Sports Briefs
December 31, 2004
Chang Wins Shootout, East-West Shrine Game in S.F. Next
HONOLULU — In his eighth straight win at Aloha Stadium, Timmy Chang became the first college quarterback to pass for 17,000 yards, throwing four touchdown passes and running for another score to lead Hawai‘i to a 59-40 victory over Alabama-Birmingham on Christmas eve. Read more
Don’t Kill Our Messengers
December 31, 2004
A number of political situations are setting the tone for our community as we begin 2005. We start in the Lone Star State, with Hubert Vo’s very narrow election to the Texas Assembly. He is a Democrat and a Vietnamese American. His defeated opponent was a powerful and long-standing Republican incumbent. And now, the Republican-controlled state Legislature is taking steps to order a new election. Read more
Letters to the Editor
December 31, 2004
Blame and Mediation in the Hmong Community
DEAR EDITOR: Good job on the reporting (“The Accounts So Far,” Dec. 2). This terrible event is stirring up a lot of hostility among some whites. It’s really a shame that some people wish to blame Hmong in general. I share some e-mail from people on this issue at www.jefflindsay.com/ Hmong_tragedy.html. Read more
A Year of Bush and Hung
December 31, 2004
President Bush is Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Is that the best they could do? Couldn’t they have widened the pool of candidates? Did they really look at all minorities, people of color, gays and lesbians, the transgendered? Did they consider animals, claymation, perhaps a spiritual deity? I mean, Shrek was around in 2004. That would have been a safe one. Read more
Politically Correct Racism
December 31, 2004
I only recently noticed the campaign charging racism in Lost in Translation, the 2003 film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. The allegations were a complete surprise to me because I rather enjoyed this movie about a story of two Americans lost in Tokyo — without even suspecting such vocal objections could be raised. Read more
Ed Lu: Keeping Space Travel Alive After Tragedy
December 31, 2004
Ed Lu was the first astronaut scheduled to travel right after the Columbia shuttle tragedy of Feb. 1, 2003, that killed seven astronauts. NASA changed his assignment to Star City, near Moscow. “I still think about the friends who were on the Columbia, expecting to see them,” Lu said. “I sewed on a Columbia crew patch on my Russian space suit.” Read more
A Corporate Trainer’s Broken Bamboo Ceiling: Being Asian is a Liability
December 31, 2004
In the 1920s, Chicago School sociologists came up with what they called “The Oriental Problem.” In their view, Asians had strange cultural traits that were inassimilable while at the same time possessing American characteristics. Asian Americans were caught between two cultures and doomed to be “marginal.” Read more
2004: For APAs in Hollywood, the Best and the Worst of Times
December 31, 2004
For Asian Pacific Americans in film and television, this past year was one of high expectations tempered with … disappointments. Or to quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” Read more
In AsianWeek History
December 31, 2004
DEC. 22, 1989
“Pelosi Vows Veto Override”
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi lashed out at President George H.W. Bush for derailing her bill that would offer protection to pro-democracy Chinese students, allowing them to alter their visa status to stay in the United States instead of facing persecution at home. Read more
Nation Briefs
December 24, 2004
First American Samoan Woman Killed in Iraq
TUCSON, Ariz. — Sgt. Tina Safaira Time, 22, is the first female American Samoan soldier who was killed in the Iraq War. She was two months away from completing her 22-month tour. Read more
Sports Briefs
December 24, 2004
Chang Award Honors Cowboys Team Execs
MIAMI —The John Chang Foundation announced that Judy Lai, the mother of the late John Chang, presented the first annual John Chang Award of Excellence at the Dallas Cowboys 2004 Employee Years of Service Awards luncheon. Read more
Raids of NYC Chinese Gangs
December 24, 2004
Last month, 28 alleged members of Chinese organized-crime groups were nabbed in a series of night raids in Manhattan and Queens by the FBI, NYPD and U.S. Customs. Read more