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.
As I and many other scholars have written, Asian Americans are frequently portrayed as the “model minority” — a group of Americans who have worked to overcome difficulties in our way in order to achieve socioeconomic success, who have quietly persevered to get ahead in American society rather than resorting to political confrontation, and therefore, stand as examples for other racial minority groups to follow and emulate. As I’ve also summarized in my linked article above, there are numerous problems with this characterization, such as the blanket assumption that all Asian Americans are successful and no longer experience any form of racial discrimination.
But what about the assertion within this model minority image that Asian Americans have worked extremely hard to achieve success? Isn’t that true?
The short answer is, of course. Throughout this site and blog, I’ve described the various ways in which Asian Americans (individually and collectively) have indeed used hard work, patience, and determination to overcome various barriers in our way in order to achieve our goals in various pursuits of life and professional fields, such as political power, education and academics, professional sports, high-tech entrepreneurship, the entertainment industry, and corporate leadership, to name just a few examples. With this in mind, Asian Americans should absolutely be recognized and congratulated for our hard work.
One large study followed a group of Chinese-Americans who initially did slightly worse on the verbal portion of I.Q. tests than other Americans and the same on math portions. But beginning in grade school, the Chinese outperformed their peers, apparently because they worked harder. The Chinese-Americans were only half as likely as other children to repeat a grade in school, and by high school they were doing much better than European-Americans with the same I.Q. . . .
A common thread among these three groups may be an emphasis on diligence or education, perhaps linked in part to an immigrant drive. Jews and Chinese have a particularly strong tradition of respect for scholarship . . . the larger lesson is a very empowering one: success depends less on intellectual endowment than on perseverance and drive.
Having said that, we also need to recognize that the dynamics of political, economic, and cultural success are more complicated than just hard work. First, Asian Americans benefit in many ways from our“honorary White” status. This refers to how Asian Americans are situated below Whites in the U.S.’s racial hierarchy and that based on our levels of socioeconomic success — and to put it bluntly, our relatively light-colored skin — are slightly more socially accepted from the White majority than other (darker skinned) racial minorities such as Blacks and many Latinos. This idea is similar to the “middleman minority” theory that Asian Americans serve as a buffer zone that insulates the White majority from Blacks and Latinos.
The take-home message is that, by all means we should celebrate and encourage the hard work within the Asian American community that has resulted in many forms of success and accomplishment. We as Asian Americans should rightfully feel proud and inspired by all the historical and contemporary examples in which we’ve used our individual and collective resources and determination to overcome the barriers in our way on the road to achieving our goals.
At the same time, we also need to understand that not all racial/ethnic groups have the same circumstances and that these historical and contemporary characteristics lead to different challenges that each group faces. Secondly, the push for hard work can and has gone too far at times and when it does, can lead to disastrous consequences.
In the end, I hope that just as many of our cultural traditions teach us, Asian Americans should strive to achieve balance with these different elements of determination and reflexivity in our lives.
Here are some more announcements and links out that have come my way relating to Asians or Asian Americans. As always, links to other sites are provided for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply an endorsement of their contents:
UCLA Releases First High School Textbook on Asian Americans: Untold Civil Rights Stories
Representing more than 15 million Asian Americans in the United States, “Untold Civil Rights Stories” is the first book created for high school and freshmen college students to learn and discuss the social struggles Asian Americans have faced both before and after Sept. 11, 2001. “Untold Civil Rights Stories” is co-edited by UCLA Asian American Studies adjunct professor Russell C. Leong, and Asian Pacific American Legal Center President & Executive Director Stewart Kwoh.
According to editors Leong and Kwoh: “Asian Americans are part of the untold story of America’s continuing civil rights, labor and human rights struggles. For decades, Asian Americans, together with African Americans and others, have fought discriminatory laws around segregation, citizenship and marriage; have helped organize farm workers with Cesar Chavez; and spoken out for the rights of American veterans and other groups.
Ten fully illustrated chapters of “Untold Civil Rights Stories” each come with an extensive lesson plan and historical timeline, together with rare newspaper and personal photos. Long-time multicultural curriculum consultant for Los Angeles Unified Schools Esther R. Taira provided lesson plans and a timeline for the book.
The chapters include:
* Oral history accounts by Thai and Latino sweatshop garment workers
* Philip Vera Cruz and the United Farm Workers Movement
* American families (Joseph Ileto family, and Lily Chin) organizing against hate crimes
* Breaking the color line in the movies and in the media (actor BeUlah Ong Kwoh, and journalist K.W. Lee);
* Fighting for constitutional rights (Fred Korematsu, and Faustino Peping Baclig)
* Americans after 9/11: unpopular immigrants; citizen rights and Amric Singh Rathour
* Student viewpoints, lesson plans, and timeline
Among the surprising stories and photos you’ll find within the book are: Korean American journalist K.W. Lee living and reporting on poor whites in Appalachia, Filipino American Philip Vera Cruz working hand-in-hand with Cesar Chavez to organize farmworkers, a born-in-New York Sikh policeman organizing for his rights, and the late veteran actress Beulah Kwoh organizing actors across racial lines.
Call for Support: Japanese American Veterans
The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) has received this request from the Japanese American Veterans Association (JAVA) for assistance in contacting your senators. Your help will be greatly appreciated.
Subject: Congressional Gold Medal
Folks, we surely can use your help to contact senators from your state and also other states, except Hawaii, to request them to cosponsor a Senate Bill known as S. 1055. This Bill will authorize the conferring of the Congressional Gold Medal to honor Japanese American WW II veterans. To obtain their names and contact information please go to website: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state.
It would be appreciated if you can put this request on your PRIORITY list of things to do. Please send this message to your friends to request their assistance.
When you call or send emails to their offices, say something along the following lines: “I am contacting you to ask Senator ___ to cosponsor S. 1055, a bill that would grant the Congressional Gold Medal to the Japanese-American 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the U.S. Army in recognition of their dedicated service during World War II. We feel that it is important to recognize and honor these brave soldiers with a Congressional Gold Medal for their heroic contributions in defense of the United States and we hope we can count on the Senator’s support.”
Senator Boxer has issued the following press release concerning the Congressional Gold Medal to honor Japanese American WW II veterans.
Thursday, May 14, 2009: Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today introduced legislation to grant the Congressional Gold Medal to the Japanese-American 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the U.S. Army in recognition of their dedicated service during World War II. Senators Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) have signed on as original cosponsors of the measure. Companion legislation introduced by Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) passed today by a vote of 411 to 0 in the House of Representatives.
Senator Boxer said, “I am so pleased to introduce this long overdue legislation to honor the brave members of the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team with a Congressional Gold Medal. These noble Japanese-Americans enlisted in the army and bravely fought for their country while many of their family and friends were being sent to internment camps. These soldiers made a bold and honorable sacrifice and should be recognized for their patriotism.”
These military units, which are also known as the “Go For Broke” regiment, earned several awards for their distinctive service in combat, including: 7 Presidential Unit Citations, 21 Medals of Honor, 29 Distinguished Service Crosses, 560 Silver Stars, 22 Legion of Merit Medals, 15 Soldier’s Medals, 4,000 Bronze Stars and over 4,000 Purple Hearts, among numerous additional distinctions.
Thank you for your help. If you have any questions, please contact Terry Shima (301-987-6746)
Teaching in China Fellowships
The Overseas Young Chinese Forum (“OYCF”), a non-profit organization based in the United States, is pleased to announce that it is now accepting applications for its Teaching Fellowships, which sponsor short term teaching trips by overseas scholars or professionals (Chinese or non-Chinese) to universities or other comparable advanced educational institutions in China. The subjects of teaching include all fields of humanities and social sciences, such as anthropology, art, communication, economics, education, geography, international studies, law, literature, philosophy, political science, sociology,
etc.
Despite the economic downturn, the Ford Foundation just confirmed its financial support for this program for four more years. Combining this with another generous source of funding, the Gregory C. and Paula K. Chow OYCF Endowment Fund, the OYCF will grant 13 fellowship awards to support short term teaching trips during the Academic Year of 2009-10, including five (5) OYCF-Ford fellowships in the amount of $2,500 each and eight (8) OYCF-Gregory C. and Paula K. Chow fellowships in the amount of $2,000 each. The application deadline is August 15, 2009. Awards will be announced on September 15, 2009.
If you have a Ph.D., J.D., J.S.D. or a comparable graduate degree from, or is currently an advanced doctoral candidate (having passed the Ph.D. qualification examination and finished at least three years of graduate studies) in a university in North America or other areas outside China, and are interested in teaching a covered subject in a college or graduate school in Mainland China, please find the Information and Application Procedures for the OYCF Teaching
Fellowships on line at http://www.oycf.org/Teach/application.DOC. As noted therein, preference will be given to teaching proposals that include comparative or interdisciplinary perspectives; are about subjects that China is in relative shortage of teachers; or will be conducted at universities in
inland provinces and regions.
We encourage teaching fellows to go to China’s central and western regions. This year, we dedicate at least 1-2 fellowships as the Central or Western Region Teaching Fellowships to teaching fellows who plan to teach in an inland province or autonomous region. Accordingly, teaching proposals specifically designed for teaching in these regions are especially welcome. We also give preference to advanced Ph.D. student applicants who would combine this teaching opportunity with their dissertation research in China.
To submit your application, you will need an application form, a brief letter of interest, curriculum vitae or resume, a detailed course syllabus, an invitation letter from your host institution in China. Detailed instruction and application form can be found at the above web link. For more information about OYCF or its teaching program, please visit http://www.oycf.org. For questions concerning OYCF Teaching Fellowships or their application process, please contact Hui Zheng at huizhenghome@gmail.com.
In a recent post titled “The Degrees of Immigrant Bashing,” I described various ways in which the recession has led to increased anti-immigrant hostility, leading to blatantly offensive comments from public officials, acts of violence and hate crimes, and misguided federal regulations. As a follow up, blogger Michelle Waslin at Immigration Impact writes that, perhaps ironically, the recession seems to have resulted in fewer anti-immigrant proposals and legislation being passed this year at the local and state levels:
According to the Progressive States Network (PSN), budget deficits have meant that states are unwilling to pass legislation with a cost attached. Immigration is less of a wedge issue in 2009—that is, politicians seem less willing to push anti-immigrant platforms because candidates who did so in the 2008 elections lost.
PSN also reports that anti-immigrant legislators have been marginalized in 2009. Bills introduced by Texas State Rep. Leo Berman, a notorious anti-immigrant voice, got no traction, even from within his own party. No votes were taken on any of his 9 anti-immigrant bills. In Arizona, State Senator Russell Pearce has had little success with his anti-immigrant agenda this year. An Arizona Republic editorial criticized Pearce for devoting time and energy to immigrant-bashing instead of doing the real work that needs to be done on the state budget. Even Prince William County, Virginia Executive Corey Stewart—well known for his anti-immigrant rhetoric—has backed down, acknowledging that problems other than immigration deserve more attention. . . .
It is clear that vehement anti-immigrant legislation is not as fashionable as in past years. These measures have proven to be too expensive and ineffective, Americans care more about real solutions than scapegoating and rhetoric, and anti-immigrant politicians have not been successful on election day.
It’s encouraging to see that most politicians (apparently on both sides of the ideological divide) recognize that indeed, there are many more important issues these days than demonizing and dehumanizing immigrants, legal and undocumented. I also believe that many of them also understand that in this current recession, immigrants — again legal or undocumented — can make significant contributions to the American economy if given the chance.
That is, while many immigrants are disproportionately affected by these tough economic times, if they’re allowed to stay in the U.S., many are more than willing spend their income to help support local businesses, pay federal income and social security taxes, and state sales and gas taxes, to name just a few examples. This is especially true in immigrant-heavy states and cities such as California and Texas, that are being hit especially hard during the recession.
In other words, at a time when our country is struggling, we need everybody to pitch in and help out, regardless of their race, ethnicity, skin color, or immigrant status.
You might be interested to read the following posts from June of years past:
2008: Disneyland: A Metaphor for Fitting In A family outing to Disneyland highlights some of the issues that Asian Americans face when it comes to whether or not we’re part of the American mainstream.
2007: Eating Disorders Among Asian Americans Examining the pressures faced by Asian American women to look ‘western’ and how globalization might affect these trends in the 21st century.
2005: 49ers Video Promotes Anti-Asian Stereotypes Analyzing the controversy over a comedy skit produced by the San Francisco 49ers professional football team that many Asian Americans have criticized as racist.
It’s a well known and documented fact that in almost all Asian cultures, boys are systematically valued more than girls. Based on centuries of institutionalized patriarchy and traditional cultural practices, most Asian families would rather have children who are boys than girls. This gender bias is one of the reasons why an overwhelming majority of children given up for adoption in Asian countries are girls. This bias has also led to growing gender imbalances in many Asian countries, with some analysts predicting that such a gender imbalance may evolve into a threat to national security as this overpopulation of males become adults.
Here in the U.S., we might think that things are different among Asian Americans. That is, being a part of American society and within its social norms of gender equality, Asian Americans would have more “modern” views about the value of boys and girls so that there would not be any kind of systematic preference of one gender over another when it comes to our children. However, as the New York Times reports, recent Census data shows that at least among Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans, there is a notable gender imbalance among their children in which boys are much more common than girls:
In general, more boys than girls are born in the United States, by a ratio of 1.05 to 1. But among American families of Chinese, Korean and Indian descent, the likelihood of having a boy increased to 1.17 to 1 if the first child was a girl, according to the Columbia economists. If the first two children were girls, the ratio for a third child was 1.51 to 1 — or about 50 percent greater — in favor of boys. . . .
Demographers say the statistical deviation among Asian-American families is significant, and they believe it reflects not only a preference for male children, but a growing tendency for these families to embrace sex-selection techniques, like in vitro fertilization and sperm sorting, or abortion. . . .
Dr. Norbert Gleicher, medical director of the Center for Human Reproduction, a fertility and sex-selection clinic in New York and Chicago, said that from his experience, people were more inclined to want female children, except for Asians and Middle Easterners. . . . The Fertility Institutes, which does not offer abortions, has unabashedly advertised its services in Indian- and Chinese-language newspapers in the United States. . . .
Efforts by clinics to appeal to Indian families in the United States provoked criticism and some community introspection in 2001. Some newspapers and magazines that ran advertisements promoting the clinics, which offered sex-selection procedures, expressed regret at the perpetuation of what critics regard as a misogynistic practice.
This emerging gender imbalance and “son-biased” sex ratio (illustrated in the accompanying New York Times graphic on the right) seems to reflect one fundamental point — that many Asian Americans still have very direct and strong family and cultural connections to their ancestral country. These traditional cultural ties can manifest themselves directly in the form of Asian immigrants still having the “son is superior” mentality that leads them to favor having boys more than girls.
Or, as the New York Times article also mentions, the other way that these traditional cultural ties become exemplified can be that even younger Asian American immigrant couples accept the U.S.’s norms of gender equality, various pressures from family, relatives, or friends in their ancestral Asian country lead them to favor boys over girls. As one example of this, perhaps couples in this situation have parents in the home country who will only give inheritance to male descendants and not female ones.
Ultimately, these demographic patterns (at least among Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans) show us that the connections between Asia and America run deeper than just geographic distance.
That said, we should also recognize that this article and research studies that provide the basis of these demographic trends all note that these findings seem to be limited to Asian immigrant couples in which both spouses are foreign-born. In other words, there does not seem to be any data or evidence that this trend exists among Asian American couples in which both spouses are U.S.-born.
This last point goes to show just how powerful a force American assimilation is in the lives of most Asian Americans.
Racial hatred and the extremist ideas behind White supremacy are not new. As my friend and fellow sociologist Rory McVeigh writes in his new book The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan: Right-Wing Movements and National Politics, hate groups come in all forms, sizes, and levels of formal organization and have played a role in American race relations for over a century.
However, with the election of Barack Obama as our first non-White President, the current recession and economic insecurities confronting many Americans who had been comfortably middle-class up to this point, and the continuing uncertainty of institutional trends such as globalization and demographic population changes, many Whites understandably feel a little destabilized these days.
It is within this context that many Whites see an opportunity to rail against what they perceive to be the “invasion” or “taking over” of their country by those who are different from them — immigrants and non-Whites. Most recently, this has taken the form of post-election racial incidents and of subtle and non-so-subtle forms of immigrant bashing.
But as many sociologists such as my blogging colleague Jessie at Racism Review and other observers point out, this upsurge in racial intolerance is different because with the advent of internet technology and the proliferation of social networking websites, the message of White supremacy is being broadcast much more widely to a growing audience of White Americans feeling destabilized. The following video report from ABC News last year summarizes this emerging trend (about 3 minutes long):
A recent MSNBC article goes into more detail about this trend of racial/religious extremists using internet and social networking websites to spread their message of intolerance:
Militants and hate groups increasingly use social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube as propaganda tools to recruit new members, according to a report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The report released on Wednesday noted a 25 percent rise in the past year in the number of “problematic” social networking groups on the Internet. . . .
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the center, said Facebook recently removed several Holocaust denial sites, including one that featured a cartoon of Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank, whose diary written in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam is among the best known stories of the Holocaust. . . . He pointed out a YouTube user whose racist content has caused his postings on the site to be taken down repeatedly, but he simply creates a new user profile, or channel, and posts the material again.
Extremist groups are also setting up their own social networking sites, the report said, picking out one called “New Saxon,” described as “a Social Networking site for people of European descent” produced by an American Neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Movement. Other groups have created online games such as one created by an Iranian organization and called “Special Operation 85 — Hostage Rescue,” and one called “Border Patrol” in which the player has to shoot Mexicans, including women and children, as they try to come over the border into the United States.
I’m not here to say that we should ban or further restrict such websites or other forms of internet, communication, or media technology just because they allow people to spread messages of hate and intolerance more easily than would otherwise be possible (although I urge the administrators of such sites and internet services to take quick and decisive action to remove such blatantly offensive material, as per their stated policies). In other words, the technology itself is not to blame — it’s how technology is used.
With that in mind, I hope that those of us who oppose such racial and religious intolerance will make full use of such websites and technologies to counteract messages of hate with our own messages of understanding, tolerance, acceptance, and peace. This very site is my own attempt to do just that and thankfully, there are plenty of other sites and efforts toward promoting greater racial diversity and respect as well.
In fact, a homemade furniture commercial hosted on YouTube that has apparently become an internet sensation shows us that racial tolerance and capitalism can coexist together and that yes, it is possible for all of us to “just get along”:
Here are some more links out that have come my way relating to Asians or Asian Americans. As always, links to other sites are provided for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply an endorsement of their contents:
Photographic Exhibition: commUNITY
In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, photographer William L. Snyder and the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette are collaborating to present “commUNITYâ€, a provocative photographic exhibition that documents the realities and experiences of Asian Americans who live, work, and go to school in Greater Lafayette.
Through black and white portraits accompanied by brief personal narratives, “commUNITY†investigates the notion of cultural and geographic communities and explores individual identity by deconstructing social, racial, and cultural constructs. What began as a conversation between Snyder and his producer Kate Van Oosten, became an artistic odyssey that materialized into an exhibition celebrating two subjects that the two are extremely passionate about: photography and Asian American identity.
Serving as an artistic platform to dispel disempowering stereotypes and expose the reality of the Asian American population who live in the community, the exhibition features the photographs and statements of 30 anonymous volunteers whose age ranges from 18 years old to 61 years old. They were also asked to respond to four questions addressing issues relevant to Asian American identity.
Curated by Snyder and Van Oosten, “commUNITY†aims to educate the public by exposing the fluidity of social identity and promoting awareness and recognition of the Asian American population in the community. The exhibit is supported in part by the Asian American Network of Indiana, the Council on Asian American Studies, and Color Tech.
Coinciding with the opening of the “The Artists of Ivy Tech: New Vistas†exhibition, the opening reception will take place May 22 from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Shook Gallery at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette. The exhibit is on display from May 22 through June 20 at the Art Museum located at 102 South Tenth Street. A virtual exhibition of “commUNITY†will go live on Snyder’s web site williamLsnyder.com that will coincide with the museum opening. The online exhibition will feature additional volunteers whose profiles are not displayed in the museum exhibition.
Call for Submissions: APAture Festival
Kearny Street Workshop, the oldest Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary organization in the United States, is now accepting submissions for the 11th annual APAture festival of emerging Asian American artists. Each September, APAture showcases about 100 artists at venues throughout San Francisco, making it the Bay Area’s biggest platform for Asian American art.
We are accepting submissions in five disciplines: visual arts, film & video, music, literary arts and performing arts. The deadline to submit is July 11, 2009.
Go to kearnystreet.org/apature for more info and to apply online! Questions? Contact apature@kearnystreet.org.
As history records it, for two months leading up to this week, thousands of young Chinese college students and their supporters camped out in Tiananmen Square publicly advocating for greater political freedom and rights before the Chinese authorities, led by Deng Ziaping and Li Peng, ordered the army to crush the “rebellion” in the early hours of June 4, 1989. An estimated 2,000 Chinese died in the crackdown.
CBS New’s news-magazine show Sunday Morning recently did a segment on the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square and examined what led to the protests, how it ended, and the modern legacy of the events of 20 years ago (about 6 minutes long):
The take-home message is that 20 years after turning on their own citizens, China’s leaders have implemented many of the students’ original demands and have eased up on their control over the lives of ordinary citizens. Unfortunately, the changes that have taken place do not include greater political democracy nor many of the freedoms that we in the U.S. take for granted, such as freedom of the press.
Instead, the changes since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests have steered Chinese toward a greater sense of nationalism (reaching a fever pitch at times) poised to rail against anything perceived to be anti-Chinese, an almost obsessive drive to make money and become rich (frequently at the expense of consumer safety), and perhaps most important, unquestioned acceptance of the communist regime’s authority and power.
In other words, the goals of the Tiananmen Square student protesters 20 years ago still remain largely unfulfilled and their efforts towards modernizing China toward a more democratic and humane society are still ongoing.
