1. Register for the 2008 National Asian American Student Conference (Oct. 17-19) in Atlanta, GA!
The National Asian American Student Conference (NAASCon) is eager to announce the opening of our registration for the third biennial conference in Atlanta, GA at Emory University. The theme this year is FROM VISIONS TO ACTIONS: LET'S GET OUR MOVEMENTS GOING.  It will explore the diverse breadth of issues Asian Americans have addressed, and development new visions to sustain our movements.

The conference comprises three workshop sessions, two sessions of identity caucuses, one session of regional caucuses, a film screening, various panels, networking sessions, a graduate school fair, performances by students and professional artists, and two keynote speeches by Deepa Iyer, the Executive Director of South Asian Americans Leading Together, and Debbie Wei, a founder of a folk arts charter school in Philadelphia's Chinatown.  The executive programming committee and the Atlanta conference committee are working hard to make this conference an inspiring experience for all participants.

Registration is now available through our website, http://www.naascon.org/conference/.  The early registration rate is $30 per person, before September 20.  The regular registration rate is $40 per person, available until the day of the conference.  On-site registration rate is $50 per person.  In addition, for a group of five or more, there is a $5 per person discount.  We strongly encourage you to register as a group before September 20, to take advantage of the low registration rate.  For housing information, please visit our website.  We are updating our website constantly to ensure that you get the most updated information.

2. Help to pass Filipino War Veterans legislation in the House!
From Lillian Galedo:

The House of Representatives will be adjourning for its August recess in a few weeks.  If the Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act S. 1315 (which contains provisions to restore US veterans status to Filipino WWII veterans) is not brought to the House floor for a vote soon, it will become increasingly more difficult to bring it to floor vote after Congress resumes in September.  We could be forced to wait until a new Congress convenes in 2009, and START ALL OVER AGAIN.  While we have been very successful in recent weeks to confirm 40 more YES votes from the House of Representatives, WE NEED ALL HANDS ON DECK THIS WEEK FOR WHAT MAY BE OUR LAST PUSH.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2008/07/more-help-neede.html

3. Anti-death penalty & antiwar activists in Maryland spied on by police
Recently disclosed documents have revealed a 14-month program undertaken by police forces in Maryland to conduct surveillance--and infiltrate--activist groups in the state organizing against the death penalty and the occupation of Iraq. Despite no records of any illegal activity among members of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, certain activists, including a noted pacifist, were tagged under suspicion of "crimes" of "terrorism-anti-government" and "terrorism-anti-war protesters." The ACLU says it considers the surveillance a violation of federal law because the groups' activities were nonviolent and unrelated to terrorism and because records of the monitoring were kept.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR2008072502163.html

Read a testimony by a Maryland anti-DP activist here.

4. Queer rights activists in California protest and organize against anti-LGBTQ donors
In the aftermath of the California Supreme Court's decision striking down discriminatory state laws outlawing same-sex marriage, several corporate magnates have begun funnel large sums of money towards pushing forward an initiative for the November ballot. The initiative, if passed, would re-define marriage in California as between a man and a woman, turning back the clock from a major civil rights victory. Queer rights activists in California have begun to mobilize to defend their rights to marriage equality, now potentially on thin ice. Recent protests have targeted some of the initiative's major donors, such as hotel baron Doug Manchester and A-1 Self Storage owner Terry Caster.

http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?coll=news_articles&sernum=2008/07/16/5&page=1

Check Californians Against Hate and Equality For All for more info on recent campaigns to defend and protect same-sex marriage.

5. UC service workers strike over poverty wages
Two weeks ago, service workers at the 10 University of California campuses undertook a week-long strike over their working conditions. According to their union, AFSCME Local 3299, a staggering 96 percent of the affected workers qualified for some sort of public assistance; the University administration contended that their current wages, around $10 an hour, were feasible--a slap in the face, given the UC president's yearly wage of nearly $1 million. 8,500 workers took to the picket lines--with mild support from some state politicians--in defiance of a judge's order the previous week that the strike was illegal.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9885075

6. Low levels of diversity amongst Washington press corps
A study released by UNITY: Journalists of Color* and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University revealed that only 13.1 percent of journalists covering news in Washington DC are people of color. While the numbers are slightly higher than the results of UNITY's 2004 study, UNITY contends nonetheless that there is much work to be done to increase the numbers of journalists of color, people of color in leadership positions in media outlets, and the like. Says Karen Lincoln Michel, UNITY president. "We represent a mere 13.1 percent of journalists pressing for answers from a federal government that serves a population nearly three times that size. UNITY considers the findings a call to action for media companies to reinvent their Washington news bureaus by staffing them with more journalists of color." The release of the study coincides with UNITY's 2008 conference this week in Chicago.

http://www.imperialvalleynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2204&Itemid=1

*UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc. is an alliance of four major national journalism organizations: Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Native American Journalists Association. Its mission is to advocate quality news coverage about people of color and improve ethnic diversity in the nation's newsrooms.

7. Queens, NYC factory shut down for sweatshop conditions
The NY State Department of Labor recently shut down Jin Shun, a Queens, NY-based garment factory, for egregious labor rights violations. The factory, which made garments for such chains as Macy's, The Gap, Banana Republic, and Victoria's Secret, underpaid about 100 employees by more than $3 million since 2005 and coached them to lie to investigators about their working conditions, the department said. The department cited the company for allegedly falsifying employee time records and violating wage laws. Workers were coached to conceal information about stolen wages and abysmal work hours from inspectors, and threatened with termination for taking sick days.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/23/garment.workers/