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 my continuing quest to find stories of how China is increasing becoming Americanized and “capitalism-ized,” I ran across this recent New York Times that describes how thousands of Chinese villagers rioted against a hospital for allegedly failing to treat a three year old boy who eventually died because his family couldn’t pay his medical bills:
One of the most visible forms of the outsourcing is how many customer or technical service calls directed to U.S. companies are now handled by workers in India. This also happens to be one of the examples of outsourcing that produces the most aggravation and frustration on the part of many Americans, due to — at least on the surface Read More →
We should know by now that the U.S. government (present one included) is notorious for keeping certain documents secret from the public. But as the New York Times reports, more than sixty years after the fact, new photographs taken by Dorothy Lange of life in some of the prison camps that held some 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II Read More →
On the heels of an Iranian American student at UCLA being tazered by police for not showing his student ID, as CBS News reports, the latest incident of racial profiling against Muslims and Arab Americans involves six Muslims Imams recently being removed from a US Airways flight and detained, all because a passenger and the flight crew became suspicious when they Read More →
You may have heard that last week, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a 23 year old Iranian American student at UCLA was tazered by campus police after refusing to show his student ID card while in a campus library. A fellow student recorded video of some of the incident and although you can’t really see much in terms of the actual incident, the Read More →
As you might have heard, President Bush is in Hanoi right now as Viet Nam hosts the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. It’s not every day that the President of the United States comes to visit Viet Nam. In fact, the only other time was President Clinton’s visit in 2000. So are the Vietnamese excited to have Bush Read More →
As Vietnamese Americans have been increasing integrating themselves into the American mainstream, their political power has also increased. In fact, many politicians actively court Vietnamese American voters as a reflection of their potential as a strong voting bloc constituency. However, in light of the recent scandal involving Tan Nguyen’s campaign trying to scare Latino immigrants to stay away from Read More →
As China continues to becoming more Americanized and “capitalism-ized,” as the Christian Science Monitor reports, the latest status symbol among China’s emerging middle and upper classes is having a dog as a pet. However, with this new trend comes age-old challenges as well:
A generation raised in one-child families is eager to bond with household pets. In Beijing, the number Read More →
In the wake of the recent election results, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) has released some preliminary exit poll data about the voting patterns of Asian Americans around the country. Below is their press release in its entirety:
AALDEF EXIT POLL OF 4,600 ASIAN AMERICAN VOTERS REVEALS ROBUST SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES IN KEY CONGRESSIONAL AND STATE Read More →
Among all Asian American ethnic groups, Indians consistently stand out as the most socioeconomically successful and one of the fastest-growing. As a reflection of those characteristics, Salon.com has an article that outlines the burgeoning Indian American community in the U.S.:
Not only is the Indian community burgeoning, it’s maturing. Increasingly, after decades of quietly establishing themselves, Indians are becoming more vocal Read More →
In American society, race and gender are constructed in manner that privileges some and disadvantages others. The same can be said of racialized gender stereotypes: black men and Asian women are hyper-sexualized, whereas Asian men and black women are desexualized. Asian women marry whites by a ratio of at least 2:1 over Asian men. Given these conditions, Asian males Read More →
As another sign that China is continuing its quest to become a global economic superpower, China has announced that it will pledge billions in aid to African nations and significantly increase its trade with the African continent:
China is launching a sweeping effort to expand its access to Africa’s oil and markets, pledging billions of dollars in aid and loans. Chinese entrepreneurs Read More →
