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’m sure many of you have heard already, there was a tragic bus accident in Texas on Friday in which 15 Vietnamese Americans were killed and several dozens more injured when their chartered bus apparently blew a tire, lost control, flipped off a bridge, and crashed.
Most of the passengers were from Vietnamese Catholic Martyr Church in southeast Houston and Our Read More →
I received an email to ask for my help in promoting an effort to assist with earthquake relief for Chinese villagers:
Red Star Press works with some of Chinas most exciting graffiti and urban artists today. . . . “Unity is Strength” is a limited edition screen print by the Beijing graffiti artist “Soos” to benefit Chinese earthquake relief efforts.
In one of my recent posts, entitled “Racial Tensions and Living in a Colorblind Society,” I commented on how the economic recession and larger social/economic forces associated with globalization have resulted in many Americans struggling and feeling besieged by current events:
As Americans, particularly White Americans, continue to economically struggle as we enter a recession and as they culturally struggle with maintaining Read More →
As I’ve written about before, visual images can be very powerful forces in influencing our thoughts and actions. Most recently, we’ve seen this idea illustrated in regard to the controversy over The New Yorker’s cover cartoon depicting Michelle and Barack Obama. As another example, the Vietnamese American community continues to struggle with how to deal with images perceived to Read More →
In an earlier post, I wrote about how the Australian government has issued an official apology to their native aborigine population over the historical and systematic practice of forcibly separating aborigine children from their parents and subsequently trying to raise and socialize them as Whites.
That post also included a news story describing Senator Sam Brownback’s (R-Neb) introduction of legislation Read More →
In case you were not already familiar, the term “White Flight” refers to the phenomenon of White residents leaving central urban areas of major cities and moving into suburbs or even farther. This process began after World War II and coincided with the birth of suburbanization.
Unfortunately, White flight is also associated with the systematic segregation and “ghettoization” of Read More →
I would like to pass along an enthusiastic congratulations to Professor Evenlyn Nakano Glenn (Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley), who has just been elected as President-Elect of the American Sociological Association.
Professor Nakano Glenn has been a true pioneer in the fields of Sociology, Ethnic Studies, and Asian American Studies. She has written numerous articles and well-respected and often-referenced Read More →
I’m sure all of you have seen it by now — The New Yorker’s July 21, 2008 cover featuring Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, for an article entitled, “The Politics of Fear”:
I’m sure you’ve also heard and seen the controversy that the cover has sparked. As a pragmatist, I can understand the Obama campaign’s negative reaction to the cover Read More →
Barack Obama’s candidacy for President has, for better and for worse, increasingly prompted us as a society to honestly examine issues of race/ethnicity, discrimination, and racism. In the world of higher education where I work, one issue that continues to vex faculty and administrators is the relative lack of underrepresented minority groups as doctoral recipients and faculty.
As many of you already know, one area in which Asian Americans have slowly been achieving success and popularity is professional sports. Although many athletes from Asia such as Ichiro and Yao Ming have become superstars, only a few Asian American athletes have climbed to the top of their sports. For members of Generation X like me, one of Read More →
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:
Ted Koppel’s Series on China Entitled “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” on the Discovery Channel (July 9-14 at 10pm ET/PT)
http://www.youtube.com/user/DiscoveryChannel12
As American society in general and Asian Americans in particular continue to evolve in the increasingly globalized and transnational 21st century, it becomes even more important to understand the unique details that are included within both collective categories.
With that in mind and following up on my recent post about differences among Asian Americans when it comes to education, a new book Read More →
