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.
In its May 2004 issue, Details magazine included a piece entitled “Gay or Asian,” as another installment of their “Gay or __” series. Purporting to be an “anthropology” piece, the author, Whitney McNally, writes such things as “Whether you’re into shrimp balls or shaved balls, entering the dragon requires imperial tastes” and “Ladyboy fingers: Soft and long. Perfect for both waxing on and waxing off, plucking the koto, or gripping the kendo stick.”
Naturally and almost immediately after it was circulated, the Asian American and gay communities reacted with outrage, describing the piece as a tasteless, insensitive, and hurtful example of all the worst cultural stereotypes against both Asian Americans and gays. Similar to the reactions against the Fox tv show Banzai and the Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts, several Asian American community groups, led by Asian Media Watchdog, quickly organized a campaign demanding that Details magazine recall all issues, issue a formal apology, and fire the author.
They conducted a well-attended and well-publicized protest outside of Details‘ offices on April 16. You can read about the results of the protests in detail, but it appears as though it was quite a success. They succeeded in speaking with the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine, along with other representatives of the company and in getting most of their demands met, including an official apology from Details.
These series of events once again show (1) that many groups in society (especially media outlets) still apparently feel that Asian Americans are ripe targets for sterotyping and demaning portrayals and underestimate our collective outrage, and (2) when Asian Americans unite and fight against these blatantly racist and homophobic portrayals, we can move mountains.
As we shatter the myth that Asian Americans are apathetic or powerless, we give American society a first-hand example of the kind of power we can generate as a collective community and that they we are not going to sit idly by when others try to portray us against in whatever way they want. Bravo to everybody involved!
William Hung is a college student at U.S. Berkeley, majoring in engineering. Several months ago, he decided to appear on the tv show “American Idol,” singing Ricky Martin’s song “She Bangs.” The problem is, William can’t really sing that well. Combined with the Simon Cowell’s famous reputation for being blunt, the results were rather predictable. As expected, Simon ridiculed William by telling him, “You can’t sing, you can’t dance, what do you have to say for yourself?”
William’s response was basically, “I did my best and I have no regrets.” The public’s response to William since then has been anything but predictable. Literally overnight, William became an instant celebrity, not for his singing, but for his upbeat attitude and honest and genuine attempt to do something he always wanted to do, no matter who thought he was good enough to do it or not.
Since then, he has been signed to a record contract and now appears on his own music CD, has been written up and featured in several major media outlets, and has made appearances on such tv shows as The Tonight Show and the Jimmy Kimmel show.
However, not all Asian Americans have been enamoured by all this attention William has been getting. Some have started to question whether all this notoriety and publicity that he’s received is a genuine expression of appreciation and inspiration, or if it’s a form of ridicule and public humilation — sort of like a clown or freak show being paraded around for people to laugh at and that he’s reinforcing the image of Asians as geeky and nerdy.
In response, others have defended William as someone who’s not afraid to just be himself — flaws, quirks, and all. They also point out that in criticizing William and feeling embarrassed by him, his detractors seem to be wrestling with their own images of Asian masculinity, not William’s image of himself.
Where do I stand? As I’ve described repeatedly throughout Asian-Nation, both Asian and non-Asians cannot expect all Asian Americans to be alike — there is just too much diversity within our community as they apply to demographics, culture, politics, socioeconomic attainment, etc. That includes people (or more specifically cultural images) such as William.
Are some APAs embarrassed by him? Sure. I personally can’t tolerate more than about 15 seconds of his singing before I cringe. But is he doing a disservice to the APA community? I don’t think so. Rather than expecting all Asians to be the same, we should embrace the diversity within our community, even as we disagree on its ultimate meaning.
On January 31, 2004, as the Iowa City Press Citizen reports, second-year University of Iowa law student Janis Chang and her White boyfriend were attacked by four White male UI college students who yelled racial slurs at them, called her a “chink” and her boyfriend a “chink lover,” and made monkey sounds at them.
As the couple tried to walk away, both were attacked and Chang’s boyfriend was repeatedly hit and kicked in the head. Weeks after the attack, he is still coughing up blood, is unable to eat, speak, or sleep well, and Chang is still too traumatized to return to class. The Iowa City police department is still investigating the incident and will likely turn over its evidence to prosecutors soon so that they can determine what, if any, charges to bring against the assailants.
As news of this hate crime became publicized, it turns out that racially-motivated incidents like these were just another example of how Asian American college students at the University of Iowa and elsewhere continue to be targets of racial slurs, intimidation, and acts of violence in and around campus.
Beyond the fact that White males are now being targeted for being in interracial relationships, what makes these events even more worse is when university administrators are slow and ineffective in first reacting to the specific incident at hand and second, at addressing the causes of these incidents in general. Many times these causes involve how Asian American students and other students of color are made to feel marginalized on these predominantly White college campuses.
In this case, we don’t even know if the prosecutors are going to charge the assailants with any kind of hate-cime related crimes, even though that’s clearly the case. If the prosecutors don’t bring hate crimes charges against the attackers (or any charges at all!) or if the university fails to discipline the attackers, it will stand as another example of how our country’s principle of “equal protection under the law” is only selectively applied to certain privileged groups.
If there is no justice in this case, there will be hell to pay, one way or another.
CBS News reports that the City Council of San Mateo, California, has issued a temporary ban on the use of private rooms in karaoke bars, arguing that drug use, gambling, and prostitution are rampant in these private rooms.
Naturally, the karaoke business owners are up in arms about the ban and argue that just because some isolated incidents of illegal activity occurred in these types of places, that does not mean that a whole group has to pay the price for the actions of a few.
The owners are absolutely right. I’ve said it before — you cannot condemn an entire group of people because of the actions of one or a few individuals who are identified with that group. That is called discrimination and racial profiling, plain and simple. What makes this case even more interesting is that one quarter of San Mateo’s population are Asian American, part of an emerging demographic trend in California of upscale and affluent Asian American suburban enclaves.
It makes me wonder whether this ban by the City Council members (most of whom are White, I presume) is a conscious or unconscious form of backlash against the belief that Asian Americans are “taking over.” Update: In early March, city officials apparently ended the ban (although with some stipulations) after much protest from the Asian American community and accusations that they were being culturally insensitive. Moral to this story: don’t punish an entire group for the actions of a few — that’s called scapegoating.
The President recently unveiled a plan to reform the U.S.’s immigration laws to allow undocumented workers to stay in the U.S. as “guest workers” in jobs that U.S. workers do not want, for a period of three years, during which time they could also apply for a green card and become a permanent resident. I find this is to be a very interesting political situation because of all the different competing factions that have an interest in this proposal.
Specifically, conservatives and Republicans seem to be split on this proposal — many say that in effect, this plan would offer amnesty to illegal aliens and would reward those who came here illegally and technically, are therefore criminals. On the other hand, businesses strongly support such a plan, which would enable them to continue paying their largely Mexican workers less money than American workers, and would free them from worrying about their workers’ legal statuses.
Of course the Democrats, who are traditionally strong supporters of immigrants’ rights, don’t think the plan goes far enough. They feel that regardless of someone’s legal status, if that person has been law-abiding and has contributed to the nation’s economy through hard work and paying taxes, s/he should be allowed the opportunity to become a legal permanent resident and eventually a U.S. citizen. Recent public opinion surveys show that most people do not support Bush’s plan — many think that immigrants take jobs away from U.S. workers and that too many immigrants come to the U.S. each years.
How does this plan affect APAs? At first glance, it doesn’t appears that it affects them much at all, since very few are here illegally, at least not compared to the proportion of immigrants from Mexico and Central America who are undocumented. However, many Asian businesses owners would probably benefit under this plan, since many of them employ large numbers of low-wage Latino workers. At the same time, several APA organizations have criticized the plan for not addressing backlog of family reunification immigration applications, which tend to be more important to the APA community.
My personal opinion? While I support the concept of granting “amnesty” to undocumented workers, I think the specifics of his plan would in effect, create a permanent underclass of low-wage workers whose legal status will still remain in limbo. Perhaps not surprisingly, I support the Democrats’ proposals of granting them amnesty and giving them the opportunity to become American citizens.
Bill Singer was (emphasis on “was”) a special assistant for the New York Mets until he directed some racist remarks at Kim Ng, an Asian American executive for the Los Angeles Dodgers, formerly employed by the New York Yankees, and widely respected as the most powerful Asian American in baseball. As this article from the A.P. via Yahoo describes, Singer repeatedly asked Ng “Where are you from?” even after Ng said that she was born in Indiana and grew up in New York and then Singer mocked the Chinese language by blurting out the all-too-familiar “ching-chong” sounds.
Sadly, this kind of racist treatment happens all too frequently against Asian Americans in the workplace, whether it’s in an ordinary office environment or in this case, among high-profile baseball executives. I commend the New York Mets for reacting swiftly and decisively in firing Singer, especially after Singer gave the pretty laughable excuse that he was slightly delirious due at the time, due to being on a low carb diet combined with a little too much alcohol. All I can say is that he absolutely deserved it — what an idiot.
Apparently he had no clue that he worked for a team located in perhaps the most multicultural city in the world, its stadium located right next door to one of the largest Chinatowns in the country, and in a sport that is increasingly welcoming Asian baseball players into its ranks. Major League Baseball teams have fired or severely disciplined many other people for racist comments against Blacks and it makes perfect sense that the same consideration is given to Asians in baseball as well.
David Chang, a Chinese American entrepreneur, had an idea that he could create a version of the classic board game Monopoly, except his version is centered on an inner-city ghetto theme and features caricatures of Blacks holding sub-machine guns, bottles of malt liquor, crack houses, prostitutes, etc. Needless to say, his idea of “fun and games” touched off an overwhelming torrent of criticism and charges of racism.
After being bombarded by protests, Urban Outfitters, eBay, and Yahoo! recently decided to pull the game from their shelves and sites. Recently, Hasbro (the company who makes the original Monopoly) filed suit against David Chang for copyright and trademark infringement.
David Chang claims to be completely surprised by all the criticism and says that he is trying to unite racial/ethnic groups together in laughter while exercising his rights to free speech at the same time. Unfortunately, he apparently doesn’t understand that in the same way that he can express his views, we also have the right to tell him what a dumb ass ignorant idiot he is.
It’s been gratifying to see that people, groups, and organizations of all races and ethnicities have united to condemn this game and its reinforcement and perpetuation of demeaning stereotypes. This collective outrage also shows that just because one Asian American does something wrong and stupid does not mean that our entire community is somehow behind it and should be blamed for his actions, a lesson that a Black radio show host learned recently after telling her listeners to call in with demeaning racial slurs for Asians in support of her idea for a “Chinkopoly” game as a protest response to Ghettopoly. Fortunately, she apologized soon after making those comments.
The lessons here are: (1) being Asian American does not give you the right to demean and slander other groups of color and, (2) the acts of one person should not be blamed on an entire community.
California isn’t the only state where strange things are going on politically. As this article on CNN.com points out, Indian American Republican candidate for Governor Bobby Jindal is running against a female Democratic challenger to be the next Governor of Louisiana.
If elected, Jindal would only be the second mainland Asian American Governor, after Gary Locke of Washington. The fact that a non-White and especially an Asian American like Jindal is one step away from the Governor’s seat surprises a lot of people. Considering that Louisiana is known to be a very White, conservative state (where ex-Klan leader David Duke almost became Senator and Governor back in the 1990s), many people are shocked that Louisiana voters seem to think so highly of Jindal, an American of Indian descent.
In fact, the fact that Jindal is a conservative Republican and a recent convert to Catholicism, appeals to many Louisiana voters. Not to mention he was a former Rhodes Scholar and Louisiana’s Secretary of State. I’m not sure to what extent Jindal identifies himself as “Asian American” or to what extent other Asian Americans (most of whom are liberal Democrats, like myself) embrace him as a role model and leader of the community. I suppose that in the end, and presuming he gets elected, we’ll just have to see what kinds of policies he favors and how these policies affect most Asian Americans.
Latest update: On November 15, 2003, Democratic candidate Kathleen Blanco defeated Jindal to become the new Governor of Louisiana. It appeared to be somewhat of a come-from-behind win for Blanco, since the last polls showed Jindal with a lead of several percentage points. The Associated Press has a very interesting article that speculates on whether race was a factor in Jindal’s defeat. Although Jindal lost this particular election, I’m sure we haven’t heard the last from him — don’t be surprised to see him run for Senator of Louisiana in the future.
As news articles like this from CBS News describe, Yee was employed as a Chaplain for the U.S. military and was assigned to counsel Muslim prisoners at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
After a recent flight back to the U.S., he was detained and arrested for allegedly passing classified information onto the terrorist suspects. Federal prosecutors are conducting an investigation to see if they can levy more specific espionage charges against him.
I can’t say at this point whether Yee is guilty or innocent but what disturbs me is the confluence of several factors. First, the Justice Department (led by Attorney General John Ashcroft) seems bent on enacting “anti-terrorist” legislation that would basically trample many basic civil rights that the Constitution supposedly guarantees us as Americans.
Second, on the heels of the Katrina Leung arrest and the infamous Wen Ho Lee episode, espionage allegations have been brought against another Asian American. It just seems like if you’re Asian (and Muslim), you’re seen in a much more suspicious light than other groups. We’ll have to see how this case plays out, but something about it already smells rotten to me.
First update: Yee was recently released from “pre-trial confinement” (a.k.a. prison) but is now charged with committing adultery and storing pornography on a government computer. This case isn’t through yet, but it sounds like the government could not find any evidence to substantiate its charges of espionage against Yee so in order to save face, they’ve brought these new charges against him. Like I said, smells pretty rotten to me.
Latest update: On March 19, 2004, the Army formally dropped all charges against Yee. Although they claimed it was because revealing evidence against Yee would have put national security at risk, it was pretty clear that the charges were pretty weak all along. Once again we witness an episode where, just like Wen Ho Lee, an Asian American is accused of espionage, denied bail and unfairly imprisoned, and in the end, the charges of espionage are never substantiated and all other charges are dropped. Incredible.
Earlier this summer, Fox premiered the show Banzai!, which they described as an irreverent parody of Japanese game shows. Originally a British series, Banzai! was meant to appeal to a young audience, including Asian Americans. The problem was, many Asian Americans didn’t find it funny at all. Rather, they saw it as another media perpetuation of the stereotype of Asians as nerds, geeks, and even perverts.
In addition to protesting straight to Fox, groups like Media Action Network for Asian Americans started putting pressure on advertisers who ran commercials during Banzai!, urging them to pull their advertising from the show, unless they wanted to face the possibility of being boycotted by the Asian American community. A couple of weeks ago, Fox cancelled Banzai!, although they did not mention exactly why they decided to do so.
I personally never watched an entire Banzai! show in its entirety but I saw enough to conclude that this was pretty weak humor at best and at worst, a serious example of racial insensitivity or even blatant prejudice toward Asian Americans. However, what really encouraged me about this whole Banzai! incident was that it again showed that when united around a single cause, Asian Americans can make a difference. If we all speak loud enough and as one voice, people are bound to hear us and if we keep it up, they will not be able to ignore us.
Salon.com reports that a group of Hispanic and Asian plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch, alleging that the company, in its efforts to “cultivate an overwhelmingly white sales force,”
systematically discriminates against Hispanic and Asian employees and applicants. You might remember that last year A&F got into trouble with the Asian American community after marketing t-shirts that many Asians found offensive. This also follows a recent suit where A&F was found to have forced its employees to buy and wear its clothes while on the job.
A&F insensitive to racial/ethnic minorities? No!!! Ignorant of diversity issues? Unheard of!!! Discriminating against Hispanics and Asians? That’s so unlike them!!! Yeah right. More like, “I told you so!” Regardless of the final outcome of the lawsuit, the fact that these allegations have been made and now formally publicized for official legal action only confirms what many Asian Americans have suspected all along — that A&F has no clue about what it means to live in a modern multicultural society. I hope the plaintiffs take A&F for all they’re worth.
As a recent article by the Associated Press details, many Arab Americans, Muslims, and Sikhs in the U.S. fear that they will be the targets of another wave of hate crimes and racism, similar to what many of them experienced after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Recent actions by the Immigration and Naturalization Service directed against the Arab American community may have also contributed to the potentially hostile climate. Specifically, the INS has detained and deported many Arab Americans only because their immigration documents were not completed, which was caused by backlogs in the INS system. The Asian American Legal Defence and Education Fund has set up a toll-free telephone number to report incidents of hate violence, detention, racial profiling, police misconduct, and other acts of discrimination at 1-800-966-5946.
Without getting into a discussion into whether war with Iraq is justified or not, I would like to urge everyone to be mindful that Americans come in many colors and from many backgrounds. Let us remember the lessons of the Japanese imprisonment during World War II and not scapegoat an entire community for the actions of a few who are only remotely associated with them. I hope that we also remember that expressing dissent against the war is not unpatriotic — in fact, it’s part of our rights and freedoms as Americans. Let’s also keep in mind that despite differences in opinion, both sides of the war debate almost universally support our troops who are risking their lives to protect American ideals and freedoms. I think we can all agree that we want our men and women to come home as quickly as possible and with as few causalities as possible.
Update: Even though it looks like the war is over and that the U.S. has basically accomplished most, if not all, of its goals, that does not necessarily mean that the danger of hate crimes against Arab Americans, Muslims, and Sikhs has significantly lessened. As an American, I am glad that the war did not result in massive, catastrophic causalities on both sides, and that the Iraqi people are now rid of an evil tyrant. At the same time, like many other Americans, I still think the invasion sets a bad international precedent (especially in light of the fact that contrary to the U.S.’s expectations, very few, if any, weapons of mass destruction including biological and chemical weapons have been found in Iraq) and hope that it does not lead to more hatred, resentment, and terrorist attacks on the U.S.
