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Asian American groups file a legal challenge to Texas' redistricting plans Boise State Public RadioDec 31 (Reuters) - Most Asian currencies were on course to end the second year of the pandemic on a negative note, with the Thai baht eyeing its worst year in two decades as the tourism-reliant economy remained under pressure from travel curbs.
The baht was the region's worst-performing currency this year, losing 11.4%.
The Taiwan dollar and China's yuan , the only two currencies in positive territory, were chasing an over 2% annual gain. The yuan, set for a second year of gains, was poised to become Asia's best performer.
Trading at 6.3734 per dollar on Friday, the yuan was eyeing a 2.4% appreciation over the year on the back of strong trade surpluses and robust portfolio inflows despite overall strength in the U.S. dollar.
Analysts at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) forecast the yuan would remain resilient against the dollar next year despite the U.S. Federal Reserve's hiking cycle, and expect the currency to firm further to 6.30 per dollar by the end of 2022.
((See FACTBOX-Analysts' 2022 outlook for Chinese yuan read more ))
Elsewhere in Asia, the South Korean won , closed on Friday, lost 9.4% this year in its worst performance since 2008.
The Philippine peso , the Malaysian ringgit , and the Indian rupee were all set to weaken between 1% and 6%.
In India, the rupee was set for an annual drop of 1.7%, its fourth consecutive year in the red, while equities (.NSEI) were eyeing an about 25% jump in their best year since 2017, driven by an economic recovery from the pandemic-fuelled slump and massive liquidity.
Among other regional equities, Taiwan (.TWII) was set to add about 24% for the year, while Indonesia (.JKSE) and Singapore (.STI) advanced about 10%. The Malaysian bourse (.KLSE), the only outlier, was on track to lose about 6% in 2021.
On Friday, emerging Asian currencies were largely muted, with only the Indian rupee appreciating about 0.2%, while equities were largely lower as thin-volume trading spurred volatility, with worries regarding the Omicron variant remaining firmly in place.
"A sharp surge in Omicron cases across both the U.S. and Europe warn of a potential collision path with a hawkish Federal Reserve (in 2022)," analysts at Mizuho Bank said in a note.
"At the very least, this heightens the risks of policy uncertainty/volatility."
Markets in South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand were closed for the year-end holiday.
HIGHLIGHTS:
** Indian 10-year benchmark yields rise to 6.486%
** Thai c.bank says financial system stable but debt poses risks read more
** Philippine shares (.PSI) decline nearly 3%; consumer and real estate firms lose the most
Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Lawmakers and leaders push for a national museum of Asian Americans Rockdale Newton Citizen[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Asian shares mixed in scant New Year Eve trading WesternSlopeNowView Full Coverage on Google News
An Asian American activist group is calling for an awards boycott of director Paul Thomas Anderson's "Licorice Pizza" over its use of a fake Asian accent.
In the film, a white male restaurateur, played by John Michael Higgins, speaks to his Japanese wife with a fake Asian accent. He appears again in the film with another Japanese woman, his new wife, and he repeats the attempted gag.
While the film has garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews and generated a ton of awards buzz, some critics and people on social media blasted the movie for its depiction of racism without any pushback from its characters.
"Due to the casual racism found in the movie 'Licorice Pizza,' the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) believes that Paul Thomas Anderson's film is not deserving of nominations in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, or Best Original screenplay, and is asking other film critic associations to pass over it this awards season," MANAA said in a statement on Dec. 18.
"To shower it with nominations and awards would normalize more egregious mocking of Asians in this country, sending the message that it's OK to make fun of them," the activist group said, noting the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic.
Anti-Asian hate crimes increased more than 73 percent in 2020, according to corrected FBI data released in October. That number was a disproportionate uptick compared to hate crimes in general, which rose 13 percent.
A representative for Higgins and Anderson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In a November interview with The New York Times, Anderson addressed the criticism. In the conversation, the Times journalist said the accent was “so offensive that my audience actually gasped.”
The filmmaker responded: “I think it would be a mistake to tell a period film through the eyes of 2021. You can’t have a crystal ball, you have to be honest to that time. Not that it wouldn’t happen right now, by the way. My mother-in-law’s Japanese and my father-in-law is white, so seeing people speak English to her with a Japanese accent is something that happens all the time. I don’t think they even know they’re doing it.”
Sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen previously told NBC News that while Anderson acknowledged it was a "period" piece, the scenes still depicted racism “unfiltered.”
“If there are no consequences, scenes like this can almost glorify this behavior,” Yuen said. “You’re not laughing at [Higgins’ character] because he’s making fun of someone else; you’re either laughing with him at the expense of Asians, or you’re going to be upset as a viewer.”
MANAA said the "cringeworthy" scenes did "not advance the plot in any way" and reinforced "the notion that Asian Americans are 'less than' and perpetual foreigners."
The film, which rolled out in limited release over Thanksgiving weekend, is a coming-of-age comedy-drama that stars Alana Haim (of the Haim band) and Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman), two young people growing up in the San Fernando Valley in California in the 1970s.
State agencies in New York will now be required to break down data for individual ethnic groups under the Asian American Pacific Islander umbrella.
A bill signed last week by Gov. Kathy Hochul mandates that any state department collecting information on ethnicity or ancestry will now have to use different categories for each major Asian group, including the Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Laotian, Cambodian, Bangladeshi and Hmong communities, which the bill names.
The same will be done for individual Pacific Islander groups, including Native Hawaiians, Guamanians, Chamorros and Samoans.
This comes after decades of advocacy by civil rights organizations, who say there is a lack of understanding about lower-income, minority Asians whose data is often lumped together with higher-earning groups.
After it was vetoed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who cited lack of funds, Hochul quietly signed the bill into law Dec. 22.
“This is groundbreaking,” said Anita Gundanna, co-executive director of the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families, a group that’s spent over 10 years pushing for this change. “We started with this need for better data on our communities because so many of our community members have been struggling in silence.”
Asians in the United States have the greatest wealth gap of any ethnic group, according to a 2018 report by the Pew Research Center. Their average household income is $85,000, but that figure conceals a much more complicated narrative. Indians in the U.S., for example, are the highest earners and a median income upward of $119,000. Burmese households on the other hand make $44,000.
But a focus on the high average keeps resources away from Asian communities that need it. Government programs don’t tend to cater to their languages or neighborhoods. Charities and nonprofit groups might not have them on their radar.
“I applaud Gov. Hochul for signing this critical bill which will be instrumental to ensuring that our Asian-American communities across New York State receive the help and support they need," New York State assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement. "Asian Americans are not a monolith. Our communities are the most impoverished but receive the least help, often due to the lack of culturally appropriate services or language access."
Gundanna, who works with leaders in underrepresented ethnic groups, says directing resources to those who need them starts with a fundamental understanding of what each community is up against.
“All ethnic groups that fall under the umbrella of ‘Asian American’ get ignored when you lump all of us together,” she said. “Every community is negatively impacted by bad data. Inaccurate or incomplete data basically hides struggle.”
Covid-19 brought all these issues to the surface, she said. Lower-income Asian pockets faced an intersection of crises, with their businesses disproportionately shutting down, their multigenerational households ravaged by the virus, and a rise in anti-Asian hate.
Indo-Caribbeans and Bangladeshis in New York City were ravaged by the pandemic, activists said. Existing food and housing insecurity issues were exacerbated by deadly flooding in September that submerged many Asian neighborhoods under feet of murky sewage water.
The root of the problem, Gundanna said, is that these communities tend to be unseen in the first place. With better data comes more visibility, which could bring resources directly targeted to specific ethnic groups or geographical areas.
“It’s very important that in implementing this law, the community voice is heard,” she said. “It has to be that the community understands the data being collected about them, that the community finds that the data is helpful and accurate, that the implementation is effective.”
Hochul’s signature in New York sealed for the state what has been a broader national conversation on the role of the term “Asian American” in general, when it’s useful and whom it serves.
Scholars say it’s more of an idea than a race and it represents a diverse coalition of identities. Others say they don’t feel it represents them at all, and it’s impossible to do justice to everyone with one term. For Gundanna, the AAPI label still has its place.
“Asian American Pacific Islander identity can be a very powerful one,” she said. “I find that it is so important that as we fight for a unified voice as a political identity, that we have to take the steps to understand the diversity within. It’s almost like a muscle. If you want to make a stronger muscle, you have to break it down and build it up.”
The late Rep. John Lewis
John LewisHistory shows only a new Voting Rights Act can preserve our fragile democracy Democrats must not give in to self-fulfilling defeatism Hillicon Valley — Five Eyes nations warn of cyber threats MORE (D-Ga.) first introduced legislation to create an African American museum on the National Mall in 1988. It took nearly three decades before the museum was finally completed and opened its doors to the public.
Asian American leaders who are now pushing for their own museum know they, too, will have to be persistent and patient. But they see the African American museum as a template for success, and have begun to see some early movement in their effort to preserve and celebrate the history and contributions of the often-overlooked Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.
A House Natural Resources subcommittee this month held a hearing on a bill authored by Rep. Grace Meng
Grace MengAsian American leaders push for national museum of their own 91 House Dems call on Senate to expand immigration protections in Biden spending bill State Democrat group teams up with federal lawmakers to elect down-ballot candidates MORE (D-N.Y.) that would establish a commission to study the possibility of a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture. Meng and other lawmakers said they hope the legislation will be marked up in January by the full Natural Resources Committee, a critical step before heading to the floor.
“I remember the excitement and the pride that was felt by so many when the African American museum opened up, and I thought it was amazing to have in our nation's capital a physical place that housed so much of the history of a community that isn't always taught to people here in our schools,” Meng, who represents a large Asian American community in her Queens district, said in an interview.
“And I just thought that we should, as the fastest growing community in this country, also have a museum that's dedicated to our history and culture.”
The Asian American population grew to 24 million in 2020, up about 20 percent since 2010, according to the U.S. Census. That made Asians the fastest-growing minority group in the country.
But alongside that growth, the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China, has triggered a wave of racist and violent attacks against Asian Americans over the past two years, particularly targeting the elderly — a phenomenon that Meng said underscores the need for such a museum of learning and understanding.
“I really felt even more strongly about this during this last year and a half where so many people in our community have been discriminated against or attacked, and thought that it's really important that in our nation's capital we have something dedicated to helping more people learn about our history and culture,” Meng told The Hill.
“I have felt for too long that when people see Asian Americans, they don't truly view us as Americans. They view us as perpetual foreigners.”
Indeed, throughout American history, Asians have made significant contributions to the country while facing discrimination and bigotry. Thousands of Chinese laborers helped build the Transcontinental Railroad, linking the country. But to curb competition and cheap labor, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, putting in place a ban on Chinese immigrants that would last for decades.
During the 1907 riots in Bellingham, Wash., hundreds of immigrants from India working in lumber mills were attacked, beaten and driven out of the city.
And after the Pearl Harbor attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the mass incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans civilians solely due to their ethnicity. More than 18,000 of them would volunteer for the Army, forming the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit of their size in U.S. military history.
“And yet, there is no mention of these American heroes in our history books. In fact, students might go through their entire educational life without learning a single fact about Asian Pacific Americans …” Lisa Ling, the Asian American journalist and host of CNN’s “This is Life” series, testified at the Natural Resources hearing.
“When the stories and histories of a people are excluded from a country’s narrative,” she said, “it becomes easy to overlook and even dehumanise an entire population.”
In 2016, President Obama
Barack Hussein ObamaBiden, lawmakers mourn Harry Reid Harry Reid, political pugilist and longtime Senate majority leader, dies Oprah Winfrey offers first comment on Dr. Oz Senate run MORE, the nation’s first black president, led a ceremony to mark the opening of the $540 million National Museum of African American History and Culture, which sits just a couple blocks from the White House.
Other museums are in various stages of planning and development. One year ago, Congress passed a massive spending and COVID-19 relief package that also established the National Museum of the American Latino and the National Women's History Museum. They will be designed, funded and built on the Mall in the coming years.
The Meng legislation would create a commission to study the possible creation of the National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture Act on the National Mall or nearby. That eight-member panel would provide Congress with a strategy for building and maintaining the museum; a fundraising plan; and potential locations.
Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) and other members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, known as CAPAC, have been pressing Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Steny Hamilton HoyerHoyer calls for update on review of regulations for carrying firearms in House office buildings Clyburn to Democrats itching for leadership role: 'If you want my seat, come get it' Pressley offering measure condemning Boebert MORE (D-Md.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Nancy PelosiBiden, lawmakers mourn Harry Reid Narrow path forward for Build Back Better Biden's policies are not very merry MORE (D-Calif.) to carve out floor time for the bill next year. Pelosi’s San Francisco district is about 35 percent Asian Americans.
But the legislation will first need to pass out of the full Natural Resources panel, something committee members say should not be a heavy lift.
“We do a lot of marking up, so I think it’ll go quickly,” said Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), who represents a large Asian American community in Orange County and who chaired the subcommittee hearing on Meng’s bill. “Markup will probably be the very first thing next year.”
One big task for a commission would be how to pay for the museum. Just like the African American museum, the Latino and women’s museums will be financed with half coming from federal funding and half from private donations. The Asian museum would likely follow that model should it be built.
But Porter said she would like to see a future Asian museum receive a steady stream of federal funding to keep it running year after year. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum, which is operated by a nonprofit and relies mostly on ticket sales and private donations, has struggled to stay out of the red amid closures and fewer visitors related to the pandemic, an official testified.
“Personally, I thought it was a little bit of a cautionary tale about private funding, based on what we've heard from the 9/11 museum. … When COVID hit and they had to shut down and they had no visitors, they're needing to come back each time to Congress” and ask for money, Porter said.
“I would rather see a sturdy, stable public-funded model, which we have seen work time and time and time again.”
Advertisements featuring some Chinese models have sparked feuding in China over whether their appearance and makeup are perpetuating Asian stereotypes
BEIJING -- Advertisements featuring some Chinese models have sparked feuding in China over whether their appearance and makeup are perpetuating harmful stereotypes of Asians.
German automaker Mercedes-Benz and a Chinese food company are the latest to get caught up in the fray.
Some Chinese consumers complained after the local snack brand Three Squirrels featured advertisements for noodle products on its Weibo microblogging account showing a Chinese model with eyes they said looked slanted. Critics accused the company of spreading Western stereotypes.
Mercedes Benz also was attacked by some Chinese online who accused it of using a model with “slanted eyes” in its advertisements on Weibo. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The “slanted eyes” stereotype emerged in the West in the 19th century and is considered offensive and derogatory to Asians.
The latest backlash over advertisements followed one over luxury brand Dior, which apologized and withdrew a photo at an art exhibition showing an Asian model with freckles and very dark makeup clutching a Dior handbag. In response to criticism in China, the company said that it “respects the feelings of the Chinese people.”
Three Squirrels said in a post Saturday on its official Weibo account that it did not intend to portray a Chinese person in a bad light. The advertisement was shot in 2019, the company said in a statement. The model is Chinese and the makeup style was designed to suit her natural features, it said.
“In response to the feedback from netizens that the model’s makeup does not conform to publicly-accepted aesthetics standards and caused discomfort, our company apologizes,” the statement read.
“The page has been replaced and arrangements have been made to check other company pages to ensure that this situation will not happen again.”
Online, Chinese internet users have criticized the selection of models and makeup styles to deliberately portray the “slanted eyes” image.
One user with the handle MaoBuErXiong said that such slanted eyes imagery is derogatory and is deeply embedded in the fashion industry, with Asian models and their makeup styles often selected to fit a stereotype.
The model featured in the Three Squirrels advertisements has spoken out against the criticism.
“Just because my eyes are small, I’m not good enough to be a Chinese person? I don’t know what to say to these comments … I’m really helpless,” the model said in a Weibo post under the handle Cai Niangniang.
“As a professional model, what I need to do is be photographed accordingly to what the client wants, I don’t know how this became about me humiliating the Chinese people,” she said.
The communist party newspaper Global Times said Cai's response drew more than 330 million views.
“I hope people online would stop messaging me with personal attacks. I’m not a supermodel nor am I a public figure, I’m just someone who loves my motherland and a law-abiding citizen.”
While usually less pronounced than the disparities African Americans and Latinos face, Asian Americans experience many of the same discriminatory pressures that other immigrant and marginalized groups do.
The Asian American community is receiving some long-awaited representation with the election of Michelle Wu, Boston’s first woman and first Asian mayor in the city’s history. With over 67,000 people, making up almost 10% of Boston’s population, the Asian community is constantly growing, yet representation in local government and in the workforce is lacking.
White people in Boston, who make up 53.2% of the population, represent 49.3% of the workforce. African Americans make up 24.9% of the population, and represent 29.5% of the workforce. Latinos represent 19.7% of the population and only 14.5% of the workforce. Asian Americans, who represent 9.7% of the population, occupy only 4.8% of jobs in the city.
Asians are the fastest-growing minority group in Greater Boston, up 207% from 1990 to 2019, compared to 166% for Latinos and 52% for African Americans. Suburbs in Greater Boston are also growing rapidly. In nearby Lexington, the Asian population grew 83%. Immigration from Asian and Latin American countries is growing significantly.
Boston’s population distribution vs representation in the workforce.
Only 9 out of the 46 city departments are relatively representative of the city’s diversity, according to Rahsaan Hall, director of the Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union, (ACLU), of Massachusetts. Larger departments, like the police and fire departments, are even more poorly distributed. Just 2% of the Boston Police Department, (BPD), one of the most highly-paid city departments, is made up of Asian citizens.
The ‘model minority’ is a cliche often applied to Asian Americans. They are characterized as “hard-working” and “smart”, but this simplifies the entire Asian race into one group. That does not address the diversities within the community, nor the issues experienced by it as a whole. In 2019, the highest-paid race, on average, in Massachusetts was Asian, at 1.1 times the pay of white workers, but this only represents a small percentage of the Asian population in Boston. The poverty rate in Asian American households is higher than that of Black households and almost three times higher than in white households, at 29% in Boston.
While usually less pronounced than the disparities African Americans and Latinos face, Asian Americans experience many of the same discriminatory pressures that other immigrant and marginalized groups do. More than one-third of Asian American men involved in a survey reported feeling they were treated worse than white people.
With the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, anti-Asian sentiment spiked, and Asian businesses were hit the hardest. Revenue dropped among Asian-owned businesses at a higher rate than that of other minority-run businesses. Asians were also most likely to have lost health insurance (34%) during the pandemic.
Additionally, Mayor Wu has shared her own experiences with racism and xenophobic comments that have flooded her social media accounts and her office. Many of them stem from Wu’s announcement of new Covid-19 vaccine regulations throughout the city.
These facts, along with acts of violence and hate against Asian Americans across the US have made many in the community feel unsafe in their country, while also not being seen as a minority group struggling with racial discrimination.
With the city of Boston becoming more diverse, the body that governs it is expected to reflect this. In an effort to increase diversity in 2011, the city was redistricted according to census data. The hope was that this redistricting would result in communities made up primarily of people of color would be represented by lawmakers of color, but 10 years later, this is not the case (only five of the council members being POC and no Asian Americans). The state Legislature remains overwhelmingly white, compared to the diverse and varied population it is supposed to represent.
In an encouraging change of pace, however, the recent mayoral race may indicate a coming change for representation and provision for minority groups in Boston. In a previously white, male-dominated mayoral race, Boston’s City Council is now filled with women and people of color. Additionally, the front-running mayoral candidates were women of color. Now, Michelle Wu aims to help close the racial wealth gap through investing in affordable housing, equal access to education, free public transit and more, in what will hopefully be a fruitful and productive tenure as mayor.
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed on Monday, with multiple major markets in the region closed for holidays.
Mainland Chinese stocks closed mixed, with the Shanghai composite dipping fractionally to 3,615.97 while the Shenzhen component rose slightly to around 14,715.65. China's industrial profits in November jumped 9% from last year, data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics showed.
Elsewhere, the Nikkei 225 in Japan slipped 0.37% on the day to 28,676.46 while the Topix index shed 0.45% to 1,977.90. South Korea's Kospi fell 0.43% to close at 2,999.55.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.04% higher.
Major markets in Asia-Pacific such as Australia and Hong Kong were closed for the Christmas holidays.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 96.158 after recently declining from above 96.3.
The Japanese yen traded at 114.46 per dollar, weaker than levels below 114 seen against the greenback last week. The Australian dollar was at $0.7227 after rising from below $0.72 in the previous trading week.
Oil prices were lower in the afternoon of Asia trading hours on Monday, with international benchmark Brent crude futures down 0.29% to $75.92 per barrel. U.S. crude futures shed 1.34% to $72.80 per barrel.
New Jersey public schools could be required to infuse the history of Asian American and Pacific Islanders into their curriculum beginning with the 2022-23 school year.
A bill that would make it mandatory for inclusion in K-12 curriculum statewide cleared both houses in the state Legislature this month and awaits action by Gov. Phil Murphy. New Jersey would become the second state to require it (Illinois is the first), and similar bills are being considered in eight other states.
”They’ve contributed to our great culture in America,” said state Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D., Bergen), one of the bill’s sponsors. “It’s important that we recognize that and we teach that to our children.”
Advocates fast-tracked the measure in response to a spike in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since the pandemic. In March, six women of Asian descent were killed at spas in Atlanta.
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“We feel that education is the best antidote to hate,” said Kani Ilangovan, of West Windsor, founder of Make Us Visible NJ, a coalition of parents, students and educators who pushed for the bill. “It is very important for all of our lives and histories to be valued.”
According to a national report by Stop AAPI Hate, one in three Asian American or Pacific Islander parents said their child experienced a hate incident at school from March 2020 to August 2021.
In New Jersey, bias incidents against Asian Americans increased by 82% from 2019 to 2020, according to Ilangovan. Asian Americans make up more than 10% of the state’s 9 million residents.
A child psychiatrist, Ilangovan, who is Indian, said many parents were afraid to send their children to school after reopening. Some children were bullied and taunted with chants of “China virus and Kung flu,” she said.
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“We have to help our kids not be so ignorant,” she said in an interview this week.
During a recent hearing before the Legislature on the bill, students and advocates shared poignant stories about their experiences with anti-Asian racism. Christina Huang, 17, a student at Ridgewood High School in North Jersey, recalled classmates laughing at her grandmother who was outside practicing zaocao, a Chinese exercise routine, when their school bus pulled up in front of her home.
“I will never forget walking off the bus past my classmates as they stretched their eyes at me and mocked my grandmother’s movements. At that moment, I felt so alone and humiliated. I was only 7 years old,” she testified.
» READ MORE: This Black History Month, help us be the generation that ends systemic racism | Opinion
Samantha Lee, 15, a sophomore at Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees, who is Korean, said she believes the bill, if adopted, would help combat the racism and stares she has experienced in her Camden County district.
Lee joined others students, parents, and political and faith leaders at a rally in Cherry Hill earlier this month to support the bill. She gave a passionate speech about how schools would benefit from its passage.
”I want people to know that Asians weren’t just this sidekick to European history and that they have their own major role in shaping the world today,” Lee said. “It’s especially important that everyone of all races learn about each other.”
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Cherry Hill Mayor Susan Shin Angulo, who became the first Korean American elected to serve in that role in 2020, hopes students will be encouraged by her political accomplishments. She was also the first Korean American county commissioner.
“This is a huge step for Asian American students,” said Angulo, 51, who testified in support of the bill. “We must show them that they can thrive in any profession or field.”
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If the bill becomes law as many expect, students could learn about people such as Wong Kim Ark, the American-born son of Chinese immigrants whose landmark case established birthplace citizenship. Or Patsy Mink, a third-generation Japanese American from Hawaii, the first female of color elected to Congress in 1964. Or Larry Itliong, a Filipino American labor leader who helped change working conditions for farm workers.
Johnson expects Murphy to sign the bill into law before the current legislative session ends Jan. 10. Murphy’s office does not comment on pending legislation.
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Some districts like Hopewell Valley Regional in Pennington have already implemented AAPI curriculum in all grade levels, according to the New Jersey School Boards Association. About 12% of its students are Asian American/Pacific Islander.
A statewide curriculum would be developed by a Commission on Asian American Heritage in the state Department of Education. It then would be up to local school boards to implement the state mandate, including how to teach the curriculum and what books students should read.
» READ MORE: Cherry Hill School District becomes first in N.J. to mandate African American history course for graduation
New Jersey previously adopted laws requiring public schools to incorporate African American history into K-12 social studies lessons, teach about the Holocaust and genocide, and include instruction about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.
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Asian Stock Markets Follow Wall St up as Omicron Fears Ease U.S. News & World Report
Dec 24 (Reuters) - Most Asian currencies inched higher on Friday, buoyed by hopes that the Omicron coronavirus variant won't damage the global economy too much, with the Indonesian rupiah pulling back from a near two-month high to trade almost flat.
Equity markets in the region were largely mixed in thin trade on Christmas Eve, while currencies clung to narrow gains against the dollar.
Indonesia's rupiah , the top gainer in Southeast Asia so far this year, traded almost flat after strengthening 0.5% earlier in the day to its highest since Nov. 1, while the Philippine peso and the South Korean won each firmed about 0.2%.
The rupiah was also on track to add about 1% for the week, its best since mid-October.
Meanwhile, Bank Indonesia's governor said Indonesian bond rates could rise by 50 basis points (bps) from as soon as the third quarter next year, to match an expected hike of 50 to 75 bps in Treasury yields as the United States tightens monetary policy. read more
Indonesia's 10-year benchmark yields slipped for a fourth straight session to 6.385%, their lowest in a week, as investor inflow increased on brighter economic prospects, thus benefiting the currency.
Markets in the region were supported by a festive cheer following indications that the Omicron variant was less likely to lead to hospitalisation, and won't damage the economy too much as initially feared. read more
Vaccine makers AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) and Novavax Inc (NVAX.O) said their shots protected against Omicron, and data indicated both Merck (MRK.N) and Pfizer's (PFE.N) COVID-19 anti-viral pills were effective against the variant, providing another glimmer of hope to the markets.
That put pressure on the dollar, which slipped marginally against a basket of currencies. The U.S. dollar index was flat at 96.062, lingering near its one-week low.
Analysts at Mizuho Bank termed it as a "Santa pause", which seemed to be more a consequence of heightened uncertainty amid conflicting economic risks and policy signals, than a "risk-on" holiday-cheer rally as more clarity is needed on the Omicron variant.
Elsewhere in Asia, the Indian rupee appreciated for a fifth straight session and hit its highest in three weeks, supported by strong inflows to the equity market. The rupee was on track for a more than 1% weekly gain, its best since late April.
Among stock markets, Singapore (.STI) finished 0.4% higher in holiday-shortened trade, while South Korea (.KS11) and Indonesia (.JKSE) advanced about half a percent each.
China's benchmark stock index (.SSEC) declined 0.6% and bluechips (.CSI300) slipped 0.5%, a day after rising coronavirus infections in the northwestern city of Xi'an resulted in a lockdown of its 13 million residents. read more
Philippine (.PSI) and Indian shares (.NSEI) each shed about 1%, while Malaysia (.KLSE) and Thailand (.SETI) slipped in low trading volumes ahead of the Christmas weekend.
HIGHLIGHTS:
** Indonesian 5-year benchmark yields fall 3.5 basis points to 5.091%, their fourth straight session of losses
** HSBC buys India L&T's mutual fund arm for $425 mln in wealth expansion read more
** India's crude imports hit 10-month peak as refiners bank on strong demand
Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Dec 21 (Reuters) - Most Asian emerging currencies and equities traded in the positive territory on Tuesday, with the Indian rupee and Malaysian ringgit leading gains, but markets remained under pressure amid the overarching effects of the Omicron variant.
Markets elsewhere in Asia have clawed back some losses, shrugging off a bruising Wall Street session, helped by higher U.S. stock futures and investors buying some battered stocks, although surging Omicron cases remained a worry for investors.
The Indian rupee strengthened 0.4% to hit a one-week high, Malaysian ringgit and the Indonesian rupiah firmed about 0.4% each while the Philippine peso strengthened 0.2%.
Among losers, South Korean won lingered at a three-week low of 1,190.9, the Philippine peso lost 0.2%, and the Thai baht hit a two-week low as surging Omicron cases clouded the prospects of the tourism-reliant economy.
"Depreciation pressures on (the) Thai baht continue as disruptions to domestic and regional tourism from the spread of Omicron weighed on economic recovery prospects," analysts at Mizuho Bank said in a note.
The Bank of Thailand (BoT) is expected to hold interest rates at a record low on Wednesday, and through next year, according to economists in a Reuters poll, to bolster an economy still grappling with the fallout of the pandemic.
Analysts at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group expect the BoT to start considering policy normalisation only in 2023.
The Thai baht has been the worst performing currency in the region so far this year. The unit is on track to lose more than 11% in 2021 - its biggest annual fall since 2000 - pressured by a strong U.S. dollar and the drying up of foreign inflows.
Regional equities were broadly in the green on Tuesday, with India's Nifty 50 (.NSEI) rebounding 1.7% on strength in information technology and metal stocks, while Singaporean shares (.STI) added about 0.5% after two days of losses.
Philippine shares (.PSI) slipped up to 0.8%, marking their second straight day in the red, while stocks in Indonesia (.JKSE) and Malaysia (.KLSE) were steady in a tight range.
Malaysian glove manufacturers such as Top Glove Corp (TPGC.KL), Hartalega Holdings (HTHB.KL) and Kossan Rubber Industries (KRIB.KL) declined between 2% and 8%. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection banned imports from Brightway Group over suspected forced labour practices.
Malaysia's government and companies must address mounting allegations of workplace abuse of migrant labourers who fuel the country's economy, or face risks to its export-reliant growth model, experts have warned. read more
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** Indonesian 10-year benchmark yields edge lower to 6.423%
** India cuts import tax on refined palm oil to 12.5% to calm prices -
** Digital maps provider MapmyIndia hits $1.12 bln valuation in market debut - read more
Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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