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November 18, 2009

Martha Stewart needs some etiquette lessons in how to speak to Asian Americans.A reader named Robin, who is Japanese American and born in Iowa and bakes apple pies, sent me this email: "I was wincing yesterday when Martha Stewart asked an asian american woman in the audience (Sumi somethingorother, who baked an apple pie for Martha's contest) "Where are you from?" and the woman said with no accent "Oh I'm from here...New York City.". Martha continued with the (stereo)typical line of questioning something like 'where are you really from because if you are from Asia it's unusual to make an apple pie'. I don't have it verbatim but it was painful. Just another "What ARE you?" type of conversation. I really don't think Martha is a bigot but as she is the standard bearer of suburban white women I think it was totally disappointing for her to go down that path as if it were totally fine to question someone with Asian features about where they really come from." She sent a link to Martha Stewart's page for the pie show, but there isn't a video of the entire program, at least not yet. It looks like they only upload excerpts instead of entire shows, but I'll keep an eye out for YouTube postings of this segment. UPDATED: Today, Robin commented below on this blog post with a clarification: "The video is up, check at the 2:00 minute mark: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/meet-the-pie-bakers "Verbatim it's : 'Where do you come from?' (answer Here NYC) 'Oh you do, oh, okay, because if you came from Asia this would not a typical pie, right?' (answer 'right...right...' you can kind of hear the 'what the heck!?' in her tone) "So it's not as blatant as it struck me the first time but still the question and that type of follow up would be seen as really bizarre if she asked it of someone with a German name." It may not be as obnoxious as it could have been (I agree with Robin that Martha's probably not a racist), but it still betrayed Stewart's expectation that the audience member with an Asian face was a foreigner. She even sounded disappointed when the woman said she's from New York, because Stewart wanted so badly to make her point about Asians not baking pies.
November 17, 2009

These contact lenses make the wearer Asians have a long history of trying to change their appearance, specifically by messing with their eyes. As if it's not bad enough that so many of us wear glasses (isn't it enough to have a cool-looking pair?) many Asians -- especially women, and apparently more Korean women than other ethnicities -- have turned to surgery to add a fold in their eye lids. And now, we have contact lenses that make the wearer's eyes look larger, like a character in an anime. Typical rendition of anime characters with large eyesIt's kinda creepy. Is this the latest reflection of a deep-seated sense of inadequacy and self-hate within Asians? The "Angel Series" contact lenses -- made in Korea by the GEO company -- are touted as the best way to create the "Dolly Eye" look. They come in various colors, and emphasize a darker rim around the edges, which cover beyond the wearer's iris. These lenses have been available for months, and fashion sites first wrote about them in August. Angry Asian Man posted about them yesterday, and it got me to thinking about the image of Asians eyes, and how they're perceived differently by Asians versus Westerners. Westerners have exoticized the "hot Asian babe" for centuries, and the size of their eyes didn't seem to matter -- as long as they were slanted and uh, well, Asian. But in Asia, women are more desirable if they look, well, more white. Maybe Michael Jackson was on to something. Look at magazine covers and ads everywhere, and the ultimate vision for a beautiful Asian woman is one who has pale skin and large eyes (and these days, reddish-brown hair) -- not unlike the look that's the image of women in many anime.
November 15, 2009

Nai-Li Yee receives a Lifetime Service award from the Chinese American Council of Colorado, and flowers and hugs from some former students from her Colorado Chinese School, which she founded over 20 years ago. Erin and I attend a lot of banquets. That's what happens when you're involved in the local Asian community. I don't know what it's like in places like LA or San Francisco, where there are a lot more Asian Americans and a lot more organizations, but there are something 30 Asian community groups in the Denver area, and we end up at banquets, fundraisers and events all year round for a handful of them. Many of the dinners are held at Palace restaurant, the spacious eatery owned by Johnny Hsu, who supports the community and welcomes their members. That's where we found ourselves last night, attending the 12th Anniversary Celebration dinner of the Chinese American Council of Colorado. It's an umbrella organization of Chinese community groups that serves as a funnel between the community and the larger Asian American community, and offers services as varied as free income tax filing, health fairs, and volunteers at the annual Colorado Dragon Boat Festival. The food at Palace was great, as usual: an eight-course feast that included Xi Hu Beef Soup, Wok Fried Pepper Shrimp, Whole Fish with Salt Ginger Chef Sauce, Nan King Pork Loin and Golden Fried Chicken.
November 14, 2009

These adopted kids are learning traditional Beijing opera dances at Colorado Chinese Heritage Camp. The Asian American community is a diverse world, and not just along purely ethnic lines. There are mixed-race Asian Americans, generations that all have different views on culture and identity, and also a thriving Asian American adoptee community. But adopted kids aren't always connected to their root heritage. The New York Times last week ran a well-written story interviewing Korean adoptees about the challenges of finding their identity. The article was based on a report on trans-racial adoptions by the Evan E. Donaldson Adoption Institute, which concentrated on adult adoptees who were adopted as children from South Korea. Focusing on Korean adoptees makes sense because, as the report states, "South Koreans comprise the largest group of internationally adopted persons in the U.S., and adoption from South Korea into the U.S. has a longer history than from any other nation; indeed, 1 in 10 of all Korean American citizens came to this country through adoption." Angry Asian Man and Linda of 8Asians both posted thoughtful reactions informed by their Korean American perspective. Most notably, the report found that a staggering 78% of respondents considered themselves white or wanted to be white when they were children, and also that:
Racial/ethnic identity was of central importance to the Korean respondents at all ages, and continued to increase in significance into young adulthood. Sixty percent of them indicated their racial/ethnic identity was important by middle school, and that number grew during high school (67%), college (76%) and young adulthood (81%). Based on their overall scores on the Multi-group Ethnic Identity Measure, Korean adoptees had a stronger sense of ethnic identity than did White respondents, but with caveats. While being equal to Whites in agreeing that they were happy about being a member of their ethnic group and feeling good about their ethnic background, they were less likely to have a strong sense of belonging to their ethnic group, despite identifying more strongly with it. They also were less likely than Whites to feel welcomed by others of their own race.
There are a lot of fascinating data points to mull over in the report, and whether you're interested in adoption, Asian American identity or trans-racial issues, it might be worth downloading and reading the 111-page PDF file, "Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity Formation in Adoption." The "Culture Camp" reference caught my attention.
November 12, 2009

With a week before BANANA, the first-ever gathering of Asian American bloggers, I've been thinking about Nikkei View's role, or how I see my voice as part of the AAPI blogosphere. The beauty of the Internet and of blogging as an avenue for self-expression, is that we can develop not just one mighty chorus of an Asian American voice, but that we can cultivate many, many disparate voices, all with different tones and characters. It's like jazz -- not everyone will play the melody; many prefer to play harmonies, or like the beboppers of old, turn the melody inside out. Some will come up with atonal free jazz; some will play safe and mainstream instrumental soft rock; some are suited for taking fiery, flying solos while others will be content keeping up the steady rhythm that allows the soloists to take off. Man, I didn't think I'd stretch the metaphor quite so far.... but it kinda works. My point is, I think of myself as a bridge in that I will write about very mainstream topics like a traditional dance concert, and then get all up in arms about racism or internment or whatever.
November 12, 2009

Huh? Really? This is so wrong, on several levels.... First, it's been years since I've had to explain to anyone that "People are 'Asian,' rugs are "Oriental.'" Second, Bo Dietl, a Fox pundit, actually pulls his eyes back on Don Imus' show to mimic how he says Katie Couric's eyes make her look "Chinese." Third, he conflates "American" and "Caucasian" so that you're only American if you're white. It's ignorant -- no, stoopid -- and disgusting, and as Angry Asian Man points out, "that's racist!"
November 10, 2009

Filmmaker Steve Nguyen of FlipHD posted a cool interview with Phil Yu, the man behind AngryAsianMan.com, one of the truly essential Asian American blogs, earlier yhis week. Coincidentally, Erin and I interviewed Phil tonight for ...

November 8, 2009

These banners are on display throughout San Jose Unlike the many Chinatowns that serve as ethnic cultural enclaves in many American cities from coast to coast, and the increasing numbers of districts variously called "Koreatowns" and "Little Saigons," you won't find many Nihonmachi, or Japantowns. There are lots of reasons for this, but the main one is probably the Japanese American community's need to assimilate into mainstream America after the shame and humiliation of being imprisoned in internment camps during World War II. In the 1950s and '60s, most JAs moved into suburban America and avoided clustering in ethnic Japanese areas. Denver has Sakura Square, a one-block development built in the 1970s I like to call "Tiny Tokyo" because it's ridiculously small compared to Los Angeles' Little Tokyo. And New York City has a couple-blocks of Japanese businesses that have sprouted in recent years in the East Village that might be called a "mini-Japantown" in Manhattan. Seattle's Japantown evolved after the war into the International District, though I think it's still anchored by the awesome, generations-old Uwajimaya supermarket. But not surprisingly, the three Japantowns that are officially recognized as national historic districts are all in California, where the vast majority of Japanese immigrants settled in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Along with the well-known and tourist-filled Little Tokyo in LA and San Francisco's Japantown is the Japantown area of San Jose that's more a neighborhood than a business district. Erin and I have traveled to and stayed at both Little Tokyo and San Francisco's Japantown, but only visited San Jose's J-town a couple of times. We spent a few hours there last week and we love it. Here's why: