Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Tet Festival 2: Politics and Native-Borns



The ethnic politics of this community must be complex on all kinds of levels that a gringo like myself would never understand...



...and it was fascinating watching the stage filled with a roster of characters being handed proclamations first by gay California State Senator Mark Leno...



...and then by gay California assemblyman Tom Ammiano who was literally pressed into service...



...for a major photo-op.



At the Census Bureau I am working with a young, native-born San Franciscan whose parents were the Cambodian version of the Hoa, and he'd grown up in the Ternderloin.



"I walked to school by myself from the time I was six," he told me, "and never had any problems. It wasn't until I was in high school that I realized what I was seeing."



The new native-borns look like they're going to be a remarkable crew...



...and I look forward to there being a more prominent Hoa dignitary than war criminal and UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo.

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