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Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to Marcowitch Show on iHeartRadio. My

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Speaker 1: guest today is Helen Raleigh, an immigrant from communist China

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Speaker 1: and American by choice. Her latest book is called Not

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Speaker 1: Outsiders Asian Americans Political Activism from the nineteenth Century to Today,

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Speaker 1: and it's out now anywhere books are sold. Hi, Helen,

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Speaker 1: so nice to have you on.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Caara.

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Speaker 1: So, why are Asian Americans even sometimes considered outsiders? Why

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Speaker 1: did a book need to be written to say that

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Speaker 1: they're not.

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Speaker 2: That's a really good question because if you look at

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Speaker 2: a service, there are a lot of Americans continue to

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Speaker 2: feel this perpetual bias treating you know, Americans as outsiders,

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Speaker 2: especially since twenty twenty, the Racial Reckoning. There's a new

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Speaker 2: derogatory term invented by the progressives describe Asians as white adjacent.

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Speaker 2: So no matter how long we stay here, basically that

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Speaker 2: term deprive our history of long history in this country

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Speaker 2: as well as our own agency. So this term implies

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Speaker 2: that basically, Asian Americans, our only success comes from acting

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Speaker 2: white essentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the perpetual question, no

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Speaker 2: matter where you go, no matter how fluent English we speak,

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Speaker 2: the perpetual question is always where you're from, and it's

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Speaker 2: never enough until you mentioned somewhere else, you know, far

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Speaker 2: outside of the United States. So is this perpetual bias as

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Speaker 2: well as a new directory description about the Asian Americans

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Speaker 2: compelled me to decide that I must write this book

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Speaker 2: in order to you basically correct or refute those misunderstanding

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Speaker 2: about Asian America. Hasn't been here long enough, we haven't,

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Speaker 2: you know, the misunderstanding of we haven't made any contribution

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Speaker 2: to the civil rights movement, We're just writing a cocktail

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Speaker 2: of other people's other groups achievement, or we have no agencies,

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Speaker 2: or our success comes from active white So it's this

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Speaker 2: this a political environment that I feel compelled to write

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Speaker 2: this book.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting. It's like, similar to the Jewish population in America,

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Speaker 1: we're both called white when white is a bad thing,

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Speaker 1: but not white when that's the better option. It's it's

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Speaker 1: funny that there's that alignment, Like Asians are only considered

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Speaker 1: white when it's a negative right. So have Asians been

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Speaker 1: politically active for their entire time in this country?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely so. In my book, I basically look at the

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Speaker 2: trace back to the history, starting from eighteen fifty from

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Speaker 2: the Gold Rush to the present day, I identified the

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Speaker 2: three waves of Asian Americans political activism. So the first

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Speaker 2: wave was starting from eighteen fifty to basically to before

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Speaker 2: right before World War Two. During this time, Asian Americans

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Speaker 2: face actually was facing systemic discrimination, especially Chinese Americans. The

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Speaker 2: United States government passed the eighteen eighty two Chinese Exclusion Act,

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Speaker 2: which was the first immigration and the only immigration act

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Speaker 2: that preventing Chinese Americans from become naturalized a citizen. And

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Speaker 2: so during this period of time, most political activism was

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Speaker 2: focusing on, you know, opposing those discriminate, discriminatory immigration laws.

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Speaker 2: And the second wave is starting from World War Two

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Speaker 2: to the early nineteen nineties. Basically, you know, this covered

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Speaker 2: the struggle of Japanese Americans the Interment as well as

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Speaker 2: later on the l A riots against the you know

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Speaker 2: uh involved involved the discrimination against the Korean Americans as

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Speaker 2: well as the murder of Wincent Chen, a young Chinese

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Speaker 2: man in Detroit during the anti Japanese you know imports

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Speaker 2: you know protests. And and then the third wave is

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Speaker 2: actually more relevant to us UH contemporary because it involved

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Speaker 2: how Asian Americans pushed back the progress of war merits,

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Speaker 2: a meritocracy, and so involved cases such as you know

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Speaker 2: the s f A case against Harvard as well as

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Speaker 2: both in California as well in Washington State that Asian

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Speaker 2: Americans led multi ethnic correalitions to push back by the

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Speaker 2: initiatives try to bring back affirmative actions. Right.

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Speaker 1: I've seen that in New York before I moved, where

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Speaker 1: the Asian American population was getting much more politically active

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Speaker 1: than they had been, and it was because of education.

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Speaker 1: Do you see that as kind of the current frontier.

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Speaker 1: I know, merit is definitely a big part of it,

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Speaker 1: but even beyond just merit, I think the push for

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Speaker 1: better schools, the push for a stronger education system. Do

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Speaker 1: you see that as kind of what the Asian activism

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Speaker 1: is heading into.

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Speaker 2: Definitely. So there are two drivers within Asian communities political activism,

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Speaker 2: both immigration issues as well as education. Using myself example

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Speaker 2: why education is so important to Asian community. I came

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Speaker 2: here as an immigrant with less than one hundred dollars

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Speaker 2: in my pocket. I was the first one in my family,

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Speaker 2: you know, to come to the United States. I had

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Speaker 2: no other relations and have no other support, so I

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Speaker 2: was able to obertain to master degrees based on merit,

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Speaker 2: based on merit based scholarships, and so within the Asian community,

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Speaker 2: you see the spy focation of some Asian Americans have

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Speaker 2: been here for generations, you know, since eighteen fifties, but

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Speaker 2: some of us are like me, We're we're new immigrants.

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Speaker 2: So many of us come here with nothing, and education

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Speaker 2: has been our only way to realize our American dream

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Speaker 2: to climb the economic ladder. That is why it is

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Speaker 2: so important for Asian Americans to have a fair education

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Speaker 2: system where our kids can have fair chance, not not

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Speaker 2: have to suffer Asian penalty just because they're they're they're

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Speaker 2: they're Asian. That's why they have to score you know,

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Speaker 2: hundreds of points of higher and be subjective all those biases,

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Speaker 2: personality biases as well.

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Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and be right

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Speaker 1: back on the Carol Marco It Show. Do you feel

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Speaker 1: like there have been some successes in Asian activism in

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Speaker 1: the last I don't know, a decade or two.

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Speaker 2: Well, definitely the Supreme Court cases, the SFA versus Harvard

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Speaker 2: that the decades lasted for almost a decade, but eventually

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Speaker 2: the you know, I mean Harvard fought for the two

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Speaker 2: set nail with all its financial power, but in the

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Speaker 2: Supreme Court rude against Harvard. Basically deem Harvard race based

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Speaker 2: admission college tuition, Yeah, is unconstitutional. And also, as I

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Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, they're balid initiative successes, you know boast in

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Speaker 2: California as well as the Washington State that they pushed

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Speaker 2: back about the Batter initiative to bring back affirmative actions.

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Speaker 1: The Harvard one. Do you feel like there has been

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Speaker 1: a shift in their admissions, Like, I know they're not

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Speaker 1: allowed to take race into consideration anymore, but it seems

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Speaker 1: like they still do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, in Harvard's particular case, they still do it in

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Speaker 2: a very sneaky way instead of right as still did

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Speaker 2: you identify the race? They will ask im probing questions

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Speaker 2: such as tell us about your life experiences. So yes,

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Speaker 2: So the changes slowly coming from some of the higher

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Speaker 2: app but I definitely see uh changes in other areas too,

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Speaker 2: you know, for example, the University of Florida. You know,

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Speaker 2: before your current searching for the president, University of Florida

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Speaker 2: that actually can selt under uh bensas they can president

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Speaker 2: sas they can sol all their DEI you know, initiative

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Speaker 2: and use the money to fund the other you know,

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Speaker 2: education purposes. And also you see this bigger change in

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Speaker 2: corporate world. You know a lot of corporations, even in

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Speaker 2: clear high tech, which is very vocal areas, they actually

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Speaker 2: push back our DEI hirings as well as you know,

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Speaker 2: remove race from some of their hiring practice. So I

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Speaker 2: definitely see more changes happening in the corporate world as well.

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Speaker 2: So there's definitely changes.

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Speaker 1: So you're optimistic, I am, I definitely am.

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Speaker 2: And also with the last election, you see education as

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Speaker 2: well as a crime are two of the factory or

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Speaker 2: two of the factors driving more Asians voted for the Republicans,

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Speaker 2: including Donald Trump. Especially those votes made a difference in

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Speaker 2: tight races areas such as Nevada. So I definitely see

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Speaker 2: there's a you know, political shift among the Asian American

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Speaker 2: populations as well as you know, because the success built

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Speaker 2: on success, right when when they see, you know, some

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Speaker 2: success can happen even in blue state, like the blue

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Speaker 2: cities like San Francisco, then there's more desire and more

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Speaker 2: motivation to build on a success to be more politically involved.

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Speaker 2: So I definitely see that what.

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Speaker 1: Era of Asian American activism was your favorite to cover

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Speaker 1: in your book, not Outsiders.

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Speaker 2: Probably the present one, but there are some interesting ones

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Speaker 2: from the early eras as well. I don't know if

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Speaker 2: you know if I were, because the present one is

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Speaker 2: more related to right here here and now, yeah, right right,

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Speaker 2: But there are some interesting stories. Let me just tell

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Speaker 2: you one because that story is really illustrate how America

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Speaker 2: is more than a place. It is this idea and

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Speaker 2: anybody can you know, could come this country and he

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Speaker 2: embraced this idea and become American overnight. So in the

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Speaker 2: early in the nineteenth century that there was a Chinese

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Speaker 2: supposed to the first prostitute, you know, from from China.

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Speaker 2: And you know prostitution, prostitute normally was treated very poorly

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Speaker 2: back in China. They were like the lowest low, you know,

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Speaker 2: in the society. Nobody, you know, bother to even take

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Speaker 2: them seriously or care about them. But so this this woman,

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Speaker 2: you know, she later opened her own brothel and in Chinatown,

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Speaker 2: the gangsters came to you demand protection money and to

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Speaker 2: pay the protection money, and she refused to pay. Guess

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Speaker 2: what she said. She said, I'm in America. Now I'm American.

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Speaker 2: I have rights. You can't just ask me to pay

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Speaker 2: you know, protection money. If you don't go away, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to sue you. I'm going to report you to

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Speaker 2: the police, you know a station. What era was that

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Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century, because she was the first you know,

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Speaker 2: Chinese constitute, and so this was during the era where

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Speaker 2: the Chinese face the systematic you know discrimination from the

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Speaker 2: you know, from the state. Yet it took no time

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Speaker 2: for her to realize she's in a different country. Now

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Speaker 2: she's American, she has rights, she can use the legal

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Speaker 2: means to protect herself and her business. I always find

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Speaker 2: that stories fascinating. Despite of her possession, right, was it legal?

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Speaker 1: Was prostitution legal.

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Speaker 2: Back then in the nineteenth century questionable? It's question about

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Speaker 2: And you would also help that the chief of the

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Speaker 2: San Francisco Police was one of her regulars. So yes, yes, yes,

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Speaker 2: But it's her embrace of this idea, you know, overnight

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Speaker 2: and she became a different person. I just find that

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Speaker 2: story is fascinating. I before I write this, before I

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Speaker 2: wrote this book, I do not know about her. Only

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Speaker 2: through research about you know, writing this book. I'm so

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Speaker 2: glad I get to know her story and you know,

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Speaker 2: get to put her story in my book, you know,

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Speaker 2: keep her name remembered a by other people. This is

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Speaker 2: the earliest Asian Americans. How they embraced American ideal and

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Speaker 2: define themselves, protect themselves.

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Speaker 1: What made you become an American by choice?

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Speaker 2: That's so interesting question. So I, as I mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 2: I grew up in comeless China, and in my lifetime

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Speaker 2: I experienced drama take political as well as economic changes.

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Speaker 2: So when I was young in China, there were still

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Speaker 2: rationing system. Everything was Rationian, including food. So my Chinese

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Speaker 2: name happened to be a boy's name. And you know,

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Speaker 2: the food ration was distributed based on gender as well

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Speaker 2: as age, So for the same age boys and girls,

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Speaker 2: a boy was allocated you know, four more pound the

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Speaker 2: rights each month than a girl. But because my name

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Speaker 2: was a boy's name, and the bureaucrats, you know, you

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Speaker 2: know how incompetent they were tending to make mistakes. So

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Speaker 2: for a while I was receiving a food ration that

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Speaker 2: meant for a boy. But even with those additional for

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Speaker 2: more pound the rice, I was still hungry all the time.

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Speaker 2: My childhood dream were often filled with food. I always

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Speaker 2: dream about food. Yeah, So eventually, you know, when the

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Speaker 2: police came to our house to do you know, random search,

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Speaker 2: which was totally normal back then in China. They did

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Speaker 2: not need a warrant. And of course, you know, he

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Speaker 2: compared our papers versus people in the house. He realized

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Speaker 2: the government made a mistake. I received supposedly additional food raction,

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Speaker 2: so he demanded my family to to pay the government back.

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Speaker 2: And that experience really left a profound impact in my heart.

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Speaker 2: I didn't think about the grand you know, ideas such

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Speaker 2: as freedom and equality. All I thought was, you know,

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Speaker 2: first of all, why did I have to eat the

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Speaker 2: last food just because I grow right? And the second

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Speaker 2: of all, who gets you said, except me? Why can't

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Speaker 2: I decaid how much I have? You know, I could eat?

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Speaker 2: And it was those primal ideas from that experience shold

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Speaker 2: me that eventually I decided I want to go to

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Speaker 2: a place where I didn't decide how I want to

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Speaker 2: live my life, including how much food I want to eat.

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Speaker 1: The freed what you want is so basic, It's.

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Speaker 2: So basic, Yet in a different society you under authoritary regime,

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Speaker 2: that is something we've been deprived of. So yeah, so

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Speaker 2: it's those basic ideas from those early days a childhood

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Speaker 2: experience showed me to want to come to America, you know,

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Speaker 2: to live a different kind of life.

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Speaker 1: What do you worry about?

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Speaker 2: My biggest worry is that the West, including the United States. Uh,

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Speaker 2: there are some people in the West and the United

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Speaker 2: States they do not cherish the country, whether the Western

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Speaker 2: ideal has offered to them. They are banned down to

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Speaker 2: destroying it. And somehow they feel like they can always

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Speaker 2: do better than the communists in China or the community

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Speaker 2: the former Soviet Union. And I've been screaming from top

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Speaker 2: of my lungs. You said, you are not going to

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Speaker 2: do better. It has been tried everywhere and all they

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Speaker 2: all fail. Do not give up? What do you know?

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Speaker 2: What do you have here? And especially I don't want

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Speaker 2: to live in a life kind of life again. And

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Speaker 2: that's my biggest worry. That people who here are so

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Speaker 2: used to the freedom and the prosperity provided it by

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Speaker 2: this you know, system, that they're ready to show it

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Speaker 2: away and they're working hard to throw it away.

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Speaker 1: They don't know that it's been tried in all the

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Speaker 1: different ways that they imagine. It hasn't been tried. I

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Speaker 1: just I always hear from especially young people who think

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Speaker 1: leftism is just you know, just another idea, just another

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Speaker 1: path that we could all take. They don't understand. They

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Speaker 1: think that, oh, if we'll do it better now, we'll do.

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Speaker 2: It differently now.

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Speaker 1: But it's been tried in all these different ways. They

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Speaker 1: all thought that they would do it better, they all

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Speaker 1: thought that they could force an equal outcome, and you know,

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Speaker 1: they ended up many of them dead because of it.

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Speaker 1: So do you say that that's a lack of education

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Speaker 1: or what is it?

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Speaker 2: I think is definitely education is a big part of

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Speaker 2: it because our schools, as you you know, you have

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Speaker 2: kids in schools, so you know that our schools are

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Speaker 2: now focused on teaching kids the truths about what's really happened, uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, like in communism, as well as the truth

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Speaker 2: and beauty of a you know, Western society. But but

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Speaker 2: I also think beyond education is that there's also misunderstanding

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Speaker 2: of the issues. The problem we see in our society.

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Speaker 2: It's been mischaracterized as you know, capitalism. Capitalism that's why

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Speaker 2: we have poverty, that's why we have homeless problem without

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Speaker 2: you know, drill down to the real root cause of

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Speaker 2: those mostly come out of you know, government policies. So

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Speaker 2: so I think we do. Yeah, definitely, education is the

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Speaker 2: start that we need to educate our kids, young people

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Speaker 2: better about not only about the evil of communism that

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Speaker 2: you and I live through, but or about the truth

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Speaker 2: and beauty, prosperity of what the Western civilization, about what

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Speaker 2: the American ideal have afforded us. You know, we need

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Speaker 2: to do from both and goals.

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Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and be right

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Speaker 1: back on the Carol Marco It Show. What would you

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Speaker 1: tell your sixteen year old self? What advice would you

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Speaker 1: give her?

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Speaker 2: I would tell myself that it's a modified quote from

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Speaker 2: a doctor, Martin Luther King. He said, you know, it's

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Speaker 2: always the right time to do the right thing. So

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Speaker 2: I would tell my sixteen year older self that if

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Speaker 2: you believe it's the right thing to do, don't wait

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Speaker 2: too long, you know, to do it, and it's not

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Speaker 2: He was more referred to social justice issues, but I

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Speaker 2: would see it as more just generally for life, you know,

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Speaker 2: life wisdoms, like you know, if you believe it's the

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Speaker 2: right time to have kids, and honestly, there's no right

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Speaker 2: time to have kids, right I.

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Speaker 1: Like to say the right time to have kids is

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Speaker 1: right now.

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Speaker 2: Exactly I like, I like what you're thinking. You know.

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Speaker 2: The only the reason I think that because you know, personally,

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Speaker 2: I feel one of my biggest regrets is I waited

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Speaker 2: too long because I well, I was, you know young.

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Speaker 2: My head that was filled with this idea that the

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Speaker 2: career comes first, and you know, ambition comes first, and

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Speaker 2: you know having kids can wait. But you know, after

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Speaker 2: losing my child is through pregnancy loss that I finally

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Speaker 2: realized that, you know, there's certain things just cannot wait

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Speaker 2: in life. That and there is no perfect timing for

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Speaker 2: the things you want to do. So and you know

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Speaker 2: what ambitions and the careers, those things are important. But

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Speaker 2: you probably heard the saying as well as I do

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Speaker 2: that nobody on their desk that wish they're you know,

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Speaker 2: more famous or work. The more right it. The sooner

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Speaker 2: we realize what really matters in life and put time

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Speaker 2: and the resource to do in it right away, the better.

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Speaker 2: So that's what I would tell myself and also all

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Speaker 2: the other young women that EMU believe is a rising

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Speaker 2: that you do not wait to have kids.

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Speaker 1: I love that so much and I talk about that

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Speaker 1: a lot on the show where women are kind of

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Speaker 1: deferring child and birth they're waiting to have kids. Look,

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Speaker 1: sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes the time isn't right.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was best friends with my husband for

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Speaker 1: a decade before we started dating. We wasted a lot

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Speaker 1: of time just being friends and we could have been

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Speaker 1: married and having kids. But the idea that you put

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Speaker 1: off family to have a career, I think that that's backwards.

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Speaker 1: I think it's a lot easier to have a career

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Speaker 1: when you have stability, and you have family, and you

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Speaker 1: have the things that you set out to have. I've

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Speaker 1: loved this conversation. I think you have so many interesting

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Speaker 1: things to say, and I think your book is fantastic.

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Speaker 1: Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners

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Speaker 1: on how they can improve their lives.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm hesitating to tell other people how to improve

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Speaker 2: your lives.

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Speaker 1: You can tell them they you know, from my own experience,

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Speaker 1: I would say as I getting older, I.

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Speaker 2: Learned that not to waste the time people are the

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Speaker 2: things that are not worth it. But definitely be generous

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Speaker 2: with your time and attention with the people, and you

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Speaker 2: know things that you consider that worth it. A quick

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Speaker 2: example when I was when I used to talk before

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Speaker 2: I lost my child, when I used to talk to

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Speaker 2: my parents on FaceTime. I used to put the phone

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Speaker 2: against my computer, so I wasn't really paying attention, you know,

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Speaker 2: you know, like you know, I hear the babble. I

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Speaker 2: know I heard the babbeling, but I'm like, oh, they're

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Speaker 2: just repeating the same old stuff again again. You know.

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Speaker 2: But after I lost my child, I realized that I'm

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Speaker 2: not always going to have my last one, I mean,

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Speaker 2: my loved one tomorrow, right, we do not know what

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Speaker 2: the tomorrow holds. So and I realized my parents are

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Speaker 2: not always going to be here forever, and someday I'm

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Speaker 2: going to regret I'm not paying attention to what they say.

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Speaker 2: So nowadays, when I talk to them, computer shut off.

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Speaker 2: I give them my full attention, even if they're telling

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Speaker 2: me things they told me like a hundred times before. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: are your parents Your parents knows that your parents knows

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Speaker 2: when you are paying attention when you are not, of course,

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Speaker 2: And I'm just grateful because I see other people who

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Speaker 2: are the lost their parents. I'm grateful that I still

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Speaker 2: have my parents here. And so I think the highest

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Speaker 2: formal generosity is always be willing to share your time

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Speaker 2: and attention with people you care so don't waste time

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Speaker 2: people are not worth it, but be generous with people

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Speaker 2: who definitely are worth it.

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Speaker 1: I love that so much. She is Helen Raleigh. Her

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Speaker 1: book is Not Outsiders Asian Americans Political activism from the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century to today. Buy it anyway. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for coming on, Helen.

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Speaker 2: Thank you m