Asian American college students were protesting in San Francisco about the rise in Asian American hate over the weekend. #StopAsianHate, #StopAsianAmericanHate, hashtag it whatever you will. But the answer to their prayers—at least in California—may have come earlier in the week when Rob Bonta was nominated to be the state’s attorney general, the top law enforcement official in the nation’s most as Asian American state.
Bonta said it himself. He knows hate and discrimination. We don’t have to worry about any shortage of empathy.
An Asian American of Filipino descent, Bonta is expected to hit the ground running to address not just hate crimes toward the Asian American community, but the unfairness in the criminal justice system itself among all people of color.
Bonta has been a state assemblyman from Oakland and Alameda county in the Bay Area, and knows how to represent all people.
If inclusiveness sounds like it’s part of his mindset, it’s possibly due to his rich life story. He’s been adept at overcoming most of the obstacles a reasonable person of color can face.
It’s what I call Bonta’s golden story.
Born in the Philippines, he immigrated with his family to California. But they didn’t go to the cities. They went to rural Keene, outside of Bakersfield, where his parents worked with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, and Bonta grew up in a trailer.
