| "Together we can..." Nice soundbite, but day by day it's looking like Deval Patrick is not living up to that promise.
The latest exclusionary policy of the Patrick Administration is not appointing any Southeast Asians to his Asian American Commission(Lowell Sun).
Not only are Southeast Asians from Lowell, which has the largest Cambodian population east of the Missisipi River, and the second largest in the Nation, exlcuded but all Southeast Asians.
"I'm concerned that I don't see anyone of the Southeast Asian community on the list. Not from the Vietnamese in Dorchester or Worcester or here in Lowell," said Vong Ros, executive director of the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association in Lowell. "I think that it's great to have an Asian commission to address the issues, but from the list I saw they're not necessarily new arrivals like Southeast Asians and our issues are not the same."
Is this because the Southeast Asian Community in Lowell has traditionally backed Republican candidates, like Chuck McCarthy, Mitt Romney, and Kerry Healey? If so, we should all be dissapointed in that.
UPDATE:
According to "The Column" in The 2/25/07 Lowell Sunday Sun the Patrick administration may be taking steps to rectify the situation.
An Asian-American commission without representation from any of the state's Southeast Asian communities -- the Vietnamese in Dorchester or Cambodians in Revere, Lynn or Lowell -- is questionable at best.
Word is this oversight could be corrected in days.
Seems like the Patrick Administration is retroactively fixing a lot of problems it has created in it's short 52 days in office. |
