I personally attended the hearing on January 30, 2018 in the Gardner Auditorium (GA). I have three points to oppose it:
First, without providing adequate information to show why other ethnic groups, White, African, Latino, etc. are not qualified for data disaggregation, it will be ridiculous to cost government resource to pay Asian American a special attention.
Second, it is in violation of US constitutional rights, the Fourteenth Amendment Right, Equal Protection under laws;
Third, it would be impossible to practice this bill due to complication, as my relatives in US involved all kinds of ethnicity, Chinese, Korean, Jewish, Japanese etc, and their kids are mixed. Could they be further disaggregated endlessly?
Finally, I would like to complain the unjust process during the hearing.
There were more than 500 people in GA for opponents (who wore yellow sticks), and they arrived at about 10am; and only less than 40 people with blue sticks (means supporting), based on my observation. However, due to Rep. Tacky Chan's somehow arrangement, the first three hours, from 1pm--4pm were mostly for supports' testimony. The statehouse video camera was running until 4pm. This unjust process would give you wrong information that it looked like that the support and opponent were even.
The actual hearing was continued to 9pm, but I had to leave at 6pm due to family issue, without an opportunity to testify although I signed the form.
Therefore, I strongly ask you to oppose the bill H.3361 as it already caused overwhelming opponents in local Asian society.
Thank you for your time.
Name
Address
Phone No
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| Gentile, Carmine - Rep. (HOU) <Carmine.Gentile@mahouse.gov> |
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| date: | Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 10:39 AM |
| subject: | RE: Opposition to H.3361 |
Dear ----,
I and others in the Legislature take very seriously your concerns about discrimination, racial targeting, and unequal treatment and vehemently oppose efforts by any level of government to use the data they collect to this end.
As you may know, the first five signatories listed on H3361 comprise the Asian Caucus in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. I have spoken to Rep. Chan and I believe that their intent is to be able to demonstrate the number of Asian Americans in Massachusetts by allowing the data collected by the Commonwealth to more closely resemble the way the federal census breaks down Asian American and Pacific Islander data. This is in service to their continuing effort to benefit that community in the Commonwealth by insuring that state agencies have an accurate account of the issues faced by them.
Best regards,
Carmine
Carmine Gentile
State Representative
13th Middlesex District
(Framingham, Marlborough, Sudbury, and Wayland)
State House, Rm 167
O: 617-722-2810
