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.
For several years now, many hospitals, police stations, and other public facilities around the country have programs (Massachusett’s is called the “Safe Baby Haven“) where anyone can leave a newborn baby for someone else to adopt, no questions asked. The argument is that it’s better to give desperate mothers (and fathers) the option of giving their baby up for adoption anonymously rather than abandoning them to die. In Japan, a similar program exists, informally called the “baby box”:
Japan has also set up “public cradles against abortionâ€. Following India, which last week launched a “cradles scheme†against abortions and foeticide of girls, the Japanese Health Minister approved a decision taken by a hospital in Kumamoto to have a “baby box†for the public. Hospital officials said the box was intended to ensure absolute privacy for those parents who wanted to abandon their newly born babies. . . .
According to officials of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the proposal “does not violate any law but should be supported because it protects the safety of unwanted babies.†Clearly, they added, from a legal point of view, the hospital would have to answer for the safety of the children. All the same, “the government will do everything possible to help through adoption and tax reduction campaignsâ€.
Supporters of such programs also argue that such “baby boxes” or “safe baby havens” eliminate the need for abortions, since parents can now just give up their child anonymously. Personally, I don’t think that it needs to be an either-or proposition — women should still have the right to an abortion within current medical guidelines (i.e., before their third trimester) while such “baby boxes” can still be available to parents who need to use them.
In other words, I believe that regardless of what country you’re in, more choices are always better than fewer choices.
As Spring Training gets into ‘full swing,’, you’re probably familiar with a few of the more notable Japanese players who have achieved some success in Major League Baseball, such as Hideo Nomo, Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, etc. This year, several more Japanese players are set to join their ranks and with them, as the New York Times reports, are their interpreters who help to make their transition to America as smooth as possible, on and off the field:
As the internationalization of Major League Baseball continues and more Japanese players come here to play, teams have increasingly been hiring interpreters to help ease their transition. Unlike Latin American players, who can usually find teammates, coaches and club officials who speak Spanish, Japanese players rarely have that option.
In this evolving aspect of the game, the interpreters are becoming a more visible presence in the daily routines of numerous teams. General managers say they want the players who are acclimating to the United States to feel as comfortable as possible. Coaches say they want to know their instructions are being understood. And the players, who have achieved success in Japan and are expected to produce instantly here, want to express themselves, too. . . .
Some perform the tasks of a personal assistant, too. Cashman said that players who could not read or speak English needed help with routine tasks like acquiring a driver’s license, renting an apartment and opening a bank account. The Yankees give interpreters a job description, and it includes some off-the-field responsibilities.
“You can’t say you’re only going to help him within the confines of the stadium and then leave him alone,” said Roger Kahlon, who has interpreted for Yankees left fielder Hideki Matsui since 2003. As Cashman said: “It’s not just translating. It’s assimilating them into the new culture.”
I applaud teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mariners, etc. who have accepted that it is in everyone’s interests to spend a little more money and have full-time interpreters to help their Japanese players play well and adjust well to their new surroundings.
Now just imagine how nice it would be and how much better America would operate if all immigrants — ordinary, everyday immigrants, not just superstar athletes — who needed this kind of help actually received it.
Did you have a happy Lunar/Chinese New Year celebration a few weeks ago? Chances are that you did if you were in Las Vegas because as the New York Times reports, Las Vegas has been pulling out all the stops to incorporate the Lunar/Chinese New Year into its attractions, with the goal of attracting high-spending, big-roller Asian and Asian American gamblers:
“This is a Las Vegas version of Chinese New Year,†Mr. Zhu said. “It’s its own thing, but we love it.†So do casino executives. Chinese New Year . . . has become one of the city’s most profitable events, drawing thousands of Asian and Asian-American visitors and hundreds of millions of their dollars each year. Executives with Las Vegas Sands Inc., say more money is bet during the two-week period than at any other time during the year.
Casinos drape enormous banners with New Year’s greetings in Chinese across their porte-cocheres and add tables for baccarat and pai gow poker, two games favored by Asian gamblers. They hold parties where managers hand invited guests red envelopes stuffed with money or special gambling chips adorned with the animal symbol of the year. At Caesars Palace, Celine Dion and Elton John are given a few days off so that Jacky Cheung, the Canto-pop sensation, can hold forth in the 4,100-seat Colosseum.
Most Chinese restaurants on the Strip stay open longer and add traditional New Year’s dishes or rename some regular ones with lucky or upbeat words. It is not unusual for a family to spend more than $20,000 for a Chinese New Year dinner. . . . At the Bellagio, the theme of the 14,000-square-foot Conservatory is changed only five times a year, and Chinese New Year is one of those times. The current display features live tangerine trees, a 45-foot-tall pagoda, and a mechanical pig with a moving eyes, tail and snout.
“You’ll see a lot of Chinese lanterns hanging in groups of six because multiples of six are lucky numbers,†said the Conservatory manager, Sharon Hatcher. . . . “The highest quality players will get whatever they want. The Chinese are the highest and best quality players in the world, so they’ll have preference. We don’t care how tall you are, how short you are, how fat you are, what color you are. Green is the most important color.â€
The article goes on to describe how many of the major casinos have changed their operations to accommodate and attract Asian/Asian American patrons, many of them based on traditional Asian and Chinese beliefs about feng shui and luck/superstition.
On the one hand, I am very glad to see that major American corporations are actively courting Asian/Asian Americans as customers and have in fact significantly changed many aspects of their particular practices to suit Asian/Asian American tastes. It does go a long way toward institutionalizing Asian Americans as as a legitimate consumer group with significant purchasing power.
On the other hand, as this site’s article on Gambling, Addiction, and Asian Culture describes, many Asians and Asian Americans have a very serious gambling addiction problem that has led to financial disaster, families torn apart, and even death. In that context, it’s not surprising to know that gambling establishments of all sizes have been more actively courting Asians and Asian Americans because they know that’s where the money is, as the last line in the quoted material above shows.
Ultimately, I see this development as another example of the complicated nature of Asian American assimilation — it’s nice to be wanted and incorporated into mainstream aspects of American society and commerce, but why did they have to pick this particular aspect of Asian/Asian American culture that can have many serious negative consequences for our community as the focal point?
Many Asian American Democrats like me are still undecided about which candidate we should support — Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, or someone else. In this context, Senator Clinton’s campaign just acquired one strike against it when it barred Chinese language media journalists from a recent fundraiser luncheon:
A spokesperson from Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign apologized to the Chinese-language media after journalists were denied access to a Feb. 23 fundraising luncheon with Sen. Clinton in San Francisco. Event staff told reporters that the briefing was not open to “foreign press,†according to the Chinese-language World Journal and Sing Tao Daily. . . .
Howard Wolfson, spokesperson for the Hillary Clinton for President Exploratory Committee, apologized to the World Journal the next day, saying this was a “learning lesson and a learning opportunity,†the World Journal reports. Wolfson told the World Journal that Sen. Clinton’s campaign understands the importance of Chinese media in the presidential election. The campaign will make sure that all media, including Chinese and ethnic media, has equal opportunity to report the news, he said.
“Certainly you are not foreign press,†he told the newspaper. . . . Portia Li, a writer for the World Journal in San Francisco, was one of the reporters denied access to the luncheon. According to her Feb. 24 report in the World Journal, several Chinese-language media reporters were initially told that because they had not arrived early, they could not enter the fundraiser.
When a World Journal reporter told Clinton’s staff that the Chinese media had not received a press release about the luncheon in advance, Li writes, a staff member from Clinton’s campaign said that the event was only for local media, not foreign press.
Li explained that Chinese-language media is an American media, she writes, but a spokesperson from Clinton’s staff told her that because Chinese newspapers like the World Journal have national distribution, they are not considered local media.
The Clinton campaign can use the excuse that the event was only for local media all it wants, but Asian Americans know that the real reason the Chinese American journalists were turned away was because the Clinton campaign is deathly afraid of being associated with foreigners who are perceived to be “un-American” and trying to illegally contribute to the campaign, which is the legacy of the disastrous 1996 fundraising scandal in which the Democratic party initially accepted campaign contributions that originated in China.
I thought that Clinton’s campaign was better than this — that it knew the difference between Chinese and Chinese American. Apparently not. Unfortunately, this does not bode well for her campaign’s general sensitivity to our community. However, there’s still time for the Clinton campaign to make amends and to show us that we are welcomed participants in their efforts.
You might have heard the accusations that throughout history, the U.S. government — mainly the CIA — has repeatedly recruited, supported, and/or promoted right-wing extremist political groups and governments that served some useful purpose for them, and ignored the atrocities that such groups and governments perpetrated on innocent victims. As the Associated Press reports, newly declassified documents illustrate how we can now add Japanese war criminals from World War II to that list:
The records, declassified in 2005 and 2006 under an act of Congress in tandem with Nazi war crime-related files, fill in many of the blanks in the previously spotty documentation of the occupation authority’s intelligence arm and its involvement with Japanese ultra-nationalists and war criminals, historians say. The CIA also cast a harsh eye on its counterparts . . . Japanese operatives often bilked gullible American patrons, passing on useless intelligence and using their U.S. ties to boost smuggling operations and further their efforts to resurrect a militarist Japan. . . .
The files, hundreds of pages of which were obtained last month by the AP, depict operations that were deeply flawed by agents’ lack of expertise, rivalries and shifting alliances between competing groups, and Japanese operatives’ overriding interest in right-wing activities and money rather than U.S. security aims. . . . Historians long ago concluded that the Allies turned a blind eye to many Japanese war crimes, particularly those committed against other Asians, as fighting communism became the West’s priority.
I raised an eyebrow when I first read about this development, but ultimately, I can’t say that I’m completely shocked by these revelations. After all, it is just another example of how the CIA has supported right-wing dictatorships and fringe groups who they felt could be useful “allies” in their war against communism. South America, Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia — you name it, the U.S. has been there and left their bloody handprints.
As history also shows, in almost all cases, such political arrangements produced not just incalculable oppression and misery for innocent civilians, but also significantly damaged the U.S.’s reputation around the world, the consequences of which we’re increasingly having to deal with right now. I also find it interesting that U.S.’s use of right-wing nationalists in Japan happens to coincide with the persistence — and recent renewal — of militaristic nationalism among Japan’s government through the years. Very interesting . . .
One consistent theme in this blog is the clash of tradition and modernity in Asian countries such as China. As another example of this increasingly common and intense phenomenon, Salon.com/The Associated Press reports that a recent murder of a journalist in China has prompted the Chinese to critically reexamine the nature of corruption within the media and journalism profession:
President Hu Jintao has ordered a probe into the killing of China Trade News reporter Lan Chengzhang, who Chinese media say may have been trying to collect money from the owner of an illegal coal mine in return for not writing about the business. Hu’s call for an investigation was extraordinary because the government usually doesn’t publicly discuss problems with media, still officially hailed as the “throat and tongue” of the ruling Communist Party.
Talking about bad press behavior could tarnish the party’s image, while officials themselves often have their own reasons for covering up disasters and corruption. Hu appears to have been prodded into action by Chinese media reports on the killing and a public outcry on the Internet chastising both greed within the news profession and the government’s restrictions on media. . . .
Media extortion is relatively common in China’s mining industry, which is rife with illegal practices, but elsewhere press corruption is more subtle. Reporters at news conferences are routinely offered envelopes of cash, ostensibly to cover travel costs but with the unspoken assumption they will write what the sponsor wishes to see.
Businesses also buy advertising to ensure positive coverage, often at the behest of reporters who are required by their employers to meet revenue quotas. Commissions on such contracts can more than double a reporter’s pay, which is often as low as $150 a month.
As we can see, corruption exists not just among government officials — it seems to be rife among many sectors of Chinese society, even one that is normally seen as critical and impartial such as the media. As with other clashes of tradition vs. modernity in China, this tension between “how things have always been done” and the new openness prompted by advancing technology and capitalism will probably get worse before it gets better.
Will this sector of Chinese society eventually retreat into social obsolescence or will it transform itself into a vanguard for social change and public democracy (within the confines of communist society)? Stay tuned to find out . . .
During the Viet Nam War, the U.S. military and CIA recruited several thousand members of the ethnic Hmong minority to help them fight the communists. Eventually, Congress recognized the contributions that the Hmong made and granted them refugee status that enable tens of thousands to immigrate to the U.S. But as the Associated Press reports, since 9/11, provisions of the Patriot Act have labeled Hmong as terrorists and have therefore prevented more from obtaining refugee status and coming to the U.S.:
Under provisions of the USA Patriot Act and the Real ID Act, the Hmong who fought alongside the Americans in the “secret war” against communists in Laos are considered terrorists and are therefore ineligible for asylum or green cards. These are laws from the same Congress that in 2000 passed a law easing the citizenship requirements for the Hmong in recognition of their Vietnam era efforts.
The anti-terror restrictions, which have ensnared other groups as well, also bar people who provided “material support” to terrorist organizations. Last month the Bush administration announced it was granting waivers of that restriction to eight groups, but the Hmong was not among them. . . .
Last year, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. and Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., unsuccessfully tried to get an appropriations bill amended to change the restrictions. Coleman said he would continue to seek a legislative fix. “Hmong refugees, who dedicated their service to America during the Vietnam War, have looked to the U.S. as a place of hope and a sanctuary from persecution,” he said in a statement.
I suppose this is typical of the current administration’s ‘war on terrorism’ — enacting overly sweeping powers and draconian regulations that ultimately lead to more harm than good. In this case, it’s preventing thousands of Hmong refugees from immigrating to the U.S. as they deserve to do. Isn’t this the same kind of “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality that is responsible for why so many people loathe and despise the U.S. all around the world?
For some time now, I’ve been a fan and supporter of AsianWeek magazine, a free weekly news-magazine published in San Francisco. Unfortunately, I have now lost virtually all of my respect for them after they printed an opinion piece by one of their regular columnists, Kenneth Eng, entitled “Why I Hate Blacks.” As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, Eng’s column has set off a storm of controversy and backlash against AsianWeek:
Eng called himself an “Asian supremacist” in January in another installment of the column, which runs under the label “God of the Universe.” Prominent Asian Americans immediately condemned Eng’s current column. “The hate is based on ignorance and is very similar to the rationales that the KKK uses against African Americans,” said Henry Der, director of Chinese for Affirmative Action. “What gives me the greatest concern was AsianWeek’s judgment in printing such a piece out of context,” Der said. “It is so trite and hateful, it doesn’t speak well for the publication.” . . .
Eng’s “reasons” for hating black people include: * “Blacks hate us. Every Asian who has ever come across them knows that they take almost every opportunity to hurl racist remarks at us.” * “Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years.” * “Blacks are easy to coerce. This is proven by the fact that so many of them, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, tend to be Christians.” . . .
Leaders of the Asian Law Caucus, Asian American Justice Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action and other groups and individuals began circulating a petition Friday calling for the paper to apologize, terminate its relationship with Eng, print an editorial refuting the column and review its editorial policy. The leaders’ statement, issued in Washington, D.C., called the piece “irresponsible journalism, blatantly racist, replete with stereotypes and deeply hurtful to African Americans.”
Beyond the excerpts quoted in the article, I haven’t read Eng’s column and AsianWeek has since pulled it from its website. Nonetheless the excerpts are enough for me to join the chorus of other Asian Americans — for that matter, other human beings — and denounce it as unequivocally racist and unimaginably ignorant, and AsianWeek’s decision to publish the piece as blatantly irresponsible and completely unprofessional. For that reason, I have decided to remove AsianWeek from my list of APA news links on this blog.
Of course, free speech gives Eng the right to have an opinion about anything or anyone he wants. But that freedom of speech also gives the rest of us who have some intelligence the right to call his opinion deeply offensive and to call him an embarrassment to the Asian American community — or for that matter, to the human race.
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Update: On Feb. 28, 2007, AsianWeek issued a statement and apology. It reads in part:
AsianWeek rejects Eng’s biased views on a critical segment of American society, African Americans. While AsianWeek continues to truly believe in diversity of opinion and freedom of the press, we are also very aware that the promotion of hate speech is not appropriate, nor should it be encouraged. . . . [T]he failing of our editorial process in allowing this opinion piece to go forward, was an insensitive and callous mistake that should never have been made by our publication.
We will be reviewing that editorial process and making any changes necessary to prevent this from ever happening again. The condemnation of this serious lapse in editorial judgment was rightfully taken by civic and community leaders and organizations. . . . [W]e are humbled and overwhelmed at reader response not only chastising our editorial process, but strongly urging our paper to sever all ties to this contributor. We have heard the call and Mr. Eng has been terminated from writing for the paper.
I applaud AsianWeek for issuing the apology and admitting that the publication of such racist garbage was a serious breakdown in judgment on the editorial staff’s part. However, you cannot simply just say sorry and walk away from an offense as heinous as this. For AsianWeek to regain the trust and respect of the Asian American community, it needs to put its money where its mouth is.
That is, some initial suggestions that come to mind are that they need to first fire the editor who approved this piece in the first place, have a community forum to discuss their monumental failure, devote an entire issue to the positive relationships between Blacks and Asian Americans, and show their face in the Black community to support their issues and needs. This is just the beginning. AsianWeek, the ball is still in your court. Until then, my opinion has not changed nor am I ready to forgive anything.
Most Asians and Asian Americans know by now (or at least should) that during World War II, the Japanese military forced an estimated 200,000 women from lands that it invaded and occupied to serve as sex slaves, or what the Japanese euphemistically call “comfort women.” More than 60 years after the fact, Japan’s government is still in denial about their actions, most recently illustrated by their opposition to a resolution recently passed in Congress:
Japan has expressed its displeasure at a resolution before the US Congress calling on Tokyo to apologise for the country’s use of sex slaves in wartime. Foreign Minister Taro Aso said the resolution was not based on facts. Sponsored by several members of the US House of Representatives, the proposed text urges Tokyo to formally resolve the issue of so-called “comfort women”. Japan admits its army forced women to be sex slaves during World War II but has rejected compensation claims. . . .
Mr Aso described the non-binding resolution, which was introduced in Congress earlier this month, as “extremely regrettable”. “It was not based on objective facts,” he told a parliamentary committee meeting. The resolution calls on Japan’s prime minister to “formally acknowledge, apologise and accept historical responsibility” for the comfort women. The House of Representatives heard last week from three former comfort women who described the rape and torture they endured at the hands of the Japanese soldiers.
Japan acknowledged in 1993 that the imperial army set up and ran brothels for its troops during the war. The government set up a special fund in 1995, which relies on private donations to provide compensation. But many former comfort women reject the fund and want formal compensation from the government.
This is getting ridiculous — despite Japan officially acknowledging that their military did in fact set up and run brothels for its troops during the war, their Foreign Minister still says that the basis for this current resolution is “not based on objective facts?” What the hell is this guy smoking? For that matter, what has Japan’s government been smoking all these years to allow them to be in such complete denial about their actions?
If there were any instance in which a country needed a collective slap across the face to help them wake up and join the rest of us in the 21st century, this would be it.
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Update: As further evidence that Japan’s government not only still has its head up its ass, but is actually jamming it in even further, recently, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied that Japan ever coerced women into serving as sex slaves during World War II. Wow . . . absolutely amazing.
Another Update: Predictably, Abe’s denial that Japan ever coerced an estimated 200,000 women into sexual slavery provoked outrage around the world, particularly among many of its Asian neighbors. Now, Abe says that he “basically stands by the 1993 apology” in which a high ranking Japanese official acknowledged such allegations were valid. Abe is now calling for a new investigation into the atrocities.
I suppose this is a sign of progress and encouragement. However, until Japan officially acknowledges and apologizes for what it did, nothing will change nor will my opinion of Japan’s position on this issue.
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Another Update: On March 16, 2007, Japan has once again and not surprisingly concluded that there is no evidence that the Japanese military forced women to serve as sex slaves during World War II. What’s the name of that river in Egypt again? Oh yeah, “Denial.”
The issues and controversies surrounding the presence of the U.S. military in South Korea have been well-documented by now — nationalist autonomy, incidents of U.S. military raping South Korean women, the U.S. accused of provoking North Korea, etc. With these issues in mind and in the context of the U.S.’s deepening war on terrorism, we now have news that the U.S. and South Korea have agreed to turn control over South Korea’ military back to the South Koreans by 2012:
The agreement ends a 50-year pact that gave the US wartime command of South Korea’s army, dating to the Korean War. Under pressure in Iraq, the US had wanted to hand over in 2009. But South Korea pushed for a slower transition. The US currently has 29,500 troops on the Korean peninsula and Seoul’s military numbers 680,000. North Korea has more than one million troops. . . .
The US has reduced its troop numbers in South Korea by 10,000, down from 40,000 when US President George W. Bush came to power. It plans to further reduce this number to 25,000 by 2008. . . . South Korea ceded control of its military to a US-led UN force during the Korean War, which ended with a ceasefire in 1953. It was given peacetime command of its forces in 1994 but the US would still take over should war break out on the peninsula.
It’s interesting to note that it was actually the South Koreans who wanted the U.S. to retain control longer than the U.S. wanted to. I suppose that just goes to show that despite South Korea’s official “Sunshine Policy” of reconciliation towards North Korea, deep down it still fears that their northern neighbors are capable of losing it at any time and attacking South Korea at a moment’s notice.
I’m not an international military policy expert, but my impression is that in the end, all other things staying the same, this transfer of power and reduction in U.S. forces in South Korea are likely to lead to an easing of tensions with North Korea, as well as a big step toward satisfying South Koreans who are resentful of the U.S.’s presence in their country, so I see this as a positive development. But knowing Kim Jong Il’s instability, anything can happen between now and 2012 . . .
More and more South Korean men are finding wives outside of South Korea, where a surplus of bachelors, a lack of marriageable Korean partners and the rising social status of women have combined to shrink the domestic market for the marriage-minded male. Bachelors in China, India and other Asian nations, where the traditional preference for sons has created a disproportionate number of men now fighting over a smaller pool of women, are facing the same problem. . . .
Now, that industry is seizing on an increasingly globalized marriage market and sending comparatively affluent Korean bachelors searching for brides in the poorer corners of China and Southeast and Central Asia. The marriage tours are fueling an explosive growth in marriages to foreigners in South Korea, a country whose ethnic homogeneity lies at the core of its self-identity. In 2005, marriages to foreigners accounted for 14 percent of all marriages in South Korea, up from 4 percent in 2000. . . .
Critics say the business demeans and takes advantage of poor women. But brokers say they are merely matching the needs of Korean men and foreign women seeking better lives. . . . Both Ms. Vien and Ms. Thuy had friends who had married Korean men and lived, happily it seemed, in South Korea.
Like many Vietnamese, they were also avid fans of Korean television shows and movies, the so-called Korean Wave of pop culture that has swept all of Asia since the late 1990s. The Korean Wave has transformed South Korea’s image in the region, presenting the country as having successfully balanced tradition and modernity, a place that produces coveted Samsung cellphones and cherishes family ties.
The article goes on to describe a typical marriage brokering process between a Korean groom and his much younger Vietnamese bride. To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, it’s probably true that demographics don’t lie — Korean men have fewer choices these days in terms of the size of the spouse pool in Korea, and that many of these Vietnamese women would probably have a “materialistically” better life in Korea compared with staying in Viet Nam.
On the other hand, there have been and still continue to be documented instances of fraud and spousal abuse regarding such “brokered” (we would probably also include “mail order” types as well) marriages in regard to American men marrying Russians or Asians, or Asian men marrying other Asian women, etc.
Ultimately, I don’t have a problem with these kinds of brokered marriages if there are proper safeguards in place — psychological tests for the men or at the very least, criminal background checks and other forms of full disclosure so that the women know exactly what they’re getting into, and have a reasonably easy means of terminating the marriage if they’re unsatisfied.
As someone who’s married inter-ethnically myself, I support efforts to promote more cross-ethnic and cross-cultural ties and relationships between different Asian ethnic groups. We just need to make sure that everybody is on the same page to ensure that this type of process goes smoothly and happily.
Like Asian Americans in general, young Asian Americans frequently find themselves admired, reviled, misunderstood, and/or the subject of curiosity, all at the same time. Nationally-renowned performance artist Kate Rigg and SnapDragon consultants want to change that and, as published by Yahoo News, has come up with a list of Ten Things Every Brand Should Know About Asian-American Youth:
Many Asian-American youth feel excluded and misunderstood by most brands. It’s made worse by the fact that they see advertisers actively wooing the African-American and Hispanic markets.
Mixed race kids are proudly identifying as Hapa, a once derogatory word in Hawaiian to mean “half.” Hapa is also slang for marijuana in Japanese (spelled Happa). Hapa is supplanting terms like Amerasian, biracial, and blasian.
Asian-American youth are secret fans of “easy listening” adult contemporary music. Lite FM is a hidden passion.
There’s a “hero gap” among Asian-American kids, which is being filled for many by activists from other cultures. Martin Luther King is a role model and hero to many young Asian-Americans.
Most Asian-American kids refer to white people as “white people” the same way African-Americans do.
Underage gambling is huge. The “new” American poker obsession is nothing new to Asian-American kids. Gambling has a long history in Asian culture. Many students Rigg spoke with are avid online gamblers and card players. Some organize private online poker tournaments.
Asian-American kids want an end to the hyper-nerdy images of themselves on TV and want to see more punked-out skater and graffiti DJ images which reflect a different energy. The feeling is: Enough with the math geeks, future doctors and violinists. Asian-American kids crave street credibility — not just academic accolades.
Asian-American kids universally hate the question: Where are you from — especially since the answers are usually something like “Westchester” or “Boston.”
All things Korean are hot and getting hotter. Fashion. Foods. DJs. Online communities. Korea is the new Japan.
The 15 minutes of seemingly benign American Idol fame for William Hung had a surprisingly negative effect on Asian-American students. There’s a feeling that Hung perpetuated the worst stereotypes about Asian people and gave non-Asians permission to indulge in two years of racial stereotyping and mocking.
The list makes pretty good sense to me, although I was not aware of #3, the passion of Asian American youth for easy listening contemporary music. Who knew that someone like Kenny G would be able to rock the Asian American world?
