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.
The Associated Press reports that in their search for a new General Manager (the person in charge of making player personnel decisions), the Dodgers have interviewed their current Assistant General Manager, Kim Ng, a Chinese American woman who has been with the Dodgers since 2001 and previously worked for the New York Yankees:
Kim Ng, a vice president and assistant general manager Read More →
As many news organizations like CNN are reporting, the Pentagon has just announced that, in consideration of constant opposition by native Okinawans, it will eventually cut the number of Marines stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa by half in the next six years:
The announcement from the Pentagon came Saturday and stated that the United States and Japan had agreed to Read More →
It seems that allegations against Asian Americans for spying are popping up each week. The latest, as reported by the New York Times, involves two four Chinese Americans accused of trying to smuggle secret documents about Navy warship technology to China:
An engineer, a Chinese television director and their wives were indicted on charges of stealing secret documents on American Navy Read More →
Those of you who have visited Viet Nam any time in the last couple of decades (and probably even before that) should know that corruption on the part of government officials throughout the country is rampant. It’s an open secret that the way to get things done is through bribes and that starts the minute you arrive in their airports Read More →
There were two stories in the news recently that involved allegations of racial profiling against Asians and other people of color. One involved a Black professor of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University who was stopped — and eventually arrested — by two campus security officers while he was trying to retrieve a book from his office:
USA Today has an article that talks about the emerging — or enduring — popularity of samurai films among American consumers and in influencing Hollywood movies:
A subset of the martial arts genre, samurai films have been made since the early 1930s in Japan. They gained international status when renowned directors such as Kurosawa (Rashomon) explored the genre. Interest in Japanese Read More →
The New York Times has an article that describes a series of proposals that U.S. government officials will present China on how it can modernize its economy, with the goal of strengthening China’s yuan currency and eventually equalizing China’s current trade imbalance with the U.S.:
The plan, to be discussed in two days of talks here and in Beijing, calls for China Read More →
As many news organizations are reporting, including CNN.com, George Takei — Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek TV series on the late 1960s and a beloved icon of Asian American entertainment, has just publicly announced that he is gay:
Takei told The Associated Press on Thursday that his new onstage role as psychologist Martin Dysart in “Equus,” helped inspire him to Read More →
The NBC affiliate in Philadelphia reports that several Chinese-owned small businesses around the city have recently received racist hate letters that threaten physical violence against them. The letters indicate that they were sent by the White supremacist group Aryan Nation:
Disturbing hate letters and threats have left some Asian market owners rattled, prompting an investigation by Philadelphia police and the Federal Read More →
Newsday reports that graduate students leaders at Yale University charge that the school routinely discriminates against Chinese students and subjects them to unfair requirements and harsher standards of performance:
“Year after year, Chinese graduate students in engineering face expulsion and are called upon to defend their academic standing,” Cong Huang, president of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars at Yale, wrote Read More →
As virtually all news organizations such as CBS News are reporting, Rosa Parks passed away last night at the age of 92. I’m sure you know that Rosa Parks became an iconic figure of the Civil Rights Movement when she refused to give up her seat to a White man in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955.
The Christian Science Monitor (which is an independent, non-religious journalism organization despite its name) has a very interesting article that describes the results of a multi-year survey of college freshmen nationwide on how religious they are. The results generally show that based on their measures, Asian American students are the least religious of all the major racial groups:
