This past week, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake (the largest one in almost 40 years and the fourth largest ever recorded) rocked the Indian Ocean, causing massive tsunamis (aka tidal waves) to wash ashore and devastate countries such as Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and the Maldives. The death toll has already passed 100,000 and is sure to continue rising.

You might remember that about two-thirds of Asian Americans are immigrants. As such, many still have a direct connection to their Asian homelands and to family, relatives, friends, and countrymen back in Asia. Therefore, it is not a surprise that even beyond the shear devastation that has afflicted so many people in that region of the world, this tragedy hits home very hard for many Asian Americans. Even if they may not know anyone personally in these areas, my sense is that as people who share many aspects of history and culture in common, many Asian Americans have been deeply affected by these events as well.

It’s in times like this that I remember just how privileged my life is and how easily I take things such as food, shelter, and physical safety for granted. I hope that you’ll join me in offering your best hopes and wishes to everyone affected by this tragedy. If you would like to directly help those in need, please consider making a donation to the American Red Cross (you can designate your donation to be used for the “International Response Fund", and where your donation is tax deductible) or the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (where you can also designate that your funds be used to help the victims of this tragedy).

Events like this remind us that despite our differences, we are still all part of the same race -- the human race.

With the arrival of United Airlines flight #869, direct commercial flights to Saigon from the U.S. have resumed for the first time since 1975. My sister actually sent me a clipping from Yahoo News that showed a picture of one of her former boyfriends buying a ticket on that flight.

I applaud this move -- it means first, flights to visit my relatives in Viet Nam will now be cheaper presumably, and second, it’s another indication that U.S.-Vietnamese relations are normalizing, whether the staunch anti-communist Vietnamese here in the U.S. like it or not.

In the conventional academic literature, these two terms (transnationalism and assimilation) are usually considered close to being opposites to each other, at least as applied to Asian Americans. How can you live in two separate cultures and societies and be considered completely integrated in either one of them?

However, Asian Americans have always had ways to transcend conventional barriers, whether they were legal, economic, or in this case, cultural. As an example, the San Jose Mercury News has an excellent collection of articles entitled Asian Impact, which looks at how different Asian Americans living in the California Bay area (which has apparently replaced New York City as the most prominent Asian American metropolis in the U.S.) bridge the gap between Asia and Asian America.

Very interesting and informative stuff and definitely worth checking out.

I recently found two articles that are a good example of the frequently contradictory nature of relationships between different Asian ethnic groups, in this case between Japanese and Koreans. The first article, from Salon.com, explains,

Koreans have a harsh history in Japan. Their homeland was under Tokyo’s colonist yoke for 35 years, and in Japan they still face discrimination and cruel stereotypes. But thanks to the mega-hit South Korean soap opera “Winter Sonata,” Koreans these days also face something quite different in Japan: adulation. On visits to Tokyo, the show’s two main actors -- Bae Yong-joon, 32, and Choi Ji-woo, 29 -- are mobbed by swooning fans, and sales of chewing gum and chocolates they advertise have surged.

So on the one hand, there are examples of how Japanese and Korean culture mesh well with each other. On the other hand, we are reminded again that there are specific reasons why relations between different Asian ethnic groups are somewhat strained at times. Look no further than this recent headlines, following on the heels of the preceding article: Japan’s Supreme Court Refuses Compensation to South Korean War Slaves.

Even after historical evidence has overwhelming documented how the Japanese army kidnapped hundreds of thousands of young women from Korea, China, the Philippines, and other countries that they colonized during World Warr and brutally and visciously used them for sex slaves (euphemistically called “comfort women"), the Japanese government still refuses to acknowledge these atrocities, let alone offer an official apology for their actions. Even worse, many Japanese are openly defiant against acknowledging Japan’s barbaric actions during the war. The article describes one good example:

Japan’s Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama said this weekend he was relieved current Japanese textbooks have cut back on a “self-tormenting” view of World War II. “There was a time when Japanese textbooks were full of nothing but extremely self-tormenting things saying that Japan was bad,” Nakayama told a town hall meeting in southern Oita prefecture on Saturday, according to newspapers. “We have tried to correct that,” he was quoted as saying. “I’m really glad that recently there are fewer words such as ‘comfort women’ and ‘forced relocation’ used in textbooks,” he said.

I guess it just goes to show that pan-Asian unity is still easier said than done.

Originally posted Nov. 2004

Chai Vang, a Hmong refugee living in Wisconsin, allegedly shot and killed six people the other day in an hunting dispute. Apparently, Vang mistakenly occupied a hunting perch located on private property, was confronted by the owners (or those who knew the owners), told to leave, started to leave, but then turned around and fired dozens of shots from a semi-automatic rifle toward the people and later, those who came to help.

The details are still emerging about this tragedy, but the question that comes up is, was Vang set off by racial taunts or derogatory slurs, as he now claims? As an earlier CBSNews.com article reports,

Some Hmong leaders questioned whether racial differences may have figured in the shootings; authorities have not determined a motive. . . In Minnesota, a fistfight once broke out after Hmong hunters crossed onto private land, said Ilean Her, director of the St. Paul-based Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans. . .

Vang’s arrest left some Hmong citizens in his hometown fearful of a backlash. About 24,000 Hmong live in St. Paul, the highest concentration of any U.S. city. And the shooting has already provoked racial tension in an area of Wisconsin where deer hunting is steeped in tradition.

Locals in the Birchwood area, about 120 miles northeast of the Twin Cities, have complained that the Hmong, refugees from Laos, do not understand the concept of private property and hunt wherever they see fit. Michael Yang, a Hmong activist, said various Hmong groups held an emergency meeting Monday to talk about how to respond. Those at the meeting heard stories from some Hmong hunters about friction with white hunters.

Of course, there is no excuse for what Vang did. As the article also points out,

But, Minnesota state Sen. Mee Moua rejected the idea that cultural differences played any role in the shooting. “We’re all just speculating that may have been a trigger for him,” said Moua, who is Hmong. “We’re all searching for answers.” Moua added that Hmong-Americans feel racism on a daily basis, but “that doesn’t mean you kill people.”

A recent article in the New York Times elaborates further on some of the racial/ethnic aspects of this story. Ultimately, Sen. Moua is right -- facing racism does not mean that you kill people and in no way am I justifying what he did. But it would clearly explain what made Vang snap -- the last spark that finally ignited years, even decades of having to quietly and passively deal with prejudice, racial hostility, and systematic racism.

Originally posted Nov. 2004

It’s been a long, long time coming,

but I’m glad to see that UCLA has just become the first major research university to establish an independent Asian American Studies Department. Previously, the Asian American Studies curriculum at UCLA was only a an interdisciplinary program.

But now that it’s achieved departmental status, it can offer a doctoral program and hire faculty that would be fully affiliated with the department. Just as important, being a department will allow its faculty and students to feel that they finally have a home base, so to speak, along with a sense of official legitimacy and institutional support. Bravo to all involved and keep up the great work!

Originally posted Oct. 2004

You might recall that earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is constitutional to consider race as a factor in college admissions as long as racial/ethnic minority applicants are not given extra points in the admissions process. But ironically, wishing to avoid potential lawsuits, many universities are ending programs that specifically targeted students of color and instead, are opening them up to all students. This recent article from the Chicago Tribune explains:

Throughout the country, schools such as Northwestern are opening up minority scholarships, fellowships, academic support programs and summer enrichment classes to students of any race. The change follows last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that race can be considered in college admissions but only among other factors and that each candidate must be evaluated individually.

That landmark 5-4 decision, hailed as a victory by college and university officials, preserved affirmative action in admissions, but found unconstitutional a University of Michigan program that automatically gave extra points to African-American, Latino and American Indian applicants. In what some now say is an unexpected erosion of affirmative action, colleges are interpreting the ruling to mean they can no longer offer race-exclusive programs designed specifically to help minority students.

This development is happening at a time when the pool of underrepresented students of color applying for college is actually declining. This means that even as affirmative action is being validated, the numbers of disadvantaged Blacks and Latino students may still decline. At the same time, the numbers of Asian American college applicants continues to grow, as does the proportions of students who are of Asian ancestry on major university campuses all around the country.

It is becoming more clear to me each day that most Asian Americans do not need affirmative action any longer. However, notice that I said “most.” A few still do, namely Cambodians, Hmong, Laotians, etc. Thankfully, many colleges have recognized this and are targeting these specific Asian ethnic groups, rather than the entire Asian American racial category. Does this mean that most Asian Americans are being hurt by affirmative action programs, similar to what many Whites are arguing? I still say no.

Originally posted Sept. 2004

New California Media just released a comprehensive survey entitled, the National Poll of Asian Pacific Islanders on the 2004 Election. The survey included interviews with 1,004 Asian American respondents with detailed information on their ethnicity, their age, educational attainment, residence in a “battleground state,” voting pattern in the 2000 election, opinions on the Iraq War and domestic issues, and experiences of discrimination, to name just a few.

The main findings are that, as of the end of August 2004, Kerry holds a 43 percent to 36 percent lead over Bush among their sample respondents, but with a large 20 percent still undecided. Further, the survey found that Vietnamese and Filipinos are the most likely to vote Republican while Chinese, Asian Indians, and Hmong are much more likely to vote Democratic. Further, the NCM survey notes that young APAs and those with at least a college degree tend to support Kerry while older APAs and those with less education tend to be Bush supporters.

While it would have been nice to have even more detailed cross-tabulations on various respondent characteristics and their voting preferences, the survey seems to be very well constructed, administered, valid, and reliable -- not to mention quite interesting. On the one hand, some Asian American commentators see these results as an indication that the APA population is more divided these days than ever. If true, this would seem to hurt efforts to organize the APA vote into a unified voting bloc in the same manner as Blacks and Jews.

While I may not describe the situation so pessimistically, it does make me wonder whether it is realistic to expect the Asian American community to be a united voting bloc. The results of the survey also confirm for me that ultimately, a person should be judged not for who s/he is (i.e., an Asian American) but for what s/he believes and acts (i.e., supports liberal causes). In that sense, it would seem that more “progressive” Asian ethnic groups such as Asian Indians, Hmong, and Chinese may have more in common with people groups like MoveOn.org than with more conservative Asian ethnic groups such as Vietnamese and Filipinos.