Monthly Archives: November 2009

Update: Margaret Chin wins NY City Council seat representing Chinatown

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It’s been a hectic week and I’ve been traveling, so I didn’t get to post any updates on Tuesday’s elections. Asian Americans are making strides and gaining visibility in politics, which makes me very happy. You can keep up with Asian American politics at one of the best sources for information, APAs for Progress.

In particular, New York City has a new Asian American Comptroller, John Liu. But the race I thought was really important symbolically was Margaret Chin’s run for New York City Council, representing among other parts of southern Manhattan, Chinatown… amazingly, the first time that a Chinese American would serve in that position.

Well, she won, which is great news. Her victory speech is at top.

Richard Aoki: The Asian American Black Panther

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The poster for the documentary "Aoki" about Richard Aoki, the Japanese American who was a founding member of the Black Panthers.Here’s another reason why we wish we lived on the West Coast: “Aoki,” a new documentary about Richard Aoki, the third-generation Japanese American who was one of the founding members of the revolutionary African American Black Panther Party in the late 1960s, is premiering in Oakland (where the Black Panthers were formed) on Nov. 12.

At “Here and Now,” an event for Asian American non-profit organizations in San Francisco yesterday that Erin and I participated in, someone handed out cards promoting the premiere. And this morning, Angry Asian Man had more information about it.

Like most Americans, and probably many Asian Americans, I wasn’t aware of the role Aoki played in such a turbulent period of our history. It turns out (the documentary reveals for the fist time) that Aoki, a veteran by the mid-’60s, was the man who gave the Panthers their first guns, from his personal collection, and taught them how to use firearms. Although there were AAPI members of the Panthers, Aoki was the only one in a leadership poition, given the rank of Field Marshall.

He went on to be one of the leaders of the emerging Asian American consciousness of the 1970s. He died just this year.

It humbles me to learn how little I still know about the history of Asian America.

I’m glad people like filmmakers Ben Wang and Mike Cheng are making documentaries like “Aoki.” On the “Aoki” website you can read about see clips from the film. Continue reading →

Announcer describes NBA player Jianlian Yi as “the Chinaman”

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Really? Unfortunately, yeah. Sure, maybe the guy was just describing Yi’s nationality, like calling a player “the Russian,” But you would never call the Russian player “the Russkie” (I’m pretty sure Russkie is still a pejorative in the post-Cold war era).

If he wanted to describe the nationality of Yi Jianlian of the New Jersey Nets, a veteran of the Chinese Basketball Association and the Chinese Olympic Team, was to say that he’s …. “Chinese.” Duh.

So I’ll chalk this one to ignorance, not racism. You’d think national sportscasters would be educated enough — and yes, sensitive enough — to know better than to use an outdated racist epithet to describe a player.

What was he thinking? He wasn’t.

(From Hyphen Blog and other AAPI bloggers)

UPDATE Nov. 4: FanHouse.com called out the racist word, the Turner Sports Network, which ran the original broadcast and manages the NBA.com website, yanked the video from the website and said the sportscaster, Rick Kamla, “was not aware of the connotations of the word, and meant nothing malicious or offensive by it.”

A no-apology apology. I translate it as, “If you took offense, that’s your problem because I didn’t mean any offense. But I’m sorry you were offended.”

The FanHouse story also points out past instances of “Chinaman” being used, and has a slideshow of other sportscaster flubs.

Will New York’s Chinatown get its first Chinese American City Councilperson?

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Margaret Chin is poised to become the first Chinese American, never mind a Chinese American woman, to be elected to City Council to represent New York CityI love New York City’s Chinatown. I spent many afternoons wandering its streets when I was an art school student in the 1970s in Brooklyn, and I spent nights wandering its streets when I worked for six months in Jersey City on the other side of Manhattan several years ago. There’s no feeling like it — crowded streets teeming with people, shops overflowing onto the sidewalks, amazing arrays of food and enticements everywhere, the sound of Cantonese and now, more often Mandarin, echoing everywhere. The streets are a tangle; they start out like a grid but then alleyways curve off and what looks like nooks hide more restaurants to try.

San Francisco’s Chinatown is more of a straight line, and though it’s also great, it doesn’t hold the same sense of discovery that New York’s does. Chicago’s is good. LA’s is nice. Boston’s is cool too. DC’s is kinda pitiful.

But New York — THAT’s Chinatown! Carved out as if it were its own country with Canal Street serving as the hard boundary between it and Little Italy just to the north, Chinatown rises above New York’s energy with a spirit that’s its own, and unique.

So imagine my surprise when I found out recently that that bustling district of Manhattan, along with the Wall Street area south of Chinatown, has never had a Chinese American representing its citizens and businesses in New York’s City Council.

Until now, that is. Margaret Chin, a 56-year-old longtime community activist who was born in Hong Kong, is the front-runner to win that pioneering position this Tuesday. (Thanks to APA for Progress for turning me on to the CNN story about Chin.) Continue reading →