Texas is doomed. The current governor (Rick Perry, R-TX) is all hair and no brains and his likely principal gubernatorial challenger, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), is a former cheerleader: all megaphone and no brains. Senator Hutchinson's characterization of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke (D-WA) brings to mind one of A. Lincoln's aphorisms: "'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." If this is a (fair & balanced) diagnosis of stupidity, so be it.
[x NY Fishwrap]
Family Secrets
By Timothy Egan
Tag Cloud of the following article
The new Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke of Seattle, is a former Eagle Scout, prosecutor, and popular two-term governor whose idea of a good time is to crawl under the kitchen sink with plumber’s tape and a gob of grease. Just one week into the new job, he flew home to mow his lawn.
After reading the background file that the F.B.I. put together on Locke, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison characterized the latest member of President Obama’s cabinet with one word — “boring.”
But Gary Locke does have a family secret that is anything but eye-glazing.
Yes, he is widely known as the nation’s first Chinese-American governor, with a stirring family saga, as President Obama said in introducing Locke.
“Sometimes the American story can be told in the span of a single mile,” Obama said, referring to the distance between the place where Gary’s immigrant grandfather worked as a house servant nearly a hundred years ago and the Capitol where Locke was sworn in as Washington state governor in 1997.
Yet there would be no Lockes in America, no great story of the kid raised in public housing who went on to Yale and high office, no presidential kudos, if that same grandfather had not lied to get into the country.
“Some members of my family are still very nervous about acknowledging what happened back then,” Locke told me nine years ago, when I spent time with him for a profile.
And when I asked him last week about that same family secret, he repeated the story, with some hesitation.
“I’m not really sure, but I think my grandfather claimed he was born here but the birth records were destroyed,” Locke said.
For more than half a century, in an act of overt institutional racism, the Chinese were barred from legally entering the United States, with only a few exceptions. The Chinese Exclusion Act lasted until 1943. Those who managed to get in were often called “paper sons,” using elaborate ruses about lost documentation to enter the country.
Locke’s grandfather — today — would likely be hiding in the shadows, fearing federal officials and the lash of those who don’t like the changing character of America.
All of which gives Locke an unusual perspective for his new job. As Commerce Secretary, he will oversee one of the oldest undertakings of the federal government: the decennial census, which takes place a year from now. As defined by the Constitution, the census is supposed to be a count of all residents of the United States — “actual enumeration,” not just citizens.
In attempting to translate that task for purposes of electoral representation, the first census counted black slaves as three-fifths of a human being. That 1790 head count put the population of the young republic at 3.9 million.
Locke was born in the United States, so you wing nuts can rest easy. His father served in the American Army, a staff sergeant who landed at Normandy Beach and fought the Nazis in Europe.
The Locke family narrative is the American story, even with that twist about how they first came to these shores. The fact that they felt some shame over this episode is not usual; they skirted the law, egregious as it was, to get in.
Some Americans don’t see the common heritage: the hushed story of entry paired with the later success borne of hard work. When Locke gave the Democratic response to the 2003 State of the Union address, he was besieged by hate e-mails and death threats, many telling him to go back to China. The reaction stunned him: Here was a deep hatred he had never been exposed to.
Few of us can trace our ancestry to the Mayflower. But it’s worth noting that, from a Native American perspective, those Massachusetts Bay pilgrims were illegals.
As Locke oversees the census, he says he will put extra effort in making sure everyone gets counted. Some Republicans fear he will use statistical sampling — an educated guess, based on partial numbers. But the Supreme Court has ruled against this, and Locke vows the census will steer clear of such projections.
“What we want is an accurate count of America,” he said. “A true portrait.”
At stake is more than $300 billion in state and federal funds, congressional seat allocations, and the balance of the Electoral College. Those slaves of 1790, though counted as less than human, gave southern states additional power in congress and the general election.
Today, the illegal immigrants — mostly Latino, but many Asians as well — will tip the balance another way. They include those who may one day have grandchildren in the president’s cabinet, a cycle as old as the republic. ♥
[Timothy Egan writes "Outposts," a column at the NY Fishwrap online. Egan — winner of both a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 as a member of a team of reporters who wrote the series "How Race Is Lived in America" and a National Book Award (The Worst Hard Time in 2006) — graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in journalism, and was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters by Whitman College in 2000 for his environmental writings. Egan is the author of four other books, in addition to The Worst Hard Time — The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest, Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West, Breaking Blue, and The Winemaker's Daughter.]
Copyright © 2009 The New York Times Company
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Copyright © 2009 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves
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