US President Barack Obama on Monday praised the contribution of Asian-Americans to the US’ heritage, and invoked efforts to bring about immigration reform in which “everybody is going to have to take responsibility.”
In a White House reception celebrating “Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month,” Obama gathered members of his Cabinet and leading members of the Asian-American community, which he said, “has not always been given its due.”
“But we also know that generations of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders helped to build this country, defend this country, and make America what it is today,” Obama said.
The president, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, said Monday’s celebration was close to home for special reasons.
“Obviously this is personal for me, since you need to look no further than my family — my sister Maya and brother-in-law Konrad, and my two mischievous nieces Suhaila and Savita — to know that it is part of America’s past but is also going to be part of America’s future,” he said.
Obama also used the ceremony to reaffirm his government’s fight for “comprehensive immigration reform,” which is now heading for debate in Congress.
“Washington has an obligation to set clear, common-sense rules, including rules that no longer punish and divide families that are doing the right thing and following the law,” Obama said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
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Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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