Philippine’s National Soccer Team “AZKALS” to play in the US

Read FULL  article here

August 11 vs. Chicago Inferno for a ‘international friendly match” at Wheaton’s Joe Bean Stadium.They will travel with the Virgin Island team to Indiana for another friendly exhibition game….

The Azkals play for the Asian Football Confederation, is using the U.S training camp and friendly matches to prepare for the ASEAN Football Federation Suzuki Cup which will be hosted by Malaysia and Thailand in November.

The Azkals reached the semi finals of the the Suzuki Cup in 2010!

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FAN nominated as one of 5 for The Outstanding Filipinos in New York

The Filipino Adoptees Network has been nominated as one of 5 recipients under Youth and Sports in hopes to receive top honors at The Outstanding Filipinos of New York! We are honored to be recognized and would like folks to learn more about the adopted Filipino experience through the nomination process. Please look at the other nominees who are movers and shakers in the Filipino American community of New York.

You must first like the The Outstanding Filipinos in New York (TOFA 12) Facebook group in order to vote for the FAN nomination.

Thank you in advance,

FAN

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The Fisherman: Airing on HBO On Demand (animated and produced by Filipinos!)

Happy to announce that my animated short The Fisherman is now available on HBO On Demand for Asian Heritage Month. If you have HBO On Demand, have a watch and share the news with others!

NOTE: Thanks everyone for all the love and support. If you have HBO on Demand… please share the news and watch all the available content in the Asian American Heritage area multiple times and show HBO that you Demand quality content that broadens the color spectrum on TV.

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An Insider’s Guide to Identity and Adoption Real Life Stories. Expert Advice May 22nd

An Insider’s Guide to Identity and Adoption
Real Life Stories. Expert Advice

Tuesday, May 22
7:00PM Central
Q&A: 8:00-8:30

Join a panel of adult adopted people as they reflect back on how being adopted shaped their identity. The panel will answer questions and give adopted parents practical insight into how they can best support their children to forma healthy sense of self. Learn more and register

Learn the challenges your children may face when forming their identity
Hear stories and examples of how others have faced these challenges
Pose your own questions to the panel
Dr. Gina Samuels, researcher, educator and an adopted person will lead the discussion. Learn more about Dr. Samuels

REGISTER

Submit your questions for the panel HERE or by tweeting them to @adoptiontweet using #adoptionid

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Land of a Gazillion Adoptees: “Citizenship for All US Intercountry Adoptees”: The petition we can all agree on

Dear reader, please take just a few minutes to read, sign, and readily pass on this VERY important petition created by Korean Focus and two leaders of the adoptee community.  The whole process will take you no longer than some of your lengthy Facebook posts about what you ate last night.  Here’s the link.

http://www.change.org/petitions/citizenship-for-all-us-intercountry-adoptees

This is a no brainer petition.  If you disagree with it, dear reader, you’re kind of a troll.  And I mean that in the nicest way possible

So, again, please read, sign, and readily pass on this petition so that citizenship is given to all US intercountry adoptees.

http://www.change.org/petitions/citizenship-for-all-us-intercountry-adoptees

Excerpts from the petition.

“Joao Herbert was adopted from Brazil at the age of eight by a family in Ohio. A charge for attempting to sell marijuana, although a first offense, landed him in immigration detention, after which he was deported to Brazil in 2000. Joao Herbert was murdered in Brazil in May 2004.”

“Korean adoptee Matthew Scherer learned he lacked citizenship when he applied for a U.S. passport. He subsequently obtained permanent resident status, but upon traveling to Korea was identified by the Korean government by his original Korean name and now is blocked by Korean law from returning to the U.S. and threatened with conscription into the Korean army.”

“Jennifer Haynes was adopted at eight from India and sexually abused by her adoptive father, after which she passed through 50 foster homes on her way to adulthood.  Married to a U.S. citizen and mother of two young children, Haynes was nonetheless deported to India in 2008.”

“Adopted as a toddler from Thailand in 1979 by a family in Florida, John Gaul completed a sentence for theft and check fraud in 1996 after the new immigration law went into effect. A judge was prevented under the new law from acknowledging adoption as an extenuating circumstance, and he was deported toThailand in 1999.”

“Tatiana Mitrohina was born in Russia in 1978 with physical deformities that led to her adoption at fourteen to California. She suffered from childhood-related PTSD and postpartum depression. Following a charge of abuse of her son, the court recommended counseling and medication, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement have detained her in preparation for deportation.”

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PBS website is showing ‘The Learning’ for free!

If you missed The Learning on PBS earlier the entire documentary is available to view on line! Follow 3 Filipinas who are offered to work as teachers in inner city schools of Baltimore for a year. See what unfolds as they they leave their loved ones in order to become the bread winners of their families.

The Learning

100 years ago, American teachers established the English-speaking public school system of the Philippines. Now, American schools are recruiting Filipino teachers. ‘The Learning’ is the story of four Filipino women who leave the Philippines to teach in Baltimore. The women bring idealistic visions …

video.pbs.org/video/2126707595

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Aljazeera: America’s forgotten children

America’s forgotten children

Amerasians – mixed-race children fathered by US soldiers – struggle with discrimination in Asian societies.

The term Amerasians refers specifically to the children of American military servicemen and Asian mothers. These children can be found in countries including the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan – all Asian countries that have had a US military presence.

In the Philippines, following the 1992 closure of the US Naval base in Subic Bay, more than 50,000 children were left to grow up without their fathers. As mixed race children, they face high levels of discrimination and identity-related problems.

During tours of duty in various Asian countries, a considerable number of US soldiers carried on relationships with local women, many of whom moved near bases to work as housekeepers or in bars and clubs as sex workers.

The U.S. government issues special visas to children fathered by American troops and employees during the Vietnam War. However, these visas do not apply for children of Filipino or Japanese descent.

Only those born between December 1950 and October 1982 in Koran, Vietnam, Laos, Kambuchea, or Thailand who can prove US paternity are entitled to the special visa.

Despite good US relations with the Philippines and Japan, the Amerasian law excludes children fathered there because neither country was a direct victim of war.

Vietnamese Amerasians face a high level of discrimination from peers and adults. Considered “children of the enemy,” their faces constantly remind those around them of the war that ravaged their country. Sons and daughters of black soldiers face greater discrimination, often times barred from jobs for being “dirty” and “bad for business.”

After American troops left Vietnam, many Vietnamese mothers destroyed letters and pictures from their American partners fearing punishment by communist militias for enemy relationships. Without evidence of their American fathers, children of these women lost the needed proof for their US visa application.

Indeed, the United States made some strides in bringing Amerasians home since the Amerasian visa was created in 1987. Nearly 30,000 children and 80,000 family members have been resettled in America. However, the process has slowed with a mere 23 visas granted in the last year, and hundreds of backlogged claims.

Accounts of human trafficking and corruption within the application process have led to tighter eligibility requirements. Evidence of mixed-race facial features is no longer enough proof, now applicants need documents, letter, photos, or DNA testing. For Amerasians who do not have the time, funding or means to track down their father and prove paternity, obtaining a visa is difficult without the help charity organisations and Amerasian connection websites.

Today, numerous websites assist the now adult population of Amerasians looking for their fathers. Sites like Amerasian Family Finder and FatherFounded allow fathers, children and mothers to post searchable profiles to reunite lost relatives. Amerasian Family Finder allows individuals to search for one another but does not provide any further services. Initial contact, DNA testing, and visa applications are left to the two parties.

Joining us to discuss this topic is filmmaker Emma Rossi Landi, co-director of Left by the Ship, a documentary which focuses on Amerasian lives in the Philippines.

These are some of the social media elements featured in this episode of The Stream.

• A family born to an Amerasian man poses inside their small home, which is shared by 20 others.

• 

  globalpost.com

  6 days 10 hours ago

• No longer kids, #Vietnamese #AmerAsians face hurdles to claiming US #citizenship and continued discrimination at home. http://t.co/QdTlH73

  

  tdichristopher

  1 week 2 days ago

  • Favorite
  • Retweet
  • Reply

• This Vietnamese Amerasian lost contact and financial support from her American father after she received a letter from his wife in the U.S. saying, “Don’t ever try to contact my husband again.” This story was told by photographer Philip Jones Griffiths.

• 

  digitaljournalist.org

  2 days 11 hours ago

• A link to a petition to include Amerasians from the Philippines and Japan in the Child Citizenship Act:

• 

  Amend Public Law 97-359 – The Petition Site

  Copyright © 2011 Care2.com, inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved

  

  thepetitionsite.com

• This is the link for the visa form for AmerAsians.

• 

  USCIS – I-360, Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant

  Please note that the filing locations have recently changed. Please review the Filing Chart listed in “Related Links” in the upper right corner of this web page for the most current guidance on where to file your application.

  

  uscis.gov

• The video below is footage from a Danish man, Brian Hjort, whose website Father Founded is dedicated to reunite Vietnamese Amerasians with their lost fathers.

• 

  brihj

  3 years 29 weeks ago

• FatherFounded.org contains photos found using Facebook and Google to identify fathers and children.

• 

  farm7.static.flickr.com

  1 day 10 hours ago

• Below is the trailer for the documentary “Left by the Ship,” which focuses specifically on the plight of Filipino Amerasians.

• 

  HumpyDumpy2010

  42 weeks 4 days ago

• Thumbnail image:  circa 1955: Jimmy Blake, the adopted Japanese-American son of American serviceman James Blake, tries on his father’s uniform at his new home in Kisarazu, Japan. (Photo by Orlando /Three Lions/Getty Images)

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June 16 Book Launch of El Filibusterismo in NYC

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Rex Navarette on Lopez Tonight!

Rex Navarette – the Fil-Am comedian makes it big as he is featured on Lopez Tonight!

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Alternet.org: Evangelicals Launch Crusade to Adopt Children From Around the World

Photo Credit: all-free-download.com

The following article first appeared in The Nation magazine. For more great content from the Nation, sign up for their email newsletters here.

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

In late March Craig Juntunen told a group of Christian adoption advocates assembled at a Chandler, Arizona, home about his plans to increase international adoptions fivefold. Just over a year before, the world had been riveted by the saga of Laura Silsby, the American missionary arrested while trying to transport Haitian children across the Dominican border. But the lessons of that scandal seemed far from Juntunen’s mind as he described his “crusade to create a culture of adoption” by simplifying adoption’s labyrinthine ethical complexities to their emotional core. Juntunen, a former pro football quarterback and the adoptive father of three Haitian children, has emerged as a somewhat rogue figure in the adoption world since he recently founded an unorthodox nonprofit, Both Ends Burning. He has commissioned a documentary about desperate orphans in teeming institutions, Wrongfully Detained, and proposed a “clearinghouse model” that will raise the number of children adopted into US families to more than 50,000 per year.

Juntunen acknowledges that many adoption experts find his proposals naïve, particularly in a year that witnessed scandals in Haiti, Nepal and most recently Ethiopia, where widespread irregularities and trafficking allegations may slow the once-booming program to a crawl. He met a chilly reception recently at the Adoption Policy Conference at New York Law School when he spoke alongside State Department officials. But Juntunen insists that his ideas for increasing adoption constitute a social movement, akin to the civil rights movement, and that the force of a growing “adoption culture” will help them prevail.

In this expectation, he may be right. In Arizona, Juntunen was speaking with Dan Cruver, head of Together for Adoption, a key coalition in a growing evangelical adoption movement. The event was the first of the organization’s new “house conferences”: small-scale meet-ups bolstering an active national movement that promotes Christians’ adopting as a way to address a worldwide “orphan crisis” they say encompasses hundreds of millions of children. It’s a message Cruver also emphasizes in his book Reclaiming Adoption—one in a growing list of titles about “orphan theology,” which teaches that adoption mirrors Christian salvation, plays an essential role in antiabortion politics and is a means of fulfilling the Great Commission, the biblical mandate that Christians spread the gospel.

Yet while Cruver and his colleagues have inspired thousands of Christians to enter the arduous and expensive process of international adoption, the adoption industry is on a steep decline after years of ethical problems and tightening regulations around the world. Since the mid-’90s, eighty-three countries have ratified the Hague convention regulating international adoption. By 2010 there were 12,000 such adoptions in the United States (including 1,100 exceptional “humanitarian parole” cases from post-earthquake Haiti)—almost half those at the peak in 2004. If evangelicals heed Cruver’s call en masse, it could mean not just a radical change in who raises the world’s children but a powerful clash between rapidly falling supply and sharply inflating demand.

* * *

Adoption has long been the province of religious and secular agencies, but in the past two years evangelical advocacy has skyrocketed. In 2009 Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of the 2009 book Adopted for Life, shepherded through a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) resolution calling on all 16 million members of the denomination to become involved in adoption or “orphan care.” Last year at least five evangelical adoption conferences were held, and between 1,000 and 2,000 churches participated in an “Orphan Sunday” event in November. And in February, the mammoth evangelical adoption agency Bethany Christian Services announced that its adoption placements had increased 13 percent since 2009, in large part because of the mobilization of churches.

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