Asian public opinion has completely won. Chinese-American Senator Yu Yanfen has made it clear that she will no longer propose and support similar bills like SCR 1012

Asian public opinion has completely won. Chinese-American Senator Yu Yanfen has made it clear that she will no longer propose and support similar bills like SCR 1012. On the afternoon of July 20, nearly 60 Asians...

On the afternoon of July 20, nearly 60 Asians came from all directions and came to the Arizona State Council Hall and Yu Yanfen, the first Chinese-American female senator in the history of Arizona, to have a friendly exchange for an hour and a half on the AZ SCR1012 Arizona Asian subdivision proposal. Yu Yanfen started as an independent sponsor of the AZ SCR1012 Arizona Asian subdivision proposal, and later in front of all Asian representatives, Yu Yanfen (Kimberly) Yee directly stated that she would no longer propose and support similar proposals. Her attitude has changed dramatically, and she has heard the real voices of the Asian community and seen the data. She said, after meeting everyone today and having reasonable communication, this bill is dead and will not be raised again in the future. The job of their government is to look at statistics and see how many people have benefited.

Arizona senator majority leader Kimberly Yee came at around three o'clock in the afternoon. With a smile on her face, sincerity on her face, a green dress, capable and enthusiastic, and full of positive energy, she walked around the conference room twice, shaking hands and greeting each one one by one as if meeting an old friend. The Hualian representative handed the position statement of the Alberta Overseas Chinese Federation's Asian Subdivision Resolution (AZ SCR 1012) to Congressman Yu, and then began to enter the topic.

Kimbrley first spoke about the purpose of this proposal from a representative of the Asian Pacific Community in Action (APCA) who proposed the proposal, which is to help Asians treat Asian-specific diseases, such as hepatitis B, which can cause liver cancer; Cambodians are prone to diabetes, etc. So they want to collect this data to help Asians. Someone here immediately pointed out that what they collect is not data on patients, but data on race, and data on healthy people working and going to school. Others pointed out that collecting disease data is only legal if it is anonymous, otherwise it would violate the patient's right to privacy and violate the constitution. After reading the written text of this bill, someone else asked what "all Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders make it difficult to analyze how race, ethnicity and language impact individual and community health" meant. Does it mean that if a person speaks English in the United States, it will affect his illness? The mother of two couldn't help but said: Liver cancer is a very complicated process. Drinking alcohol causes more liver cancer. In addition, drugs can also cause liver cancer; environmental factors can also cause liver cancer. If you segment Asians in such a discriminatory manner, will it also drive people away from liver cancer? The HR Manager said with a heavy heart that if the employer collects such detailed racial data, if it is not handled properly, many things may happen in future jobs. Next, Kimberly explained that this is a routine procedure for the government to handle ritual cases. Whenever a bill is submitted to them, they are obliged to review it, accept it and promote it if it is reasonable, and reject it if it is unreasonable. When she proposed this one-by-one proposal, she had no idea that so many people would oppose it. She mistakenly thought that APCA, which proposed this proposal, was for our good and was elected by us to represent our interests. Someone on the scene immediately reacted strongly and said that they had never seen these people before; they had never known that these people were doing such things.

Representatives of Hualian announced the results of the questionnaire they produced on AZ SCR1012 Arizona Asian Subdivision Proposal Attitudes, and obtained data from more than 300 people in just a few days. The representative read out the latest data at noon on July 20: Q3: What is your attitude towards the AZ SCR1012 Arizona Asian subdivision proposal? Strongly disagree 281 people 84.1% Disagree 12 people 3.6% Agree 1 person 0.29% Completely agree 2 people 0.59% Don’t care 6 people 1.8% Q4: What do you think of the AZ SCR1012? What impact do you think AZ SCR1012 will have? It will be beneficial to medical and health research and will not have other negative effects. 1 person 0.299% Subdividing American citizens violates the American spirit of equality for all regardless of race or color. 327 people 97.9%

Zhang Chuandong, Vice Chairman of AZAA, followed up with a similar bill to CA, which has been remade several times in the past few years and finally passed. Although it is clearly not allowed to be used for education and employment, once such racially discriminatory data exists, who can guarantee that it will not be MISS USE? At this time, someone pointed out that the CA bill had to be renamed several times in order to pass; the "ALL STUDENTS COUNT" website for the bill passed by Rhode Island clearly stated that their purpose was to use it for education and employment. AZ's far-fetched so-called use of collecting disease data on Asians is just a cover, and the purpose behind the cover is the same as the Rhode Island bill. At this time, several people in the distance shouted loudly: Please stop dividing us Asians. We are already such a minority in the United States. We must unite and not divide!

The organizers of this event are the newly established Arizona Asian Alliance (AZAA), Hualian, Science and Technology College and other Asian associations. Sam Huang, a Chinese-American councilman from Chandler City, and Barry Wong, head of the Governor’s Equal Rights Office, also attended the symposium. Among the representatives participating in the discussion were Asian HR managers; professionals who researched medical data, engineers, teachers, etc. There are people from the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Asians who came to the United States after traveling to several Asian countries. In order to attend this meeting, some people postponed their flights abroad, some people changed the meeting schedule with the president; some mothers took time away from sending their young children to day care. Others have just come off an international flight and are still tired and jet-lagged from the journey. There are children aged 7 or 8 who have just finished school, and Uncle John, who is over 90 years old.

Some representatives took a group photo with Yu Yanfen (fourth from left in the first row)

(Special thanks to Fang Fang, Frank, and Uncle A for joint contributions)