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 the ACT test continues to gain in popularity at the expense of its increasingly-maligned competitor, the SAT, aggregate results from the latest rounds of ACT tests show that while test scores improved for all racial/ethnic groups from last year, some groups’ improvement is notably higher than others:
No ethnic or racial group showed decreases this year. But Asian Americans — already Read More →
I’m not a big fan of reality TV series but for those of you who watch Survivor, you may have heard that for their upcoming season, they will be dividing up teams based on racial/ethnic identity, with separate teams of Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians. Several politicians are raising concerns that this structure will only lead to further racial divisions Read More →
The term Viet Kieu in general refers to overseas Vietnamese and more specifically, to Vietnamese who were basically forced to flee Viet Nam at the end of the war and resettle elsewhere around the world (and to the children born outside of Viet Nam of these refugees). In recent years, more and more Viet Kieu have returned to Viet Nam Read More →
Soon-Ja Kim is a Korean American teacher in Maryland who has taught third grade at the same elementary school for over 20 years and has been nominated for Teacher of the Year several times. Nevertheless, a recent peer review labeled her as an “underperformer” and she feels that she is being targeted for possible termination because she speaks English with Read More →
By now, we should know that because of various push and pull factors, many people are desperate to immigrate to the U.S. In that context, there are several illegitimate ways in which people have tried/are using in order to come to the U.S. Recently, authorities have busted a scam that involved Vietnamese American citizens fraudulently sponsoring women from Viet Read More →
First we had Senator Joseph Biden’s careless remarks about Indian American business owners in Delaware. Now, Republican Senator George Allen is under fire for singling out an Indian American at a recent rally and calling him “macaca,” a derogatory slur meaning “monkey”:
In addition to a scathing New York Times editorial, Virginia papers such as the Roanoke Times, the Hampton Roads Read More →
Now that Michelle Wie is a professional, expectations about her performance are sky-high. She has generally played well but has yet to win a tournament. But what’s attracted a lot of attention recently is a series of controversies surrounding her, including a disqualification, a two-stroke penalty at the recent British Open, and now, the unceremonious firing of her caddie. Read More →
For those of you who follow basketball, you may know that Donald Sterling is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, who recently concluded their best season ever, even outperforming their cross-town rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers. Sterling has many business ventures, one of which is rental properties. He and his employees are now accused of discriminating against Blacks Read More →
As the U.S. prepares to begin prosecuting several high profile incidents of atrocities against Iraqi civilians by U.S. soldiers, CBS News reports that new unclassified government data from the Viet Nam War documents that atrocities committed against Vietnamese civilians were much more numerous than previously thought:
The abuses were not restricted to one rogue Army division, but were committed by soldiers in Read More →
A student at the University of British Columbia has just completed a detailed study of how Asian Americans are portrayed in many popular video games and probably not surprisingly, found that in virtually all instances, such portrayals were stereotypic and even racist:
Kung fu warriors and faceless, yellow-skinned victims are two prevalent images of Asian males found in top-selling video games which Read More →
Among many Asian Americans and students of Asian history, few names command more reverence and respect than Genghis Khan. History shows that he and his Mongols established one of the largest empires in world history, conquered pretty much all of Asia and were poised to overrun Europe as well. As Mongolia prepares to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Read More →
Recently, a series of incidents originally precipitated by police brutality in Edison, NJ has brought to the surface some very interesting and in many ways unfortunate inter-Asian tensions between community members and the city government:
After an Asian-Indian resident claimed he was beaten by an Edison police officer in July, Mayor Jun Choi reached out to Asian-Indian community leader Peter Kothari, in Read More →
