Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Thank you.
Mr. Der.

STATEMENT OF HENRY DER

Mr. DER. Good morning, Mr. Van Deerlin, and Mr. Marks and members of the staff.

My name is Henry Der. I am executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action. Chinese for Affirmative Action is a nonprofit voluntary membership organization dedicated to defend the civil rights of Chinese Americans and to eradicate all forms of disciminatory practice against members of our community.

Before I make specific comments about titles IV and VI of H.R. 3333, I would beg your indulgence so that I may make one comment about title I, section 102 of the proposed act. This particular section 102 makes a definition for minority individuals. And I read: "The term 'minority individual' means any citizen of the United States who is black or Hispanic or who is an Indian, including an Eskimo, an Aleut, or an Alaskan Native."

We at Chinese for Affirmative Action feel very strongly that it is a great mistake for this particular legislation to exclude and leave out Asian Americans as a protected minority group of individuals who have suffered pervasive discrimination and continue to face many forms of discrimination today in 1979.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. You understand the reason, though, that this exists as it does?

Mr. DER. It makes reference I think later to――

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. The sole reason is economic. Oriental Americans on the average make more money than Caucasian Americans. Mr. DER. I think the subcommittee has been misled by 1970 census data and other sources from the Bureau of Census, which are highly questionable.

In the Socioeconomic Analysis of Asian American Business Patterns published in 1977 by the U.S. Department of Commerce, we find the Asian American business population is five-tenths of 1 percent of the total U.S. business population.

There are 66,000 Asian American firms of 13 million firms in the United States. Sixty-three percent of all Asian American firms are restricted to retailing or selected services. Sixty-eight percent of all Asian American businesses, regardless of form of ownership, had less than $25,000 annual gross receipts per year.

Asian American firms of medium size, $25,000 to $50,000, are increasing at only one-half the rate of increase as compared to all other minority businesses of medium size. I think that there are other statistics and data that I could cite but I will not in light of the short time we have on the panel.

But I would strongly urge that the committee amend this particular section and insert Asian Americans as a protected minority group.

I think there is a very sad misconception going around here in the Hill and in governmental agencies that Asian Americans are a model minority; that we are somehow better than blacks and Hispanics and we have made it. There is no truth in this misconception.

Going into titles IV and VI and making specific comments about the provisions of titles IV and VI and their impact on independent producers, I would like to give you a little history about Chinese for Affirmative Action. When Chinese for Affirmative Action was founded in 1969, we did not see ourselves as a producer of television programs. We saw ourselves as a civil rights organization advocating for equal opportunities in voting, in employment, public service, health, and social services.

But upon review of employment practices in the broadcast industry and upon a very careful examination of the lack of adequate programing for the Chinese American community produced by television and radio stations, we felt the compelling need to expend a tremendous amount of time to rectify these gaps in services and to eradicate the lack of employment opportunities in television and radio for Asian American persons.

In 1969 there were virtually no Chinese community-oriented programs being produced or aired by any of the San Francisco television or radio stations in a city where today over 20 percent of the city's population are Asian Americans. Furthermore, less than 2 percent Asian Americans were employed at any one of the major television or radio stations in the San Francisco area.

What did we do about it? One of the compelling public needs we identified was to teach English to the thousands of Chinese immigrants coming over from Hong Kong and China. Relying on a very small grant from the San Francisco foundation and over 200 community volunteers, we produced a 65 half-hour series entitled "Practical English," teaching English to Chinese adult immigrants through television.

When we proposed the idea, we went to our local public television station, KQED. They turned us down flat. We had no alternative but to go to other stations, the commercial stations in the San Francisco Bay area. Fortunately we were accepted by KPIX-TV, which produced it.

As I just mentioned, over 200 community volunteers participated. We secured the cooperation of the San Francisco Unified School District and the San Francisco Community College District. The "Practical English" TV series to date has aired at least six times in San Francisco. It has been aired in Philadelphia, Boston, Sacramento, and Los Angeles over their public television stations or the sister group "W" stations.

When the Practical English series was completed in 1971 it received an Emmy for the best locally produced educational series for that particular year. This series, was put together virtually by people who "did not have professional experience." It set a tremendous precedent in demonstrating to the television industry what can be done if independent, community-based persons are given an opportunity to work with in-studio professionals to produce programs to met community needs.

Unfortunately, this particular experience we had with KQED has not changed. To date we have not been able to develop a satisfactory relationship with either KQED, our public television station, or CPB or PBS.

What have we done since that time? We produced an educational series entitled "The History of Chinese Americans" with KRON

TV, which is owned by the San Francisco Chronicle Publishing Co. This series was produced and aired in 1974-75.

Since the production of the "History of Chinese in America" series, we have transferred this series onto three-quarter inch video tape. Continuously on a daily basis, we get requests from educational and community groups throughout the country who are interested in the history of Chinese Americans to borrow these video tapes, from us.

We produced a Chinese-speaking drama over KGO-TV in 1973. This was the first Chinese-language drama produced, and broadcast with English subtitles any place in the country. We also produced another educational series over KGO, an all Chinese language program informing people in our community about various community services.

I could go on ad infinitum to list the programs we have produced with commercial television and radio. But what have we done with the public sector? And I dare say the public broadcast sector has treated us poorly and has not been at all responsive to our particular needs.

To date we have not produced any major program with the public television station in San Francisco. Furthermore, we are presently engaged in the production of a six-part bilingual children's television program funded by the Emergency School Aid Act of HEW. We have had one heck of a time in getting this particular program entered into the national program schedule of PBS.

Referring to section 611, we could not agree more, that it is in the public interest that public television serves and develops educational, cultural, informational television and radio programs and provides services of excellence and innovation which reflect the diverse values, tastes, and concerns of the American people.

We agree with that principle; but in review of the succeeding provisions following section 611 of title VI, we find that there is no other provision to insure the enforcement of section 611. Moneys are given to the Endowment for Program Development but there is no built-in accountability process or procedure to insure that the proposed Endowment for Program Development does, in fact, promote and fund programs over television and radio that would meet these high standards that H.R. 3333 calls for.

For certain, as the two preceding witnesses eloquently testified, at the present time there is absolutely no process or procedure to anyone's satisfaction at the CPB level that would treat independent producers, ethnic minorities equitably or humanely.

Last May 1978, our bilingual children's TV project entitled, "Bean Sprouts," approached PBS about the possibility of entering our program on the national program schedule. The initial reaction was one of being very positive: "We like the program; we think it has great potential to be put on the national program schedule.' Months went on; we literally had asked PBS repeatedly as to what was the status of the "Bean Sprouts" series.

In October 1978, which was approximately one-half year after our initial contact, we heard through informal sources from subordinate staff at PBS, that our program was not going to make it onto the national program schedule, that there was some reason or another that was not making the people at PBS very happy.

Another half year went on before we were able to ascertain why they didn't like our program, why they did a turnabout. I would like to emphasize from May 1978, until very recently, we never received anything in writing from PBS as to what it was about the "Bean Sprouts" series that they didn't like and what it was that they found was substandard or lacking in technical qualities or impact.

I think that this committee has received substantial documentation of our problems that we have had with PBS. And I will enter this documentation again for the record this morning. I don't want to belabor the point, but we feel that there is something amiss at PBS or CPB because of this lack of process and procedure. We literally have been given the runaround. We have not been given decent and honest treatment as to how people should be treated if they have a program proposal. On one hand, they don't like our program, but, on the other hand, they come back with this rejoinder: "Well, if we see other things that you produce, we may consider you at some later date," or, "Gee, we would really like to help you. We have a producer and editor who could possibly help you reedit your program."

It is hypocritical and dishonest for them to say so, because they don't have the capability, literally, to judge the merits of our program, not only because of the lack of process or procedure but also because there is a lack of adequate staff members with the knowledge to do within their own bureaucracy.

We feel it is highly insulting and very racist on the part of PBS to feel that they have given us an objective review of the programs when, in fact, they have not. When they allude to the fact that they had a Chinese American review the "Bean Sprouts" series, who was she? She was an accounting clerk in the research department. This person did not have the capability of reviewing our program. We asked them pointblank in our letter dated May 8, who were the persons involved in reviewing our program? What caused the turnabout?

We received a response in late May. I dare say that response was nonresponsive; it did not address our many, many concerns about the merits of "Bean Sprouts," or the major underlying concern: What is your process and procedure for reviewing programs? PBS has not been able to articulate its process or procedure.

The problems we face, I think, have been faced by hundreds, unfortunately, hundreds of other independent producers. We feel this is not right. Unfortunately, H.R. 3333 does not give us any assurances that these kinds of problems will be remedied. I fully understand that this committee feels very strongly that there should not be governmental interference or control of programs. I agree with that principle, but we have to have an appeals forum; we have to have the assurance that there is an objective forum whereby we can go beyond PBS or CPB, so that we can get a fair hearing on the merits of these proposals.

We don't want Congress nor do we want a Federal bureaucratic agency to say that Chinese-American programing is good for America or bad for America; we only want a forum to say, yes, this particular interest group should have the opportunity to present their views before the television audience of this country.

I could not agree more with Ms. Motz, that the funding for independent producers in H.R. 3333 is ill-defined. It certainly does not give assurances to independent producers that money will be forthcoming in an equitable manner for independent producers. I propose that this committee seriously consider setting a definite percentage of the moneys earmarked for the Endowment for Program Development in the statute for independent producers. I don't think it is wise to leave it to the whim of a proposed Endowment for Program Development agency as to how much or how little moneys will be given to independent producers. Certainly, in other legislation and in other programs-like the Small Business Administration and educational programs-the precedent has been set where there are setasides or programs earmarked specifically for disadvantaged groups or for groups who are not large in nature and who do not have the capability to compete with large entities such as public television stations.

Last, I would like to make reference to title VI, section 645 on equal opportunity provisions.

I find that it is ironic that H.R. 3333 places a general requirement on recipients of Endowment funds to meet equal employment opportunity requirements and that there is no provision within H.R. 3333 to require the proposed Endowment for Program Development itself to follow the same standards.

One of the problems with PBS in regard to the "Bean Sprouts" series is there have been no minorities or Chinese Americans or Asian Americans within the PBS staff reviewing our programs. Consistent with all other affirmative action laws and regulations, it is imperative, that individuals coming from diverse backgroundsbe they minorities or women or advocates of other interestsshould be represented within the staffing of these large entities that are receiving millions of dollars from the Federal Government.

I would strongly urge that H.R. 3333 contain some very clear provisions that the Endowment itself is required to meet these very same EEO standards.

It is very troublesome that in section 624(b) wherein it states: "The administrator of the Endowment, subject to general policies established by the Board, may appoint such employees of the Endowment as the Board determines to be necessary to carry out the purposes of the Endowment." There is no means whatsoever to insure that the administrator should be cognizant of EEO requirements or that his staff should be reflective of the diverse interests and concerns of our country.

Last, I do not feel that section 645 adequately addresses the impact and its relationship to title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Endowment as proposed will receive millions of dollars from American taxpayers: $1.50 per capita.

Unless there is a better definition as to what constitutes access to program services or to programing to minorities, the Endowment for Program Development may find itself in violation of title VI. Over half of the Chinese population in the United States are non-English speaking. We have been made victims of discrimination. We have not received a fair share of educational services because many educational institutions or recipients of Federal dol