That is until the Asian American communities came to know about it and were left stunned by its intent.  The bill brought race into an equation where only merit and hard work should be the variables. The bill’s sponsor indicated that the goal was to increase enrollment of ‘under-represented’ minorities claiming that Prop 209 had led to “a precipitous drop in the percentage of Latino, African American and Native American students at California public universities.”  To get around Prop 209, which has been upheld by the courts several times, the bill aimed at removing the public education institutions from the classification of state entities.

We were rightly outraged as the net effect of the bill seemed to be to limit our kids’ access to the prestigious UC and CSU campuses by instituting race preferences for some minorities over others. This was an issue of our kids’ future and opportunities that could be denied to them. Education is a priority for us and our and our children’s success in school and beyond has been due to the realization that we should not and cannot expect any hand-outs, rather we have to work twice as hard. What message would passage of this measure send to our children – that racial discrimination is very much alive in 21^st century California? Their capability and hard work are worthless because of the color of their skin?  They have to take a number at the back of the line in realizing their American dream?  Even when annually published data clearly proves that all minorities have seen continually increasing enrollment as a result of Prop 209, somehow our greater success proves that Prop 209 is bad?

In the past, we have supported affirmative action when it was clear that people were being left behind due to their race – this was exactly the opposite of affirmative action even if proponents claimed otherwise.

Led by the Chinese Americans, Asians of all hue rose up in protest. We organized marches, town hall meetings, letter writing campaigns, online petitions etc. to stop the bill from advancing any further. We were going to use all the democratic tools at our disposal to let our concerns be heard loud and clear all the way to Sacramento.  Our intense opposition led the three Asian American Senators – Leland Yee, Ted Lieu and Carol Liu – to reverse their positions of initial vote in support of the bill. Similarly, Asian American members of the Assembly were forced to publicly withdraw their support. As a result, on Mar. 17, Assembly Speaker John Perez and State Senator Hernandez withdrew SCA-5 from consideration by the Assembly this year. At the same time they announced the formation of a joint task force to study the issues raised by SCA-5 as well as its opponents.

The battle is temporarily won, but it is not quite over. We have to stay vigilant that the bill is not resurrected at a later date. Statements issued by various state senators indicate that they consider this a passing setback and they are still committed to implement the measure in some form. Proponents of SCA-5 are insisting that the bill was designed to increasing diversity on “some” school campuses despite the fact that California is a state where no race has a majority and its school campuses are the most diversified anywhere in the world.

At the same time, we have to participate in the joint task force to make our opinion be widely understood that we are not against offering a helping hand to the disadvantaged but racial preferences cannot trump deserving candidates. They point to the statistic that more number of Latinos graduate high school than go to college but that is due to other factors and racial preferences will not help reverse it.  Admitting students to programs for which they are not adequately prepared is a disservice to them as well as can lead to the erosion of the quality of those programs.  California universities have instituted excellent policies and outreach efforts to create opportunities for expanded access which need to be further strengthened.  More investments into education are needed after the cutbacks of recent years so that the growing number of qualified applicants can be absorbed and not left behind.

Finally, Asian Americans have demonstrated a political strength usually missing due to indifference with the process. This is truer of Indian Americans whose apathy is probably colored by their experiences with similar processes in India. However, this protest action has shown that unless we are more involved, we will be taken for granted and measures like these can be passed in the future also. While piecemeal opposition may work sometime, a more concerted and consistent effort is needed to fully represent our interests and viewpoints. It means increased participation starting with electing to vote at all levels and supporting candidates who better exemplify our values regardless of political affiliations. I hope this will be a wake up call for the necessary dialog.