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.