I just wanted to let you know that now that the semester is over and I am on winter break and will be traveling through the holidays, I will be on a reduced posting schedule until after the new year. I hope to post a new article every few days for the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I wish you peace and happiness in the new year.

The New York Times has an article that describes an increasing common phenomenon in developing Asian countries, in this case India: in the era of globalization and infrastructural improvements, more and more rural villagers are moving to cities and other urban destinations to find a better life for them and their families:

Compared with China, whose rural population is also moving, India’s urbanization has been a saunter, not a sprint – slower, looser and more haphazard. That is partly because some of India’s economic policies have served to constrict its cities’ possibilities. Decisions made during and even after four decades of quasi socialism have crimped the kind of manufacturing that has spurred China’s urban growth.

Good jobs or not, India’s migrants still come. Their presence is creating new challenges: battles for land, competition for jobs, strained resources and religious and political tensions. So diverse is Surat’s population that the municipal corporation now runs schools in eight languages.

And when the migrants return home, they bring new views and aspirations with them. Their perspectives are combining with the improved highways to open up, and out, the closed worlds of India’s villages.

But as history has consistently shown, with urbanization there inevitably follows stratification between the newly rich and the increasingly poor. Is this the inevitable price that countries such as India and China have to pay in order to modernize? I suppose that the odds aren’t great that these industrializing Asian countries can escape having the gap between the rich and the poor widen as they continue toward modernization.

But then again, maybe they’ll surprise us. We’ll just have to check back in about five or ten years to see how they’re doing. . . .

One of my favorite reads, AutoWeek Magazine, has an article that asks whether import sports tuner compact cars are going out of style among automotive enthusiasts. You might recognize these as Honda Accords and Civics, Acura Integras, Mazda RX-7s, Subaru WRXs, etc. that have been modified (many rather garishly) for greater performance, aesthetic appeal, and/or attention-grabbing features.

They’ve been a fixture in the automotive world for more than a decade now and as I describe in my article on Import Sports Compacts, a phenomenon that — at least initially — has been heavily identified with Asian Americans, as exemplified by the slang term of people “ricing” their cars — modifying their cars in overly flashy, gaudy, tasteless, and otherwise ridiculous ways.

[Many aftermarket experts] think the wave of sport compact tuning that washed over America in the past decade may have crested and is receding from its high water mark. Yes, Honda is back. It is reclaiming lost ground with a new Civic that should help Honda secure it as the darling of the tuner world. . . .

But the distant—and growing—rumble that is drawing everyone’s attention is nothing less than the resurgence of modernized muscle cars. At SEMA, plenty of mainstream examples were on hand, such as the latest Shelby Mustangs from Unique Performance, and manufacturer entries such as the Pontiac GTO and Solstice, Ford Mustang and GT500, and Dodge Charger that signal a return to muscle.

Like virtually all cultural fads and fashion trends, the import sports compact phenomenon will inevitably give way to the next major trend, and so on and so on. This has been clearly and consistently reflected in the automotive world as the muscle cars of the 1960s gave way to the mini-trucks of the 1980s, and then to the import sports compacts in the 1990s.

If their popularity is indeed waning, I just hope that those who welcome their demise don’t turn it into a racial issues — that somehow if American cars are becoming more popular than Asian imports that it means that American culture is superior to Asian culture.

First, Americans outsourced manufacturing and factory jobs overseas to countries like Mexico and China. Then in recent years, Americans have increasingly outsourced white-collar professional jobs like customer service, computer programming, and engineering to China, Indian, the Philippines, etc. Now here’s the latest trend: the New York Times reports that affluent Americans who are also video game enthusiasts but who don’t have the time are now outsourcing video game playing to the Chinese:

The people working at this clandestine locale are “gold farmers.” They “play” computer games by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that can be transformed into real cash. From Seoul to San Francisco, affluent online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese here to play the early rounds for them. . . . .

Many online gaming factories have come to resemble the thousands of textile mills and toy factories that have moved here from Taiwan, Hong Kong and other parts of the world to take advantage of China’s vast pool of cheap labor.

But gold farming is controversial. Many hard-core gamers say the factories are distorting the games. What is more, the big gaming companies say the factories are violating the terms of use of the games, which forbid players to sell their virtual goods for real money. They have vowed to crack down on those suspected of being small businesses rather than individual gamers. . . .

On eBay, for example, 100 grams of World of Warcraft gold is available for $9.99 or two über characters from EverQuest for $35.50. It costs $269 to be transported to Level 60 in Warcraft, and it typically takes 15 days to get the account back at the higher level. In fact, the trading of virtual property is so lucrative that some big online gaming companies have jumped into the business, creating their own online marketplaces.

Capitalism’s relentless march goes on and on. Not only are Americans willing to outsource their work, but now they’re apparently willing to outsource their leisure as well by paying foreigners to play video games for them. I wonder if Jay Leno would use one of his “How fat and lazy are we getting in America when we have to outsource your video game playing overseas?” jokes here, since it certainly applies.

It just makes me wonder what’s next in line to be outsourced — playing online poker? Skiing? Bungee jumping? Life???

The New York Times has an article that mentions the personal blog of a woman in China who goes by the name “Mu Mu” and who describes herself as a “dance girl and [communist] party member.” However, the article focuses more generally on how her blog represents a new wave of personal blogs that are pushing the limits of freedom of expression in China:

Chinese Web logs have existed since early in this decade, but the form has exploded in recent months, challenging China’s ever vigilant online censors and giving flesh to the kind of free-spoken civil society whose emergence the government has long been determined to prevent or at least tightly control. . . .

So far, Chinese authorities have mostly relied on Internet service providers to police the Web logs. Commentary that is too provocative or directly critical of the government is often blocked by the provider. Sometimes the sites are swamped by opposing comment — many believe by official censors — that is more favorable to the government. Blogs are sometimes shut down altogether, temporarily or permanently. . . .

The new wave of blogging took off earlier this year. In the past, a few pioneers of the form stood out, but now huge communities of bloggers are springing up around the country, with many of them promoting one another’s online offerings, books, music or, as in Mu Mu’s case, a running, highly ironic commentary about sexuality, intellect and political identity.

China’s government may think that it is currently possible to control and censor blogs like this, and they may be right — for now. But one — or any government entity — can only control freedom of expression for so long. I predict that the envelope of democratic expression will be pushed further and further, until something will have to give.

Will the Information Age and the Internet produce another Tianamen Square-style government crackdown in the virtual world? Stay tuned to find out . . .

As another example of Asian culture continuing to influence American society, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that many U.S. newspapers will include Japanese manga-style comic strips in their comics sections very soon, all in an effort to attract a younger readership circulation:

“Doonesbury” and “Peanuts,” make way for “manga.” Come January, the Sunday funnies of several major North American newspapers will have doe-eyed women in frilly outfits, effeminate long-haired heroes and other trademark images of the Japanese comic style. The reason? Newspaper editors want to attract more young readers.

A study released earlier this year by the Carnegie Corporation put the age of newspaper readers at 53 and climbing – hardly a recipe for circulation growth. . . . The U.S. newspaper debut is a bit of a landmark for manga – a product of Japanese pop culture that has never been quite mainstream in the United States, although it’s long been a hit with the younger generation that grew up on Pokemon, Hello Kitty and Japanese animation movies – or “anime” for short.

The article describes that this inclusion of more manga-style comics involves English translations of existing manga comics or newly-developed comics inspired and influenced by manga. Either way, it looks like the march of Asian culture into the American mainstream continues to gather steam. Now if we can translate this influence into more political power, fewer incidents of discrimination, etc. . . .

I received the following notice from the North American South Asian Bar Association regarding recent legislation pertaining to the administration’s “war on terrorism” and how it affects many Asian Americans:

NASABA Denounces Graham-Levin Amendment with Letter to U.S. Congress: Emerging Legal Organization Attacks Bill That Targets Many South Asian American Detainees

WASHINGTON, DC — The North American South Asian Bar Association (NASABA) submitted a letter to the Chairs and Ranking members of the Senate and House Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, urging Congress to reject the Graham-Levin Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. In the letter, NASABA condemned the Amendment as an “an affront to the core democratic principles for which the United States stands.”

The Graham-Levin Amendment was passed as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate on November 15, 2005, and significantly limits the right of habeas corpus review for detainees, many of whom are of South Asian decent,at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

“Prior to this amendment the detainees had the right to challenge before a court whether they were properly imprisoned, with a full review of their status and circumstances,” says Ami Gadhia, Chair of NASABA’s Human Rights Committee. “Under this Amendment, however, the only thing that can be reviewed by a court is whether the Combatant Status Review Tribunal followed its own procedures, and whether subjecting an ‘alien enemy’ to the procedures is consistent with the Constitution.”

Supporters of the Amendment have claimed that the writ of habeas corpus should not be available to terrorists. “But they make a huge assumption that all of the detainees at Guantanamo are in fact terrorists,” responds Gadhia. According to the Wall Street Journal, 70 percent of the detainees there may be wrongfully imprisoned.

NASABA has a growing record of advocacy on behalf of the South Asian community. Recently, the organization has helped obtain Temporary Protected Status for tsunami and earthquake-affected nationals from South Asia. The organization has seen an increase in chapter growth and membership as many more South Asian American Attorneys are getting involved across the US to strengthen their professional development and betterment of the community.

About NASABA:
The North American South Asian Bar Association advocates for the South Asian community; promotes alliances between South-Asian legal professionals in the US and Canada; helps law students and those interested in the law develop contacts with practitioners; and provides an avenue for professionals and other community leaders to take an interest in matters of concern to the South-Asian community.

East-West Magazine has an article in its latest issue that describes the increasing popularity and prominence of inter-ethnic/pan-Asian couples in recent years. In fact, they relied on a very authoritative source to describe their findings:

C.N. Le, chairman of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, says he too has noticed a rise in inter-Asian dating. Using census data, he has found that about 10 percent of all married Asian Americans have a pan-Asian/inter-Asian spouse. Le’s research also shows that those who are in pan-Asian/inter-Asian marriages tend to be highly educated and have very high levels of socioeconomic achievement.

“So in a lot of ways, these inter-Asian couples are emerging as a notable part of the entire Asian American community,” he explains. Several factors may be contributing to this rise in inter-Asian relationships, Le says, including the increasing ethnic diversity in colleges and the growing Asian American population.

“I think another reason might be that young Asian Americans feel more free to explore all the marriage options available to them – endogamous (same ethnicity) spouse, white spouse or pan-Asian/inter-Asian spouse,” Le says. “Maybe some Asian Americans experimented with having a white boy/girlfriend and are now ready for something a little different.

Combined with the gradually improving portrayals of Asian Americans (especially men) in American society, they may see a pan-Asian/inter-Asian relationship as a fresh and new experience worth exploring.”

I sound rather authoritative, don’t I? Or not . . .

At any rate, my colleague J.J. Huang has done some tabulations using 2004 Census data that also confirms this trend toward more inter-ethnic/pan-Asian relationships. He finds that for some Asian groups (especially U.S.-raised women), they rates of marrying Whites has actually gone down in recent years while their rates for marring inter-ethnically have gone up.

This is an exciting trend that can potentially have significant consequences for the development and strengthening of a true pan-Asian American racial identity in years and decades to come.

As Reuters reports, the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition has released its annual report on the representation of Asian Americans in primetime television shows on the four major networks. This year, the organization concludes that progress has been mixed with failures:

Progress has been “very mixed” for Asian Americans, said Karen Karasaki, chair of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition. “There has been some improvement, (but) in many areas the progress has slowed and, in some cases, is going backwards,” she said. . . . To the Asian groups, only ABC has shown consistent improvement, earning it the highest grade of the four networks. ABC was credited with making a long-term investment in pushing for more diversity at the network.

CBS was said to be showing modest results in terms of hiring Asian writers and directors, but it was not enough to get them out of last place. In fact, it was said that CBS has fewer Asians in regular roles than when the diversity initiative began five years ago. Fox was credited with including more Asians in their reality shows as well as using more Asian directors.

NBC’s robust talent diversity initiatives were noted, but its grade was ultimately lowered by the cancellation of several shows that featured Asian actors, the group said. “The cancellations also point out the fragility of diversity initiatives in the face of what it takes to make a show a commercial success,” the Asian media coalition said.

Unfortunately, this report is not terribly surprising. There may be some high-profile Asian American actors and directors (i.e., Ang Lee, John Woo, Justin Lin) out there, but taken as a whole, as the report describes, Asian Americans still lag far behind other racial groups in terms of representation behind and in front of the TV cameras.

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.

Some resources on Asian American mental health services:
Asian Community Mental Health Services
Asian Counseling and Referral Services
Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum
Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center
Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations
National Asian Women’s Health Organization

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.