Tag Archives: aapi

Is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month a bad idea?

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A Japanese American festival in Seabrook, NJ where the community performs a traditional Japanese obon dance

It’s May. Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. I wonder, though, if this celebration of our heritage is an idea whose time has passed. I’m glad that we have our month every year, but I’m worried that we’re emphasizing the wrong things year after year.

Erin and I are starting to feel that APA Heritage Month may be counter-productive. The Pacific Citizen published a well-written piece last week, “Time to Rethink Asian Pacific American Heritage Month?” and I agree, it’s time to re-think the tradition even though it’s only 31 years old.

Last year, I wrote about how a 10-year-old Denver event, an Asian community celebration held in downtown Denver every May, needed to evolve from just Asians performing for other Asians.

It was a useful educational display back when our many communities stayed cloistered and Japanese didn’t know much about Vietnamese, and Vietnamese didn’t know much about Filipinos, and Filipinos didn’t know much about Cambodians and Cambodians didn’t know much about Koreans… you get the idea. But today, with especially young people mixing a lot more outside their own communities, it seems like a closed celebration, like preaching to the choir about the richness of our heritage. If you attend the annual event, you’ve seen many of the same performers year after year.

Even if the audience was expanded outside the Asian community, though, to the wider non-Asian population, I wonder if that would be good or bad for Asian Americans.
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Asian Canadian 15-year-old fights back against racist schoolyard bully

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If you’ve ever been taunted or attacked by a bully but never fought back, you have to applaud this kid as a hero. A 15-year-old Asian Canadian (the newspaper story by the Globe and Mail never states the kid’s or his family’s name) fought back at a bully and broke his tormentor’s nose, got suspended from school but inspired a walkout of 400 fellow students in support.

The 15-year-old black belt thought he was doing his tormentor a favour when he elected to fight back with his weaker left hand.

He had heard his white classmate throw an angry racial slur in his direction after an argument during a gym class game of speedball, and now the student was shoving him backward, refusing to retract the smear.

The white student swung first, hitting the 15-year-old with a punch to the mouth.

The 15-year-old heard his father’s voice running through his head: Fight only as a last resort, only in self-defence, only if given no choice, and only with the left hand.

His swing was short and compact, a left-handed dart that hit the white student square on the nose.

The nose broke under his fist, igniting a sequence of events – from arrest to suspension to possible expulsion – that has left the Asian student and his family wondering whether they are welcome in this small, rural and mostly white community north of Toronto, one that has been touched by anti-Asian attacks in the past.

The 15-year-old, the only person charged in connection with the April 21 school fight, faces one count of assault causing bodily harm.

This week, 400 students at his high school walked out in protest — even though he is shy and hadn’t made a lot of friends, they supported his defiance of bullying and racism.
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A pair of AAPI musicians harmonize on “Wonderful World”

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Musical interlude: I saw on Facebook that Kinna Grannis had posted a video of herself with David Choi, sittin’ on a couch and humming and strumming the pop standard, “What a Wonderful World.” It’s a very sweet version, and the two harmonize beautifully together.

I blogged about Grannis a few months ago when I stumbled across her version of “Sukiyaki.” She’s prolific — between her own songs and interesting covers, she posts a new video every Monday on her YouTube channel. She’s also working the ‘Net to market herself, with a presence on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter… the whole nine yards.

Choi likewise is all over the online social networks, but considers himself more a songwriter and producer than a performer.

Grannis and Choi performed in February at Kollaboration, an annual celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander arts and performance. Wish we coulda been there, but we were stuck in Denver.

Dang, it sure would be cool to live in LA, where musicians like these two, and other artists and actors perform regularly. Asian American musicians sometimes get out to Colorado, but we often hear about it too late (being old fogeys and all).

It’s a good thing we have the Internet to give us access to their talents.

Japanese American identity pt. 1 – How do I feel when someone says “Gil-san”?

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I had an interesting thread of conversation the other day on Facebook, after someone sent me a friend request that ended with the person (he’s Caucasian) calling me “Gil-san.”

He wrote this in good cheer and good faith, and as a sign of collegial respect. I know that. But it struck me odd somehow, that non-Japanese people (usually Caucasians) throughout my life have assumed that it’s perfectly normal to call me “Gil-san,” or to say “konnichiwa” (“hello”) or “sayonara,” as if I speak Japanese, or better yet, that I appreciate someoe else assuming that I speak Japanese.

I do — a little. But I’m not Japanese, and the only time I try to mumble and stumble my way through a conversation in Japanese is when I’m trying to speak to Japanese people… from Japan.

So I posted this on Facebook and Twitter: “Is it culturally sensitive, condescending or just plain goofy for a Euro-American to call me ‘Gil-san’? I’m Japanese American, not Japanese.”

As is often the case, I got a flurry of responses right away on Facebook. Interestingly, Japanese Americans and other Asian Americans, as well as European Americans, had different perspectives on this topic.
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Dr. Sanjay Gupta tapped as Obama’s Surgeon General

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Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been asked by Pres-elect Obama to be the country Big news for Asian Americans (and for the South Asian community): Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the affable and seemingly tireless chief medical correspondent for CNN (and a practicing neurosurgeon), is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to serve as Surgeon General of the United States.

According to the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz:

Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.

It’ll be great to have another Asian American high up in the Obama administration, and the pres is smart to hook Gupta, because he’s so well-known and well-liked, not to mention trusted, by the general public.

But it’ll be a loss for journalism, and one less prominent Asian American journalist in the national media.
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