Next month in the US is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2015. I hope to do about ten related posts during the month.
Nominate or second topics you want to see posts on. It can be anything to do with Asia, the Pacific or their diasporas, especially if it has to do with the US.
If you want to do a guest post, you can suggest that too!
You can also recommend related websites, books or music.
Thanks!
I put the following topics into nomination:
Promised posts (I need to do at lest four of these):
- Amy Chua
- Asian brain drain
- Asian Americans and university admissions
- Black/Asian American race relations
- Black women, Asian men
- The Massie Affair
- Watsonville Riots of 1929
- yellowface
Top suggestions from last year that were not done:
- Asian stereotypes
- Seattle Riot of 1886
- Transpacific slave (aka “coolie”) trade
- Richard Aoki
- Asian American civil rights
- Rock Springs Massacre
- American Samoa
Frequently referenced on the Open Thread since December:
- Eurasians
- Japan
- Margaret Cho
- “Fresh Off the Boat” (US television series)
Top unsatisfied search terms that apply:
- Beautiful Chinese men
My own suggestions:
- Cupertino (Asian-majority town in US that experienced White flight)
- Chinese Americans
- Japanese Americans
- Filipino Americans
- Afghan Americans
- Muslim Americans
- Are Muslims racialized?
- Immigration Act of 1965
- The Yellow Peril
- China in Africa
- Guam
- anti-Maori racism
- Mao
- Yuri Kochiyama – Malcolm X died in her arms
- Ariana Miyamoto – Blasian Miss Japan
See also:
- last year:
- Welcome to Asian American History Month 2014 – has a link to all the posts that appeared
- Nominations for Asian American History Month 2014
- Asian Americans
Interested in a post on Yuri Kochiyama.
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Asian America: a brief history
I should do one of those for each of the history months.
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Long but really good article:
“Korea’s Black Racism Epidemic”
http://groovekorea.com/article/koreas-black-racism-epidemic-0
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I want to see something on black women and Asian men.
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^Yeah, that’s a pairing that almost never gets brought up.
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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
“Lia Lee dies at 30; figure in cultural dispute over epilepsy treatment:
A Hmong child with severe epilepsy who was at the center of a clash over her treatment, Lia Lee was the subject of a 1997 book.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/20/local/la-me-lia-lee-20120920
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There’s so many topics to choose from, but these are my nominations:
– Black/Asian American race relations
– Black women, Asian men
– Watsonville Riots of 1929
– yellowface
– Asian stereotypes
– Eurasians
– Margaret Cho
– “Fresh Off the Boat” (US television series)
– Beautiful Chinese men
– Filipino Americans
– The Yellow Peril
– China in Africa
– anti-Maori racism
– Yuri Kochiyama – Malcolm X died in her arms
– Ariana Miyamoto – Blasian Miss Japan
If I really had to choose, the Black/Asian American race relations piqued my interest the most because Blacks and Asians Americans are being pitted against each other by you know whom.
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If you do the promised posts and the top suggestions from last year, that would be fine already.
It would be great if you could add
– “Fresh off the Boat” as that is a new thing this year
– Margaret Cho and “All American girl”
– Cupertino (example of majority Asian city that experienced white flight)
– Yellow Peril (long-running theme between the USA and Asian American populations and US / Asia relations)
– Yuri Kochiyama
– Guam, (and/or Saipan)
Some additional suggestions:
– Asian Stereotypes – break up into “tropes” (similar to how Black American stereotypes are), eg,
* Asian male stereotypes / Emasculation of the Asian American male
* Fu Man Chu
* Charlie Chan
* Kung fu master
* Geisha / China Doll
* Dragon lady
* Whore
* Geek
* Organized crime boss
* Other “stock” cardboard characters, e.g., taxi driver, manicurist, medical technician
* Tendency of Asian American men to be cast as foreigners and Foreign white men to play “Americans”.
– Bamboo Ceiling
– Yi Wor Kuen (and other Asian-American activist groups from the 1960s-70s)
– Asian American history as covered in US history books (or is this a blank post? :P)
– Jeremy Lin
– Far East Movement (only fully Asian-American group / band ensemble to have #1 US Billboard hit)
– Civil Rights cases (eg, Tape v. Hurley, Lau v. Nichols, Yick Wo v. Hopkins, Naim v. Naim, etc.)
– Ghost Chinatowns (e.g, Truckee, Locke, etc.) or any of the ones in the other Western States (Montana, Idaho, Oregon, etc.)
– Asian War Brides
– Indian, Hmong, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laotian, Bangladeshi, Thai Americans
– Any story about Asian Americans overseas (outside the USA), eg, the need for Asian Americans, even “Hapas” to go overseas to propel their careers.
– Compare experience of Asian Americans in the USA v. Asian Australians, Asian Canadians, Asian Britons, Asian Kiwis, etc.
– Fortune Cookies
I will redo the draft guest post I did last year (Paper Son) if desired and maybe think about doing one on “Hapa”.
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@dorisjean23
For Asian male / Black female relationships, I guess we have to break up into eras:
– 1870 – 1910 (when it was the typical Asian / non-Asian type of arrangement)
– 1910 – WWII (when it was the most common in the anti-miscegenation states – in the North, Asian male / white (esp. immigrant) female was more common.)
– WWII – 1970s (most common Asian / non-Asian relationship was war brides)
– Post 1970s – when Asian Female / white male became more common (and Asian male / black female relationships fall off the radar)
With a sidenote to such relationships in places such as the Caribbean.
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I nominate:
Asian Americans and university admissions
Cupertino (Asian-majority town in US that experienced White flight)
Guam
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Are you including South Asians all the way to India?
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@ Glenn
Yes, South Asia too. All of Asia.
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Filipino Americans, Cambodian Americans, Hmong Americans
Asian Americans and Civil Rights/activism
U.S. military bases in Asia
Dalits
Asian mail-order brides to the U.S.
Asian Americans as majority monoracial ethnic groups
braindrain Asian Americans
Adam Crapser
Chinatowns
Genghis Khan
Asian Americans and “FOB” vs. “whitewashed”
Asian Americans and disaggregation
Guam
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“Michael Omi and Howard Winant Radically Revise “Racial Formation in the United States” book”
http://diversity.berkeley.edu/third-edition-michael-omis-treatise-race-america
Q: You mentioned Barack Obama earlier. What has changed in the last six years since he was elected?
A: I think there’s a couple of things that have changed that we needed to address. One is how the ideology of colorblindness had really become ascendant, both through judicial court decisions and within the popular consciousness — so much so that we often encounter among our students the notion that the most effective anti-racism in policy or practice is to ignore race, or not see race. What has also changed a lot was the demographic composition of the United States. More and more people are aware we are becoming a “majority minority” society, particularly through immigration of Latino and Asian populations. This has meant in certain locales a really changed environment in which different racial groups found themselves having to accommodate or finding themselves in conflictual relations with other kinds of racial and ethnic groups. I think also what has happened during that time was a kind of globalization and neoliberalism, in which increasingly there is much more of an emphasis on the diminishment of the role of government and really trying to rely much more on the free market forces. Lastly, there has emerged new scientific categories and conceptions of race. So after a long period we thought that old biological notions of race were being discarded in favor of social constructions of race, nevertheless, within some of the sciences there has been again a notion of a biological basis to race. You can see this with the marketing of certain drugs targeting certain racial and ethnic populations and you can see this with ethnic ancestry testing which has become very popular. And much of this is pretty fraught science. It’s got a lot of problems with it. In fact, it’s imprecise at best.
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@Speak Out
“Asian mail-order brides to the U.S.”—I second that.
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What about writing a post on James Shigeta? He was one of my early Asian American heartthrobs. What about Asian American gangs? This appears to contradict the whole “model minority” myth. How about Asian Americans in Hip Hop and Rap? On that note, what about about a post on MC Jin? Maybe Asian cuisine? How it’s so hip and happening when once upon a time, Asians were ridiculed for their foods.
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Ooh, what about top Asian American Youtubers such as The Fung Bros, Timothy Delaghetto, Ryan Higa, Michelle Phan, etc.?
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^^^^I second that!!!
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“How about Asian Americans in Hip Hop and Rap?”—Did you have a particular group focus on just on the hip hop and rap scene in general? I would like to nominate G-dragon.
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@ sharinalr:
I forgot to mention dance as well such as The Jabbawockeez, Poreotix, and Quest Crew to name a few. Hey, that rhymes! 😀 There’s a big talent in the Asian American community. As for the group or people in question, I was thinking generally. Oh, oh, oh! What about the influx of K-pop? It didn’t used to be as big (at least, in the US and around the world) until fairly recently.
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In that case I would like to hear about Korean rapper Verbal Jint, Taiwanese singer Aaron Yan, or Japanese rapper KOHH. KOHH has a bit of a unhappy background and was featured in a documentary if I’m remembering correctly.
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Soompi is one of the largest internet forums on Korean pop music. I used to be a member back in the day when it was a fledgling site, but now it’s so huge.
Anyway, what about cosmetic surgery amongst Asian Americans? Where I’m from, I know acquaintances as well as some friends who have had some form of surgery. Some had boobs jobs, lipo, double eyelid surgery, botox, and fillers. And the funny thing is, white people have told them they did it to look white.
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Gah, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Soompi is a Korean American site.
@ sharinalr:
I thought G-Dragaon was KOREAN Korean.
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@ sharinalr:
Girl, nevermind me! LOL! G-Dragon is all good! 🙂
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Sooo, just realizing that I totally misread the title. So my Asian American nominees are MC Jin, Jay Park and NAK.
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@leigh204
LOL. No worries. 🙂
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Ok this just dawned on, but do they have to be Asian “American”?
@Leigh
“I thought G-Dragaon was KOREAN Korean.”—Sorry girl, but it just dawned on me what you were saying here. ROFL.
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@ sharina
No, they do not have to be American. Anything Asian or Asian American (or Pacific Islander or Pacific Islander American).
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@ Abagond:
I’m confused. So the Asians nominated don’t necessarily have to be American? I mean, the title of this thread led me to think only Americans of Asian descent, and I’ll add Asian Canadians because we celebrate something similarly, were allowed to be nominated. In that case, please do a post on boxer, Manny Pacquiao.
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@ leigh
It can be anything to do with Asia, the Pacific or their diasporas, especially if it has to do with the US (or Canada).
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Article on being Indian American:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/31/i-dont-code-switch-to-hide-my-identity-i-code-switch-to-celebrate-it?CMP=share_btn_tw
“I don’t ‘code-switch’ to hide my identity. I ‘code-switch’ to celebrate it”
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racialization of Indian Americans, esp. United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
Gayatri Spivak and Can the Subaltern Speak?
Partition
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“Punjabi Sikh-Mexican American community fading into history”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/punjabi-sikh-mexican-american-community-fading-into-history/2012/08/13/cc6b7b98-e26b-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story.html?postshare=841425385082885
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Gandhi vs. Dr. Ambedkar
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How about Bruno Mars?
His mother is of mostly Filipino (and a little Spanish) descent
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@leigh204
I second this.
I second this too.
Plus I add Anna May Wong. Hers is much more tragic, but reflective of the early Hollywood codes – would cross over well with the issue of yellowface.
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^ I second Anna May Wong as well. I have watched some of her silent films and she has both played the submissive Asian woman (Asian fetish, anyone?) and the fierce Dragon Lady.
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I also would like to nominate Asian American comedians. What about Russell Peters (he’s Canadian), Henry Cho, Jo Koy, Aziz Ansari, etc. ?
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“From the Hmong, other immigrant groups get important lessons and help”
http://www.startribune.com/local/298686891.html?page=1&c=y
“This year, the Minnesota Hmong community celebrates the 40th anniversary of its arrival in the state. One testament to its progress: The community has increasingly become a resource and a model for newer refugee and immigrant arrivals.”
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This is both a cookbook and the autobiography of a Korean American growing up in L.A. and his immigrant parents. He’s a really good writer/storyteller:
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Gran Torino (2008)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/
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The Last Samurai (2003) esp. compared with Dancing With Wolves
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325710/
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Only the Brave (2006)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410403/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
http://www.onlythebravemovie.com/thestory.php
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Romeo must die the movie
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I’d like to nominate the movies “The Debut” and “Better Luck Tomorrow”.
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@Speak Out
There are already plenty of white saviour movies out there, or ones with stereotyped Asian characters. Except for “Only the Brave” which is directed by a Japanese American, I am not particularly interested in those others unless the subject is about the typical Hollywood tropes regarding Asian Americans, or about how NOT to do a movie about Asians or Asian Americans.
@Leigh204,
I have a copy of The Debut somewhere at home. Maybe I can watch it again and say something about it. We haven’t seen many posts here about the Fil-Am experience, so that might be a good introduction.
I have not seen Better Luck Tomorrow, but maybe it might be good to see a post about Justin Lin who not only directed that movie along with others with Asian American themes, but also the Fast and Furious franchise series.
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I just ran across reading about Isamu Noguchi and I remember visiting the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum when I used to live in Long Island City, Queens. He died shortly after I moved to Queens.
Maybe Abagond is familiar with it. He would be a great subject for a post.
When he was married to Shirley Yamaguchi in the 1950s, she starred in the Hollywood film “Japanese War Bride” (1952). perhaps a reasonable representation of the attitudes in the US regarding Asian war brides at that time.
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@Jefe
Others may well be interested. We learned about The Last Samurai in an Ethnic Studies class on Indigeneity, and the Hmong American actors in Gran Torino give talks to Ethnic Studies departments about their views of the film.
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My Name Is Khan (2010)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188996/
Once Were Warriors (1994)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110729/
Dumbarton Bridge (1999)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139166/
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Country of Origin
http://www.don-lee.com/country-of-origin/index.html
“The mystery of her disappearance is intertwined with the mystery of her origins as an ainoko, or half-breed. For Lisa, who is half African American and half Asian, alienation and belonging, love and hate, are bound up with race.”
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Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans
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“Asian, American, Woman, Philosopher”
“It’s interesting, because since moving to Southern California, I do not feel the sense of being noticed for being Asian as much as I did while living in New York City and in the northern parts of New York State. There I definitely felt the sense that my Asian features defined me and spoke for me. Even I would note if I saw an Asian person on the street. Here in Southern California the population is so diverse I don’t feel the sense of over-determination of my body all the time.”
“I think to some extent I am aware of being a woman more than being Asian. I say this because the Asian racialized identity works in ways I cannot quite pinpoint yet. I am aware that there are claims out there that Asians are becoming “white.” I do not want to fall into this scenario. I think the racialization of Asian-Americans is distinctly different from whiteness, but not so different from whiteness as blackness is — perhaps different but not different enough? The identity functions between denigration and exoticism. Perhaps this difference functions ambiguously enough that I still do not fully understand it.”
“I know that we have shared experiences; I know this because some of the first books that woke me up to the question of race and deeply rang true for me were Richard Wright’s “Black Boy” and Audrey Lorde’s “Zami.” I don’t know what is the shared experience, in that I do not think it is just feelings of alienation or marginalization. I hope it is more a sense of knowing there is more than the prevailing structures of existence and knowledge.”
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Ay yay yay…
“Mindy Kaling’s Brother Says He Got Into Medical School By Posing As Black: Vijay Chokalingam is releasing a book detailing his experience.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemcneal/mindy-kalings-brother-says-he-got-into-medical-school#.hjlpzzJjlP
“Chokalingam says that he wants to fight what he calls a “system of legalized racism” in higher education.
“I hope the story of my experiences will be a catalyst for social change and opposition to affirmative action racism,” he wrote.”
“As for his famous sister, he says she doesn’t approve and thinks “this book will bring shame on our family.””
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@Speak Out: You beat me to it. Mindy Kaling’s brother is such a “douche” SMDH
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I nominate a post on the film Snow Falling On Cedars. I saw it some time ago and i really like it.
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Anime and Manga
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Bad Rap Produced by Jaeki Cho a new independent film about aspiring Asian American rap group who wants to make it in the rap game.
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@Speak Out
Of course, others might be interested. Abagond has already done post on many White Saviour / Helpless Darkie trope films involving blacks, e.g., Precious, Monster’s Ball, The Help, Django Unchained, 12 Years as a Slave, The Blind Side, Freedom Writers, etc., as well as Dances with Wolves He has not done many posts (if any) on White Saviour films involving Asians, so of course they would be interesting. If anything, it would highlight how Hollywood does White Saviour films with Asians, or what other typical white male devised tropes are used to portray Asian Americans. We could also look at the difference between how Asian females do it v. Asian males, esp. those Asian females married to white men.
I would be very suspect of the cases when those are used as examples for ETHNIC STUDIES as they are very much done under the white lens. If I were to do that as part of an ethnic studies class, I would do it as part of the topic of the white saviour / helpless darkie trope under the white lens.
The trope used in Crash (2004) was definitely through a white lens also. The whole point was that whites were not uniquely evil, but Asians in that film were nothing but cardboard stereotypes.
But we need to contrast with works that depict Asians and Asian Americans other than under the white lens. For example, we might want to compare how Asian Americans were depicted through the white lens v. through a black lens and through an Asian lens.
From the 1930s – 1970s, we often saw it through Yellowface.
Talking about having no control over one’s images.
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@Kiwi,
You resent those who are 1/2 or even 1/4 Asian for trying to make it in US society as a white person (more or less – as they are not all hiding their Asian ancestry per se, and still let it be known, they are technically not “passing” as white exactly). At the same time, you resent any of them trying to put forward an Asian image for themselves – claiming that it is fake or a misrepresentation. Sounds like you feel they should be put somewhere between a rock and a hard place. What kind of social role should they be pursuing? They had no choice in their parents or how their phenotype is perceived as. It sounds like you would resent them regardless of how they navigate US society.
At the same time, you are not trying to understand what struggles they are going through being in that spot between a rock and hard place. I read interviews from Dean (Tanaka) Cain (1/4 Japanese) that he tried to do roles geared for Asians, but time after time again casting directors seemed to overlook it. Anyhow, there are very few Asian roles anyhow and a gazillion white ones, so if he could find a white role for which he could get an offer, an aspiring actor would take it. What are they supposed to do to promote their Asian identity without drawing resentment from both Asians and whites? What should people do who can sometimes pass as white, but would prefer not to?
I went to see Keanu Reeves promote a movie in Hong Kong and they interviewed him. It seems that all HK people know he is part Chinese. He never tried to conceal it. How is he supposed to navigate his racial identity in US society that would not cause people to resent him? The only people I could imagine that could justify resenting how he (or people like him) navigates his racial identity are the ones who wish they could get by by identifying as white on the outside, as well as the inside, like Gene Yang – real genuine twinkies who are trying to avoid suffering internalized racism..
I feel kinda sorry for people like Kirk Acevedo. His father is Puerto Rican and his mom is Chinese, but he often accepts white roles, occasionally Latino roles, never any Asian role. I don’t resent him for that. And I don’t resent him for deciding to marry a white woman (esp. given that many Puerto Ricans and Chinese Americans will likely resent him anyhow). I do find it unfortunate that POC can be so non-accepting. Likewise I don’t resent Lou Diamond Phillips for accepting Mexican American roles even though his actual background is more Filipino-white Mestizo. How is Mark-Paul Gosselaar supposed to navigate his racial identity? If he identified socially more or less as white, but not denying his Indonesian ancestry, is he selling out somehow?
Should blacks resent people like Jennifer Beals or Maya Rudolph, who are not always playing roles that are just “black” or because they are perceived to enjoy some white privilege (for whatever reason one might ascribe to them) regardless of how they actually self-identify? How about Mariah Carey? How about Wentworth Miller? I know people resent Tiger Woods big time. Anyhow, I don’t consider them passing.
I encountered many whites and Asians who resented me for my identity. I got to the point where I didn’t care any more. They really do not understand how racial identity is acquired and expressed anyhow. They are the clueless ones.
I have even told Asian Americans, who do not know much about any Asian cultures or languages, who do not know much about any Asian American history or politics or culture, who have never suffered blatant racism from whites and who copy the white supremacy model (or at least comply with the model minority paradigm) and identify with white history and culture as either white-washed or a sell-out to white supremacy, or at least they seem that way to me. I have no other choice but to treat them as a white person regardless of how they look like. They might resent me for that, but hey.
Anyhow, a lot of what you say above is plain wrong (I would say “nauseating”, but we know what that does to you). In fact, you are probably more complacent with the white supremacist racial structure than a lot of the people you resent. You know what I am talking about.
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Jefe, you know as a multiracial, it’s a “no win” situation.
People place you in the category you most “look like”—I normally don’t even mention that I am part Chinese because it doesn’t really show.
I think for actresses like Maya Rudolph or Salli Richardson, even though it shows that they are part-black, they have both played non-black roles. I’ve read that Maya does not want to be pigeon-holed as a “black” actor
Sallie Richardson played as a Native American with Lou Diamond Phillips (movie called Sioux City) but she primarily plays African-American roles
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@Linda,
So, do you experience the case that people could simultaneously resent you for not promoting your Chinese heritage (ie, playing it down) AND also resent you for promoting it (ie, playing it up), ie, in both cases you would be in some sort of self-denial or misrepresentation of what you “really” are.
At the same time, people are placing you into different categories, even arguing amongst themselves about what they think what YOU are and what rhetoric you are allowed to use to talk about yourself.
Yes, I know that some may boycott you for not abiding by their racial definition of you, but there is also an opportunity lurking in there – to forge a unique identity for yourself that you can claim as your own. Some may resent you for doing that, but hey.
I don’t believe in a no-win situation, esp. if what is at stake is your self-respect.
I am not sure how this line of discussion fits with this post, unless someone wants to link it back to the topic. Otherwise it becomes a derailment.
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@kiwi,
I will make this simple.
You resent Eurasians because they play down their Asian ancestry to navigate themselves among whites and resent them when they play up their Asian ancestry. It is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You will resent them in either case without offering a model or paradigm to avoid earning your resentment. How do people automatically deserve resentment for a situation that they did not choose.
Yes, I do see some monoracially identified Asians as more or less white and some Eurasians as definitely not white. It has nothing with serving self interest, but with how much they identify with white history and culture, and also as you suggested, how much they are complacent with the white supremacist racial hierarchy.
You are in no position to point fingers here. Many monoracially identified Asians are complacent with the racial hierarchy, even more so than many Eurasians are. And I don’t believe I am even addressing this point with one of them.
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Kabuki theater and Geishas
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The Dragon and what does it symbolize?
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Asian American researchers disproving the model minority myth:
“Starting From the Bottom: Why Mexicans are the Most Successful Immigrants in America”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/uc/2014/04/starting_from_the_bottom_why_mexicans_are_the_most_successful_immigrants.html?
“According to a study by University of California, Irvine, Sociology Professor Jennifer Lee and UCLA Sociology Professor Min Zhou, contrary to stereotypes, Mexican-Americans are the most successful second-generation group in the country. The reason is simple: The study considered not just where people finished, but from where they started.
The report serves as counter-point to arguments raised by Amy Chua, a Yale Law School professor better known as the Tiger Mom. In a new book, The Triple Package, Chua and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, argue that some groups—namely Chinese, Jews, Cubans, and Nigerians—are more successful than others because they possess certain cultural traits that enable them to be.”
“The UC study, however, argues that it’s not any specific cultural trait that makes groups like Chinese-Americans more successful than others. Lee and Zhou say both Chinese-American and Mexican-American parents highly value education. Most parents do. But the reason Chinese-Americans get ahead is because they start ahead. Way ahead, in many cases.
The study, called “The Success Frame and Achievement Paradox: The Cost and Consequences for Asian-Americans,” looked at Chinese-, Vietnamese-, and Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles whose parents immigrated to the U.S.”
“Lee says that in the U.S., Asian-Americans benefit from a broad cultural belief in “Asian-American exceptionalism”—that Asians are inherently brighter and more hard-working than others—while other groups, such as Mexican-Americans and African-Americans, are subjected to negative stereotypes.”
“Lee argues that Asian-American students gain from this “stereotype promise”—the idea that being viewed through the lens of positive stereotypes can serve as a performance booster…(Stereotype promise can have a negative effect as well; Asian-Americans who are not high achieving reported feeling like outliers.)”
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@Kiwi @Jefe @Linda
To add my 2 cents:
In college I took an EthSt class taught by a Black/Native American woman with half white children on mixed race people in the U.S.. We did a group presentation on ‘the future of mixed race in the U.S.’ at the end of the class, and in my part I presented the Bonilla Silva chart on groups he thinks will become ‘whites,’ ‘honorary whites,’ and ‘the collective Black’ because I had come across that info in another EthSt class and thought, why not discuss it in this class? I was surprised that she hadn’t covered that material in class already. She flew into a rage when I showed that info, but the next day she talked to me privately and said that it was because she was “all about unity”.
We have to remember that it is just a theory, and it should be a theory that Bonilla Silva came up with to help further social justice, meaning that he didn’t come up with it because he wants to be proved right, but because he wants to prevent that future from happening. We are creating the future with our actions today. Are we just giving up and waiting for an expansion of whiteness, or are we getting in there and looking for ways to bring about a future we want?
We can just look at Mindy Kaling’s brother to see that you can’t be sure that any particular ethnic group or phenotype will predict who will ally with white supremacy and who will work for social justice. Even siblings will make different choices.
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Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan (2007)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416044/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
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undocumented Asian immigrants/dreamers
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Emperor Qin’s Terra Cotta Army and Mao Zedong
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@Kiwi,
Please don’t egg me into airing out your dirty laundry here. I know you have sought solace among your monoracially identified peers to vent your rage towards your biracially identified cousins (that is a figurative reference – not just strictly your blood cousins), but that doesn’t cover up what the underlying issue is.
Having said that, I am glad you brought it up here. People not connected directly to this experience, e.g., black Americans, non-Americans, etc. probably are not even aware of this dynamic going on in the USA.
When I was in NYC, I got to the point where I stopped hanging out much with Asian Americans (who often would enter into some rage at me) yet who were often quite ignorant with both Asian and Asian American history and culture and had little experience with direct white racism itself. I tended to seek out new immigrants and foreign students (not just Asian, but sometimes also European, African, Caribbean, etc.) who also felt disconnected from both white and Asian Americans and not connected to the source of that rage .I volunteered at an International Centre in NYC to serve new arrivals to the USA and hang out with people who didn’t even speak English on a regular basis. I also got involved with a Filipino American cultural group. Their members didn’t break out into this kind of rage all the time.
Maybe one day brain drain African immigrants and their children will hijack the African-American experience and vent rage towards blacks who can trace at least part of their ancestry to US slavery and 19th century whites. Or maybe they are doing that already.
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@Speak Out,
Different people will break out into a rage for different reasons, but it is obvious in the case you presented that Silva’s model flies into the face of the teacher’s political beliefs and the choices she made regarding marriage and raising her children.
Bonilla Silva was just trying to conceive or speculate what a multiracial society would look like after generations of intermixing amidst a “white is right” theme. But what the teacher seemed to fail to grasp was what would happen to society if on the one hand, it was “all about unity” but left the white supremacy or “white is right” theme firmly in place.
Unless we address the issue of white supremacy, we cannot discount the possibility of a multiracial society evolving (or is it devolving) into Silva’s paradigm.
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@Kiwi,
I am trying to avoid making this personal and addressing only the arguments, but it seems you want egg me into that. At this point, I will simply say that your stance on anti-racism is about as self-serving as it can get.
I know you have issues with your own cousin. But I think some of the rage you feel towards him is an external expression of rage that you feel internally. It would have a more positive psychological and social outcome if you recognize that and deal with that first,
Remember how Elliott Rodger’s rage was expressed? It did not bode well for his roommates.
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Kiwi,
You are blind or in self-denial to some of your own issues. I don’t want to air them out in public here. But I have seen it before.
BTW, you are hitting people like crazy here, if just simply the keyboard. At least that is less outwardly violent. I guess I should plaud you for that.
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Kiwi,
Summarize your thoughts and viewpoints and submit a guest post.
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Sheesh, you miss one day and this is what happens.
@ Kiwi:
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“Beauty Queen Wants Japan to Open Minds and Borders” (with video)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-06/biracial-japan-beauty-queen-wants-open-minds-and-borders
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“American Orientalism”
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/american-orientalism
“But by 2004, divisions began to emerge—between Indians on one side and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis on the other; Hindus on one side and Muslims and Sikhs on the other; established, middle- and upper-class immigrants on one side and recent, working-class immigrants on the other. These divides occurred in part because some South Asians actively sought to distinguish and distance themselves from others. But at a deeper level, the divisions were the result of U.S. government policies that singled out specific South Asian groups (such as the NSEERS program, which required the registration of male noncitizens from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan), and by the onslaught of media that demonized men with beards and turbans and women with hijabs. By the time Bombay Dreams opened, the complexities that lay beneath the surface of “South Asian” identity were flattened into a powerful binary; South Asian Americans were either model minorities or national threats.
But this was not merely a post–9/11 phenomenon. In fact, the division between the feared and the desired, the denigrated and the celebrated, has been a defining feature of South Asian racialization in the United States for over one hundred years.”
“The negative impact of these distinctions is not shared evenly. Today, such differentiations have their greatest effect on those who are already most vulnerable—most surveilled and policed—in our communities: the poor and the working class, recent and undocumented immigrants, women with dependent immigration status, Muslim and Sikh women and men. In the thirteen years since 9/11, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and acts of anti-South Asian, anti-Sikh, and anti-Muslim violence have remained consistently high, and they show little sign of abating. Given such stakes, it is important that we understand the longer history of denigration and celebration—of phobias and philias—that has defined the experiences of South Asians in the United States.”
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@jefe
I wouldn’t be so quick to underestimate the teacher’s (a dark skinned Black woman) grasp of how white supremacy works, or to assume that you have nothing to learn from her or anyone else. I’m not saying you have to agree with her or anyone else, but I learned a lot of value in her class, and several of the books and movies I recommend on this thread I found out about through her class.
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^^
To clarify, what I think she was doing was trying to make marginalized mixed race young people who feel alienated and excluded among monoethnic people of color feel centered and the majority for maybe the first time in their lives, since people who don’t get the chance to heal their/our racial issues aren’t much use in fighting for social justice.
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Also, in that same class there was a girl who was half one East Asian ethnicity and half another East Asian ethnicity. I remember she made a comment in a angry tone about “Native Americans look white.” Interestingly another, monoracial, Asian American student told her she was being mean. I had another friend who was half Chinese American half Japanese American who had some struggles among other Asian Americans because of that.
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I love theater so I wondered about a post on Anna & The King of Siam and The King and I. And Miss Saigon, M Butterfly and the opera Madame Butterfly.
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I have been watching fresh Off The Boat it’s growing on me.
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Gautama Buddha and his teachings and the 14th Dalai Lama who seems like a very cool dude.
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Japanese Kabuki theater and Sumo wrestlers and the 1980 movie from James Clavell “Shogun and Tom Cruise In The Last Samuri
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@Speak out
In no way was I suggesting that she had no grasp of how white supremacy works. I am sure she does. And undoubtedly, she has a lot to share with others regarding that. I am glad you learned things from her.
However, I would get suspect if she had such a visceral rageful reaction to your bringing up the Latin American style race model postulated by Silva, adding to how she is all about “unity” and raising biracial children as well. Some people think the cure to solving America’s race relation problems is simply to mix together. If everyone is multiracial, then we would no longer think of race and race relations.
I think that is naive.
For that to be effective, we would have to dismantle the white supremacist societal structure first. We would also have to revamp the American history that is being taught. For one thing, we have to learn how the slavery system and the Native American Genocide and Mexican / Asian ethnic cleansing are all part of our collective national heritage, regardless of our skin colour or eye or nose shape.
Failure to do that would leave “white” on top, and a race based model would slowly migrate to a colour based and economic class based model, not unlike much of Latin America.
If we dismantled whiteness, and revamped how US history is taught, then it would not matter if people mixed or not. But do white people want to do that?
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You know, I would recommend a post on
Lisa See
Born in Paris, France, she is 1/8 Chinese (the rest is mostly white). Her paternal great-grandfather was a 19th century Chinese immigrant to California. She has received recognition for her literary work from the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature, the Organization of Chinese Americans and the Chinese American history museum in Los Angeles, as well as the Smithsonian. She has led many events promoting the history of American Chinatowns and Chinese-American history.
In my opinion, she has done a lot more to promote Asian American history and a positive image for Asian Americans than most full blooded Asian-American women.
(http://www.lisasee.com/)
I might be willing to draft one if there were interest, but I would have to do a lot of research. I do not have that kind of information at my fingertips.
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@Jefe
I agree with you that mixing will do nothing for social justice without dismantling white supremacy as well. I think that the professor’s reaction was because she perceived me as going against her intention with the class as I explained above, to get alienated mixed race people to feel like they belong with people of color instead of feeling like they might as well side with white supremacy.
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I’m starting to realize that people of color are creating our own version of “blood quantum” with similar issues of genetics and culture to that of Native Americans.
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Article on disaggregation of Asian American ethnic groups and growing up Cambodian American:
“All Students Count: Changing the AAPI Narrative”
http://www.asamnews.com/2015/03/19/all-students-count-changing-the-aapi-narrative/
“My parents weren’t alone – there were countless other Cambodian families who didn’t have the support systems they needed to deal with the horrors that they had seen and experienced. For many of my peers and I, this often resulted in unspoken challenges at home and in school – including language barriers, a lack of support with school work and constant bullying (from both Asians and non-Asian peers) because we were seen as the “low-class Asians.””
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“The Loft’s Equilibrium: Hieu Minh Nguyen” (Vietnamese American poet)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7xgru-P2KA)
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@Kiwi,
I am not suggesting you do a single post on all those topics. I am not even sure if you know that much about half of those topics to do a good post. I have been studying up extensively on Asian American history for almost 40 years and have been witnessing its evolution since then too, and even I do not know enough about some of those topics to do a good post. Even scholars like Frank Wu or Peter Kwong would not know about everything.
But there are some topics which you probably know a good deal about and which you might be in a better position to discuss. For example, you have very strong and well thought out positions on why monoracial Asian men direct some of their resentment and rage towards Eurasians (especially males) for co-opting the Asian male image for their personal benefit. I noticed this type of rage and resentment begin sometime around 1980 or thereabouts and evolve and blossom into its present state. I have my own explanation for why that happened, but you have been reading and discussing with many others on this and probably can summarize that point of view better than any other regular reader and commenter on this blog. It will not be easy for me to describe it from that point of view as I have been the target of some of that rage in the past and have my own theories for why it developed.
There is probably some rage towards Eurasian females (from Asian men), although this type of rage is not as strong against them as it is towards Eurasian males. It is probably because monoracial Asian women have already co-opted the Asian image in the eyes of white males and Eurasian females will have less impact on that angle. As we have already witnessed, there is already plenty of Asian male rage towards Asian females to go around already, and rage towards Eurasian females is just an extension of that.
Another thing I noticed is that the rage from Asian males is primarily directed towards Asian females and Eurasian males, groups interpreted as co-opting the Asian image for their benefit (eg, gaining white privilege). Blasians hardly enter the modern day Asian American male radar screen at all — they are either ignored or disowned as black already.
Or maybe you can make it more general into a post called “Asian Male Rage” so that others can understand where it is coming from. OF course, the blogger “Angry Asian Man” does many posts on that, but he is not writing for this blog. What other reader on this blog understands that better than you?
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There are three islands that served as way stations for new entrants to the USA, each with their own story, and figure large in the collective history of various groups in the USA, i.e.,
Ellis Island: white American history
Angel Island: Asian American history
Sullivan Island: African American history
It might be interesting to have a post on each of these ports of entry. Virtually all Americans who can trace their origins to before WWII have at least one ancestor or relative who came through those islands.
It might not be 100% correlated with race. My maternal Grandfather’s father came from Germany, but entered the USA through Charleston, SC. My paternal grandfather avoided Angel Island,, and entered the USA through Montreal, Canada.
However, usually only the first one is covered in US history books.
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“Virtually all Americans who can trace their origins to before WWII have at least one ancestor or relative who came through those islands.”
Americans who voluntarily immigrated by ship, not Native Americans, Black Americans, Mexican Americans, etc.
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“Fact Sheet: Violence against Asian and Pacific Islander Women”
Click to access Violence.against.API.Women-FactSheet-APIIDV-6.2012.pdf
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“I Could Have Been Purvi Patel”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/sharlinechiang/i-could-have-been-purvi-patel
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The God of Small Things: A Novel
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“Korean American Clergy — Domestic Violence First Responders”
http://newamericamedia.org/2013/07/korean-american-clergy—-domestic-violence-first-responders.php
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#Asianinvasion May 8th
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“Dalit History Month
Dalit History Month is a participatory radical history project. Our goal is to share the contributions to history from Dalits around the world. We are a parallel model of scholarship to academic institutions that study Dalits without Dalits in collaborative or lead roles of research. We believe in the power of our stories to change the savarna narrative of our experience as one solely of atrocity into one that is of our own making. Our story may have begun in violence but we continue forward by emphasizing our assertion and resistance. Join the conversation at #Dalithistorymonth on facebook, twitter, and your communities.”
http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/423929/Dalit-History-Month/
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“What B.R. Ambedkar Wrote to W.E.B. Du Bois”
https://www.saadigitalarchive.org/tides/article/20140422-3553
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“Cesar Chavez Day and the Forgotten Asian Americans”
http://www.laprogressive.com/cesar-chavez-day-and-the-forgotten-asian-americans
“Many do not know that the 1965 Delano Strike, which gave birth to the UFW, was started by Pilipinos, not Cesar Chavez and the Mexican farm workers.
As the summer heat of 1965 ripened the grapes of the Delano fields, Pilipino farm workers walked off the job and struck for dignity and better working conditions. Earlier, Cesar Chavez of the mostly Mexican National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) had refused the request of Larry Itliong of the predominantly Pilipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to join the strike. A week after the strike began, Larry approached Cesar again and this time Cesar relented, with pushing from Dolores Huerta and his wife Helen Chavez, and the Mexican workers overwhelmingly voted to join the Pilipino farm workers. Both unions merged to form the UFW. Cesar became the head of the union with Larry as second in command. Dolores Huerta became First Vice President and the Pilipino farm worker leaders filled the rest of the top six leadership positions with Philip Vera Cruz as Second Vice President, Andy Imutan as Third Vice President, and Pete Velasco as Secretary Treasurer.
Additionally, the strike led to large support from the Pilipino American community with an alliance forming between Pilipino farm workers and Pilipino professionals as the Filipino American Political Alliance (FAPA), the first national political Pilipino organization with Larry Itliong eventually becoming its president. By 1970, over 30 cities had active chapters.
By the time of this strike, many of these Pilipino farm workers had over thirty years experience fighting and striking in the field since they arrived in the late 1920s and 1930s. Most struck within the first year on the job in the US . Even earlier, Japanese American workers actively battled in the fields. Growers thought AAPI workers were too militant and confrontational and began vigorously seeking out Mexican workers, who they saw as passive, subservient and docile.”
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“This is American History”
http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/this-is-american-history
“Over time, I followed a similar conclusion: We do not include Filipino American History in American History. This is what the textbooks told me. No books mentioned that Filipinos landed in California in 1587; created settlements in Louisiana after escaping Spanish Galleons in 1763; fought the United States for independence in the Philippine-American War in 1899-1913.
They did not mention how the U.S. put Filipinos on display at a human zoo in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904; called Filipinos dogs and niggers; kept military bases in the Philippines for over 100 years, leaving the legacy of prostitution, toxic waste and fatherless “Amerasian” children. Of course these facts were not taught: Why would Americans want to take responsibility for all this?”
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“Growing Up Japanese American in Crenshaw and Leimert Park”
http://www.kcet.org/socal/departures/leimert-park/growing-up-japanese-american-in-crenshaw-1.html
“All are testament to an ethnic community currently comprised of roughly 1,000 residents in and around the district, but once home to the largest concentration of Japanese Americans in the continental United States a half-century ago. The story of Crenshaw, which began as a segregated and restricted white neighborhood before World War II, provides a window into the rise of Los Angeles as a global city defined by a poly-ethnic culture.
While Crenshaw would later become known as a predominantly African American and increasingly Latino neighborhood, Japanese Americans stood at the forefront of the drive to break down racial exclusion and restrictive covenants in the years following World War II. At a time when nonwhite residents routinely experienced discrimination when seeking homes and mortgages, Kazuo K. Inouye launched the Kashu Realty company. The year was 1947 — one year before the landmark Shelley v. Kraemer ruled state enforcement of racial covenants unlawful. His pursuit of customers coincided with a desire to bust open previously all-white blocks for Black, Japanese, and Mexican American homeowners.”
“I spoke with three Sansei who moved to Crenshaw as young children when much of the district was still majority white. They later came of age during the turbulent 1960s, as Crenshaw became a national model for racial integration and a hub of black and Japanese American political activism.”
“While Little Tokyo served as a political hub, Crenshaw was also home to many of the Asian American Movement’s most prominent entities.”
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@Speak Out
Sorry, I phrased that incorrectly.
But your correction is wrong too, we can simply say,
“Americans who came by ship, including European, Asian and black Americans (but excluding Mexican Americans and Native Americans). “
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@Speak Out
But this blog has mentioned ALL of those already. We point out the stuff that is left out of the history books. We know that it has been left out.
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@jefe
That was an excerpt from the article I linked. I try to be careful about putting stuff into quotes that aren’t my own words. The article is a good read for an overview of Philippines/U.S. history and especially as an example of a Filipina American’s perspective on how U.S. history is taught.
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“Sacramento Japanese Americans protest auction of internment camp art”
“Yoshinori “Toso” Himel said he felt sad at first when he saw his late mother’s photo online, listed for sale in an upcoming auction. The picture was taken during a difficult time, when many Japanese were locked up in internment camps during World War II.
His sadness soon hardened into outrage.
“Someone was seeking to make a profit off my mom’s suffering,” said Himel, a retired civil rights lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice who lives in Sacramento’s Pocket neighborhood. “The war destroyed her family.”
Himel and his wife, Barbara Takei, have emerged as leaders of a local group of Japanese Americans who are fighting to keep a New Jersey auction house from selling a collection of crafts, photos and other artifacts from Japanese Americans who spent the war years locked up behind barbed wire.
They have launched a national campaign to stop the April 17 auction by Rago Arts and Auction Center. Their new Facebook group, Japanese American History: NOT for Sale Community, had more than 1,730 likes as of Monday morning.
“It’s like auctioning things taken from victims of the Holocaust or slave auctions or Native American burial grounds,” said Takei, an amateur historian whose family was sent to Tule Lake, one of 10 forced relocation camps scattered across the United States.”
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/history/article18443588.html#storylink=cpy
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“History’s dark viewfinder
A new exhibit documents one Sacramento photographer’s mission to preserve the stories of Japanese men and women interned during World War II”
https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/history-39-s-dark-viewfinder/content?oid=16781196
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“Japanese Americans’ furor blocks internment-era artifact auction”
http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Japanese-Americans-furor-blocks-internment-era-6202805.php#photo-7826405
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“The Wise Words of Slain Activist Catherine Han Montoya”
http://colorlines.com/archives/2015/04/the_wise_words_of_slain_activist_catherine_han_montoya.html
“Catherine Han Montoya, a respected organizer who fought for immigrant, Asian and Pacific Islander and LGBTQ rights in the South, was killed in her Atlanta home this past Monday, April 13. Media reports have not yet identified the motive of her alleged killer, Donte Lamar Wyatt, but according to the Georgia Voice Wyatt stabbed another woman in a Waffle House earlier that day.
Among her many pieces of work, Montoya, a self-described “queer Chicana Korean feminist and Broncos fan,” organized against Alabama’s anti-immigrant law HB 56, co-founded the Southeast Immigrant Rights Network and created the first National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum chapter in the South.”
“Montoya challenges the idea that organizing is an elite science:
“[There’s] always so much talk about the science of organizing and how we professionalize it, [expertize] it, basically make it seem more than it actually is. Organizing to me is just connecting with people. You don’t necessarily need to call it anything else. If you’re a good organizer that means that you’re just having experiences with folks and making a conscious decision to travel on a path together for a little bit. …We’ve made it seem like this cream-of-the-crop type of thing when really organizing is just about connecting with people.”
“Honor Catherine Han Montoya’s Life & Legacy
Beneficiary: Cathy’s wife, Meredith”
http://www.youcaring.com/memorial-fundraiser/honor-catherine-han-montoya-s-life-legacy/337884
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This one just because it’s funny:
“Hari Kondabolu- Cocoa Butter”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5_feKLhczE)
“Hari Kondabolu on “Unfair Skin” ”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnW1u26YKb4)
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@leigh204
The Fung Bros. is a definite MUST. They have been very prolific in the past year or two about sharing stuff about Asian Americans and should be shared here.
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Kiwi, according to that pie chart, theoretically of course, I should be hitting on:
1. White men
2. Jewish men
3.Other
4. Asian men
5. Black men.
What’s a girl to do? Where can I meet these men. I prefer the older gentlemen!
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That’s a large number of “other”. I think white people need to be worried about them.
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“All Police Who Kill Innocent Victims Should Be Indicted”
http://cpaboston.org/en/news-events/news/all-police-who-kill-innocent-victims-should-be-indicted
“The fact that white killer cops go free is a reason to call for all those responsible to be indicted, not to excuse a Officer Peter Liang for manslaughter. If Chinese Americans truly believe in fighting for civil rights, we must apply the same standards for justice regardless of the race of the victim or the perpetrator.
Injustice against Black lives is an injustice to all. Many of the rights we enjoy today, such as voting rights and immigration reform, came from the civil rights struggles led by the Black community. The recent police killings remind us that racism continues throughout US society, despite having a Black president, and it is our responsibility as people of color to take a stand for justice.”
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“A Call to End Racial and Religious Profiling: A perspective from LGBTQ South Asian, Muslim, and Middle Eastern communities”
http://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archive/2015/04/call-end-racial-and-religious-profiling-perspective-lgbtq-south-asian-muslim-an
“As we fight for accountability for our communities, we must also link our struggles with the demands for accountability from Black communities who have been harassed or lost their lives to racial profiling and police brutality. We know a movement of solidarity is not born without looking inward first. As communities who face profiling and state violence, we call upon our fellow non-Black communities of color to address the entrenched anti-Black bias inside our communities – within our places of worship, our families, ourselves. We call upon our fellow Muslims, South Asians, Middle Eastern and LGBTQ community members to lift up the voices of those at the margins of the margins — those in the shadows. They are the best architects for true change in this moment.
As we enter month eight of a new generation of massive social unrest, we write this call to action as members of the Asian and Pacific Islander communities and other non-Black communities of color, faith-based communities — those secular or religious — and queer and trans* communities, to stand shoulder to shoulder against insidious and persistent violence against our collective communities. We can no longer wait. It is time we lift up the connections that our lives depend on — time to have the conversation that denounces police and vigilante violence and makes explicit linkages between white supremacy to the racial and religious profiling based on lived bodies and experiences — whether based on perceived gender, faith, race, and/or immigration status.
As Muslims, Middle Eastern, South Asian and communities of color, we are no strangers to policing and profiling of Black and brown bodies. As queer and trans* people, we are no strangers to institutional violence — among families of origin, places of worship, at the hands of the state. As queer and trans* Muslims and immigrants, we are no strangers to intergenerational trauma, forced migration and systems that cannot fail us simply because our protection was never part of their design. We are no strangers to our bodies being policed and violated at borders and in the U.S. Our survival and safety have never been priority in this country.”
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“It Starts at Home: Confronting Anti-Blackness in South Asian Communities
A FACILITATION GUIDE”
“We are a group of queer South Asians who believe that undoing anti-Blackness starts at home: in our families, given and chosen; in our communities; in the intimate spaces where conflict can often be hardest.
We understand that this should not be the work of Black people: this is our work, and it always has been. We understand that we will never be free until Black people are also free; our freedom is bound up, inextricably, in Black liberation.”
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“The Revolution Starts with My Thathi: Strategies for South Asians to Bring #BlackLivesMatter Home”
“It can be hard to hear where people are at, and you may not want to listen to your family hash through their racism. But again, this is how we do our part. We ask our white friends to do their work as allies, and to use their white privilege to make waves in white communities. Don’t make Black communities ask the same of us. This is our work, not theirs.”
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@Speak Out,
Are you actually making any nominations for Asian American History month? It seems like you flood the comments here and on other posts with links to articles without explaining why you are doing it.
OK, other people put a lot of links to articles here. Even Kiwi did a few comments up. But he at least proposed a topic (ie. Asian Americans seeking media exposure online), which I think is an excellent topic addressing one of the ways Asian Americans address the erasure of their presence in US media. 20 years ago, some (including Eurasians and Blasians) would have just left the USA altogether and went to Asia (where they believed they might have more chances despite being a “foreigner” and their American education and upbringing) – one might even say that it factored in my decision also. Black Americans do not use online social media or flee to Nollywood to develop their career interests in the same way that Asian Americans seem compelled. to.
(However, it seems to me that Black and biracial Britons DO come to the USA to develop their careers.)
Linda and King, even Trojan Pam (and quite a few other posters) put up some links in their comments too, but they are almost directly tied to the post. They use them to support their points.
But, as you are making no points, and just posting links, I usually do not see what your point is.
If you are actually making nominations for posts, it would be nice to hear them.
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@jefe
I’m providing resources related to Asian Americans and Asia that I think will be useful and of interest to people who visit this site. I’ve already made several nominations for posts, and I may make more before Abagond announces the final topics.
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@Speak Out
It is unlikely that the topics will be announced in advance unless a post is already in the works. He may only list the ones that got high votes. What eventually gets posted might be something else altogether.
If you provide “resources” for post nominations, it would be nice to link them to an actual post nomination (like what everyone else is doing).
If you post a “resource” on the other post topics besides this one, it might make it easier to follow if you explain how it relates to the topic. Otherwise, I just see a deluge of links that I might be interested in if I knew why they are there, but now I have gotten to the point where I just skip over all of your links. Starting to look like SPAM.
I guess you already learned that comments with more than 2 links get moderated. Of course, you can get around that by splitting your comments up with 1 or 2 links per comment, but doing it that way will not attract people to your links, unless you link them to an actual comment (ie, explain how they relate to the topic).
Plagiarism WILL break the rules. If you copied the text from the links and claimed them as your own, that would not last long. But your “comments” would be more interesting if you made an actual comment instead of just posting links.
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@jefe
If you’re not interested in my links, no one is forcing you to read them. If Abagond has a problem with how I post, he can let me know. I’m not interested in discussing this further with you.
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“An Apology to Black Folks”
http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archive/2014/12/apology-black-folks
“White supremacy is successful in part because the nature of the beast is such that some have more to gain from its perpetuation than others. For Asian Americans, it has been a double-edged sword with a large swath of Asian Americans gaining more from participating than not, even though it also harmed the most vulnerable in Asian America. Many of us participated vigorously, collecting social and economic capital in the process. Will we continue to participate freely or will we start to push back against a system that makes us complicit in racist, murderous oppression of Black, Latin@, and Native peoples?
I’m sorry that I haven’t resisted and called out these structures, institutions, and cultures of white supremacy.
I’m sorry that while Black and brown trans* and ciswomen, men and nonbinary people have faced daily sexual and homicidal violence at the hands of state actors, I did not try hard enough to stop the wheels of white supremacy from running right over them.
And I’m sorry for living so much of my life as an ally instead of a brother in arms. An ally is someone who decides that the battle you are fighting, your struggle for your inherent rights, is a worthwhile use of the ally’s time because of something they might get in return. In being an ally of Black folks, I have been selfish, and I have not just said, white supremacy is wrong, full stop.
It’s time for an Asian American War on White Supremacy.
Joining the War on White Supremacy may be a tough sell because it means letting go of the idea of the American Dream. Asian immigrants came to the United States in most cases because they believed that here, there was a chance to live free from oppression and to earn a living with dignity. But we must ask ourselves questions like: from whence came the massive endowments of the great American universities that many Asian Americans aspire to attend or send their children? On whose land?”
“We need to decide that we love ourselves and don’t want lives of white supremacy, lives where our successes, wealth, and prestige exist in part because we were willing to let white supremacy slide and to ignore the gross and obvious violence it uses to self-sustain. I don’t want my successes to be paid for with someone else’s blood. Do you?”
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“Rise Up! with the LGBTQ Community on Immigration”
http://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archive/2015/04/rise-lgbtq-community-immigration
“Benjamin also stressed that not all LGBTQ members are estranged from their families: “A lot of us may struggle with our families but it doesn’t mean we’re estranged from them, so another thing we’re working really hard for is ensuring that those who qualify for DACA and the expanded DACA and new DAPA program take advantage of the programs. Undocumented immigrants from Asian countries have the lowest rates of participation.”
“Benjamin further points to the “dichotomy of the good immigrant and bad immigrant” as another hurdle to surpass in pushing for immigration reform: “In the President’s speech…he talks about how we want to keep the ‘good’ immigrants here and highly skilled laborers to help build our science and technology fields, and it’s feeding into all these stereotypes of AAPI individuals … but we know this opens the door to profiling of our South Asian and Southeast Asian communities and yet there is no accountability of immigration enforcement agencies who profile. There are also folks who have paid their dues to society and others with misdemeanor criminal histories for crimes they did at a very young age, and they’re going to be left behind. We are particularly focused on Cambodian communities who fled from genocide and came to the U.S. as refugees. Because they may have committed a minor crime, such as one instance of shoplifting or being caught with a small amount of marijuana, they are being deported to a country they fled or, left when they were infants and that’s scary … we don’t know if people being targeted were convicted because they were profiled and fed through the school to prison/deportation pipeline. We know that it’s time to focus on educating our communities “”
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Important twitter conversation:
https://twitter.com/KevinShawnHsu/status/592374224905478144
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“Inquirer: Filipino American Icon Honored with Own Day” (w/link to full article)
http://www.asamnews.com/2015/04/24/inquirer-filipino-american-icon-honored-with-own-day/
“The California State Assembly has voted unanimously to declare October 25 as Larry Itliong Day, reports the Inquirer.
The farm labor organizer lead the eight day Delano grape strike in 1965. His Agricultural Worker Organizing Committee eventually merged with Cesar Chavez’s National Farm Worker’s Assocaition to become the United Farm Workers.
AB 7 is authored by Assemblyman Rob Bonta, the first Filipino American elected to the State Assembly.”
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Abagond, I would like to nominate a White Fetish post. There was a discussion on the Asian Fetish thread and I thought a new post like this is quite relevant. Btw, Sharina also seconded my post. Here you go.
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@Leigh204,
It is funny, but Sharina asked Kiwi to do a post on white fetish, but he declined saying he didn’t know enough about the history and background, despite obsessing with the topic all day long and reading more about it than anyone else here. He said it should be an Asian women writing the post, but they you quickly declined and turned it to Abagond who is neither
– an Asian woman with a potential white fetish
– a white man who might be approached by Asian women with a white fetish
– an Asian man or white woman who might be indirectly affected by it
I suppose he could write a dispassionate piece about it, but probably, it would just be the flip version of the original one.
Sample provided here:
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/asian-fetish/#comment-282956)
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@ jefe:
I declined to write a post (not that I was asked to write one) because I don’t know a lot in regards to white fetish since I don’t have one. I have stated for years on here, my loyalties lie with Asian men. I’m astonished that Kiwi would pass up this opportunity to write such a post considering that’s all he pretty much talks about. (Kiwi, I’m certain you’re reading this, but you know what I’m saying is true and you cannot deny it.)
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@Leigh204,
Indeed I agree that it should be someone like him, not an Asian woman with white fetish, to write such a post.
But the input from Asian women could be used to explain why they believe that they do NOT have a white fetish.
Maybe that is one of the differences with Asian fetish. White men will admit that they have a thing for Asian women. But Asian women usually deny that they have a “fetish” for whites, because “fetish” sounds like something abnormal, but they think they are being normal. But that is also why such a woman would not write such a post.
The main challenge for Kiwi writing the post would be for him to write it in a more dispassionate way.
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Exactly. A rant is not dispassionate.
Suggest that it be broken into a few standalone posts. The first one can be used to define the term (without analyzing the history and causes too much). You should be able to define a term in 500 words.
For the first post, DO NOT do much analysis. Or it can be expanded in the comments. Or it can be put into a separate post.
Think of it as a challenge. What does it mean “White Fetish” in 500 words?
Abagond will edit it down to size if it is too big.
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“Immigrant Organizers and the Baltimore Protests: A call for solidarity and critical thought”
http://www.notonemoredeportation.com/2015/04/28/immigrant-organizers-and-the-baltimore-protests-a-call-for-solidarity-and-critical-thought/
“We as undocumented people should be able to understand how extreme hardships and systemic failures lead to desperate action. We constantly urge others to look at us as human and view our migration through a critical lens by highlighting the reasons that compel our families to abandon everything and travel thousands of miles to come to the US. Now it is our responsibility to ask ourselves what compels Black youth to take the streets in the first place.
It is hypocritical if we do not view Black acts of resistance in Baltimore, Ferguson, New York City and other parts of the US with the same critical analysis we ask for ourselves. If we cannot see past the isolated images of property damage fed to us by the media, then we really act no better than the people who ask us why we didn’t just come legally.
By qualifying our support to only the peaceful protestors and choosing to focus our attention in condemnation of the few rioters, we are simply reinforcing the cycle of oppression on Black lives that occurs on the larger scale. Our quick condemnation of these actions provides police with justification to continue using force against protesters. After all, such rhetoric should ring a bell in light of the President’s felons’ vs families rhetoric that serves to justify hyper enforcement and mass deportations in the immigrant community.
As a South Asian immigrant whose community has used Anti-Blackness as a tool to move up in this country, I’ve heard lines like, “That’s exactly why they shouldn’t be rioting in the first place! I see why they are mad but it takes away from all the positive work being done.” But such thought, again, places the fault and criminalization on the Black community instead of on white supremacy which created the conditions for such protest.”
“My name is Yves Gomes. I hail from Silver Spring, MD. As an undocumented Bengali, growing up in a middle class, diverse, suburban neighborhood, I was “colorblind” for the longest time and bought into the false Model Minority stereotype. It was not until my parents’ deportation in 2009 and facing my own deportation in 2010, that I began to understand how my undocumented experience as a Middle-class Asian American was starkly different than my Latino and Black peers. The only way we are going to get past the issue of race is to address it.”
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I know the nominations have already been done, but I was thinking that since Abagond did a post on Lee Daniels, I would like to propose a few Asian-American directors, eg.,
Wayne Wang>/b> (b. 1949 in HK, in USA since 1966)
He did many critically acclaimed films with Chinese-American themes:
Chan Is Missing (1982) – has the reputation of the first critically acclaimed Asian-American film
Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1985) – his highest acclaimed film
Eat a Bowl of Tea (1989)
The Joy Luck Club (1993)
as well as Maid in Manhattan (2002).
Ang Lee (b. 1954 in Pingtung, Taiwan, in USA since 1979)
Academy Award winner and directed a variety of themes:
Chinese-American themes:
Pushing Hands (1992)
The Wedding Banquet (1993) – Lee nominated for an Academy Award.
Taiwan theme:
Eat Drink Man Woman (1995) – Lee nominated for an Academy Award.
Hollywood:
Sense and Sensibility (1995) – Lee nominated for an Academy Award.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (1999) – Lee won Academy Award for best foreign language film and nominated for Best Director
Hulk (2003)
Brokeback Mountain (2005) – Lee won Academy Award for Best Director
Life of Pi (2012) – Lee won Academy Award for Best Director
HK theme:
Lust, Caution (2007)
Eric Byler Hapa, b. Virginia 1972, grew up in Hawaii
Known for Charlotte Sometimes (2003) & Americanese (2006) – films with Asian-American themes. I actually have met his mom several times.
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Japanese Geisha culture
black women and Asian (I’m biased because I am in that relationship)
Asian stereotypes
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Yellowface
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=198&v=tarzAjCwAGs)
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We need to have a good discussion on Yellowface.
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