as an arts organization, KSW is rooted in activism, and the Activist Imagination program is recognizing that history while also inviting a group of visual artists, as well as activists and other community members, to consider the past and present of activism, and imagine (hence the imagination part of the program’s title….) forms of activism that might hold relevance and be effective in the future. the full AI program runs tonight through may 2008, and includes a series of discussions as well as a visual arts exhibition at KSW’s space180 in SF’s mission district. Tonight’s event is a discussion focusing on the last three and a half decades of activism–quite a broad area, but it’s an impressive line up of panelists–nancy hom, oscar penaranda, min paek, and alison satake–so i think they will tackle the subject matter admirably, with enthusiasm & precision. The event is free, as are all the AI events, and the full description is here; information on the full AI program is here.

Also, in true APA spirit, they’ve started a blog about the program. Viva the APA bloggers. and APA activists.

*asterisked note to my own post–when you google “apathetic asian,” what should come up first? a february 2007 post from 8asians‘ own.

**mystery double-asterisk not referencing any particular point in my post: have ‘a-p-a’ ALways been the first three letters of the word ‘apathetic’? why have i not noticed this before? now i can go around saying “[insert name of asian-american-person-to-be-insulted here] puts the APA in apathetic.” we ALL can.

anyway, that was an irrelevant side note. yay irrelevant side notes.

According to AALDEF and other studies cited in the amicus brief (full text here), this kind of photo ID requirement not only poses problems for Asian Americans at the polls on election day, but also acts as a disincentive for people to leave their homes to vote at all. One study (from Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers) found that Asian Americans were 8.5% less likely to vote in states requiring photo ID than in states without that requirement (Latinos were found 10% less likely to vote, and Blacks 6% less likely; general population overall 2.5% less likely to vote in states with photo id requirement).

Anyway, I wanted to see who else was covering this story recently, and found an AP article about this particular case reaching the Supreme Court, “Indiana Voter ID Law Unfair, Foes Press,” from 11/13/2007. In the article, there’s not a single mention of how laws like Indiana’s impact Asian Americans or any other group aside from “poor,” “black,” and “elderly” (it also discusses republican v democrat). There’s a kind of sweeping “minority voters” classification, as well, but in failing to mention specifically the other groups impacted, the article demonstrates the continued tendency to reduce all ethnic and racial groups to simply “African American and other minority,” and remove Asians, Latinos, and other groups from the explicit debate. Whether or not it’s intentional—and I think most of the time it’s out of laziness or ignorance, which in many ways makes it even more difficult to deal with—it has a real impact when writers and/or editors for the AP continue to neglect to mention salient points. Yeah, I know they’re talking about an Indiana law, and the studies cited by AALDEF talk about several other, non-Indiana states, but come ON. It’s the SUPREME COURT of the US we’re talking about—any case that reaches the Supreme Court is going to have some serious national implications. And if that study I very briefly cited up above—about the impact of photo id requirements on the voting activity of racial groups—is correct, then a law like Indiana’s would actually have a disproportionately greater impact on Latino and Asian communities (10% and 8.5% less likely to vote in states with photo-ID reqs, respectively), than it would on African Americans (6% less likely to vote). I’m not saying that the impact on black communities doesn’t matter, of course it does; my point is that it’s careless and inaccurate reporting to STILL act as if this country can be reduced to black and white.

said show is louder! faster! funnier! and i haven’t seen it or read any of it, but based on the excellent use of exclamation points in title, coupled with track record of the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors — the sketch comedy group writing & performing L!F!F! (you’ll notice i’ve taken the unusual step of preserving the punctuation marks within my abbreviation of the title — that’s cuz i think outside the box [i'm hapa, it can't be helped]) — i am highly recommending that you go see this show if going to burbank between 10/25 and 11/11 falls within the realm of possibility for you.

[note to any 18MMW who may somehow end up reading this because of some periodic google searches about yo'selves to see what kinda dirt's being said: your show better not suck or i will lose face.]

seriously: the 18mmw write & perform original, incisive, topical (yet, ah, timeless), irreverent, high-larious stuffs (god i hate it when my sincere description of something sounds like a cliched review but ah well), with no bitching & moaning or crappy ethnic studies & identity 101 pieces that make you want to impale yourself (which isn’t to say that race/ethnicity/identity aren’t addressed in their material, they are, just not in a crappy way that makes you want to impale yourself), so i’m real pleased they are doing another show.

if you aren’t familiar with their work, or if you are but would like to spend a Most Enjoyable next few minutes, here’s a clip of one of their classics, “world cup”:
World Cup 2002

Add to My Profile | More Videoscrap, did that work? if not here’s the link.they’ve got more clips on their myspace page, and here’s their website.

oh, and here are details for L!F!F!,as copied and pasted from their website.

WHAT: “Louder! Faster! Funnier!” All new comedy from 18mmw!
WHEN: October 25-November 11, 2007, Thur, Fri, Sat @ 8pm, Sundays @ 2pm
WHERE: GTC Burbank, 1111-B W. Olive Ave., Burbank, CA 91506
HOW MUCH: $15 general admission, $13 students/seniors, $11 groups of 10 or more

Sundays pay what you can! (Except for closing Sunday, Nov. 11)

INFO/RESERVATIONS: Call 818-754-4500 (vm) or email 18mightymountainwarriors@gmail.com

or purchase ONLINE at: http://tickets.manja.org/18mmw
Written and Performed by: Valiant Chow, Rhoda Gravador, Michael Hornbuckle, Todd Nakagawa, Greg Watanabe, Peter J. Wong, Pearl Wong
This production is a visiting production at GTC Burbank

The changes on U.C.L.A.’s campus were hard to miss. In 1997, the freshman class included 221 black students; last fall it had only 100. In the region with easily the largest black population west of the Mississippi River, the top public university had a freshman class in which barely 1 in 50 students was black.

and goes on to pursue a very interesting discussion & exploration of how UCLA (and other schools, potentially, if bans on affirmative action persist) is getting around fucked up laws. also nice to see such an in-depth story when it sometimes feels like people are sick of hearing about affirmative action or think we’ve somehow moved beyond the need for affirmative action. country still needs it, but now it seems we’ve got to rely on outsourcing to non-government entities to enact some equal opportunity goodness.

full article here.

i am so pleased to have discovered today that two of my favorite people and artists–ridiculously talented & skilled singer-songwriter Goh Nakamura & equally endowed artist/animator Dino Ignacio — are working on a new animated video of Goh’s song “embarcadero blues.”

oh happy day. i am exceedingly excited to see the final product; but here is a rough cut of it in the meantime:

while i’m on the subject, if you want to catch the Goh live and you are in the sf bay area, he’s playing at the make-out room on 22nd & mission on friday 9/21 as part of Kearny Street Workshop’s 9th annual APAture festival, which i will be posting on at some time in near future.

i apologize if this was old news; i find things out late, sometimes.

the idea is to build community & interest around the new I-Hotel Senior Housing & the Manilatown Center that now stand at the site of the original & iconic I-Hotel, which was torn down a few decades ago. so from now through 8/4 there’ll be various events (a youth organizing workshop, a Kearny Street Revival Poetry Night with sf-based poetry all-stars Al Robles, Janice Mirikitani, Jack Hirschman, Nancy Hom, Oscar Penaranda), culminating with a street fair the afternoon of saturday august 4th (the skyflakes and a bunch of other musical peoples & collectives will be performing throughout the day).

i guess i’m kind of promoting a multi-event here (full disclosure: i am one of the [possibly irreverent, possibly irrelevant, you decide] comics performing tonight, and i work with KSW)–but the 30th anniversary of the i-hotel looms large in the minds & memories of many, so perhaps there’s something worth considering & remembering here. you know, considering & remembering, like commemorating or something.

or perhaps not; you decide. anyway, some memories of the i-hotel stuffs and a bit more detail on exactly what is being commemorated can be found here. there’s also a fairly innocuous yet informative entry about it on wikipedia. commemorate, bitches.

next post: probably about vampires & piles of dead babies (you decide [not really, i'll decide]).