Opinion

I called my parents a few nights ago to tell them to be cautious when stepping out of the house, because they might be targets of verbal or even physical abuse. It felt so strange. Our roles had flipped. My plea mirrored the admonitions I received from them as a child growing up in Houston. The world, they cautioned, was hostile and it viewed us as strangers. So they warned me to stick close to my family. Close to my kind. The fact that the coronavirus seems to have originated in China has spawned a slew of anti-Asian hate crimes.

Like many Asians in America, I was — and am — inspired by Andrew Yang’s rise to political prominence. Running a charismatic and innovative campaign, Yang showed that Asian Americans can and should fight to make a difference in our country. But no amount of admiration could cancel out my disappointment after reading Yang’s recent opinion piece in the Washington Post.

Last week I was shopping for groceries and preparing to hole up at home with my wife, Evelyn, and our two boys. There was an eerie, peculiar aura in the parking lot in upstate New York as night fell and shoppers wheeled out essentials and snacks.

Three middle-aged men in hoodies and sweatshirts stood outside the entrance of the grocery store. They huddled together talking. One looked up at me and frowned. There was something accusatory in his eyes. And then, for the first time in years, I felt it.

I felt self-conscious — even a bit ashamed — of being Asian.

Tone-deaf. White people-pleasing. Bumbling pineapple bun. These are just some of the choice epithets that have been hurled at Andrew Yang after he shared his thoughts about the Asian American experience in the age of coronavirus.

The issue of whether government in America can quarantine persons against their will, ostensibly for their own health and that of others with whom they may come in contact, requires a dual analysis — one of the powers of the federal government and the other of the powers of the states.

For constitutional analysis purposes, since local and regional governments derive their powers from the states in which they are located, the analysis of state powers pertains to them as well.

He may have hoped his billions would speak louder than his baggage, but Michael Bloomberg has experienced a cavalcade of bad press over the past two weeks that should make him a painfully hideous choice for any voters, but Democrats in particular.

President Trump said on Tuesday that he knows the identity of “Anonymous,” the administration insider who has penned an op-ed and a book critical of him.

But after an internal search for the culprit, Mr. Trump won’t say who it is.

“I know who it is,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “I know all about Anonymous. We know a lot.”

While we were all consumed by impeachment, a pernicious piece of legislation was slowly and silently making its way through Congress. It is a renewal of Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act of 2001 has three sections that are scheduled to expire on March 15.

One of those sections is the infamous 215, which authorizes the federal government to capture without a warrant all records of all people in America held by third parties.

Tuesday night’s victory in New Hampshire gives Sen. Bernie Sanders unequivocal frontrunner status, and anyone trying to couch his win as less than significant is trying to sell you something likely named Buttigieg, Klobuchar or Bloomberg.

This will terrify the members of the anti-Sanders wing of the Democratic Party — and they are plentiful — who’ve been warning that Sanders can’t win, and more importantly that he shouldn’t.

As a child of immigrants, a grandchild of refugees, a Deaf woman of color, an artist and a mother, I was proud to perform the national anthem and “America the Beautiful” in American Sign Language at the opening of the Super Bowl on Sunday. I accepted the invitation to represent the National Association of the Deaf in partnership with the National Football League because I wanted to express my patriotism and honor the country that I am proud to be from — a country that, at its core, believes in equal rights for all citizens, including those with disabilities.