The McPalin camp has been doing a pretty good job of driving a big race/class wedge in America over the past several weeks. Palin, in particular, has been doing all she can to fan the flames of intolerance as she draws a clear line between “real” Americans and inauthentic Americans, pro-Americans and anti-America Americans.
If a person were to seriously believe the hateful rhetoric of McPalin, you’d believe that “real” Americans only exist in small towns somewhere far from either of the coasts. You know, us non-white folks living on the coasts who have never ridden on a tracker trailer or wrestled a moose with our own bare hands or worn a trucker hat without a bit of irony – McPalin would have us believe that we’re not real Americans. In the republican world, there is no way that us university educated, media and technology obsessed, secular, children of immigrants can possibly be just as patriotic or pro-American as our more rural counterparts.
This is what I have to say to all those arbiters of “Real” America propaganda: TAKE YOUR HATEFUL BS AND SHOVE IT WHERE THE SUN DON’T SHINE.
You want to know what “Real” Americans look like?
- They leave their middle class lives in their home country to immigrate to a strange foreign place where they barely speak the language, have little to no connections, and where their college degrees are worth about as much as the paper they are printed on — all on the minuscule hope that their children will have a better life.
- They work in sweatshops or labor in the back kitchens of filthy restaurants and stores, working for less than minimum wage just so they can scrimp and save to some day open up their own little shop in a neighborhood long neglected by more traditional retail shop.
- They suffer abuse and indignation at the hands of their customers who resent their presence as outsiders.
- They study for citizenship tests that most native-born Americans would never be able to pass.
- They beam with pride as their kids graduate from college with the realization that they’re children are now freed from the harrowing physical labor that they endured for decades.
- They pay their taxes, vote, create jobs, go to church, buy homes, help their kids buy homes, start non-English language newspapers and TV channels, and eventually get a parade celebrating their culture down New York’s 5th Ave.
- And most importantly, they have more kids. They have so many in fact that we will be a majority minority country by 2050.
I’m a real American. I may not look like the folks attending McPalin events in Ohio or Colorado…but I look a heck of a lot like the future of America – whether they like it or not.
(Flickr photo credit: Ctd 2005)
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Yesterday I was lucky enough to have lunch with two awesome Asian American women in K-Town. We discussed various topics, but the discussion eventually got around to Prop 8. Cyn3matic said that she had recently gone to Ranch 99 for groceries but was hassled by groups of Chinese/Taiwanese people who were trying to get people registered to vote specifically to vote for Prop 8. Some parts of the Chinese/Taiwanese community, particularly the churches, have been actively reaching out in this way.
To counter these efforts, on Thursday, October 23rd, API Equality LA gathered various Asian American leaders at the Japanese American National Museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy for a press conference to say NO to PROP 8.
Speakers included some powerful folks: California Board of Equalization Chair Judy Chu, Assembly members Mike Eng, Ted Lieu, and Warren Furutani, and actor (and newlywed) George Takei.
One of the most compelling speakers was school board member, Jay Chen, who addressed the lies that same-sex marriage would be taught in schools.
Here is his speech in English.
And a corresponding one in Mandarin.
If you have Mandarin-speaking family members who are confused, please share this video with them before election day.
Shopping With GASP!
The 15th Annual Filipino American Cinefest, a film festival of Filipino American movies, is Friday, October 31 ( 1-5 pm) and Saturday, November 1, 2008 (3-6 pm) at the San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium. (100 Larkin Street @ Grove Street, Civic Center, San Francisco). A panel discussion and new works are included with the free admission. More details here. I am particularly excited that a work that my sister executive produced and that my niece is in is being shown. Below is a trailer. As I mentioned before, I don’t find Travis’s bad Tagalog that amusing, but I have to admit that I do find a “heart rendering” moment in the trailer rather moving!
As I have blogged before, the Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans favor Senator John McCain for President, while most other Asian American ethnicities prefer Senator Barack Obama. Los Angeles has the largest aggregate number of those of Vietnamese heritage outside of Vietnam I believe and the Los Angeles Times reports on why McCain enjoys such wide support:
“… Many Vietnamese Americans are drawn to McCain’s support of Vietnamese refugees. As a senator, McCain led efforts to pass legislation in 1996 that would allow the children of Vietnamese political prisoners to reunite with parents who’d already been allowed to immigrate to the U.S… Many older Vietnamese who came to the U.S. as refugees are more concerned with foreign policy than domestic policy… “John McCain’s record and personal experiences as a prisoner in Vietnam has earned him a lot of credence with those Vietnamese who fled Vietnam or participated in the war,” he said, adding that second-generation Vietnamese may not hold the same emotional ties.”
Of course, you will also find Vietnamese Americans who are supporting Obama and reference McCain’s supposed racism by calling his Vietnamese captors “gooks.” Personally, if I were imprisoned and tortured for 5 years by the Vietnamese, I’m not sure I’d have a problem calling my captors gooks either.
Unfortunately for McCain, the Vietnamese American population is not that large and not really concentrated in any swing states. The political map for McCain for 270 electoral college votes looks slimmer by the day.
Self-described spoken word artist Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, has recently released, in collaboration with others, a video version of “Black, White, Whatever…”:
“…a witty spoken word poetry call to arms for politicians everywhere to stand up for underrepresented communities, like the Asian Pacific Islander American community and all those who fight to have their voices and lives heard OUT LOUD!”
As an amateur videographer, I’m always impressed with low budget productions that can break through the clutter and make an impression on audiences. It takes a lot of effort to not only write, but edit and add effects.
Here’s also an interesting and in-depth interview with Tsai, “The Art of the Other and the Politics of Whatever: A Conversation with Kelly Tsai” on the making of the video, as well as her thoughts on this year’s election and demographic based politics. Tsai was at the 2008 DNC / APIAVote Gala where she performed two spoken word pieces.
Take a look at the video and let us know what you think! Asian Americans shouldn’t be defined as “whatever!”
I recently came across the book Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China
Factory Girls follows the lives of multiple girls who travel from the small farming villages in rural China to factory cities where they earn a pittance of a salary by our standards — yet, it’s enough for them to develop a taste for brands, glamour and modern sexuality. They go from towns without running water and sharing the house with livestock to cell phones and gourmet chocolate. In a culture where parents eagerly await the birth of the awaited boy child, spare girls are not only allowed but are encouraged to leave home to seek their fortunes. Like the second children of Christopher Columbus’ Europe, they are allowed to venture into the modern world to find employment and hopefully, to send their profits home so that the rest of their family might enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle.
In Leslie T. Chang’s book the girls take English classes and learn to pour a proper cup of Western tea (the cup must be 70% full) in order to move up a social class from factory worker into management. Height is highly desirable, as is youth. The typical employment period is between 18-25 as the girls are expected to return home for marriage before they turn 30. Some of the girls long to remain in the city married to a urban boy but those desires conflict with parental pressures to return home and marry a village boy. However, the girls discover that with financial power comes freedom from their parents and the tradition of their ancestors.
I was pleasantly surprised at how alike we were despite being separated by language and geography. Although it’s easy to idealize the working class of China for being hardy and self-made, it’s also important to realize that China has a great distance yet to come in the realms of education, health care and basic human rights. My uncle has always said that despite our apparent social loftiness from the average factory worker, we all sleep in a bed at night, we all eat three meals a day, and work most of the day. Despite our clothes being a little more expensive and our cars a little nicer – we’re not that different.
About four days ago, Grace Chu of Grace the Spot and AfterEllen.com, along with seven of her close lesbian blogger friends, issued a challenge to the queer online community: To help them raise $8,000 in 8 days against California Proposition 8, the proposition that would institute a ban in the California constitution against same-sex marriage. Grace and her friends then set up a site, 8 Against 8, for this purpose and urged their readers to contribute.
None of them were expecting the immediate and passionate response. Within 8 hours, they had raised $2,000. In 2 days, $4,000. Yesterday, they had already broken their goal. Now they’re calling on other like-minded people to continue raising money, especially Asian Americans. According to Grace, “The sky’s the limit!”
I was able to talk with Grace about her motivations about this and its relevance to the Asian American community, and why she decided to raise money against Proposition 8, even though she’s not a California resident. Asian Americans can provide a crucial voice for turning the tide against Proposition 8.
“Why we’re doing this: Proponents of Yes on Prop 8 have been releasing insidious ads, which have unfortunately started turning the tide against fairness and equality. The Los Angeles Times has a great article debunking the outright lies contained within those ads.
Asian Americans make up 13% of California’s population, so unlike in many other states, they have a formidable voice, especially in a ballot initiative such as Prop 8, which may be won or lost by less than a percentage point. 11% of voters are still undecided; thus, Asian Americans can provide the crucial number of votes.
California has the highest population of Asian Americans in the country, and thus, the highest population of Asian American gays and lesbians.
I just have one thing to add about Cat_D’s comment on your post, i.e. “For me personally, it was like looking into the faces of my relatives and seeing them shake their head at me and hearing them tell me you don’t deserve to have the chance to get married. I was reluctant to chant or chant loudly with the group because these were my elders, the people you were taught to respect.”
My response: Yeah, I can see how that would be emotional, but think of it this way. The alternative is looking into the faces of your gay Asian American brothers and sisters and telling them that you are reluctant to chant for them. Furthermore, there are a lot of older, even elderly Asian American gays and lesbians who never had a voice as a result of coming of age in a time where gays and lesbians were much less accepted, and they possibly grew up in an immigrant community, which is an even more socially conservative environment than that of the community at large. You can respect these elders by giving them a voice.
It is important that people outside of California get involved, because every state counts. History has shown that, when more and more states accept fairness and equality, such as invalidating laws against interracial marriage, it is like a tide that picks up steam and eventually, the entire country will embrace fairness and equality. Why is California important? California has always been at the forefront of any civil rights movement – speaking of interracial marriage, California overturned its law banning interracial marriage in 1948. It wasn’t until 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated all laws banning interracial marriage in the country. California helped get the ball rolling back then, as it is now. And finally, the ballot initiative itself – it would eliminate a right that already exists. Furthermore, it is for a constitutional amendment, which cannot be touched by the California Supreme Court. A constitutional amendment is the closest thing to kryptonite, legally speaking.
Grace also pointed me to a statement by prominent Asian American legislators in California against Proposition 8, reminding us Asian Americans that not long ago, bigotry was put in California law against Asian immigrants. Do we really want to create such a scary precedent?
There has been research studies examining different racial and ethnic groups, highlighting specific health risks for each specific group. However, there is limited research on interracial couples — but as they become more common, there was an interesting study published this month examining Asian-Caucasian pregnancy risks.
A study sample of 858 Asian-Caucasian couples, 3,226 Asian couples and 5,575 Caucasian couples were examined at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford during deliveries of their babies. The results showed that gestational diabetes in the mother was highest among Asian couples (5.7% incidence), with Caucasian couples the lowest (1.6% incidence), and Asian-Caucasian couples right in the middle (4% incidence).
What is surprising? The data showed that the higher incidence of gestational diabetes in Asian-Caucasian couples shows a unique health risk for the mother, no matter if she was Asian or Caucasian. Asian mothers were most likely to undergo a C-section if their spouse is Caucasian, surmised to be due to a smaller pelvis bone of Asian women.
Further research must be done, of course, but these unique health risk profiles just give us a little more insight and scientific evidence on what mothers should expect when they are preparing for their bundle of joy.
(My cousin Lela is illustrating this post; she is actually 1/4 Korean, but for purposes of this blog entry we can pretend she’s half.)
Guest Blogger – Howie
What a weekend! Just 24 hours ago, I was outside the Harbor Palace Restaurant in Las Vegas Chinatown waving a “Vote for Obama” sign alongside Kelly Hu. Now I’m back at work, responding to emails. . .
Over 84 people came to Las Vegas last weekend as part of the Asian-American/Pacific Islander effort to get Barack Obama elected. Jay Chen, Governing Board Member of Hacienda-La Puente School District organized the trip which drew people from Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Bay Area. With an AAPI population of 13% (twice the Nevada average), Las Vegas was the perfect place for our community to represent. And of the remaining swing states, Nevada is second only to Virginia in terms of population of Asian-Americans. But enough numbers. A quick recap of what went down:
Day 1
Wait, is that Kelly Hu? It is! What a nice way to start a day of canvassing. Kelly met our group outside the hotel lobby as we prepared to walk the Las Vegas neighborhoods in 90 degree heat. Having her there at eight o’clock in the morning definitely took the edge off an otherwise grumpy canvasser from the Bay Area. We then met up with other volunteers from Nevada for Obama, which resulted in a crowd that had so many AAPIs that we could have been mistaken for a Lowell High School reunion. We then spent the better part of the day canvassing local Las Vegas neighborhoods, where in all we hit 3600 homes and spoke to 1500 people. People were excited about Obama, though there was one case where one of our volunteers was told in a not-so-friendly way to get off the lawn. Pink shirts apparently don’t play well with Republicans. Well, at least pink shirts on guys don’t.
After a short break to freshen up, we all got together for happy hour at Firefly Restaurant where we met many leaders of the AAPI community from California, Nevada, and the Obama campaign. Kelly also gave an incredible impromptu speech about her work with the AAPI community, including a story about how she got involved with will.i.am’s Voices for Change Obama video. For once, the guys were the ones who were swooning.
Day 2
Sunday began with about 50 of us heading to the Las Vegas Chinatown to make signs for our sign-waving event. For those who haven’t been to the Las Vegas Chinatown, know that it’s legit — they have a Ranch 99. Using posterboards and thick magic markers, we made Obama signs in Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Tagalog and (of course) English. In all, there were over 50 people flanking both sides of Spring Mountain Road, getting people to honk their horns for Obama.
Afterwards, a few of us went the AAPI Roundtable at Makinos Restaurant where we saw Congressman Mike Honda, Yul Kwon (of Survivor), Kal Penn (of Harold and Kumar) and Kelly Hu (again!). Joe Jackson (Michael Jackson’s dad) was there too, though I didn’t catch the connection to the group. Regardless, it was fun to see what Michael Jackson should have looked like.
This was a great trip. In addition to helping the campaign of Barack Obama, it was great to meet so many people from our community that share a passion for change. There is going to be another trip to Las Vegas from October 31-November 1, the weekend before election day. I would encourage anyone with an interest in helping Obama and the AAPI community to go. My contact info is howieblog@gmail.com for those who are interested.
My friend Ariel has this knack for recommending books I end up enjoying immensely, so when she recommended Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese
First thing first: the book is targeted towards “young adults” — it won a Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, and it’s a very quick read for that reason; those of you that are expecting a version of “My Dinner with Andre” in comic book quotes will probably be more comfortable with something like Derek Kirk Kim’s Same Difference. (Which I also totally recommend, by the way.)
All of that said, it’s a very good graphic novel. American Born Chinese consists of three seemingly non-tangential stories: a tale about the Monkey King, a story involving a Chinese American teenager adjusting in an all-white school, and a faux-sitcom-with-laugh-track plot line involving a white guy and his stereotype Asian cousin named Chin-Kee. The three stories touch on topics that we’ve all been through growing up and still go through as adults: the desperate feeling of wanting to fit in somewhere, racism, both subtle and overt, one-way crushes that make you want to stab your face with an icepick. (And a out-of-the-blue one-panel reference to Western Christianity, but that’s kind of a spoiler of sorts. You’ll see what I mean when you read it.)
Because it’s a graphic novel, the plot lines of the three stories tie together neatly at the end, and because it won an award in Young Adult Literature, you can expect healthy doses of self-identity exploration, and the resonating theme that it’s okay to be yourself, whether monkey or Chinese American. That said, I wholly recommend the book for any adult who can appreciate a good story in comic book format, and I certainly recommend the book for Asian Americans, as this book certainly resonated with me.
You can buy the book at Amazon
Source: The Washington Post
California is a pretty “blue” state, so the likelihood of the state going for McCain is pretty slim, so Asian Americans don’t necessarily can swing the fate of the election. However, Virginia is becoming quite the battleground state – and Asian Americans make up 4.8% of Virginians. The Washington Post describes the excitement in “Asian Americans Feeling the Power – Ethnic Groups See Opportunity to Affect Outcome of Presidential Race in Va.“:
“There are more than 160,000 Asian American citizens of voting age in the state, and an aggressive registration drive is adding several thousand voters. Partisan activists and public interest groups said Asian Americans could play as important a role in this national election as they did in the 2006 Senate race in Virginia, when they helped Democrat James Webb, a Vietnam war veteran, defeat incumbent George Allen… In Virginia, for example, the Hispanic populace, at more than 250,000, outnumbers Asian Americans. But most Hispanic residents are relative newcomers and a minority are U.S. citizens. By contrast, more than half of Asian American residents in the state are U.S. citizens of voting age. African Americans are by far Virginia’s largest minority group. In 2006, blacks accounted for 19.9 percent of the state population; Hispanics, 6.3 percent; and Asian Americans, 4.8 percent.”
Asian American activist S.R. Sidarth, an Indian-American, was a tracker videotaping Senator George Allen’s campaign event that captured Allen pointing to Sidarth and calling him a racial epithet, “macaca” – which spread like wildfire on the Internet and media, helping Democrat Jim Webb to defeat George Allen! As I had blogged and someone dismissed my comment, one Asian American can make a difference. And Asian Americans can help swing the election for Obama or McCain in Virginia, which could tip the election for either of them!
So a quick follow-up from the previous post on “Eat You Up,” BoA’s first attempt to break-out in the U.S. pop music market — it looks like there will be two versions of the music video — one for Asian audiences, one for American audiences. It may be that my sarcasm levels have been really high for the past couple of weeks, but here are the biggest difference I’ve noticed from this video (linked from Slant Eye for the Round Eye) and her U.S. teaser video due next month:
- In the Asian version of her music video, BoA is more “dancey” and not as “sexy.”
- Also in the Asian version of her music video, there are no black people.
Also: Did the first 25 seconds of the video remind anyone else of Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time?” Except with a ribcage hoodie instead of a schoolgirl outfit? No? Okay, just me then.
UPDATE: Okay, updated with BoA’s American version of the same video, this time on the right, for side-by-side comparisons. One more note: girl, what’s up with the gold baseball cap? You can NOT break into the American market with that hat on. No, no, no. That is an epic fashion FAIL right there.
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