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PHILADELPHIA–"Celebrating our Past, Creating our Future" was this year’s theme of the 28th annual national convention of the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) held here August 10-13 and which drew about 500 participants across the nation.

But at the end of the four-day event held at the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center Hotel, Asian American speakers and panelists left everyone with the message: They should be vigilant today, because there’s so much at stake at present.

The convention was a successful mix of serious discussions and fun activities for the young and the old alike. It tackled the timely, major issues and concerns of Asian Pacific Americans such as immigration reform, racial profiling, and the Voting Rights Act, culminating in "State of Asian Pacific America Summit" on Aug. 12.

At that summit, Asian American Justice Center (AAJC) Executive Director Karen Narasaki, and one of the panelists, said the 109th US Congress unanimously passed the Voting Rights Act. "We expect a Constitutional challenge. Anything passed (by members of the US Congress), they can still take away, so we have to be vigilant. The Voting Rights Act can be repealed by Congress."

Commenting on the English Only Crowd mentioned by Ms. Narasaki, forum moderator Tsiwen Law said, "Here in Pennsylvania, we are lobbying Senator Arlen Specter, and our position is there should be no second tier of citizens. It must not matter whether the citizen can speak English or not."

Erica Swanson, field manager for judicial nominations and special projects of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) based in the nation’s capital, agreed. "Most of the provisions are there permanently, but some are renewed periodically by the US Congress...They can try to delay the bill or gut the bill." She noted that the bill got bipartisan support, but "185 members of the US Congress voted to strip the language provision of the Voting Rights Act." The language assistance provision, sometimes called the bilingual provision, states that not only "ballots must be translated, but also voting notices and instructions."

On the controversial comprehensive immigration reform legislation, Paul Igasaki, executive director of the Rights Working Group, commented there’s a bill that seeks to reopen military bases closed by the Bases Closing Commission. "They will be used to house the undocumented that may be detained, maybe indefinitely," he said. Under the proposal, states would be paid to take in federal detainees "side by side with criminal convicts who are tried by jury."

Igasaki said a coalition of organizations is conducting a "conversation project," or community hearings on civil rights for immigrants in Seattle, Washington, in Chicago, Arizona, the San Francisco Bay Area and Tennessee.

AAJC Executive Director Narasaki pointed out that Senate passed the comprehensive immigration reform bill way back in May," and the House its own version last December. But each chamber has not appointed members to the committee that will reconcile the two bills.   

She added, "Clearly they are not into it. President George W. Bush at least is trying to push them" to act, favoring the Senate bill, which would allow a path to legalization. The House bill favors building borders, makes illegal aliens felons, and penalizes employers, the church or individuals who help them.