The views and opinions expressed on this site and blog posts (excluding comments on blog posts left by others) are entirely my own and do not represent those of any employer or organization with whom I am currently or previously have been associated.
Academic Version: Applying my personal experiences and academic research as a professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies to provide a more complete understanding of political, economic, and cultural issues and current events related to American race relations, and Asia/Asian America in particular.
Plain English: Trying to put my Ph.D. to good use.
The major news media, such as CBS News, are all reporting about the Transportation Security Agency’s new airline security screening rules, which now allow knives (up to four inches long) and scissors and tools (up to seven inches long) to be carried onto airline flights. However, several groups are opposed to these changes:
Flight attendants and some lawmakers say the changes undermine security. Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., said Thursday they intend to introduce a bill to preserve the current list of items barred from the cabin. . . . “The families are outraged that the TSA is planning on letting weapons back on board,” Green said. . . .
Airlines generally support the plan. So does the pilots’ largest union, the Air Line Pilots Association, and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. . . . Bob Hesselbein, ALPA’s national security committee chairman, said pilots think it’s more important to focus on passengers’ intent rather than what they’re carrying.
I actually agree with these criticisms that it would be unwise to allow knives, scissors, and tools back onto airline flights — for safety and cultural reasons. Specifically, since these bans have been in place, airline passengers who may have had suspicions against other passengers flying with them — specifically Arab and Muslin passengers — at least could be assured that they did not have any potential weapons on them.
But with these proposed changes, my fear is that people will become even more paranoid and suspicious of Arab and Muslim passengers on their flight because they may think that they may have potential weapons on them now. In other words, I can see how these changes would ultimately lead to more racial profiling and discrimination against Arab and Muslim passengers.
In short, these proposed changes are a bad idea all the way around.
The Chicago Tribune has an article about a topic that doesn’t seem to get the amount of attention that it deserves: how the pressure to succeed and overachieve among Asian Americans (particularly young Asian American girls and women) can be overwhelming and may even result in suicide:
Those downsides can include extreme fear of failure, unpleasantly competitive natures, withdrawal from society, stress-related disorders and most sadly, Asian-American women holding the highest suicide rates in the nation among women age 15 to 24 — an American age category that holds the highest general suicide rates to begin with, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. . . .
This isn’t big news in the Asian-American community, but rather our dirty little secret. Just about everyone knows someone whose relative died mysteriously. But no one wants to talk about it. And for some who are living with the terrible shameful secret, they couldn’t talk about it even if they wanted to.
Just last month a fellow Asian journalist told me about a local Korean mother who spent an afternoon sobbing in the journalist’s car as she recounted her daughter’s suicide at an Ivy League school. No one in the community knew about it. And she was forbidden by her husband to speak of it. So for years she’s kept her daughter’s story locked up inside, just as her daughter kept her frailties locked up inside until she saw no escape from high expectations except in death.
This is a clear illustration of the flip side of the image of Asian Americans as the model minority — for those who cannot cope with the overwhelming pressures to overachieve, the consequences can indeed be quite tragic. As someone who has worked in an Asian American non-profit organization that dealt with another issues that was taboo in the Asian American community (HIV/AIDS), I can relate to the difficulties involved in trying to reach out to those who feel isolated and outcast.
As Asian Americans, we need to remember that while we rightly deserve to celebrate our individual and collective successes, we also need to understand that we are not all the same, nor should that be our goal. The fanatical drive for status, prestige, material wealth, and acceptance from “mainstream” American society has its limits, and as this article shows, is taking its toll on too many of our young members.
This issue is especially timely right now as many college students prepare for their finals. If my readers find themselves in this kind of situation — feeling overwhelmed by the pressures to succeed academically — I hope they realize that nothing is worth ending your life by suicide. The first step is to reach out to someone for help, whether it be a close friend, a trusted adult, or a counseling service.
Ultimately, I hope these students will feel comfortable in having an honest and open talk with their parents about their issues and that the parents will understand that what makes them happy is not necessarily what will make their child happy and that ultimately, parents need to let their children live their own lives, rather than trying to fulfill their parents’ dreams for them.
The Wall Street Journal has an article that describes an interesting trend: White students leaving high schools because of the increasingly prominent presence of other students of color. In the past, this usually involved an influx of low-income, educationally disadvantaged Black students. However, in this case, White students are apparently leaving high schools with excellent reputations because they feel that they can’t compete with an influx of highly-skilled and motivated Asian American students:
Over the past 10 years, the proportion of white students at Lynbrook has fallen by nearly half, to 25% of the student body. At Monta Vista, white students make up less than one-third of the population, down from 45% — this in a town that’s half white. Some white Cupertino parents are instead sending their children to private schools or moving them to other, whiter public schools.
Whites aren’t quitting the schools because the schools are failing academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they’re leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests. The two schools, put another way that parents rarely articulate so bluntly, are too Asian. . . .
The article goes on to note that many Asian American parents are upset by this trend and accuse the White parents of racial prejudice — not wanting their kids to go to school where Asians are the largest racial group. On the other hand, other Asian American parents are more sympathetic and think that the reactions of the White parents bring up some interesting points that we as Asian Americans need to think about.
First, while it’s nice to be in an environment where there are plenty of other Asians around (and even where Asians are the largest racial group), that is not an accurate reflection of the national population, where Asian Americans are still only about 5% of the total. Therefore, is it unrealistic to socialize Asian American students to think that they’re the majority when, once they enter “the real world,” they’ll eventually find out that they are still a minority group.
The second point is, trying to achieve high GPAs and SATs should only be one part of being a student. As some White parents point out in the article, the schools should also emphasize teaching humanistic subjects, social development, and other aspects of making sure that kids are well-rounded individuals, not just those who can excel at math, science, or engineering.
On this issue, I happen to side with many of the White and Asian American parents who want to expose their children to a broader, more diverse, and more inclusive educational experience, not just train them to be high-achieving scholarly robots. Academic excellence and a rich, culturally-enriching education are not mutually exclusive. With a little planning and cooperation, students from all backgrounds can benefit.
I’ve recently written about a tangible rise in tensions between China and Japan in recent years. As a Reuters article reports, adding new fuel to the fire is the upcoming release of the Hollywood blockbuster movie Memoirs of a Geisha. Based on the bestselling novel of a several years ago, the movie version stars Chinese superstar actress Ziyi Zhang in the lead role. In fact, while the story is set in Japan’s history, the movie features a predominantly Chinese cast. Inevitably, this has riled many Japanese:
The cast adds up to Asia’s A-list, with China’s Ziyi Zhang starring as Sayuri, a poor fisherman’s daughter who transforms herself into a legend of Kyoto’s mysterious entertainment world in the 1930s. The two other leading roles are played by Gong Li, also of China, and ethnic Chinese Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, with Japanese performers relegated to secondary roles.
“Memoirs,” reported to have cost its makers $85 million, can ill afford to alienate moviegoers in Japan, the second biggest market for Hollywood films. But a day ahead of the world premiere, some in Japan were wondering why homegrown talent was shut out of the leading roles in a film that celebrates Japan’s unique culture. . . .
But some have already expressed anger at what they see as a cavalier attitude to the subtleties of traditional costume and dance in a movie largely shot on a specially built set in California. “According to this film, ‘geisha’ dance in a bizarre fashion, as if they were in a Los Angeles strip show,” one Japanese film fan complained on a Web log, or blog, adding that the lights and special effects were more reminiscent of modern Las Vegas than old Kyoto.
We haven’t even gotten into how this movie will reflect on Asian Americans in general — whether or not it only reinforces stereotypes of Asian women as exotic and submissive and Asian men as evil and conniving. On top of that, it has the potential to stoke already high tensions between two of the world’s most powerful nations, China and Japan.
If the filmmakers wanted to open a big ‘ol can of worms and possibly piss a whole lot of people off, they’ve certainly succeeded with this film. I can’t wait to actually see it.
It’s no secret that China’s political leaders rule the country with an iron first and that there are no areas of Chinese life that is not directly or indirectly controlled by the communist government. However, as the New York Times reports, that may be starting to change, as a group of legal reformers aim to push China into developing an independent judiciary system, one of the basic foundations of a democratic society:
Faced with the complex demands of governing a chaotic, modernizing country, China’s leaders have embraced the rule of law as the most efficient means of regulating society. But a central requirement in fulfilling that promise lies unresolved – whether the governing Communist Party intends to allow an independent judiciary.
Today, China’s court system is far from an independent entity that can curb government power. Often, the courts remain a pliable tool to reinforce that power. Many judges are poorly educated in the law and corrupt. Judges often must answer to government officials as much as to the law. Political pressure is common, and private trial committees often dictate rulings.
There are also signs of change. One of the busiest courts in Beijing announced in November that it would stop punishing judges if a ruling was later deemed politically or legally “wrong.” A budding idealism about the law, and its potential to transform Chinese society, is evident not only in the number of new lawyers but also in the emerging civic belief that ordinary people have “legal rights.”
The 2003 ruling by Judge Li [where she declared a provincial law invalid] has become, quite unexpectedly, a landmark case for the evolving Chinese legal system. Her plight exposed the limits on judicial autonomy in China and the political retribution faced by judges. But it also revealed the rising influence of legal reformers. Scholars and lawyers rallied to Judge Li’s defense and embraced her ruling as a test case, if an accidental one, for a more autonomous court system.
If nothing else, this discussion about even the possibility of an independent judiciary in China is a step forward for a regime that is notorious for being repressive and totalitarian. But with all other “possibilities,” actions will speak louder than words.
In the past, we’ve seen how hardline political leaders can react when faced with a burgeoning democracy movement. Will the same reactionary response happen again as China creeps along on the road toward being more transparent and allowing more democracy every so slightly? Stay tuned . . .
As Reuters reports, the citizens of Bosnia (formerly part of Yugoslavia and the epicenter of one of the worst inter-ethnic wars of the 20th century), have just erected a life-size statue of Bruce Lee in their city Mostar as a symbol of unity and ethnic harmony:
“This does not mean that Bruce Lee will unite us, because people are different and cannot be united and we will always be Muslims, Serbs or Croats,” [project initiator Veselin] Gatalo said. “But one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee.” Gatalo has said Lee — a hero to teenagers all over Bosnia in the 1970s and 1980s — epitomized justice, mastery and honesty, virtues the town had badly missed. The statue shows Lee facing north, so that Muslims in the eastern part of Mostar and Croats in its western half do not see him as poised for a fight with them.
Very cool. As one of millions of Bruce Lee fans, I can attest to his legacy of fighting racism and injustice to forge a new path for Asian in American society. His fame and continuing popularity in Asia is certainly well-known, but apparently, they extend to many other non-Asian countries as well. Bruce Lee truly is The Man, The Myth, The Legend.
