By Shirley Lew
AsAmNews Staff Writer
In blog #4, I recognized some Chinese American WWII veterans. In the same way, I’d like to begin by recognizing Jasmine Lee, Emeline Kong, Bryan Hong, Allison Kramer-Mills, the summer interns, associates and volunteers that have been working with Samantha Cheng on the Chinese American WWII Veterans Recognition Project.
These young individuals have been building the database with all the Chinese American WWII veteran information that has come through on the website that some of you have already used. They’ve also been scanning many of the veteran’s documents such as enlistment and discharge papers, photos and more. I’m pretty sure they do more than that. They should be recognized that they are working on the first ever database of its kind, dedicated to Chinese American WWII veterans and this will be a part of their legacy. Many have been working on this data base since 2016. On Friday night, my last night, I had the opportunity to take Jasmine and Bryan out to dinner. These young individuals are working hard and I just wanted to thank them for also being with us most of the week. They have been most helpful.
On Thursday night, I did not do a blog for the day as I needed to catch up on sleep, therefore I’m including Thursday, September 6th with this blog about Friday, September 7th, the last day of advocating to the representatives in the House.
On Thursday, (I wore my sneakers again) we had six appointments, as in the previous days, all the legislative aides were friendly and either heard or had not heard of the bill. We visited representatives from IL, NC, two from FL and VT. As we were waiting to meet with the legislative aid of Florida Representative Darren Soto, we were offered Tropicana orange juice, a product of Florida. They had a mini fridge stocked with orange juice for guests. Yes, I took a Tropicana orange juice on my way out.
Another surprise was seeing Representative Soto who walked into the office briefly and spoke to Corky Lee and I for a few minutes. He was very 
pleasant and asked to have his picture taken outside his office door in front of his name plate. I began to realize that’s what politicians do, they want their picture taken with us, as did Representative Mark Takano of CA. They asked before we asked for a photo! Like Representative Takano, Representative Soto brought us to his office name plate so he could have a photo with us. I’m sure it’s PR for them.
After Representative Soto left, we met his Legal Counsel, Nicole McLaren. The meeting went well as Corky included a wealth of additional information on his personal connection to FL (although different district), about the Chinese being discriminated. Nicole, who is Black, said something like this, “Oh, you don’t have to talk to me about that!” In the end, she told us that she didn’t see any reason why Representative Soto would have any issues in supporting the bill.
Like the previous days, we each took turns leading the meeting. However, Major General Bill Chen would be the one to report back with a summary of each meeting to VENG, the consultant company that has been working with this project, scheduling the appointments and gathering all the post meeting information.
We ended fairly early in the day, so I took it upon myself to stop by the offices of the Speaker of the House, Representative Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. This meant leaving one building and walking about two blocks to the Majority Leader’s office. In the crazy heat, with beads of sweat dripping down my back, and my dress sticking to me in this really hot Washington weather, I dropped by to see if anyone would be able to meet with me. I was already in the same building as Representative Ryan’s office of our last appointment, so I just made a quick run over there.
Representative Ryan’s office was only taking scheduled appointments as noted on his office door. However, I knocked anyways and a man greeted me. I introduced myself and asked if I could meet with anyone, but no was able to meet so he said he would hand it off to the legislative aide. I was so surprised that someone even opened door with that “Appointments Only” sign that I forgot to ask for a card on how to contact that legislative aid.
Then it was into the blazing heat that I went to McConnell’s office to drop off the folder with the information about the bill. Just to explain again, HR2358 is the name of the bill on the House side and S.1050 is the name on the Senate side. They are pretty identical, except for some minor word variations is what I been told.
At Senator McConnell’s office, a woman tried to see if someone who handle’s veterans’ affairs was available to meet with me, but was not. The woman took my folder and gave me the card of the person responsible for scheduling appointments for that office.
Major General William Chen returned home to Boston Friday morning. Corky Lee had a train to return to New York and had to leave before noon. He was able to join me, Samantha Cheng and her two associates, Bryan and Jasmine for the first appointment, but left before noon. We stayed behind to continue the meetings.
There were only four appointments for Friday. We met with representatives from NC, VA, TX and GA. Like all previous appointments, the legislative aides have been friendly and receptive of bill H.R.2358. We had long breaks in between some appointments so Samantha decided for Jasmine and I to make some cold drop-bys. Jasmine and I are both residents of New Jersey (although I keep saying I’m a New Yorker in my video, which I am a native New Yorker) so Samantha felt it would be good for Jasmine and I to visit some NJ representatives that have not given their support to this bill yet.
Jasmine and I dropped by five NJ representatives offices, one of them being her district. Out of the five drop-by’s we scored one interview which was fortunate. With the others we collected the business cards of who to contact to schedule an appointment after we dropped off the folder with information on the bill. There wasn’t anyone available to meet with us.
In almost all of our meetings, we stressed to the legislative aid that it would be most urgent to get the bill passed this year as we are losing WWII veterans possibly daily. There are between 500-1000 WWII Chinese Americans remaining, therefore to have as many as possible alive during the passage of the bill and for them to receive the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor would be a joyous occasion for them to witness. And, that it would be most symbolic to have it passed to coincide with this year’s 75th anniversary on the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Next week, there are several advocates coming to Washington DC to advocate. Another general, an ex-Marine, members of Chinese American Citizens Alliance and I believe one other will make up the teams.
I was told “crunch time” would be in October and that’s when the bill needs to have most or should almost have most of the 120-ish co-sponsors for the bill by then. Therefore, there is a lot of work to be done in a very little amount of time. Please continue to call your local representatives about H.R.2358 or S.1050 to your senators and to have them support these bills this year.
Thank you to everyone who has been sharing. Since these blogs have been published, I noticed it has encouraged many readers to share about the veteran in their families. Many were not aware of this project for these WWII veterans of Chinese ancestry to receive a Congressional Gold Medal. Here is the link again to register the Chinese American WWII veteran in your family. https://caww2.org/preservation/
Follow the hashtag #NG4CAWW2V on Facebook.
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