Blast from the Past: After centuries of racism, we're still not laughing. Voices from the Community: Amy Leang's racist experience at ASNE. Emil Amok: The Puckheads Think They're Funny. Lead Editorial: Heh, heh, heh.
	Elaine Chao Visits the Valley (in National News) Beware Rogue Immigration Consultants! (in Bay Area News) Aftermath of the Spy Plane Standoff (in Business) San Francisco International Film Fest (in A&E) Emil Amok: The Puckheads Think They're Funny (in Opinion)

Heh, heh, heh

The crewmen are home. But for Asian Americans, the backlash continues to rip at the community. Most insulting of the offensives included a skit performed at a recent American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) conference and a comic strip by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Pat Oliphant.

In her first person essay, student journalist Amy Leang describes her humiliation as she watched members of the comedy troupe Capitol Steps squawk, “Ching Ching Chong Chong” — the editors of top newspapers from around the country guffawing in response. It was a farce about U.S.-China relations. But Leang wasn’t laughing.

Neither was AsianWeek columnist Bill Ong Hing when he saw Oliphant’s strip depicting a buck-toothed Chinese waiter yelling at a customer, “Apologize Lotten Amellican.”

Asian Americans can have a good laugh every now and then, just like anyone else. But how can we join in the fun when we’re the butt of the joke? We are the foreigners, the ones who are told, “You speak English so well.” We couldn’t possibly be born here — in far too many people’s eyes.

When we are portrayed in an everyday kind of way, maybe then we can laugh at the occasional buck-toothed caricature.