Bay Area

It’s Filipino American History Month a Note from an Asian American Israeli

As a pacifist, I find that the news from the Middle East is depressing. The death tolls will rise higher before any talks can begin between the sides. So, I pray for people I know there, an estimated 35,000 Filipinos in Israel, a small part of the 2-3 million Filipinos in the Middle East. But one friend is unique. A Filipino American born in the U.S., he married the Israeli sweetheart of his youth and moved to Israel nearly a decade ago. He is essentially an Asian American Filipino Israeli.

Published

1 year ago

October 15, 2023

Oakland Post

OPINION

By Emil Guillermo

It’s my birthday this week. I am 118.

No lie.

Prior to this week, I figured age was just a number, and stopped counting.

But now I’m into counting each and every year. With honor.

It hit me as I prepared for talks commemorating October as Filipino American History Month.

My father would have been 118 this year. And only now have I realized that his life has been my life; History is my story.

He was born in the Philippines under the American flag in 1905.

That’s seven years after the U.S. bought the country from Spain after the Spanish American War in 1898. The Treaty of Paris sealed the deal 125 years ago. The U.S. paid $20 million mostly for the Catholic artifacts. Note, that’s less than the Golden State Warriors pay some of their star players.

Through the treaty, my father became more than a Filipino. He was a colonized American national, and able to come to America without papers.

He was legally undocumented.

But when my father came to California in 1928, he was not lucky enough to immediately start a family. Not in 1928, ’38, ’48, but in the ’50s.

What happened? Was he a bumbler in loud, unappealing clothes? Or was he just caught in Filipino American history, a racist one where Filipinos were plugged up, stopped up, dammed up.

Or maybe just damned.

Men like my father were brought in to replace excluded Chinese and Japanese labor, which made the male-to-female ratio among Filipinos around 14-1. You couldn’t find a Filipino wife. Anti-miscegenation laws were also in play. Filipinos were shot or lynched just for looking at a white woman. That often caused riots where angry whites protested the “peaceful penetration” of Filipinos.

My father was only able to start a family well after World War II when Filipino women were allowed to come more easily to America. But my father didn’t take part in the segregated U.S. Army. His health and age prevented him from enlisting. But that meant he couldn’t get the biggest boost into the American middle class and generational wealth—the GI Bill.

We never owned a home, never owned a car, and lived paycheck to paycheck.

If you didn’t serve in the military, you relived the ’20s, the ’30s, and the ’40s in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.

But he did meet my mother. Though not a traditional Filipina “war bride,” she had survived the Japanese occupation of Manila. She hid under sewing machines at a seamstress shop to avoid being forced to become a Filipina ‘comfort’ woman to Japanese soldiers.

She was saved by a Spanish citizen who took her under her wing and brought her to San Francisco.

When she met my father in the early 1950s, it was well after the war. But then, the delayed second generation of Filipino Americans began.

As part of the second generation, I was born in the U.S. But I was always treated like the first, my father’s generation.

Filipino American history has always controlled my life. Even when I break glass ceilings, I am wounded by the shards.

During Filipino American History Month, it only makes sense to honor my father. My story begins with his on the day he was born under the American flag in the Philippines. A colonized American national who was too often treated as less than in America.

So today, this week, is my birthday. I am 118. I will always gladly explain how. It’s in the history of our treatment in America.

A Note from An Asian American Israeli

As a pacifist, I find that the news from the Middle East is depressing. The death tolls will rise higher before any talks can begin between the sides.

So, I pray for people I know there, an estimated 35,000 Filipinos in Israel, a small part of the 2-3 million Filipinos in the Middle East.

But one friend is unique. A Filipino American born in the U.S., he married the Israeli sweetheart of his youth and moved to Israel nearly a decade ago.

He is essentially an Asian American Filipino Israeli.

When Israel was attacked, I contacted him to make sure he and his family were fine.

“We are fine, away from the southern conflict areas,” he wrote to me. “A major intelligence and operational failure by the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces]. The watchmen were sleeping. Israel’s 9/11.”

I was relieved to hear he was safe.

“There should have been a trigger with troops rushing in if there was a breach of the high-tech security fence. A quick reaction force. Failure of intel component,” he continued.

But he knew on Sunday something bigger and more deadly was brewing.

“The West Bank is ringed with troops. The northern border is on high alert. And Hezbollah leader Hassan Nazrullah learned his lesson in 2006,” he said. “A big ground war is coming. Two months tops on the fighting. But it is going to be bloody.”

I asked him if he was leaving for safety.

He said he’d canceled a planned trip to the U.S. and was sure he would volunteer for security duties once things were organized.

But he sounded clear and determined as you’d expect an Asian American Filipino Israeli.

“We aren’t leaving.”

He said it with a fearless defiance, full of pride and the willingness to endure whatever it takes in the fight for the right to exist.

It’s the reason the deaths will keep rising, until someone says enough. And then talks will begin.

That’s too late. For me, it’s enough already.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a micro-talk show on www.amok.com

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An Inside Look into How San Francisco Analyzes Homeless Encampments

Dozens of unhoused people are camped at Sixth and Jesse streets in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. Tents made of tarps and blankets, piles of debris, and people lounging alongside the allies and walls of businesses are seen from all angles. These are some of the city’s hotspots. City crews have cleared encampments there over 30 times in the past year, but unhoused people always return.

Published

17 hours ago

November 20, 2024

Oakland Post

Since the ruling of Grants Pass by the US Supreme Court earlier this summer, which allows cities the authority to ban people from camping or sleeping on the streets, San Francisco has been at the head of the conversation to crack down on encampments.

By Magaly Muñoz

These are some of the city’s hotspots. City crews have cleared encampments there over 30 times in the past year, but unhoused people always return.

But it’s normal to have tents set up again within less than 24 hours after an encampment sweep, David Nakanishi, Healthy Streets Operation Center Manager at the Department of Emergency Management, says. Sometimes there’s less people than before but often there is also no change.

“Most of the people that were in the encampments that want to go inside, we’ve gotten the majority of those [into shelter],” Nakanishi says. “Many of the people we encounter now, are those who have various reasons to not accept shelter, and some are already in shelter/housing”.

Where neighboring cities in the Bay Area are clearing encampments a few days a week, San Francisco is sweeping 10 times a week, two per weekday.

David Nakanishi, Healthy Streets Operation Center Manager at the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, makes a 311 report on an encampment in the Mission District. These reports allow smaller city teams to tackle individual spots where unhoused people frequent. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

Considering the controversy that plagues the city around its harsh policies, the Post decided to tag along on a ride with Nakanishi to show us how he decides what encampments make it on the city’s sweep list.

Nakanishi, having over 20 years of experience in homelessness management, drives around the busiest parts of the city almost daily. He’s tasked with arranging a weekly sweeping operation schedule for city teams to engage with unhoused folks to help get them off the streets.

So what exactly is he looking out for when deciding what encampments get swept?

It depends, he says.

Locations like schools, recreational centers, senior centers, or businesses are places he tends to want to address quickly, especially schools. These are the places where the complaints are highest and access to facilities is important for residents.

He says he also takes into account 311 calls and reports made to him by city staff. On the date of publication, over 100 calls and reports were made about encampments around the city, according to San Francisco data.

Makeshift structures built from plywood and tarps are starting to pop up more throughout the city. Certain areas under freeways are not under direct authority from San Francisco, making it harder to sweep these encampments. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

Nakanishi made a few 311 reports himself on the ride along, pulling over to take photos and describe the encampments into his 311 app. He says it helps him remember where to possibly sweep next or allows smaller teams in the city to engage quicker with individuals on the streets.

Nakanishi also looks at the state of the encampments. Are there a lot of bulky items, such as furniture, or makeshift structures built out of tarps and plywood, blocking areas of traffic? Is trash beginning to pile up and spill into the streets or sidewalks? Sites that meet this criteria tend to be contenders for encampment sweeps, Nakanishi says.

Street by street, he points out individuals he’s interacted with, describing their conditions, habits, and reasons for denying assistance from the city.

One man on 2nd St and Mission, who rolls around a blue recycling bin and often yells at passing pedestrians, has refused shelter several times, Nakanishi says.

People deny shelter for all kinds of reasons, he says. There’s too many rules to follow, people feel unsafe in congregate or shared shelters, or their behavioral and mental health problems make it hard to get them into proper services.

Inside a tent left by an unhoused man on Stevenson and 14th Street in San Francisco. The area smelled of human waste and leftover alcohol. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

Nakanishi references another man on South Van Ness under the freeway, who city outreach have attempted to get into shelter, but his screaming outbursts make it difficult to place him without disturbing other people in the same space. Nakanishi says it might be an issue of the man needing resources like medication to alleviate his distress that causes the screaming, but the city behavioral team is in the process of outreaching him to figure that out.

In October, city outreach teams engaged with 495 unhoused people. 377 of those engaged refused shelter and only 118 accepted placements, according to city data. That number of monthly referrals is consistent throughout the entirety of 2024 so far.

Nakanishi has long advocated for the well-being of unhoused people, he explains. In 2004, he was working with the Department of Public Health and told then-Mayor Gavin Newsom that there needed to be more housing for families. Nakinishi was told it was easier to deal with individuals first and the city “will get there eventually.” 20 years later, family housing is still not as extensive as it could be, and the waiting list to get placements for families is a mile long with over 500 names.

In 2020, he was a Senior Behavioral Health Clinician at a hotel in the city during the pandemic. He says in 2021 he collaborated with DPH to provide vaccines to those staying in the makeshift hotel shelters once those became available.

Nakanishi strips apart a solo tent on Stevenson and 14th Street in San Francisco. He discards items, like tarps and cardboard, so that people cannot reuse them to make another sleeping structure. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

Despite the constant media attention that city outreach is inhumanely treating homeless people, so much so that it has led to lawsuits against San Francisco from advocates, Nakanishi says not a lot of people are seeing the true conditions of some encampments.

He describes soiled clothing and tents, drenched in urine, and oftentimes rodents or bug infestations in places where people are sleeping. He’s asked homeless advocates- often those who are the most critical about the city’s work- who have shown up to observe the sweeps if those are conditions the city should allow people to be subjected to, but not many have answers for him, Nakanishi says.

The city’s “bag and tag” policy allows city workers to throw away items that are “soiled by infectious materials” such as bodily fluids and waste.

Sweep operations are conducted at 8am and 1pm Monday through Friday. People at the encampments are given 72 hour notice to vacate, but some don’t leave the area until the day of the sweep.

City outreach workers come out the day before and day of to offer resources and shelter to those interested. The Department of Public Works discards any trash that is left over from the sweep and washes down the area.

Nakanishi told the Post that the only time the city takes tents or personal possessions from residents is when folks become physically violent towards workers and police take the items as evidence. Other items taken are bagged and tagged in accordance with city policy.

Stories from local newspapers such as the San Francisco Standard and the Chronicle show instances of SFPD handcuffing residents while their items are thrown in the trash or disposing of personal possessions without reason.

Advocates have long been pushing for a more competent and compassionate process if the city is going to choose to continue sweeping unhouse people.

No matter the lawsuits and constant criticisms from allies, the encampment sweeps are not slowing down, even with the cold weather quickly approaching the coastal city.

Nakanishi says there aren’t a lot of large encampments left in San Francisco so now they do runs of streets in order to stretch out the sweeps as much as possible.

It’s calculated strategies and years of first hand knowledge that make this job work, “It takes dedication to the work, caring for the people and the community, and persistence, patience and sometimes good luck to make the positive changes for the people on the street,” Nakanishi says.

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Oakland Post: Week of November 13 – 19, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of November 13 – 19, 2024

Published

5 days ago

November 16, 2024

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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LIVE! — TOWN HALL ON RACISM AND ITS IMPACT — THURS. 11.14.24 5PM PST

Join us for a LIVE Virtual Town Hall on the Impact of Racism hosted by Post News Group Journalist Carla Thomas and featuring Oakland, CA NAACP President Cynthia Adams & other Special Guests.
Thursday, November 14, 2024, 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. PST

Published

1 week ago

November 12, 2024

Oakland Post

Discussion Topics:
• Since the pandemic, what battles have the NAACP fought nationally, and how have they impacted us locally?
• What trends are you seeing concerning Racism? Is it more covert or overt?
• What are the top 5 issues resulting from racism in our communities?
• How do racial and other types of discrimination impact local communities?
• What are the most effective ways our community can combat racism and hate?

Your questions and comments will be shared LIVE with the moderators and viewers during the broadcast.

STREAMED LIVE!
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