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👋 Good morning and welcome to Power Shift, The Yappie’s weekly guide to the politics, policy news, and activism affecting Asian American + Pacific Islander communities. Email me at [email protected] to share tips, comments, or questions. And support our work by making a donation.
– Edited by Shawna Chen
THE BIG STORY
SCOTUS case tests how much say Pacific Islanders have over their homelands
A fireball appears over Guam’s Tarague Beach, where the U.S. Air Force has been detonating bombs. Photo: National Archives
A legal challenge that could have consequences for Pacific Islanders’ ability to exercise agency over their homelands reached the Supreme Court last week, casting a spotlight on the limited ways U.S. territories can make their voices heard.
Though Air Force v. Prutehi Guåhan revolves around conflicting statutes and technical legal definitions, it could determine if and how the U.S. military must answer to Guam residents over serious environmental concerns.
The backdrop: Pacific Islanders living in U.S. territories cannot vote in presidential elections and can only elect non-voting delegates to the House. That means they don’t have a direct say in the personnel and policies that govern the military or other federal agencies.
As a result, Pacific Islanders have had to find other avenues of influence, especially over the increasingly fraught issue of military buildup and environmental safety on their lands.
What to know: In 2021, the U.S. military filed an application to renew a hazardous waste permit that has allowed the Air Force to dispose of expired bombs for decades by burning, destroying, and detonating them on Guam’s Tarague Beach, per the New York Times.
Prutehi Guåhan, a nonprofit advocating for the protection of Guam’s natural and cultural resources, sued the Air Force for allegedly failing to perform an adequate review first under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires public input and evaluation of less environmentally harmful options.
The Air Force countered that NEPA’s mandates don’t apply to the statute governing the permit process and that the lawsuit is premature (and therefore void) because the application itself does not constitute “final” agency action, the Pacific Daily News reports.
From a public health and environmental lens, the stakes are high. Tarague Beach overlays an aquifer that supplies most of the island’s drinking water, per Hawaii Public Radio.
It also houses sites with historical, cultural, and religious significance for Guam’s CHamoru people, according to the Pulitzer Center.
Since “‘consent of the governed’ is largely illusory,” NEPA is not “merely a procedural formality” but one of the few ways residents can actually share their opinion and give or revoke consent for U.S. military actions in their backyard, attorneys for community organizations in the territories wrote in an amicus brief.
What we’re watching: During Supreme Court oral arguments last week, several justices raised concern that siding with the Air Force could eliminate future opportunities for Prutehi Guåhan and similar groups to oppose hazardous waste disposal plans, per the Times.
Others were equally worried that ruling against the Air Force could flood courts with litigation before other “final” agency actions take place.
SCOTUS will release a decision by the end of its term in June.
Our Take
The court’s decisions in the Insular Cases, which decided what rights territorial residents may have, are a large reason why so many Pacific Islanders are politically disenfranchised.
While the bench likely won’t touch the territories’ political status, a victory for Prutehi Guåhan could signal willingness to reopen the conversation around those previous rulings, which conservative justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in 2022 “rest … on racial stereotypes” and “deserve no place in our law.”
ELECTIONS WATCH
In suburban Dallas, a Republican bets that quiet centrism still works
Photo: Angie Chen Button campaign
In Texas’ House District 112, one center-leaning Asian American lawmaker needs to stay afloat amid frustration with top-of-ticket conservatives.
Incumbent Republican Angie Chen Button faces off against Democrat Zach Herbert, a veteran and attorney. Button, an immigrant from Taiwan, took office in 2009 and quickly developed a reputation as a no-frills legislator.
“The best way to pass the bill … is to work hard, walk the floor, get your votes,” Button told the Texas Tribune in 2024.
Her campaign touts tax cuts she helped pass, as well as legislation to raise teacher pay.
Interestingly, she has sought to separate herself from hardline Trumpers like U.S. Senate candidate and former Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, whom she voted to impeach after his staff accused him of corruption.
She also said she would not vote for Texas Railroad Commissioner candidate Bo French following his inflammatory rhetoric against South Asian students at UT Austin.
Our Take
Button’s low-profile, centrist approach to politics mirrors the strategy many Asian Americans have traditionally used to gain their footing in the U.S.
How Button fares in the coming weeks could signal whether that “keep your head down” persona can continue to help her stay in office.
ON OUR RADAR
“Avatar” enters a new era. Again?
Photo: Paramount+
The “Avatar: the Last Airbender” universe is onto its third main series.
After some unknown cataclysm, the world now hates the Avatar, master of all four elements. That’s not great news for Pavi, who is running away from the very likely possibility that she’s the new Avatar.
One subtle difference: While “Avatar” has been loosely inspired by Asian cultures in the past, the parallels are much more explicit in “Seven Havens,” which mentions real-world foods like kachori and kimchi jjigae.
The previous storytelling framework gave it flexibility to explore topics like authoritarianism, censorship, and genocide without getting bogged down in mapping specific pieces of the story to real historical events.
I’m wondering how that might change with this new approach to allegorical world building.
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Founded in 2018, The Yappie is an independent, nonprofit news organization reporting on Asian American + Pacific Islander power, politics, and influence. Learn more.
