Texas GOP Lawmaker Tells Asian-Americans To Get “Easier” Names

The blog "That Minority Thing" has an interesting piece on a recent exchange between a Republican Texas Lawmaker, directed at the Asian American community.

According to the blog: During testimony on voter identification legislation, Republican State Rep. Betty Brown said Asian voters needed to change their names to something “easier for Americans to deal with.” According to the Houston Chronicle, Brown - easy name to pronounce - made the remark following testimony from Ramey Ko - really, super hard name to pronounce - a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans. Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.

Brown responded by saying that “rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?”

HHR NOTE : I mean, really – how dumb can you be? Frankly this is the sort of stupid stuff that keeps getting our party pegged racist. Maybe we should drop the lawmaker in China and ask her to change her name. But for those who do not know there are Asian Republicans, and I doubt if any of them are gonna change there name.

http://asianrepublicans.ning.com/
http://asianconservative.com
http://cristyli.blogspot.com

Asian American Republicans "With Strange Names " Who Made History Despite there names!

Van Thai Tran (Trần Thái Văn in Vietnamese, born October 19, 1964) is a U.S. politician, currently serving as a Republican member of the California State Assembly, representing portions of Orange County. Tran and Texas State Representative Hubert Vo were the highest-ranking Vietnamese American elected officials in U.S. history until Anh Cao was elected to the United States House of Representatives in December 2008. Tran took office one month before Vo did, making him the first Vietnamese American to serve in a state legislature. He currently serves in the Assembly Republican leadership as Assistant Republican Leader.

Hiram Leong Fong (鄺友良), formally Yau Leong Fong (October 15, 1906 – August 18, 2004), was an American businessman and politician from Hawaii. He is most notable for his service as Republican United States Senator from 1959 to 1977, and for being the first Asian American and Chinese American to be elected as such. In 1964, Fong became the first Asian American to run for his party's nomination for President of the United States. As of 2008, he is the only Republican to ever hold a Senate seat from Hawaii and the only Asian American to actively seek the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party.

Alan Nakanishi was a Republican Assemblymember from California's 10th State Assembly district. He served in that body from 2002 until he was termed out in 2008. Nakanishi is also a candidate for the State Board of Equalization in 2010

James Kealoha, formally James Kimo Kealoha, and also known as Jimmy Kealoha (April 29, 1908–August 24, 1983), of Hilo, Hawaii was Lieutenant Governor of Hawaiʻi in the administration of Governor of Hawaii William F. Quinn. Prior to his election as Lieutenant Governor, Kealoha served a number of years as a legislator on Hawaii island, distinguishing himself as a respected leader.

Patricia Fukuda "Pat" Saiki (born May 28, 1930) is an American politician and former school teacher from Hilo in the State of Hawai'i. She served as a Republican in Congress from 1987 to 1991 and then as Administrator of the Small Business Administration under President of the United States George H. W. Bush.

Herbert Young Cho Choy (January 6, 1916–March 10, 2004) was the first Asian American to serve as a United States federal judge and the first person of Korean ancestry to be admitted to the bar in the United States.

Ronald S.W. Lew (Chinese name: 刘成威; born 1941) is a U.S. District Court Judge for the Central District of California in the Ninth Circuit. Outside of Hawaii, Judge Lew was the first Chinese-American appointed to the federal bench after being appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. He is a graduate of Loyola High School (Los Angeles), and he earned his undergraduate degree from Loyola Marymount University in 1964, and his J.D. from Southwestern University School of Law in 1971.

Julia Chang Bloch, former U.S. ambassador to Nepal and president of the U.S.-China Education Trust, gave the Scharf Memorial Lecture at Gettysburg College on November 28, 2007.