These Republicans are lousy at choosing their token Asians

Arizona GOP website displays family from Margaret Cho sitcom to represent Asian American interests.



It looks like Arizona Republicans are hard up for some Asian friends. In a spectacularly awful attempt to illustrate its diversity and support for Asian Americans, the Arizona Republican Party's official website prominently displayed a photo of a smiling Asian American family. Here's the problem: the family is fake. In fact, it's a cast photo of the fictional Kim family from Margaret Cho's short-lived 1994 sitcom All-American Girl.

Arizona GOP uses Margaret Cho sitcom pic to represent Asian Americans

For you young ones out there, decades before Fresh Off The Boat, ABC aired the very first sitcom featuring a Korean American family, starring rising standup comedian Margaret Cho. It made some waves, but for the most part it was not well received and was promptly canceled after a season. You heard it mentioned a lot in the hoopla as a predecessor to Fresh Off The Boat when that show hit the air a couple of years ago.

But it's pretty apparent that the show didn't have any fans among the Arizona GOP. Or they would have found a nonfictional or at least less recognizable Asian family to use as their token minorities.

Arizona woman assaults students for speaking Mandarin

22-year-old Kalie Rutledge punched Xiaolin Shi for speaking Chinese on the light rail.



The hell? People apparently can't even speak Chinese in public in Arizona without the threat of violence. In Tempe, a woman was arrested for assaulting two students after she heard them speak Mandarin on the light rail.

Asian Couple assaulted in Tempe for speaking Mandarin on light rail, Kalie Rutledge arrested

Police say 22-year-old Kalie Rutledge was riding on the Metro Light Rail on May 20 when she heard Arizona State University student Xiaolin Shi speaking to a friend in Mandarin. She apparently took issue with this.

Rutledge reportedly told them, "I don't speak Chinese, shut the fuck up!" and "Bitch, go f---ing back to China."

Two students dead in double shooting at Arizona high school

15-year-old May Kieu and another student were found fatally shot in a possible murder-suicide.



In Arizona, two 15-year-old female students were killed in a double shooting Friday morning at a Glendale high school. Both reportedly died of single gunshot wounds in a possible murder-suicide.

1 of 2 girls shot to death at Independence High School in Glendale identified

One of the students was identified as May Kieu, a sophomore at Independence High School. It is being reported that Kieu's sister, Phuong Kieu, is a teacher at the school.

Police were called to the school just before 8:00 am, and arrived within two minutes to find the two girls dead in an isolated area of campus near the administration building. Both had each sustained a single gunshot wound and a weapon was found beside them. They were declared dead at the scene.

Chinese student killed in Arizona road rage shooting

Holly Davis is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of 19-year-old ASU student Yue Jiang.



In Arizona, police have arrested a woman who shot and killed an Arizona State University student from China in a deadly road rage incident. Evidence suggests that she planned to commit a violent act.

Police arrest woman in deadly Arizona road rage shooting

According to Tempe police, 32-year-old Holly Davis crashed into another vehicle at a busy intersection, then got out and fired into the other vehicle's driver side window several times, hitting 19-year-old Yue Jiang.

Jiang lost consciousness, veered out of control and crashed into an oncoming car carrying a family of five, who were not seriously hurt. Jiang was taken to the hospital where she died.

New report examines Asian American & NHPIs in the West

Asian American Advancing Justice releases final report in 'Community of Contrasts' demographic series.



This week, Asian American Advancing Justice released the final report in its A Community of Contrasts demographic report series, examining the growing Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations in the Western U.S., including Arizona, Hawaii, Las Vegas, the Seattle metro area and Oregon.

These demographic reports showcase the contributions and needs of Asian Americans nationwide. The report's disaggregated data illuminates income and educational disparities across Asian ethnicities, highlights Asian American business and economic contributions and underscores the future political power of our rapidly growing demographic. Props to Asian Americans Advancing Justice for always slinging that demographic data.

Here are some highlights from the West report:

Asian American organizations urge Supreme Court to strike down Arizona's discriminatory voter registration law

This week, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed an amici curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, challenging the legality of Proposition 200, Arizona's new restrictive voter registration law. According to AALDEF, Proposition 200 will unfairly burden naturalized citizens, who make up almost 40% of the state's Asian American population.

The brief was filed with twelve other Asian American organizations that conduct voter registration drives in states with laws similar to Arizona's, or whose state legislatures are considering such laws -- laws that will make voter registration more burdensome for Asian American voters and will impair the ability of grassroots groups to register Asian American voters.

Here's more info from AALDEF's press release:

asian american joins civil rights lawsuit against arizona immigration law

Meet Jim Shee, the Asian American man who has joined the federal civil rights lawsuit challenging Arizona's ridiculously tough immigration law, SB 1070: Asian-American says Latinos not only ones hit by Ariz. immigration law.

The law allows police to ask the immigration status of a person, stopped, detained or arrested if there's a reasonable suspicion the person is in the country illegally. This is racial profiling, straight up. But it doesn't just target and affect Latinos.

Shee, the only Asian American among ten individuals named in the lawsuit, joined the fight when he too became the victim of racial profiling -- twice within the span of two weeks -- during traffic stops where he was asked for his "papers."