July 24, 2019
Thang Do, PIVOT Board Member
In recent days, President Donald Trump has been criticized harshly for several of his tweets. The criticism came of course from the opposing Democratic Party, but even in the President’s own Republican Party, several prominent figures also voiced their objection. Leaders of many countries attacked the racism implied in his Twitter messages. 

July 24, 2019
Khanh Nguyen, PIVOT Member
"Go back to your country" is another way of saying "Because I love my country, you cannot disagree with me and since the color of your skin is different from me, then you must not love this country and therefore you must leave this country". It is the most racist statement a person can make to another person. It is a statement directed at me so many times while growing up in America, I lost count how many times but I did not lose the hurt as a result of it.

July 23, 2019
Linh T. Nguyen, PIVOT Member and Assistant Professor of American Ethnic Studies at University of Washington
President Trump’s July 14 attack on four freshman women Congressmembers Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar is consistent with his attitudes toward women and people of color who continue to challenge his attempts to reinstall outdated gender and racial politics. In the days since, his ongoing vilification of Omar and the demand to “Send her back” has solidified as a rallying call for his conservative and predominantly white base. This recent barrage of attacks is part of a larger strategy to distract from the administration’s continued aggressive border policing and new asylum policies. 

July 22, 2019
Linh Kochan, PIVOT Member
Are you American born? Are you naturalized American? Are you white? Are you non-white? Where are you on the ladder of American privilege? How many times have you been told to "go back to your country?"

Trump has said it. If you don't like America (i.e., the America under Trump), leave! Go back to where your ancestors came from! He directed it first at the four minority congresswomen then broadened it to the rest of America to a crowd that shouted to an American born citizen, "Send her back!"

July 8, 2019
PIVOT proudly announces that we are endorsing Dr. Tam Dinh, a candidate for Mercer Island, WA School Board Position 5, and currently an Associate Professor and Program Director of the Social Work Program at Saint Martin’s University. Dr. Dinh, the only candidate with professional experience in education, has been involved over the last 25 years at the local and state level in providing services and advocating for policies that reflect and address the education and mental health needs of Vietnamese Americans. She believes her education, mental health expertise, and advocacy background would be an asset on the School Board to help address the increasingly complex needs of a growing, diverse student population via the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion.

July 4, 2019
Bee Nguyen

From Bee’s Facebook post:

Every July 4, I’ve celebrated the story of my family’s migration and the birth of my older sister, the very first American in our family. She turns 40 years old today.

This year feels different.

July 3, 2019
Thang Do, PIVOT Board Member
Like many Vietnamese Americans, I left Vietnam to come to the United States. For quite a few years, I had viewed myself as a refugee, with a temporary connotation associated with the term: I only escaped the dangers of my old country to seek safety and protection. What about the future? Life’s prospects were foggy at the beginning, so not many of us bothered contemplating the future, although we all knew that returning to our homeland was not a possibility.

June 20, 2019
Tung Nguyen, PIVOT President 
My mother died recently. One of her illnesses robbed her of the ability to remember around the time I was old enough to want to know about her life before I was born. Even before that, her stories were just a way to teach me a lesson. They always ended with “that’s why you shouldn’t…”

During one of my mother’s lucid moments, I asked about how she felt when, at the age of 14, she rowed a boat on the river to go sell vegetables at the market in Hà Tỉnh. She said she was scared. And there was a certain man who worked on the dock that she tried to avoid being alone with at night.

June 12, 2019
We stand in support of Bee Nguyen, State Representative for Georgia House District 89, and her criticism of inflammatory statements made by an associate professor of history at Georgia Gwinnett College about undocumented immigrants. In a Facebook post, Fang Zhou called undocumented immigrants “ghetto thugs and criminals” and “illiterate uneducated intellectually inferior.” He also states that “deportation of illegals is so beautiful and lovely to see. It is sweet justice for me.” Mr. Zhou also reported that he consistently educates his students about “the financial burden of illegal immigrants” and “the high crime rate of illegal immigrants.”