Congrats to Obama!

President-elect Obama…congrats! This is huge. This is showing the maturation of America. The African American community has made big strides over the last few decades. Now I want to be clear that Obama is only half-black, but in a very real way, I think he has had an African American experience due to how America views and treats him.

This is exciting, and hopefully he will be able to restore the US to a respectful place in the world.

It also does bring up thoughts on the Asian American experience. Will we in 4 decades see Asian American candidates? I have hope that it is possible, but to get there, we can’t just sit there. Politics is not a big aspiration for many Asian Americans, but times are changing. For those who are interested in that type of career, go for it!


November 5th, 2008 admin Posted in Current Events, Politics | Comments Off

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Marrow Donor Drive — Help Save Lives

Hi all, here is another way to help out the Asian Community. If you happen to be in the Washington DC area, drop by to help out. Read on below:

Project Michelle – APA Marrow Donor Drive

When: June 12, 2008, 5pm – 8pm

Where:
AAAS Building Lobby
1200 New York Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20005
(details below)

Why:

Michelle Maykin is a 26-year old Vietnamese/Chinese-American woman living in the Bay Area. Diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (cancer of the blood) in February 2007, Michelle underwent chemotherapy for seven months and battled the cancer into remission… but recently relapsed a few weeks ago and now desperately needs to find a bone marrow match in order to save her life.

While her donor may not necessarily be of Asian descent, her highest chance for a match lies within the APA community. Did you know that only 3% of all Asian-Americans are registered in the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP)? Consider this – A recent NMDP report estimates that Caucasian patients searching the donor registry have an 80% chance of finding a match, but for people of minority race, more importantly those of South Asian descent, the chance of finding a match drops as low as 20%. The Worldwide Bone Marrow Registry indicates that fewer than 0.1% of the ethnically South Asian population is registered. In this country alone, there are over 14 million APA individuals in the country that likely do not even know that they have the ability to save a life. The miniscule number of Asian-American donors makes Michelle’s search for a donor match a very very desperate one…. we need as MANY Asian-Americans as possible to step up and become registered donors.. for Michelle, and for the thousands of people like her.

The first step in becoming a hero requires a cheek swab and ten minutes of your time. If you are a match, the transplant can often be done entirely through the blood. We need to find a match for Michelle by JUNE 21. The outcome is simple — someone lives because of your donation. You could be the one to save Michelle. Will you?

Event Details:
The nearest Metro station is Metro Center on the Red, Orange, and Blue Lines (12th and G Street Exit). You will need to go through the main entrance of the AAAS building on the corner of 12th and H, since the New York Ave entrance will be closed.

After visiting with us, you are also invited to attend the APA networking happy hour at the Regatta Raw Bar nearby. Many APA young professional orgs will be at this happy hour, and the manager there has kindly agreed to extend all happy hour specials to 10pm for our group, in support of Project Michelle. We will have a list of the happy hour discounts available at the event.

Regatta Raw Bar, Marriott at Metro Center
775 12th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005

We have also negotiated some dinner discounts at nearby restaurants who are also in support of Project Michelle. Here is the running list, and there will likely be more available by the evening of the event. Come see us at the event for a coupon.
Haad Thai Restaurant – 11th/New York Ave – 15% off
Ristorante Luigino (www.luigino.com) – 12th/H St – 15% off
Sushi Aoi (www.thesushiaoi.com) – 11th/New York Ave – 15% off

More information about Michelle can be found at her website http://www.projectmichelle.com. If you would like to volunteer for this event or future events, or if you have specific questions about this event or the marrow donation process, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. Many thanks to all for your overwhelming support. Let’s support Michelle in the fight of her life.

One love,
Jeanne
Project Michelle, DC Coordinator


June 3rd, 2008 admin Posted in Current Events | Comments Off

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Sharon Stone and China Quake — ‘bad karma’ or dumb actress?

First off, the tragedy of the earthquake in China is a very sad situation. Our hearts go out to them, and in this time of mass destruction and disaster, love is the proper response. And thus, on to our current post.

Sharon Stone was at the Cannes Film Festival and suggested that this earthquake was possibly due to bad karma for the treatment of Tibet by the Chinese government. This prompted ire of many people including Ng See-Yuen who vowed not to show her films at the UME Cineplex chain in China. Above all that though is how amazingly stupid the comment is.

When 5 million people are left homeless and tens of thousands are dead, that’s like kicking someone when they’re down, and if she believes in karma, well, it might just be coming back at her now. The other point is that likely none of these victims have anything to do with the government policies. There are likely those who disagree with them as she does. It really is not appropriate.

So, on to the educational piece: not all Chinese people are the same. They are not all evil. Don’t believe the hype. I would like to say this is painfully obvious to everyone, but it is not the case in this world yet.

To donate to the quake, you can visit World Vision: http://worldvision.org/.

Here is an article on the incident:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-People-Sharon-Stone-Quake.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=sharon+stone+karma&st=nyt&oref=slogin


May 28th, 2008 admin Posted in Current Events | Comments Off

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Hate Crime? Or Just Murder?

On July 31, an Asian-American (specifically Vietnamese immigrant) plunged to his death in Lake Michigan. Although the Chicago Police Department initially thought this was a hate crime, it was later shifted their assessment to classify it as a random, heinous murder. The reason for this is that no epithets were used during the attack.

The murder occurred when after an all-night drinking binge, a bunch of hooligans invaded the popular fishing location at Montrose Habor. One of the people was John Haley, 31, who announced that some of the fishermen looked hot and need to cool off before shoving Du Doan into the water. Whether it was racially motivate or not, this guy was obviously an idiot and his actions were infuriating.

Fortunately, the attorney was swift to charge Haley. Yesteryear, this might not have been the case, but it seems that minority rights are making progress in the US.

Most of this was extracted from an article from the Chicago Sun Times written by Laura Washington in which the article itself exposes some ignorance. She learned about the event when her Caucasian friend asked if she heard about the “Chinese man” who drowned. Sheesh! Just cause the guy is Asian doesn’t automatically make him Chinese.

She does expose the fact that a reporter does use the term “Oriental” which is considered a slur to Asians (although this may have been ignorance more than anything else).

Anyhow, the last part that really made me want to write about this was the last line of her article: “Look out for the Chinese fortune cookie that says: ‘Beware: Big success can cause jealous reaction’” in response to the fact that many Asians fear a backlash due to the economic growth in Asia, especially China.

??? Did you not just write an article about racism??? To refer to a fortune cookie to make her point is just completely idiotic especially given the context of the article. And it’s not just a fortune cookie, but a Chinese fortune cookie. Intentionally savage? Probably not, but it shows that more education is needed.

Laura is in fact a minority herself, as she is an African American so she is probably sensitive to race issues.

Original article: http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/549479,CST-EDT-laura10.article

Her email is on the left column if you click on the link above if you want to provide some feedback, but PLEASE make any comments respectful.


September 12th, 2007 admin Posted in Current Events, Discrimination | Comments Off

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Asian American Politicians

More and more minorities are entering politics and even winning in regions where there aren’t a lot of minorities. A recent example is a Long Island village called Laurel Hollow where a Sikh was elected mayor. There are other cases across the country where this is happening although they tend to be more Indian-Americans. Other Asian-Americans elected officials tend to be clustered on the East and West Coast as well as Hawaii.

There is speculation that many other Asian-Americans such as Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. come from countries where voting is not promoted as a value. As the Asian-American population continues to go and more generations stay in America, hopefully they will exercise this power more and also run for positions of influence.

Here’s an article to read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/01/asia/indian.1-107082.php?page=1


August 3rd, 2007 admin Posted in Current Events, Politics | Comments Off

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

China Food Scare Harming Asian Americans?

Recently there has been a bit of press about products such as food or medicines or toothpaste or whatever coming out of China that are anywhere from unsafe to lethal. An article on ABC News’ web site (Click here to read) writes how some fear that it could affect the restaurant business or the perceptions of Asian Americans. It is the latter I feel is more realistic.

The article touches upon the fact that there is a view that a lot Chinese restaurants or food are considered dirty, but I don’t think we’ll see any massive boycotts of Chinese food especially since many don’t rely on food imported from China. Besides, love of Chinese food is quite pervasive across many cultures. As for Chinese restaurants being dirty, some of them are and some of them are not similar to any other cuisine.

As for a negative perception of Asian Americans building up, this is something that I would hate to see, and it really makes no sense. Virtually none of us have anything to do with importing food from China. A few greedy (seems like a universal trait no matter the race) people have tainted perceptions. But experience will tell you that discrimination usually has no rationale or intelligence driving it. It seems America loves having enemies. It’s quite focused on Middle East, but with the growing power in China, I feel like it could shift easily.

This is not the first time food has been recalled, and the blame goes across many different nationalities and countries including the US as the article points out in the end.


July 28th, 2007 admin Posted in Current Events, Discrimination | Comments Off

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Boston Protest for Transliteration on Ballots

A group of Asian-Americans gathered in Boston on July 9th at the Massachusetts State House to support fully-translated bilingual Chinese-English ballots. The Massachusetts Secretary of State William Gavin opposes the practice calling it imprecise and confusing due to the fact that the transliteration (using Chinese characters to approximate the sounds of English-language names) of names could translate to things such as “Upset Stomach”.

Come on…honestly who is going to really think they’re voting for “upset stomach”? …although it is quite amusing.

Although it’s not exactly the March on Washington, it’s good to see Asians protesting for their rights. In the grand scheme, I think this is one of the minor battles, but if you don’t even fight the minor ones, you’ll start to lose every one.

Here’s an article on the issue: http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=dce09c378c026eee320116be967c1e92


July 26th, 2007 admin Posted in Current Events | Comments Off

AddThis Social Bookmark Button