By Floyd Mori, JACL National Director

January 8, 2009

The atmosphere in Washington, DC is electric with excitement and anticipation for change to occur. The JACL is a very integral part of much of the preliminaries and the main event. I thought you might be interested in some of the things we are doing during this first week of the new Congressional session.

Congress opened for business yesterday, and a lot of the ceremony of swearing in and getting settled for the long run was evident in the Halls of Congress. New and old furniture lined the office buildings, and welcoming parties were going on throughout congressional office buildings. I attended a party that welcomed in the first Vietnamese Congressman, Republican Joseph Cao from New Orleans. Many AAPI leaders were there to greet the new Congressman. It brought back memories of the time when I upset some heavy party supported candidates some 33 years ago in California.