Tammy Duckworth, Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, and former Democratic candidate for Congress, will lead off the final hour of tonight’s Democratic National Convention program, speaking about military policy and veterans care.

Thai American Duckworth graduated from McKinley High School in Honolulu, the same alma mater of Sen. Dan Inouye, and also from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

Duckworth lost both of her legs in November 2004 due to injuries she suffered when the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting north of Baghdad was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade hit the cockpit.

Her remarks as prepared for delivery are below:

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In a widely anticipated procedural move initiated by Sen. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama was minutes ago nominated by the delegates of the Democratic National Convention to be the party’s nominee for President of the United States.

The motion followed a roll call in alphabetical order of our states up to New Mexico, at which point, New Mexico yielded the floor to Illinois, which in turn yielded the floor to New York and Sen. Clinton’s motion to approve Sen. Obama as our nominee by acclamation.

"Sen. Barack Obama accepts the nomination," said Speaker Pelosi.

Listen to Ramey Ko’s moblog post right below as he calls in while the nomination was being brought to close.

Mobile photo by Cate Park

Congressman Mike Honda, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and California State Controller John Chiang spoke today before the convention in Denver.

Both are mentioned in a story yesterday by Lisa Amin of ABC7 in San Francisco about the prominent AAPI speakers lined up at the Democratic convention. Her story doesn’t mention Maya Soetoro-Ng, who spoke yesterday, but the theme of the story is this: the Democratic convention features a number of AAPI speakers; the Republican convention only has one lone AAPI slotted to speak — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Rep. Honda’s and Controller Chiang’s remarks follow.

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Mobile photo by Cate Park

Cynematic from MOMocrats was at the AAPI Caucus earlier today and posted her thoughts, among them:

Interesting nuggets of info from the caucus:
* AAPIs have 25% more delegates at the DNC in 2008 than in 2004.
* 9 delegates from otherwise lily-white Minnesota! Woo hoo!
* McCain’s Ohio ground game has gone missing, and with the help of APIAs, "we have a great chance of winning the state," according to Jay Goyal, OH State Representative, 73rd district.
* Ted Lieu,  CA State Assembly, 53rd Assembly district: AAPI voter participation is on the rise.
* Yul Kwon, Survivor McHottie, was once aide for Joe Lieberman…before Lieberman went over to the dark side.

There was a lively panel afterwards where young activists discussed APIA voter participation via social media (extremely effective, especially in the under 30 crowd). It’s a GOTV and education tool. And the youth vote, which overwhemingly went for Obama in the primaries, can be effective in advocating up the generational ladder among family and friends.

Thanks to Cate Park and AJ Halagao for sending camera phone pics of Maya Soetoro-Ng speaking before the convention tonight — just about 20 minutes ago. Although a well-known fact for those who have heard Maya speak before, her intelligence, charisma, poise and warmth were on display for the whole country tonight and we’re all proud of her.  Maika’i (great job), Maya!

Newsweek has a good article online on the Asian American role in the upcoming 2008 race.

Zhou Ling, a naturalized American citizen
from Taiwan who wears an Obama pin with the Chinese characters for
“hope,” says Asian American citizens must abandon fear and cultivate
courage and civic duty. For her, both were inspired by the Obama
campaign, for which she now volunteers.

                                           …

The Obama campaign clearly recognizes the
need to reach out to the Asian American community. Last month,
California Rep. Mike Honda addressed an Obama fundraiser sponsored by a
coalition of Asian American political groups. Obama’s part Indonesian
half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, has also contributed as a spokeswoman.
Their efforts may bear fruit. According to “New Voters, Old Fears,” by News 21, a journalism initiative of the Carnegie and Knight Foundations, Asian Americans increasingly lean toward Democratic candidates.

From: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/08/07/crouching-voter-hidden-direction.aspx

From: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/17/MNCI12CVH8.DTL

"Change is always tough, and electing me is change … and it means
that people are going to hesitate a little bit," Obama told a crowd of
about 200 deep-pocketed supporters at a VIP reception for South Asian
and Pacific Islander supporters at the Fairmont Hotel.

                             …

Obama told the group - many of them Indian and Pakistani immigrants
- that he is not only familiar with their cultures - but also proud of
his lifelong associations with them.

"Not only do I think I’m a desi, but I’m a desi," he said, using a
colloquial term that describes South Asian immigrants. The remark was
greeted with laughs. "I’m a homeboy."

He said that when he went to Occidental College, his first roommate
was Pakistani. And in his dorm, he said with a laugh, "Indians and
Pakistanis came together under one roof … to cause havoc in the
university."

To applause, he said he became an expert "at cooking dal" and other
ethnic dishes, though "somebody else made the naan," the trademark
Indian bread.

"Those are friendships which have lasted me for years, and continue
until this day," he said. "I have an enormous personal affection for
the people of South Asia."

"I’ve also had an orientation toward Asia and a recognition … that
over time we are going to see … more economic growth," and an
economic partnership with the United States that is "strategic."

George Takei, Kelly Hu and George Huang — three incredible industry pioneering talents — donated their valuable time and led a phenomenal crew in creating an AAPI-targeted get-out-the-vote public service announcement for the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment, or CAUSE.  The PSA launched last night with Kelly and the cast and crew at a release party at J Lounge in LA.

CAUSE is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, non-partisan organization advancing the political empowerment of the Asian Pacific American community through voter registration and education, community outreach and leadership development.

The PSA, "Embrace Your Power," encourages Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to vote in the November 4 election and is just the latest example of George Takei’s, Kelly Hu’s and George Huang’s ongoing commitment and dedication to our community and to the importance of AAPI involvement in the political process.

The result of hundreds of hours of work and the reshuffling of the cast’s and crew’s busy schedules, the 30-second PSA was created for the benefit of the AAPI community to improve the visibility of AAPIs in this critical election.  This is the first AAPI GOTV public service announcement of the general election season.

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The Obama campaign announced today in a press release new members of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) for Obama Leadership Council, a group that was established in October 2007.

The AAPI leadership council consists of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders leaders and activists from across the nation, representing every sector of our society, including community, nonprofit, entertainment, business, government, law, academia and media.

We’re fortunate to have such a strong team of AAPI leaders from across the country speaking and living Barack Obama’s message of change.  The three co-chairs of the Leadership Council — Nancy Chen, Ann Kalayil and Stan Toy — were instrumental in introducing Senator Obama to the AAPI community during the primary season.

We all want to express a heartfelt mahalo to Ann, Nancy and Stan for their incredible hard work, leadership and personal investment of time and resources from the beginning of the campaign.

The Obama campaign was also galvanized by the grassroots efforts of Asian Americans for Obama, South Asians for Obama, Asian Pacific Americans for Progress and other similar groups.  These groups touched thousands and thousands of AAPIs across the country, many of whom were new to the political process.

The council now has executive and steering committees that include AAPI
supporters of former presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and
John Edwards.

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The 80-20 Initiative backs Sen. Barack Obama.

"The 80-20 Initiative is a national, nonpartisan group dedicated to
the issues of Asian Pacific Americans. Saturday’s [Aug. 2nd] convention followed
group bylaws, under which one-third of the delegates must be Democrats,
one-third Republicans and one-third Independents. According to the
rules, the group may endorse one, both or none of the major party
candidates for president.

The group formed six years ago with the intent of creating a swing
voting bloc among Asian Americans. Putting aside political differences
to look at this ethnic community’s interests as a whole, the goal was
for 80 percent of the community to vote for the candidate that the
organization would endorse."

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natasha-chen/largest-asian-american-pa_b_116562.html