Congratulations to the new Little League World Champions: Team USA from Ewa Beach, Hawaii, who won the championship on a dramatic walk-off two-run home run by Michael Memea.

You might recall that Hawaii has the largest proportion of Asian Americans of any U.S. state -- around two-thirds of the state’s population has Asian or Pacific Islander ancestry. I’m not sure how many players on the Little League team are Asian American, but judging from the pictures, it looks like it’s in line with the state’s proportions.

Hats off to the champions and let’s hope that as many of them make it all the way to the Major Leagues as possible.

AlterNet has an interesting article written by a young Vietnamese woman on her struggles about what name she should go by -- her given Vietnamese name or an “Americanized” one that is easier for Americans to pronounce. This article isn’t exactly a news item, but it is a common issue that many Asian Americans inevitably face at one time or another:

In school, I would see girls named Linda, Anne or Susie whom I know weren’t called that by their mothers. I respect their decision to make their names into something easier for others to pronounce and understand. A name is an important thing, and being able to create your own is powerful. It means you can choose your own identity over the one your parents chose for you. But I made a different choice. . . .

Even though the schools I went to were filled with Vietnamese students, I had to Americanize my name for the teachers in order for them to pronounce it. Even then, I’d have to come up with a story to help them remember my name. I’d tell them to use the “Bingo” song:” clap, clap, N-G-O, clap , clap, N-G-O, and Thuy Ngo was her name-0.” When you think about it, it’s kind of sad to have to go through all of that trouble just so your teacher will remember your name.

I can personally relate to this article because as I’ve explained to many friends, colleagues, and students, I also used the American name “Sean” throughout high school and college but eventually decided that it did not really reflect my “rediscovered” Asian- and Vietnamese-American identity any longer after I began studying sociology and eventually realizing that my ancestral roots are a source of pride and inspiration, not of shame or embarassment.

I wanted to go back to using my given name “Cuong” but didn’t want people to constantly mispronounce it. Ultimately, I compromised and decided to just go by my first and middle initials “C.N.” The author of the article poignantly describes how the choice of names is so often fraught with anxieties and mixed reactions from both Asians and non-Asians.

But in the end, as she notes, it is a something that you have control over so it should be one that is meaningful to you, not necessarily anyone else.

The Associated Press reports that after a six-month search to find a new Executive Chef at the White House, the winner is Cristeta “Cris” Comerford, who was an assistant chef at the White House under the previous executive chef:

A naturalized U.S. citizen from the Philippines, she will be the first woman and first minority to hold the post. . . . [Former executive chef Walter Scheib] said Sunday that Comerford was hands down the best assistant he has had in his 30-year career. She is a great cook with an artistic eye and a calm demeanor that can handle the pressure cooker that is the White House kitchen, he said.

On the one hand, I congratulate Cristeta and am happy that an Asian American woman has risen to such a relatively prominent position at the White House. On the other hand, I can’t help but feel a little cautious about the image that her appointment potentially represents.

In other words, does her promotion to White House Executive Chef in some way reinforce the perptuate the patriarchal and stereotypical image of Asian women as household servants? Hmmm . . .

A few recent articles in the news highlight the importance of voting among communities of color in general, and within the Asian American community specifically. First, several news organizations report that as the nation celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act that finally removed all the legalistic barriers to voting, there is debate in Congress about whether the act needs to be renewed or whether it’s no longer necessary:

In the weekly Democratic radio address, [U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia] said his party is committed to strengthening the sections of the law that are set to expire at the end of next year. Conservatives are pushing for modification of two provisions. One requires nine states, mostly in the South, to get federal approval before changing voting rules. The other requires election officials to provide voting material in the native language to immigrant voters who don’t speak English.

Similarly, as reported by the New CA Media, a coalition of Asian American legal rights organizations released a report titled “Sound Barriers: Asian Americans and Language Access in Election 2004″ that details several instances in which Asian American voters were not provided with the rights and opportunities for voting that the Voting Rights Act supposedly guarantees. This is just an excerpt of some of the issues encountered:

Among the common problems encountered by Asian American voters with limited English proficiency (LEP) in these polling sites were:

Poll workers were frequently reluctant to help, were unaware of how to help, or were suspicious of bilingual poll workers and LEP voters. In Los Angeles County, CA, a poll worker sent an Asian American voter to the back of the line for “causing too much trouble” due to the voter’s limited English proficiency.

About 46 percent of the polling sites monitored had multilingual materials but these were inaccessible to those who needed them. In 96 polling stations, there were no instructions in other languages on how to use the voting machines, the sample ballots or even directional signs. Many poll workers did not understand why multilingual materials were necessary. In Cook County, IL, one election judge who could not understand a voter said that the voter should learn to speak English.

As further proof of the barriers that many Asian American voters still face, the Boston Globe reports on several more instances of voter discrimination:

Voters at 11 polling stations in Boston, Quincy, and Lowell encountered ‘’multiple barriers” similar to those experienced by some black and Latino voters in Florida in 2000. City and state elections officials said yesterday the problems had been addressed since the group sent its letters in March.

The letters, however, provide new details of the allegations facing the city of Boston and show that other cities also experienced similar problems. The group sent its findings to the US Justice Department before the department filed a voting rights lawsuit against the city of Boston last month.

In Boston, home to about 19,000 Chinese-American and 10,000 Vietnamese-American voters, poll watchers interviewed about 500 Asian-Americans as they left five polling stations in Chinatown, Mission Hill, and Dorchester last November.

The survey found 10 voters who said they had been turned away because their names were not on the rolls and who were not offered provisional ballots as required by law. About 100 voters told interviewers that the polling stations lacked Chinese and Vietnamese ballot guides. And 62 voters had to show identification, a practice that raised questions about racial discrimination,

Personally, I still find it absolutely mind-boggling how completely screwed up the U.S. voting system is. The 2000 debacle in Florida finally exposed just how utterly incompetent and fundamentally flawed our voting system is, even 40 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Supposedly, it’s illegal to discriminate against voters of color and immigrant voters but these incidents still happen time and time again, against all non-White groups.

The irony is that the U.S. likes to pound its chest and forcefully show the world that it has the best democracy in the world. If that’s not the height of hypocrisy, I don’t know what is. But as long as these “voting irregularities” end up helping those in power stay in power, I predict that not much is going to change at all.

Absolutely incredible.

The New York Times reports that New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is cutting back on Chinese food, apparently because he believes it is not good for his health. Needless to say, when news of this reached NYC’s Chinese community, they weren’t exactly smitten by the idea:

When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, 63, mentioned last week that he was cutting back on Chinese food, as part of an attempt to lose weight for the home stretch of his re-election campaign, the news hit the Chinese restaurants and landed splat in the duck sauce.

“He is making big mistake,” [Raymond Wong, 45, a manager at Joe’s Shanghai, on Pell Street in Chinatown] said. . . . Mr. Wong pointed to a photograph in the newspaper showing Mr. Bloomberg eating a piece of fried chicken. “Does he think that fried chicken is healthier than Chinese food?” . . .

[Bloomberh spokesman] Mr. Skyler said that far from denigrating Chinese food, the mayor was such a big fan that he was eating too much of it. . . . “Having shared a lot of meals with him over the years, I can assure owners of Chinese restaurants across the city that this is a mayor who has and will continue to deeply love Chinese food,” Mr. Skyler said. He added that his boss enjoyed a good relationship with New York’s Chinese community and had recently been endorsed by Sing Tao, a local Chinese-language daily newspaper.

Mayor Bloomberg may think that he has a good relationship with the Chinese American community in NYC, but with comments like this, he only shows that he still has a few cultural blindspots and insensitive stereotypes that he needs to be more aware of, if he wants to maintain his “good relations” with Chinese Americans in NYC.

Earlier I had an entry about how Time Magazine (reflecting the sentiments of many observers and analysts) asked the question of whether the 21st century would be dominated not by the U.S. but by China, as it continues its economic, political, and cultural emergence as a true world superpower. Well, the Associated Press reports that China has just announced new restrictions and censorship guidelines on foreign media:

China will bar new foreign television channels and step up censorship of imported programming, the Culture Ministry announced, adding to a sweeping effort to tighten the communist government’s control over popular culture. In an effort to “safeguard national cultural safety,” the government also will tighten controls over the 31 foreign television satellite broadcasters that hold licenses to operate in China.

The government also will ban new licenses for companies to import newspapers and magazines, electronic publications, audiovisual products and children’s cartoons, the ministry said. It said new limits will be imposed on the number of foreign copyrighted products that Chinese companies are allowed to publish. . . .

The measures are a dramatic step back from more liberal rules unveiled late last year to open China’s media market. . . . communist leaders are reluctant to give Chinese broadcasters free rein to form foreign ties, concerned it might erode official controls over what censors refer to as “political standards” of broadcasts. Regulators frequently cite foreign culture as a source of unwholesome influences in Chinese broadcasting.

Unfortunately, this is further proof that China is still dominated and tightly controlled by a totalitarian regime and therefore not even close to resembling anything like a democracy. It also means that China still has a long, long way to go before people like me will legitimately consider it to be a true world superpower.

As the Associated Press is reporting, the U.S. Census Bureau has just announced that their latest population counts indicate that non-Hispanic Whites in Texas now comprise a minority in the state (they’re still the largest racial/ethnic group but they are now just 49.8% of the state):

Texas has become the fourth state to have a non-white majority population, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday, a trend driven by a surging number of Hispanics moving to the state. . . . Texas joins California, New Mexico and Hawaii as states with majority-minority populations with Hispanics the largest group in every state but Hawaii, where it is Asian-Americans.

Five other states Maryland, Mississippi, Georgia, New York and Arizona aren’t far behind, with about 40 percent minorities. Public policy analysts said these states and the country as a whole need to bring minority education and professional achievement to the levels of whites. Otherwise, these areas risk becoming poorer and less competitive.

William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., said lawmakers need to start with immigration reform, while striving to bring minorities’ education and salary levels in line with Anglos. “Immigration is good for the United States … it’s important for us to keep our doors open, but we need to keep an eye on the people coming in,” Frey said. “While initially it will be a state problem, eventually it will be a national issue, and education is the best way to deal with it.”

Professor Frey (a sociologist by the way) hits it right on the head -- while the rapid influx of immigrants (yes, many of them are illegal) may cause short term growing pains in the states in which they settle, the most effective way for the U.S. to address their presence and to prevent these immigrants from becoming a national burden is to educate them and make them citizens.

Rather than trying to demunanize them into a pariah group on the fringes of society, integrating immigrants (legal and illegal) into the American mainstream allows them to become productive citizens who contribute to our nation’s economy and culture. In this case, the old adage is true -- an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The Associated Press reports that a federal appeals court just ruled that the private Kamehameha Schools, designed to educate Native Hawaiians, cannot bar non-Native Hawaiians from attending, even though the school does not receive any public funds:

Overturning a lower court, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 2-1 Tuesday that the practice at the private school violates federal civil rights law even though the institution receives no federal funding. [Hawaiian] Gov. Linda Lingle called the decision “incredibly unfortunate,” saying it underscores the need for a bill, pending in the U.S. Senate, that would grant federal recognition to Native Hawaiians.

The Kamehameha Schools were established under the 1883 will of a Hawaiian princess to educate “the children of Hawaii.” The admission policy was created to remedy the disadvantages suffered by Hawaiians after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. But the appeals court judges said they “do not read that document to require the use of race as an admissions prerequisite.”

About 5,100 Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian students from kindergarten through 12th grade attend the three campuses, which are partly funded by a trust now worth $6.2 billion. Admission is highly prized in Hawaii because of the quality of education and the relatively low cost. The case was brought by an unidentified non-Hawaiian student who was turned down for admission in 2003.

Obviously I am not a legal scholar or lawyer, but it does seem a little strange to me that (1) the Kamehameha Schools have to follow federal admissions guidelines even though they do not receive any public funding and (2) they cannot continue to operate solely for Native Hawaiians even though many girls-only schools have been judged as constitutional and legal.

I wrote earlier that there is currently a bill in Congress that will grant Native Hawaiians the same legal status and rights as Native Americans. As Hawai’i’s governor notes, this ruling underscores the need for the federal legislature to recognize the unique history and experiences of Native Hawaiians and the legality of their ethnic-specific programs.