classroom might be a ruse for Communist indoctrination of children.

Chen insisted the program was nothing more than a language and cultural learning experience.

The controversy caught the attention of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," which featured a dead-pan interview of Chen by the program's "correspondent," Aasif Mandvi.

Chen is up for re-election in November.

Chen said he wants to encourage young people to travel in an effort to build bridges with other countries.

"When the whole Confucius Classroom controversy erupted it was very surprising because I didn't think that kind of xenophobia existed in the diverse communities of Hacienda Heights and La Puente," he said. "I always encourage students, as a school board member, to take some time off and study abroad - it will really help them in their lifetime."

bethania.palma@sgvn.com
626-962-8811, ext. 2108

Board President Jay Chen Chosen for International Political Exchange

2011-07-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

Group Will Travel Indonesia, Malaysia On Education-Oriented Program

WASHINGTON, DC – On July 8th, the American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL), an international education organization, will send a bipartisan delegation of seven American political and policy professionals to Indonesia and Malaysia. The exchange aims to educate the selected participants about national and local governance and politics in the two countries and to explore the global issues affecting each one’s bilateral relationship with the United States.
Through interactions with government officials, business and community leaders, advocacy experts, scholars, and diplomats, the young leaders will gain a better understanding of Indonesia and Malaysia as well as enhance their leadership and public diplomacy skills.

After a brief orientation in Washington, the group will depart for Jakarta, where they will meet with elected officials from various political parties, media professionals, anti-corruption agencies, and other Indonesian political players. When the group travels to Kuala Lumpur on July 15th, meetings will include Malaysian elected officials, youth agencies, members of the Prime Minister’s cabinet, interfaith councils, and others before returning home on the 22nd.

Each ACYPL exchange provides a unique opportunity for politically diverse individuals to explore common concerns and points of difference. The participants include Democrats Jay Chen (President, Hacienda-La Puente Unified Board of Education), Kristie Stiles (Principal/Partner, Bedford Grove Consulting), and Alex Cornell du Houx (Member, Maine House of Representatives) and Republicans Dan Lederman (Member, South Dakota Senate), Gwen Langley (Director of State Government Relations, Cummins, Inc.), and Matt Dollar (Member, Georgia House of Representatives). The group will be escorted throughout the program by ACYPL Chief Executive Officer Linda Rotunno, a Democrat.

Since its founding in 1966, the American Council of Young Political Leaders has designed, organized and managed unique international exchange activities for young (age 25-40) political and policy leaders worldwide who are selected based on their current political leadership roles and potential for future achievement. ACYPL programs are designed to

promote mutual understanding, respect, and friendship and to cultivate long-lasting relationships among next generation leaders. Each year, with support from the US State Department and a wide range of corporate, labor, foundation and individual partners, conduct exchanges with 25-30 countries around the world. ACYPL has a network of over 7,500 alumni in 100 countries, many whom have risen to positions of national and international prominence, including over 40 current members of the US Congress, 6 current US governors and ambassadors, and cabinet ministers and parliamentarians around the globe. For more information, please visit www.acypl.org.

Hacienda Heights student wins national art contest, heads to Capitol Hill

2011-06-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Kevin Shen is flanked by Hacienda La Puente Unified School District Superintendent Barbara Nakaoka, left, and Rep. Grace Napolitano's District Director Ben Cardenas at a ceremony at the Hsi Lai Temple in April, recognizing district winners in the 2011 Congressional Art Contest. (Courtesy photo)

HACIENDA HEIGHTS - Los Altos High School graduate Kevin Shen has had a passion for art for as long as he can remember - and those years he has spent refining his craft has won him a trip to Washington, D.C.
The Hacienda Heights resident was recently selected as a winner of the 2011 Congressional Art Contest, "An Artistic Discovery." He will represent Rep. Grace Napolitano's 38th Congressional District.

"I was surprised and excited that I actually won the competition," said Shen, 19. "Art really inspired me and really allowed me to express myself. I'm not restricted at all, which is why I always do art on my own."

Shen is flying to Washington, D.C., today for the winner's reception Wednesday on Capitol Hill. All of the winning artworks will be displayed in the halls of Congress for the next year.

"It's a really good opportunity for me to get recognized for my art skills and to be able to visit the Capitol, and I'm really excited," he said.

The art contest is a nationwide high school art competition, sponsored by members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The contest has garnered more than 650,000 entrees since it began in 1982.

Second-place winner, Janet Flores of Montebello High School, will have her artwork displayed at Napolitano's Washington, D.C., office, and third-place winner, Teresa Jeanne La Brecque of El Rancho High School, will have her art hung in the congresswoman's Santa Fe Springs office.

Winners of the 38th District were honored in a ceremony held in April at the His Lai Temple.

Shen won the competition with his black and white sketch, "Beautiful," which was inspired by the idea that people are united by culture.

"I wanted to do something that represented different cultures and the originality of each culture," said Shen, who is going to UC Berkeley in the fall. "It shows that each culture is equality beautiful."

Art teacher Ellen Marron, who has been helping Shen hone his skills for the past three years, said her students have participated in the competition for the past eight years. But this is the first win.

"This is the real reward of being an educator," she said. "You get them like diamonds in the rough, and boy do they really shine when you're done with them."

Marron's students over the years have contributed to numerous art projects around Hacienda Heights, including the 7th Avenue Gate Project, which greets visitors to the habitat trails in the area. Many of them have gone on to prestigious art schools, she said.

"That was very emotional for me," she said of Shen's win. "When you have a student for that long period of time, they're like my kids, and like any proud parent, it's very emotional."

After 37 years teaching in the Hacienda La Puente School District, Marron recently retired and said Shen's award will carry a lasting impression on her career.

"In a teacher's career, it is the icing on the cake to close the last chapter of my teaching career," she said. "It's bittersweet, but what a way to go out."

juliette.funes@sgvn.com
626-962-8811, ext. 2446

UCLA institute helps kindergarteners master Mandarin

2011-06-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

An article from UCLA Today on their expanding Mandarin language classes:

UCLA institute helps kindergarteners master Mandarin

Broadway Elementary School teacher Kennis Wong teaches her kindergartners all academic subjects in Mandarin. UCLA's Confucius Institute has helped establish Mandarin programs at four schools in Los Angeles County to bring knowledge of Chinese language, culture and arts to the community.
In a kindergarten classroom decorated with a cornucopia of Mandarin words, 5- and 6-year-olds are diligently drawing intricate Mandarin characters and trying their best to keep English out of their conversations.

Suddenly, a student notices that a large insect has landed on teacher Kennis Wong’s back. Wong quickly brushes it off as her students huddle around to get a good look at the intruder.

See the Mandarin immersion class and the kindergarteners in action in this video, where teacher Kennis Wong and UCLA Confucious Institute Director Susan Pertel Jain explain the program. "They don't know I speak English," Wong says.
Wong uses the moment to teach her students several words they don’t know in Mandarin, like "scared" and "insect."

"Were you scared when you saw the insect?" Wong asks students in Mandarin. Most of them raise their hands. Is the insect poisonous, one student asks in Mandarin. And Wong assures them that it was not.

"They understand about 90–95 percent of what I say to them now," said Wong, who teaches two kindergarten Mandarin immersion classes at Broadway Elementary School in Venice. "I am amazed because they learn so fast." And young children are more apt to learn a language fluently, even one as difficult to master as Mandarin, if they start speaking it at a young age.

The success of Broadway’s Mandarin program is even more dramatic because it’s an immersion program that teaches students all academic subjects in Chinese. It’s only the second Mandarin immersion program in the Los Angeles Unified School District and the only such class taught on the Westside, according to Susan Wang, Broadway’s principal.

Wong goes over vocabulary words with kindergartner Maya Nelson. Students are learning to write in Mandarin as well. Broadway is the only Westside public school with a Mandarin immersion program.
And while the school is predominately comprised of Latino and African American students, the Mandarin kindergarten classes are more diverse, with Asian, white and mixed-race students. At least eight of the Mandarin program’s 40 students have a parent who works at UCLA so the class is gaining a small, but loyal following among UCLA parents who want their children to learn Mandarin.

A key player in establishing Broadway’s kindergarten immersion program has been UCLA’s Confucius Institute. Broadway’s immersion program is perhaps the best example of the institute’s efforts to champion Chinese language instruction, culture and arts throughout Los Angeles County.

In 2009, the institute sent three volunteers to Broadway to teach 30 minutes of Mandarin four times a week to all its K-6 students. The volunteers also developed the class curriculum.

Two of the university’s volunteers were students in the institute’s Mandarin Teaching Scholars Program while one was a visiting faculty member from China. In return for volunteering up to 20 hours a week at Broadway, the institute provided the volunteers with scholarships, mentoring and monthly professional development sessions.

Students and parents raved about the classes so much that a year later the L.A. school district decided to create two Mandarin immersion kindergarten classes at Broadway.

"The Confucius Institute and its director, Susan Pertel Jain, have been a tremendous support to Broadway Elementary School," Wang said. "It was the institute bringing the volunteer Mandarin teachers that got the parents interested in an immersion program at Broadway."

Said Jain: "Our goal was to plant a seed at the school and get them excited about learning Chinese. The enthusiasm Broadway students, parents, teachers and administrators have shown for the Chinese program has really contributed to its expansion."

Since the institute was established in 2007, it has helped establish permanent Mandarin programs at three schools in Los Angeles County in addition to Broadway: the James A. Foshay Learning Center in South Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County School of the Arts, and the Norton Space and Aeronautics Academy in San Bernardino.

The institute also runs the Chinese Teacher Leadership Institute for California’s Mandarin teachers, prepares teachers and graduate students for a state test that enables them to teach the language, hosts a summer workshop in scholarly translation and sponsors a handful of other programs on Chinese language, culture and arts.

"The Chinese economy is set to overtake the U.S. economy by 2016," Jain said. "To remain competitive, more Americans know they need to learn Chinese and build even stronger ties with China. It just makes business sense."

This fall, Broadway will continue with two first-grade Mandarin classes and expand the program by starting another four kindergarten classes. The goal, according to principal Wang, is to offer Mandarin classes ranging from kindergarten to sixth grade.

While Spanish immersion classes have been established at some private and public schools throughout Los Angeles, a Mandarin immersion class on the Westside was difficult to find until she stumbled upon the Venice school, said Mary Cliff, whose 5-year-old daughter Joyce is in the Broadway class.

At first, Joyce was apprehensive about speaking Mandarin. But since being in the immersion class, she feels comfortable enough to converse with her grandmother, who is Chinese.

Her daughter, Cliff said, is "really pushing herself to learn the 100 high-frequency words that Miss Wong wants them to know by the end of the year."

Charles Corbett, a professor of operations and environmental management with UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, enrolled his daughter, Jessica, in the school so she will be able to converse with his wife’s Taiwanese relatives, but it will also give her a lifelong advantage, he said.

"If you speak and write like a native, you can understand the culture much more than you could otherwise," Corbett said. "The likelihood that Chinese will become a major world language — even more than it is now — is very strong. So why not give her the ability to communicate in Chinese?

"She will have an advantage in any international career she wants to pursue," he added.

Hacienda La Puente Unified School Board President Jay Chen to Meet with President Obama and Administration Officials in Washington

2011-06-16T21:59:00.001-07:00

For Immediate Release: June 16, 2011

Hacienda La Puente Unified School Board President Jay Chen to Meet with President Obama and Administration Officials in Washington

Jay Chen, President of the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District Board of Education, will travel to Washington, D.C. Friday to meet with members of the Obama administration and attend an intimate reception with the President. Jay is one of a small number of members of People for the American Way Foundation’s Young Elected Officials Network, a network of young progressives in elected office, who was invited to the White House to discuss important issues facing states and local districts around the country.

“I am honored to have an opportunity to meet with our President to discuss critical education priorities, such as reforming No Child Left Behind so that schools are not just compelled to teach to tests at the expense of a more comprehensive education. It is a pleasure to have a President that values the opinions of local elected officials and takes the time to draw them into these important conversations.”

The Young Elected Officials Network, a project of People for the American Way Foundation, provides support and training for over 600 progressive state, county and city elected officials from all 50 states.

“We are thrilled to be able to take the observations and concerns of so many young, progressive elected officials to President Obama and the Administration,” said Andrew Gillum, Executive Director of the Young Elected Officials Network. “These young leaders are on the front lines of progressive change, fighting for the values of fairness, equality and opportunity in their home communities. President Obama, a successful grassroots leader himself, understands that national movements are built by individual citizens and their elected representatives working hard to bring about positive change in their own communities. We’re tremendously proud to be able to help the President get to know our communities and discuss the issues affecting governing bodies across the country.”

Contact: Jay Chen, 626-513-2114, jaychen@gmail.com

Hacienda La Puente Unified School Board President Jay Chen to Meet with President Obama and Administration Officials in Washington

2011-06-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release:

Hacienda La Puente Unified School Board President Jay Chen to Meet with President Obama and Administration Officials in Washington

Contact: Jay Chen
June 16, 2011 626-513-2114 / jaychen@gmail.com

CA Chinese-language class foes drop recall effort

2011-06-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

By jafopvs
The Associated Press

Published: Monday, Jun. 6, 2011 - 2:34 pm

HACIENDA HEIGHTS, Calif. -- Residents of a California city have abandoned efforts to recall four members of their five-person school board over their support for a language program funded by the Chinese government.

Recall petition organizer Rudolph Obad said Monday that he and the other opponents of the so-called Confucius Classroom language program decided to use their funding to support sympathetic candidates in an upcoming school board election instead.

Four Hacienda La Puente Unified School Board members voted last year to accept funding and books for the program as part of an agreement with a Chinese government education agency.

A notice circulated by the recall backers accused the members of believing that the United States will be subservient to China and manipulating students to serve China's government, among other allegations.

The city is in east Los Angeles County.

Residents drop recall against Hacienda la Puente Unified school board members

2011-06-06T16:37:00.000-07:00

By Juliette Funes, Staff Writer

Posted: 06/05/2011 07:03:04 AM PDT

INDUSTRY - After a year of contentious debate over a Chinese-government-funded culture program at a local middle school, opponents have abandoned their efforts to recall four members of the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District.

Organizers in February launched a recall effort against board members Norman Hsu, Jay Chen, Anita Perez and Joseph Chang who voted last year to implement a Confucius Classroom at Cedarlane Middle School.

Petitioners dropped the recall three weeks ago after finding out it would cost the district $500,000 in special election costs.

"We felt that it'd be better to use that money on the kids instead of costing them," said Hacienda Heights resident Rudy Obad, 74. "We had a lot of support, more than I thought I would get."

"But I just thought even if we got the support ... we'd be better off getting new people during the elections and get two people who think like us ... and don't use communist books," Obad said of Chen and Hsu, whose terms are set to expire in November.

Chen said the recall would have been a huge a waste of taxpayer money.

"We've already spent tens of thousands of dollars responding to these petty public records requests," Chen said. "They've already impacted our school economically. This would have been taking it way too far."

Residents for the past year have aggressively fought to eliminate the controversial Confucius Classroom, an educational program funded by the Chinese Language Council International, or Hanban.

Board members were served with intent to recall notices alleging that they made an agreement with the Chinese government to "extend China's influence in the U.S." and "manipulate students to serve China's government."

The form is a precursor to circulating a petition and obtaining signatures from registered voters for a recall, which organizers ultimately did not do.

Calling the recall a "smear campaign," Chen said it was destined for failure from the beginning.

"I don't really think they cared about whether or not it was preaching communism or anything like that, but they had an agenda and they wanted to attack the school board members and this was a convenient way to do it," Chen said.

After months of outcry from residents, the district in September decided against accepting $30,000 a year to fund the program's curriculum and a teacher's aid.

Board members kept the Confucius Classroom program to broaden students' dual language skills and prepare them for a global job market, Chen said.

Still, Obad, a 30-year Marine veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, doesn't support the program.

"They're still using the communist Chinese books," he said. "I will fight communism to my last breath."

juliette.funes@sgvn.com

626-962-8811, ext. 2446

Recall Effort against School Board Members Fails in Face of Strong Community Support for Multi-lingual Education Programs

2011-05-28T18:07:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contacts:
Karen Chang: (626) 513-2114
jc.hlpusd@gmail.com

Recall Effort against School Board Members Fails in Face of Strong Community Support for Multi-lingual Education Programs

May 28, 2011

HACIENDA HEIGHTS, CALIFORNIA - May 28, 2011 - Officials at the Register-Recorder office in Los Angeles County have confirmed that the recall effort against Hacienda La Puente Unified School District (HLPUSD) Board Members Jay Chen, Norman Hsu, Joseph Chang and Anita Perez has failed. Opponents were not able to collect any signatures for their petition.

The recall effort was the culmination of months of hostility and heated rhetoric directed against four board members who initially voted to implement a Confucius Classroom at Cedarlane Middle School. Confucius Classrooms are Chinese language and culture classes that receive assistance from Hanban, an affiliate of the Chinese Ministry of Education. Participating schools can receive books, funding, and a Chinese teaching aide paid for by Hanban.

Hundreds of Confucius Classrooms already exist across the United States, including in public school districts in Tennessee, Pennsylvania , North Carolina, Rhode Island and Oregon. In Southern California, Confucius Classrooms have been established at San Diego Unified School District and Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

HLPUSD was the first district in California to have a Confucius Classroom program, and has been the only district in the nation to encounter vocal opposition. From the moment of inception, a small group of individuals protested the program as the equivalent of Communist brainwashing and opposed the teaching of Mandarin.

Opponents have also accused individual board members of being Communist agents. None of the opponents have children enrolled at Cedarlane Middle School, and some of the opponents do not reside within district boundaries.

After the board voted unanimously to accept the donation of publicly reviewed books from Hanban, opponents served four of the board members with notices of intent to recall. The fifth board member that voted to accept the books, Rudy Chavarria, was not served with a notice.

Among the allegations made in the notice, were the following:

“Board member made agreement with Chinese government agency to accept funding, books, teachers and personnel from China and to send American students to China to extend China's influence in the U.S…Believes that the United States will be subservient to China and manipulates students to serve China's government.”

Coverage of the opposition to the Chinese language class has been widespread. The Los Angeles Times, BBC, NBC, CNN, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart devoted coverage to the issue. Many stories explored the history of culture clashes in the bedroom community of Hacienda Heights, which has diversified greatly in recent years with the arrival of Latino and Asian families.

Supporters of the program launched their own campaign as well. An online petition was created that received over 1000 signatures from advocates from across the world. Supporters also regularly attended board meetings to voice their support for the program and for the targeted board members. The Roundtable of Chinese-American Organizations was instrumental in hosting press conferences to inform the community about the recall effort, and urged residents not to sign any recall petitions.

According to elections officials at the Register-Recorder office, recall proponents missed critical filing deadlines and ultimately abandoned their efforts without collecting a single signature.

“This recall movement was destined for failure from the beginning” explained HLPUSD President Jay Chen. “The stakeholders in this community, including our parents and students, absolutely love this program and recognize the advantages of and need for multi-lingualism. The broad-based support we received sent a strong message to the opponents; we will not allow our students’ education to be held hostage by the narrow views of a few extremists. I look forward to making this program more beneficial and available to more students.”

Education Trust West ranks HLPUSD highly among CA school districts, but excludes AAPIs in analysis

2011-05-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

The Education Trust-West just released their latest grades on how low-income, African-American, and Latino students fared in California school districts.

While it is an important subject, the report is flawed by the fact that they excluded the AAPI community in their analysis (they do include white students), which at more than 15% of California's population is the second largest minority group in California. How difficult could it have been to do a full, comprehensive study, instead of imply that AAPIs student needs are not worthy of study and do not contribute to the dialogue?

For what it is worth, Hacienda-La Puente did well, ranking in the top five statewide in the performance of our low-income students, and ranking 8th statewide (out of 145) for scholastic improvement among students of color (in which they do not include AAPIs) from 2006 - 2010.

I hope in the future they will improve the relevancy and usefulness of their study by including all major subgroups.

9 HLPUSD school rank a perfect "10" compared to similar schools in California

2011-05-07T08:01:00.000-07:00

San Gabriel Valley Tribune's article about the fantastic achievements made by our schools as outlined in the latest API report: 9 out of 33 campuses ranked a perfect 10 compared to similar schools in California!

---

Local schools earn perfect rankings on new API report

By Tracy Garcia, Staff Writer

Posted: 05/06/2011 05:10:51 PM PDT

Despite multiple years of state funding cuts, schools like Los Nietos Middle in West Whittier and Sparks Elementary in La Puente managed to earn perfect academic rankings of "10" when compared to similar schools in new figures released this week by the California Department of Education.

Every spring, the CDE releases two sets of rankings from 1 to 10 - with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest - for the Base Academic Performance Index, which is compiled from the previous year's state testing results.

The "statewide" rank indicates how a school performed when compared with all schools across the state.

The "similar schools" rank, however, shows how a school stacks up when compared against 100 schools

Search the new data

2010-11 API figures from the California Department of Education

with the same kind of school, teacher and student demographics.

And oftentimes, the similar-schools rank is the one that means the most to area educators, including Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District Superintendent Barbara Nakaoka.

"In my opinion, the similar-schools rank means more," said Nakaoka, adding that nine out of 33 campuses earned a perfect "10" similar-schools rank. "We're extremely pleased about that. It comes with a lot of hard work on the part of district staff, and staff at each of our schools."

Across the Whittier area, 14 campuses in six districts - East Whittier City, El Rancho Unified, Little Lake, Los Nietos, Norwalk-La Mirada Unified and Whittier Union High - received perfect ranking in either the statewide or similar-schools categories.

Among those was Los Nietos Middle in West Whittier, a predominantly Latino and low-income school that just three years ago earned a statewide and similar-schools rank of "2."

"It has been a roller coaster. But the thing that's so remarkable is that we attribute its success to, really, the success of all the schools in the district," said LNSD Superintendent Jonathan Vasquez.

"Our elementary schools are succeeding academically, and these are the kids who are going into our middle school," he said. "So for Los Nietos to be the only middle school in Los Angeles to get out of Program Improvement was a remarkable accomplishment.

"But to have it also get a similar-schools ranking of `10' is great," he said. "And it comes in our 150th anniversary, with the middle school being the oldest in the district - it's a great gift to have our middle school doing so well."

In the same district, Aeolian Elementary also scored a "10" in its similar-schools ranking.

Sparks Elementary School Principal Gregory O'Brien said fewer than 10 years ago, the 460-student campus was not only among the lowest-ranked schools in the Hacienda-La Puente School District, but in the state with statewide and similar-schools ranking of "1."

But in the past three years, it's been the school's mission to get the rankings up, O'Brien said - and the effort is focused on four words: safe, clean, kind and learn.

"That's been with us since Day One," he said. "We all know that in order for us to learn, we have to have a safe school, a clean school and we have to be kind to each other."

By teaching students how to act, O'Brien said, "We have changed behavior around completely. Now teachers are able to spend every single minute in the classroom on instruction.

"So we're very proud, and happy this took place," he said.

The figures released this week by the CDE not only including rankings, but a new 2010-11 base API score for schools that will be used as a baseline to determine their annual progress once this year's testing results are calculated this summer.

Most area schools kicked off state testing this week.

For a complete list of API rankings, visitwww.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ap/index.asp

tracy.garcia@sgvn.com

562-698-0955, ext. 3051

2011 Chinese Bridge Delegation to China

2011-04-12T18:59:00.000-07:00

Excellent opportunity for educators in the United States to visit China and learn how to strengthen Chinese programs in the U.S.A., sponsored by the College Board and Hanban (the organization the sponsors our Confucius Classroom program):

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The College Board is pleased to announce the 2011 Chinese Bridge Delegation, a week-long program in China for educators to start or strengthen their institution's Chinese programs and partnerships. School and district leaders are invited to attend this unique education trip to China as guests of Hanban (Hanban/Confucius Institute Headquarters).

The activities and itinerary of this program are focused on partnership-building, school visits and educational workshops. Participants will gather valuable resources to help them build and expand their Chinese programs, and more.

The delegation provides an opportunity to:

Visit Chinese K-12 schools, meet with Chinese educators and observe classes.
Establish meaningful partnerships with Chinese schools and network with U.S. colleagues.
Attend presentations on best practices and learn about resources to build and support Chinese language and culture programs.
Experience China firsthand and marvel at the rich traditional culture set against stunning modern development.

Dates

November 3-11, 2011

Who is eligible?

District and school leaders from institutions developing new Chinese programs.
Educators from institutions already offering Chinese language and culture programs are encouraged to apply.
Multiple applicants from the same institution will be considered. Each applicant is required to submit an individual application.
Participants in previous Chinese Bridge Delegations are not eligible to participate.

Note: All selected participants are expected to be actively involved in, and able to speak about, their institution's efforts to build or expand a Chinese language and culture program.

All applications are subject to individual review and approval and compliance with applicable laws.

Cost to delegates

Delegates must pay a $900 non-refundable registration fee. Delegates are also responsible for costs and arrangements related to domestic travel to a designated U.S. departure hub and travel insurance.

What is included?

The following costs are covered by the program:

International round-trip air tickets to Beijing from designated U.S. hub cities (delegates will be assigned and notified of U.S. hub city for international departure on group flights.)
Travel costs in China, including hotel accommodations; group meals; tour guides and admission tickets; and local and inter-city transportation costs
Chinese tourist visa fees

Do I need a passport?

Yes! Delegates are required to have a valid passport with at least six (6) months validity from the date of departure (i.e. with an expiration date of May 3, 2012 or later). Proof of a valid passport will be required to confirm participation of selected applicants.

Note: If you do not have a valid passport, please obtain one immediately. For more information, please visit:
http://travel.state.gov/passport.

How can I apply to join the Delegation?

Application deadline: June 3, 2011. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Submit your online application here.

Looking for more information?

Delaying college with a catch

2011-04-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

Story in the NYTimes about a growing practice of colleges to give deferred admissions:

"For as long as there have been selective colleges, the spring ritual has been the same: Some applicants get a warm note of acceptance, and the rest get a curt rejection. Now, as colleges are increasingly swamped with applications, a small but growing number are offering a third option: guaranteed admission if the student attends another institution for a year or two and earns a prescribed grade-point average.

This little-noticed practice — an unusual mix of early admission and delayed gratification — has allowed colleges to tap their growing pools of eager candidates to help counter the enrollment slump that most institutions suffer later on, as the accepted students drop out, transfer, study abroad or take internships off campus."

38th Congressional District Art Competition at Hsi Lai Temple

2011-04-11T22:03:00.000-07:00

First place winner Kevin Shen

Award winners at 38th Congressional Art District Competition

Not sure if non-Facebook users can see this, but this is a nice little video of the Congressional Art Competition that I MC'd this weekend. Congresswoman Grace Napolitano hosts this competition each year and this year held it at the beautiful Hsi Lai Temple. I was incredibly impressed by the quality of art that was produced by the high school students of the 38th Congressional District. Hacienda La Puente represented very well, with several students winning awards. First place went to Kevin Shen, of Los Altos High School. He wins a free ticket to DC thanks to Southwest Airlines and his artwork will be displayed in the halls of Congress.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1805759856987

Highlighting our Administrators

2011-04-06T12:06:00.001-07:00

This Friday our Chief Business Officer Gary Matsumoto will become the next President of the California Association of School Business Officers. It's a remarkable accomplishment and highlights something that we have all known; Gary is very good at what he does, as evidenced by our district being one of the few to not have K-12 layoffs or furloughs, in all of California. We're proud to have him.

His promotion is just the latest statewide recognition by our very talented staff. I did a quick search and came up with a few more: Gayle Rogers, Director of Student and Family Services up until she retired last year, was named the Pupil Personnel Administrator of the Year by the Association of California School Administrators for 2010.

Beth Nishida, our Director of Special Education was named the Special Education Administrator of the Year by ACSA in 2009.

Cindy Parulan-Colfer, our Associate Superintendent of Adult Education, was given the Robert Rupert Award by the California Council for Adult Education last year.

I'm sure I am missing many other recognitions, and if you know of any please send them my way and I will include them. We are incredibly lucky to have such talented leadership at all levels and divisions of our district, and I would venture to say we are overrepresented in leadership recognition for a district of our size...and proud of it. We've got great employees but don't take my word for it, ask their peers!

Census Shows Hispanic and Asian Children Surging as Whites, Blacks Shrink

2011-04-06T10:34:00.000-07:00

Interesting news from the U.S. Census: nonwhites accounted for all of the growth in the youth population from 2000 to 2010. These shifts will likely impact the way schools provide their services.

"Frey said the new trends could be useful for school systems and policymakers who need to provide services for different youth populations and who need to “bridge the divide between older white residents who don’t see the needs of some of those younger more diverse populations.”" - LATimes

I thought this quote was particularly salient given the what has been happening in our school district.

From the LATimes:

The demographic picture of children in California and nationwide is changing dramatically, as nonwhites accounted for all the growth in the youth population from 2000 to 2010, according to a report released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.

The study authored by William Frey used new data from the 2010 U.S. Census to find the nationwide population of white children declined by 4.3 million, while Asian and Latino children grew by 5.5 million.

“It’s an old story for Los Angeles, but it’s a new story for most of the rest of the country,” Frey said Wednesday. “California and Los Angeles are on the front lines of this.”

Frey said the new trends could be useful for school systems and policymakers who need to provide services for different youth populations and who need to “bridge the divide between older white residents who don’t see the needs of some of those younger more diverse populations.”

He said California and the greater Los Angeles area would likely be looked to as “guideposts” in how to best readjust to the demographic shifts because the issue is not as fresh in the state.

Another finding from the study was that 10 states and 35 metropolitan areas, including California and the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana area, have minority white children populations.

In California, 27% of all children are white, 6% are black, and 51% are Latino.

In the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana area, 21% of children are white, 58% are Latino and 6% are black, the study showed.

The population of children in California grew by less than 5% over the last decade, and among areas of the country gaining children, Los Angeles was the only major city to witness a decline in Latino youth.

Language Immersion Today

2011-04-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

This was a website forwarded to me by some folks at Culver City Unified... they have been a language immersion district for 40 years, an amazing accomplishment! A great website for parents and teachers who are interested in language immersion.

Check out their site: http://languageimmersiontoday.org/

Hacienda Heights for Progress

2011-03-31T23:21:00.000-07:00

Some recent graduates, residents, and current students have created a progressive new organization called "Hacienda Heights for Progress." It's great to see young people with a real concern for the community expressing themselves through such a vehicle.

They were initially inspired to create this organization due to some of the more vitriolic statements that they had heard at our board meetings, including some verbal abuse that was thrown their way by opponents who did not appreciate their speaking up, who have called them anything from "Red Guards" to "infantile."

Besides standing up to the xenophobia some are espousing in the community, they are also addressing other everyday issues, such as the need for crosswalks near Los Altos High School. They are also helping to advertise community and school related events. It's a young organization that just got started but is already embarking on the critical job of reporting on hyperlocal news, a growing trend. It's inspiring to see young people so fired up about their community!

Garden at Los Molinos

2011-03-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

Following in the footsteps of Los Altos Elementary school, Los Molinos now has a school garden as well, and the sweet peas seem to be exceptionally healthy. Much better than mine!

Happy 40th Anniversary to our district!

2011-03-19T16:07:00.000-07:00

With a student and staff member form Wedgeworth Elementary

Today we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District. Previous to the creation of our unified school district we were the La Puente Union High School District and the Hudson District. Unification has allowed us to streamline and better coordinate education from K-12. The anniversary was celebrated at the Industry Hills Expo Center, an organization that has always been immensely supportive of our students. There were hundreds of parents, students, teachers and administrators in attendance, as well as many retired principals and a retired Superintendent and Board Member (Sandy Johnson). I was proud to be a part of the HLPUSD family!

Afterward I attended the Taste of Los Altos fundraiser held in the gym of Los Altos, and enjoyed some great food provided by the parent band boosters, a very hard working bunch. Oh, and the kiwi green fleece is courtesy of HLPUSD afterschool programs... this way we can spot our staff more easily. Very comfortable.

Harvard Asian American Policy Review: Confucian Confusion

2011-03-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

Asian American Policy Review: 2011 Edition

Confucian Confusion

by Jay Chen

Becoming the youngest board member in district history and setting a record for the most votes received by a first-time candidate, Jay Chen was elected to the Board of Education for the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in California in November 2007. Chen, who is serving the same Hacienda Heights public school district from which he graduated in 1996, graduated from Harvard University and previously was a management consultant with Bain & Company and TechnoServe. He also worked in Central and South America as a travel writer for Let’s Go publications. Chen was elected to be the pledged delegate from his congressional district for U.S. President Barack Obama during the 2008 Democratic National Convention and helped mobilize nearly 100 Asian American activists to campaign for Obama in the critical swing state of Nevada. He was elected to the California Democratic State Central Committee with the top vote in 2009. Fluent in Mandarin and Spanish, he is a recipient of the Lions Clubs International Leo of the Year Award and has also been an education columnist for the local press.

As public schools across the United States grapple with the effects of the worst economic climate since the Great Depression, in which the only things that seem poised for growth are budget cuts, layoffs, and achievement gaps, it is surprising that the most controversial issue to hit my school district concerns the acceptance of free books and funding to expand a Chinese language class for some of our students.

But as a member of the Board of Education for the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in California, that’s the twilight zone I’ve been embroiled in since January 2010. It was then that the board approved an agreement with the nonprofit Hanban, which is affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education, to create what is called a Confucius Classroom at Cedarlane, a predominately Latino middle school in Hacienda Heights, CA.

Since 2009, Cedarlane has been offering a popular introductory Chinese language and culture elective to sixth- and seventh-grade students. Besides learning simple phrases and songs, students get a primer on traditional Chinese customs, such as learning about the Chinese New Year and the zodiac characters. For most participating students, this is their first formal exposure to Chinese culture.

The agreement with Hanban helps Cedarlane expand the existing program to more students by providing additional books (with nearly 1,000 to choose from) and up to $30,000 in support to purchase computers or to fund field trips. Like any donation received by the school, the books must be screened for appropriateness, and like any other class at the school, the Chinese course is taught by a certificated teacher based on a curriculum that is board-approved. By becoming part of the international Confucius Classroom network the Cedarlane class itself remains unchanged; it just becomes available to more students.

The Opposition

While many, including myself, see this association with Hanban as an innovative opportunity to educate more students at no extra cost—especially important during a recession—our board meetings have incurred a small but outspoken cadre of vocal opponents since the decision was made. Among others, this group includes a former district superintendent, elderly war veterans, local retirees, and a disgruntled former professional basketball player for a team in China. What they all share in common, besides not having any children in the district (many don’t even live in the district), are steadfast accusations that the school board is trying to promote Communism in the classroom.

As retiree Bobby Fraker stated to the Associated Press, “These children have young brains that are very malleable, and they can be indoctrinated with things that America would not like” (Adelman 2010). Ex-superintendent John Kramar, who was my superintendent when I was a student in the district, said to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune (2010b) that the program would become a vessel of political and philosophical propaganda and that “culture has no place in the classroom,” a sentiment also shared by retired school maintenance worker Rudy Chavarria, the lone board member of the five to vote against the measure (San Gabriel Valley Tribune 2010a; Velazquez 2010a, 2010b). Resident Teresa Macias was more blunt with her criticisms, proclaiming that “if it comes from Communist China, it is tainted with Communism” (Mandvi 2010).

It is not just this particular class that the critics oppose; practically everything related to China has become a target, including training opportunities for teachers and administrators, study abroad opportunities for students, and unrelated personal trips made to China by board members. The situation has become personal, with me being labeled by one opponent as a Marxist due to my education at Harvard. Extra security has been called for meetings, and one board member has retained legal counsel to protect himself from slander.

The opposition has engaged in a paper war aimed at ferreting out any evidence of collusion between board members and Communist China. Our district has already spent more than $30,000 (and rising) in legal and administrative fees to respond to Public Records Act requests that have been lodged, including a demand for all e-mail messages ever exchanged between any board members who voted yes on the Confucius Classroom. If their modus operandi was to eliminate the financial benefit the district was getting from the program, they arguably have achieved it.

The opponents to the program have found a staunch ally in the editorial pages of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, which has covered the controversy zealously. One editorial compared the Chinese government’s promotion of Chinese language and culture to the Venezuelan government teaching economics (San Gabriel Valley Tribune 2010a). That Chinese language and culture actually originated in China, making the country’s educators somewhat knowledgeable on the subject, was apparently beside the point.

A more recent editorial by the Tribune went so far as to state that Chinese classes should only be taught by American citizens of primarily Taiwanese background (San Gabriel Valley Tribune 2010b). That our laws allow anyone with legal working status to be employed, including immigrants with a work visa or green card, is apparently irrelevant, as is the fact that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 deems discrimination in hiring based on race and national origin illegal.

Indeed, attending one of our board meetings on a night where there are rancorous public comments, during which reason, civility, and civil rights seem to be thrown out the window, or reading the sensationalized local newspapers can feel like a step back in time to the McCarthy era of the 1950s.

This is not to say that we have not had our share of supporters as well. The parents at Cedarlane have expressed nothing but enthusiasm for the new Chinese elective, the arrival of which happened to coincide with a whopping fifty-six-point improvement in the school’s Academic Performance Index score (California’s statewide school evaluation system). This number is among the highest gains of any school in Los Angeles County. Current students, parents, and community members have voiced their support for the program during public comment (that is, when opponents have not shouted them down) and have refuted the opposition’s claims to the point that they feel numb and silly from repeating themselves. More objective coverage, compared to the locals, has come from the national press with the Associated Press, Fox News, the Los Angeles Times, NBC, and most recently BBC and The Daily Show with John Stewart covering the issue.

The Chinese Language Council International (Hanban)

Ostensibly at the center of all this unease is Hanban, the public institution affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education whose purpose is to provide Chinese language and cultural resources around the world, the same way the United States encourages a better understanding of itself through the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Peace Corps. Alliance Francaise and the Goethe Institute accomplish similar goals for France and Germany, respectively.

While relatively unknown to most Americans, Hanban is already quite established and respected among educators and policy makers. In 2006 the College Board, which administers the SAT and AP tests that are a prerequisite for admission to selective U.S. colleges, began a partnership with Hanban to provide AP Chinese classes and training for U.S. Chinese teachers (College Board 2006).

The Asia Society, upon whose board sit leading U.S. industrialists and policy makers including John Negroponte (former director of U.S. intelligence) and West Virginia Senator John D. Rockefeller, agreed in 2009 to help Hanban create 100 Confucius Classrooms over the next three years in the United States (Asia Society 2010).

Through the Confucius Classroom program schools can request Chinese teaching aides to come to their districts at little or no cost to the district, fulfilling one of the goals established by former U.S. President George W. Bush’s 2005 National Security Language Initiative, which named Chinese a strategic language and encouraged the recruitment of foreign students to teach at U.S. colleges to make up for the shortage of qualified U.S. language teachers (Brown 2005).

From Oregon to Rhode Island, dozens of schools across the country have already taken advantage of this program, and to date there are more than sixty Confucius Classrooms across the United States and hundreds more around the globe. News archives show that none of these schools has experienced the type of backlash we have encountered in Hacienda Heights, and most importantly, none of the classes have reported any of the Communist brainwashing fervently predicted by our opponents, who also seem to ignore that Communism is already taught as part of our regular curriculum of social studies, world history and U.S. history.

Why Study Chinese?

The need for Americans to learn Chinese is probably obvious to readers of this journal. At the very least, it will help reduce the number of people getting embarrassing tattoos. On a more worldly level, Chinese is already the most widely spoken first language in the world, and in 2010 China overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. It is only a matter of time before China overtakes the United States as producer and consumer in chief.

If the United States wants to secure its foothold in the world that China is rapidly remaking, we will have to begin committing at least a fraction of the energy to studying China as that country has committed to studying us. In 2010, more than 120,000 Chinese graduate and undergraduate students filled U.S. campuses, a 30% increase from the year before, helping China surpass India as the number-one source of foreign students studying in the United States (Strauss 2010). In contrast, during the 2008-2009 academic year there were fewer than 14,000 American students studying in China (Embassy of the United States 2010).

The Chinese students that are making the leap to understand America are getting younger as well. While most of the Chinese students in the United States are in graduate school, there was a 50 percent increase in college freshmen in 2009-2010 over 2008-2009 (Strauss 2010). Couple this with the fact that practically all of these students are ineligible for financial aid and are paying the full tuition that American families are less and less able to afford, and it becomes clear that the Chinese see tremendous value in learning from us and about us at an earlier age. Shouldn’t we be reciprocating?

The failure of Internet behemoths such as Google and Yahoo to establish a presence in the world’s largest Internet market indicates that China is not going to be a passive consumer of U.S. products but will be a producer, innovator, and fierce competitor. We ignore the language and culture of this country at our own economic peril, a lesson not lost on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who told a Stanford audience that “I’m taking an hour a day, and I’m learning Chinese. I’m trying to understand the language, the culture, the mind-set—it’s just such an important part of the world. How can you connect the whole world if you leave out 1.6 billion people?” (News.com.au 2010).

The need to understand China is even understood by the staunchest opponents of the Confucius Classroom in Hacienda Heights. In fact, and quite ironically, the strongest opponents of our program have initiated similar programs in the past. It was Superintendent John Kramar who created our district’s first sister-school partnership with a Communist Chinese school in 1997, right after I graduated from this district, when China was a far more Communist state than it is today. He subsequently made two trips to China as part of an official school delegation, in 1997 and 1999, the same type of trip that he and his cohorts are now scrutinizing.

Bobby Fraker, as the founder of the student exchange program World Experience, not only brings students from countries such as the Czech Republic to Hacienda Heights, but also places American students in the People’s Republic of China, which conceivably would put them at even greater risk of the indoctrination she claims would take place if they studied Chinese in the comfort of Hacienda Heights (Irwin 2010; World Experience n.d.). Obviously, there is a disconnect somewhere. If these individuals have initiated similar education programs and pursued similar goals in the past, what have they really been protesting?

A Fear of the Growing Chinese Diaspora

While I do not doubt that some of the opponents are sincerely confused about the purpose of this Chinese class at Cedarlane and that some actually believe there are Communist messages hidden in the flash cards and picture books, I also suspect that what made our community a flash point for dissent was not just what was being taught but who was making the decision for it to be taught. Suffice it to say, our school board does not look anything like the governing bodies in Tennessee, North Carolina, and the multitude of other districts that have implemented Confucius Classrooms without suspicion or complaint.

At first glance, Hacienda Heights would not seem a likely candidate for cultural strife. Decades ago this was the quintessential Leave It to Beaver town, and in the 1980s it was still all-American enough for the movie Back to the Future to use it as a backdrop. Good schools plus a lift on immigration quotas kicked off a steady influx of Taiwanese families in the 1970s, and while generally welcomed by preceding residents, tensions and fissures eventually took shape.

In the mid-1980s protests erupted over a plan to build a Taiwanese Buddhist temple in the hills of Hacienda Heights over fears of gong-banging and animal sacrifices. The temple was eventually completed (and remains the largest in North America), but in 1996 Hacienda Heights again found itself at the heart of controversy when a visit to the Buddhist temple from former U.S. Vice President Al Gore fed into ongoing accusations that China was trying to funnel donations to the Democratic party. A political witch-hunt ensued in which donors with Asian-sounding names were investigated and harassed on their right to contribute to the democratic system, a traumatizing event that cast a pall over Asian American political participation nationwide for many years.

Hacienda Heights remains an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County in part because of these tensions. Multiple efforts for city-hood have gone down in flames at the ballot box over the decades, with the latest occurring in 2003 after fears were raised of Chinese American candidates dominating the council (Adelman 2010).

Nevertheless, after a vigorous campaign in 2007 I surprised many by winning a seat on the school board to became the third Asian American on a board of five, pushing our district into the rarified realm of majority Asian governing boards overseeing minority Asian communities (according to the 2000 Census Hacienda Heights is 41 percent White and 36 percent Asian). While the vast majority of residents do not find the racial composition of the board to be an issue, a small minority have and still do. For them, generating opposition to the Confucius Classroom program has been a convenient proxy for highlighting and attacking the Asianness of our school board, though they have not been shy about doing the latter either. In fact, during my most recent interaction with one opponent, Rudy Obad, which was captured by BBC, he proclaimed that he had “more of a right to be in this country” than I did, and at a recent board meeting, he demanded that board member Norman Hsu go back to China “and stay there!”

That our district is the first in the United States with a majority Asian board to adopt a Confucius Classroom and is also the first to receive any racist blowback from opponents—some of whom have supported similar opportunities in the past—is more than just happenstance. It speaks to a festering xenophobia lurking beneath the surface of our communities in which innocent motivations can be too easily questioned and unfairly clouded merely because of the color of one’s skin or the sound of a last name.

Anti-Sinoism is an issue that Chinese and Taiwanese Americans will confront with greater frequency as China continues its acceleration and the United States continues a shaky recovery that has left more and more Americans unsettled and seeking answers. The rise of anti-Sinoism in the face of uncertainty is nothing new in U.S. history. Leland Stanford rode that sentiment all the way to the California governor’s mansion in 1862, proclaiming in his inauguration speech that “the settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged by every legitimate means. Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population” (Stanford 1862). Within twenty years that belief had gone national and the Chinese Exclusion Act was created, marking the first and only time that a racial group was specifically barred from entering the United States. It was not until World War II and our need to ally with China that the act was revoked.

China’s reemergence on the world stage after decades of civil and cultural revolution following the second World War reignited suspicion toward ethnic Chinese in the United States, as best exemplified by the aforementioned accusations of illegal campaign contributions from the Chinese and Taiwanese community and by the race-based persecution of Wen Ho Lee, a nuclear scientist investigated for espionage, in 1999.

Prejudices are rarely accused of being well-reasoned, and anti-Sinoism certainly does not break that mold, as seen by the habit of practitioners to haphazardly conflate Taiwanese and Chinese loyalties, despite the fact that the two nations have been at odds with one another for more than half a century and more than a thousand missiles stand ready for launch across the Taiwan Strait.

Not surprisingly, facts such as all three Asian board members having roots in Taiwan (my parents were born there)—not China—and one board member actually fleeing Indonesia to Taiwan to escape Communism are not enough to dissuade opponents of the Confucius Classroom that a sinister Chinese conspiracy is not taking place. It also doesn’t seem to matter that the program is serving a primarily non-Chinese community.

Despite the mudslinging, recall threats, and heated rhetoric I’ve been confronted with, I am glad that I am in this position. Far too many elected officials from both sides of the aisle choose to incite fear, rather than understanding, from the foreign and the unknown. The 2010 midterm elections, which featured an enormous uptick in anti-China fearmongering, are the most recent example of this abdication of responsibility (Chin 2010). That is why I am convinced of the need to expand language and culture offerings beyond and before the typical high school requirements, as we have through our innovative Cedarlane program and our dual-language Mandarin immersion program at nearby Wedgeworth Elementary School. We must prepare future generations to do more than just complain about the changing world around them; we must train them to be able to compete.

References

Adelman, Jacob. 2010. Hacienda Heights clashes over Confucius. Associated Press, April 25.

Asia Society. 2010. Asia Society Confucius Classrooms Network. Education and Learning, Asia Society (http://asiasociety.org/education-learning/chinese-language-initiatives/asia-society-confucius-classrooms-network).

Brown, Sarah. 2005. Bush announces strategic language initiative. Daily Princetonian, December 16 (www.dailyprincetonian.com/2005/12/16/14188).

Chin, Josh. 2010. Fear mongering 101: Anti-China campaign ads. China Real Time Report Blog, Wall Street Journal, October 22 (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/10/22/fear-mongering-101-anti-china-campaign-ads/?mod=rss_WSJBlog).

College Board. 2006. China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and the College Board announce new Chinese language and culture initiative. College Board Press Release, April 19.

Embassy of the United States, Beijing, China. 2010. Record number of Chinese students studying at United States colleges and universities. Press Release, November 15 (http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/111610p.html).

Irwin, Richard. 2010. Foreign exchange students welcomed by World Experience in Hacienda Heights. San Gabriel Valley Tribune, July 29.

Mandvi, Aasif. 2010. Socialism studies. Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 8.

News.com.au. 2010. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg determined to learn Chinese language. News.com.au, October 19 (www.news.com.au/technology/facebook-founder-mark-zuckerberg-determined-to-learn-chinese-language/story-e6frfro0-1225940614496).

San Gabriel Valley Tribune Editorial. 2010a. Our view: Cancel “Confucius classroom.” San Gabriel Valley Tribune, February 11.

———. 2010b. Our view: Hacienda La Puente school board makes right move. San Gabriel Valley Tribune, September 16.

Stanford, Leland. 1862. Inaugural address. Delivered January 10 (http://governors.library.ca.gov/addresses/08-Stanford.html).

Strauss, Valerie. 2010. China overtakes India as No. 1 source of foreign students in U.S. The Answer Sheet Blog, Washington Post, November 15 (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/research/china-overtakes-india-as-no-1.html).

World Experience. n.d. People’s Republic of China (www.worldexperience.org/programs.php?id=38).

Velazquez, Maritza. 2010a. China class materials stoke ire; Indoctrination claim dismissed by teachers. San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 21.

———. 2010b. Hacienda La Puente Unified School Board votes to implement “Confucius Classroom.” San Gabriel Valley Tribune, February 2.

Endnotes

For examples of people receiving tattoos of Chinese characters that do not mean what they thought they meant, see the blog, “Hanzi Smatter: Dedicated to the Misuse of Chinese Characters in Western Culture,” http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/.

La Opinion article on Confucius Classroom controversy

2011-02-28T10:05:00.000-08:00

La Opinion did a very fair article on our Confucius Classroom. Click here to see the Spanish version. The English translation courtesy of Google Translate is below.
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TEACHING OF CHINESE DIVIDES A COMMUNITY
Recall sought against board members of Hacienda La Puente

By Yolanda Arenales, La Opinion
February 28, 2011

With an Academic Performance Index near 800 points, and financial strength that has enabled them to avoid layoffs and increased class sizes, many would say that the School District Hacienda-La Puente (HLPUSD) is an oasis in the midst of the storm.

But on the school board weighs the threat of challenge to four of its five members, which some residents accused of "infiltrating communism in their schools."

"Since we started the program Confucius Classroom, a small group of individuals has launched accusations against members of the Board, and now are attempting a recall," says Jay Chen, President of the Board, and defender of linguistic plurality.

Confucius Classrooms, the controversial program, is similar to the Spanish Cervantes Institute or the German Goethe and promotes the learning of their languages and cultures around the world and is taught in a dozen schools across the country, after having requested the Institute Hanban / Confucius, the Ministry of Education of China. Recipients receive free textbooks, reading materials, and even $ 30,000 for materials and tours of an academic nature. They may also request the free services of a teaching assistant.

But because of the debate and in an attempt to appease the community, HLPUSD has undertaken not to use funds provided by Hanban, simply deciding to retain the donated books.

The term of Chen, who speaks Mandarin and Spanish, and English, ends in December. But opponents have already begun collecting signatures to challenge his position as well as four of his colleagues on the Board.

Chen said the group leading the initiative to challenge consists of people who mostly do not have children studying in the district, with some of them even living outside its borders.

Obad Rudy, who appears at the top of the list of residents contesting several members of the school board HLPUSD, says that the Confucius program goes beyond teaching a language.

"What you need to do is teach our ways to those who come here. Many of these people still do not know English," says Obad, adding that board members who they wish to recall have made over 30 visits to China "to contact Communist agents ", and have spent more than $ 350 000.

But Chen said he has not even visited that country since he was elected to his post. "If I had embezzled that amount I would have been arrested. It is simply a case of xenophobia," he says.

Angela Wang, the Chinese language teacher, explained that the program's contents are typical of learning any language, conversational phrases, basic vocabulary, numbers and days of week etc.

"There is no ideological content," says Wang, "it is a favorite class in school." Most students are Hispanic, the ethnicity for more than 74% of students on campus, many of whom already speak two languages.

"It seems some people just want foreigners to work hard and in silence, and do not want them to be empowered, even in education" says Chen.

Rudy Chavarria, a member of the Board who voted against adopting the program Confucius, is convinced that the division in the community is not racial.

"It all started with that program, that is sponsored by China," says Chavarria, the only member of the Board not being contested.

According to Daniel Tucker, who heads the Association of Teachers of HLPUSD, says a recall of the Board could cost more than half a million dollars, thus affecting layoffs, days without pay and other cuts that have so far been avoided.

"As an immigrant, and father of students in the district, I can only say that I wish my children had an opportunity to take this class," said Richard Yeh, during public comments at the last meeting of the Board. "This has nothing to do with political ideologies, but with educational opportunities."

An interview with the BBC on our Confucius Classroom

2011-02-25T20:02:00.000-08:00

Cedarlane and our Confucius Classroom was prominently featured in the BBC's recent special on China's rise. After Justin Rowlatt convinced random Brazilian women to compare Chinese vs Brazilian bikinis, he came to our town to follow up on the controversy, which apparently has gone international.

This entire 2 hour series is really worth watching, and I think is less sensational than the title implies. If you want to skip past the Brazilian bikini section, the segment featuring Hacienda Heights, our classroom, and my attempted conversation with the opponents begins around the 4:20 mark.

These are the folks behind the recall. Much of our conversation was probably unusable because it consisted primarily of the opponents either shouting at me and not letting me speak, or accusing Mr. Rowlatt of questioning their patriotism. Believe it or not, the entire spectacle was much less civil than what appears here.

Comments from Confucius Classroom supporters

2011-02-21T16:59:00.000-08:00

Ever since news broke of the recall process begun by opponents of our Chinese language and culture class, I've seen an overwhelming surge of support from residents of Hacienda La Puente Unified and beyond. An online petition has garnered nearly 700 signatures and hundreds of thoughtful comments. You can sign and view the petition here:

I also received some personal notes of support, and with the author's permission am sharing one of those emails below.

---

Dear Mr. Chen:

I recently read about your attempt to implement a Confucius Classroom at one of the schools at HLPUSD. I would like to take the time to voice my support for this cause.

I was born in the US. to Salvadoran immigrants. In 2009, I had the opportunity to study in China in order to learn Mandarin. As someone that has struggled to learn the language, Partnering with Hanban is an excellent idea to expose our youth to the language early, which will open wonderful opportunities to them as well as enable them to learn about a new and exciting culture. As Hanban creates the HSK, China's language placement exam, they are the most adept at creating a program tailored to what youth should be learning to prepare for interactions with native Chinese speakers. It's a wonderful feeling to say that one has the ability to be multilingual, and I feel that every child should have that opportunity.

By giving them this early start, they will be able to learn the language better, fluently, and it will be able to stay with them much better than someone who has had a later start (such as myself). They will be better prepared to work with the second-largest economy. Personally, I wish I had this opportunity to learn Mandarin earlier and perhaps be more adept than present.

加油！I sincerely do hope that this program is a success and that our youth benefit from this.

Best of luck!

Regards,

--
Steve Duran #394
Chancellor
Lambda Sigma Chapter
Delta Sigma Pi

Reject the Recall

2011-02-15T16:16:00.000-08:00

If you would like to take a stand against this frivolous recall and support foreign language acquisition, you can do so by signing this petition and asking your friends to do so as well. The text of the petition is below:

----------

Target: Residents of Hacienda La Puente Unified School District
Sponsored by: Committee to Support Hacienda La Puente Unified and a Global Education

OVERVIEW:

The Confucius Classroom is a Chinese language and culture program similar to France's Alliance Frances, Germany's Goethe Insitute, and the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Language and Culture. It promotes the understanding of Chinese language and culture, strengthens cultural cooperation, and encourages friendly relationships between China and other nations.

Thanks to a partnership with the U.S.-based Asia Society, it is already in place in more than 60 schools across the United States. Hacienda La Puente Unified is the first district to establish the program in Southern California, and it is one of the most popular electives at Cedarlane Middle School.

Since the inception of the program, a small group of individuals have opposed the class and denounced the teaching of Chinese language and culture, claiming without evidence that the Confucius Classroom will be a vehicle for Communist brainwashing. The opponents regularly attend meetings to accuse board members of being Communist Chinese agents.

Most recently they served notices of their intent to recall the four board members who supported the program: Jay Chen, Norman Hsu, Joseph Chang and Anita Perez. Several of the opponents do not live in the district and most do not have children attending school in the district.

PETITION:

We the undersigned, urge the residents of Hacienda La Puente Unified to reject the recall petitions against Chen, Hsu, Chang and Perez, and to reject the attempts by a small minority to take away an enriching program that has been embraced by the students and parents of Cedarlane Middle School.

We believe that learning a foreign language as widely used as Chinese is critical to the success of our students and our country.

We reject the blanket demonization of an educational program merely because it is supported by China, our largest trade partner and the second largest economy in the world.

We welcome opportunities to expand educational opportunities at no added cost to taxpayers during a time of economic crisis.

We reject a wasteful and meritless recall attempt that would cost the school district more than $150,000 during a time of economic crisis, and that seeks to remove two board members mere months before the natural end of their 4-year terms.

Please sign our petition to stand against fear and xenophobia and to support foreign language learning and global awareness.

For more information please visit these sites::

Jay Chen's interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Los Angeles Times article on Confucius Classroom controversy
Associated Press article on Confucius Classroom controversy
Associated Press article on recall effort
Copy of Notice of Intent to Recall

Notice of Intent to Recall

2011-02-15T16:06:00.001-08:00

This is the Notice of Intent to Recall that was served on me by Rudy Obad. For it to be valid, this Notice must be filed with the register/recorder and circulated in a newspaper. Among the allegations:

"Board member made agreement with Chinese government agency to accept funding, books, teachers and personnel from China and to send American students to China to extend China's influence in the U.S."

"Believes that the United States will be subservient to China and manipulates students to serve China's government."

Chinese language class opponents initiate recall

2011-02-15T15:53:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday the opponents of the Confucius Classroom program took it up a notch by initiating recall petitions against four board members, including myself, Norman Hsu, Joseph Chang and Anita Perez. They are still upset that we have not discontinued the program, even though all of the students and parents involved in the elective at Cedarlane are thrilled with it.

As far as I know, none of the opponents have school-age children in Hacienda Heights and none have students at Cedarlane. Most did not even bother to inspect the curriculum that they are so adamant against, when it was on public review for several months last year. Interestingly, the opponents neglected to serve recall papers on Rudy Chavarria, even though he voted to accept the donation of Chinese language books from Hanban, which is the primary Hanban component of our program right now, since we have not received any funding for the class.

During the meeting I encouraged our Superintendent to find full funding for this program, either through UCLA or Hanban. There is no reason why our students should not enjoy the full benefits of a program that more than 60 other schools across the nation are enjoying. I look forward to developing this program further.

Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution

2011-02-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

I am proud that our school district was the first in California (and therefore the nation) to approve a resolution recognizing Fred Korematsu Day. The story of the brave young American who challenged racist internment laws created during the height of WWII wartime hysteria has never gotten the recognition it deserved.

Thanks to the Korematsu Institute, now our schools and many like it will incorporate Korematsu's contribution to civil liberties alongside better known heroes such as Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.

I was invited to speak at our first class on Fred Korematsu today, and Gordon Takamatsu of NBC4 came by to film the event. You can watch the informative news segment, which is a mini-lesson in itself, here.

Latest Confucius Classroom news

2011-01-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday during President Hu Jintao's visit to the US he made a stopover at one of Chicago's Confucius Classrooms. There seems to have been an uptick in interest in this subject coinciding with President Hu's visit, as CNN called our district and we had some press at our board meeting last night. At this meeting we approved by a unanimous vote to accept the books donated by Hanban for our Confucius Classroom. I'm glad the students will have these extra resources at their disposal to help in their language acquisition.

Walk a Day in My Shoes - Jay Chen works the morning Cafeteria shift with manager Joyce Garcia

2010-11-26T14:48:00.001-08:00

I recently had an opportunity to participate in SEIU's "Walk a Day in My Shoes" program and was paired up with cafeteria manager Joyce Garcia of La Puente High School. It was exciting to get this assignment since school nutrition is a focal point of mine and I also have a bit of a culinary background myself. Please check out the video to see how the day went (it began at about 5 am):

Free college application review session

2010-11-05T09:41:00.001-07:00

College applications continue to increase...artificially?

2010-11-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

From the NYTIMES today:

THE numbers keep rising, the superlatives keep glowing. Each year, selective colleges promote their application totals, along with the virtues of their applicants.

For this fall’s freshman class, the statistics reached remarkable levels. Stanford received a record 32,022 applications from students it called “simply amazing,” and accepted 7 percent of them. Brown saw an unprecedented 30,135 applicants, who left the admissions staff “deeply impressed and at times awed.” Nine percent were admitted.

The biggest boast came from the University of California, Los Angeles. In a news release, U.C.L.A. said its accepted students had “demonstrated excellence in all aspects of their lives.” Citing its record 57,670 applications, the university proclaimed itself “the most popular campus in the nation.”

Such announcements tell a story in which colleges get better — and students get more amazing — every year. In reality, the narrative is far more complex, and the implications far less sunny for students as well as colleges caught up in the cruel cycle of selectivity.

Nearly 150 potential U.S. citizens attend naturalization seminar

2010-10-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

By Claudia S. Palma, Staff Writer

Posted: 10/27/2010 09:00:00 PM PDT

Some local residents took a step closer to becoming citizens last week.

In partnership with Congresswoman Grace Napolitano, D-Norwalk, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District (HLPUSD) held a naturalization workshop on Friday, Oct. 22, at the Dibble Adult School in Hacienda Heights.

The free event offered attendees, mostly adult school students, an informational presentation on who is eligible to apply for citizenship, the requirements, how and where to get application forms, what the civics test will consist of and resources available to prepare for the test, a video of a mock interview and more information.

Spanish and Chinese translators were on hand.

"Our goal is to get information out," said Mariana Gitomer, USCIS regional media manager. "We hold these sessions about once a month (in various locations) so that people are not afraid of the process and see it's pretty easy. We want to demystify the perception."

Hacienda-La Puente has been offering free citizenship and English classes for adults for many years and serves thousands of students. More than 380 students were naturalized this year alone.

"It's absolutely important to provide (community members) with a voice. If they don't have a voice things are placed on them rather than them choosing," said Cynthia Parulan-Colfer, associate superintendent of the school district.

School board member Jay Chen said he worked to put this session partnership together now to tie in with the upcoming elections.

"A lot of people are seeing these (political) ads right now and we want to emphasize the importance of naturalization," Chen said. "If they're citizens, they can vote and at the very least they can be involved in their community."

Chen noted the largely Latino and Asian population in nearby communities was another draw to bring the session to Hacienda Heights, since "historically, Latinos and Asians have lower voter turnout and lower naturalization rates."

"It's critical to become citizens," Napolitano said. "Since they are here they should help make it a better country by voting, by being involved. When you become a homeowner, you have pride and that makes it a better community."

Napolitano said her office has worked to partner with USCIS, schools and communities for many years to bring information and take away the fear some people may have towards the citizenship process.

"They have fear because they don't know the system but their fear hinders them and these services are free," Napolitano said. "You'd be surprised the reasons they give of why they don't apply. Everything that happens (during elections) is going to affect them one way or another. They need to be empowered."

Napolitano knows there are thousands of unnaturalized residents living in California and not all of them are from Mexico.

"They're Asian, European, African... Everybody is needing (help)," she said. "All these people are not going to go away."

For students, the session offered more confidence in applying for citizenship.

"I need to learn more English, practice more," said Shiu-Hua Chiu, 72, of Hacienda Heights. "It's very nice to become a citizen of the United States."

The struggle for some looking to become naturalized is not only learning English but learning the application and the questions they will have to answer for the test.

"I go over the N400 (application) with (my students) over and over again," said Ted Dutton, citizenship teacher at Hacienda La Puente. "It's a challenge but they get the words out. For many (students), they very much buy into the American dream."

Although Alcira Rodriguez has only been in the United States with her citizen husband for a few months, she knows she has a strong desire to become a citizen and stay in the country.

"I had doubts but the session helped clarify things," said the Hacienda Heights resident in Spanish. "It's a motivator to learn more English."

In the opposite situation, La Puente resident Maria Sandoval has been in the country for 20 years with her husband and children.

"I've thought about becoming a citizen since I first got here," said Sandoval, 59. "Now, I've been through a lot here and I need to do it. I have children here and I want to vote."

The 59-year-old said she was happy the session offered lots of information.

"It's encouraging," she said.

For more information about the school district's citizenship classes, call 626-933-1000 or visit www.hlpschools.org.

To contact the USCIS, visit www.uscis.gov.

claudia.palma@sgvn.com

626-962-8811, ext. 2110

2010-10-14T10:32:00.001-07:00

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
in partnership with Congresswoman Grace F. Napolitano,
the Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District,
and School Board Vice-President Jay Chen invite you to a

FREE Naturalization Information Session

for legal permanent residents and interested naturalization applicants.

Topics covered at this session will include:
the Naturalization Process
the Naturalization Test
Rights and Responsibilities of U.S. Citizenship
A “Mock” Naturalization Interview
Study materials while supplies last

FRIDAY, October 22^nd, 2010
9 am – 11 am

The Dibble Adult School Campus
1600 Pontenova Avenue
Hacienda Heights, CA 91745
Please call 626-933-3915 for more information
RSVPs not required, but appreciated: jc.hlpusd@gmail.com

Please note: USCIS Los Angeles District Immigration Services Officers and caseworkers from Congresswoman Napolitano’s office will be available for questions & answers during the session. Bilingual (Spanish/Mandarin) speaking USCIS staff and translators will be available.
In partnership with CEO (Chinese-American Elected Officials).

100% of Hacienda La Puente Schools meet API goals

2010-09-27T14:06:00.001-07:00

By Richard Irwin, Staff Writer

Posted: 09/24/2010 08:48:38 AM PDT

Every school met its API target this year in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District. That stands in stark contrast to last year, when only 56 percent of the schools met their API goals.

Most scored growth in the double digits, with Del Valle Elementary climbing an astounding 82 points. The La Puente school's base score of 697 rose to 779.

Los Robles Academy also posted a 48-point gain. The Hacienda Heights school raised its API from 800 to 848.

Cedarlane Academy broke the 800 mark with a gain of 56 points, while Newton Middle School jumped to 869 after an improvement of 29 points in the past year.

Even the high schools posted impressive gains. Workman rose 60 points from 633 to 693, while La Puente jumped 50 points from 627 to 677.

Only one school, Baldwin Academy, posted a decline. The school already scores above 800, dropping only 7 points to 821.

That compares very favorably with the state average - only 57 percent of the state's 4,716 met their API targets.

"We have 17 schools above 800 and four with API scores over 900," reported Linda Cordero, an executive director with the district.

"We think our targeted instruction and intervention has helped, as well as our professional development," she said.

The highest-scoring school turned out to be Wedgeworth Elementary in Hacienda Heights. The dual immersion language school scored 935, followed closely by Grazide Elementary with 934.

The lowest scoring elementary was Glenelder Elementary with a score of 759. But that school closed last year, with its students transferred to Cedarlane Academy, which has become a K-8 school. Cedarlane broke the 800 mark, soaring 56 points and tieing with Sparks Middle School at 807.

The highest-scoring middle schools were Newton with 869 and Orange Grove with 818. Only Grandview Academy and Sierra Vista ranked below 800, 747 and 782 respectively.

Glen Wilson High is closing in on 800 with a score of 793, with Los Altos High posting an 11 point gain to 779.

All the subgroups tested also met their API growth targets.

"Our students with disabilities rose 16 points, while out English language learners rose 47 points," Cordero added.

richard.irwin@sgvn.com

626-962-8811, ext. 2801

Confucius say...don't hate (reprint from AAM blog)

2010-09-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

guest post: confucius say... don't hate

I'm on vacation! Taking a much-needed break. But don't worry. While I'm away, I've enlisted some great guest bloggers to keep things going around here. Here's Jay Chen on the recent controversy over Confucius Classroom.

In the midst of the worst economy since the Great Depression, in which the only things that seem poised for growth are budget cuts, layoffs, and achievement gaps, who could have imagined that the most controversial issue to hit our school district would be the acceptance of free funding and books to expand a Chinese language class?

That's the twilight zone I have been experiencing for the last eight months, ever since our board approved an agreement with the non-profit Hanban to create a Confucius Classroom at Cedarlane, a predominately Latino middle school in Hacienda Heights.

For the last year, Cedarlane has been offering a popular Chinese language and culture class to 7th grade students. This agreement will help the school expand the existing program to more students by providing additional books (nearly 1000 to choose from) and up to $30,000 in support to purchase computers or to fund field trips.

Like any donation received by the school, the books will be screened for appropriateness and the classes will be taught by certificated teachers based on a curriculum that is board-approved. Essentially the program itself will be unchanged; it will just become available to more students.

The opposition

Instead of seeing this as an innovative opportunity to educate students at no cost to taxpayers during a recession, ever since the decision was made our board meetings have been graced by an outspoken cadre of vocal opponents, including former Superintendent John Kramar, retirees such as Bobby Fraker, and a disgruntled ex-Chinese basketball player. What they all share in common, besides not having any children in the district, are steadfast accusations that we are trying to import Communism into the classroom.

It is not just this class that they are critical of; practically everything related to China has become a target for them, including training opportunities for teachers and administrators, study abroad opportunities for students, and unrelated personal trips made to China by board members. One of the more foam-prone opponents has even taken to calling me a Marxist, which is actually pretty ridiculous if you saw the grade I got on my Das Kapital paper for Social Studies 10. The meetings have become so contentious that extra security has been called and one board member has retained legal counsel to protect himself from slander.

Ironically, our district has already been forced to spend more than $30,000 (and rising) in legal and administrative fees to respond to frivolous Public Records Act requests that have been lodged by opponents, including a request for all of the emails that have ever been exchanged between any board members who voted yes on the Confucius Classroom (that would be 4 out of the 5). If their modus operandi was to eliminate the financial benefit we were getting from the program, they arguably have achieved it.

The opponents to the program have found a staunch ally in the local newspaper, which has covered the controversy zealously. One editorial breathlessly compared the Chinese government's promotion of Chinese language and culture to the Venezuelan government teaching economics. That Chinese language and culture actually originated in China, and that most students want to study Chinese so that they can eventually work in or visit China, was apparently beside the point for the editorial board.

The most recent editorial went so far as to state that Chinese classes should only be taught by American citizens of primarily Taiwanese background. That our laws allow anyone with legal working status to be employed, including immigrants with a work visa or green card, is apparently irrelevant, as is the fact that discrimination in hiring based on race and national origin is a crime under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Indeed, stepping into one of our board meetings during rancorous public comments, in which reason, civility, and civil rights seem to have been thrown out the window, or reading the sensationalized local news can feel like a step back in time to the McCarthy era of the 1950s; I don't think a Cold War enthusiast could find a more authentic experience anywhere else.

This is not to say that we have not had our share of supporters as well. The parents of Cedarlane have expressed nothing but enthusiasm for the new Chinese elective, the arrival of which happened to coincide with a whopping 56 point improvement in the school's API score, among the highest gains of any school in Los Angeles County. Current students, parents and community members have voiced their support for the program during public comment (that is, when opponents have not shouted them down) and have refuted the claims to the point that they feel numb from repeating themselves.

Hanwhat?

Ostensibly at the center of all this unease is Hanban, a public institution affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education whose purpose is to provide Chinese language and cultural resources around the world, the same way the U.S. encourages a better understanding of itself through the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Peace Corps. Alliance Frances and the Goethe Institute accomplish similar goals for France and Germany.

While relatively unknown to most Americans, Hanban is already quite established and respected among educators and policymakers. In 2006 the College Board, which administers the SAT and AP tests de rigueur for admission to selective U.S. colleges, began a partnership with Hanban to provide AP Chinese classes and training for U.S. Chinese teachers.

The Asia Society, upon whose board sit leading U.S. industrialists and policymakers including John Negroponte (our nation's first Director of National Intelligence), agreed in 2009 to help Hanban create 100 Confucius Classrooms over the next three years in the United States.

While our school does not plan to bring a free teaching assistant from China, the Confucius Classroom does make that possible, bringing it in line with the goals established by President George W. Bush's 2005 National Security Language Initiative, which named Chinese a strategic language and encouraged the recruitment of foreign students to teach at U.S. colleges to make up for the shortage of qualified U.S. language teachers.

Dozens of schools across the country have already taken advantage of these programs and to date there are more than 60 Confucius Classrooms across the United States and hundreds more around the globe. None of them have reported any of the Communist brainwashing fervently predicted by our opponents, which makes sense since it seems rather difficult to be brainwashed in a language that you are still trying to learn. And besides, students will have plenty of opportunities to learn about Communism in Social Studies, World History and U.S. History.

Learning Chinese... everyone is doing it

The need for Americans to learn Chinese is probably obvious to readers of this blog. At the least, it will help prevent people from getting stupid and embarrassing tattoos. Chinese is already the most widely spoken first language in the world and this year China overtook Japan as the world's second largest economy. It is only a matter of time before China overtakes the United States as producer and consumer in chief.

If the United States wants to secure its foothold in the world that China is rapidly remaking, we will have to begin committing at least a fraction of the energy to studying China as she has committed to studying us; in 2009 nearly 100,000 Chinese graduate and undergraduates filled U.S. campuses, and that number is growing each year. The failure of Internet behemoths such as Google and Yahoo in the world's largest Internet market indicate that China will not be a passive consumer of U.S. product, but will be a producer, innovator, and strong competitor; we ignore the language and culture of the society at our own economic peril.

You and I already know this, and actually, so do most of the opponents of the Confucius Classroom. Ironically many of the strongest opponents of the program have initiated and personally benefited from similar programs in the past. It was Superintendent John Kramar who created our district's first sister-school partnership with a Communist Chinese school back in 1997, when China was a far more Communist state. Prior to retiring he made two trips to China as part of an official school district delegation, in 1997 and 1999. These are the same types of trips that he and his cohorts are now lambasting the board over.

Bobby Fraker is the founder of the student exchange program World Experience, which not only hosts students from countries like the Czech Republic in Hacienda Heights, but sends American students to places like (drumroll please…) the People's Republic of China. Obviously, there is a disconnect somewhere. If these individuals have initiated similar education programs in the past, what were they really protesting?

So what's the real problem?

While I do not doubt that some of the opponents are sincerely confused about the purpose of this Chinese class, and that some actually believe there are Communist messages hidden in the flash cards and picture books, I also suspect that what made our community the sole flashpoint for dissent in the world was not just what was being taught, but who was making the decision for it to be taught.

At first glance, Hacienda Heights would not seem a likely candidate for cultural strife. Decades ago this was the quintessential Leave it to Beaver town, and in the 1980's it was still All-American enough for Back to the Future to use it as a backdrop. Good schools plus a lift on immigration quotas kicked off a steady influx of Taiwanese families in the 70's, and while generally welcomed by preceding residents, some tensions and fissures eventually took shape.

In the mid-80's protests erupted over a plan to build a Taiwanese Buddhist temple in the hills of Hacienda Heights over fears of gong-banging and animal sacrifices. The temple was completed (and remains the largest in North America), but in 1996 Hacienda Heights found itself at the heart of another controversy when a visit from Al Gore to the temple prompted investigations of political donors with Asian sounding names, casting a pall over Asian American political participation nationwide for many years.

Multiple efforts for cityhood went down in flames at the ballot box over the decades, with the latest occurring in 2003 in part after fears were raised of Asian American candidates dominating the council.

Nevertheless, in 2007 after a vigorous campaign I won an election to the school board and became the third Asian American on a board of five, pushing our district into the rarified realm of majority Asian governing boards overseeing minority Asian communities (Hacienda Heights is roughly 40% Asian, 40% Hispanic, and 20% Caucasian). It was new territory that some people have not been entirely comfortable with, as evidenced by accusations from some that the Confucius Classroom was created to cater to the Asian community, even though nearly all students enrolled are Hispanic.

Thankfully, the ethnic makeup of our board is irrelevant to the vast majority of voters, who are more concerned with what we have accomplished during these difficult economic times, such as avoiding any layoffs in grades K-12 and increasing API scores dramatically across the entire district.

However, that our district is the first in the United States with a majority Asian board to adopt a Confucius Classroom, and is also the first to receive any racially tinged blowback from opponents who have supported and initiated similar programs in the past, is more than just happenstance. It speaks to a latent xenophobia still lurking beneath the surface of our communities, in which innocent motivations can be too eagerly questioned and unfairly clouded merely because of the color of one's skin.

Hacienda Heights is but the tip of the iceberg; the inability of New York City to build a peaceful house of worship and the suspicions some still have regarding our President's faith and birthplace reveals what can happen when small biases are left to grow unchecked, or worse still, are cultivated. That is why I am proud of our district's effort to bring a mind-broadening program such as the Confucius Classroom to our schools and why I am determined to see it succeed.

Jay Chen is the Vice-President of the Board of Education for the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, from which he graduated in 1996 under the proud tutelage of Superintendent John Kramar. More importantly, he is the recently engaged fiance to Karen Chang, who was kind enough to act surprised even though she found the ring in the suitcase earlier. You can learn more about him at www.electjaychen.com.

Los Altos HS swimming pool completed

2010-08-03T18:05:00.000-07:00

(SGVN/Staff Photo By Sarah Reingewirtz/HIGH)

Not a moment too soon, our new swimming pool at Los Altos High School was completed in time for the record breaking heat this summer. The pool was made possible in part through a partnership with Los Angeles County, which paid for half of the cost. A similar project is planned for Glen A. Wilson High School. SGVTribune has a story on it, and mentions some of our record breaking athletes as well.

Mandarin teachers gain training at UCLA

2010-08-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

The Daily Bruin of UCLA has a story on Chinese teachers getting trained on U.S. classroom culture prior to being sent off to one of 30 states for the Confucius Classroom program, where they will likely be the very first teachers of Chinese descent in their respective districts. They should have included a visit to one of our board meetings as a field trip! Good for those other districts that have the foresight and rationality to take advantage of this program.

Opponents of Confucius Classroom clash with student supporters at Hacienda La Puente board meeting

2010-07-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

Caption: Rudy Obad (retired Marine) interupts the proceedings to make his statement against the program. Obad had addressed the Board officially, earlier. Military veterans and others protest the incorporation of the Confucius Classroom at the Hacienda La Puente Board of Education meeting in Industry on Thursday July 23 , 2010. (SGVN/Correspondent Photo by William Hallstrom/SVCITY)

Another interesting board meeting last week. Dozens of speakers came to comment on the Confucius Classroom and it was interesting to see how the room was divided: young versus old, new community versus old. We had many students from Wilson High School and from the program APAPA come to speak in support of our Chinese language program. They did a great job and were very eloquent.

The Tribune noted that many of the folks who came out against the program were military veterans, primarily Marine Corps. I'm not sure who recruited them to come. Among the well researched points that they made was since gay teachers try to make their students gay, obviously Chinese teachers will try to make our students Communist. I think that statement pretty much tells you all you need to know about the opposition.

National Financial Capability Challenge

2010-06-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

Congrats to the following students from Los Altos High School, and their teacher Maria Velazquez, for placing among the top 20% of all students in the nation in the National Financial Capability Challenge. This is a program run through the President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, a very timely competition given the poor financial decisions made by lenders and borrowers both, which led to our recession today. I am a firm believer in teaching financial literacy to our students, before the credit card companies do!

Wendy Aguirre, Sonia Arriaza, Susanna Beliakoff, Erica Cota, Charles Fleming, Henry Paniagua, Edward Zamora, Brian Zuniga.

National Network for Early Language Learning

2010-06-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

The Chair of the World Language Department (man, I wish we had one of those!) at Herricks public schools (where the kids at the end of the Daily Show skit are from) emailed me this link to the National Network for Early Language Learning. It is a grass-roots organization dedicated to the promotion of early language training, and has advocacy materials available on the site for members.

100 Useful Tools to Teach Your Child Chinese

2010-06-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

On the subject of teaching Chinese, someone passed along a list of useful tools for teaching your students the language. It looks pretty comprehensive. No guarantees that you won't start eating from an iron bowl and renouncing social classes after reading through it though. :)

NBC's coverage of the classroom "controversy"

2010-06-09T14:49:00.001-07:00

Ted Chen of NBC contacted me after seeing the Comedy Central piece, and rushed over to Cedarlane to investigate for himself. Besides myself, he also interviewed John Kramar and Mary Anne King, who oppose the program, and who argue that "Americanism" should be taught instead.

That, and apparently Taiwanese independence. Who knew the movement had such an ally in Mr. Kramar? Funny thing is, when he was my superintendent, none of our lessons refuted the United States' official "One China" stance that Mr. Kramar seems so opposed to now. I'm not quite sure how he squares opposition to U.S. foreign policy with adherence to "Americanism" but I look forward to seeing him at future Taiwan-related events, since obviously his concerns are very sincere, and he's not just being a hypocrite.

But seriously, if the worst thing that Mr. Kramar can find is a map that adheres to our own "One China" policy, as disagreeable as some find it, then I think we're in pretty good shape. That, and the fact that all of these books can be bought at Barnes & Noble (as Mr. Kramar told me after the interview).

As you can see, the controversy that the opposition has tried to generate with this class has shifted from "Do not teach Chinese!" to "Do not teach Chinese with these Communist books!" to "Do not teach Chinese with free books provided by China, which we can purchase ourselves at Barnes & Noble with all the extra money California is allocating to public education!"

We'll see how this continues to evolve.

Jay Chen's Daily Show interview with Aasif Mandvi regarding Cedarlane's Chinese language and culture class

2010-06-08T07:32:00.000-07:00

Please check out the clip below from The Daily Show (6/8/2010) regarding our Chinese language and culture class. It pays to pay attention in school!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Socialism Studies

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

An open letter to the public regarding our language programs

2010-05-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

As someone who was born in the U.S. but grew up and worked in Asia and Latin America, I can't stress enough the importance we need to place in teaching our students a second or third language, such as Spanish or Mandarin, two of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

That is why I am proud that we will be expanding our existing Chinese language and culture course at Cedarlane Middle School through the Confucius Classroom grant. I am also pleased to announce that we are planning a dual-language immersion program for Spanish at one of our schools as well.

Unfortunately, not everyone shares my sentiment, and a great deal of misinformation is being distributed in the community about our programs, including accusations that our teachers will be brainwashing students with Communist ideology. The Los Angeles Times and Associated Press articles I provided below smartly summarize the controversy some folks in the community are trying to create.

I would like to reiterate what has already been explained to opponents many times; just as in any other class, all of our Chinese language and culture classes will be taught by California accredited teachers. And just as in any subject area, our teachers will be expected to adhere to the curriculum; the suggestions that teachers will be preaching Communism are not just untrue, they are an insult to teaching professionals who have dedicated their lives to bettering our students.

Confucius Classrooms already exist across the United States, from Rhode Island to Oregon, and they have operated without controversy or any reports of Communist indoctrination. The books themselves have been made available to the public and inspected by our staff. Nothing untoward has been found.

I find it curious and disappointing that a handful of individuals have chosen to make our diverse community ground zero for a false propaganda campaign, and have cast aspersions on the intentions and abilities of our great teachers. With budget cuts looming, now is not the time to attack teachers or deny our students an opportunity to expand their horizons past ours.

Sincerely,

- Jay Chen

Chinese gov't school grant divides SoCal community

2010-04-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

Reprinting an Associated Press article, published on April 24, 2010, which smartly summarizes the current controversy over our Confucius Classrooms, and the possible cultural issues that simmers beneath it.

Chinese gov't school grant divides SoCal community

JACOB ADELMAN

The Associated Press

HACIENDA HEIGHTS, Calif. - Bobby Fraker is taking a stand against what she perceives to be a sinister threat from across the Pacific, right here in her suburban Southern California community of tree-lined streets and stucco homes.

At a recent school-board meeting, Fraker and a dozen or more older, mostly white opponents of a Chinese government program that will fund a middle-school language class delivered fist-shaking denunciations.

"These children have young brains that are very malleable and they can be indoctrinated with things that America would not like," Fraker, a diminutive woman with tight auburn curls, implored board members, who approved the plan in January.

Communities across the United States, from Smithfield, R.I., to Medford, Ore., have welcomed with open palms the so-called Confucius Classroom grants from the Chinese government, like the one proposed here for Cedarlane Middle School.

But Confucius is not going down smoothly in Hacienda Heights, a middle-class town about 16 miles east of downtown Los Angeles with a history of racial tensions between longtime residents and relatively recent Chinese newcomers. Ethnic Chinese comprise the majority of the school board.

The Cedarlane student body, meanwhile, is overwhelmingly Hispanic, with three out of every five students at the school qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, a poverty indicator, according to state data.

The dustup may portend trouble for China's efforts to expand its cultural clout by bankrolling language programs in primary and secondary schools across the United States.

"I'm sure this will become a standard dispute," said University of Southern California public policy professor Nicholas Cull, who tracks China's efforts to shape its image abroad through programs like Confucius Classrooms. "People in America are very suspicious of ideas from the outside."

Chen Zhunmin, who directs the Chinese consulate's education office in Los Angeles, insisted the program has nothing to do with communism, as come of the local critics contend. He said Confucius Classroom and other programs were created to address misunderstandings about his country.

"I feel that the concerns of the neighbors are mainly caused by lack of understanding of Chinese history and culture," he wrote in an e-mail.

There are 60 Confucius Classroom and university-level Confucius Institute programs in the U.S., according to the Web site of China's language-teaching agency, the Hanban. Each is administered through a patchwork of educational organizations and universities that have deals with the agency.

The New York-based Asia Society plans to help set up another 80 Confucius Classrooms over the next two years. An additional 45 are separately planned in North Carolina alone.

The expansion into more communities could expose existing cultural and political fault lines, as it has in Hacienda Heights, a community that has undergone demographic change in recent decades.

In 1970, Hacienda Heights was less than 2 percent Asian and otherwise almost entirely white, according to state figures. By 2008, after decades of Chinese immigration into the region, Asians made up more than a third of the population, the same portion as the city's non-Hispanic whites.

The new ethnic and racial makeup has provided a backdrop for a spate of community disputes.

Some neighbors opposed construction of a massive Buddhist temple complex on a city hillside in the late 1980s to serve the growing Asian community in the San Gabriel Valley. Opponents feared animals would be sacrificed on the site and temple-goers would disturb the peace by banging gongs.

Racial tensions played a role in a failed 2003 ballot campaign to have the unincorporated part of Los Angeles County recognized as a city, with opponents whispering that an incorporated Hacienda Heights would be dominated by Asian-Americans.

The dispute over the Confucius Classroom program appears to be another such clash.

"China already owns and changed most of the shopping centers in Hacienda Heights," resident Sharon Pluth wrote in a letter to the town's closest newspaper, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. "Do we really want them to change our kids' minds, too?"

Under the deal with the Hanban, the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District is receiving $30,000 a year for language and culture programs at Cedarlane school, along with some 1,000 textbooks, CDs and other educational materials.

The city originally planned to accept an offer to have the Chinese government place a teaching assistant in Cedarlane and pay his or her salary, an overture that stoked strong resistance.

An editorial by the Tribune called the plan "tantamount to asking Hugo Chavez to send his cadres to teach little American kids economics."

School board member Norman Hsu said it wasn't worth pushing the issue, since, without California credentials, the teacher would not have been permitted to operate as a full-fledged instructor anyway.

"Why do we need to pour oil in the fire?" he said.

Hsu said the district accepted the Chinese government's offer because it knew that money for a needed expansion of its language program at Cedarlane would not be forthcoming from the cash-strapped state government.

But opponents, who have been attending school board meetings with signs bearing such slogans as "America, Not Confucius," say they'll keep pushing the district to abandon the program completely.

They also say they'll seek to unseat the four members of the five-person board that voted in January to accept the Hanban's offer.

Teresa Macias, one of those who voiced concerns at a recent board meeting, insisted her objections were not rooted in race.

Like other critics, Macias said she has no children in the school system, but feels the need to protect the community's youth from communist propaganda that could be hidden in textbook passages unreadable to non-Chinese speakers.

She said she's also concerned about the program's identification with Confucius and his 2,500-year-old philosophy.

"When you Google it, it comes up as a religion," she said. "It just seems wrong on so many levels."

Chen, from the Chinese consulate, dismissed that concern.

"It is a well-known fact that Confucius is basically a philosopher and educator, not a religious figure," he wrote.

Cecile Cowan, whose daughter is about to attend Cedarlane, understands critics' concerns, but plans to review the Confucius teaching materials with an open mind. She'd like her daughter to learn an important skill.

"I believe the whole idea behind it was sort of bringing our cultures together and exposing children to languages," she said. "It only adds to their intelligence and their marketability as they get older."

Jane Shults, a Cedarlane history teacher, supports the program on her campus because she can use the free texts to teach about ancient China, as mandated by the state.

"The community has changed. It could be that it's a way of protesting that," she said. "It's jingoistic, it's xenophobic, it's not overly rational and it's really shades of McCarthyism all over again."

Chinese government's funding of Southland school's language program fuels controversy

2010-04-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Reprinting an April 4, 2010 Los Angeles Times article about the new Chinese Language and Culture class that we are bringing to Cedarlane, and the reaction, arguably xenophobic and mccarthyist, that it has elicited from some members of the community.

----

A Hacienda Heights school will get free materials -- books, a laptop, playing cards -- from the Confucius Classroom language program. Critics see a propaganda tool, but backers say fears are unfounded

April 04, 2010|By Ching-Ching Ni

Most students in the Chinese language class at Cedarlane Middle School in Hacienda Heights have never heard of Confucius.

"Con what?" asked Ricardo Ramirez, 11, who loves to impress classmates with his loud and clear greetings of "Hello!" and "I love you!" in Mandarin.

But a proposal to bring more resources to his school's Chinese program has sparked heated debate over whether the Chinese government -- in the ancient philosopher's name -- should have a role in helping American schoolchildren learn. It's a controversy that lays bare tensions in a community that has undergone a major demographic shift and is now more than a third Asian.

In January, the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District board voted 4 to 1 to adopt a new Chinese language and culture class at Cedarlane next fall, at no cost to the district.

Confucius Classroom is paid for by the Chinese government's Chinese Language Council International, also known as Hanban.

"I am not against the teaching of foreign languages, but this is a propaganda machine from the People's Republic of China that has no place anywhere in the United States," said John Kramer, 73, a former superintendent of the district who has been vocal in the debate.

Supporters insist the concerns are unwarranted.

"A lot of people are saying it's a way for the Chinese people to brainwash our students. They are really misinformed," said Jay Chen, vice president of the Hacienda La Puente board. "From Oregon to Rhode Island, public schools have implemented the same program. As far as I can see, nothing sinister is going on."

Chinese language programs have become increasingly popular with China's rise as a superpower. In 2004, Beijing capitalized on that demand by creating the Confucius Institute to promote Chinese language and culture at the university level. The program, officials say, is much like Germany's Goethe-Institut and France's Alliance Française.

People worried in 2004 too, said Susan Pertel Jain, executive director of the UCLA Confucius Institute. "Everybody was concerned we would be told what to do, what to teach. That's not the situation at all. It's very much a partnership," she said of UCLA's program, which opened in 2007.

As of last year, there were more than 280 Confucius Institutes worldwide. Last year, Hanban expanded the idea, launching the Confucius Classroom to focus on kindergarten through 12th grade education. Already, there are about 200 Confucius Classrooms.

Although Cedarlane appears to be the first school in the Los Angeles area to sign up, at least seven are up and running around San Diego.

"The Confucius Classroom has been such a wonderful gift to our school," said Edward Park, principal of the Barnard Mandarin Chinese Magnet elementary school in San Diego, which adopted the program in October. "We've not had one single opposition."

Hacienda Heights was more than 36% Asian, primarily Chinese, when the last census was taken in 2000. The area has changed dramatically since longtime residents such as Mary Ann King arrived.

"We don't need to accept money from a Chinese government," said King, who has lived in Hacienda Heights for 42 years and once hosted the children's television show "Romper Room." "If it's funded by them, their doctrine will be part of the curriculum. It's wrong. We don't need to do this to our children."

School officials say that very little about the Mandarin program will change under the new sponsorship. Hanban will provide $30,000 to $50,000 for extra teaching materials, books, a laptop computer. The program will also provide some of its own materials and might send a teaching assistant from China to help the teacher who runs the class, said Principal Janine Ezaki.

Norman Hsu, 74, a longtime school board member who voted to adopt the program, says all teaching materials from Hanban will be reviewed by the school and will be available for public inspection. He said he has already seen some samples and found nothing inappropriate.

"They include stories and fables like the Monkey King," said Hsu. "There are also poker cards with Chinese characters for trains and cars. . . . So why are we worried?"

Asians now also dominate the school board, 3 to 2. Kramer, the former superintendent, says that could change.

"Our kids need to be taught Americanism," he said. "This board is going to pay a price. I think the community is upset enough to vote them out."

Chen, the newest and youngest member of the school board, said such comments about the program miss the point.

"People accuse us of advancing a Chinese agenda. They say the Chinese community is taking over," he said. "But one of the reasons to have the program is to make Cedarlane more attractive to all students, not just the Chinese."

At Cedarlane, most of the students in Ricardo's Chinese class are Latino.

"I already know two languages. The more languages I know, the better jobs I'll get," said Ricardo, a sixth-grader who speaks English and Spanish at home. "If I have kids, I can teach them Chinese. They can all get better jobs."

chingching.ni@latimes.com

Protect California’s Political Future: Apply to Serve on the Redistricting Commission

2010-01-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the only thing more gridlocked and unpopular than California’s freeways, is our system of government. There are many reasons for its inefficiency, from the 2/3rds vote needed to pass a budget, to the unregulated proposition system. Gerrymandering is also one of the guiltiest culprits. By dissecting our state into completely safe Democratic and Republican seats, gerrymandering has forced our elected officials to answer to the more extreme elements of either party to pass the primary crucible, which is now the only real election that matters. Due to this extreme vetting process, there is little room for compromise once our leaders reach Sacramento.

In the process, gerrymandering has been carving up natural communities of interest and diluting the voting power of minorities, in particular Asian Pacific American communities, across multiple districts, essentially silencing political voices and perpetuating disempowerment.

This is why I support the redistricting reform passed by California voters last year, and urge everyone, particularly APAs, to get involved by applying for a spot on the redistricting commission. Applications are being accepted from now until February 12th, 2010, and information can be found at: www.wedrawthelines.ca.gov

In the zero sum game that is political districting, the APA community has historically lost the most ground. This is why in the City of Los Angeles, we do not have an APA councilmember. This is why in the county of Los Angeles, we have yet to elect an APA supervisor. And this is why it was only last year that the San Gabriel Valley elected the first Chinese American Congresswoman in United States history.

The one area that APAs have made good progress is in the state legislature, where despite the lack of “APA” seats, we now have 11 APAs serving. Prior to Congresswoman Judy Chu’s election, three out of the five Board of Equalization Seats were held by APAs.

Ironically, since the state legislature and BOE are the only seats that will be impacted by the new redistricting commission, our community stands to lose its hard fought progress in these areas, unless community members step up to the plate and apply for seats on this commission to ensure a diverse applicant pool that respects APA communities.

Currently, less than 4% of applicants to the commission are APA, even though APAs represent 15% of California’s population. If this trend continues, there very well could be no APA representation on the final panel of 14 commission members that will lay the blueprint for California’s next political decade. This is unacceptable, but it can be changed.

If you care about good governance but have been turned off by the partisanship of Sacramento, this is your chance to make a difference. If you care about creating logical, compact districts that will hold its leaders accountable regardless of political affiliation, this is your opportunity to make that happen. And if you care about preserving the hard fought gains the Asian Pacific American community has made in the last decade, now is the time to step up. Apply for the redistricting commission, and do your part to protect California’s political future.

School Gardens in the news

2009-08-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

Los Altos Elementary School Garden

LATimes came out with a timely article on school gardens seeing growth and popularity even in the shadow of the budget crisis gripping our state and schools. In related news, the World Journal has done a story on our garden and Channel 18 will be interviewing me next week at the garden. It's great that the media is adding to this momentum!

Food for thought

2009-07-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

School Board Member Jay Chen with students from Los Altos Elementary at the grand opening of their new school garden on June 6, 2009.

Who knew that the best way to get kids excited about fresh vegetables is to throw some dirt and worms into the mix? That was the lesson learned last month at the grand opening of Los Altos Elementary's school garden, a labor of love from staff, students, parents, and of course Principal Margaret Hesslegrave.

I had been pushing for our district to create school gardens after attending conferences and symposiums by the non-profit Green Technology group, and saw them as a unique way to fulfill three of my district goals: broader extracurriculars and activities, healthier schools, and healthier students.

Los Altos Elementary was the first school to jump at the challenge of creating a garden, and they accomplished it through immense volunteerism, from the contribution of plants from the community, and through the very kind donation of funding to purchase the chain link fence that protects the space.

For better or worse, space is something that we have quite a bit of in our district. Our campuses are blessed with enormous open fields, possibly a nod to the agrarian history of our community, whose main population used to be avocado and orange groves. Declining enrollment has thinned out our student population and emptied many facilities, which makes school gardens an appropriate antidote for campuses and communities in need of beautification.

Gardens are also ideal as teaching tools; in fact, part of the funding for our garden was obtained from science and technology funds. Biology and ecology classes can now be supplemented with live experience and observation in the field. Students who help build and maintain the gardens also get first-hand experience in ownership, responsibility, and service.

Perhaps the most important benefit from school gardens, however, is how it exposes our students to good, nutritious food.

In the last decade our schools have been transformed from institutes of holistic learning, to temples of test-taking. An over-emphasis on numbers and unfunded mandates have hogtied teachers and administrators from focusing on anything but the next standardized test.

This has been to the great detriment of our students, to whom we owe a greater responsibility than simply providing test-taking skills. Any institution that provides two out of the three meals a growing child consumes each day must also take on the task of teaching healthy living and eating, and if the growing obesity epidemic is any indication, that just hasn't been done.

According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, California's adults ranked 41 out of 51 (including District of Columbia) in obesity rates, and our state's children, aged 10 to 17, ranked 28. In the last year, obesity rates have increased among adults in 23 states and has not decreased anywhere. In Los Angeles County, 23% of 5th, 7th and 9th graders are considered to be obese.

Obesity does not just affect those struggling with the weight, it affects everyone by driving up the cost of health care for all. The rise in obesity and its corresponding diseases and medical conditions have corresponded with a skyrocketing of health care costs in the United States; according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2006 total expenditures on health care surpassed $2 trillion, almost three times the $714 billion spent in 1990 and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980

Far too easy access to processed, canned, and fried foods, and an unfamiliarity with fresh, healthy vegetables is a big part of the problem. While the healthy food movement may never be able to match the marketing might of junk food corporations, our public schools can and should be a partner in molding impressionable young minds toward a healthier relationship with food and eating that will better serve them and our society as a whole.

Remembering why we take the path of service

2009-06-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

The following is the keynote address given on 6/22/2009 to the 2009 CAUSE Leadership Academy intern class; the above photograph of a carved detention wall was taken by the author at Angel Island Immigration Station.

Good morning. I want to thank the Board of CAUSE and in particular Charlie Woo for putting together the CASIC Leadership Academy, now in its 18^th year. It is such an invaluable service not just to the student leaders, who learn critical skills, but also to our state elected officials, who in this time of dire financial straits can use as much free labor as they can get. So I thank you, and the taxpayers of California thank you as well.

I also want to congratulate the outstanding students who have been selected for this prestigious leadership academy. You are going to have a fantastic 8 weeks and are getting an insiders view of California government at one of the most memorable moments in California credit rating history. Please do not let the doom and gloom scare you off from what is a critical field desperate for talented people such as yourselves. We’ve got nowhere to go but up, hopefully.

It gives me great pleasure to deliver a keynote address to the start of the CASIC internship program because I got my first start in politics 13 years ago as a political intern as well, for Congressman Ed Royce via the Taiwanese American Citizens League. It was a great experience, living in a stranger’s basement, answering phones, and giving tours of the capitol.

Probably the highlight of my internship was meeting Charlton Heston at the congressman’s office, who you might recall capped off a successful acting career by becoming the President of the National Rifle Association. While it was a bit disconcerting to see that Moses had decided to become a lobbyist, as I learned and as you will too, lobbying is where much of the power is.

While some things in politics never change, some things really do. When I began my internship in the summer of 1996 there were exactly 0 state legislators of APA descent in California. Mike Honda did not get elected until the fall of 1996. Today, there are 11 APA state legislators and 4 constitutional officers, including State Controller John Chiang, and Assemblymembers Mike Eng, Warren Furutani, and Ted Lieu, whose offices you will be working in.

The API Caucus is now the second largest ethnic caucus in the state legislature, and is starting to assert itself in ways befitting its clout, such as taking on the University of California over controversial admissions changes or confronting the LPGA over racist English-only rules designed to hamper Asian players.

But as we celebrate the great strides we have made in terms of APA political representation in our state, we must never forget the struggles that we had to overcome to get here, nor the injustices inflicted upon our communities which made apparent the price of political disempowerment. Monuments to many of these shameful moments in American history lie scattered around our state and even our own backyard, some advertised, many not.

On a visit to San Francisco last month I arranged a trip to the newly reopened Angel Island. Angel Island is known by some as the Ellis Island of the West, but instead of welcoming the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, officials at this immigration center would incarcerate you for months without process if you were “Asiatic”, and for years if you were Chinese, if you weren’t shipped back to China immediately.

The longings of these Chinese immigrants, made homeless and unwanted by the racist Chinese Exclusion Act, are preserved in poems carved into the walls of the old holding cells. Almost every reachable surface has been etched by tired hands that believed, incorrectly at the time, that the American dream was open to all (visit while you can, because the island is likely to be closed by labor day due to the budget crisis).

But you don’t have to go as far as SF to walk through an inglorious chapter of APA history, you can do it right here, in the San Gabriel Valley. As you all know, in 1942 an executive order was passed that allowed Americans to be rounded up and sent to concentration camps across the deserts of our country, for no crime other than their Japanese ancestry. What many people are not aware of, however, is that many of these Japanese American families were first processed, detained, and housed in the horse stables of the Santa Anita Race Track, still operating in Arcadia.

My hometown of Hacienda Heights is known for many things, namely, an outstanding school district. But it is also home to the largest Buddhist temple in the western hemisphere, which after receiving a visit from Vice-President Al Gore in 1995 became ground-zero for one of the worst episodes of racial profiling and political intimidation our community had ever seen. During that episode, individuals with Asian-sounding last names were called and harassed by reporters and party members with regards to their right to participate in the American political process.

It is this pattern of injustice, and our community’s relative inability to prevent its continuance, that motivates me to participate in the political system. My high school band welcomed Vice-President Al Gore on the steps of the Hsi Lai Temple, and it boggled the mind that a wonderful community event such as that could be twisted into something sinister by those seeking to push Asian Americans out of politics.

When I was in college I heard Alberta Lee describe in person the absolute injustice that was being inflicted upon her father, Wen Ho Lee, who was falsely accused by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson of being a spy.

During the 2000 Presidential race, I was appalled when candidate John McCain proclaimed that he “hates the gooks” and would always hate them for as long as he lives. But what was more disgusting was the free pass the press gave him for his racism. If it had been any other racial slur directed against any other minority group, it would have been the end of his career.

Eight years later, in 2008, both Bill Richardson and John McCain were top contenders for the United States Presidency. Clearly, much work needs to be done, and that work must continue with you.

As you begin your path of service, I want to close with a few pieces of advice from one intern to another.

First, observe how the political system really works. Some of it will be inspiring, some of it, depressing. Moses wants to be a lobbyist, that’s kind of depressing. What you will find is that much of the work in Sacramento really is done by lobbyists, and that’s something of a necessity given how term limits have done away with experience. Unfortunately, if you thought we lacked representation in political office, in the powerful Third House, as lobbying is known in Sacramento, we fare exponentially worse; less than 1% of registered lobbyists are Asian Pacific Americans.

Second, learn from other staffers, and even other interns from different backgrounds. Something that I greatly admire about the Latino political community is the pipeline of leadership that they foster. It seems almost expected that political staff members will also hold local part-time offices such as school board or city council, which better positions them to win higher office down the line. I think it would be great if more of our APA staffers positioned themselves similarly as well.

Finally, though you are just starting out your internship, you should immediately see yourself as a mentor and leader for those in high school or college who will be stepping into your shoes when you move on. APA internship programs such as CASIC are one of the most important political pipelines for our community, but what ensures their success is when travelers within the pipeline become builders as well.

Last night as I was preparing for this keynote I pulled out my old TACL internship folder from 1996. Out fell the contact list for my intern class and our corresponding mentors, and two names popped out at me from the mentor list; David Chiu and John Chiang. Back then they were mid-level staff members working in the Senate, who in what little free time they had helped homesick political interns learn the ropes. Today, David is the President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the first Chinese American to hold the position, and John is the State Controller and highest ranking APA Democrat in the Continental United States.

I am confident that in the not too distant future, you all will take your place among the movers, shakers, and game-changers of our APA political world. Just remember to give back to your community, and help it achieve new heights, and in turn your community will give back to you and help you achieve the same.

Thank you for your time and commitment to the cause, and I look forward to hearing about your great accomplishments in the future!

Chu for Congress

2009-06-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

On July 14th, the San Gabriel Valley is set to do something that has never been done before: send a Chinese American woman to Congress. Barring the inconceivable, Board of Equalization Vice-Chair (and Democrat) Judy Chu will win the seat vacated by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, as a result of her resounding victory in the open primary held on May 19th.

Voter registration in the district leans heavily toward the Democratic party, which makes the top Democratic winner in the primary a lock to fill the 32nd Congressional seat during the general election. Despite the shortened campaign season, the top contenders were able to cram the equivalent of a year's worth of fund-raising into just a few months; Judy Chu raised over $1 million while Gil Cedillo raised more than $700,000. Third place finisher Emanuel Pleitez raised over $200,000 while the Republican nominee Betty Tom Chu is said to have spent over $100,000 of her own money to come in fourth overall.

Congressional seats do not open very often, and the intense fund-raising and campaigning that ensued was a demonstration of how valuable this seat was. With the population registering at over 50% Latino, and with a Latino or Latina holding this seat for the past quarter century, some had no qualms claiming that this was a "Latino seat" that needed to stay in Latino hands.

Indeed, one of the leading candidates even went so far as to say that the seat was "tailor-made" for him. As disturbing as that may sound, there is an element of truth to his claim. As a result of gerrymandering, Asian Pacific American candidates are disfavored demographically in nearly every legislative district that they compete in, including the 32nd Congressional district.

While natural and contiguous APA communities of interest do exist in Southern California, they have been sliced and diced in ways that dilute their voting power. For example, the heavily APA San Gabriel Valley is divided among five different Congressional representatives. Taking that into account, it's not surprising that it has been more than 10 years since Southern California has elected an APA Congressmember.

APAs have arguably suffered more acutely than other communities of interest through gerrymandering since lines are drawn by sitting legislators. The last time lines were drawn in 2001 there were only two APA legislators in all of California and during the redistricting of 1991, there were none. The 2008 passage of Proposition 11 and the creation of a Citizen's Redistricting Commission should place the fox at a safer distance from the hen house, but it will require vigilant public oversight and input to be effective (visit www.bsa.ca.gov/redistricting to get involved).

Despite these structural impediments, APA leaders have been making steady gains in the electoral arena. At the state level we now have 10 APAs in the Assembly and Senate, most of whom elected from regions where APAs are a minority. This is a testament not just to the political savvy of APA leaders, but to the political maturation of a California electorate willing to elect members on the basis of ability rather than ethnicity.

And while the media has focused on the ascendancy of an APA to a traditionally Latino seat in this Democratic stronghold, what is possibly more groundbreaking is that for the first time in US history, both major party nominees in a Congressional race are Asian Pacific American; Judy Chu for the Democratic Party and Betty Tom Chu (distantly related by marriage) for the Republican Party. Combined, they won 43% of the total vote among 12 candidates for a seat some might say was "tailor-made" for them to lose. Despite what the pundits may have predicted, it looks like even Democrats and Republicans in the 32nd Congressional District can agree on one thing, and that's a Chinese-American Chu for Congress.

University of Southern California Asian Pacific Graduation Keynote Address

2009-05-21T11:07:00.001-07:00

The following is the keynote address given by Jay Chen at the Asian Pacific Graduation for the University of Southern California, held on May 14th 2009 at the Fischer Art Gallery, South Lawn.

Good evening Trojans. It’s a pleasure to be here, and I want to thank the Asian Pacific Alumni Association, Asian Pacific American Student Assembly, and Asian Pacific American Student Services for inviting me to share in this celebration with you all.

I don’t think it’s a mere coincidence that graduation season coincides with the celebration of Asian Pacific Heritage month. Our legislators must have known this was the favorite time of year for tens of thousands of Asian parents who are just thrilled that they will no longer be receiving a tuition bill. Let’s give a hand to those parents in the audience who have made this day possible.

There is also a more historic reason for celebrating APA Heritage month in May, and I wish to discuss that briefly today. May 7, 1843 marked the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants, and May 10, 1869 marked the completion of the transcontinental railroad, built in large part by Chinese laborers. I don’t think any of the early Asian immigrants for whom this month is dedicated, could imagine the scene before us today, in which APAs have reached such size and clout that they command their own graduation ceremony.

The fact is, the earliest immigrants from Asia were subject to some of the worst forms of legalized racism our nation had ever seen. In 1880 a California law was passed forbidding marriage between Whites and Asians. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, which marked the first and only time in US history that any ethnicity or nationality was banned from the United States.

The Japanese community fared no better; in 1907 the Gentleman’s Agreement halted all Japanese emigration to the United States and in 1942 more than 100,000 men, women and children of Japanese descent were removed from their homes and shipped to internment camps across inland America; more than 60% of them were United States citizens, their only crime was sharing the same appearance as those we were at war with at the time.

For this same war, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos were recruited to fight and die alongside US soldiers with the promise of full veteran benefits. However, after the war ended in 1946, President Truman signed the Rescission Act which took those benefits away.

I raise these anecdotes in this forum because it is impossible to appreciate the accomplishments we celebrate today, without acknowledging the trials and tribulations of those that came before us, upon whose shoulders we now stand. The remarkable thing is, despite the extraordinary obstacles that have been placed before our community, we have always risen above and beyond the occasion.

Ironically, the most highly decorated military combat unit in American history remains the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team of World War II, known as Go for Broke. It was comprised primarily of Japanese Americans who had every reason to not fight and die for a government that treated them like the enemy and that had incarcerated their family. Instead of harboring bitterness however, the regiment accumulated 21 Medals of Honor and nearly 10,000 Purple Hearts, quelling any notion that patriotism was related to color.

Most recently, the APA community was instrumental in electing what could be considered the first APA presidency. We now have a President born in Hawaii, who grew up in Indonesia, has a half-Asian sister and a Chinese-American brother-in-law, who has now appointed more APAs to the White House cabinet than all previous presidential administrations combined. One of President Obama’s first acts was to repay benefits to the surviving Filipino veterans who had so long been denied their right.

As Trojans, you should take pride in the enormous role that your alma mater has played in shaping the course of APA history. The first Chinese American to practice law in California was educated at USC. You Chung Hong (Hong Yao Zhong) obtained his law degree in 1925, and worked vigorously to repeal the aforementioned Chinese Exclusion Act. He became the first Chinese American to argue before the Supreme Court, and was instrumental in building the Los Angeles Chinatown we enjoy today.

USC being the dominant sports school that it is, it’s probably not surprising that the first Asian American to win a gold medal for the United States was trained and educated on this campus. In fact, Korean American Sammy Lee became the first diver to ever win 2 gold medals at the Olympics, in 1948 and 1952. Of course, not wanting to be seen as a slacker, he first completed his MD at USC in 1947, much to his parent’s relief.

You are joining a special family of high achieving alumni. If history is any indication, you have all been educated well by this fine university, and will make a name for yourselves as prior Trojans have. There probably isn’t a whole lot more I could add to your education, but since I am the keynote, I have to at least share a few pearls of wisdom for your digestion.

The first piece of advice is: embrace your heritage.

As Americans of Asian descent, you will play a critical role in the evolution of a new world order. As countries such as China and India strive for their potential, our nation will depend upon natural ambassadors such as yourselves to help navigate an environment in which American supremacy cannot, and should not, just be taken for granted.

Take the time to travel and to understand the cultures that make you who you are, and know that there is nothing more American than doing so, and that only in America would a story such as yours be possible. Thank your parents, in their native tongue if you can, for raising you in a multilingual household, and if they did not, make a promise to yourself that your own children will be given such an advantage.

My second piece of advice is: always live with your eulogy in mind.

At the age of 25 I had the unfortunate distinction of having attended more classmate funerals than weddings. I have no misconceptions of my own mortality and how capricious fate can be, and that is partly what motivates me to do what I do. My challenge to you all is to think, if you were to die today and be eulogized tomorrow, what would be said and would you be satisfied with it?

Don’t always put off the good works and deeds for a later date, after you have been established or made your fortune, because that date may never come. Get the most meaning out of your life, now.

This class has the unique distinction of graduating into the worst economic recession of our lifetimes. But in every crisis there are opportunities. The silver lining before you is the drastically reduced opportunity cost of doing something you actually enjoy that adds true value to the world. You no longer have to choose between a soulless but lucrative job in finance or something more inspiring and creative, because those finance jobs no longer exist.

In a way, you have more opportunities than any class before you since expectations of what a suitable job are have finally and rightfully been deconstructed and dismantled. Take this golden opportunity to produce something of value for our society, a value fit to be eulogized.

My last piece of advice is this: no matter what career you ultimately choose, from sports to science, to everything in between, never assume that politics will not affect you.

It was less than a year ago that the LPGA tried to create an English-only rule targeting Asian players for suspension from a tour that they were clearly dominating. If not for the efforts of APA legislators in California who stopped the policy, the world that your defending champion women’s golf team would graduate into would be a very different place.

And if you think a life hidden in a lab can keep you insulated from politics, just remember the story of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, who a mere decade ago was falsely accused of spying for China and had his career ruined for no reason other than his race. Take pride in knowing that the lawyer who sued the government and New York Times on Dr. Lee’s behalf and won an unprecedented settlement and apology, was Brian Sun, himself a Trojan.

And if you have no plans on getting a job and want to be a student for life, and I’m sure your parents must love you for that, remember that 67 years ago, 130 students from this very school, some on the verge of graduating, were shipped off to internment camps across inland America because of their Japanese heritage.

As easily as your lives can be affected by politics, it’s just as easy for you to affect the political system. Engagement in civic society does not have to mean running for public office as I did or working on a political campaign. It can start with simply breaking the cycle of political apathy and consistently exercising your right to vote, a privilege that those for whom this month is dedicated, did not have.

In closing, I wish to congratulate the class of 2009 on completing this chapter of your young lives, and beginning the next. Enjoy your accomplishments, but do not forget the multiple paths and dead-ends that had to be walked by others so that you could have an opportunity to walk today. I look forward to seeing what trails you will blaze for future generations. Thank you, and congratulations once again.

100 Reasons to Celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

2009-05-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

100 reasons to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

The author with Maya Soetero-Ng and Konrad Ng

I've always thought Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were quite lucky to have May as their designated month of celebration. The weather is great, students are excited about graduation, and taxes are finally out of the way. The plethora of activities that various organizations put together always makes May a festive time, and this year the community has even more to be proud of.

The beginning of this year's APA heritage month coincides with the end of President Obama's first 100 days in office, and these first 100 days have given the APA community much to celebrate. For the first time we have a President with deep, deep ties to the APA community, who has not hesitated to promote APAs to the highest levels of service in his administration.

Our current President basically grew up among Asians and Asian Americans. President Obama was born to a white Kansan mother and an African father in the Pacific island state of Hawaii, where Asians remain the majority race. From the ages of 6 to 10 he lived in Indonesia (the third-most populous country in Asia) with his mother and Indonesian step-father, before returning to Hawaii. From his mother's second marriage he has one sister, Maya Soetero-Ng, who is half Indonesian and who is married to Konrad Ng, a Chinese American by way of Canada.

President Obama's familiarity with the Asian community extends beyond the personal to the professional. As a legislator Barack Obama has had no qualms promoting Asian Americans to the highest levels of staff, responsibility, and trust. Chris Lu, a Harvard Law School classmate, served as Obama's Legislative Director and Acting Chief-of-Staff during Obama's time in the Senate. Eugene Kang was Obama's right-hand man and golfing buddy during the Presidential campaign, as well as the gate-keeper for his cell phone.

These individuals continue to serve the President and our nation in the White House; Lu is now the Cabinet Secretary in charge of coordinating President Obama's agenda among all of his Secretaries, and Kang is the Special Assistant to the President, screening and making the phone calls for the most powerful man on the planet when not advising him on his putting stance. They are joined in the cabinet by more APAs than have ever served in all past Presidential administrations combined. Whether purposeful or not, many of these appointments have been made with a flair and nod towards APA history.

General Eric Shinseki, also from Hawaii, remains the highest ranking Asian American in United States military history. However, he is probably more well known for estimating that a successful invasian of Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops, an estimate that led to his sidelining by the George W. Bush administration but which ultimately would prove to be prescient. He is now the Secretary for Veterans Affairs, charged with improving the lives of injured veterans who suffered because his initial recommendations had been rejected.

The Secretary of Energy position is most well known among Asian Americans for being the post Governor Bill Richardson had when he falsely accused Dr. Wen Ho Lee of spying for the Chinese government, for no reason other than race. While the case was basically thrown out of court and an unprecedented apology was issued by the presiding judge and the New York Times, the racial profiling left an indelible image in the minds of Asian American scientists working for the United States. Who better to restore trust in the Energy Department than physicist Steven Chu, the first Chinese American to serve in the post and a Nobel Laureate in Physics?

As you might be able to tell, I am a fan of our President. But I can't say that I've agreed with every decision he has made. For obvious reasons, it was a disappointment when Bill Richardson was nominated for the position of Secretary of Commerce. To have someone in charge of the Census (which operates under the Commerce Department) who had shown such little sensitivity to the Asian Pacific American community was a troubling thought. But as luck would have it, Richardson pulled his own candidacy due to corruption allegations back in New Mexico and he was ultimately replaced with Gary Locke, the first Chinese American governor in United States history.

The list of talented Asian Americans serving the administration grows each day. While Sanjay Gupta declined a position as Surgeon General, Kal Penn has put acting on hold to join the White House Office of Public Liason. The brilliant Koh brothers have also joined; Harold Koh was previously the Dean of Yale Law School and now serves as Legal Advisor to the Secretary of State, while brother Howard Koh now serves as the Assistant Secretary for Health.

We definitely have much to be proud of this APA heritage month. While Bill Clinton may have beaten out Barack Obama in becoming our nation's first Black President (according to Toni Morrison), I think we can take pride that we are celebrating APA heritage month with what arguably could be considered our first Asian Pacific American administration.

Getting in

2009-04-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

Getting in

This past weekend I attended the Harvard admit party for Southern California accepted students. As in previous years it was held at the home of a successful Harvard grad, who had parlayed his success in the media world into a gorgeous house overlooking Pasadena that could have passed for a modern art museum.

The tables were now turned. These high school seniors had spent the last few months primping and perfecting themselves and their applications for college approval. Now that the acceptance letters were out it was our turn to woo and recruit them, who at this event included runners, rock climbers, deontological philosophers and mathematical wizards. Interviewers and alumni milled about and tried to hone in on the few admittees and parents who had not yet made up their mind about where to go.

Approximately 29,000 students applied for a spot this year, and of those about 2000 were admitted. Over 1600 of those accepted are expected to take their spot in Harvard's class of 2013. While a 7% acceptance rate might seem low, for the San Gabriel Valley specifically it was even lower; of the 261 students that applied, only 16 were offered spots, for a 6% acceptance rate, and they all hailed from 10 schools.

Southern California typically suffers from a lower acceptance rate than the national Harvard average, and there are many who believe that Southern California is the most difficult region from which to get accepted to Harvard. I certainly think there are more than 16 qualified students from the San Gabriel Valley who deserved admissions, but why we consistently lag behind other areas will probably never be made very clear by the University.

So how does one separate themselves from the pack? To figure that out it's helpful to understand how Harvard and other top universities view their admissions classes. Each entering class is viewed holistically, and efforts are made to create a balanced community of students that will be able to learn as much from each another as they will from professors. Being able to accept academic rigor is a given, but that doesn't necessarily mean you need to be a genius. In fact, there are often more students ranked in the top 10% of their high school class at campuses such as UCLA or Berkeley than at Harvard, which relies less upon statistics and formulas in determining its class and considers many other issues.

Among the factors that float in the back of admissions officers heads are, who will fight to be the lead in college plays? Who will draw editorial cartoons critiquing the administration? Who will run for undergraduate president? Who will lead the soccer team back to glory? Who will create the internet company in the dorm room that will change the world? Who will organize service opportunities to help inner city school children? Who is going to teach something new to the classmates around them, and be open to learning something new as well? In short, who would you most like to have as a college roommate?

The best way to prepare yourself for a top university like Harvard, is to not over-prepare. Of course, take your role as a high school student seriously and achieve the best possible grades you can, since that's basically your job. Accept the SAT for what it is, a monumental test but one that can be practiced and mastered independently, without expensive test preparation schooling. Most importantly, figure out what it is that you enjoy and pursue it vigorously. Whether it's painting, writing, climbing, acting, running, engineering, or comedy, find your craft and hone it. By making yourself an indispensable asset for a college community (and no, perfect SATs do not make you indispensable) you are not just securing a spot in college, you are securing your spot in the world as well, no matter where you end up getting your degree.