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A Sense of Humor

This Thanksgiving, I contemplated writing a Thanksgiving/Thankstaking post, discussing my feelings on the holiday and surrounding blahdeeblah. But I didn't, because I had a conversation that went something like this:

We killed all the Native Americans! We destroyed Europe, then North America, now we're destroying Africa! Humans are bad for the planet! Oh, and all the TV shows on right now are trashy!

I don't want to sound like that. I don't want to make life into a guilt trip for myself and everyone around me. Yeah, the white folks who made the middle of North America did some really, really bad stuff to the indigenous peoples-- scalping, small pox, broken treaties, reservations, genocide, etc. And the repercussions of those actions continue, along with completely current bad policies.

And it doesn't end with the Indians. We all know this, yeah?

But, talking about it like that doesn't really convince anyone. So, let's make the effort to enjoy life, too. We all need a sense of humor, sometimes.

On the Lighter Side of Life

The business going down at UC Berkeley is deadly serious, but we've got to celebrate too, yeah? Let's take a mental break.

On my Facebook this morning, I looked down to check who's birthday is coming, you know, to be a good friend. The next three birthdays of my friends are:

Andrea Wong! Andrea Huang! and Andrew Huang!

A plea to the next generation of Chinese American parents-- we don't have that many last names. Let's switch up the first names a little bit.

A Look at Chancellor Birgeneau

A couple of comments on the emails that Chancellor Birgeneau sent out.

First, the length of each message. Whoever wrote those emails knew a thing about people's attention spans. The great drawback of many activist emails is the way they pack in tons of important information, until the reader is on overload and misses important details.

Second, the sterility of the language. Whoever wrote those emails wrote them dispassionately, as if writing about facts. The idea is to make the emails sound, well, factual. "A few campus members may have found themselves in conflict with law enforcement officers (who)... did very well." How different would the email sound if we rewrote it to say "Campus administration sent police officers to deal with members of the campus community. There are reports that the officers threatened and hit students with batons."?

Third, the choice of individual words. Whoever wrote those emails very subtly paints the people inside and outside of the Hall as two different camps: the campus police and administrators working to protect the campus and the rights of faculty and students to teach and be taught; the protestors as misguided and disruptive; illegal but understandable.

The police and campus administration are: working to resolve, striving to end the occupation, reaching out, encouraging the protestors, and diffusing. In everything they do, they are working on the side of the faculty and students outside Wheeler Hall. The faculty and students are addressed as passive, and told to wait for instruction, as if the protesters have no support outside. The faculty and staff are: asked to remain, advised to leave, affected contacted, and unable to attend. Compare this with the protestors who are: demanding, taking over, and trespassing.

From Chancellor Birgeneau

While a group of protesters occupied Wheeler Hall, Chancellor Birgeneau sent these emails to the campus community:

1.

The campus police are working to resolve a protest action that is occurring in Wheeler Hall.  Staff, faculty and students who would normally be working in Wheeler Hall  are asked to remain out of the building until further notice.  Employees who can contact their supervisors should talk to them if possible to determine whether telecommuting or relocation to another work area is an option.  Those in the building right now are advised to leave until the situation has been resolved.   Employees who remain on campus may check in at Dwinelle Plaza at 10am. for further information.  Thank you to all of the members of the campus community for your patience in this matter.  

2.

Campus police continue to work to resolve the protest action at Wheeler Hall.  Campus police are striving to end the occupation of Wheeler Hall with the safety of our campus community, including all those involved in this action, as an uppermost priority.  Wheeler Hall will remain closed until further notice.  Instructors who teach in Wheeler Hall will be contacted shortly by e-mail.

3.
Since 3:00 p.m. today a group of senior administrators, faculty, and student leaders have been reaching out to the protesters inside Wheeler Hall.  Attempts to engage in a conversation with the 15 to 30 protestors estimated to be in the building have been refused.  The protesters are demanding reinstatement of 38 AFSCME custodial staff who were recently laid off and amnesty and the dropping of charges against any of the protestors.  Today's takeover of Wheeler Hall has affected 3800 students who were not able to attend classes in Wheeler Hall, as well as many others who have offices and work in the building.  Activities in many other campus buildings were disrupted by falsely activating fire alarms. We continue to attempt to resolve the situation and encourage the protestors to leave the building of their own accord.

4.
The Wheeler Hall protest ended peacefully this evening when 40 protestors who had occupied the second floor of the building were cited for trespassing by UC Berkeley Police and released.  Thanks to the efforts of ASUC student leaders and faculty who worked with Vice-Chancellor Student Affairs Harry Le Grande, Executive Vice-Chancellor & Provost George Breslauer, and me, our police were able to diffuse the situation and end the protest.   Throughout the day, the large crowds that gathered around Wheeler Hall necessitated significant police presence to maintain safety.  It is truly regrettable, however, that a few members of our campus community may have found themselves in conflict with law enforcement officers.  Overall, the officers who managed the day's events did very well under difficult circumstances.  I understand that our students are justifiably angry over the fee increases and reductions in staff necessitated by the egregious disinvestment by Sacramento in the University of California.  They are not alone in this.  Clearly, we cannot allow illegal occupations of our buildings and disruption of our academic programs.  Today 3800 students were unable to attend class in Wheeler Hall.    We have a strong tradition of free speech on campus.  Let us not forget that we are all fighting for the same cause:  to maintain the public character of our university by sustaining Berkeley's excellence and accessibility.  Taking over our classroom buildings is not a productive way in which to advance our shared interests in gaining support for public higher education.  Let us work together, not in opposition, to move forward our cause. 

Update on UC Berkeley

And this one forwarded from another friend at UC Berkeley:

Please forward to UC faculty, grad students, and friends

Dear UC Faculty and Friends,

There are few words that can describe the horror of police violence against students on UC Berkeley’s campus Friday November 20. Chancellor Birgeneau’s dispatches to the campus community, most recently those today pre-empting a critical outrage to what transpired, are disgraceful and must be met with a forceful response by UC faculty and students. What started as aggressive and unjustified provocation by UCPD was soon supplemented by the vicious behavior of officers from Berkeley Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff. As students peaceably assembled in support of those occupying Wheeler Hall, Chancellor Birgeneau ordered or approved the deployment of hundreds of police brandishing their batons to beat the spirit of ownership out of them.

Chancellor Birgeneau characterizes the role and presence of armed and aggressive police officers that engaged in violence against students on this campus as positive and necessary in resolving the situation. When I arrived on campus early in the morning as a supportive alumnus, two UCPD officers attempted to ram a metal barricade through a crowd of students I was in — without announcement, notice, or even a chance to move out of the way. Students had no choice but to push back in self defense to prevent injury to themselves and their peers. Yet Chancellor Birgeneau says that the situation “ended peacefully,” and thanked the police for their allegedly positive role.

On at least two later occasions students at the front of barricade lines were threatened with batons thrust into their chests, stomachs, shoulders, and backs. Berkeley Police Department officers once again violently confronted students, placing barricades on police lines. Their blows rained down on the students at the front line, who had absolutely no opportunity to follow police instructions to move because the crowds were too thick. Apparently the officers did not care about this fact or did not understand it because they struck student after student, marks on whose bodies are still apparent today — even as Chancellor Birgeneau announces the situation “ended peacefully.”

A graduate student’s fingers were maliciously destroyed by an officer who struck her with a baton for placing her hand on the barricade. She requires reconstructive surgery, as after the beating her fingers were left hanging by a thread of flesh. And yet Chancellor Birgeneau claims that the student protests ended “peacefully.”

At least one undergraduate student was shot by an officer with an unidentified projectile. There is a mark on his stomach today, but Chancellor Birgeneau claims that the student protests ended “peacefully.”

I saw one camera man threatened by a police officer who screamed: “if you’re close enough that my baton can hit you, I will hit you!” And yet Chancellor Birgeneau says that the police “did very well under difficult circumstances” and that the situation ended “peacefully.”

Students who intended nothing more than to sit-in on their own campus to confront imminent issues were met by the Chancellor’s police officers who showed nothing but disrespect, violence, and brutality. In some areas these violent acts were more prevalent than others. But in all spaces the police presence was overwhelming; a University campus was transformed into a battle ground under police authority. UC Faculty must move to hold Chancellor Birgeneau accountable for endangering the safety of students by exposing them to violent police forces and completely mishandling and misunderstanding the nature of student protest actions on this campus.

Faculty must lead an effort to collect student testimonies and anecdotes about the police violence of the Friday Nov 20 protests. Those mentioned above are only those witnessed first-hand by myself or by people I know personally. Surely there are countless others instances to be documented and for which the Chancellor must be held accountable.

As the Chancellor characterizes the unreasonable presence and activity of police officers on campus as a faithful attempt to restore some sort of “normalcy” to this threatened and beleaguered campus, several clarifications are in order. The students on campus Friday were not rioters. The police presence neither in fact nor in aspiration offered safety or protection to the student body. Police were likely not justified in any use of violence against students yesterday. Chancellor Birgeneau did not resolve or contain the situation. His actions have only highlighted how out of touch he is with the student protesters. On whose behalf he ordered or facilitated the deployment of hundreds of armed police officers on campus is unclear — but it was certainly not on behalf of the thousands of students assembled to achieve a degree of control over their own education and fate yesterday.

I hope you will forward this letter to other faculty and that action can be taken soon to hold Chancellor Birgeneau accountable, to conduct credible inquiries into student interactions with police, and to adopt a faculty statement against the deployment of non-UCPD personnel against students on this campus in the future. In addition to students’ limbs, something has been broken, and Chancellor Birgeneau’s cover-up will not fix it. Corrective action must be taken, and faculty are in the best position to do this.

Thank you, sincerely,

Yaman Salahi

http://www.yamansalahi.com/2009/11/21/current-events/chancellor-birgeneau-must-be-held-accountable-for-violence-against-students/

Update on UC Berkeley

I received this from a friend of mine, a current undergrad at UC Berkeley:

for couple of months the students in berkeley have been working w the workers on campus and some faculty to talk to the regents and the legislature to pressure the state in giving us the funding we need. other demands include fair and living wages for the janitors librarians custodians untenured lecturers. many ppl lost their jobs recently, so there have been walkouts and protests all over the college campuses since sept.

most recently, this week from tuesday to thursday, the uc regents met @ ucla to vote on the fee hike of 32% starting next semester which would kick tons of students out bc we cant afford to pay that much. especially the middle class international and undocumented students (i was one of em until the spring of my freshmen yr) who dont qualify for government financial aid.

thats why i went down w my friends and union ppl to protest. thanks for those of you who txted called back and prayed for me. that 24hrs experience was something i will never forget. but i dont want to digress now.

the vote went through anyway. and today more than 60 students took over one of the campus buildings and locked themselves in to make the chancellor negotiate w us. the demands are rehiring the union ppl who got laid off and amnesty for students occupying the building. i was there all day through the rain, and even as i speak right now there are cops (ucpd, berkeley police, alameda county sheriff, and even swat!!!) everywhere pushing students around, barricading us, and even gassing and beating some ppl.

i dont intend to bombard you w all these crazy stuff or even to push my own political social values. i do want to ask for prayer though. bc i believe that for all of us at some point in our lives education meant and still does mean something. many of my friends are out there, and i personally have so much at stake in terms of what i believe access to higher education should be, i would LOVE your prayer for everyone's safety and God's peace and justice to reign on this campus.

thanks. PLS let me know if you want more info or have questions or are curious about whats going on.

GOD IS GOOD, HIS WAYS ARE HIGHER THAN OURS, AND JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ARE THE FOUNDATIONS OF HIS THRONE

in Him, peace

Identity First

A friend of mine sent me to a blog called iamkoreanamerican.com. She's half Korean American, but tends to associate with the Chinese American community. I'm not at all Korean American, but she said that the profile for the day reminded her of me. I clicked through, and bam! another Asian American artist and community organizer's picture was smiling at me.

Still with me? Where am I going with this? Identity!

The site asked people to submit a picture and a short description of how they consider themselves Korean American. Everyday, they post a new profile. That's it. Nice and simple.

Identity, being comfortable with yourself, being and individual and being part of a community/communities is an important aspect of Asian American Studies and organizing. We should remember, however, that its only the beginning. I'm not hating on iamkoreanamerican.com by any means, just making an observation. Many people get involved in Asian American activism because they are looking for their own identity, and protecting their own community. Forging connections between otherwise unlike people is wicked important.

Speaking of Narratives

The story about the judge in Louisiana refusing the marry a mixed-race couple just won't fade away. The judge continues to make appearances in conversations intermittently. And that got me thinking about interracial marriage.

When I think of interracial marriage in my own admittedly illogical brain, I find archetypal stories. The first: two individuals transcend racial boundaries to find true love, throwing society's prejudices back in its face and paving a path to the future. The second: two individuals hook up based on their desires to be with someone exotic or who gives them the social mobility of whiteness, claiming to love the other as an individual, but consciously or subconsciously expecting the other to fulfill racial stereotypes.

This is the part where I worry I make no sense. I tend to associate the first archetype with interracial marriages before 1967 (Loving V. Virginia) and the second with interracial marriages after 1967. Is it because I think people had to be more serious in marriages that broke laws? Am I just glorifying the past? Am I going crazy? Where did this strange assumption come from?

A Village Called Versailles

One of my professors in college described my generation like this: "You've got 9/11 in one pocket and Katrina in the other." You get it, yeah? Each generation builds a corporate identity around shared experiences. The key word being shared. In order for a corporate identity to work, the narrative around shared experiences has to be a narrative that everyone accepts.

The narrative for Katrina goes something like this: a hurricane named Katrina swept through New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast, exposing the horrific poverty that the black community lived in. George Bush hates black people, so the hurricane destroyed communities and the government didn't really try to help that much. White people salvaged supplies from the wreckage and black people looted. People were transformed into refugees in their own country by the media, but an outpouring of help and support from colleges, churches, and celebrities like Bradd Pitt proved that the American public really did care about their countrymen.

Among the things missing in the narrative is an acknowledgement that the US isn't just black and white. That the Vietnamese community of New Orleans got no love in the aftermath of Katrina. In fact, even as they rebuilt their community, the city decided to place a toxic waste dump next to it.

A group of filmmakers has made a documentary about the Vietnamese community's experiences, "A Village Called Versailles".

For those of you in the Boston area, there will be two screenings of the film next week. Check it out!

UMass Boston Screening, Fri 11/20 @ 1pm

WHAT: UMass Boston Screening sponsored by Asian Am Studies Program
WHEN: Fri 11/20 @ 1 – 3:15pm
WHERE: Snowden Auditorium, Wheatley Bldg., 1st Flr, Rm 088, UMass Boston
TICKETS: No admission fee. Open to public.

Boston Community Screening, Sun 11/22 @ 11:30 am

WHAT: Boston Community Screening in Fields Corner
WHEN: Sun 11/22 @ 11:30 am
WHERE: Vietnamese American Community Center • 42 Charles St., Boston, MA 02122
TICKETS: No admission fee. Open to public.

Free screening at the heart of Boston’s Vietnamese American community in Fields Corner. The film will be screened with Vietnamese subtitles. Director S. Leo Chiang in attendance.

Units of Analysis

Imagine reading a book/paper/article. It's like diving into the ocean. Once you break the surface, you can swim down through layers. The water gets progressively colder and darker and more mysterious, but there's always something down there. Fish that you cannot find except for in the deep, plants that only grow on the ocean's floor. And then at some point, you can't see the surface any more.

When engaging in analysis, it's possible to go too deep, it go so far into a text/film/sound byte that you lose track of the original piece. It's possible to get caught up in the minutia and lose track of the whole.

I'd give an example, but I can't really think of one right now.

Hines Ward is The Man

Normally, I'm not a big Steelers' fan, but Asian American athletes always take a spot in my heart. Mixed Asian Americans even more. And Hines Ward is pretty damn cool. Cause he's half black half Korean and he talks about it. Its refreshing to see someone in the mainstream talk candidly about race relations.

He speaks to his experiences feeling cast out by blacks, whites, and Koreans because of his heritage. He wants to fit in, but on his own terms. And instead of using his fame to gain acceptance for himself, he's using it to bring the issue to light and gain a little respect for other people who have similar experiences being half Korean.

Check out the article from today's New York Times.

Lee Herrick

Super excited. Korean American poet Lee Herrick is comming to Boston this week. Catch him in Cambridge at 45 Mt Auburn St. in Harvard Sq on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 7.00 pm. Sponsored by the Boston Korean Adoptees. For full info, check the link.

Poets tell a kind of truth that no one else can. A good poem tells the truth, even (or especially) when it's lying.

Happy BIrthday BCNC

Early Comparison

Today, an army psychiatrist about to be deployed overseas opened fire on Mt Hood army base, killing 12 and injuring 31.

The New York Times just released an more in depth article to follow up their initial report, and the writer speculates as to what could make a man do such a thing. The lead before you click through to the full article cites a cousin, who said the man was unnerved by all the trauma he had seen in treating soldiers coming back from their tours. So far so fair?

The actual article opens with the fact that this man's family immigrated to the US from Palestine. Its not my imagination that the article fixates on his nationality and religion, as if to say, "He tried so hard to be American, he was so proud to serve the country, but in the end, his conflicting loyalties to his religion caused too much turmoil within him."

If not to suggest that he was overly zealous, why end the article by saying he was unmarried because he couldn't find a woman religious enough?

He is the cause of deaths and tragedy. And now he is doubly suspect because he is Palestinian, and Muslim.

I'm reminded of Cho Seung Hui, who opened fire on his college campus three years ago. All the media wanted to talk about was the fact that he was Korean. Korean movies are so violent they said, it must have pushed him to this.

It was America that made us who we are.

Same Sex Marriage Update

Maine residents voted this week to stop legislation that legalized same sex marriage. If you remember, California voters pulled a similar move last election, voting to stop same sex marriage after the Court ruled that it was constitutional.

Let us assume that same sex marriage is a constitutional right (I think it is, but maybe some of you don't). If the courts or legislature decide something is legal, is it up to the people to decide whether or not they agree with the courts? Which of our constitutional rights can be decided by majority vote? And if the legislature passes an unconstitutional law, isn't it the job of the courts to to decide that, not the voters? I'm all for the power of the people (the US has passed a lot of bad laws), but the people shouldn't have the power to vote for things that go against constitutional rights, right? After all, the idea behind constitutional amendments, in part, is to protect the rights of minority groups.

It's wistful thinking, I know. Unless the federal government decides a constitutional amendment, the states have the ability to change it, so there's really no saying that its unconstitutional. But its frustrating. Very frustrating.

Completely Unrelated. Kind of Gross.

Eating meat is a little bit gross. This is a case in point. If you're looking for contemplations on Asian America and ethnic studies, skip this post.

On Sunday, I decided to cook. Never mind what. And like a tool, I burned my arm pretty bad. The area is the size of about two fingernails and resembles nothing so much as a very small piece of steak cooked medium rare.

I find it disgusting that my arm looks like a piece of steak. I can imagine someone slicing a piece off and seeing that my arm is really just a piece of cooked meat, not all that different from other pieces of cooked meat.

Since Sunday I've pretty much been eating bread and cheese. Delicious, requires no cooking. Doesn't look like my own arm.

Yum.

Positive Politics

I've got a bad habit of asking questions then not answering them. Yesterday I asked can politics bring positive social change? Today, I attempt to answer that question!

Wasn't it MLK Jr. that said "Law can't change people's hearts, but it can stop people from lynching others"? I think the quote is a pretty good description of politics. Politics, like most other things, is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. At its core, politics is the constant transfer and manipulation of power and influence.

Politics is big, so it can make big moves, like making lynching illegal or marriage legal. Politics may even be able to give everyone health insurance, but it can't do it on its own. Its up to all of us to harness its power for positive social change.

The Story of Floon

Boston's mayoral race is pretty heated this year. In one corner is Thomas Menino, long time well-entrenched mayor of Boston. I mean, he's been mayor of this town since I was in elementary school even though no one can understand half of what he says. Menino doesn't give speeches so much as he mumbles in front of a microphone. In the other corner are Flaherty and Yoon, running together as a team some call "Floon".

This post is more about Sam Yoon than it is about the rest of the mayoral race. Yoon came to Boston as an adult, became a community organizer and then the first Asian American to be elected to Boston's City Council.

As I decide who to vote for, I admit that I wonder if I should vote for him because he's an Asian American. Intellectually, it seems like a poor reason. If he's going to be the first, isn't it even more important to make sure that he'll be a good one? Should I vote for him because he has community organizing in his past? As a reason, it may be a slightly better one since it points to experiences and values that I want to support.

Behind these questions though, is a deeper question: as an organizer/activist/etc, do I think that positive social change can be achieved through politics? Sometimes Boston politics seems synonymous with corruption (think DiMasi and scalping legislation, or more recently, Menino and the missing emails). If politics corrupts, why corrupt people who could do good elsewhere?

Even if I don't trust politics all that much, it's good to have friends in the right places, right? Someone sympathetic to your causes?

MASAE

What's good? MASAE, the Massachusetts Asian Society Athletic Establishment. Check out their video on Youtube and it'll tell you all about them. That's all I'm gonna give you.

Blue Man Group

Last night, I went to Blue Man Group with my brother. And when the blue men came out to the stage, my brother whispered "Hey, Asian blue man!" He was right! An Asian Blue Man! Perhaps its neither here nor there, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Carrying on the Conversation

Daniel K. Eng said...

"Does the judge have the right to pick and choose who he marries? If he does, then he can't be denied his rights, as lame as his reasoning is.

As a pastor, I should be able to choose if I will marry a couple. Of course, I could get sued in civil court if I refuse, but it's still my choice. I wonder if it's different for the judge because he's a civil servant, though."

I think there's a difference. As a pastor, your authority comes from the church, and you are obligated to follow the church's rules. Thus, if a couple outside of your church's rules wants to marry, then you may choose to deny them the spiritual blessing of the church.

A judge, however, gains his authority from the nation state, and is obligated to follow the nation state's rules. He cannot choose to enforce only the rules he likes, or to break the rules of the state. Imagine if a pastor decided that he would no longer pray with people who had a criminal record. Such discrimination surely goes against the ideal of forgiveness that the church espouses. If a pastor refused to follow the church's ideals on such an issue, surely someone would tell him so. In the same way, if a judge refuses to enforce the laws of the nation state, he should be censured.

Its Like, WTF?

The United States stepped in the make interracial marriage legal in all states in 1967. Since the landmark Loving v. Virginia case, judges in all states are supposed to marry people of all colors to each other, as long as one's a man and one's a woman (another story for another time).

Now, a judge in Louisiana is refusing to marry an interracial couple and not for the first time. His excuse goes something like this: "Its for the kids. These interracial marriages never last. I'm not a racist. I'm not saying they can't get married, I'm just not going to do it. After all, I'm not racist. I have tons of black friends. I even let them use my bathroom!"

I'm not making up the bathroom quote. I mean, celebrities can get married for a day. And drunk people can get married in Vegas, and no judge stops them on the grounds that their marriage might not last.

Think I'm twisting the facts? Check the article from the SF Chronicle.

Storefront Library

WBUR picked up the Chinatown storefront library story. Check it out on their website

If My Mother is a Mirror

I don't think my mom reads my blog. She's perfectly able, in technological capabilities, but I still doubt that she does.

After I wrote my post yesterday, I asked my mom if she thought I looked like her. She laughed. "No, no," she said. "You don't. But maybe you look like a relative. Like a Lee. You remember. You look like your grandmother." Then amended herself. "You resemble your grandmother. But, you've seen the pictures. You don't look like her. You act like her."

How much does our appearance reflect our spirit?

My grandmother had a round face, naturally curly hair that the other Chinese girls envied, and tiny eyes. She was graceful. She appreciated the value of things, but was not taken in by things because they had value. She didn't force her opinion into conversations, so when she spoke, you had to listen. Whatever it was, it was the right answer. I'd like to resemble my grandmother, to see her spirit reflected in my face when I look in the mirror.

A Library for Chinatown

Once upon a time (1896-1956), there was a little library in Boston's Chinatown. The library served all the people in the area, Chinese and not, until one day, the City had to tear it down. The City had to tear the library down because they wanted to put a highway there. Instead of moving the library somewhere else, they never gave it a new home. And what happened to all those books? I don't know.

The neighborhood waited and waited for a new library. They waited almost 50 years, and when a new century began, a group of them decided to take the matter into their own hands.

After an 8 year campaign, the City hasn't decided to open the library back up, but a group of community partners is opening a temporary storefront library in Chinatown to gather support for a permanent location. That storefront library opens tomorrow, October 14. Check out the website for details.

When I Look in the Mirror, I Just See Me

A professor posed this statement to his class, an intro to Asian American Studies: "When I look in the mirror, I don't see Asian. I just see me."

Everyone in the class agreed with the statement, except one. Later, a friend of mine agreed as well, saying that it depended on how people treated her that day. In Vietnam, she didn't think about it at all. In the US, if she came up against a racial situation, she sometimes saw an Asian face staring back at her.

My reply was this: I always see my face staring at me from the mirror. I see my physical features, and sometimes my thoughts behind them. Sometimes I see a white woman staring at me, with freckles and hazel eyes. Sometimes I see an Asian woman staring at me, and my eyes seem more almond shaped, my skin smoother. And some days, I see a woman with multiple races layering themselves like so many palimpsests. But always, race is there. To say that my race is not a part of me is disingenuous. My experiences shape my being, and those experiences are deeply rooted in how people treat me, based on my perceived race.

What does it mean to look into a mirror and not see race? Color blindness has proved itself untenable. When we as a society "refuse to see race", we simply ignore it and the problems it has caused in our history. Discrimination goes underground. Or white becomes normal and everyone else is supposed to assimilate.

When people say they don't see race in the mirror, do they mean they're moving towards colorblind? If someone said they didn't see Asian, but instead saw white, how would the situation change? Race is generally immutable. We can't become one or the other depending on choice, can we?

When my friend said she saw race, I think she meant she felt different that day. In Vietnam, she saw no racial difference between her and the other people around her. My answer, then, as a mixed-race woman is based on my experience of not really looking like anyone else. Even in my own home, neither of my parents really looks like me. I am constantly conscious of race because I am constantly surrounded by difference.

The Devil Writes Progpaganda

When I read newspapers or testimonies or websites or pretty much anything I try to be aware of where the author is coming from. If I can tell what their opinion is, I won't mistake it for truth.

I'm paranoid for propaganda.

This brings me to a conversation I had this weekend. We were talking about choices. A guy said that if he had one choice he would know it's the right one. Like God was pointing him in the right direction. The voices in our heads don't always belong to God. One job offer doesn't mean you always have one choice. You can always walk away and wait for another choice.

They say that the devil is the best propagandist. He tells the entire truth except for the point he wants you to believe. His arguments look good to you because they're almost true. And that makes it that much harder to tell what's true and what's not.

Its true isn't it? The best propaganda is the the kind that's almost true.

The Really Important Things in Life

Stereotypes REALLY get to people. They're like a blatant slap in the face, especially when they're on national TV or backed by really powerful corporations. Remember how upset people got over those Abercrombie shirts? Or Memoirs of a Geisha? Or that Gay or Asian spread in Details magazine? Petitions and internet outrage flew so fast they probably broke the speed of sound.

During one such outrage, a friend of mine told me that he didn't get fired up over these stereotype battles. Not because they weren't important, but because they happened too often to be worth his time. He had better things to do. Better things to do, like build positive images of Asian Americans and communicate to people as individuals, I suppose.

He's probably right. Harold and Kumar have probably made a bigger impact on perceptions of Asian Americans than any of those petitions that circled around after Details magazine compared gay and Asian men. I mean, John Cho and Kal Penn made us look funny. Petitions make us look like whiny sallies.

This is a piece on tactics. In resistance, we can be reactive or proactive. We can respond or we can create.

Go CAPAY!

Are you a high school student in Massachusetts? A teacher? School guidance counselor or administrator? A parent of a high school student?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should go check out CAPAY. They'll be hosting their annual leadership conference, the Symposium October 29. Its a great opportunity for Asian Pacific American high school students to visit a college campus, explore their history and identity, meet other APA youth, and learn how they can contribute to positive social change.

Its pretty legit. Check out the website for more information, and download the registration packet.

Paper Sons

The Museum of Chinese Americans reopened in New York this week. The museum now includes a permanent exhibit covering the life of Tun Funn Hom, who immigrated to the US under a false name in 1936.

The exhibit reminds visitors that illegal immigration cuts across many groups, far beyond media images of Southerners patrolling the US Mexico border for an opportunity to "protect their country". It reminds us that these human beings, who immigrated to the US at high physical and emotional cost build lives here that include contributing to the economy, raising children, and serving in the US army.

Immigration is a complicated cycle of recruitment and exclusion, circumvention and crackdowns. And at the heart of all these conversations are human stories.

Supporting a Good Cause

A youth organization in Boston is hosting a basketball tournament in October, called "Beasts of the Easts". I'm highlighting it because the name is killer and it should be a lot of fun for a good cause. CAPAY (the Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth) has been serving Massachusetts APA youth since 1995, teaching political/cultural/social awareness and training them to be leaders in their communities.

Check out the Facebook invitation.

Yup. I'm biased. These are the people that first got me thinking that race wasn't a biological category, and that the Black Panthers might have been onto something. Also the people that keep their office so friendly it feels like a second home. So, you may see me promo some of their other events here, too.

Walk it out: Update

More on the walk out, from the Guardian.

Walk it out: Stop the Privatization of Public University

Tomorrow, UC Berkeley is walking out. Faculty, staff, students.

Fees are set to increase by 30%. Student enrollment will fall and classes will get more crowded. It all adds up to students paying more for less education. It means faculty and staff will have to work harder, stretch themselves thinner for less compensation. And they've decided that's not acceptable in any way.

I'm declaring my support for the walkout. Rising costs of education and declining quality are issues that reach far beyond UC Berkeley. I can't be there, but I'm standing in solidarity.

For more information, check out Hands Off UC.

Spread the word.

Fun Facts to Celebrate the Census

Next year, the US government will count and coordinate statistics for all the people living in its borders. One of my currently unemployed friends says that the Census offers pretty good jobs, short term. To celebrate the soon-to-come-kickoff, I thought I would share some fun facts about past censuses. (As a descendent of multiple races, its the facts about multiple races that have seemed most fun to me.)

1. The US Census has always been a little funny about racial classifications. They (who is they?) keep changing the names of the categories, making it harder to track statistics.

2. In the past, census takers would appear at your door and mark the category the person at the door most resembled. Self-reporting identity is a relatively new invention.

3. It wasn't until the 2000 Census that respondents were allowed to pick more than one race. And now, for statistical purposes, multiracial individuals count as a full person under each race he or she chooses. So, if I identify as white and Asian, the statistics for white goes up by one person and the statistic for Asian goes up by one person. Thus, the multiracial individual is a multividual on the US Census.

Today: Memorial for Ron Takaki

For those in the Bay Area.

Celebrate the Life & Legacy of Ron Takaki

Friday, September 18, 2009

Sponsored by UC Berkeley Asian American Studies Program, the Department of Ethnic Studies, & the Takaki Family

Memorial events from 1:00 to 3:00 pm at:

Chevron Auditorium, International House
2299 Piedmont Avenue at Bancroft Way
Berkeley, CA 94720-2320

Reception immediately following from 3:30 to 5:00 pm at:

Ethnic Studies Library
30 Stephens Hall
UC Berkeley

Haha. A new video from WongFu Productions. Haven't heard of them? Check out their youtube channel.

History and Memory

The way Asian American history gets presented usually goes like this: history is important because the past affects the present. If Asian American history doesn't get taught, we remain invisible and it will be like we didn't exist. And to some extent, that's true. Asians came to the Americas before the US was a country, and if this fact isn't recognized, then this country can continue to treat us as if we've just arrived. The photographers at Promontory Point kept all the Asian Americans out of the picture so that people would think honest, white American sweat had connected the East and West Coast with the transcontinental railroad.

But let's not get too carried away. Let's not give history too much power. The things written in books and taught in schools was never the sum of history because history is only part of memory. Its the memory that everyone is supposed to share. Asian American history has been able to rewrite the "official history" because we preserved our memory. We trusted our memory.

Last Post on Music for a Minute

I've lost my internet connection at my house, and have resorted to coming into work early and leaving late in order to use the office internet connection. Life before internet must have been hard. Moving on...

The last Asian American artist I'm going to highlight in this unintentional series is Goh Nakamura. His concept album Ulysses is available for free download from his website. Its a complete dreamy event-- theme and variations on the idea of odyssey. (Did I use the term concept album correctly?)

Check him out at gohnakamura.com

More! More! More!

Speaking of Asian American music, one of my all time very favorite groups, who just happen to be a cool indie Asian American hip hop duo, are at #2 on iTunes! HAHA! Take that!

Mad respect and love to Blue Scholars. They're craft is amazing and they bring that social consciousness into their lyrics. If you've never checked them out, check them out. Their EP OOF! is at #2 on the iTunes hip hop album chart. Or, check them out their video for Back Home on youtube.

If you don't know, now you know.

The Fourth Dimension (Or, Time and Music)

As human beings, we move fluidly between the first three dimensions, for the most part. We cross length, width, and depth forwards and backwards. Within time, however, most of us can only conceive moving forward. Or so it was, until the advent of music downloading.

With the advent of music downloading, listeners no longer needed to buy complete albums to get more than the single. We could take whatever song we wanted, download songs out of order, crossing forwards and backwards in the fourth dimension. In our new found freedom, we killed the album.

I'm here in support of the album. Sure, individual songs are nice, but isn't there something about crafting an album as an experience? Not just throwing in interludes, but letting the music rise and fall throughout the album.

Have I got you yet? Then check out DJ Neil Armstrong's mixtape Bittersweet. Its not new, but I've been listening to it the past two days like crazy. He's a pretty cool guy. And this mixtape has a real story arc.

Poor Parvati Patil

A new Harry Potter movie is out. I haven't seen it, but I have been re-reading book number four. At that point, it looked like Harry might have yellow-fever. His first big crush was Cho Chang. Then he took Parvati Patil to the Yule-Tide Ball.

Poor Asian girls didn't make the cut, though. Harry wouldn't even dance with Parvati and eventually married redhead Ginny Weasley. Poor Asian girls. Pretty enough to kiss and date, but not to marry.

JOKING.

Mainly.

In more recent news, the September issue of Marie Claire is also exploring the phenomena of smart, talented (albeit non-magical) young Asian women pairing up with famous white men. Not that Cho Chang or Parvati Patil had much choice. There weren't any Asian boys in Harry Potter, were there?

The Problem with Social Media

I spend so much time with myself that I think I'm normal. But I'm not.

I'm not the most tech savvy person around, but between blogging, and Facebook, and texting, I've started to assume (unconsciously) that everyone else uses social media, too. Recently, however, I've been reminded that this is absolutely untrue.

Young people, below the age of 25 tend to use online communities and networks more than people over 25, but even then, over a third of people under 25 don't even look at blogs and social networks, much less contribute to them.

The point of this post? A really cool breakdown of social media use a friend showed me. Enjoy!

Mount Hope, Part II

I had the opportunity to visit Mount Hope cemetery last week. An incredible sense of history and indebtedness passed over me as a looked at the graves of the men who built the first Chinatown in New England. Someone tells me that the flags by some of the graves represent the veterans buried here. Someone comes to place new flags by the graves every fourth of July.

Without constant care, the farthest of the three plots is still covered in shin-high grass and wildflowers. In conventional terms, this section would be unkempt. Cemeteries become overgrown when no one cuts the grass. Wildflowers replace florist-bought blossoms when no relatives come to replace withered flowers.

I think the wildflowers are beautiful. For these men, many of whom never had relatives to tend their graves, and those who were buried under false names (because they came as illegal immigrants) with no way for their families to find them, the wildflowers are proof that someone still sees them. If these men have no one to set flowers in front of their headstones, they can know that nature has not forgotten, and nature keeps fresh flowers there as long as the growing season allows.

Mount Hope

At Mount Hope Cemetery in Boston, grave stones dating back to the 1800's cover hill after rolling hill. The cemetery is so large that most people drive through the cemetery to find their loved ones.

At a back corner, next to the maintenance shed, are three small plots of small headstones. The gravestones belong to Chinese immigrants, from the 1920's to the 1960's, when burial plots were segregated. Most of the headstones belong to men who immigrated from Toisan in a time when laws shut them out of many jobs, and refused women the right to immigrate. And so, these early settlers of Chinatown died and were buried under small headstones with no family to tend their graves.

The graves crumbled and fell, forgotten even by cemetery care takers for years, until a group of Asian Americans from Chinatown took notice. They raised money to resurrect the headstones over their proper plots and organized volunteers to clean up the site. Today, a new memorial marks the site with space for people to come and pay their respects to many of the founders of Boston's Chinese American community.

... And Now

Earlier I posted some pictures of my neighborhood. Here are the same places now, 8 years later.

Behind Cathedral Catholic Church.

Peter's Park. Notice BB King in the lower right hand corner.

Hmm...

Frank Rich on race in America.

Then

About a week ago I found some pictures I took about 8 years ago around my neighborhood.

Behind Cathedral, the Catholic church.

Peter's Park. That's Lady Day in the top left corner.

Outsider?

I took an anthropology class. It was an ethnic studies methods class, but the professor came from anthropology, so we basically talked about moving towards a more responsible anthropological method.

One question that stood out for me as an Asian American activist was this: can activists/researchers/social workers from outside of a community really be effective? Are there advantages to working in a community as an insider or an outsider? Are their disadvantages?

By insider, I generally mean someone who grew up in and lives in a community and considers it theirs, as opposed to someone who comes into a community to do work/research. The definitions are much more complicated than that (people who didn't grow up in a community but identify with in, people who went off to college then come back to their community, etc.), but its been on my mind.

Who you are definitely affects what you're able to do, and your efficacy in doing things. But how? And why?

Remixing Movements and Moments

In my last post I talked about how the media oversimplifies movements by linking them together. It occurred to me today that the same process of comparing movements and moments can also be used to the opposite affect.

Back 1973, when folk music was the music of protest, A Grain of Sand (Chris Iijima, Joanne Miyamoto, and "Charlie" Chin) recorded a song called "The War of the Flea" about the war in Vietnam. This year, senz of depth and bambu remixed the song and linked Iijima's lyrics with their own.

Bambu raps "I am Chris Iijima/2005 fist in the sky/singing of a time when Iraq's being bombed/under reasons that's wrong". By linking two moments, 1965 and 2005, he links Iijima's analysis the war in Vietnam to his own protests against the war in Iraq.

Download the song here.

Movements, Moments, Media

When things happen on an international level, I'm never sure what to believe. News sources tend to capture moments, not movements.

Right now in Xinjiang, Uighurs and the Chinese army are engaging in some very bloody conflict. That's what the media is catching. Everything else is a little fuzzy. It seems like some people want to use the moment to prove that people won't trade freedom for stability. Some people want to connect the Uighurs to Muslim terrorism because the US locked some of them up at Guantanamo Bay. Some people are comparing the Uighurs to the Tibetans.

That is to say, very few Americans know about the Uighur minority of China, so the media is comparing their movement to more familiar movements that we think we do understand: democracy v. communism; terrorism v. freedom; despotism v. the people. Oversimplified binaries that trigger knee jerk responses with which readers can make judgements without knowing much about the situation.

Example: in democracy v. communism, the Uighurs automatically become agents for democracy, because they are fighting a communist government. Because the US brings democracy to the world and its a wonderful thing, the Uighurs must be justified in their protests. Such a simple system of analysis. So problematic.

As a result, I don't have a very clear picture of who is protesting. Is it all Uighurs in the Urumqi area? Is it only part of their population? Why now? What triggered this? What's the history of the movements that led to these moments?

Valley Swim Club Must be Stoo-pid

Haven't read the story yet? A mostly white, suburban club outside Philadelphia rented their pool to a camp. The camp showed up full of black and brown children, parents took their kids out of the water, and the camp was told not to return. Find the article on Philadelphia's NBC.

First, the club said that "there was a concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion... and atmosphere of the club". Way to cover your ass! When you're a racist in a "post-racial" society, you should be a little smooth. Maybe leave out the part about not liking the kids' complexions.

Outrageous? Yes. Surprising? Not so much. Who thinks racism really disappeared? All the black and brown kids happen to go to an inner city club by chance? The suburban club is almost all white by chance? Please.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles

I meant to finish the book before I promoted it, but that doesn't look like its going to happen any time soon. As far as I've read so far, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee is pretty funny. And informative. Its a book about the creation of American Chinese food, its undeniable American-ness and questionable Chinese-ness.

You can also find Lee on TED.com.

More on Los Chinos Mambises

The China Cuba Commission Report, 1874 tells a different story. The Report, which consisted of the collected answers of Chinese laborers in Cuba about their lives and working conditions, says this in response to the question "Have Coolies aided rebels, and if so, under what circumstances-- where and how?":

The petition of Chang Luan （张銮）and thirty others states "the rebellion in Cuba is one of Spanish subjects against the Spanish government; many instances have occurred of planters, when joining the rebels, endeavoring to induce Chinese laborers to do likewise and of the latter, even at risk of death, refusing."

The reports are not necessarily contradictory. The China Cuba Commission admits that they could not reach the insurgent camps. What the two reports do bring up is the definition of valor. If Los Chinos Mambises, who fought against the Spanish government, served with sacrifice and valor, did the Chinese who refused possess less valor?

The definition of a movement defines one's actions in the moment. This reminds me of the 442nd and the No No Boys. The No No Boys were Japanese Americans who refused to fight for the US armed forces in World War II, even in the face of imprisonment. To them, it was unconscionable to fight for a country that imprisoned their families in a war against their relatives. To refuse to fight was to refuse colluding with a morally corrupt government. The 442nd was the all-Japanese regiment that became the most decorated in US history. For the 442nd, they were Americans, and they were determined to protect their families and their country as best they could, looking past injustices done to themselves to protect the greater good.

Is this a similar situation? Perhaps some Chinese, like the No No Boys, refused to support their masters, who oppressed them so cruelly. And other Chinese, los Chinos Mambises, recognized that they were now Cuban, and agreed to try and gain independence for their country.

Los Chinos Mambises

I'm supposed to be doing some research on early immigration of Asians to the Americas, and came across a reference to Chinese immigration to Cuba in the mid 19th century. Unfortunately, the biggest page I found was written in Spanish. Using my ... excellent... high school Latin skills, this is as far as I got (original page here if you find it in your heart to help me out):

The first Chinese, mainly from arrived in Cuba on June 3, 1847. That first shipment was of 200 Chinese, 6 having died on transport. They, and subsequent Chinese "indentured laborers" were forced to work over 12 hours a day, for 4 pesos a month, for 8 years, except on Sundays. They worked mainly on plantations in rural areas, with not hope of returning to their native land.

Many of the Chinese seem to have joined the rebels in the 10 year War of Independence. They served with valor and sacrifice, and came to be known as Los Chinos Mambises. The article speculates that they joined the rebellion because of their inhumane working conditions, which caused sickness and death, similar to the conditions of the enslaved Africans and Creoles(?)

Going to look for the English copy of a Chinese report on Cuban immigrants, at the BPL later this week.

Part 4: Can Technology Make Us Better Organizers?

This will be the last in the technology and teleology series (I realize now that teleology didn't factor into the series as much as I planned).

One reason I started this series was because of a conversation I had with a friend. He said that although history has no teleology, its not headed anywhere specific, that technology has created a sort of progress, a democratization of power. His main point was military-- that with military advances, the underdog has a better chance of winning now than ever before in history. I disagree, but that's a conversation for another post.

Speaking about this democratization of power though, I argue that community organizers are usually the underdogs. Technology, however, does not naturally favor the underdogs. If technology can make things like publicity and communication easier for us, it can also make publicity and communication easier for the people who do stuff that we don't agree with. It boils down to who has access to technology and who can utilize it more efficiently.

It isn't good and it isn't evil, but it definitely isn't neutral.

**Bonus**

A video from Al Jazeera English, addressing media and its influence on the way world events play out.

Part 3: Can Technology Make Us Better Communicators?

Phones. Then email. AIM. Cellphones. Texting. Gchat. Friendster, AsianAvenue, Xanga, MySpace, Facebook. Skype. Twitter. And that line from "He's Just Not That Into You":

I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting.

Does technology help us communicate better or does it just give us more options to miscommunicate? Several news outlets, including the New York Times have cited Twitter as an important factor in the recent protests over the Iranian election (article here).

I had a conversation about communication with an organizer from the late 60's. She told me how they used to meet at lunch everyday to make sure everyone knew what was happening. And how they would have long meetings in multiple people's cars to make sure that information stayed secret.

Communication took longer, but people met face to face. Forget about mass emails asking a hundred people to show up, only to have three at the event. A little personal contact goes a long way. We never know who's watching our email accounts and that's not just paranoia talking.

Someone once said to me: "Money isn't evil and money isn't good, but its definitely not neutral." Between censorship, monitoring, instant communication, and remote communication, I think the same applies to technology here.

Part 2: Can Technology Make Us Better Informed?

I'm thinking about how we get our news. As far as TV goes, there's a channel for just about everything. I once heard a statistic that claimed that more people get their news from news satire shows like the Daily Show and SNL than from the nightly news stations. Not verifying that, because its not the fact that counts. Its the idea that it could be true. Plenty more people I talked to last week said that they get a lot of their news from Facebook (from other people's feeds?). I watch Al Jazeera English on Youtube for a lot of my news.

There are the blogs, of course, ones far more current events tilted than this one. They provide not just insanely current news, but also a huge variety of interpretations. If you want something more official, you can get newspapers from all over the world online. Go ahead, read the LA Times, the BBC, and the People's Daily every day.

The number of possibilities becomes the problem. Who can you trust? Sources that have the same political opinions as you? Only primary sources? Or only sources that have a reputation for good reporting? How do you know what's gotten through censors and filters? If you only have time to read one blog a day, what would you pick?

I don't read multiple papers everyday. That's not what I get paid to do. But I've developed a list of media sources and people that I trust to tell me the truth. I don't agree with all of them, but having a balance tends to keep them in check, something I couldn't do without access to lots and lots of sources.

Part 1: Can Technology Make Us Smarter?

Anyone with internet has access to more information than most people did twenty years ago. With Wikipedia and Googlebooks and Youtube, a person can learn just about anything. Anyone with access to a library has access to more information than most people did a hundred years ago.

And we are building on our knowledge of the past. Less than two centuries ago, we were still learning how to harness electricity. Now, forget electric lights, we have compact fluorescents and LCD screens. Technology increases exponentially.

In the face of this information democratization, however, languages disappear because no one is interested in learning them. The same applies to traditional farming and crafts methods. Perhaps the overall amount of knowledge in the world isn't increasing. Maybe the accessibility is increasing but the diversity is decreasing because so many people are looking at the same thing.

Another problem with these lines of reasoning is they examine knowledge and products of knowledge, not intelligence. Having access to greater resources doesn't make a person more intelligent.

Unless the X-Men appear, the human brain doesn't seem to be making any evolutionary progress. We're just standing on the shoulders of giants.

Technology and Teleology

Which is to say, does new technology mean progress? And if so, is that progress leading us anywhere? Does technology make life easier, better, etc.?

I want to spend a couple of posts looking at the topic, so be on the lookout.

Money, That's What I Want

I was sitting with a group of friends in a post-college apartment. (Let's call him) Vy asked (let's call him) Paul how much he was making. Paul laughed a little and said "I'd rather not say. Enough." Whatever enough means. Enough to not live at home. To rent a modern 2 story apartment with 3 other guys. And have a car.

I was talking to (let's call him) Andrew about a job offer. He said "If they don't offer me over $30,000 a year, its not worth taking the job. I'm worth more than that." Then Andrew looked at me and said "But you decided a while ago to not make money." Did he mean that I worked in a sector where my salary didn't equal my worth, as opposed to his? Or was he embarrassed that he had called my salary small?

As a general rule, we spend money based on how much we make. And its hard to hang out with people who spend more than you. Do we hide our salaries to pretend we're all equal or because we really believe our salaries determine our worth? Why is money such a touchy subject?

Home, or Layers of a Neighborhood

I've graduated. And, like many others this year, I moved back to Boston, in with my parents. As I walked around my old neighborhood, I could see how much its changed.

Even when I was in high school, the neighborhood was changing. They spent a lot of money widening the street behind my house into a major thoroughfare. Then a lot of fancy restaurants started showing up. Then they starting building newer, fancier buildings for luxury apartments. The old Chinese folks who used to grow vegetables in the community garden started losing their plots to richer, young professionals who wanted to grow flowers. Rents went up everywhere. Gentrification reshaped the neighborhood relentlessly.

I was aware of all this in high school, but coming back after a few years made the changes so much more jarring. I didn't watch new buildings go up. They appeared out of nowhere. And old landmarks are gone, like the mural that is now a green wall by a dog park.

On one street, three old shops remained: a boarded up restaurant, a Syrian grocery, and a glass shop. They remain, next to gourmet cheese shops, artisan jewelry shops, and dim-lit restaurants. These shops have existed as long as I can remember, the last traces of the Syrian neighborhood that remained until the 1940's. Back then, the Syrian and Chinese communities shared what is now Chinatown.

Some moved away after the second generation, tried to assimilate as ethnic whites. More were pushed out when the City built a highway through the neighborhood. Its sad to imagine Chinatown being pushed out, leaving only tiny traces. Something precious is lost in this "progress and development".

A Method of No Methods

In Black Skins, White Masks, Fanon writes something to the effect of "I leave methods to the botanists and the mathematicians". Except he wrote in in French.

Everyone has a method of working. Fanon's point was to not get too caught up in making or following a method, but being flexible enough to do what each separate situation requires. Perhaps botanists and mathematicians need rigid rules because their objects of study remain stable, but for those of us that work with people, there is hardly a subject-object relationship, and no one situation is ever the same as another.

Let's take my church. We had a meeting about choosing leadership about two weeks ago (it takes me a long time to think these things over). I don't know how the process used to go, but right now, the church is transitioning into having a structure of voting membership. Because we are in a transitionary period, the rules that we laid down as a church didn't really work, so we had to change them. Flexibility as a guideline.

Guidelines are helpful. They give us a starting point, let us know what has worked in the past, and remind us of the convictions we want to hold on to. But, for those of us that work with people, the people are always more important than the process, and our method must reflect that.

In memoriam: Ron Takaki (1939-2009)

Last week, we lost Ron Takaki. According to the Los Angeles Times, he committed suicide after struggling with multiple sclerosis for over 20 years.

Takaki defined my first semester at Berkeley. He seemed to guest speak in every class I had. He would tell jokes about his time as a surfer in Hawaii and his seemingly accidental road to academia. And every time, he would ask about epistemology, "how we know that we know what we know".

Still, the best speech I heard him give was at a rally on Sproul in support of undocumented immigrants. He was largely unscripted, and gave a picture of undocumented immigration that made it everyone's struggle. He was more lively and passionate than I had seen him in the classroom.

One of my friends calls Takaki his 'intellectual grandfather' because he read Strangers From a Different Shore in the seventh grade. Reading about the American immigration story from an Asian American perspective changed the way he thought about history.

He was the father of radical multiculturalism. One that didn't just recognize difference in the face of colorblindness, but an anti-racist multiculturalism that recognized the injustices of the past and applied that history to the injustices of the present.

Rest in power, Ron Takaki.

Out of the Office

I'm off to spend a glorious 5 days without internet access.

Until then, I'd just like to say that I'm a firm believer in the power of positive reinforcement and personal affirmation. Getting birthday cards where people write a real message, having someone tell me that they appreciate something I've done makes me feel really good. Saying nice things to people makes me feel good, too. Someone must have done a study of some kind on this.

See you next week.

What is Ethnic Studies Anyway?

Most colleges don't have an ethnic studies department, so its a fair question. Its a question we tried to address in this year's graduation speech. I'm putting up part that I wrote:

"In Ethnic Studies we read this book Borderlands by this woman Gloria Anzaldua. She says the US would rather she not be Chicana, that her community would rather she not be indigenous, and no one seemed to want her to be a woman, especially not a queer woman, but she continued to write those between spaces, in the borderlands.

And I realized that being mixed is somewhere. I exist in and between spaces of Asian and white. I’m not half of anything. This is Ethnic Studies, to find wisdom from a woman like and not like me. She gave me words to feelings I knew and did not know I had. And now, like her, I proclaim: don’t give me your tenets and laws. Don’t give me your luke warms gods. What I want is an accounting from all three cultures. I want the freedom to carve and chisel my own face, to staunch the bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out of my entrails. And if going home is denied me then I will have to stand and claim my space, making a new culture—una cultura mestiza—with my own lumber, my own bricks and mortar, and my own feminist architecture.

We declare that our personal lives are political, and when we know this, our lives make sense. We are undocumented immigrants, and the children of immigrants and doctors. We have been told we are too loud, too belligerent, too bold, too queer, too academic, not academic enough, too white to be in Ethnic Studies, so black we must be athletes. I proclaim our lives political and our lives are in our hands."

Missionary

I had a great conversation last night, about missions.

For most people in Ethnic Studies, missionary is a dirty word. Not because of the position (that's hardly a dirty one), but because Christian missionaries were so complicit in colonization around the world. Like anthropologists, Christian missionaries have a bad reputation. Many people who think about colonization cannot imagine a missionary who did not cause more harm than they did good. According to the master narrative, missionaries either do not follow their Christian ideals, or are too naive to see the damage they do.

This brings me to last night. My Christian fellowship still sends out missionaries. A lot of churches do. Last summer, my Christian fellowship sent me out as a missionary. And in my defense, I like to think that my summer did not add to the violence of colonization.

What I did was live with a team of 5 college students, in a men's drug and alcohol rehab program. We lived and ate with the men, went to chapel and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and generally helped with the program in any way we could. For me, this meant I spent most of my time washing feet in the free medical clinic they ran, and tutoring in the academic center, and generally hanging out with men in the program. One or two nights a week we would get together with other people doing mission work in the same city to watch movies and talk about what the Bible/God says about poverty, racism, environmental stewardship, etc.

When I describe what I did and call it an internship, people seem to think its pretty cool. When I describe it as a mission, non-Christians seem surprised. Some Christians, too.

No conclusions here. But I think that Ethnic Studies and Christianity both include learning how to love other people, so they should be closer than most people think they are.

Balancing Act

Time always runs out before I accomplish all the things I want to.

I believe that there is a season for all things, so we don't need to do everything at once, or feel guilty about not doing something for a while. So, when its time to study, I study. And when its time to attend a different event everyday of the week, I do that.

So much easier in theory than in practice! And here at the end of the school year, we cannot ignore the choices we made, because they determine where we end up. Some of us are wishing we had done more reading over the course of the semester. Some of us are wishing we had paid more attention to our friends, or wishing we had put a little more into organizing that open mic/town hall/protest because things might have turned out differently if we had.

Is it possible to find balance? As student organizers can we really be students and organizers and friends without having one of those roles suffer? And which do we let suffer? We all make different choices.

All I know is I'M TIRED.