President-elect Biden is seen here with Senator Mazie Hirono and her husband (Congressional photo)
Asian American and Pacific Islanders are lashing out about the lack of AAPIs nominated by President-elect Biden for cabinet secretary positions.
“As much as I view myself as a friendly ally of this president, I think he’s erred in [that] he has chosen to exclude Asian Americans from his 15 Cabinet secretaries,” said Rep Mark Takano (D-CA) the PBS NewsHour.
The National Council of Asian Pacific Americans joined in the condemnation Monday.
“There are numerous qualified AAPIs [Asian American Pacific Islanders] who should be appointed to senior positions throughout the government,” the NCAPA said, according to The Hill. “Furthermore, NCAPA is prepared to stand behind the quality and expertise of our member organizations, as we have members who are willing and prepared to engage with the Biden Administration in nearly every policy area ranging from health to housing, or education, immigration and civil rights.”
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Biden announced his nominations after promising his cabinet would represent the diversity of America. He ran successfully with the first Asian American and Black person ever to be elected to the position of the Vice Presidency, Kamala Harris. He also nominated Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget, chose Dr. Vivek Murthy to be his Surgeon General and Katherine Tai as US Trade Rep.
However, Biden is the first president in 20 years to have no Asian Americans as cabinet secretaries. President Obama had three. President Bush had two and President Trump one.
“While we are thrilled that Vice President-Elect Harris is the first person of South Asian descent to hold that office, we are dismayed about the lack of an AAPI Cabinet Secretary,” APIA Vote said in a statement to AsAmNews. “There were multiple highly-qualified AAPI’s for Cabinet Secretary positions, yet no final selections across all 15 agencies with Secretaries. This represents a significant step backwards in representation from both President Obama and President Clinton’s Cabinets, as well as the current Administration.”
The Biden transition team declined an opportunity from PBS to comment. Just last month, incoming White House spokesperson Jen Psaki applauded the diversity in the incoming administration.
“We’re already on track to have the most diverse Cabinet in American history. That is a value that will continue to be important to the president-elect, the vice president-elect and the entire team as further decisions are made,” Psaki said, according to PBS.
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Asian Americans have a legitimate grief with the Biden choices. There are a host of federal organizations like APAFEC, FAPAC, CAPACI, etc.. with vetted and proven eligible candidates for appointments and for elected office. To suggest there is a lack of interest on our part, lack of qualified candidates, or lack of choice is pure unadulterated institutional prejudice at a bold and grandiose scale that should neither be accepted nor tolerated by the Asian American community nor by the American community in general.
Once again the AAPI community is duped by elected officials — for all the solidarity proclamations from we “of color,” did you really expect to be treated differently by Biden? Stop being the heavy-lifters and stand up on your feet.
Made Invisible again. This has got to stop. Make more noise please. Squeaky wheel gets the oil. What would you like us to sign/do to support a Make Visible project?
Um….what about Katherine Tai? Isn’t she full Asian American? And then we got Harris so 1 1/2 in Biden’s cabinet. I guess Asian Americans are invinsible to even Asian Americans.
Katherine Tai has not been appointed to a cabinet Secretary position. Kamala Harris is also not considered a VP, although her ascendency is indeed historic and not something to be overlooked.
I’d rather nobody represented us than Elaine Chao. She counted as a -1 against East Asians as a whole as far as I’m concerned, so getting to zero is actually a net positive gain for the moment.
@Randall, Oops, I got cabinet secretary mixed with Cabinet-rank. Thanks for bringing that up.