Posts by Jeff
Jeff lives in Silicon Valley, and attempts to juggle marriage, fatherhood, computer systems research, running, and writing.
Jeremy Lin on De-masculinization and being “Deceptively Athletic”
While John Wall is one of the fastest point guards in the NBA and is acknowledged for his athleticism, there is another point guard that is almost as fast whose athleticism isn’t as highly regarded. In the above video that I learned about from this article, Jeremy Lin comments that when he came into the league, his speed numbers were almost as fast as John Wall’s. John Wall was considered “athletic” but he was […] Continue »
Asian Americans are driving up Jerky’s Popularity
Of the many areas where Asian Americans affect American life, the last place I expected to see an influence is with jerky. Jerky has never been a favorite of mine (it’s okay), so I was surprised to read that Asian Americans are driving up the popularity of jerky and other meat snacks. In the Nielsen Homescan report that is the source of that article, Nielsen claims that meat snacks are now the biggest snack spend […] Continue »
Princeton University Files Suit to Block Release of Admissions Files
Like a number of other Ivy League and other colleges, Princeton University has been sued by organizations charging that Princeton has been discriminating against Asians. Even Princeton’s own professors have pointed out discrepancies in test scores between white and Asian applicants in the past. While Princeton was cleared in the case, Students for Fair Admissions has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Princeton materials in the case. Princeton has filed suit to […] Continue »
Michelle Waterson Submitted by Rose Namajunas at UFC on Fox 24
#6 ranked UFC women’s Strawweight Michelle “The Karate Hottie” Waterson had a lot of momentum going into UFC on Fox 24. She had previously defeated Page VanZant, and there was an online poll to see who she should fight after that. At UFC event, she went up against #4 ranked Rose “Thug” Namajunas. Namajunas caught her flush in the head with a kick in the second round and later submitted her with a rear naked […] Continue »
Day Laborers, Flood Victims, and the Other One Percent: Illustrating the Gap between Asian American Rich and Poor
Much has been made about Asian American success, with articles pointing to average and median Asian American income being greater than whites, Asian cultural advantages, and incorrect exaggerations about the percentage of Asian American CEOs in Silicon Valley. Much less is made of that fact that Asian Americans have a wider (and widening) gap between rich and poor than whites. I am came across three stories that when taken together strongly reflect the gap that […] Continue »
Sticks and Stones and Asian Last Names
“Stick and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me” – A Children’s Rhyme After The Wife and I got married, she said that she would change her last name. She had a Filipino last name that didn’t look at all Asian – a person with that same last name could easily be white. I told her that I didn’t really care and that she didn’t need to change her name. Turns […] Continue »
The Continual Evolution of Asian American Youth Culture
One of the (few) benefits of having teenagers is getting a glimpse of what youth culture is like these days. Given that I myself am decades removed from that time period, I like to compare what I see and hear from them to how it was when I was young. Since my kids and I all grew up in communities full of Asian Americans (unlike John), I have some perspective on how Asian American youth […] Continue »
Robberies in South Sacramento Continue As Asian Americans Targeted
My cousin lives in South Sacramento, and when The Wife, my Dad, and I visited her this past summer, we had dinner in one of the many Asian themed restaurant and shopping areas there. Little did we know that South Sacramento was experiencing a wave of robberies at the time. After a drop in the number of robberies after a number of arrests, a recent string of robberies aimed at Asian Americans has revived fear […] Continue »
Revisiting the question of whether Filipinos are Asians or Pacific Islanders
Are Filipinos Asians or Pacific Islanders? That is a question we dealt with on 8asians a long time ago, and most questionnaires and surveys put Filipinos into the Asian category. The question does come up peridiocally, as the Fung brothers put out a video on the subject in 2014 and here on Quora in 2016. When the Adobo Chronicles, an Onion like fake news site, put out a story in 2015 that the US Census […] Continue »
Eking out a living riding a bus: Asian American Seniors in New York
In the Asian ethnoburb where I live, one sees three kinds of buses. One kind is the Santa Clara Valley Transit public transportation bus, and another is the kind is the tech bus, as white Google buses pick people up and drop off every week day near my house. A third kind is the bus that stops at the local Asian shopping center that picks up people to trips, often to casinos. My dad takes […] Continue »
The Corrosiveness of Fake Harassment Stories
You might have seen this story going around social media, about a harassment incident ending up with her being handcuffed by University of Minnesota police. Thinking about sharing it? Don’t. The University of Minnesota police answered questions about this supposed incident by saying they never responded to the incident described.
Remembering Asian American Veterans: Drew Pham
I stumbled upon Drew Pham’s story when posting a storycorp session about my mother. This particular story was a moving.https://thenib.com/i-trained-to-fight-the-enemyhttp://www.npr.org/2014/03/29/295329503/never-truly-over-discussing-deployment-a-challenge-of-its-own I stumbled across Drew Pham’s story when posting a story on StoryCorps about my mother. My father was a Navy veteran, and I was curious to hear other veteran’s stories. This segment, which was played on NPR, talks about some of the incredibly difficult situations he had to go through when he was deployed as […] Continue »
