By Sunday, I was spent. I came into the office running on empty and my exhaustion was showing. Fueled by the reasoning that I had no public meetings, I hadn’t bothered to shave for a few days and was rocking a stubbly hipster beard. I also hadn’t been to the dry cleaner that week, so my suit looked like I’d been rolling around in it. I was kind of a mess.
I wanted to rehearse the movements of the coming Wednesday’s signing ceremony to avoid any hiccups: That day would begin in my office. Then I’d shuttle back and forth to the East Wing before briefing the president in the Oval Office and walking with him to the East Room. After I briefed him in the Oval, was it a right or a left turn down the hallway? James and I spent some time that Sunday morning walking the entire route just to make sure I knew. As we returned down the colonnade and back toward my office from the East Wing, I was absorbed in my BlackBerry, reading an email about last-minute changes from the speechwriting department. James suddenly tugged on my shirt-sleeve. “UMMMMM,” he whispered frantically, “I think that’s Barack Obamaaaaaaaa.”
I looked up from my BlackBerry. POTUS was dressed casually, leaving the Oval and walking down the colonnade toward us. Still three days away, I didn’t think the Whappy signing ceremony would be on his radar, since he was busy doing much smaller things like saving the economy and trying to give twenty million people access to health insurance. So, when he stopped to say hello and ask what we were working on, I gave him a quick, broad description of the EO: “It was one of your campaign promises. It reestablishes the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, which, among other things, will reduce barriers to education, jobs, and health care.”
“I know,” he said with what seemed like an introspective smile. “I’m glad we’re finally doing that. It’s the right thing to do.”
* * *
We wrapped up our work an hour later, and I spent the second half of Sunday taking care of all the personal hygiene I had slacked on—got a haircut from someone other than Raucous Rodolpho, had my suit pressed, got a refill on my face lotion, the whole works. Wednesday would be my first time briefing the president in the Oval Office. White House photographer Pete Souza would be there, documenting it as he did every meeting and event. Though I was buried in the work itself, I was well aware that my parents and future kids would see these photos. Forty years on, I didn’t want to have to explain why Grandpa looked like a grizzled prospector. So, I shaved and groomed and made sure I looked good for Pete’s camera.
On Wednesday, I printed several copies of the president’s briefing memo before checking myself in front of a mirror one last time. I headed down to the Oval Office with Tina and our team, feeling good. As we walked in, POTUS approached, arm outstretched for the handshake–bro hugs he’s known for.
“Heyyyyyyy,” he said, eyeing me with a hint of friendly ridicule, “look who decided to shave today!”
* * *
In his remarks during the signing ceremony, Obama talked about the unique history of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. He shouted out prominent people we had invited, like Wat Misaka, the first nonwhite NBA player.3 He gave props to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, comprised of second-generation Japanese Americans who proudly fought in World War II, despite many of their families being thrown in internment camps. The executive directors of dozens of nonprofits were in attendance, from anti–domestic violence organizations to criminal justice reform groups. In the very room where LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the president was formally recognizing the unique contributions that all communities make to the American project.
With his remarks finished and while a Hindu priest recited a prayer, the president walked to his left to light the Diwali diya, symbolizing the victory of light over darkness. Centered on the wall behind the president and the pandit, just above the diya, hangs artist Gilbert Stuart’s famous Lansdowne portrait of George Washington. The painting was saved by Dolley Madison when the British burned down the White House in 1814, nearly a century before they beat and jailed my grandfather for standing up for his human rights. From the back of this room, I watched as Obama became the first president of the United States to personally celebrate Diwali, honoring the dignity and contributions of South Asian Americans right alongside everyone else. Middle School Me smiled.
* * *
Six months later, it became clear why work on these kinds of executive orders was a priority. On April 20, 2010, the oil and gas company British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico started to spill what would ultimately be two hundred million gallons of crude oil into the ocean over the course of eighty-seven days. It was the biggest oil spill in US history. Sixteen thousand miles of coastline were affected, along with the livelihoods of thousands of families.
A sizable percentage of American fishermen in the Gulf happen to be of Vietnamese descent, and many don’t speak English as their first language—potentially complicating an already dire situation. Overnight, I and other OPE staffers handling outreach to constituencies affected by the spill began to receive emailed reports from the White House Situation Room. These updates would arrive every few hours, outlining everything from areas impacted to environmental and economic damage. It was a critical tool that guided our outreach efforts toward the people who needed it.
On the ground, there were rumors that BP might try to get these Vietnamese American fishermen to sign complicated legal documents with measly settlements, knowing that they couldn’t understand the labyrinthine language. They would need help navigating this and other aspects of post-disaster life.
While there are great nonprofit organizations serving AAPI communities in the region, they weren’t equipped to deal with challenges of this magnitude. They needed support in the form of federal government liaisons, translators, and interpreters—not to tell people whether to sign things like settlement documents （that was obviously a choice for their families to make independently）， but to assure that everyone had the same equal access to understanding what was going on in the first place. Thanks to the executive order, there was now a mechanism in place tying assistance across federal agencies and community groups; the Obama Administration was able to send staff from OPE and Whappy to help.
When he campaigned on bolstering government in a way that assures none of our fellow Americans fall through the cracks, Obama obviously couldn’t have predicted the oil spill or BP’s gross negligence. And yet, our ability to respond to those types of disasters is exactly what he knew the richest and most powerful country in the world was capable of.
I’ve thought about this experience often in the years since, especially as our politics has grown more cynical and fatalist. The Americans we were able to help in the Gulf lived mostly in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi: places where Obama is despised. These red states didn’t vote to elect him, and they wouldn’t be voting to reelect him. That didn’t matter to the president. Our job was to be there for them, no matter what their political affiliation.
The Sunday afternoon when my intern and I stood alone with the president in the middle of the colonnade, there were no journalists around who might print sound bites of his words. No donors nearby who might hear what he said and feel motivated to write a big check. The president simply meant what he said as he thought about the Americans his executive order would help: “I’m glad we’re finally doing that. It’s the right thing to do.”