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Year of the Rat Stamp Kicks Off Series That Runs Through 2019

Posted on January 10, 2008 by John

The United States Post Office announced the other day that the “Year of the Rat Stamp Kicks Off Series That Runs Through 2019”

“SAN FRANCISCO, CA — In observance of the Chinese New Year, the U.S. Postal Service will debut a new stamp series for the 12 different animals in the Chinese calendar. The series will continue through 2019. The first 41-cent stamp in the series is for the Year of the Rat, which begins Feb. 7, 2008 and ends Jan. 25, 2009… The rat is the first of 12 animals associated with the Chinese calendar. According to legend, the animals raced across a river to determine their order in the cycle. The rat crossed by riding on the back of the ox, jumping ahead at the last minute to win the race. “The start of the Lunar New Year is the biggest holiday of the year for more than 25 percent of the people in the world.” said Katherine C. Tobin, member of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, who will dedicate the stamp. “It is a time of great celebration and reflection for many millions of Americans, including our nation’s oldest Chinese-American community here in San Francisco.”

I’m not a stamp collector, but I think this is pretty cool! Is this the first stamp series to celebrate or commemorate Asian Americans in any way? I did read recently, but did not report, that there was a movement to have a U.S. stamp to commemorate the over 30,000 Japanese-Americans who volunteered during WWII despite family and friends’ internment.

Posted in Current Events, Observations | 2 Comments

SF Supervisor Ed Jew resigns

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Efren

Breaking news from the San Francisco Chronicle’s web portal, sfgate.com, that Ed Jew, the City supervisor who was accused of living in a different city while representing the predominantly Asian Sunset District, has resigned in exchange of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and City Attorney Dennis Herrera dropping a lawsuit and misconduct proceedings. He is still dealing with lawsuits by SF District Attorney Kamala Harris, who filed felony perjury and fraud changes in connection to his residency, and the FBI who indicted Jew on bribery, fraud and extortion by allegedly telling people who tried to establish Quickly branches in his district to pay him up to $84,000 in bribes.

It just makes me wonder when the Asians in SF will stop trying to focus their efforts in getting an Asian supervisor just in the Sunset, and actually start developing politicians in different parts of SF where we have significant populations–like everywhere else in the City. Even though I now live outside of SF, it’s always amused me to see how all the efforts by Asians to get elected to the SF Board of Supervisors was always focused on the Sunset, and yet it seemed that less attention was paid to Asians running in other districts, like the Richmond, Chinatown, or even Visitacion Valley/Bayview. Considering that SF is 40% Asian, I would think that we would try to support Asian politicians all over the City, and not just areas that seem to be a sure bet.

(Flickr photo credit: Neko Ewen)

Posted in Current Events, Observations, Politics | Tagged Ed Jew, Politics, San Francisco | Leave a comment

Anna Mae He, Family To Move Back To China

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Ernie

Almost one year ago to the day, 8Asians.com blogged about a real-life version of the movie Losing Isiah – a seven year old girl had been adopted since infancy, but was returned to her Chinese parents. The parents claimed they never intended to give her up for adoption but as a necessity due to “financial and legal hardships they faced at the time.”

Angry Asian Man has since linked to a follow-up to the story of eight year old Anna Mae He, who will now be moving to China with her family due to her father’s expired student visa.

“We always wanted custody to move back to China as a family,” Mr. He said.

An immigration judge agreed four years ago to delay ruling on the Hes’ immigration status, but Mr. He said that decision could come anytime now.

“If deported, we might never come back again,” Mr. He said. “With a voluntary departure, we don’t get an order.”

Jeez, I don’t know how to feel about this. Like, imagine that you’re seven years old, being raised in a [presumably] relatively stable Memphis home but with a pair of parents that look different from you. Imagine that those adoptive parents have talked trash about “those horrible people that want to take you away from us,” maybe some additional racist stuff for the sake of this dramatization being like a bad TV Movie. Now imagine that you’re ripped from that family and thrown into a second family, being told those are your real parents, and surprise! You’re going to move to China, where everyone knows the language and the culture, except for you. That’s pretty traumatic for an eight year old, and I hope she adjusts quickly for her sake.

Posted in Current Events | Leave a comment

Asian Americans for Obama: Fired Up? Ready to Go? To Vegas?

Posted on January 10, 2008 by John

I was just checking out the “Asian Americans for Obama” website, and came across the latest efforts by that organization for the Nevada Democratic caucus:

“A group of very cool Asian American artists, celebrities, filmmakers, and activists will be converging in Vegas to work on Obama’s Asian American outreach for the Nevada Caucus on Jan 19th. Let’s be part of the change and have a great time in Vegas while at it. Campaign during the day then gamble and karaoke the night way. Confirmed: Eric Byler & Kelly Hu. Come for the days that you can come.”

More details on the site. As I have commented many times before, it’s great to see Asian Americans, who are the least likely to vote or volunteer in politics, get involved in our democracy, especially in a grass roots way. I’m currently supporting another candidate, but maybe Kelly Hu can help change my mind?

Posted in Current Events, Politics | 4 Comments

Lam Luong – Dad threw 4 children off bridge

Posted on January 9, 2008 by John

This is not a “feel good” story. I heard about this on the radio this morning and read the details in this AP story, “Police: Dad threw 4 children off bridge“:

“BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. – A day after reporting his four young children were missing, a shrimp fisherman broke down and confessed that he threw them off an 80-foot-high bridge to their deaths, authorities said Wednesday. Lam Luong, 37, was charged with four counts of capital murder, and divers searched the murky waters for the bodies of the youngsters, who ranged in age from a few months to 3 years. Luong had a drug habit and had argued with his wife, Ngoc Phan, before taking the children, said Phan’s brother-in-law, Kam Phengsisomboun. Luong’s girlfriend, who was living in a hotel in nearby Gulfport, Miss., was a factor in the couple’s argument on Sunday and Monday morning, family members and police said…Luong came to Alabama from Vietnam in 1984 and worked as a shrimper, Phengsisomboun said. The couple lived with Phan’s mother at Bayou La Batre, a fishing village 20 miles southwest of Mobile with a large Southeast Asian community.”

When I heard this, I was just disgusted and saddened. I also had heard of a blog today, Disgrasian – “You’re as disgrace. To the race.” Lam Luong certainly is certainly a disgrace…and a criminal.

Posted in Current Events | 9 Comments

Stop blaming MSG!

Posted on January 9, 2008 by Bo

The New York Times ran a story today about Robyn O’Brien, a mother of three in Colorado, who recently began a crusade to educate people on what she believes to be the link between food additives and the perceived increase in childhood allergies. Basically, Robyn O’Brien believes that all of our medical woos can be blamed on the herbicides, artificial additives, and Frankenstein food being pushed onto the American public by giant, evil, profit-driven corporations.

On the surface nothing about this article would seem to have ANY link to the Asian/Asian American community…that is until you start checking out the comments section. I was only 11 entries in when I stumble upon the first (of many entries) implicating MSG as the most evil of all food additives. One commenter wrote:

“I have a sensitivity to MSG that peaked when I hit 40. But now there are studies showing that the brain and respiratory cells of children are being affected in ways that formerly were typical of adult complaints by those adversely affected by neurotoxins like MSG.And then there is the scary fact that MSG is being dumped into so many more food products every year with no thought to how such a large aggregate amount of it in children’s diets can affect them.”

Subsequent comments go on to blame MSG for everything from migraine headaches to global warming and impotence (not really but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had). Really? Are people serious? Are folks still obsessing about the supposed adverse affects of MSG? Hasn’t it already been established that the vast majority of people with MSG “allergies” are simply racists who use it as a guise to be mean and ignorant while still appearing inclusive?

Okay, so just to set the records straight, here are the facts about MSG:

Monosodium glutamate is nothing more than a sodium salt of glutamic acid. Basically an amino acid.
It is considered a flavor enhancer because it stimulates certain taste buds…particularly the ones that pick up the umami flavor.
It was isolated in 1907 by the Japanese.
Although much of the MSG sold today is artificially manufactured, MSG is found naturally in the human body and also certain foods such as mushrooms, seaweed, tomatoes, nuts, legumes, certain cheeses, and meats.
There is more MSG found in Roquefort and Parmesan Cheese, Marmite, and Vegemite than soy sauce.

There has only been one medical study that has been able to show a negative reaction to MSG…in mice. A 1995 review by the FDA (if you can trust them) affirmed the safety of it. Nearly all the negative associations about MSG (and the subsequent Chinese Resturant Syndrome) is anecdotal.

I just wish all those people who are afraid of MSG, SARS, the bird flu and lead contaminated toys from China would just come out and admit that they hate us. It’s okay. I’ve got tough skin. It would make finding the good people a lot easier.

(Flickr photo credit: The Other Dan)

Posted in Discrimination, Food & Drink, Observations | 11 Comments

Chanel Iman, New Kid on the Catwalk

Posted on January 8, 2008 by Lily Huang

Don’t ask me what I was doing* looking at Teen Vogue,
but I noticed the cover girl of the current issue, Chanel Iman. Her mother is Korean American and African American, and her father is African American.

She hit the ground running when she started out in 2006, landing modeling walks for, if I remember correctly, eighteen designers in one trip. The New York Times profiled her that fall, and Vogue included her in their May 2007 cover story that named the year’s new supermodels.

She travels with her Mom and once met Paul McCartney without recognizing him. Some commenters on other blogs have taken this as an indication of low intelligence. But she’s only eighteen years old. I think I would be concerned if she recognized every celebrity.

* Actually, I had a good reason.

Posted in Entertainment | 1 Comment

Asian American Students and School Stereotypes

Posted on January 8, 2008 by John

In “Asian American Students and School Stereotypes“, the Washington Post reports on Jenny Tsai, a recent Harvard graduate, for her senior college thesis for the social studies department last year, wrote the study “‘Too Many Asians at this School’: Racialized Perceptions and Identity Formation.” (Update: you can download the “essay” here) The article goes on in describing her study and findings:

“As part of her research, Tsai, who is Chinese American, interviewed 27 Harvard undergraduates, including 15 Asian Americans and 12 whites, plus one Asian American student at Boston College. All but one had attended one of four very selective public high schools — Boston Latin in Boston, Lowell in San Francisco and Hunter College and Stuyvesant in New York. She chose graduates of those schools because of their large Asian American contingents — roughly 75 percent at Lowell, 50 percent at Hunter College and Stuyvesant and 25 percent at Boston Latin — and because each of those schools had struggled with racial issues sparked by the fact that many students who want to attend can’t get in. Tsai, a Hunter College High School alumna herself, found many people thought Asian American students were getting more than their share of acceptance letters from these super magnets. Yet she saw little racial solidarity among the Asian Americans who did so well at those four schools that they got into Harvard. Instead, these students told her they were just trying to fit in with what they considered “white” American values, and often deferred to their white classmates when it came to extracurricular choices. As Tsai put it, among the Asian American students she interviewed, “acting white” was a good thing. I was surprised to read that Tsai’s subjects at Harvard often embraced that term. They thought of it more as a lifestyle than an academic strategy. To them, Tsai found, it translated loosely as being cool….

Many Asian American students at Harvard, Tsai said, were bothered by the stereotype of their group as a “model minority,” which they associated with the fear expressed by some whites that Asian Americans were putting them at a disadvantage. To them, that stereotype carried with it “negative connotations of being competitive, lacking passion, and being calculating,” she wrote in her paper.“

27 Harvard undergraduates (and a Boston College student) does not sound like a large sample, but I don’t think Jenny Tsai, as an undergraduate, necessarily had the time and resources for a large representative sample to extrapolate beyond her Ivy League halls (except to Boston College). So this isn’t necessarily the definitive study of Asian American “model minority” perceptions at college campuses (as well as K – 12), but it does bring up some valid observations.

By the way, I find some irony that this Harvard senior thesis is being reported on, considering my previous posting on Harvard’s lack of Asian American Studies program.

Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events, Discrimination, Observations | 13 Comments

Help Kina! – Part Deux

Posted on January 7, 2008 by Ben

Remember how Kina Grannis was looking to cross the semi-finals? Well she has and it’s now down to three. So until January 27th, each day, there’s a vote. While you might be voting already, she’s got the look and voice to take it all the way. Hopefully the rest of 8A thinks so too.

Oh and by the way? I did make sure that her eyes aren’t closed in this video.

Posted in Entertainment, Music | Tagged , Kina Grannis, music, Super Bowl | Leave a comment

API Faces on American Gladiators

Posted on January 7, 2008 by Ernie

So everyone is allowed a little guilty indulgence once in a while, and last night mine was watching the return of NBC’s American Gladiators. Sure, it’s sports entertainment at its finest with its fireworks and its attitude, and it’s incredibly campy to boot – one of the female gladiators is named Hellga, for godssake. But the show was also a part of my Saturday mornings in the 1990s, and for nostalgia’s sake I tuned in. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

Between all the peroxide in the Gladiators, there’s Toa, who as Angry Asian Man puts it, “is seriously rocking the Pacific Islander warrior vibe.” And let me tell you – yes. Yes he was. Anyone who busts out with the haka right before the Pyramid event might be playing up to a certain character or caricature, but when you’re both the cousin AND the official stunt man of The Rock, I’m not going to disagree otherwise. Also, he’s eye candy. There, I said it.

Anyone that caught the debut of the show would have also noticed two Asian-Americans winners: 24 year old Cambodian-American Molivann Duy, nicknamed “Mowli” presumably because Hulk Hogan found it awkward constantly saying the word “Molivann,” and the women’s winner, Venus Ramos.

Ramos was an alternate for a contestant that was injured her leg in Powerball, and her background story (parents crossed an ocean to give her a better life! She worked hard to get her MD!) and come-from-behind victory in the Eliminator actually made me stand up and cheer – at least until shortly afterwards, when I did some searching on the Internet and learned she was on Temptation Island. Somehow, I relate more towards the “Asian girl who worked hard to get her MD” archetype than the “model/actress” one. Just saying. (Two other Asian American contestants are also scheduled for this season as well, not counting the other possible alternates in case anyone else breaks a femur bone.)

Posted in Entertainment | 4 Comments

David Lam on the lam no more.

Posted on January 6, 2008 by jozjozjoz

A couple of years ago, I heard a disturbing story via the grapevine of some friends who gambled at The Bike. One day, one of the floor managers didn’t show up work. A few days later, the rumor was that his wife’s body was found partially buried in the backyard. It sounded like one of those crazy casino stories that sounded too sketchy to be true.

It turns out the story was mostly based in fact. The floor manager’s name was David Lam and he had fled the country after he (presumably) strangled his wife and buried her in their Rowland Heights backyard back in 2005.

Lam had been on the run for two years until authorities found him in Indonesia in November. He was arrested Nov. 17, 2007 and is now being held held at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles.

In the two years that Lam had been missing, he was also featured on America’s Most Wanted: AMW CAPTURE DATA FILE FOR DAVID LAM

I was going to say something like “It’s a good thing Asians usually aren’t on America’s Most Wanted” but that sounds contrived.

The full story is available at the Whittier Daily News.

Photo taken from amw.com

Posted in Current Events | 4 Comments