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 warmth.

Kim, who served in the South Korean military in the Vietnam War, told KOMO-TV in Seattle that skills he learned as a soldier helped him survive. He said he wasn’t scared. He kept waiting for the sounds of the helicopter — though severe weather conditions prevented park officials from using one to search for Kim. With temperatures in the teens and winds whipping on the mountain, Kim said he kept walking and moving to stay warm. He took cover in several tree wells — depressions in snow that forms around a tree — and slept standing for 5 to 10 minutes at a time.

Kim, a U.S. citizen for 30 years, was leading 16 members of a hiking and climbing club from Tacoma on Jan. 14 — a trip he takes nearly every week — when he slid down a slope and became separated. He radioed his group twice to tell them he was OK and would meet them farther down the trail, but became disoriented and went the wrong way. Dozens of park rangers, rescue dogs, volunteers and searchers from several rescue organizations scoured snowy mountain terrain for three days searching for Kim. Kim was about a mile from where he was last seen when he was found Jan. 16 by a ranger and two Crystal Mount Ski Patrol members. Kim said his experience won’t stop him from heading to Mount Rainier again.

“Oh yeah, of course, every Saturday.” But he added: “If it’s a bad day, don’t hike again.”

Sen. Paull Shin ‘Undecided’ In Same-Sex Marriage Bill

Sen. Paull Shin (D-21) of Edmonds is listed as one of six “undecided” members of Congress regarding Washington State’s same-sex legislation. If the legislation passes, Washington will be the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriages in the country. As of Jan. 24, there were 23 reliable “yes” votes in the Senate and 20 “no’s.” The bill requires 25 votes to pass. Six senators, including Sen. Paull Shin, will have to make a decision. An intern for Sen. Shin told The Stranger the senator has not made any public statement on whether he is for or against it, saying, “He’s weighing in with the constituents.” Shin’s Mormom faith is rumored to play a role in his indecison.

Former K-Pop Star and Seattle Native is Back in the Spotlight

In their January 2012 issue, KoreAm magazine covered the case of Seattle native Jay Park, who managed to climb to the top of the Korean pop scene as the charismatic leader of 2PM. KoreAm: “But when the young performer made some ‘anti-Korean’ comments on his MySpace page and later allegedly confessed to some ‘severe mistake,’ according to his record label, he found himself excised from the band and Korea. The singer was prepared to return to a life of obscurity, dancing with his old crew and taking a job at a tire shop in his hometown, but then a certain YouTube video launched him back into the spotlight — his loyal fans in tow. Now, Jay is back, making music and movies and this time, he’s calling the shots.”

David Kang to Head Up Rolling Stone, Us Weekly Online

David Kang will be leaving his post at Hearst to take charge of online publishing for Rolling Stone, Us Weekly and Men’s Journal, reported Goldsea news. As Wenner Media’s chief digital officer, Kang will have full P&L responsibility for sites that command 13.2 million unique monthly visitors. Kang said he will “focus on a brand-centric model based on user preferences, data and a seamless multiplatform experience with multiple revenue streams.” That will involve building strategic partnerships with companies like Spotify and deepening relationships with advertisers through multiplatform integrated deals and branded entertainment campaigns. He started work at Wenner on Jan. 20, less than 10 months after he joined Hearst in March of 2011 where he had been developing digital apps, mobile sites, branded YouTube channels and e-books for titles like Good Housekeeping and Cosmopolitan. Since August of 2007 Kang was SVP and general manager of online subscription services at Rodale which publishes health magazines like Men’s Health, Prevention, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, Bicycling, Running Times, and Organic Gardening. Before that, Kang was SVP of entertainment for Major League Baseball Advanced Media. David Kang has a bewildering array of academic degrees, including a B.A from Stanford, an MA from Harvard, a PhD from Harvard Business School and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Yahoo! Co-Founder Yang Resigns

Yahoo! Inc co-founder Jerry Yang has quit the Internet company he started in 1995, effective Jan. 17, potentially appeasing shareholders who had blasted the Internet pioneer for impeding efforts to revive the struggling Web company. Yang’s abrupt departure comes two weeks after Yahoo! appointed Scott Thompson its new CEO, and after growing criticism of Yang and his handling of affairs dating back to an aborted sale to Microsoft. Analysts said Yang’s exit might speed discussions surrounding a multi-billion dollar deal to sell much of Yahoo!’s prize assets — its 40 percent slice of China’s Alibaba, as well as its investment in Yahoo! Japan. In a letter to Yahoo’s chairman of the board, Yang said he was leaving Yahoo to pursue “other interests outside of Yahoo” and was “enthusiastic” about Thompson as the choice to helm the company. Respected in the industry as one of the founding figures of the Web, Yang has come under fire from investors over the years. In 2008 when Yang was CEO, Yahoo! rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from Microsoft Corp worth about $44 billion. Its share price was subsequently pummeled by the global financial crisis and its current market value stands at about $20 billion.

Pinkberry Co-Founder Beat Homeless Man With Tire Iron

One of the founders of the frozen yogurt franchise, Pinkberry, was arrested Jan. 16, according to the Los Angeles Tribune. Police accuse Young Lee of chasing down a homeless man and beating him with a tire iron in June 2011 on an off-ramp of the Hollywood Freeway. Apparently, Young Lee was stopped at a light when he was approached by a transient seeking money, police said. Words were exchanged, and Lee and another man in the car chased the homeless man and “beat him down,” police Capt. Paul Vernon said. Detectives spent several months probing the case against Lee, who was in South Korea for part of that time. Lee, 47, was taken into custody at Los Angeles International Airport. Bail was set at $60,000 but the records do not indicate whether Lee was released. A former kick-boxer and later an architect, Lee co-founded Pinkberry with Shelly Hwang in 2005. At one point, Pinkberry was drawing 3,000 customers a day and became known as the yogurt shop that spawned 1,000 parking tickets. The business now has more than 100 locations in the United States, Mexico and the Middle East, according to the company website.

Seven Teens Charged in Vicious Beating Caught on Video

In Chicago, seven teens have been charged in the Jan. 15 brutal alley attack of a 17-year-old high school student that was caught on video and went viral on YouTube. Soon after the video hit the web, the identities of the alleged attackers were released. The father of one of teens charged in the beating said the attack was a ‘retaliation’ from a previous altercation.  Seventeen-year-old Raymond Palomino, the attacker whose face can be clearly seen in the video, is being charged as an adult, and faces felony charges of robbery and aggravated battery. The rest of the attackers, ages 15 to 16, including the 15-year-old girl who apparently made the recording, have all been cited on the same charges. The beating and robbery occurred at about 4 p.m. in an alley behind an elementary school just south of the city’s downtown. Police said they don’t believe the attack was racially motivated, although the video clearly shows the victim being punched in the face and kicked repeatedly by a group of attackers while being taunted with racial slurs over the course of more than three minutes. His attackers also robbed the victim of $180 in cash, in addition to his sneakers. The beating victim ran away and was taken to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center.

Reuniting the Koreas in a Restaurant

The New York Times covered Pyongyang — not the capital city of North Korea, — but the rapidly expanding chain of restaurants owned by the North Korean government, with outlets in Bangkok, Jakarta, Pattaya, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Vientiane.

Apparently, the Pyongyang restaurant serves as a place of cross-border kinship between Northerners and Southerners, who enjoy performances by North Korean dancers. According to the Times, an expert calls the restaurants, which have opened over the past decade, a “North Korean capitalist experiment,” where wine goes for $30 a bottle and meals can run $100 a person. A critic said the restaurant franchise is an attempt by the government to generate hard currency, a supplement to the country’s sales of missiles and nuclear technology. There is no doubt it is desperately needed, to cope with food and fuel shortages and a socialist economy in a state of collapse. In the real Pyongyang — the capital city -– the death of the longtime leader, Kim Jong-il, and the succession of his son, Kim Jong-un, have raised fears of instability, creating a hard-line Communist atmosphere.

In the restaurant, the performers, who double as waitresses, said they work for three-year stints, request photographs of the restaurant deleted from cameras and shy from discussing politics. There are no propaganda posters in the franchises, no slogans and no portraits of Kim Jung-un, his father or his grandfather, Kim Il-sung. Mr. Jung, a South Korean tour guide, told the New York Times the restaurant was a kind of neutral ground for North and South Koreans to meet. “Politics disappear,” Mr. Jung said. “We are one family.”

Hong Kong Braces for Flood of Dragon Babies

Mainland women scheming and scrambling to deliver “dragon babies” are expected to create a logjam in Hong Kong hospitals and clinics, reported the Goldsea news website. About half of all babies delivered in Hong Kong this year will be to mainlanders eager to bring good fortune into their families while avoiding China’s one-child policy. The Year of the Dragon began on Jan. 23. According to Chinese superstitions babies born during a dragon year — which comes around every 12 years according to the Chinese zodiac — will be imbued with the talents and the good fortune of a great emperor. Consequently, many couples have deliberately sought to time births by putting off conception in the preceding year of the rabbit. Due to concerns that the quest for dragon babies by hordes of mainland woman would crowd out local women, Hong Kong placed a cap on the number of non-resident women who will be allowed to give birth in the Special Administrative Region. Hong Kong hospitals are essentially at the mercy of determined mainland women who manage to cross the border, legally and illegally, and make their way to a facility in a condition that requires preparation for delivery. Local papers have already reported cases of mainland women in the final stages of pregnancy who have illegally crossed the border and headed straight to emergency rooms of public hospitals who can’t turn them away. Expectant local mothers have taken to streets to protest the expected crowding. Up to 1,000 have already staged protests.

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, and more than 100,000 survivors are left homeless.

“It has been a difficult Christmas for the local Filipino community,” according to BAYAN-USA Regional Coordinator, Rachel Cendana. “First, the brutal murder of our beloved Danny Vega. Now, Typhoon Sendong displacing so many of our overseas friends and loved ones.” Despite the recent calamities, Cendana and other benefit organizers remain inspired. “The Seattle community always comes together to help one another in such adverse times.”

Local grassroots network Bayan-NW, the Filipino Community of Seattle, and Ihaw Ihaw Band organized a vigil and benefit concert on Dec. 29 at the Filipino Community Center to raise funds to help those hit hardest by Typhoon Washi. People interested in finding out more information or how to support can e-mail: bayanusa.pnw@gmail.com or contact the Filipino Community Center at (206) 722-9372. All proceeds raised at the event go towards helping the areas hardest hit by Typhoon Sendong.

Gov’t To Pay Family $17.8M For Military Jet Crash

On Dec. 28, a federal judge ordered the U.S. government to pay $17.8 million to a family that lost four members when a Marine Corps fighter jet crashed into their San Diego, Calif. home in 2008. A U.S. district judge’s ruling came after a nonjury trial between the Department of Justice and the family, who sought $56 million for emotional and monetary loss. Don Yoon lost his 36-year-old wife, Youngmi Lee Yoon; his 15-month-old daughter, Grace; his 2-month-old daughter, Rachel; and his 59-year-old mother-in-law, Seokim Kim Lee, who was visiting from Korea to help her eldest daughter take care of their children, according to the Associated Press. Yoon broke down crying throughout his testimony, which came three years to the day when he buried his wife and baby girls in the same casket.

The Marine Corps has said the plane suffered a mechanical failure but a series of bad decisions led the pilot — a student — to bypass a potentially safe landing at a coastal Navy base after his engine failed on Dec. 8, 2008. The pilot ejected and told investigators he screamed in horror as he watched the jet plow into the neighborhood, incinerating two homes. The military disciplined 13 members of the Marines and the Navy for the errors.

Eight Soldiers Charged With Killing of Pvt. Danny Chen

One night in October, Army Pvt. Danny Chen apparently angered his fellow soldiers by forgetting to turn off the water heater after taking a shower at his outpost in Afghanistan. According to the New York Times, in the relatives’ account, the soldiers pulled Pvt. Chen out of bed and dragged him across the floor; they forced him to crawl on the ground while they pelted him with rocks and taunted him with ethnic slurs. Finally, the family said, they ordered him to do pull-ups with a mouthful of water — while forbidding him from spitting it out.

It was the culmination of what the family called a campaign of hazing against Pvt. Chen, 19, who was born in Chinatown in Manhattan, the son of Chinese immigrants. Hours later, on Oct. 3, he was found dead in a guard tower, from what a military statement called “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound” to the head. On Dec. 21, the American military announced that the Army had charged eight soldiers in Pvt. Chen’s battalion in connection with the death. It was an extraordinary development in a case that has stirred intense reactions and debate in the Asian population in New York and elsewhere over what some experts say is the somewhat ambivalent relationship between the Asian population and the United States military. In a journal he kept while in basic training and in letters, Pvt. Chen mentioned that other soldiers teased him because of his ethnicity. “Everyone here jokingly makes fun of me for being Asian,” he said in one letter to his parents. In another letter two days later, he wrote, “People crack jokes about Chinese people all the time; I’m running out of jokes to come back at them.”

Has Asian American Studies Failed?

Timothy Yu, Professor of English and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shared a provocative question on the state of Asian American Studies. He cited recent examples such as a New York Times article that reviewed a learning center at WWII-era Japanese American internment camp, Heart Mountain, where the reporter made historical inaccuracies about Japanese Americans. In another cited example of the apparent failure of Asian American Studies to Yu, the Wall Street Journal published an article by a Chinese American Yale law professor titled, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” claiming numerous reasons why “Eastern” styles of parenting are superior to “Western.” Yu wonders how, with thirty years of Asian American Studies, that such inaccuracies in identity and history can be made.

He offered solutions such as: popularizing Asian American Studies and better communicating discoveries; looking outward to mainstream audiences and promote public discourse about Asian Americans; developing “rapid response teams” to advocate when anti-Asian racism or misrepresentation occurs; and developing and fostering public intellectuals who can command public attention and contribute to the public discourse.

Read the full article at: www.tympan.blogspot.com and search by typing in the headline.

The New York Knicks Claim Jeremy Lin

The Houston Rockets released guard Jeremy Lin on Christmas day to reduce the roster to 14 players and make room to sign center Samuel Dalembert. Back in December, the Harvard hoops star got dropped from his hometown team of the Golden State Warriors. He was then recruited by the Rockets. Looks like Lin’s next appearance is at Madison Square Garden.

Lin is a Bay Area native who played in 29 games last season as a rookie with the Warriors, becoming the NBA’s first Asian American player since 1947.

Jeremy Yamaguchi is California’s Youngest Mayor

In December, the city of Placentia, Calif. elected 22-year-old Jeremy Yamaguchi as its mayor. As far as records indicate, this makes Yamaguchi, who was first elected to the City Council at age 19, the youngest mayor in the history of Placentia and possibly the entire state of California.

Yamaguchi recently completed his undergraduate degree in Political Science at Cal State Fullerton. “It’s record-setting, and uplifting in addition to being an honor,” Yamaguchi said. “But it’s the same job if you’re 70 or you’re 22.” Yamaguchi, the youngest mayor to serve in Orange County in more than 20 years, has plans for the coming year. He wants to establish office hours, certain times that he will be at City Hall, available to residents. He plans to visit every school in the city in the next year. Finally, he wants to revive the city’s youth council to get young people’s opinions on city issues.

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 38.9 percent shooting in 29 games as a rookie last season. He averaged 18 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.3 assists with Reno of the NBA Development League.

Vietnamese Actor Don Duong Dies at 55

One of Vietnam’s best-known actors, Don Duong — once labeled a traitor by his country’s armed forces — has died of heart failure and a brain hemorrhage at age 55, relatives said. The BBC profiled Don Duong, who appeared in Hollywood films such as the Vietnam war epic “We Were Soldiers” and the refugee drama “Green Dragon.” “We Were Soldiers” depicted the November 1965 battle of Ia Drang — the first major engagement between US troops and the North Vietnamese Army — and “Green Dragon” told the story of Vietnamese refugees housed in camps in the US in the mid-1970s. This prompted Vietnam’s army newspaper to say he had betrayed his country. In 2003, he left Vietnam under pressure for the United States and became a U.S. citizen. The Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People’s Army) daily newspaper called Duong’s actions “unforgivable,” and the “conscience-seller and traitor must be strictly disciplined.” In 2011, after previously denying him a visa, the Vietnamese authorities finally gave him permission to make a return trip to Vietnam. But the visit was delayed and he died before it could take place. Don Duong’s funeral was held in the United States, his brother-in-law told the BBC, and his ashes will be sent back to Vietnam.

New College Strategy: Don’t Check ‘Asian’

The idea is to get an edge at elite schools, where Asian Americans are perceptibly held to higher admissions standards than applicants from other ethnic groups. If standing out from the crowd means keeping quiet about being Asian, a lot of applicants are apparently leaving that check box blank. For years, many Asian Americans have been convinced that it’s harder for them to gain admission to the nation’s top colleges. Studies show that Asian Americans meet these colleges’ admissions standards far out of proportion to their 6 percent representation in the U.S. population, and that they often need test scores hundreds of points higher than applicants from other ethnic groups to have an equal chance of admission.

According to the Associated Press report, critics say these numbers, along with the fact that some top colleges with race-blind admissions have double the Asian percentage of Ivy League schools, prove the existence of discrimination. The way it works, the critics believe, is that Asian Americans are evaluated not as individuals, but against the thousands of other ultra-achieving Asians who are stereotyped as boring academic robots. Now, an unknown number of students are responding to this concern by declining to identify themselves as Asian on their applications. For those with only one Asian parent, whose names don’t give away their heritage, that decision can be relatively easy. Harder are the questions that it raises: What’s behind the admissions difficulties? What, exactly, is an Asian American — and is being one a choice?

Private Danny Chen died Oct. 3.

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 “racially charged bullying,” harassment and physical abuse before he was found dead in his barracks of a forward operating base in the Kandahar province. His parents, Yan Toa and Su Zhen Chen, were told that preliminary signs suggest Chen killed himself. But family spokesman Frank Gee said the couple were also told by Army investigators that their only child had been subjected to taunting and violence at the hands of the soldiers with whom he served. The circumstances behind Pvt. Chen’s death still remain a mystery, and community leaders, family and friends are demanding a fair, thorough and transparent investigation.

The Life of a Photo: The Pepper-Spraying Policeman

UC Davis campus officer Lt. Pike pepper-sprays students.

The Nov. 18 photograph of Lieutenant John Pike, the now-infamous campus police officer, as he casually unloads a can of pepper spray on the bowed heads of seated University of California at Davis student protesters, has traveled around the world. Some critics compare the image to photographs of 1960s civil rights protesters being fire-hosed in Alabama. Atlantic magazine profiled the photographer of the photo, Brian Nguyen, a first-year student at UC Davis and photographer for the school newspaper. An Atlantic writer found Nguyen at the Occupy UC Davis camp recently and asked him about the pepper spray incident and the power of photography in the age of social media.

Read the Atlantic article at Link: www.theatlantic.com.

 
A Record Number of Asian Americans Running for Congress

A record number of Asian Americans are running for Congress next year, reflecting population gains and a growing sense of the need to flex political muscle, reports USA Today. Republican Ranjit “Ricky” Gill has already outraised Democratic incumbent Rep. Jerry McNerney in California’s newly configured 9th District. In Illinois, two Democrats — Raja Krishnamoorthi and Tammy Duckworth —- are vying in the new 8th District. And two current Asian-American officeholders — U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and state Rep. William Tong of Connecticut, both Democrats — are running for U.S. Senate seats.

William Tong is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut.

In all, at least 19 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) candidates have declared their bids for Congress so far in the 2012 election cycle, up from eight candidates in 2010. “You can’t call us invisible anymore,” said Gloria Chan, president and CEO of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS), which compiled the data. “This spike in AAPI congressional challengers marks a definite political tipping point for our community.” There are 11 members of the U.S. House and two in the U.S. Senate who have Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander ancestry, according to the Congressional Research Service. Only one — Rep. Steve Austria of Ohio — is a Republican. Larry Shinagawa, director of the Asian American studies program at the University of Maryland, attributes the growth of Asian American candidates in part to the “Americanization” of younger generations and their realization that elected officials can have impact. “Asian Americans are increasingly going into politics because politicians can make people’s lives different,” Shinagawa said. “They realize that civic participation is very important.” Today, an estimated 17.3 million people of Asian descent live in the United States, comprising 5.6 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The largest subgroups (in order) are Chinese Americans, followed by Filipino Americans and Asian Indians.

Tribute Paid to Japanese American Automobile Designer: Larry Shinoda

Larry Shinoda. From the Japanese American National Museum’s “Drawing the Line: Japanese American Art, Design & Activism” exhibition.

The popular blog You Offend Me You Offend My Family (www.youoffendmeyouoffendmyfamily.com) paid tribute to pioneering Japanese American automobile designer Larry Shinoda, who is responsible for such iconic looks as the 1963 Corvette Stingray, Mako Shark I and II, the Boss 302 and 429 Mustangs, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and the Corvair Super Spyder. Born in Los Angeles in 1930, Shinoda was interned with his family at Manzanar incarceration camp during World War II. He later built hot rods and became involved in the then-burgeoning drag race culture in Southern California. In 1955, he won the first National Hot Rod Association Nationals. Thus, began a life-long affair with cars and positions at Ford, Packard and GM — ultimately leading to his work on concept cars that would give birth to the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray, which would secure Shinoda’s reputation as one of the most innovative automobile designers in the business. He later started his own private design firm and worked in that capacity until his death from heart failure in 1997 (he was posthumously inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame in 1998).

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 of 40 marched with about 10 strollers and kids in their arms and carried a banner that read: “Teach Big Banks to Share: We’re Moving Our Money.”

At least three moms closed their accounts before the bank locked its doors. Wells Fargo, which took federal bailout money during the economic crisis, posted a profit of $15.18 billion for the 12 months ending in September, its highest number for any one-year period.

Prishni Murillo of Oakland brought her children to teach them that the principals of sharing should apply to big banks. She wants Wells Fargo to pay more taxes and contribute more to the community.

“Taxes go to schools and in Oakland we’re closing five schools and 25 are on the chopping block,” said Murillo. “We want to contribute the voices of moms of color and present to the public the people who are carrying the brunt of a failed economy, which is our children.”

A Wells Fargo spokesman said the San Francisco-based bank does donate money to charity and pays taxes.

Ed Lee, the first Asian American mayor of San Francisco. Photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America.

San Francisco’s first appointed Asian American mayor will also be the city’s first elected Asian American mayor. As of Nov. 10, incumbent Ed Lee, San Francisco’s city administrator at the time of his appointment, led the pack of 16 candidates with 61.2 percent of votes. Lee was appointed acting mayor after former Mayor Gavin Newsom won an election last November as California’s lieutenant governor.

Hmong American St. Paul Council Candidate Records Racist Rant

Hmong American, Bee Kevin Xiong, ran a close race for City Council, Ward 6, in St. Paul, Minn.—a fact that bothers some people. Left on Xiong’s voicemail was a racist rant from a concerned St. Paul resident. The man received a campaign flyer and was incensed that a Hmong American was campaigning for office.

In his rant, which concludes with “f*cking Hmongs,” is the man’s confusion over why “you people think you can take over the state of Minnesota like this.” He goes on to share that Hmong own their own businesses but only buy products from other Hmong businesses.

“Don’t send your sh*t over here,” the man exclaims. He rounds out his barrage with a note of warning: “No one will vote for you except Hmongs.” Although it was a close race, Xiong lost to incumbent Dan Bostrom.

If you’d like, listen to the rant at www.youtube.com. Search for “A racist rants on the Hmong.”

Asian Americans Most Bullied in US Schools, Says Study

Asian Americans endure far more bulling at U.S. schools than members of any other ethnic group. When it comes to Asian Americans targeted for racial abuse and harassment, compared to other teens, the numbers aren’t even close.

According to new survey data for the Bullying Prevention Summit, 54 percent of Asian American teenagers said they were bullied in the classroom, compared to 31.3 percent of whites who reported being picked on. And Asian American teens are apparently three times as likely to face bulling on the Internet. The figure was 38.4 percent for African Americans and 34.3 percent for Hispanics, a government researcher involved in the data analysis told AFP. The disparity was even more striking for cyber-bullying. Some 62 percent of Asian Americans reported online harassment once or twice a month, compared with 18.1 percent of whites. The researcher said more research was needed on why the problem is so severe among Asian Americans.

The data comes from a 2009 survey supported by the US Justice Department and Education Department which interviewed some 6,500 students from ages 12 to 18.

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 be admitted from a given country was capped at a percentage of the number of people from that nation who were living in the United States in 1890. Because Americans were overwhelmingly of European descent in 1890, the practical effect of these laws was an enormous thumb on the scale encouraging white immigration.

These quotas were eliminated by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, an act which is widely credited for opening up our nation to new Americans of Asian, Central and South American descent. At a recent CNN/Tea Party Republican presidential candidates’ debate, however, presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann claimed this decision to eliminate our past immigration policy was a big mistake. Bachmann said, “The immigration system in the United States worked very, very well up until the mid-1960s when liberal members of Congress changed the immigration laws. What works is to have people come into the United States with a little bit of money in their pocket, legally, with sponsors so that if anything happens to them they don’t fall back on the taxpayers to take care of them.”

It’s worth noting that the 1924 laws that Bachmann believes to have worked so well singled out certain people for particularly harsh treatment, writes to the blog.

Remembering 9/11: Flight Attendant Betty Ong

The Boston NPR news station, WBUR, remembered Sept. 11 through the stories of men and women from around Massachusetts whose lives were touched that day — those who lost loved ones, those who responded and those whose lives were affected in more unexpected ways. Betty Ong, a flight attendant from Andover, was on board Flight 11, the first of the two planes from Boston to hit the World Trade Center. That morning, Betty’s brother, Harry Ong Jr., was up at 6 a.m. and watching TV. He immediately called his sister, Cathie Ong Herrera. The two remember that day and their battle to present the public with an accurate picture of their sister. Cathie said her brother Harry asked where Betty was. Cathie said Betty should be on her way to Los Angeles because she was going to be meeting with her later that afternoon.

“Harry got very quiet and I could actually sense the concern in his voice as he told me that he thought he heard that the airplane might have originated from Boston, going to Los Angeles.”

This was the scheduled route of Flight 11. Harry said, “You know, I’m hoping that Betty’s not on that plane. I’m hoping that of all the thousands of planes in the air that particular day and morning that Betty is just not on that plane.” Betty Ong was on the plane, hijacked by terrorists. She made a call to the American Airlines operations center and was able to provide officials with the seat numbers of the hijackers, allowing them to identify the men early on. She was still on the phone, trying to help, when her plane hit the World Trade Center. Betty’s siblings have set up a foundation in her name that’s dedicated to promoting healthy eating and exercise for young people, a cause she was committed to.

Chinese Kitchen Workers Sue Restaurant For Discrimination

A group of Chinese workers who say they were forced to take meal breaks in bathroom stalls are suing their former employer for discrimination and retaliation.
In a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, thirteen employees who were fired from the kitchen staff at Le Colonial Restaurant claimed they had to work in harsh conditions, including standing for 10 hours a day in excessive heat. According to Reuters, they were not allowed into air-conditioned areas during their breaks, and were restricted to one bathroom, the lawsuit said. If they wanted a second meal break, they had to eat in the bathroom stall, the suit said. A 61-year-old worker with a back injury was forced to stand, and a cook was told that his food was “cooked for animals,” according to the complaint. After repeated pleas to their employer, they were fired Aug. 3, said their attorney. Ken Kimerling, legal director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said workers are “treated in this way in part because the employer thinks that they won’t fight back because of language and maybe even [immigration] status issues.”
Workers are increasingly realizing that they have a right to complain and that judges will believe them if they take legal action, Kimerling said. In July 2008, 36 delivery workers of Asian descent won a $4.6 million verdict against Saigon Grill, a popular chain restaurant in Manhattan, for non-payment of wages and overtime. That settlement came on the heels of a suit by 43 Chinese servers, deliverymen and other workers who accused Ollie’s Noodle Shop & Grille, also in Manhattan, of wage violations. Several nonprofit organizations that advocate for higher wages and better working conditions have co-sponsored an ongoing campaign focused on the service industry, called Justice Will Be Served. The effort includes protests, collective bargaining and litigation.

Pres. Obama’s American Jobs Act and its Impact on the API Community

On Sept. 12, President Obama sent a message to Congress with the American Jobs Act of 2011 and a section-by-section analysis of the legislation. The American Jobs Act is composed of the kinds of proposals to put Americans back to work that both Democrats and Republicans have supported.
As the President stressed, this is not a time to play politics: “It’s not okay at a time of great urgency and need all across the country. These aren’t games we’re playing out here. Folks are out of work. Businesses are having trouble staying open. You’ve got a world economy that is full of uncertainty right now — in Europe, in the Middle East. Some events may be beyond our control, but this is something we can control. Whether or not we pass this bill, whether or not we get this done, that’s something that we can control. That’s in our hands.”

The American Jobs Act: The Impact for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and the Economy
• The extension of unemployment insurance will benefit at least 300,000 AAPIs and their families.
• Targeted support for the long-term unemployed could help at least 235,000 AAPIs who have been looking for work for more than six months. To help them in their search for work, the President is calling for a new tax credit for hiring the long-term unemployed.
• Support for subsidized jobs and summer/year-round jobs for Asian American youth – for whom unemployment is above 13.8 percent. The President is proposing to build on successful programs like the TANF Emergency Fund to create jobs and provide training for those hardest-hit by the recession.
• An extension and expansion of the payroll tax cut for 7.6 million AAPI workers. By extending the payroll tax cut for employees next year and expanding it to cut payroll taxes in half, the President’s plan will help increase the paychecks of an estimated 7.6 million AAPI workers.

What the American Jobs Act Will Do
• Provide tax cuts that will help AAPI-owned small businesses
• Help AAPI-owned small businesses access capital and grow

Putting AAPI Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America
• Project Rebuild: Putting people back to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities. The President is proposing to invest $15 billion in a national effort to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses.
• Targeted investments to modernize schools serving low-income students – from science labs and internet-ready classrooms to renovated facilities
• Putting construction workers back on the job by modernizing infrastructure – with a focus on expanding access to these jobs
• Preventing layoffs of teachers, cops and firefighters
• Tax credits and career readiness efforts to support veterans’ hiring

More Money in the Pockets of Every AAPI Worker, Supporting Local Communities
• Cutting the payroll tax next year — benefitting 7.6 million AAPI workers.

Fully Paid for As Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan
• To ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit target.

Read more about Pres. Obama’s American Jobs Act at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/12/president-obama-sends-american-jobs-act-congress.

Fox Sports Cancels Show After Video Mocks Asians

The Fox network canceled “The College Experiment”, the show on which a controversial segment aired. The video features comedian Bob Oschack approaching Asian students at the University of Southern California (USC) and asking them to give an “all-American welcome” to new Pac-12 Conference members, Colorado and Utah. The joke being, of course, that the hordes of Asian kids at USC are anything but all-American.

The network cancelled the show effective immediately, and Fox Sports issued another apology to USC, as well as to the Asian and Asian American communities: “We sincerely apologize to the Asian and Asian American communities, and to everyone else who found this video offensive, and again to the University of Southern California, which was the unfortunate setting for the video,” said Fox Sports Network spokesman Lou D’Ermilio.
The Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, Colo. reported about the video. University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Darryl Maeda, who saw the segment, told the newspaper that the piece relies on stereotypes of Asians as “perpetual foreigners.” The interviewer appeared to seek students for whom English is not their first language, he said. “This is demeaning to millions of Asian Americans who have put down deep roots in the United States, claim English as their language and root vigorously for their favorite sports teams,” Maeda said.

Family of Slain Student Files Suit Against Yale

The family of Yale University student, Annie Le, murdered by a co-worker in a campus research facility two years ago, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the university, accusing Yale of failing to protect women and tolerating aggressive male behavior.

According to the Hartford Courant, the lawsuit alleges that “sexual attacks on and harassment of women at Yale had been a well-documented and long-standing problem, and there was a widespread belief that Yale repeatedly failed to impose meaningful discipline on offenders.” The lawsuit also accuses Yale of being slow to respond to concerns that Le was missing. A Superior Court judge in June sentenced Raymond Clark III, 26, to 44 years in prison for the slaying of Le, a third-year doctoral student in pharmacology and bride-to-be from Placerville, Calif. She was reported missing Sept. 8, 2009, shortly before her wedding. Police found Le’s body on the day of her wedding, Sept. 13, 2009, stuffed inside the wall of a lab inside the Yale Animal Research Center, where Le was last seen alive and shared with Clark. The state medical examiner said Le was strangled and her body was badly beaten.
The lawsuit says Yale knew or should have known Clark posed a potential threat to the safety of Le, claiming that Clark “previously demonstrated aggressive behavior and a violent propensity towards women.” In a statement Yale released, the university said “there is no basis” for the civil suit.

Sonan Samreth, right, reunited with William Buth earlier this summer.

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 in Cambodia when they were separated as the Khmer Rouge forces took over the country in 1975. Each believed the other had died during Pol Pot’s regime. But both survived and eventually made their way to the U.S. Nearly forty years later, they found each other on Facebook. Setting up a Facebook account was Buth’s wife’s idea.
“I never thought about it,” said Buth, who teaches math at a high school.
“My wife thinks that this is a good idea – to share her pictures so that friends and relatives from all over the country can see.” Earlier this summer, soon after registering, Buth received a message from another Facebook user -— someone he didn’t recognize at first.
“I did not know what was going on,” he said. He ignored it. But two days later, there was another message: “I’m so sorry, but you look really familiar, like my friend since 1974. Sitha Buth.” It was a name William Buth hadn’t used in decades. The friends reunited, cried, and shared stories of their lives since the war – all thanks to a social media website.

In Suit, Housekeeper Says Buddhist Monk Enslaved Her in His Queens Home

In New York, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund has filed a complaint in Brooklyn federal court on behalf of a Korean immigrant worker against a Buddhist monk and his family members for violating federal human trafficking and labor laws.

According to the New York Times, the complaint, filed under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, Oak-Jin Oh worked for prominent Buddhist monk Soo Bok Choi and his family, who forced her to work long hours without pay and without freedom to leave their residence for twelve years.

From AALDEF’s press release: “The plaintiff, a citizen of the Republic of Korea, arrived in New York in 1998, believing that she would work for the Choi family and receive her pay as agreed. Instead, the Choi family forced her to work long hours without pay and without freedom to leave their residence for 12 years. She cooked, cleaned, and performed numerous other household chores in the Choi family’s home and Soo Bok Choi’s Buddhist temple … When she asked for her pay, the Choi family responded with threats of physical harm and death. In addition, they did not allow her any days off, deprived her of medical care, withheld her passport, and restricted her ability to make contact with anyone outside the household. She was finally able to escape the Choi household last year.”

Asia Emerges As the New West for Ambitious Americans

In the last half century Asia has ballooned from a few quaint tourist attractions into an immense continent full of opportunities for ambitious young Americans. The Asian news site, GoldSea (www.goldsea.com), described that in the 1960s, Asia was Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Then at the start of the 70s, Asia exploded in our consciousness as a threat to democracy and capitalism. The reality of jungle battlefield death tolls forced our minds to grope at the geography of once obscure places like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. As that war wound down mid-decade, Japan posed a baffling challenge to the American self image with their ability to out-innovate and out-produce the United States of America.

Then as we entered a new millennium secure in our supremacy at the center of a new era powered by chips and audacious imagination, Americans were hit by the dawning consciousness that our economy was completely dependent on Asia for chips, LCDs, cars, cell phones, loans, brainpower and exploding populations of affluent consumers. Nothing seems as odd to American minds as the concept that in 2011, Chinese will buy nearly twice as many cars as Americans or that GM’s rapid emergence after bankruptcy was powered by the fact that it is on track to sell more cars in China than in the U.S. and Europe combined by 2014.

Chinese are eager to buy American products and hire American workers. China recognizes that the biggest limiting factor for its own growth is the lack of trained, experienced professionals, and has launched national campaigns to encourage foreigners to study and work there. China isn’t interested in turning itself into a big closed factory town, as Japan did the article continued, but rather in building a dynamic world-class economy that will continue growing long enough to lift the other three-quarters of its 1.35 billion into the upper middle class. We’re talking about at least two more generations of vigorous growth, comparable to the growth that took place in the U.S. between 1900 and 1960 — but on a bigger scale. A similar evolution will be taking place in India, though shifted back by maybe 15 years.

The article continues, “Even now many Americans haven’t gotten used to the idea that the East is now the new West — a land of limitless opportunities. But when they do, they will awaken to a world in which ambitious young Americans can make their fortunes by following the advice of last century’s greatest newspaper editor, Horace Greeley: ‘Go west, young man!’”

“It’s Fine For Other Roles To Be Black, But Akira Must Be Asian”

The new Marvel Comic’s Spiderman character is half Black and Latino, following the death of Peter Parker.

An article published on the CinemaBlend website (www.cinemablend.com ) called “It’s Fine For Perry White To Be Black, But Akira Must Always Be Asian” discusses why colorblind casting works for some characters and not for others.

When M. Night Shyamalan recast the lead characters from the Asian anime “Akira” as Caucasians in the movie version, fans accused the filmmakers of racism.

“On the flipside there’s a reason no one really seems to care that Nick Fury, originally a white character in his comic book incarnation, is played by Samuel L. Jackson in Marvel’s movies,” reads the article. “And it seemed to work out just fine that Perry White will be played by Laurence Fishburne in Zack Snyder’s upcoming ‘Man of Steel’.”

Why does colorblind casting seem to work for some characters and not for others? “Here’s why Batman and Captain America will always be white guys and Akira had better stay distinctly Asian, but you should be just fine with Perry White as a black guy. Scientists have estimated that 62 percent of children in the United States will be of a minority ethnicity by 2050. But it’s not a matter of political correctness as much as it is a matter of progress. It works just fine, when creating a new character, as with this new Spider-Man. It’s only really a problem when you’re tackling an established icon. Other characters are not iconic and can therefore be flexible in who represents them.”

Also, the article mentions that physical appearance matters. It’s not just about race. “You can’t cast Robert Downey Jr. to play Conan the Barbarian for the same reason you just can’t cast Derek Luke to play Clark Kent. Pasty-white Peter Parker is an icon, an indelible part of our cultural consciousness. Akira is and always will be Asian.”

Supporting Maryland’s Filipino Migrant Teachers

In Maryland, the Department of Labor determined that the Prince George’s County Public Schools were a “willfull violator” of labor laws because they let 1,000 international teachers — the majority of whom come from the Philippines — shoulder fees that should have been the schools’. Authorities penalized the school system by demanding they pay these teachers back. However, they were also debarred from hiring foreign teachers for the next two years. Now many of the teachers are at a risk of deportation because the school system refuses to renew their visas and process their green cards due to the settlement. An online petition has been launched in support of the migrant teachers.

The Kim Sisters: A 1960s Pop Legacy

A rare find on the website, YouOffendMeYouOffendMyFamily.com, features the Kim Sisters from South Korea, who were a part of the legacy of Asian American musicians during the 1960s and 70s. Three sisters, Sook-ja, Mi-a, and Ai-ja, were the daughters of the famous Korean music conductor Hae-song Kim (1911 – 1950), a classical music conductor and popular composer who was captured and killed by the North Koreans during the Korean War, and Nan-Young Lee (1916 – 1967), one of Korea’s most famous singers before the World War II, best known for her 1935 nation-wide hit song, “The Tears from Mokpo.”

Their mother began performing for the US Troops in the early ’50s, just to survive and feed her seven children, and got the idea of having the sisters become a trio act. The sisters, who didn’t speak any English, learned to sing phonetically. Barely into their teens, with the encouragement and tutelage of their mother, the sisters sang an old country western tune, Hoagy Carmichael’s “Ole’ Buttermilk Sky”, on stage and soon became wildly popular. The show went well and soon the sisters were singing regularly, all the popular music and early rock’n’roll of the day. Soldiers would give them chocolate bars, which in turn they would trade in for real food on the black market, but it was enough to get by.

By 1958, they were recruited by an American manager and flown to Las Vegas, where they had a popular revue show at the Thunderbird Hotel. In 1959, they were “discovered” by Ed Sullivan and would perform 22 times on his nationally televised show over a 14-year span. The Sisters soon became very savvy and were able to bring over the rest of their siblings and had a contract with the Stardust to perform as a family revue. An oral history report from 1997 with one of the sisters and a clip showcasing the groups musical talents is available on the website: www.youoffendmeyouoffendmyfamily.com/the-kim-sisters.

AMC Drama About the Transcontinental Railroad Excludes Chinese

The AMC channel is launching an original series called “Hell on Wheels”, an epic historical drama about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad and the tent city that moved along the railroad as it was built. And although Chinese immigrant workers played a major role in building the railroad, apparently there is little mention of their contributions to the mighty, historical construction project. TV critics present at an early screening brought up this point and the show’s producers were described as being at a loss for words.

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 therefore intend to resign effective upon the resolution of the debt-ceiling crisis. This is the right decision for my family, the institution of the House, and my colleagues.”

The previous week, the Oregonian reported that an 18-year-old woman accused Wu of an aggressive, unwanted sexual encounter. Wu admitted the encounter, but said it was consensual. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on July 25 asked the House Ethics committee investigate the allegations against the 56- year-old lawmaker.

The child of Taiwanese immigrants, Wu was the first Chinese American to serve in the Oregon House of Representatives. He was first elected in 1998 and is serving his seventh term. He also announced he would not seek an eighth term.

Gary Locke Confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to China

On July 27, the Senate unanimously confirmed outgoing Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as the next U.S. ambassador to China, making him the first Chinese American to assume that post, according to the Washington Post. Locke replaces Republican Jon Huntsman, who left the China post to enter the 2012 presidential race. He will arrive in Beijing at a delicate time in U.S.-China relations. The two countries only recently resumed military ties after a period of tension; China cut off most contact with the Pentagon last year after the United States sold arms to Taiwan and President Obama met with the Dalai Lama.

Yet even as the countries have become more competitive they are more intertwined than ever. China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt — a fact that now has China nervously watching the roiling debt ceiling debate in Washington.

Locke became the first Chinese-American governor during his rise to prominence in Washington state, including as its governor from 1996-2004. Ambassador Locke told the Foreign Relations Committee that he would press the Chinese for market and legal reforms, saying they were in their own best interests. He also expressed concerns about human rights violations, noting China’s recent crackdown on journalists, activists and lawyers.

Andrew Yang Wants to Put Bright Minds in Poor Cities

What struggling cities need more than anything else are jobs, and the best way to create jobs is to send bright young entrepreneurs to help start up new businesses. That’s the concept behind Andrew Yang’s startup, Venture for America (VFA), a New York City-based non-profit. VFA is launching its organization by kicking off an application process to recruit an inaugural pool of at least 50 graduating college seniors from the class of 2012 (“Fellows”). These fellows will live together while working for start-ups in Detroit, Providence and New Orleans, three of the nation’s most economically-challenged cities.

“Our concrete goal is to generate 100,000 U.S. jobs by 2025,” announced Yang, VFA’s CEO. VFA hopes to do for business startups what Teach for America has done for education — bring young, talented grads to work in underserved communities for at least two years, hopefully spurring new enterprises in parts of the U.S. that are generally shunned by top college graduates.

“The overwhelming majority of seniors from the country’s top universities opt for traditional careers in service-based industries within big cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco,” notes Yang. “Far too few of them are engaged in job-creating enterprises — especially within communities dealing with economic transition. Our country’s inability to channel its talent to create jobs is a major weakness for the U.S. in the global economy, and will only get worse if it’s not addressed.”

Yang was inspired to start VFA based on his own experiences after graduating from Brown. He went to Columbia Law School and became a lawyer. Too late, he discovered that he had little interest in law. He then started an unsuccessful dotcom in 2000. Apprenticeships with two entrepreneurs showed Yang the value of learning entrepreneurship skills on the job. In 2001 he went to work for Manhattan GMAT, a graduate test-prep firm, and rose to CEO before leaving the firm in 2005.

Diverse APIA Workforce Faces Many Challenges

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers face significant challenges in the labor market, according to a new report prepared by the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Center for Labor Research and Education at UCLA. The report, covered by Asian Week, titled “Diversity and Change: Asian American and Pacific Islander Workers 2011”, reviews over 50 years of government data and provides the most in-depth picture to date of the AAPI workforce in the United States.

The study portrays a highly diverse workforce. About three-fourths of AAPI workers were born outside of the United States, but a high share have become U.S. citizens. AAPI workers are more likely than whites to have a four-year college degree or more, but AAPI workers are also less likely than whites to have a high school diploma. AAPI women workers are concentrated both in typically high-paying occupations in health, finance, and computer-related fields, as well as typically poorly-paying occupations, such as cashiers, cleaners, and wait staff.

AAPI men are also concentrated in many of these same high-paying occupations, but also in low-paying occupations including cooks, truck drivers, and janitors. “The research reflects the complexity and diversity of the AAPI workforce, and challenges the stereotypes that are perpetuated by the model minority myth,” said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center and an author of the report.

Facebook to be Unblocked in Vietnam Thanks to Capitalism?

The social media giant, Facebook, has been censored in Vietnam for years, and while access is intermittent at best and only the tech-savvy few can circumvent the block, it appears an agreement has been made between Facebook and the Asian country. FPT, Vietnam’s telecom giant, signed into partnership with Facebook in mid-July, according to the Vietnamese news site, OneVietnam.org.

FPT was accused of initially shutting down Facebook in the country. With the new partnership, FPT will help promote and sell ads for Facebook and consult in developing the Facebook application especially for the Vietnam market. Analysts say this is a huge first step for the communist country, who appears to be emerging on the world scene. Firstly, the access to Facebook further opens the channel for Vietnamese people to be part of the global network (Facebook is 500 million members strong). Second, it is an indicator that Vietnam has a willingness to deviate from the policies of its neighbor to the north.

Asian American Students Disadvantaged by College Admissions Process

The existence of obstacles to Asian Americans gaining admission to elite universities stems from the perception that, as a group, they have performed relatively well in higher education, according to an article in Hyphen magazine. From 1976 to 2007, the percentage of Asian American college students increased from 1.8 to 6.7 percent, according to the US Department of Education. Most Ivy League schools now have undergraduate Asian-American student populations between 15 and 20 percent; Caltech and the University of California, Berkeley, regularly top 40 percent. Considering that Asian Americans make up only 4.5 percent of the US population, many elite universities see an overrepresented pool of Asian-American applicants when they pick their freshman class. As the newest generation of Asian Americans seeking college admission, the landscape they face shifts continuously.

Some schools have historically held Asian Americans to a higher standard, whereas others have opened their doors and held out enticing offers to attract more Asian American applicants. Then there’s the University of California, whose new rules could sway its admissions toward more inclusion of historically underrepresented Asian ethnic groups — at the expense of some Asian American groups that have traditionally been admitted in high numbers. Often, several factors limit admissions for Asian Americans at elite universities, making it harder for seemingly qualified applicants to get in. Dan Golden, the author of “The Price of Admission”, which documents the advantages given to white applicants at elite universities, believes subtle quotas for Asian Americans come from three primary factors. First, many seats at these schools are simply not available for Asian Americans because few are children of large donors, are athletes or are relatives of alumni, otherwise known as legacies. These groups receive preference in the admissions process and typically comprise about one-third of an entering class. Moreover, Asian Americans are not typically considered for affirmative action, unless the applicant hails from traditionally underrepresented groups, such as Southeast Asians. Second, Golden believes admissions officials consciously limit the number of Asian Americans for fear that they would become too large a part of the student body. Finally, Golden thinks admissions officers sometimes stereotype applicants.

The North Korean Food Dilemma

In a recent KoreAm magazine article, Korea specialist David C. Kang provides an overview [here, abbreviated] of the North Korean food aid quandary:

Q: How bad is the food situation in North Korea?
Kang: The United Nations’ World Food Program, along with two other U.N. agencies, have released a study concluding that potentially 6 million North Koreans, a quarter of the population, need urgent food aid, citing a harsh winter in which some crops were down 44 percent from expected levels. But … there are those who oppose assistance for a variety of reasons. Some argue that the North Korean regime’s behavior should change before any aid is given, while others contend the situation is not so dire.

Q: What is the current U.S. government stance on providing food aid?
Kang: The overall stance of the U.S. government has been one of “strategic patience,” which means ignoring and containing North Korea until it first makes concrete steps to back down from the belligerent behavior of the past few years and to show measures intended to rein in the nuclear weapons program. The U.S. has also not yet made any decision about the humanitarian situation. South Korea’s approach is generally the same.

Q: Will denying North Korea food aid lead to popular unrest against the government?
Kang: In the present situation of nutritional scarcity, it is the youngest and oldest, the weakest and the most politically vulnerable, who will be most directly affected, not the elites. However, a number of North Korean experts have concluded that bottom-up revolt or uprisings are unlikely to occur no matter what the conditions, given the almost complete lack of civil society, institutions, groups or potential opposition leaders in the North that could organize or lead such protests.

Sixteen Million Filipinos Carry Hepatitis B

According to the Filipino news source, the Inquirer, about 16 percent of the Philippines’ population, or 16 million Filipinos, are carriers of the hepatitis B virus (HBV), a “silent infection” globally seen as a very serious liver ailment. Dr. Judy Lao-Tan of the Hepatology Society of the Philippines (HSP) revealed that the hepatitis B virus is hyperendemic in the country and most infected people, particularly carriers, hardly present symptoms. The HSP called for voluntary testing for the infection. The group is committed to the study of liver health and formulating policies and expertise in preventing and treating liver-related diseases.

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 a native government. The law is seen as an important step for Native Hawaiians in the movement for self-governance.

According to the Star Advertiser, Senate Bill 1520 supports efforts in Congress to gain federal recognition of native Hawaiians similar to that offered to American Indians and native Alaskans, but would continue the effort at a state level regardless of whether that goal is achieved. Gov. Abercrombie said, “This bill is the first step in seeing to it that we have a Native Hawaiian government entity,” he said. “It’s not only the first step, it is a practical manifestation of all that has gone on before.”

However, not all agree with the measure – sovereignty activists decried the measure as an attempt to deny Native Hawaiians’ claims to govern as a sovereign independent nation. “This is an affront to those of us whose nation was stolen,” activist Pilipo Souza said. The governor now has 180 days to appoint a five-member Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, which will be responsible for preparing and maintaining a roll of qualified Native Hawaiians. The roll is to be used as the basis for participation in the organization of a Native Hawaiian governing entity.

South Korean Elation For 2018 Winter Games Win

A South Korean supporter celebrates after the announcement. Photo credit: Associated Press.

White Power Candidates are Seeking Public Office

Rep. David Duke

Sign of the Times: Proposal To Rewrite NYC Store Signs in English Sparks Culture Clash

Republican City Council members Dan Halloran and Peter Koo are drafting legislation that would require store signs in New York City to be mostly in English. They say police officers and firefighters need to be able to quickly identify stores. According to the Associated Press, the change would also protect consumers and allow local shops to expand outside their traditional customer base, the council members argue. But merchants say it would be an unnecessary and costly burden on small businesses and would homogenize diverse pockets of the city that cater mostly to immigrant residents. “People must respect that this is a special area and please respect the Asian culture,” said Peter Tu, executive director of the Flushing Chinese Business Association.

“They have their own life in this area. When you walk in the street, you don’t feel like you are in America.”

Two bills are pending in the council to change language on store signs. One, introduced in May, would authorize inspectors with the city Department of Consumer Affairs to enforce a little-known state law that requires businesses to display their names in English. The second bill, which will be introduced later this summer, would stipulate that the sign should be at least 60 percent English. Businesses would have four years to comply, after which they’d face fines starting at $150. “This is designed for public safety, consumer protection and to start increasing the foot traffic into the stores,” Halloran said. The law on the books — passed in 1933 and dubbed the ‘True Name bill” — classifies a violation as a misdemeanor but is not enforced. Its primary intent was to protect creditors and consumers from fraud by informal stores that popped up during the Great Depression. The president of the Flushing on the Hill Civic Association, David Kulick, said store signs provoke different concerns these days, mostly from longtime residents who find it insulting or off-putting when they can’t read them. Assemblywoman Grace Meng said she’s heard many of those complaints. She started a task force on the issue last year and supports the council legislation. “The heart of the issue is not just about an English sign,” Meng said. “They don’t feel like they can communicate in their own neighborhoods.”

Meng said, “My goal in bringing up this whole issue a year ago was to bridge the gap between cultures,” she said. “This is not going to solve it. But it’s part of the resolution.”

Filipinos Fight for US Citizenship in Afghanistan

Immigrant Filipino soldiers fighting for the United States army in Afghanistan are seeking an exchange for a fast-track to U.S. citizenship. The Associated Press article profiled 25-year-old Private Darby Ortego, one of the 9,000 legal immigrants who join the U.S. armed forces each year from countries as far apart as Panama, Nigeria, Liberia and Turkey, for a chance at a better life for themselves and their families. Ortego endured gunfire and mine attacks fighting for the United States army in Afghanistan, but as of July 4 will be his first as a citizen of the country he serves. Ortego, who battles insurgents in the violent eastern province of Khost with Bravo Company, 1-26 Infantry, recently attended a naturalization ceremony at a US base near Kabul ahead of this year’s Independence Day celebrations. Like thousands of fellow Filipinos, he sees the US military as a fast-track to American citizenship, securing his own future and also helping his family back home. “I joined up to get my mom to America,” said Private Ortego, who is deployed at Combat Outpost Sabari in Khost, where US troops clash with Taliban rebels based across the border in Pakistan. “I want to bring my mom from her village in the Philippines to Nevada, where I live. I want her to be with me.” Ortega has a “green card” permanent residency in the US, and was living with his divorced father in Nevada when he signed up for the army two years ago.

Other benefits to military service include a free college education, which Ortego said he hopes to use to study business management.

There are around 25,000 non-US citizens serving in the military, the Pentagon says. Non-citizens have fought for the US since the 18th century War of Independence, while the US officially started recruiting Filipinos after World War II when it opened military bases in the Philippines. After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the naturalization process for military personnel was streamlined when President George W. Bush scrapped waiting requirements for active soldiers. In the last 10 years, nearly 69,000 immigrant troops have become US citizens while serving. Naturalization takes just months for serving military personnel compared to years for regular legal immigrants.

Beef and broccoli dish ready to order by Ching Chong Ling Long Delivery. Photo credit: www.chingchonglinglongdelivery.com.

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 overt reference to Wallace’s mock of the Asian language in her video which became a rallying call earlier this year for the API community.

The venture came about when Rachel Lee, owner of The Palace, heard about UCLA Munchies, a service run by four students who delivered snacks like burritos and ramen to the dorms into the wee hours of the morning. Sensing an opportunity to better serve the local community — and expand her business — Ms. Lee contacted UCLA Munchies and Ching Chong Ling Long Gourmet Takeout was born. Does anyone think this is a questionable name?

A Refugee Family’s Fight for Happiness Ends in Tragedy
The Asian American blog, AngryAsianMan.com, featured a news story out of New York on the Seo family, who are four refugees from North Korea. After escaping one of the most oppressive, isolated nations in the world, and settling in the United States a year and a half ago, their journey ended in tragedy, according to police, in an apparent murder-suicide.
On June 18, police found the body of Won Kyung Seo hanging in the upstairs apartment of his family’s home. His wife, Young Hwa Kim, had fatal stab wounds. One of their sons found their bodies and police say it was an apparent murder-suicide. Mr. Seo attended Rochester Onnuri Church and according to Pastor Jin Kyu Kim, Mr. Seo’s two sons, both in their twenties, escaped to China first. Mr. Seo and his wife followed soon after. The family reunited and was able to get refugee status and move to the United States. The blogger commented: “As I found out more and more about the Seos, I couldn’t help but think ‘Why?’ They had made it so far and escaped a country with one of the most brutal totalitarian governments. They had a chance for a new life so why did it have to end this way?”

Minority Babies the New Majority

For the first time, minorities make up a majority of babies in the U.S., part of a sweeping race change and a growing age divide between mostly white, older Americans and predominantly minority youths that could reshape government policies, reported the Associated Press.

Demographers say the numbers provide the clearest confirmation yet of a changing social order, one in which racial and ethnic minorities will become the U.S. majority by mid-century. The preliminary figures are based on an analysis of the Current Population Survey as well as the 2009 American Community Survey, which sampled 3 million U.S. households to determine that whites made up 51 percent of babies younger than 2. After taking into account a larger-than-expected jump in the minority child population in the 2010 Census, the share of white babies falls below 50 percent. Twelve states and the District of Columbia now have white populations below 50 percent among children under age 5 — Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Maryland, Georgia, New Jersey, New York and Mississippi. That’s up from six states and the District of Columbia in 2000. By contrast, whites make up the vast majority of older Americans — 80 percent of seniors 65 and older and roughly 73 percent of people ages 45-64. Many states with high percentages of white seniors also have particularly large shares of minority children, including Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas and Florida.

Asian New Yorkers Seek Power to Match Numbers
The New York Times recently covered the upsurge in numbers on New York City’s Asian population, due to results from the 2010 Census and the West Coast’s numbers are no where near the Big Apple’s. According to new Census figures, for the first time, the city’s Asian population now tops one million — nearly 1 in 8 New Yorkers — which is more than the Asian population in the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles combined.

These new numbers bolster the push for more political representation, government assistance and public recognition. Community advocates believe a community that’s a million strong should have the comparable power and resources that reflect such a significant slice of the pie. The Census shows a striking 32 percent increase in New York’s Asian population since 2000, making it the city’s fastest-growing racial group by far.

The Times reports that as the number of Asians has soared, scores of groups that have long operated independently, or at odds, have begun pulling together into pan-Asian coalitions in recent years, particularly as younger generations and newer arrivals see the advantages of unifying. But making that happen is not easy, as the city’s Asians are extremely diverse: APIs in New York trace their roots to dozens of countries and languages; historic rivalries exist among native countries; well-established organizations can be hesitant to share hard-won gains; and some groups can feel muscled aside or ignored.

On the Anniversary of Vincent Chin’s Murder, CAPAC Denounces Explosion of Anti-Chinese Campaign Ads
On the 29th anniversary of the racially motivated murder of Vincent Chin, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) is speaking out against a growing trend of anti-Chinese rhetoric in political ads — China’s economic might seems to be candidates’ favorite boogeyman of the moment. There was an increase in these kinds of ads during the last election cycle — Chinese language and imagery used to portray candidates as sympathetic to China at the expense of American interests. The latest ad from Nevada congressional candidate, Mark Amodei features Chinese soldiers marching on the U.S. capitol. Last year, the New York Times estimated that 29 such ads were released in one week alone, and that tens of millions of dollars have been spent on these types of attacks. The Washington Post reported that over 250 anti-China ads were aired during the 2010 campaign cycle.

Vincent Chin died on June 23, 1982, after he was brutally beaten with a baseball bat by two Detroit auto-workers who verbally accused him of being the reason they were out of work. The incident took place during a period of heightened anti-Japanese sentiments when the rise of the Japanese auto-industry was seen as the cause of U.S. job losses. Chin, a Chinese American, was mistaken as being Japanese by his attackers, neither of whom received any jail time for the murder.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), CAPAC Chairwoman: “More and more candidates are resorting to these cheap scare tactics to score political points. They need to understand just how dangerous this language can be for Asian Pacific Americans, especially today … this rampant scapegoating can escalate into real violence against our communities.”

Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), CAPAC Chair Emeritus: “… Much progress has been made since Vincent’s death, yet we still live in an America where it is very possible to be the victim of racially motivated crime. This is why I am especially saddened to see a growing trend of anti-Chinese rhetoric across the country, especially by those who seek political office. As a Japanese American who was held in an internment camp during World War II because of my ethnic heritage, I know how damaging it can be when leaders make policy based upon misconceptions and stereotypes.”

Rep. David Wu (D-OR): “I am deeply disturbed by the xenophobic implications of recent political ads that use China as a scapegoat to discuss the U.S. economy. Given our country’s dark history of anti-Chinese discrimination — from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act to the racially-motivated murder of Vincent Chin exactly 100 years later — these fear-mongering ads have potentially dangerous consequences, especially for Asian Pacific Americans.

Award-Winning Journalist Reveals His Secret as an Undocumented Immigrant
A Pulitzer Prize-winning Filipino American journalist recently came clean with a secret he had been covering up his whole life: he is an undocumented immigrant. In a New York Times Magazine essay, Jose Antonio Vargas, whose mother sent him from the Philippines to live with his grandparents in California when he was 12, says he’s tired of running, tired of living in fear, and is coming forward with this story to urge Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which would open a path to citizenship for people like him if they go to college or serve in the military.

Vargas writes in the New York Times Magazine: “I convinced myself that if I worked enough, if I achieved enough, I would be rewarded with citizenship.”

Vargas continues that he’s lived the American Dream, graduating from college and enjoying a career as a successful journalist interviewing some of the most famous people in the country.

Jose Antonio Vargas

“But I am still an undocumented immigrant,” Vargas continues. “And that means living a different kind of reality. It means rarely trusting people, even those closest to me, with who I really am. It means keeping my family photos in a shoebox rather than displaying them on shelves in my home, so friends don’t ask about them. It means reluctantly, even painfully, doing things I know are wrong and unlawful. And it has meant relying on a sort of 21st-century underground railroad of supporters, people who took an interest in my future and took risks for me.” Vargas has launched a campaign called Define American to use stories of immigrants like him to urge Congress and the Obama administration to pursue immigration reform.

More Koreans Stay Unmarried for Life

Over half of Seoul residents between the ages of 30 and 34 are unmarried, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, reported the Associated Press. The 431,847 singles between 30 to 34 in the capital who were unmarried as of last year accounted for 50.4 percent of that age group. Of all Seoulites in their 30s, 38 percent are unmarried.
The main reasons for staying single include difficulty finding well-paying permanent jobs, insufficient earning power, under-education, over-education and a lack of desire to marry. There appears to be a clear trend away from marriage. Among those in their 50s 239,707 (135,246 men and 104,461 women) were unmarried, a 3.9-fold increase from 10 years ago when there were only 61,176. But among those over 50 only one out of 100 has never been married. For those between 45 and 49 the unmarried rate is one of every 20. But among those between 40 and 44, it’s one out of every 10.

“We are seeing more men with temporary jobs, and income levels among women are rising, which prompts more people to avoid marriage,” said Cho Nam-hoon, a chair professor at Hanyang University. “We’re going to see a faster growth in the number of people who stay single for life.”

Among people in their 50s, there was a disproportionate number of men with low educational levels and women with very high educational levels. Among men with only an elementary education, 2.8 percent are single, while only 1.1 percent are single among those with master’s degree and PhDs. Among women, only 1.36 percent with elementary educations are unmarried, while the unmarried percentage is 9.7 percent for those with master’s degree and 14.7 percent for those with doctorates.