The A-200 Women's Room never looked so good. |
What unexpected delight. A+!
Later Rebel Girl braved rush hour surface street traffic to get to Garden Grove for the swearing in of Bao Nguyen as mayor. Bao, a UCI grad and one of Red Emma's former students, was first elected to the Garden Grove Unified School District Board some years back. (Historical note: Rebel Girl has nominated him as IVC commencement speaker for many years now. He has failed to make the cut, even as a finalist despite that fact he looks quite dapper in a suit, which seems to be one of the criteria.)
Bao, a very young 35 years old, has just made history as the country's first Vietnamese American mayor of a city of over 100,000. It was worth the drive across the county to see him stand there, his mother who gave birth to him in a refugee camp in Thailand holding a copy of the Constitution (Bao's choice of swearing-in text) while Erwin Chemerinsky, UCI's law school dean and one of the country's leading Constitutional law scholars, did the honors. Not bad for a Tuesday night.
Through it all Rebel Girl had to reflect that change is sometimes indeed slow but when it arrives, well, it's worth it.
The mayor! |
Chemerinsky's favorite amendment to the Constutuition? The 14th, natch. He recited the first section in that hallway:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The mayor and the dean and the Constitution. |
It's a good one. Poetry.
There's more to say about yesterday but Rebel Girl will close with Sarah Vaughan singing about whiskers on kittens and save the dog bites and bee stings for another time.
Home. |
*
In the Huffington Post:
Bao Nguyen, Rabble Rouser Transforming Politics in Little Saigon, OC
3 comments:
Who made all the little signs?
Who are you
Chemerinsky or Nguyen would be excellent commencement speakers.
Post a Comment