Stories from Asian America [Apr/May 2023]

A double-header issue for April and May. We wish the SAPAAC membership a Happy Earth Day (April 22) and a great start to Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May). We will continue coverage of AANHPI month on social media and in the next SAPAAC newsletter.

California State Senator Aisha Wahab introduced legislation to ban caste-based discrimination. Image source: California State Senate

1. President Biden’s nominee for Labor Secretary, Julie Su ‘91, advanced out of committee in the Senate. She now faces a vote by the full chamber. Both labor and business leaders are backing Su, calling her a “trailblazer whose track record speaks for itself.”

2. On the heels of Seattle’s recent municipal law, California state senator Aisha Wahab has introduced legislation that, if passed, would make California the first state to ban caste-based discrimination.

3. The pandemic may be over, but anti-Asian sentiments stirred up during COVID have not subsided. A new study finds that one in three Asian and Asian American professionals have experienced racial prejudice, suggesting that many employers care more about Asian work than Asian lives

4. As we celebrate Earth Day, Sierra magazine offers an inspiring look at AAPI folks involved in the environmental movement. Meanwhile, the Sikh American nominated to lead the World Bank, Ajay Banga, says that separating climate change and inequality won’t work. “We don't have the time to play in silos,” he said, “The scale of these challenges require trillions, not billions” of dollars.

5. The show “Beef” took the streaming world by storm at the beginning of April, with viewers glued to Netflix to see how the 10-episode series starring Steven Yeun and Ali Wong would resolve its road rage-fueled feud. Weeks later, video footage resurfaced of actor David Choe talking about sexually assaulting a woman. Yeun and Wong defended their co-star despite outcries from fans and put a damper on a show that had otherwise received sterling reviews.

6. In March, Nancy Yao, the former president of the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in New York, was announced as the founding director of the new American Women’s History Museum in Washington, D.C. However, as reported in The Washington Post, Yao is now being investigated for retaliating against MOCA employees who made claims of sexual harassment in the workplace. 

7. FiveThirtyEight unpacks the debate over affirmative action in the Asian American community and the case involving Asian American students at the center of the controversy.

8. Ashwin Ramaswami ‘21 moderated an event with the South Asian Bar Association of DC examining the legacy of Bhagat Singh Thind, who petitioned the Supreme Court in a case over Indians’ right to obtain U.S. citizenship (event recording).

9. The Tatung Electric Cooker, a rice cooker manufactured in Taiwan, has taken the US by storm. For many home cooks, this pot is far more than just a way to cook rice; some consider it the precursor to the Instant Pot. While we’re on this topic, here’s a short history of the electric rice cooker’s rise in Japan.

10: Just in time for AANHPI Heritage Month, MIT’s Cello++ ensemble performs“I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Disney’s Mulan. Can you spot SAPAAC board member Kevin Hsu among the cellists?

— Prepared by Kevin Fan Hsu and Katie Gee Salisbury. If you are interested in covering AAPI issues with the SAPAAC Advocacy & Education team, please reach out to khsu@alumni.stanford.edu

Stories from Asian America [Mar 2023]

President Biden nominated Deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su, a Stanford alumna who once headed California's Labor and Workforce Development Agency, to be the next U.S. Secretary of Labor. Currently the Acting Secretary of Labor, if confirmed, Su ‘91 will become the first Asian American to join Biden's cabinet at the rank of secretary.

Seattle has become the first U.S. city to ban caste-based discrimination, an unspoken problem in recruiting for tech companies, particularly among workers from South Asia.

Reports detail how Chunli Zhao, the 66-year-old farm worker who perpetrated the Half Moon Bay shootings, lived in “deplorable conditions” in a makeshift shack at a farm where he was employed, raising larger questions about the discrepancies in how we perceive and care for Asian American elders. The children of many East Asian immigrants are facing the challenge of supporting their elders in their later years; meanwhile, casinos are targeting older Asian gamblers.

Check out the related SAPAAC event on 4/10 “Caring for our Elders and Impact of Monterey Park Shootings.”

Celebrations of Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors, took place earlier this month, with joyful gatherings all over the world and across the United States. In New York City, SAPAAC members Mehak Dinesh and Benny Mah hosted a joint Holi brunch with Stanford GSB and Princeton alumni at Jaz Indian Cuisine. Check out photos from the event here.

Asian American voter turnout was up across the board, including in every 2020 battleground state. A survey by the Carnegie Endowment shows the rate of engagement with civic activities and politics. However, reports in The New York Times (including data visualizations and a focus group) suggest Asian voters may be moving to the right, due to issues such as education and crime, which has also spurred an increase in gun ownership.

South Asians in particular are achieving “huge strides in representation” for the 2024 election cycle, including former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who declared “I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants” when she announced her intent to seek the presidency.

Image of various actors in everything everywhere all at once film arranged in a circle

Source: A24

Last weekend at the Oscars, Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best actress for her performance in “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.” Co-star Ke Huy Quan won Best Supporting Actor, contributing to the film’s 7 Oscars wins out of 11 nominations. Chinese American Daniel Kwan and creative partner Daniel Scheinert picked up best director and best original screenplay, while Taiwanese American producer Jonathan Wang completed their trio for best picture. M. M. Keeravani and Chandrabose won for Telugu-language song, Naatu Naatu.

We are over the moon for their achievements and what it means for Asian American representation. Ahead of the ceremony, descendents of Anna May Wong and Bruce Lee discussed the challenges their legendary family members faced as Asian American actors. “The history of Asian Americans in Hollywood should have never been forgotten," SAPAAC board member Katie Gee Salisbury wrote in an opinion essay in The New York Times. “But we’re still here, and we’re now a force to be reckoned with." As 94-year-old actor James Hong shared at the SAG Awards, “My first film was with Clark Gable…back in those days, the producers said ‘the Asians were not good enough and they are not box office.’ But look at us now!” He thrilled Cantonese-speaking audiences by beginning his speech in the Cantonese language.

President Biden spoke on the 81st anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which forced “men, women, and children…to abandon their homes, their jobs, their communities, their businesses, and their way of life.” He called the “wrongful incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent” during World War II “one of the most shameful periods in American history.” SAPAAC board member Risa Shimoda, Class of ‘77, wrote in The Stanford Daily of her family’s experiences during WWII. Through research into her family’s story, she discovered the disturbing fact that the architect behind Japanese incarceration was also a Stanford alumnus. She shares how much of this history was unknown to her as an undergrad at Stanford because the university had not yet established an Asian American Studies program. Next year, New York City schools will expand their curriculum to offer Asian American and Pacific Islander history to more students.

— Prepared by Kevin Fan Hsu and Katie Gee Salisbury. If you are interested in covering AAPI issues with the SAPAAC Advocacy & Education team, please reach out to khsu@alumni.stanford.edu

“A young evacuee of Japanese ancestry waits with the family baggage before leaving by bus for an assembly center in the spring of 1942. by Clem Albers, California, April 1942. (Photo No. 210-G-2A-6).” Source: National Archives

Stories from Asian America [Jan/Feb 2023]

The Lantern Festival on February 5 marked the end of Lunar New Year festivities. Societies in China, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan count 2023 as the Year of the Rabbit, while Vietnam observes the Year of the Cat. Across the United States, Asian Americans used the holiday to connect with family and keep traditions alive. California declared the Lunar New Year an official state holiday for the first time, though it is unfortunately not a paid day off.

Dive Deeper into the Celebrations: Check out Lunar New Year celebrations in New York City through the lens of five AAPI photographers. Several AAPI chefs share memorable New Year dishes with NPR. Martin Yan, the 2022 James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award winner, explains the holiday’s connection to food. Younger generations re-interpret culinary traditions.

Asian Americans and Political Leadership

Bi-Khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s representative to the United States. Image source: Twitter

The Biden-Harris Administration released its first-ever “National Strategy to Advance Equity, Justice, and Opportunity for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) Communities.” The strategy features action plans from 32 federal agencies (including all 15 Cabinet-level departments), addressing issues such as “data disaggregation, language access, and combatting anti-Asian hate.”

The New York Times called Bi-Khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s representative in the United States, “one of the most influential ambassadors” in Washington. Hsiao’s mother is American and her father is Taiwanese. Sheng Tao was sworn in as Oakland’s first Hmong American mayor. Hoan Huynh, the first state-level official in Illinois of Vietnamese heritage, joined the state legislature in Springfield. NPR explores why South Asians “are the most politically liberal…out of all Asian Americans groups.”

Commemorating Japanese American, Indian American History

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and placed them in internment camps. To keep alive the memory of this dark period of American history, President Biden signed the Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education Act into law in January 2023. Sponsored by Representative Doris Matsui (D-CA), the act re-authorizes the National Park Service’s program to preserve the sites where Japanese Americans were confined, and offers new grants to create educational materials about their incarceration. While their families were incarcerated, thousands of Nisei (American-born Japanese) soldiers took on pivotal roles in the U.S. military in Europe and the Pacific.

Local communities are safeguarding the history of Japanese settlement and farming across the United States. The Japanese Hall built in Nebraska in 1928 has been incorporated into the Legacy of the Plains Museum. Hatano Farm in Southern California, which operated from 1953-2022, was the last Japanese American farm (photos) on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. It was forced to close by the city last year, but has now received two designations from the State Historical Resources Commission: Point of Historical Interest and inclusion on the California Register of Historic Resources.

One hundred years ago, in 1923, the Supreme Court took away American citizenship from Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind. Ashwin Ramaswami ‘21 writes about his life, legacy, and what we can learn from him today, in Indiaspora.


Developments in Asian American Studies

Students at the University of North Carolina have launched a petition calling on the school to “establish an Asian American Studies major/minor as well as an Asian American Studies program.” They are also seeking “disaggregated studies for Asian ethnicities.” A legislator filed a bill that, if passed, would require Florida schools to teach “History of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”

Remembrances

Al Young, a descendant of Chinese railroad workers, was “the first Asian American race car driver to have ever won a World Championship in auto racing.” A longtime educator and a trustee of the Museum of History & Industry in Seattle, he passed away in December at age 76.

Professor Betty Lee Sung was a pioneering scholar, who founded the Asian American Studies Program at the City College of New York in 1972. She passed away in January at age 98.

The Impact of Anti-Asian Hate

An Asian American student at Indiana University was repeatedly stabbed in the head during a racially-motivated attack; she survived and is now out of the hospital. Michelle Go’s family marked the one-year anniversary of her death, after she was pushed in front of a New York City subway.  A survey finds that anti-Asian hate in the workplace has negatively impacted the mental health of nearly 2/3 of Asian Americans. (Read “Strangers at Home: The Asian and Asian American Professional Experience” for more.) In New York, some AAPI voters chose Republican candidates in the last election, because of their concerns about “public safety, especially attacks against Asian Americans.”

Performance Pressure on ‘Model Minorities’

The New York Times describes how Asian American high schoolers “downplay…aspects of their identity” or “chang[e] their hobbies or interests as part of an effort to appear ‘less Asian’” on college applications. The attorney general of Virginia has launched a civil rights investigation into 17 schools that hid or delayed news of students’ awards in the National Merit competition, amid concerns that Asian American students were disproportionately impacted by this omission. A new study finds “systemic racial disparities” where scientists of Asian heritage experience the highest rejection rates when competing for National Science Foundation grants. This finding challenges the “common narrative that Asian Americans dominate the sciences and engineering.” While the “model minority myth” suggests “Asians don’t experience academic challenges,” lead author Christine Yifeng Chen explains, “that’s not true.”

Culture & Entertainment

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Oscar nominations for 2023, marking a record-breaking year for Asian actors and filmmakers, including 11 nominations for Everything Everywhere All at Once, with a largely AAPI cast. Among the nominees are Michelle Yeoh for best actress, Ke Huy Quan for best supporting actor, Stephanie Hsu for best supporting actress, and director Daniel Kwan sharing a best director nomination with Daniel Scheinert. (Yeoh and Quan recently also won Golden Globe awards for acting.) Others in the running include Hong Chau, for best supporting actress in The Whale, and Domee Shi’s Turning Red, for best animated feature film. Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro is nominated for his screenplay for Living.

If Yeoh wins, she will be the first Asian woman to win an Oscar for best actress in the 95-year history of the Academy Awards. As many discovered on social media, Yeoh is not the first Asian woman to be nominated for best actress. Merle Oberon, who was nominated in 1935 for her role in The Dark Angel, holds that distinction; however, she kept her mixed South Asian heritage a secret, in order to maintain her status as a leading lady in Hollywood.

In a first for the toy manufacturer, American Girl named a South Asian doll, Kavi Sharma, its “Girl of the Year” for 2023.

Jeremy Lin revealed his marriage on social media. The former NBA star now plays in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Singer Gwen Stefani expressed her affinity for Japanese culture by declaring, “My God, I'm Japanese and I didn’t know it” in an Allure magazine interview. The journalist, who is Filipino American, shared her concern about the quote, generating a public outcry.

Asian American creatives are pushing new boundaries in media: Charles Kim, a Stanford lecturer, and Stephanie Lim, are launching Third State Books, a publisher specializing in AAPI works. Camelback Productions is Arizona’s first “female and South Asian-owned” film production company, promising “a focus on South Asian storytelling.” Woman-owned ChimeTV is the first U.S. cable network specializing in English programming for Asian Americans.

NYC-based artist Kenneth Tam explores the history of Chinese railroad workers through “sculptures of compressed dirt and detritus, horse saddles and leather straps” in a new exhibit at Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, Texas.

Ken Chen pays homage to late photographer Corky Lee, better known as the “unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate.”

Asian American Foodies Unite

Delish profiled 25 different AAPI-owned food brands. Japanese American chef Tatsu Aikawa has crafted six unique Tatsu-Ya ramen establishments across Texas. James Beard Award-winner Cathy Erway interviews Chinese and Taiwanese chefs, who share the secrets of zhajiangmian, a noodle dish with a rich fermented sauce.

Activism on the Stanford Campus

The student-led 22% Campaign released a letter critiquing the Stanford administration’s “lack of support for underrepresented communities, such as Southeast Asian groups.” Student groups (called VSOs) hope the University will partner with them to train admissions officers “to better understand our communities,” disaggregate students' ethnic identities in admissions data, correctly represent Asian names on Axess (Stanford’s class registration database), and increase support for VSO’s outreach programs in high schools. The 22% Campaign’s letter to the administration can be read in its entirety here.

AsAmNews published a Q&A with SAPAAC op-ed writers Kevin Fan Hsu ‘08, MS ‘11 and Katie Gee Salisbury ‘07 about their efforts to commemorate the “often overlooked history of Asian Americans and Stanford”—including Chinese workers’ contributions to the university since its earliest days. The SAPAAC op-ed suggested an inclusive process of community engagement should guide any commemoration.

Volunteers from the Save Cantonese movement spoke on a podcast about their efforts at Stanford University and City College of San Francisco. Their campaigns began in response to the possible elimination of Cantonese language instruction at each institution, resulting in successfully defending language offerings in both places and the nation’s first community college certificate for Cantonese.

— Prepared by Kevin Fan Hsu and Katie Gee Salisbury. If you are interested in covering AAPI issues with the SAPAAC Advocacy & Education team, please reach out to khsu@alumni.stanford.edu



Stories from Asian America [September 2022]

Updates on efforts advocating for the Asian American community around the nation and on Stanford campus 

Rhode Island has become the fourth state to require AAPI history in its schools, starting in the 2023-24 school year. Elementary and secondary schools have been directed to teach about the “history and culture of Native Hawaiians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.” (NBC News) 

McKinsey released a new study on “Asian American workers: Diverse outcomes and hidden challenges.” Some key findings are that 8.8 million Asian American workers are split evenly across three main ethnic subgroups: East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian. While there is high Asian American representation in “higher-wage technical fields such as software development and computer programming”,” they are also “overrepresented in low-paying occupations such as manicurists and skin care specialists, cooks, and sewing-machine operators.” Some subgroups reveal significant pockets of poverty. And despite filling many corporate jobs, Asian Americans’ presence drops off significantly at senior levels, particularly for Asian American women. (McKinsey, NBC News) 

Congratulations to Save Cantonese on their recent campaign win!! Thanks to their advocacy work, 3 Cantonese classes will be offered at Stanford, including one which finally fulfills the language requirement, putting Cantonese on equal footing with other languages taught on campus. If you know any current Stanford Students, make sure they know to enroll in Cantonese classes and fill out this survey.

 

A number of alumni, including SAPAAC board member Jacob Wang ’72, Gloria Saito ’73, Lee Salisbury ’73 and Edwin Carlos ’20, shared about “Okada House and the Asian American Experience at Stanford” at a September 8 event organized with the Stanford Historical Society. Okada is the Asian American theme dorm at Stanford. 

 

As we begin a new school year at Stanford, here is a  summary of op-eds our Advocacy & Education committee has put out in each of the past four quarters: 

“Stanford’s history is inextricably linked with Asian American history” (Stanford Daily) by Doug Chan ’76, Kevin Fan Hsu ’09, MS ’11, Katie Gee Salisbury ’07, Jacob Wang ’72 and Connie Young Yu. 

“Beyond Good Intentions: Support Asian American Studies Now” (Stanford Daily) by Hope Nakamura ‘83 

“Stanford should get serious about building Asian American Studies” (Stanford Daily) by Victoria Yee ’13 and Thuy-Van (Tina) Hang ‘12 

What is Stanford’s responsibility in a time of racial reckoning? (Stanford Daily) by Judy Tzu-Chun Wu ’92 M.A. ’93 Ph.D. ’98 

If you are interested in joining SAPAAC’s committee on Asian American Studies to communicate the ongoing need for this program and engage in storytelling, or if you have updates to suggest to our Advocacy & Education corner, please reach out to Kevin, Risa, Hope and Crystal.

khsu@, risa.shimoda@, hnakamura@ and zheng.crystal@ stanfordalumni.org

Asian American Issues [July 2021]

A summary of issues of interest to the AAPI community nationwide and on the Stanford University campus.

Community Activism

Chinese American activists gathered in San Francisco on June 4 to commemorate the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, when the Chinese military cracked down on student-led demonstrations advocating for democracy in China. Authorities in Hong Kong blocked the city’s annual vigil for a second year, forcing residents to remember history through other means.

In the wake of COVID-19, community organizers continue to raise money for Chinatown restaurants in New York, Oakland and San Francisco. Much-loved Asian businesses have been hit hard during the pandemic, particularly small establishments owned by older Asians.

Asian Americans in Leadership

Asian Americans substantially increased their turnout rate between the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections, as reported by NPR, rising from 49% to just over 59%—more than any other racial or ethnic group according to the census. Many civic groups hope to sustain the momentum and achieve “political representation at every level of public office.” Asian Americans hold government office at “disproportionately low rates.” The Reflective Democracy Campaign “found that in mid-2020, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders made up just 0.9% of elected officials across all levels of government despite making up over 6% of the U.S. population.”

AAPI voters had “highest rate of using vote-by-mail” [64% during the pandemic], so proposals in state legislatures to restrict voting by mail are generating great concern, according to Vice President Kamala Harris in a recent speech to the AAPI Unity Summit.

FTC Commissioner Lina Khan, Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud and Director-General of the Foreign Commercial Service Arun Venkataraman

FTC Commissioner Lina Khan, Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud and Director-General of the Foreign Commercial Service Arun Venkataraman

Lina Khan, a Pakistani American law professor at Columbia, was appointed to the Federal Trade Commission, and is anticipated to advance antitrust action against large technology companies.

Anjali Sud, an Indian American CEO of online video platform Vimeo, recently led the company’s Nasdaq debut.

Arun Venkataraman was nominated by the White House to lead the Foreign Commercial Service and to become Assistant Secretary for Global Markets at the Department of Commerce. He is Indian American.

Anti-Asian Discrimination

John Oliver dismantled the “model minority myth” on Last Week Tonight. He explained how the stereotype “flattens Asian Americans into quiet, hardworking, ‘ideal’ immigrant caricatures,” whose apparent success has been used by Whites to conveniently “disprov[e] systemic racism.” Yet at the same time, Asians are “still perpetually treated like a foreigner, still asked where you’re really from, and Asian Americans always seem to be just one geopolitical crisis away from becoming the targets of violence yet again.”

Oliver began the segment by highlighting the extremely diverse heritage of people counted under the label “Asian American”—a political term coined in the 1960s—that encompasses more than 20 countries and “divergent” migration experiences across more than 150 years. He pointed out that the AAPI coalition “is not monolith” and still features “great disparity between subgroups” today.

The award-winning cast of “Kim’s Convenience,” a television show featuring the life of a Korean family in Toronto, has spoken out about disrespectful treatment by the producers, writers and show creators. Simu Liu called the cancellation of the sixth season a “slap in the face,” while Paul Sun-Hyung Lee said the cast were “blind-sided” by the decision. Jean Yoon, who plays the family matriarch, highlighted how “overtly racist” and “culturally insensitive” plotlines were barely avoided only after the cast lobbied to change them. Yoon wrote, “The lack of Asian female, especially Korean, writers in the writers room of Kims made my life VERY DIFFICULT & the experience of working on the show painful.”

60% of Americans say discrimination against Asian Americans has swelled compared with a year ago, including 71% of Asian Americans, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. 57% of Asian Americans say they feel unsafe in public “often” or “sometimes” because of their race. To highlight the ongoing violence, New York state lawmaker Yuh-Line Niou, who is Taiwanese American, shared a video of an Asian woman being punched and knocked to the ground in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Other recent stabbings and assaults have occurred in San Francisco and Culver City, California.

The Asian American Foundation produced an MTV special "See Us Unite for Change” hosted by Ken Jeong, with appearances by actors such as Daniel Dae Kim and Lisa Ling. The music director of the Milwaukee Symphony, Kurt-David Masur, who has both German and Japanese roots, declared “it's time for Asian Americans to stop putting their heads down and enduring discrimination.”

Mental Health Impacts of Recent Racism

Stop AAPI Hate, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Asian American Psychological Association published a joint report about the psychological toll of Asian Americans experiencing racism, finding that:

  • Asian Americans who have experienced racism are more stressed by anti-Asian hate than the pandemic itself

  • 1 in 5 Asian Americans who have experienced racism display racial trauma, the psychological and emotional harm caused by racism (Saw et al.)

  • Asian Americans who have experienced racism have heightened symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and physical symptoms (Chuck Liu et al.)

  • Experience of racism during COVID-19 is found to be more strongly associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms (Cindy Liu & Hahm et al.).

As reported by AAPA: “The long history of Asian Americans facing systemic racism and discrimination in the United States must not be forgotten,” said Dr. Cindy Liu, assistant professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and research director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Cross-Cultural Student Emotional Wellness. “It’s important to consider how the negative effects of COVID-19-related discrimination on the mental health of Asian Americans build on their previous experiences of discrimination.”

In-Depth Feature: The End of the Kingdom of Hawaii

National Geographic ran a feature story of “How white planters usurped Hawaii's last queen” and ended the monarchy. Read an in-depth story in Pro Publica about the history and impacts of Native land dispossession in Hawaii.

Conversations with Creatives
For your monthly fix of creativity:

  • A discussion with Vietnamese American writer Ocean Vuong, a MacArthur “Genius” Grant winner

  • A conversation with the rising artist Olivia Rodrigo, a Filipino-American singer who released her new album “Sour” to rave reviews.

  • An interview with British Chinese actress Jessie Mei Li, who stars in the Netflix show “Shadows & Bone.”

Visit

House Beautiful compiled a short list of notable places related to AAPI history that are worth a visit, including the Kubota Garden in Seattle, the Yin Yu Tang House in Salem, Massachusetts and the Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The Seattle Asian Art Museum celebrated its reopening after being shut down for 15 months.

The National Park Foundation highlights a series of monuments, historic sites, national parks linked to the Asian American experience, including Tule Lake, Manzanar, Minidoka and Honouliuli, places where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during WWII, the Chinese Arch at Golden Spike National Historic Site (also connected to Stanford’s history); photographer Jun Fujita’s cabin at Voyageurs National Park; Sing Peak in Yosemite, named after Chinese USGS employee Tie Sing; and Angel Island Immigration Station in the San Francisco Bay.

Read

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), of Japanese descent, released her memoir “Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter’s Story” chronicling her life and political rise, and the importance of speaking up.

Stanford alumna Annelise Heinz (PhD History, ‘15) wrote a book on “Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture.”

NPR spoke with Chinese American poet Muriel Leung about “generational inheritance” and the impact of discrimination on Asian Americans in her book of poetic essays “Imagine Us, The Swarm.”

Watch

KQED’s “If Cities Could Dance” video series features the city of Honolulu and the “poetry of hula” this month.

Season 5, the final season of “Kim’s Convenience” about a Korean family in Toronto, Canada, is available on Netflix. Though hailed for featuring a mostly-Asian cast, the show’s producers now face controversy (see “Anti-Asian Discrimination” above).

Houston Public Library hosted a live conversation with writer-director-producer Kimberlee Bassford about her film "Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority" (2008). In 1965, Mink, a Japanese American, became the first woman of color and first Asian American woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. The documentary can be viewed on PBS.

Listen

Elle magazine has curated a list of Asian and AAPI artists for summer.

Cat Zhang thoughtfully interrogates the idea of “Asian American music” and asks if there is a common lineage to be found in the political and sonic dimensions of Asian American musical works, rather than just “aggregating [lists of] music based on artists’ common racial identity.”

The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center invited AAPI community members to share their favorite songs to create an eclectic playlist of “music for affirmation and consolation” that serves as a “call to action” and a means to find joy.

E-mail khsu@alumni.stanford.edu with ideas for future Advocacy & Education updates or to volunteer with the editorial team.







Asian American Issues [June 2021]

SAPAAC presents news important to the AAPI community nationally and related to advocacy on the Stanford University campus.

Fighting Hate Crimes and Discrimination

Courtesy of Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom. Find her on Instagram and Patreon.

Courtesy of Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom. Find her on Instagram and Patreon.

President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, the “first legislative action that Congress has taken” to address the rise in hate crimes targeting people of Asian descent during the pandemic. The bipartisan bill, introduced by Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Representative Grace Meng of New York, passed 94-1 in the Senate and 364-62 in the House.

At the White House signing ceremony, Biden shared that “we heard about [the Asian American community’s] pain, their fear, anger...feelings that they felt invisible, not seen. We heard how too many Asian Americans have been waking up each morning this past year genuinely...fearing for their safety just opening the door and walking down the street, and safety for their loved ones. Attacked, blamed, scapegoated, harassed during this pandemic.”

The “historic surge” in racially-motivated incidents over the past year includes more than 6,600 hate incidents according to Stop AAPI Hate. In the first quarter of 2021, there was a 164% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes compared to last year, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. In the medical profession, many Asian doctors and nurses have also reported an increase in incidents.

President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act as a federal response to the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. Source: Senator Tammy Duckworth (@senduckworth)

President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act as a federal response to the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. Source: Senator Tammy Duckworth (@senduckworth)

Community Responses

Within the AAPI community, there are differing views on how to address the challenge, with younger generations favoring more activism compared to older Asians. It has forced tough conversations about identity and belonging, and finding ways to challenge what U.S. Representative Andy Kim of New Jersey has called “feeling like we’re constantly thought of as being foreign in our own country.”

Nationwide, lawmakers and activists are calling for expanded data collection, widespread education for the public, and additional services targeted toward the AAPI community’s needs. In California, those who “believe Asian Americans were ‘frequently or sometimes’ discriminated against increased to 70%” an increase of 15 percentage points compared to last year. 

A new organization, The Asian American Foundation, has launched as a “convener, incubator, and funder for the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.” It will focus on Anti-Hate initiatives to build “long-term solutions for measuring and defending against anti-AAPI violence,” Data & Research to “track incidents of hate and violence targeting AAPI communities” and “data-driven research that identify the needs of AAPI communities to inform future policymaking, advocacy, and philanthropy,” and Education to create “K-12 and higher education curricula that reflect the history of Asian American and Pacific Islanders as part of the American story” and “storytelling across the arts, media and film to include the AAPI experience.” As of late May, it had raised more than $1 billion for these efforts.

To spark your own conversations with colleagues and loved ones, check out the NBC News guide to “combating anti-Asian racism—from relationships to the workplace.”


Clear Need for Asian American Studies

The stream of racist attacks have “renew[ed] demand for Asian American studies programs” as reported by NBC News. “We can’t just hope for another disaster to get people to say, ‘You’re important,’” Prof. Brett Esaki of the University of Arizona in Tucson said. Prof. Pawan Dhingra of Amherst College notes that “fledgling ethnic studies programs decline because junior professors who aren’t full time or permanent have to carry them.”

At the K-12 level, a new law in Illinois, the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History (TEAACH) Act, will “mandate comprehensive Asian American history in all Illinois public schools” starting in the 2022-2023 school year. California previously approved a “model ethnic studies curriculum” in March this year, focused on “illuminating the often-untold struggles and contributions of Native Americans, African Americans, Latino/a/x Americans, and Asian Americans in California.”


Support for Asian American Studies at Stanford

At Stanford, SAPAAC’s working group on this issue, the Asian American Studies Coalition, wrote an open letter to Stanford University leadership in support of strengthening Asian American Studies, which has been co-signed by more than 100 alumni. E-mail asianamerican.workinggroup @ gmail.com to join the effort.


Disaggregate the Data (Federal, State & Stanford)

President Biden issued an Executive Order on May 28 to create the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, which includes a call for “addressing the systemic lack of disaggregated data on AA and NHPI communities in Federal statistical systems.” UCLA researchers found that COVID-19 impacts AANHPI subgroups differently, and that failing to disaggregate data obscures the true impact of the pandemic.

At Stanford, SAPAAC members have called for similarly disaggregating data under the university’s IDEAL initiative dashboard.


Asian Americans in Politics

In New York’s mayoral race, candidate Andrew Yang, who is Taiwanese American, has been deemed a frontrunner. Some competitors have criticized his inexperience in the city’s politics, but political observers suggest there are troubling undertones when these attacks tap “racist tropes...playing on an idea of Asian-Americans as permanent tourists and outsiders” and giving “credence to the perpetual foreigner trope.”

A recent cartoon in the New York Daily News depicts Yang as an Asian tourist with stereotypically slanted eyes popping up in Times Square. Yang responded, “Every time you say that I’m not a real New Yorker, you’re telling another Asian American that they don’t belong.” Yang was born in Schenectady, New York, attended Columbia University, and has lived in New York City for 25 years. His wife Evelyn is from Queens.


Asian Languages & Cultures

Teaching languages on campus is a form of inclusion that pushes back against cultural erasure by helping students access their heritage. Languages at Stanford are at risk of having the number of course offerings reduced due to budget constraints, so it is important that students demonstrate continuing demand for Asian and Pacific Islander language instruction. This month, we feature:

(Cantonese) To support the campaign to Save Cantonese at Stanford, the ASSU Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council unanimously passed a joint resolution calling for the university to restore the Cantonese program’s full set of courses and bring back the full-time Cantonese lecturer.

(Hawaiian) Stanford is home to the first university-level Hawaiian language course outside Hawai’i, according to lecturer Kumu Kau’i Peralto. She started teaching the language full-time at Stanford in 2008. She hopes students will sign up for Hawaiian I (SPECLANG189) this fall—and alumni can help by spreading the word to new and returning students. It is part of an ongoing effort that began in the 1970s to revive the Hawaiian language.

The Stanford course develops language skills and cultural awareness through ceremony (hana pono, pule), songs (mele, oli), dances (hula), storytelling (mo`olelo) and projects (hana no`eau). It also explores Hawaiian value concepts such as responsibility/privilege (kuleana), hospitality (ho`okipa), reconciliation (ho`oponopono), and integrity (pono) in traditional and contemporary contexts.


Entertainment & Representation

Of the top 1,300 films from 2007-2019, only 44 films (or 3.4%) “featured an API lead or co-lead performer” and “only six films were led or co-led by an API woman.” Out of this handful of films, a third of them featured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Read the USC study in detail here.

Hawaiian History & Culture

Vox recently produced a historical highlight about a group of Native Hawaiians activists who won their struggle against the U.S. Navy in 1976 to reclaim sovereignty and preserve their cultural legacy on the Hawaiian island of Kaho‘olawe. In May, two traditional Polynesian sailing canoes, Hokule'a and Hikianali'a, completed a two-week training voyage of 900 miles across the eight main Hawaiian Islands.


Keep Celebrating AANHPI Heritage Month

As we conclude AANHPI heritage month, here are a few more ways to celebrate:

  • Visit 13 historic sites that tell the stories of Asian American and Pacific Islanders in US history

  • View the “Native Voices” online exhibition from the National Library of Medicine, which “tells the story of Indigenous peoples and their health traditions” and includes features of Native Hawaiian practitioners. Access it online here.

  • Share about a U.S. Supreme Court case where Asian Americans fought for Civil Rights. NPR has put together 4 of these cases.

  • Read a work by an AAPI author. Check out the NBC News list of 14 notable books or NPR’s recommended collection of 10 works.

  • The new non-fiction book, Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II was recently published, featuring the stories of the highly-decorated 442nd Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army—composed of Japanese Americans volunteers—and a Japanese American conscientious objector, whose case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

E-mail khsu @alumni.stanford.edu with ideas for future Advocacy & Education updates or to volunteer with the editorial team.

Asian American Issues [December 2020]

An update on issues of concern to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community and activism on the Stanford campus.

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The nation elected its first female, Black and South Asian vice president, Kamala Harris, currently a California senator. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, immigrated from India to the United States, where she was a cancer researcher and civil rights activist. Her father, Donald Harris, from Jamaica, is professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University. Gopalan and Harris met as student activists at UC Berkeley.

The election saw increased Asian American voter turnout, with much higher rates of early and absentee voting in major battleground states, compared to 2016. Political observers suggested that Asian Americans might swing key races, with an estimated “third of all AAPI voters liv[ing] in the 10 most competitive states.” Ultimately, the majority of Asian American voters supported Biden (63%) to Trump (31%), according to an NBC News Exit Poll, while a CNN survey showed Biden (61%) to Trump (34%).

However, the label of “Asian American” includes more than 19 different ethnicities, so the reality is more complicated. As noted in Vox, “AAPI voters’ alignment with the political parties varies quite significantly, with a high proportion of AAPI voters identifying as unaffiliated.” (More survey data here at AAPI Data, broken down by ethnic group.) While the majority of Asian Americans overall voted for Biden, some ethnic communities appeared to shift toward Trump, with motivations partly rooted in geopolitics as well as culture. “What is surprising is that I would have expected a noticeable decline in the percentages [of Asian American votes] given Trump's xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric”—especially during COVID—but that repudiation of the president didn’t happen, observed UCLA Professor Paul Ong.

Part of the problem is that “Asian American” can be a nebulous term, and statistics are rarely disaggregated by ethnic community. Language also poses a barrier to accurate polling. Despite increased outreach to Asian Americans by presidential campaigns in 2020 (see initiatives from Biden and Trump), spending was focused “only in the last six weeks of the election cycle,” according to Janelle Wong of AAPI Data. “This is typical and has been the case our whole lives. No one pays attention to Asian Americans until the weeks before an election...Consistent, long-term investment could make a difference, but it's just not the way that campaigns operate.”

Writing in The New York Times, Jay Kaspian Kang calls for a more nuanced approach to connecting with Asian American voters. He suggests many first-generation immigrants may not identify with the “Asian American” label—they have priorities other than representation in media and national institutions, which is largely a concern of younger (frequently second- and third-generation) Asian Americans. He advises against treating Asian voters as a “monolithic” bloc, and warns against “taking them for granted.” New political alignments may be needed to cultivate the support of the country’s fastest-growing racial/ethnic group—the AAPI population grew from 11.9 million in 2000 to 20.4 million in 2015, or an increase of 72%. Of particular relevance, people of Asian descent also represent the fastest-growing group of eligible voters.

In California, there were divided views among Asian Americans on Proposition 16, which would have allowed race and gender-based affirmative action in the state. The proposition was ultimately rejected 57.2% to 42.8%.

The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus sent a letter to the Biden campaign asking that AAPI appointees make up at least 7% of the Cabinet, in reflection of the community’s share of the overall population. Congresswoman Judy Chu told NBC Asian America that a failure to appoint anyone from the community would send a “terrible message that being inclusive does not require including AAPIs.”

Charles Yu, a Taiwanese American author, won the 2020 National Book Award for the novel “Interior Chinatown”. His humor-laden take features an Asian protagonist—also Taiwanese American—who is “relegated to background roles such as Generic Asian Man, Silent Henchman, and Delivery Guy” in a Hollywood television production. According to Yu, the book explores how “Asians have been excluded...from being Americans for decades.” Transcending parental pressure, Yu transitioned away from a 13-year career as a corporate lawyer to become a full-time writer of novels, screenplays and short stories.


Asian American Studies Working Group


In response to student activism, Stanford created the Asian American Studies major in 1997. However, alumni are often surprised to learn that more than 20 years later, the Asian American Studies Program still has no full-time, tenured professors of its own; and certain critical courses have been offered only on an occasional basis. The Program is striving hard to meet tremendous student demand, but alumni must join their voices with those of students, staff and faculty to help create a stable home for Asian American Studies at the university.

To lend your support or simply to learn more, you are invited to join the Asian American Studies Working Group, an initiative of the SAPAAC Advocacy & Education Committee. Please e-mail asianamerican.workinggroup at gmail.com for an invitation to attend our next Working Group meeting.


— Visit www.sapaac.org/issues-advocacy for other editions of Asian American Issues

Asian American Issues [June 2020]

An update on issues of concern to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community and activism on the Stanford campus.

(Video) Stanford University students marched from campus to Palo Alto City Hall in June 2020. Source: Stanford Journalism

Black Lives Matter Continues: Demonstrations continue across the United States, to affirm that Black Lives Matter and to challenge pervasive anti-Black racism, police brutality, and systemic violence. Nationwide protests sprang up following the murder of an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, by a Minneapolis police officer. His death was captured on video for an agonizing 8 minutes and 46 seconds. It was the latest in a string of deaths to cause public outcry, including Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and more recently Rayshard Brooks, among many others.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across more than 2,000 American cities to make their voices heard. A month later, The New York Times suggests that BLM has mushroomed into “the largest movement in U.S. history.” The effort has gone global, reaching Great Britain, continental Europe, Asia and Australia, as other societies confront their own struggles with racism.

In these challenging times, Stanford groups, including the Asian American Activities Center and Asian American Students Association, have made statements and produced resources for the Stanford community to express solidarity and to take action. The ASSU Senate, students and faculty have also raised the issue in op-eds in the Stanford Daily. Alumni such as Senator Cory Booker (‘91 AB Political Science, ‘92 AM Sociology) have spoken out forcefully. On June 7, a coalition of Black student groups organized a march to Palo Alto City Hall. (Video) All these resources are gathered here on the SAPAAC website.

The protests have spurred Asian Americans to grapple with anti-Black racism; to educate ourselves on a history that includes civil rights, solidarity, contention and activism; to challenge the model minority stereotype that perpetuates inequality; to speak out and spark discussion among different generations of AAPI communities; and to take action in our own lives.




In 2009, students at Stanford University commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre

In 2009, students at Stanford University commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre

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Remembering Tiananmen Square: On June 4, activists worldwide commemorated 31 years since peaceful pro-democracy protests were crushed in Beijing, China. In the spring of 1989, students and city residents had peacefully gathered in Tiananmen Square for several weeks (resource from National Geographic) to demonstrate for reforms, greater freedom, and less corruption, until military tanks were sent in, causing many deaths. SAPAAC members shared their memories on the SAPAAC Community platform, discussing where they were when they first heard the news of the massacre. Some were students on Stanford campus at the time, and felt deeply affected by what happened to their peers. (See historical photos of Chinese students in The Atlantic). A replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue stands in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Last year, the Hoover Institution hosted a retrospective on Tiananmen and Dr. Amy Zegart of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies shared her thoughts on the events of 1989.

More recently, Zoom, a listed company headquartered in California, banned the accounts of U.S.-based Chinese activists, who had organized a remembrance of Tiananmen, creating an uproar in Silicon Valley. The company, which was founded by Stanford alumnus Yuan “Eric” Zheng (MBA ‘06), later apologized for this action.

Signs commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in White Plaza (2009)

Signs commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in White Plaza (2009)

Fossil Free Stanford: Hundreds of students and faculty and the ASSU have called for Stanford University to divest from fossil fuels, a key contributor to climate change that threatens the planet. Stanford alumni added their voices to the efforts, including publishing an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury. Fossil Free Stanford initiated a sit-in on the Quad in 2015 that received international coverage, in hopes of securing a pledge from Stanford, and students’ efforts were renewed this school year.

In fall 2019, the entire UC system announced its decision to divest from coal, oil, and natural gas companies, and by May 2020 had successfully done so. Georgetown University also made an announcement in February 2020, and Oxford University recently decided it too would divest from fossil fuels, joining more than half of UK universities that have already made the pledge.

On May 28, the Faculty Senate chose not to endorse the non-binding ASSU resolution calling for divestment, which prompted Prof. David Palumbo-Liu to write an op-ed calling this a “shame.”

Meeting on June 12, the Board of Trustees decided that Stanford will not divest, but committed to accelerating the campus transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. A week later, the Vatican called on Catholics to divest from fossil fuel companies.

Later in June, the Academic Council revisited the matter, with many faculty in support, though it did not have a quorum to vote.




Celebrations: Katherine Toy (‘91 International Relations, ‘95 AM Education), currently Executive Vice President at Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to the State Park and Recreation Commission.

Five Stanford students have received the Boren Award for language studies overseas. One will study in Kazakhstan, another in China, one in Israel, and two in Taiwan.

"Discrimination is an Occupational Hazard for Physicians of Color" says Asian American doctor

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Dr. Crystal Zheng (‘10, MA ‘11), an infectious diseases physician at the Tulane University School of Medicine, reflects on practicing medicine during the pandemic and the racial prejudice that Asian American doctors, nurses, and patients have faced in these difficult times.

Even before the pandemic, Dr. Zheng observes:

“No matter my cultural identity or professional achievements, I am always shadowed by jokes about my eyes and questions like, ‘But where are you from from?’

In my first week as a medical intern, my supervising physician, also Asian American, overheard a patient refuse my care while calling me a racial slur. With a knowing hint of shared experience, he whispered, ‘You have to have thick skin to go into medicine.’

I now consider discrimination an occupational hazard for physicians-of-color. As a minority in this country, I quickly learned that ignoring racist microaggressions is an essential survival skill.”

Now, with the pandemic in full swing, she shares her concern about an increasing number of racist actions targeting Asians in the United States (which included a hate crime committed against two of her colleagues at Tulane):

COVID-19 has intensified my racialized experience as an Asian American. I have received taunts of “Coronavirus!” and been questioned about my infection status by Uber drivers. With President Trump fanning the flames of xenophobia by using the term, “the Chinese virus,” verbal and physical abuse towards Asian Americans have dramatically increased.

Nationwide, nearly 1,500 cases of discrimination towards Asian Americans have been reported in one month alone. Asian Americans have been abused on sidewalks, grocery stores, and subways. We have been denied services, yelled at, spat on, beaten, and stabbed. We have been discriminated against by our neighbors, our classmates, and even our COVID-19 patients. Like all healthcare workers on the frontlines, Asian American physicians and nurses worry about the risk of infection to ourselves and our families. Meanwhile, we simultaneously have to worry about a second and arguably more pernicious fear.

Read her article in full on New Orleans area’s first nonprofit, nonpartisan public-interest newsroom, The Lens:
I’m an infectious disease doctor and I’m afraid to go to work (and it’s not because of Coronavirus) (The Lens, May 5)

You can also read SAPAAC’s open letter to the White House about taking a stand to protect Asian Americans from coronavirus-related discrimination (SAPAAC.org, April 5)