Mount Rainier Snowshoer Burned Money for Warmth The Seattle Times and Associated Press covered the amazing survival story of Yong Chun Kim, 66, of Tacoma, a snowshoer who was lost in a blizzard for two days on Mount Rainier. Kim said he stayed alive by digging out a snow tunnel and burning dollar bills for [...]
Tropical Storm Sendong Brings Filipino Community Together On Dec. 17, tropical storm Sendong (a.k.a. Typhoon Washi) struck the Philippines, deeply impacting the southern islands of Mindanao. The cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan were amongst the worst hit by flash floods and landslides leaving more than 1,080 people confirmed dead. More fatalities are expected, [...]
Jeremy Lin Joins the Houston Rockets The Rockets claimed guard Jeremy Lin on Dec. 11, adding the former Harvard guard by picking up the second year of his non-guaranteed contract. Lin, 23, who had become a popular reserve with his hometown Golden State Warriors last season, was released recently. Lin, 6-3, averaged 2.6 points on [...]
Army Investigates “Racially Charged Bullying” Behind Soldier’s Death The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division is reportedly examining the circumstances surrounding the non-combat-related death of 19-year-old Private Danny Chen, a New York City native who was found dead in Afghanistan on October 3. According to a report in the Sing Tao Daily, Chen was allegedly subjected to [...]
Moms and Kids ‘Occupy’ Oakland Wells Fargo Branch, Close Accounts Angry that Wells Fargo took federal bailout money and is now posting record profits, a group of moms and their children rallied at an Oakland, Calif. branch Nov. 4 and closed their accounts, reported the Oakland Tribune. The “Colorful Mamas of the 99 Percent” group [...]
Michele Bachmann: U.S. Immigration ‘Worked Very, Very Well’ Under The Asian Exclusion Act In 1924, Congress passed a package of immigration laws — including the Asian Exclusion Act — establishing a quota system giving preferential treatment to European immigrants. According to the Think Progress Justice blog, under these laws, the number of immigrants who could [...]
Separated By the Killing Fields, Reunited Through Facebook A moving story, reported by the Record (www.recordnet.com), featured two long-lost friends separated by the notorious killing fields of war-torn Cambodia, and who are reunited decades later in the United States through a chance encounter on Facebook. Willam Buth and Sonan Samreth were teenage friends and classmates [...]
Oregon’s Rep. Wu Resigns from House Amidst Allegation Oregon House Representative David Wu, announced July 26, his decision to resign in the wake of allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances on an 18 year-old. Rep. Wu offered the following statement: “The well-being of my children must come before anything else. With great sadness, I [...]
Hawaii Governor Enacts Bill To Further Self-Determination For Native Hawaiians Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed into state law on July 6, a bill that formally recognizes Native Hawaiians as “the only indigenous, aboriginal, maoli population” of the islands and begins a process to create a roll of qualified members to work toward the reorganization of [...]
Ching Chong Ling Long Gourmet Takeout Students from UCLA, in an apparent response to Alexandra Wallace’s anti-Asian YouTube rant, started a Chinese food delivery service called “Ching Chong Ling Long,” reported the LA Weekly blog. Operating in partnership with The Palace Restaurant in Brentwood, Calif., the UCLA students said, yes, the name is indeed an [...]
A New York Staple, Korean Grocers Are Dwindling The New York Times recently featured the plight of a New York staple business – Korean groceries. The Times profiled Joo Han, the son of Korean immigrants, who runs a Manhattan produce store that looks much as it did when his parents opened it a generation ago. [...]
Taiwan Asks China to Stop Blocking Its Websites China’s practice of blocking Taiwan’s websites is an impediment to the goal of increasing information and cultural exchange between the two sides of the Strait, said Liu Te-shun, spokesman for the Mainland Affairs Council. “We’ve told them news exchange does not refer to the exchange of reporters [...]
Michelle Rhee Responds to D.C. Testing Scandal Michelle Rhee, the face of an education reform movement sweeping across the nation, was called to answer for a possible cheating scandal that happened under her watch as the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. schools, reported ColorLines. After initially dismissing the study, Rhee acknowledged recently that cheating [...]
North Korean Propaganda Artist Finds Freedom North Korean defector Song Byeok once made propaganda posters in the North with slogans like “Let us Exalt the Great Leader.” Now, he has opened an exhibit in Seoul, South Korea last month with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s face sharing the body of Marilyn Monroe’s. “Freedom [...]
New America Media Editor’s note: This letter, written by a Vietnamese immigrant working in Fukushima as a policeman to a friend in Vietnam, has been circulating on Facebook among the Vietnamese diaspora. It is an extraordinary testimony to the strength and dignity of the Japanese spirit, and an interesting slice of life near the epicenter of Japan’s current crisis, the Fukushima nuclear power plant. It was translated by NAM editor, Andrew Lam.
Solemn faces in grainy black and white photographs stare out behind panes of glass, a stark reminder of pain and suffering felt generations ago by the Japanese American community. At the Japanese Cultural and Community Center in Seattle, these captured memories of internment camps in the Pacific Northwest remind visitors of Washington’s deep ties to [...]
SeattleJapanRelief.org Japanese officials call it “the worst natural disaster in 100 years.” On March 11, a massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northeastern Japan at around 2:46 p.m. (JST), causing severe blackouts, fires, and a catastrophic tsunami. At the time of publication, over 1,800 people were confirmed dead, but the number continues to [...]
Thing Three: Dr. Seuss, Rap and Racism? Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, is the inspiration for National Read Across America Day, an initiative on reading created by the National Education Association. He lends his birthday, March 2, to the national cause. Read Across America brings millions of parents into classrooms on March [...]
Kim Jong Il’s Former Guard is Critical of Leader Today, Lee Young-guk is a struggling duck breeder at his rural family-owned spread near the North Korean border. For 10 years, until 1988, Lee was a personal bodyguard for Kim Jong Il, working among the phalanx of trained killers who protected the future North Korean dictator, [...]
In a Feb. 23 conference call, White House senior administration officials and reporters from Asian Pacific American media discussed President Obama’s 2012 federal budget, and its impact on the APA community. A common theme throughout the messages from the three participating senior officials was the plan to “position Americans to win the future by out-educating, [...]
Cambodian Troops Found Bunkered in Historic Temple According to the Associated Press, hundreds of Cambodian soldiers were recently camped at a cliff-top Khmer temple and World Heritage site in the line of fire in deadly border skirmishes with Thailand. Cambodia’s government denies that it deploys soldiers at the millennium-old Preah Vihear temple — seeking to [...]
Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius released a report Jan. 28 that says each year from the time the health care reform law is fully implemented in 2014, a low-income family of four could save up to $14,900. Small businesses will also be able to save from the tax credits offered in [...]
The Biggest Cave in the World Is Discovered in Vietnam According to the on-line Vietnamese community network, OneVietnam, British cave scientists recently confirmed that Vietnam is now home to the world’s largest cave. The Son Dong Cave, located in Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park in central Vietnam runs 2.5 miles long, and can get [...]
Vincent Chin’s Beating Death Spurred Changes in Law In Ferndale, Michigan, community members unveiled a new plaque commemorating the life and brutal 1982 beating death of Vincent Chin, and the important legacy of the landmark case that galvanized the Asian American community and spurred major legal changes. According to the Detroit Free Press, Chin had [...]
Seattle’s Chinatown-International District and Little Saigon is featuring a series of shopping events through December 18, 2010 for the second annual Holiday Shop-O-Rama. Host and organizer, the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience’s gift shop, the Marketplace, will have special sales and demonstrations, appearances by local artists Aki Sogabe (December 2) and Barry [...]
Yahoo! Health created a list identifying “America’s Worst Chinese Meals”, written by David Zinczenko and inspired by the new book, “Eat This, Not That! 2011”. The article begins by ridiculing the behind-the-scenes work of Chinese restaurants: “What’s the last thing you’re likely to find in a Chinese restaurant in America? A trained chef. Even though [...]
Working women are equal to men in a way they’ll wish they weren’t. Female workers with stressful jobs were more likely than women with less job strain to suffer a heart attack, or a stroke or to have clogged arteries, a big federally funded study found. Worrying about losing a job can raise heart risks, [...]
In the town of Windsor Locks, Connecticut, a police officer is accused of being responsible for a car crash that took the life of 15 year-old Henry Dang, who was riding his bicycle home from a friend’s house on Oct. 29. Some witnesses say Officer Michael Koistenen, who was off-duty, was drinking at a tailgate [...]
David C. Lam, who served as British Columbia’s 25th lieutenant-governor — Canada’s first Asian Canadian lieutenant-governor — from 1988-1995, died Nov. 21 of prostate cancer. He was 87 years-old. “On behalf of all British Columbians, I extend deepest condolences to the family and friends of David Lam,” Premier Gordon Campbell said in a statement issued [...]
North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire Nov. 23 after dozens of shells fired from the North struck the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong near the countries’ disputed maritime border, reported the New York Times. Two South Korean soldiers were killed and 14 were injured, four of them seriously. The South Korean military went in [...]
