>> DoorDash's commitment to the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community reflects our mission to empower local economies.

We honor the achievements of the AAPI community and stand with them against hate.

>> My name is David Yoo.

I'm the owner of Davey's Ice Cream.

As a small-business owner, it's about taking care of your neighborhood.

Mastercard's goal is to help small businesses grow.

The fact that I can make people happy with ice cream is a priceless feeling.

♪♪ >> I am the chosen one.

Somebody had to do it.

So I'm taking on China.

The Chinese virus.

[ Crowd cheering ] >> China is a very popular target in American politics.

Many, many years ago, it was Japan, by the way.

If you recall, back in the '80s, Japan played the role.

And it does make you think that there's a kind of demonology available for Asian-Americans to face in the international arena that has to have a country behind it.

>> Why do you keep calling this the Chinese virus?

There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese-Americans in this country.

>> Don't ask me.

Ask China that question, okay?

When you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer.

>> Sir, why are you saying that to me specifically?

>> Asian-Americans face the stereotype of being considered foreigners in their own land.

>> We are back with an unexpected side effect of this coronavirus crisis -- Asian-Americans becoming targets of discrimination.

>> During my first year on the city council, I remember walking through the City Hall rotunda, where there was a display of historical items, including minutes from the City Council meeting in L.A. dating 100 years earlier, back in 1885.

And by random, the pages of the minutes were opened up to a page that showed the City Council debate over whether the presence of Chinese immigrants was a threat to the public health.

>> Migrants are often likened to parasites, an invasive population, a plague, an invisible threat, like pathogens.

Immigrants have been stigmatized for being carriers of dangerous diseases and contagion that are dangerous to Americans.

>> They're the culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that.

>> So many of these remarks are based in misunderstanding of facts and science, but also based in xenophobia and racism.

>> In the 19th century, one of the most popular forms of culture were the minstrel stage.

There will be a stock Chinese character, typically male, typically wearing one of those coolie hats made up in yellow face makeup, speaking with -- in pidgin English, you know, a very degrading stereotype of Chinese people.

But it was very common for this stock character, this John Chinaman, to represent and to express these stereotypes about Chinese eating indigestible and polluting foods, sending this message that if they were eating these weird diseased animals, that they themselves, as a people, were also filthy and polluting.

>> It was because of this stereotype where it's easy for people to believe that Asian-Americans would be foreigners in their own land, even if they have been here for generations.

>> Born in the United States of America, born in New York.

So I'm an American.

It's the only country I know.

It's the people I know.

It's the nation that I love.

And to have others say you're not part of your homeland was painful.

>> That because your face looks different, therefore, you must have been born in a different country.

And who may ask in a completely well-intentioned way, "Well, what language do you really speak?"

>> I'm very fortunate to live in Los Angeles, being one of the most diverse cities in the nation, and not only diverse, but very progressive.

Not to say discrimination does not exist.

Of course it does, but it's very more in subtle ways.

So every day, many a times when people come to me and ask me, "Hey, where are you from?

", they don't mean, "Did you grow up in Burbank?

Did you grow up in Los Angeles?"

And when I say, "Oh, I'm from L.A.", they say, "No, no, where are you really from?"

You know, but a question like that, for myself, being an immigrant myself, I understand what they're asking of my background, my heritage, my birthplace.

But during the campaign, because we live in such a progressive city, it was less of that.

More than anything, when I knocked on people's doors, they thought I was a real-estate agent.

[ Laughs ] >> First election, back in 1981, I underestimated the power of racial appeals.

It kind of surprised me, because Los Angeles had the image of being a very cosmopolitan, if not a liberal city.

But I think it shows that even in a city that has a reputation for being cosmopolitan or liberal, it's not that hard to get at people's underlying economic anxieties and the tendency to use race as a scapegoat for things that people are unhappy about.

>> You always know that there's latent bias out there, right?

There's bias against blacks.

There's bias against Latinos.

There's bias against Asians.

There's bias against Jews.

I mean, so you know it's there.

You know it's there even if it doesn't exhibit itself openly.

But I was shocked in that campaign by some of the outrageous things that were done and said about Mike Woo.

A TV ad that ended with a shot of -- a still shot of Mike Woo's face.

They pulled in on his eye so that, at the end of the spot, all you saw was his eye, like this, looming out of the TV screen.

Why would you make a spot that way?

Why would you pull into the candidate's face and focus on his eye?

So we put it into focus groups to test it.

And the response of people in the focus groups was pretty obvious.

They said, "Yeah, you know, they want to show he's a slant-eye."

And all this went on without retort, without anyone but us saying, "Wait a minute.

This is outrageous."

>> I think that political consultants figured out clever ways to use race as an indirect way of suggesting that this candidate who comes from a different ethnic background is incapable of understanding what you really need.

Is this candidate on your side?

How can you count on this candidate to stand up for you?

But in a race in which an ethnic candidate is running against a white candidate, it isn't that hard, even indirectly, to start to bring up some of these anxieties or doubts.

For example, pointing out that my father or my grandfather were active in Chinese organizations.

That can be presented in a way that suggests to a non-Chinese voter, "This candidate comes from a family that doesn't care about me."

>> There were pretty distinct evidences of anti-Asian bias and people thinking that you could take on an Asian-American candidate and get away with it because they're the so-called "model minority" that nobody feels sorry for.

>> The reason these stereotypes persist against particular groups is because they have historical roots in nationwide campaigns to demonize entire racial groups and depict them as meeting certain stereotypes.

So with respect to Mexican-Americans, they had to demonize a whole population in order to justify taking over half of a country.

With the African-American community, obviously supporting slavery, so inconsistent with our articulated principles, it was necessary to demonize them as somehow subhuman.

And with Asian-Americans, to justify national policies of exclusion, you really have to demonize an entire racial group to adopt nationwide policies.

So it's always about conquest, exclusion.

>> 19th century advertisements went even further with making the connection between Chinese immigrants and rats.

A seller of rat poison printed up this trade advertisement card titled "Rough on Rats," and it featured an exotically dressed coolie-hat-and-pigtail-wearing Chinese man about to eat a whole rat.

And both the Chinese and the poison were labeled "rough on rats."

The sly use of the slogan "the Chinese must go" referred not only to the rats, but also to the Chinese.

>> When I was growing up in Boston, I was regularly called chink, gook, Jap, every racial epithet you could imagine being thrown at an Asian-American.

And I was so accustomed to it that I didn't really think at the time just how intense that was.

And it wasn't until years later, when I moved to California, a state where, because of our diversity, you have less of that overt racism.

>> You've got to assimilate a little bit, Chinatown.

...your laundry hanging out the windows.

...your three or four people inside each one of your little SROs.

Okay?

...your noise, ...your parades...your dragons.

...this... >> We may have a tendency to assume that everything turns out for the best or that people automatically turn to a more positive point of view.

But many times in politics, I've observed that it's not that hard to get to the most negative or cynical views of the population.

>> It's an invasion and it's also an invasion of drugs coming in from Mexico.

>> You know, a lot of people see the anti-immigrant rhetoric and action from the federal administration as being a Latino issue.

It's not simply a Latino issue.

It's a human issue for sure, but it's also very much an Asian issue.

And we need to make sure that we are talking about that, owning that, seeing that our community is under attack with this anti-immigrant action and rhetoric.

[ Crowd chants "Send her back!"

] >> ...off... >> When I stand on the floor of the California State Legislature, I often remind myself that it was the very chamber that I serve in, where I get to vote today, that not long ago led the country in excluding Chinese-Americans, that it was our state where some of the first internment camps of Japanese-Americans were laid out, that post-9/11 anti-Muslim incidents have been on the rise, hate crimes against Muslim kids have spiked.

This was in our recent history.

And if we're not careful, we could go back to that history.

>> We can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they're doing.

>> A global fight escalates again.

Today's move to close the Chinese consulate in Houston is the latest action by the Trump administration against Beijing.

>> I remember when I was first starting to be invited to speak about anti-Asian xenophobia during the pandemic.

And I remember many public op-eds and commentaries from people, Asian-Americans, who were expressing surprise, like, almost shock.

"I didn't know that this could happen.

I didn't realize that, you know, that I could be one of those hated immigrants, like the Mexicans, you know, who have been the focus of our president's ire."

And I think it's been a real wake-up call.

>> I hate Asians.

[Bleep] >> Uh-oh.

He's scared, O.G.

Crack his [bleep] You hear that [bleep] Get your [bleep] ass.

>> Well, let's look at history again as to what happens when there were conflicts with other countries.

What happened to Japanese-Americans during the war and the internments and the discriminatory practices that occurred subsequent to that, not only to Japanese-Americans, but Asian Pacific Islanders?

>> Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air, President Roosevelt has just announced.

>> That is why the commanding general of the Western Defense Command determined that all Japanese within the coastal area should move inland.

>> But a great many of them, of course, were citizens of the United States.

Why do you think they were treated that way, for instance, and the Italians and Germans were not?

Who were also our enemies at the time.

What could they have done differently than they did?

I mean, what basis was there for feeling that they were disloyal?

>> Only the conduct of the...himself.

>> As one who believes in the principles of freedom and justice and liberty, I think it's very important that we recall our mistakes.

We ought to know that, in 1942, a mistake was made, that American citizens of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated in total violation of their constitutional rights.

And, therefore, I think it's very important that everybody know that this happened in our past, because it can happen to blacks, it can happen to Chicanos, it can happen to poor, it could happen to political dissidents.

>> Could this thing happen again?

>> I would have to say it's possible, unfortunately.

I would prefer to say that it's not possible, but, as you're aware, legally, the law is still in the books.

For example, the executive order that called for the evacuation was upheld by the Supreme Court, a unanimous decision.

It is still the law of the land.

So, legally, I presume if you wanted to carry out racism, it can be done.

>> Asians have one of the longest histories of being victims of stereotypes in American history.

I mean, it goes so far back and including not even feeling comfortable of the certainty of being here.

You know, obviously, with the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Japanese-American internment and issues like that, this has been a serious, profound issue for generation after generation.

>> Japanese imports up, American car production down -- layoffs, welfare lines, desperation, and resentment.

In some places, union-sponsored "Trash a Toyota" parties, striking out at a symbol of the problem.

>> I remember the exact moment when I heard about the hate-crime murder of Vincent Chin.

He was in a club celebrating his impending wedding.

How two white autoworkers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, started yelling at him that, "It's because of you that we're out of work."

I was horrified to learn how they followed him out, grabbed him as they hit him with a baseball bat until Vincent's skull cracked, and how Vincent's last words were, "It's not fair," before he slipped into a coma and died.

>> I was with him for four days, every day.

Go in there and see him.

Just sit next to him.

>> I'll be quite honest, I expected to go to jail.

I pleaded guilty to manslaughter on that.

I did just like anybody else.

I went to take my licks because I thought sure I would go to jail.

>> And in what outraged the Asian community, both escaped a 15-year prison term.

Instead, they were placed on three years' probation and given a $3,000 fine.

>> Right there on the front page was coverage of that these two killers had received probation for killing a Chinese man.

>> I was brought up to believe that if you do something wrong, you have to pay the price.

And it didn't seem that Vincent's life was valued very much.

>> When we hear, as we've heard throughout all our lives, no matter how old we are, that we are a country that stands for freedom, for rightness, for justice, for everyone, it simply doesn't apply to those who are not white.

>> We're in the midst of a phenomenal transformation of American society that's been going on for decades, and it's accelerating.

And the resistance to that is accelerating, and they're colliding.

And this collision really hit its turning point with Barack Obama's election in 2008, which actually made people aware of how big that transformation is.

And that means aware both of those who favor the transformation and those who are resisting it.

>> There have been conspiracy theories about this idea that somehow the diversity of the world is rising up here in America, and this is why certain elements of White America feels like they have to exert their belief of what America should be.

>> All we want is to change America back to what it was.

>> I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.

[ Crowd chants "We want Wallace!"

] >> And I'll tell you, they ought to take them people over there and put them in a bunch of cages and ship them off in a ship and dump them.

[ Crowd chanting ] >> Take Donald Trump.

He's getting huge support from people who are angry at everything.

Mostly white males.

>> I am voting for Donald Trump.

I don't give a... >> That's who I'm voting for.

>> They are furious about everything.

Everything's been taken away from them.

There's no economic growth for them.

There is for other people.

There's concern that -- deep concern that they're losing their country because "They --" generalize "they" -- "are taking it away from us."

>> U.S.A.!

U.S.A.!

U.S.A.!

U.S.A.!

>> U.S.A.!

U.S.A.!

Whoo!

[ Indistinct shouting ] >> What's so different?!

Nothing's different!

Nothing's different!

>> And now there's the picture of us as being overwhelmed by Muslims and Mexicans, you know, Chinese.

Somehow, they're taking our country away.

And it's based on something objective.

I mean, the white population is pretty soon going to become a minority, whatever "white" means, and the people who regard themselves that way.

But the response to this is generalized anger at everything.

[ Crowd chants "Stop the steal!"

] >> When I was running in the city of Monterey Park, things were very, very polarized.

Longtime residents had a great resentment of the new immigrants that were coming in.

They saw their Safeway supermarket becoming a 99 Ranch Market and they saw their eggs-and-bacon coffee shop becoming the Hawaii noodle shop.

So they saw their city disappearing.

That's the way they viewed it, rather than seeing something new and exciting happening in the city.

But what happened then was that then people were very polarized, and I would say that that was when I had the greatest amount of stereotyping and people who thought that I could not represent them, that I did not speak English, that I was not an American, or that I could not understand the City Council rules and regulations, nor could I actually represent their points of view.

>> If I win, they're going back.

[ Crowd chants "U.S.A.!"

] >> What they all have in common is the notion that it's a white country and everybody is just a visitor who's not white.

That's where the whole thing about "go back, go back to your country," that if you're, you know, an Asian-American, you're a foreigner somehow.

>> I'm seen as a perpetual foreigner.

So what do I do to demonstrate my patriotism when I knock on doors and canvass?

I've been asked the question, "Are you -- During the Olympics, are you more loyal to the United States or Japan?"

And, of course, I'm Chinese-American.

The mayor of my city at the time was a second-generation Italian when I first ran for City Council in the city of Campbell, but I was two generations more native to my community in Santa Clara Valley than the incumbent mayor.

But, again, I was seen as a perpetual foreigner.

>> You have to look at it through the sort of the continuum of American history.

Where we're sitting right now used to belong to Mexico, and before that, it belonged to Spain, right?

So if you're Latino and you're here in America, you know, even if you emigrated in here from someplace, there's a long, long history.

I mean, in a sense, I mean, they're not what we call Native Americans, but in a sense, they've been here a long, long time.

You know, there's been a Latino presence in this country for a long, long time.

I mean, blacks were brought here as slaves in the 1700s.

So even though they were imported in from Africa, essentially, they've been here a long, long time.

Asians not so much.

I mean, Asians are the most recent immigrant wave in the U.S. Other than Chinese workers, basically, who were here very early on, as you know, working on the railroads and serving as cooks and all of that, Asians have not been here that long, at least not in the numbers that they are now.

>> What we are facing today is no different than what the Irish, the Polish faced back hundreds of years ago when they were first emigrating to the United States.

It is nothing new to our history, yet we are the newer immigrants.

>> Put it in perspective.

My parents came to this country with a lot less.

What I have is an incredible blessing and a privilege.

My dad, when he came to this country, three shirts, two pairs of pants, not much money.

You know, my mom cleaned floors to, you know, pay for her meals.

1950s, so, basically, you were leaving your homeland.

Obviously, communications was very different.

It cost a lot of money to make a phone call.

So you were saying goodbye to things that you were familiar with, the people that you loved based on this ideal that this country and if you did the right thing would provide you with a brighter, more spectacular future.

>> So, John Chiang and I grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago.

We grew up in a suburb that was principally a white-flight suburb.

These were communities that were largely, but not exclusively, populated by people that left Chicago as Chicago was integrating.

And so, as a consequence, they were fairly conservative communities and ones that were very insular.

And John and his family were one of the first families of color to move into their particular neighborhood and their suburb.

>> Our family faced extraordinary hostility, discrimination, bigotry.

And it's painful, as a child of 6, 7, 8, to be treated as second-class citizen, to be excluded.

>> It was a very, I think, Middle America, middle-class high-school experience.

But for John, it was very different, because not only was John's family one of the only Chinese-American families in the community, but one of the only families of color in the whole community.

And, as a result, his family was targeted with bigotry and prejudice.

There were epithets spray-painted on the side of their home, various ways in which people manifest their prejudices.

His younger siblings sometimes bullied, that sort of thing.

>> Dave has sort of been a security blanket for me.

You know, when people say, you know, "That didn't happen to you as a child, you didn't face that discrimination," Dave Jones is right there, and he saw it.

He saw the hostilities.

He understood the struggle.

All my life, I've been standing up to the bullies.

As a kid, I stood up to racist bullies who were picking on my younger brothers, and I won.

>> Growing up, I spoke Chinese.

Having said that, it wasn't until the later part of elementary school that I faced racism.

In fact, we were victims of a hate crime.

Our house was spray-painted in "go back to your own country."

I remember, very vividly, my brother and I telling our parents, "We want to speak English only."

And so that was the case.

Fast-forward to now.

When I talk to other recent immigrants, they don't quite see me as truly Chinese because I don't speak the language.

And, yet, I felt incumbent upon myself to tell them, "Well, did you know that it was the generations that had come before you that had to assimilate to gain the level of trust, the patriotism, serving in World War, serving in Vietnam War, serving in public office that provides you the opportunity so that you can speak your own native language in America, have businesses solely in an Asian language and feel comfortable?"

And that's why you see Chinatowns, Little Saigons to which you could pretty much get away with just speaking your native tongue.

But that didn't always happen.

>> There was an issue that happened in the city of Monterey Park.

There was an ugly anti-immigrant, English-only movement there.

Longtime residents had a hard time with it, so they passed laws saying that English should be the only language on the signs in the city and there should only be English books in the library.

But the last straw was when they passed a resolution in the City Council saying that only English should be spoken in the city.

So a multiethnic coalition of us got together and got thousands of signatures on petitions to protest this.

The pressure was enough to cause the resolution to be overturned.

But it then became so apparent that the people in the City Council did not represent the city.

So that's when I ran and won.

>> ♪ So what we hang out?

♪ ♪ So what we drink tea?

♪ ♪ We just sitting good ♪ ♪ In the SGV ♪ ♪ So what we eat late?

♪ ♪ That's how it's supposed to be ♪ ♪ 626, young, wild, and free ♪ >> If you think about society today and other communities, you talk about Women's March for Women, you talk about LGBT pride, LGBT community marches, Black Lives Matter, March for Our Lives, young children marching against firearms, you talk about the Latino and the Hispanic communities on immigration reform, and then you think Asian Pacific Islanders, what do we march for?

What do we solely march for?

And what I'm fearful of is that when you see all of these communities marching in the streets because there are direct attacks, Asians say, "Well, it's not quite us."

But if you look at history, it's only a matter of time.

>> Racist attacks and pestilence are linked in history.

When the Black Death ravaged Europe in the 14th century, mobs killed thousands of Jews accused of spreading plague.

>> I would like to begin by announcing some important developments in our war against the Chinese virus.

>> Dr. Chen Fu is on the front lines in the battle against COVID-19.

As a Chinese-American doctor, he feels both celebrated and vilified.

>> I feel an animosity that I've never felt before.

>> On his commute to the hospital, Dr. Fu says he was approached by a stranger.

>> "You dirty Chinese," and he just kept saying that over and over again.

I've never felt anything like this before.

>> This just one of many incidents across the country now being reported.

Asian-Americans targeted for their race.

>> Get out of our country!

>> In Texas, this person yelling at a Vietnamese restaurant owner.

>> Get out!

>> And this man and his two children stabbed at a Sam's Club.

The suspect, according to the FBI, thought the family was Chinese and infecting people with the coronavirus.

In Minnesota, this note that tenants claim was posted on their door, reading, "We're watching you.

Take the Chinese virus back to China."

>> The pandemic has revived much older, larger racist, anti-immigrant narratives.

It's part of our very long history of xenophobia and racism.

And we know that, in particular, disease has intersected with this idea that immigrants are a threat.

It began with a video showing a young Chinese woman biting into the body of a large bat at a restaurant.

It went viral.

The bat-soup videos struck upon and revived these centuries-old messages, stereotypes connecting China and Chinese people to disease.

And even though media outlets exposed the truth that this bat-soup video was not actually filmed in China at all, it was really too late to dispel the myth that had become widely accepted as fact.

>> There are many unsolved bias crimes here in New York City happening since the pandemic started, and most of them are against Asian-Americans by thugs who bone-headedly believe Asians who live here brought the virus here.

>> You all can probably recite, almost from memory, some of the messages that are circulating around in our media about immigrants.

>> The release of thousands of criminal illegal aliens into our country.

>> Immigrants are threats because they're poor, because they practice a different faith, because they're non-white, because they don't assimilate.

They're taking away jobs.

They bring crime and disease into the country.

You know that you've heard these messages before.

But, again, disease can intersect with these messages and play a very special role.

>> That name gets further and further away from China as opposed to calling it the Chinese virus.

>> As in the past, this kind of scapegoating helps to do a lot of political work.

In this case, it deflects attention from the president and his administration's mishandling of the public-health emergency.

The racially charged rhetoric coming from The White House has triggered harassment, discrimination, and violence directed at Asian-Americans.

>> In the U.S., eight people were killed in a shooting rampage.

Six of the victims are Asian-American women.

>> We need to do more as Asian-Americans.

We can't just sit on the sidelines.

You know, we're all brought up with the Confucius way of thinking of respecting your elders, being quiet, working hard, which are all great character traits and morals.

But in America, it's also about independence.

It's about speaking up, standing up for what you believe in.

And as Asian-Americans, it's not just working hard, but we need to go after and advocate for those things that we think is right.

>> Anti-Defamation League, which is the Jewish entity that protects Jews against, you know, anti-Semitic actions, whether it's a swastika scrawled on a synagogue someplace or some Jewish candidate who's running for office and somebody makes an anti-Jewish slur, they have a highly sophisticated operation that monitors and responds to these things instantaneously.

I mean, I have friends who belong to the Anti-Defamation League, and they'll get texts on their phones, they'll get alerts on their phones that some Jewish candidate in Connecticut, you know, had their campaign office graffitied with anti-Jewish rhetoric or a swastika.

If you're black and there is some black candidate who is disrespected or there's a black American who was shot by the police, flying out to that location, even if it's in the middle of Missouri, is a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton to give voice to the fact that, you know, that blacks are still discriminated against and sometimes have acts of force perpetrated on them by law enforcement that is unjust.

I mean, who's the Asian Jesse Jackson?

Who's the Asian Al Sharpton?

There's no one -- There's not a personality in the whole constellation of all the Asian groups in the U.S. that equates to that sort of stature.

It's nobody's fault.

It's just a fact.

And part of it is also because Asian-Americans, because of the cultural ethos that they -- you know, that was inculcated in them back in their home countries, which is laudable in a lot of ways -- You know, don't overreact to things, you know, don't make a pest of yourself, and all that.

>> If they don't understand the language, they should go back to their own country, period.

>> Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Nobody can say that.

Nobody can say that.

>> Yes, I can.

>> Oh!

>> You sound nasty.

Your language sounds nasty.

It actually sounds like you were born out of a...hermit crab.

>> With respect to hate crimes for the Asian Pacific Islanders, the data certainly shows it.

Anecdotally, I think there is a deeper problem, the issue of Asian culture and Asian pride.

We oftentimes don't talk about some of these societal problems or the challenges that we face.

So if the question is asking people around the room, "How many of you feel comfortable talking about discrimination that you have faced?

", some may not feel as comfortable talking about that.

>> You know, in Minnesota, one of the most publicized anti-Asian incidents did not happen to a Chinese-American family, but to a Hmong-American family.

>> As I got closer to it and actually read the note itself, yeah, it was pretty disturbing.

>> This is the note that was plastered on his front door.

"We're watching you," it says, followed by a racial slur and "Take the Chinese virus back to China."

>> Which points to one of the commonalities to those who are the haters.

It doesn't matter where we came from.

It doesn't matter how many generations or whether we are from China or not.

Asians have been racialized as all being the same.

>> There's a lot of improvement that we could see in society as a whole in terms of its view of Asian-Americans and acceptance of Asian-Americans.

But it's also incumbent upon the Asian-American community itself to maximize its own assets, and not just in terms of numbers, but in terms of financial power, because in politics, money is power.

Asian-Americans in California have a far higher median income than whites do and certainly higher than blacks and higher than Latinos.

It's the highest income group in all of California and also nationally, right?

But none of that means a lot unless Asian-Americans are willing to open up their checkbook and open up their pocketbook and participate financially in the system.

>> And it's not the politics of envy, and it's not just "I'm going to associate myself with a winner."

You should do things for the right reason.

There should be an obligation, a community obligation.

And what are individuals' roles?

>> There's a lot of research, especially in psychology, especially in employment, especially the type of research that talks about moving up the corporate ladder.

You see how Asian-Americans do extremely well in getting into certain types of schools, being the best students, et cetera, doing pretty well in terms of entry level, but then, almost immediately, you see the lack of growth unless they have founded the company themselves.

You know, you see very few Asian C.E.O.s of, let's say, publicly traded companies.

Given the pool, given the people who are eligible, there are so many Asians at the beginning of that pool.

How do they get weeded out?

That cannot be an accident.

And to some extent, then, when an Asian is running to be the executive, just like a C.E.O., there's something that doesn't allow Americans to say, "Hey, yeah, he could be the leader."

Oh, it's okay if they're treasurer or a controller and manage the money, you know, but, unh-unh, not the executive.

>> There's a certain stereotype about Asian Americans that they tend to be good with money, they tend to be frugal, they are savers, they know how to manage a dollar, they know how to make a payroll, they know how to run a business.

And even though that's not going to be universally true of every single Asian, that is a stereotype that exists about Asians.

I don't think it's necessarily an accident that you've had John Chiang, who was our controller for eight years and now has been our treasurer for eight years.

And Betty Yee has been our controller for four years.

And Fiona Ma is going to be elected treasurer.

Would an Asian American be elected sheriff someplace?

I don't know.

Maybe.

And there probably have been.

But that's not necessarily the stereotype of Asian Americans, that they're strong and they're tough and they're gonna, like, kick ass with criminals.

I mean, that's not necessarily the stereotype.

Asians just tend physically to be a shorter stature than Caucasians.

It's just a fact.

So that plays in -- And it was certainly true in the Mike Woo campaign.

I mean, what you had in the Mike Woo campaign was a rather skinny... shorter Asian guy with thick glasses versus a white guy, you know, who was probably five inches taller than Mike Woo, who was, you know, trying to be a hard-ass on crime and talk about wiping out the gangs and all that kind of thing, right?

Well, when you have that kind of a stereotype side-by-side, Asians are not necessarily gonna prosper politically.

>> Look.

I think that generations of how we ended up here have created that certain mind-set.

And the way I've dealt with it is when I look at being Asian, what Asian am I looking at?

Am I looking at the guy who's doing somebody's laundry or am I looking at Genghis Khan?

And that's how I survive in the world of politics, is I'm taking the Genghis Khan model.

He was a great warrior, and he was fearless.

He didn't care about what people thought.

He stuck up for his tribe.

So when people say it's not in our DNA to be this type of fierce warrior or fierce leader, I tell them that it's complete...because you have Genghis Khan, you have all these great generals, Sun Tzu, military geniuses that were out there that led these great campaigns.

And that's my history.

It's not the history of somebody who is picking up your laundry.

It's not my history that somebody who is cooking your fried rice or your wings.

That's not my history.

>> And I think the history of American -- and social change in America is you just get treated like crap for the longest time and then you organize and then you become a force.

And after a while, your force becomes so successful that nobody wants to mess with you anymore... and then ultimately that's carried out in the political arena.

>> My father went to Selma and was there as part of the Civil Rights Movement and was in church with Martin Luther King Jr. and marched for a better future to end segregation and discrimination and Jim Crow.

And why so many other students and allies and people from all walks of life did the same.

Because they imagined a better future and decided to fight for it.

>> When I grew up, I never saw an Asian American politician, not only on television but in the community.

It was just not something I ever aspired to.

And it wasn't until my late 20s, I moved to California, started to see the possibility of opportunity.

>> I never saw any role models of this sort, the people that were Asian American women that were running for office.

And so I had never even contemplated this.

This was the furthest thing from my mind.

I was enrolled as a math major and thought I would become a computer scientist.

I am Congresswoman Judy Chu from California.

>> You know, look up speaker or president or governor in a dictionary, and, you know, there's a stock photo.

I think you have a sense of what that person's supposed to look like.

That picture looking back at you is very rarely a person of color, I think, for most Californians or for most Americans.

I have a nephew who's 8 years old, Chinese American, and I remember him -- about two years ago, he was watching the TV show "Fresh Off the Boat."

We put it on for him.

My wife put it on for him.

She wanted him to see it.

And he was playing in the living room.

He was running around, wasn't paying attention.

He didn't have the attention span to actually sit down and watch the show.

And then there was this really special moment where he stopped and he stared at the TV and he said, "That boy looks like me."

And that's a really -- For me, that was a really profound moment when a child can look at a TV and say, "That person looks like me."

And that's an empowering moment.

And I think for a lot of African Americans to look at Barack Obama, to see Barack Obama put his hand up and take the oath of becoming president, that was a moment when a young African American kid could say, "That man looks like me."

For young girls, if Hillary Clinton had won, to look up and and to see on television a picture of the president of the United States and to say, "That person looks like me, that person belongs to the same gender as me," is really important.

>> I think the psychological effects of exclusion and discrimination, particularly in visible positions of authority, are clear.

We've known about it since Brown vs. Board of Education, at least.

That is, that it limits the aspirations of kids, and that limit of the aspirations of kids has long-term effects on our ability as a country to really take advantage of the potential of all children.

And I think, therefore, it's a real problem.

>> When we elected our first African American president, I called my family, I called my kids, and I told them that we have a future that is ready for you, that includes you, that will allow you to thrive and your kids to thrive and that I'm hopeful and that I believe this is a place where you can be all of who you are.

>> What makes us American is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

>> Would anyone have thought that we would elect a Black president in 2008... whose middle name was Hussein and whose dad was a Muslim?

We came a long way with the election of Barack Obama.

>> I hope to see in my lifetime -- Not hope to see.

I know we will see an Asian American governor and president in our lifetime.

Hopefully it will even be a female Asian American president.

Because that's what America is.

But I, too, was caught up in our own rhetoric, caught up in our own biases, and I didn't think it was going to happen, even though I supported him.

Deep down inside, I wanted him to win, but I was like, "I don't think America is ready."

But clearly I was wrong.

And it was a good thing I was wrong.

So I don't want to be pessimistic and say, "No, America is not ready," because America is ready.

>> And it took a long time for the Asian American community to get its voice politically and get a platform politically to resist.

And I think it's only in, really, modern times that you see such a wave of successful Asian American candidates.

>> I think as the Asian population grows and as it becomes more sort of inculturated in American society, people will become more accepting of Asians taking their rightful role in the governmental and political process.

>> It is time for us to have positions of leadership reflective of the people of this country and of this state.

This is a country that voted for an African-American to be President of the United States.

And so we know that this country can and will embrace people of color, people of different backgrounds, women, people of different sensibilities.

That is what America is all about.

>> No question that even facing discrimination, there are great opportunities in this country for people of color.

But the principles of the nation, for us to be true to our soul as a country, we have to ensure that that discrimination is rooted out.

Even economists agree that discrimination has real costs to society, particularly true in a society like this that has governing documents that articulate a philosophy of equity.

>> I am profoundly hopeful for my 3-year-old son because he sees me every day put on the suit.

He sees me giving speeches.

He sees me on television.

He sees my colleagues who represent the diversity of the world in positions of influence and leadership.

I am remarkably hopeful for my son's generation that he and his colleagues will have a far more colorblind world, that they will embrace diversity.

They will be hopefully in a post-race world where they value each other simply for who they are.

They're not stereotyping each other.

They don't get hung up on the fact that -- "What country are you from" or "What do you look like?"

And "You look different from me."

And they will be the very best of what we all aspire to, what Martin Luther King aspired to.

>> I have confidence that in the future we have the generations to come -- multicultural, multiracial generations, including white youth who have a deeper belief and including, frankly, a growing population of multiracial youth.

I think that that cohort has a deeper belief in inclusion and equity and may take the necessary steps to root out what we've dealt with for far too long -- these philosophies of racism, white supremacy, stereotypes that were consciously developed.

>> And in some of the racist attacks, people stepped in to help.

Zach Owens risked his life to save the family attacked in Texas.

>> He saved our lives.

>> And for Dr. Fu, a stranger jumped in.

>> He defended me and he said, "No, you can't do this."

That guy was my hero.

>> A student in her daughter's second-grade class said he didn't like China or Chinese people because they started this quarantine.

She encouraged her daughter to put her feelings on paper.

And the result was this letter.

It reads in part, "This made me feel sad because he was my friend and I'm Chinese.

It's wrong because he doesn't know what he's saying."

But it ends on a compassionate note.

"Thank you for being my friend."

♪♪ >> All Asian cultures have been under assault.

Those at today's rally say the only colors that should matter are red, white, and blue.

Sadly, racism sees skin color instead.

>> We just want to stand up for what is wrong.

You know, I did the same thing, you know, when there was George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor.

You know, when there's injustice in this world, we have to stand up, and that's why I'm here today.

>> This is a hurdle.

But it woke up a lot of people that may have been a little complacent or apathetic.

It made more people engaged in a way that I hadn't seen before.

We always talk about the enemy to democracy not being one party or one person, but it being apathy.

>> Sometimes it's when you're having the biggest impact that you have the greatest resistance.

Now, that's no fun.

I mean, wouldn't it be great if everybody said, "Let's have a transformation"?

When in American history has that ever occurred?

And, by the way, in any society, let alone in American society.

These are the growing pains of a new America.

>> We're here to show solidarity with Asians and Asian Americans who have been the victims of growing violence in this country because of racism and anti-Asian sentiments.

I want to see the country realize that we are part of this country just as much as anybody else and that we deserve to be seen as part of this country.

>> It's not linear, it's not a straight line how we move towards progress.

But as long as we're always marching and pushing, we'll get there, you know?

It's not a passive act.

You don't just wait and hope and believe that it'll happen, and it'll happen.

You need to make it happen.

It requires actors and agency and fight and strategy and coalitions and people pushing towards those same values, being driven by that common set of values that make us who we are.

In some ways, that's what that American aspirational vision is.

It's a vision to always fight for knowing that we're humans with our limits and our weaknesses and our failings, but that we'll always try to push towards that.

And with that push, we get closer each day.

>> And since this is the last speech that I will give as president, I think it's fitting to leave one final thought -- an observation about a country which I love.

It was stated best in a letter I received not long ago.

A man wrote me and said, "You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman.

You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or Japanese.

But anyone from any corner of the Earth can come to live in America and become an American."

♪♪ >> The "Race Epidemic" director's cut with bonus scenes is available to download for $9.99.

A companion video on "The Making Of" with director's commentary is available as well for $5.99.

The "Race Epidemic" companion book is also available for $9.99.

To order, visit theraceepidemic.com.

You can find out more information about this topic by visiting our website at theraceepidemic.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> DoorDash's commitment to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community reflects our mission to empower local economies.

We honor the achievements of the AAPI community and stand with them against hate.

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