I’m still dwelling on my experience at the annual convention of the Asian American Journalists Association held recently in San Diego. You know, that organization where I used to be a chapter president (Washington, D.C.) and national board member, as well as local peon. But now I just like to stand back and use one column space each year to “make suggestions.”
This year I need two columns.
Perhaps it’s a testament to how interesting a gathering of Asian Pacific Americans in the media can really be.
I mean it’s probably more exciting than a gathering of APAs in their typical occupational groupings. What would the APA proctologists, urologists or ophthalmologists say to each other? Every body part has an APA! Are they more exciting than the APA chemists and engineers? The Asian American String Musicians Association? (Hey, that spells AASMA, call a lung doctor!)
I once accidentally found myself at a dermatological convention, and boy, do they like to gross each other out. Want to see the latest Asian skin maladies? Just think how good that convention is now with all advances in digital technology!
I tried to make up with AAJA last week by saying, I don’t really feel like picking on the group anymore. After 20 odd years of existence, they can’t be any worse than the APA Proctologists. Or any APA professional organization. Should they be more active? More visible? More involved than the proctologists? Is that possible?
I suppose one expects a little more from the journalists. We are, after all, tied to the “public” life. Not just to Mrs. Jones’ colon. Or her arteries. We have a unique place in society, don’t we? Shouldn’t it be about a bit more than just me and Mrs. Jones?
Unfortunately, journalists, proctologists, urologists, gynecologists — we’re just careerists going down different paths. And ultimately, our Asianness doesn’t really matter. Unless we choose to make it matter.
And this is what I discovered: Few of us do.
“WHO CARES?”
In one of the speeches I like to give (go ahead book me), I’ve warned that we may need to prepare for the day when we say “I’m Asian Pacific American,” and the appropriate answer is, “Who cares?”
I think the professional groups have reached that stage, and most of them are just going with the flow, as they say. They hand out scholarships to the young. But everyone else is on his or her own. Competition is fierce, and even your buddies are fair game. Does Asianness give us a sense of “brotherhood?” Not necessarily.
We’re so professional, so good in our fields, so ambitious, we’ve learned to turn our Asianness on or off at will.
Unfortunately, that means that when it suits our own personal goals, we’re really the most Asian. That’s not the community spirit I had in mind.
But I saw some at the convention people who really weren’t into making a big deal about their ethnicity. It was as if their Asianness were foreign to them.
At the AAJA convention, you could see the fault line run generationally. I could divide any gathering by age — those over 40, and those under 40, well under.
Forty is a nice number. By the way, this week marks the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. When Dr. Martin Luther King gave his “I Have A Dream” speech.
It was Aug. 28, 1963.
You know how people get carded at bars based on the date? We could use that date as a benchmark for social activism.
Over 40, and you know that Dr. King wasn’t a proctologist and that the march actually took place.
Under 40, and you haven’t closed your eyes long enough to have the right dream.
TYPICAL MEMBER?
It all dawned on me as I talked with an under-40 Korean American woman at the AAJA opening night.
She mentioned that earlier that day, there was a meeting of the Korean American Journalists Association, KAJA. Imagine a subgroup of AAJA!
But the woman, a television journalist from Virginia, just wasn’t into the subgroup’s militant talk. They wanted action! It was like they were plotting a coup or something.
“I thought they were militant, but frankly, I don’t prescribe [sic] to that culture,” said Min-Jeong Roh of WWBT, Richmond, Va. “A lot of first and second generation Korean Americans really feel they are being persecuted. They worked so hard to get where they are, but no one’s paying attention to them and no one’s appreciating them and frankly I say bullshit to that.”
She was getting hot now.
“I’m Korean,” she continued. “I was born here, but I went to school in Korea, and came here on my own accord and feel [America] is where I belong. And frankly I worked pretty hard to get where I am and I appreciate everything AAJA has done for me.”
She just didn’t like the idea of KAJA splintering off.
“Why be a splinter group? It’s crazy,” Roh said. “It’s very divisive. Sure, you’re not going to get the specialized treatment you think you need. But that’s the thing about Korean Americans here. What I have a problem with is a lot of Koreans think they need special attention. And I don’t think we need any more special attention than any other minority group.
“And frankly I think we’re doing pretty damn well for being a new minority. People say we are wretched and we are this and that and we need to splinter off and make people realize what Koreans are about. I just don’t think we need that kind of attention. I think the Asian American Journalists Association will do everything for us and if we think we need special attention we’ll just do it ourselves. But I don’t think we really need a new organization to do that.”
That’s a typical voice at AAJA these days.
Actually I like the idea of splinters for action. There’s already a SAJA for South Asian Journalists. If the KAJA succeeds, just think of all the splinters that can form. Filipinos can have FAJA; Japanese, JAJA.
Then there’s CAJA, TAJA, LAJA, MAJA, VAJA, for Chinese, Thai, Laotian, Malaysian, and Vietnamese, respectively.
FAJA, JAJA, CAJA, TAJA, LAJA, MAJA, and VAJA? Sounds like five APA anchorwomen.
Or Zsa-Zsa Gabor’s illegitimate sisters.
Will AAJA survive it all? We’ll see at the next AAJA convention in Minnesota. Unless the Hmong take over and call it HAJA.