As many news organizations are reporting, including CNN.com, George Takei -- Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek TV series on the late 1960s and a beloved icon of Asian American entertainment, has just publicly announced that he is gay:

Takei told The Associated Press on Thursday that his new onstage role as psychologist Martin Dysart in “Equus,” helped inspire him to publicly discuss his sexuality. Takei described the character as a “very contained but turbulently frustrated man.”

“The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay,” he said. “The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young.” The 68-year-old actor said he and his partner, Brad Altman, have been together for 18 years.

Takei, a Japanese-American who lived in a U.S. internment camp from age 4 to 8, said he grew up feeling ashamed of his ethnicity and sexuality. He likened prejudice against gays to racial segregation.

I commend George for his courage in going public with his identity as a gay man. I had a very opinion of him before and this “news” hasn’t done anything to change that. If anything, I have even more admiration for him now that he has found the courage to come out of the closet and proudly proclaim his identity and solidarity with the Asian American GLBT community.

You’re still an inspiration to many of us, George.

The NBC affiliate in Philadelphia reports that several Chinese-owned small businesses around the city have recently received racist hate letters that threaten physical violence against them. The letters indicate that they were sent by the White supremacist group Aryan Nation:

Disturbing hate letters and threats have left some Asian market owners rattled, prompting an investigation by Philadelphia police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The letters threatened the rape of Asian women and the bombing of Asian businesses. “The author of this letter indicates that they are from the Aryan Nation and that these people are basically being targeted because of their ethnicity,” said Philadelphia Police Inspector Bill Colarulo.

[Community activist Ken] Wong said that the disturbing letters were also sent with graphic pictures. “There are photographs of Asian bodies, so it’s pretty shocking,” Wong said. . . . Conmmunity activists in Philadelphia said that since the police have taken possession of the three letters, three or four other business owners said they had received similar letters.

It is truly sad to see that there are still elements of American society that not only detest racial/ethnic diversity in the U.S. but apparently are willing to use intimidation, violence, and potentially murder to express their intolerance. It just goes to show that racism is still alive and well in the U.S.

If you would like to sign an online petition urging city and state government officials to take all measures necessary to address this blatant episode of racism, go to http://www.petitiononline.com/phillyhc/.

Newsday reports that graduate students leaders at Yale University charge that the school routinely discriminates against Chinese students and subjects them to unfair requirements and harsher standards of performance:

“Year after year, Chinese graduate students in engineering face expulsion and are called upon to defend their academic standing,” Cong Huang, president of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars at Yale, wrote in a letter to Yale administrators. “We have no hard data, but know for sure that every year someone fights a very trying and high-stakes battle.

“There are no different standards for different groups of students,” he said. . . . Xuemei Han, who works and studies in the ecology and evolutionary biology department, said administrators told her they were stripping her of funding and she must leave the university at the end of the year because she is not in good academic standing. Han said she passed all her exams and requirements.

Han also said a professor told her it would be too much work to advise a Chinese student because of language difficulties. “I believe I’m doing good work,” said Han, whose case is at the center of the complaint. “My department has tried very hard to push me out. It’s extremely unfair and unreasonable.”

At this point, we should understand that these are just allegations. However, if they are true, it would not be the first time that foreign students (particularly from Asian countries) were treated with disdain, as if they were disposable in the eyes of some faculty members.

Apparently, there is still an ingrained belief among professors and university officials that foreign Asian students are more exploitable than your garden-variety American student because they are less likely to fight back against their unequal treatment, in line with the stereotype of Asians being quiet and passive.

Is this what’s happening at Yale? We’ll have to wait and see.

As virtually all news organizations such as CBS News are reporting, Rosa Parks passed away last night at the age of 92. I’m sure you know that Rosa Parks became an iconic figure of the Civil Rights Movement when she refused to give up her seat to a White man in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955.

Her courage, bravery, and determination to stand up for herself and her community eventually led to the monumental Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956 and was one of the first major acts of defiance and public disobedience of the Civil Rights Movement. As Jesse Jackson eloquently commented:

We are saddened by the passing of Rosa Parks. We rejoice in her legacy, which will never die. In many ways, history is marked as before, and after, Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down. Paradoxically, her imprisonment opened the doors to our long journey to freedom. These three giants, Rosa Parks, Dr. King and Mandela - without bombs, bullets or wealth - have shown the awesome power of right over might in history’s long journey toward peace and freedom.

Ms. Parks was one of the first people I considered to be a role model and true pioneer of strength and social justice. She is not only a personal inspiration to me but I think the entire Asian American population owes her (and others of course) a debt of gratitude and reverence. She showed that the actions of one person can have far-ranging consequences for an entire country.

Not only that, but she also showed that a woman can be just as courageous and determined to fight for the dignity of herself and her community just as much as men. In a time when women were routinely considered subordinate and inferior to men, Ms. Parks fought and contributed to two separate wars -- one for racial/ethnic justice and equality and one for gender equality.

She is truly one of the most remarkable figures of American history -- a humble but incredibly powerful inspiration to millions of people today, and into the future. Thank you Ms. Parks, and may you rest in peace.

The Christian Science Monitor (which is an independent, non-religious journalism organization despite its name) has a very interesting article that describes the results of a multi-year survey of college freshmen nationwide on how religious they are. The results generally show that based on their measures, Asian American students are the least religious of all the major racial groups:

Some of the biggest differences in the study emerge in the following categories:

“Religious commitment” (following religious teachings in everyday life and gaining strength by trusting in a higher power): Forty-seven percent of African-Americans scored high on this scale, compared with 25 percent of whites, 23 percent of Latinos, and 22 percent of Asian Americans.

“Spiritual quest” (interest in finding answers to the mysteries of life and developing a meaningful philosophy of life): African-Americans scored the highest on this (36 percent), with other groups ranging from 23 to 34 percent.

Most interesting. My slightly educated guess is that Asian American students tend to be more focused on academic performance, rather than religious or spiritual activities. This is not to say that it is either good or bad, but the results are quite interesting.

Many of you know that in the Gulf Coast, particular around the Houston and New Orleans metropolitan areas, there are numbers of Vietnamese Americans, many of whom work in the fishing and shrimping industries (continuing their long legacy of working in those trades from back in Viet Nam). Not surprisingly, many had their livelihoods devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Houston Chronicle describes their current situation:

As Port Arthur’s Vietnamese residents come back to clean up after Rita, some worry the storm may have dealt their community a devastating blow. Local Vietnamese have always depended on shrimping, an industry that was in decline long before the storm wrecked a few boats and drove up fuel costs for those that remain. “Even before the storm, business was down, down, down every year,” said Nick Tran, the owner of Nick’s Market, a Vietnamese grocery on 9th Avenue, the traditional business area for local Vietnamese. . . .

Some locals say the devastation from Rita might not have been as bad as first thought, even to the shrimping industry. JBS Packing Inc., the major shrimp processing plant in Port Arthur, escaped without significant damage. Many Vietnamese work at the plant. . . .{Owner Jack] Hemmenway estimated that “eight to 10″ of the shrimp boats in the Port Arthur fleet were damaged, out of a total of about 150 boats.

But the rising price of fuel in the past year, combined with the plummeting price for shrimp, had already hurt the industry. . . . Without shrimping, it’s not clear what will keep the Vietnamese in Port Arthur. “People my age go to school in Houston or Dallas and don’t come back,” said Jim Pham, a University of Houston student who came back after the storm to help his parents clean up their Port Arthur home. “Other than shrimping, there’s not a lot to do here.”

It’s unfortunate that the mainstream media did not cover the plight of the Vietnamese Americans in the Gulf Coast even a fraction of the time they devoted to other groups caught in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita. It is especially unfortunate that Vietnamese Americans are the one group that sought to revitalize communities and businesses in areas such as Port Arthur but are now being left on their own.

But as the article notes in the end, Vietnamese are legendary for facing adversity and rebuilding their lives, whether that was when they were in Viet Nam or fleeing the country at the end of the Viet Nam War. Unfortunately it looks like they will have to do it once again.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a fan and frequent visitor to Angry Asian Man, a website/blog maintained by Korean American Phil Yu, who posts about news items, current events, and cultural/media examples that relate to Asian Americans and more specifically, to how they affect our image in society. Phil’s site is already pretty popular but he has apparently hit the mainstream, now that he’s being profiled by the Washington Post:

The refrain “That’s racist!” also appears regularly -- sometimes half-jokingly, oftentimes not, when Yu stumbles upon what he views as stereotypical depictions of Asian Americans. But no, he’s not actually that angry. He’s just like a lot of other bloggers in the URL-littered landscape, a man who has something to say that he thinks other people aren’t saying. Latinos have a right to be angry, blacks have a right to be angry -- why can’t Asians be angry, too?

“I wanted to play with this idea of being ‘angry,’ to take on this persona of an Angry Asian Man, because we as Asians are not usually seen as an angry, militant, conscious group,” Yu, a graduate student in the University of Southern California’s cinema and television school, says by phone from his home in west Los Angeles. “That’s the stereotype that’s been attributed to us -- you know, the model minority -- so much so that we start to believe it ourselves.”

Keep up the great work, Phil, and keep being angry!

The New York Post has an article profiling a new restaurant in New York City whose claim to “uniqueness” is that it is centered around a ninja theme and where the wait staff dress and act like ninjas:

With some 3,800 new food- service establishments bombarding New York yearly (and about the same number closing), a restaurant has to do something to grab the spotlight, whether it’s providing a Ninja waiter or a chair for a teddy bear. . . . From the cuisine that gave us tableside theatrics and conveyor-belt sushi comes Ninja, a Japanese import new to TriBeCa, with waiters who dress and act like Ninjas. Or at least they’re trying to.

The “magic” bridge its publicists promised would “descend across a fog-covered river leading guests to their tables” wasn’t working last weekend. Nor did Ninja warriors “spring up from hidden corners to surprise guests,” which may have saved unsuspecting diners from spewing their sake. . . . Kinks aside, Ninja is undeniably unique.

The dimly lit labyrinth of stone-and-wood passages with private dining alcoves set behind dark lattice doors must be the only place in town where a server genuflects before your table. There’s also enough head-bowing to please the pickiest emperor, and enough piped-in sounds of trickling water to inspire a trip to the loo - to which a Ninja merrily leads the way in crouching, spinning spurts.

Apparently, some elements of American society are so desparate to be different that they will recycle just about any cultural image available, if they think it will lead to profits. As I’ve said before, this sort of “Asianization” can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it does attest to the popularity of Asian culture and forms of Asian tradition.

On the other hand, if it is not done right, it can easily reinforce and perpetuate age-old cultural stereotypes and lead to intense protests from the Asian American community. A perfect example were those stupid t-shirts formerly sold by Abercrombie & Fitch that supposedly had “cute” Asian-themed sayings like “Asian Laundry Shop: Two Wongs Make it White.”

Another goliath-sized mainstream attempt to cash in on the “Asian mystique” is the impending release of Steven Spielberg’s movie Memoirs of a Geisha. We’ll have to wait and see how that one turns out . . .