For the past 26 years, AsianWeek has proudly laid claim to being this nation’s largest and oldest English language publication serving the Asian American community. Whether providing the dramatic U.S. Census figures documenting the unprecedented growth of our community, to highlighting injustices against Asian Americans like the ridiculous treason trials of Dr. Wen Ho Lee and Capt. James Yee, to showcasing what is good about America through triumphs in the fields of politics, business, sports, arts and culture (to name a few), AsianWeek has steadfastly kept its promise of reporting on all issues affecting our community.
This year, we once again bring you what we feel were the top 10 stories of 2005. Some may contest this ranking, but we felt these stories best illustrated the current Asian American experience. From the humanitarian efforts to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, to the sacrifice by our soldiers, to further gains and setbacks in the political process, to our pioneers in space and civil rights, all these stories we believe reflect the ongoing Asian American journey in America.
Happy New Year.
1. Forgotten APA Victims of Hurricane Katrina
Media portrayals of rescue efforts bring attention to the racial divide between black and white Americans. But Asian American images are left out of mainstream media, though it is estimated that some 200,000 APAs were displaced. With government agencies slow to react, APAs rallied by volunteering and setting up refugee shelters and encouraging victims to avoid overtaxed shelters in New Orleans and Houston. Once again, APAs generously reached into their pockets to help out as they did earlier in the year when it was estimated that California APAs gave more than $250 million to tsunami relief.
For Vietnam War refugees, it is at least their second time losing everything. “They came here with empty hands,” said Trieu Giang. “Suddenly they lost everything they work so hard for. And then that puts them in a really tragic shock.” Giang stressed the need for the Vietnamese evacuees to be comforted. Giang and other leaders also stressed the need for Asian foods to be served to Asian evacuees. Vietnamese restaurants in Austin have cooked for the evacuees, raising their spirits.
– Irwin Tang, Sept. 16, 2005
2. Asian Americans Killed in Action in Iraq and Afghanistan
APAs like generals Eric Shinseki and Antonio Taguba, and Corporal Edward Chin have played a very prominent role in the wars on terrorism. AsianWeek in a nine-month project this year profiled more than 70 APAs killed in action in the Afghanistan and Iraqi theaters. In past wars, APAs won freedoms for their community –– including the repeal of exclusion acts and increases in immigration quotas after WWII. Today’s warriors who made the ultimate sacrifice all have their own personal stories like Rel Ravago of Glendale, Calif. An angry mob had attacked his vehicle in Mosul, Iraq, on Nov. 23, 2003:
Army Spc. Rel Ravago, IV, age 21, graduated from Hoover High School in 2000. He joined the Army because he wanted to serve his own country. Ravago was online wishing his mother a happy birthday the day prior to his death. He told her he had met a Filipina who worked in the Army mess hall. “He was asking his mom to teach him something in Tagalog so he could impress the girl,” his uncle said. “We were all teasing [him] and laughing about it.”
– AsianWeek, Oct. 14, 2005
3. Leroy Chiao Leads 1st All-Asian Crew on International Space Station
After becoming the first American to vote for president from outer space, Leroy Chiao leads a successful tour in the International Space Station with another Asian, Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov.
After the last space shuttle tragedy, Chiao was the first American astronaut to go up into space in 2004. And then last May and back on earth, AsianWeek interviewed him and hosted his guest appearances to students in San Francisco schools during APA Heritage Month celebrations.
AsianWeek: Did you go to Chinese school?
Leroy Chiao: No. I didn’t go to Chinese school… We did, in the home, near the home, speak Mandarin. We used to get fined. We would tell on each other and get fined a nickel or dime because we spoke English instead (chuckles).
AsianWeek: Have you ever gotten [feng shui] advice for the space station or the shuttle?
Leroy Chiao: Feng shui (laughs)? No, no I haven’t. I don’t anything about it. I know what feng shui is. But I don’t feel I can comment on it. It feels pretty good on the station. It kind of feels right.
– Samson Wong, June 3, 2005
4. Fred Korematsu Dies at 86
While APAs have played major roles in the wars on terrorism, Korematsu’s name was invoked again with increasing fears of civil liberties violations at home. The Japanese American sued the government during WWII claiming that the forced internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans was unconstitutional. Then, he tried to pass himself as being white to avoid incarceration. In later years, his devotion to both his American nationality and his Asian heritage made him an icon for the Asian American community.
“For 40 years, I had been wondering, ‘Am I American or not? Or everybody else, like my children: Are they American? [The government] might do this again, send them away or something.’ It bothered me,” said Fred Korematsu last November at the Japanese American National Museum.
– Sam Chu Lin, April 8, 2005
5. Congressman Mike Honda Elected Vice Chair of Democratic Party
California’s Honda (D-San Jose) becomes the first APA to be elected into leadership position of the Democratic Party. His emergence comes at a time when APAs lost influential Congressman Robert Matsui (D-Sacramento) at the beginning of 2005.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and the 18-member California Democratic delegation have also announced their support, calling Honda a “shining star” and the only Californian and person west of the Mississippi River seeking this position.
Honda says he’s running to increase grassroots involvement and community turnout.
“It seems like every time we have a candidate for president,” he analyzed, “our communities are clamoring for attention or revenue or resources. I don’t want that to happen the next time.”
– Sam Chu Lin, Feb. 4, 2005
6. Premiere of S.F. Asian Heritage Street Festival 05/21/05
With only a few months of preparation, this event draws an estimated 50,000 fair goers making it the largest all-Asian event in the nation.
7. 49ers Team Video with Images of Buck-toothed Asian
San Francisco’s pro-football team produces internal video with racist and sexist images, including a scene with a buck-toothed Asian man having difficulty speaking English.
The video came months after a New York radio station’s racist parody of “We Are the World” mocked victims of the tsunami disaster. Hot 97 fired employees, donated over $1 million in relief and apologized after protests and ad cancellations.
The 49ers blunder was quite on the conscience of San Francisco leaders. After release of a police videotape parody this December, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong immediately suspended more than two dozen officers.
A 49er and City Hall report is due in January 2006. At stake is a new football stadium.
“I’m still skeptical that any real changes will be made,” said Chinese Progressive Association head Leon Chow, who added that talk of a boycott, while premature at this point, isn’t entirely out of the question.
“I want to see how these changes are implemented and how they’re enforced. I want to see the [anti-discrimination] language written into the multimillion dollar contracts that the players sign, not just in a handbook. Then I’ll believe it.”
– Bill Picture, July 7, 2005
8. ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and ‘Saving Face’
Movies bridge the divides within APA communities as filmmakers Ang Lee and Alice Wu cross over sexual orientation barriers. Lee and Wu have produced timely films as Asian Pacific America comes to grip with issues like same-sex marriage. The seven recent Golden Globe nominations for Lee’s Brokeback Mountain is a predictor for multiple Academy Award nominations early in 2006.
AsianWeek: Cowboys are not known for openly expressing their emotions. Asians share a similar stereotype. Do you see any parallels between Asians and cowboys in how they deal with taboo sexual subjects such as homosexuality?
Ang Lee: Eastern culture seems more, flexible –– and being gay is more of a social issue than a religious one; there is no deity to offend. The West also seems to tolerate lesbians more than gays because it’s a very macho culture; homosexuality is not okay because it threatens this culture. Of course, this is my observation in general –– I am sure that there are happy gay ranch hands in Wyoming with very sensitive neighbors as well.
– Joyce Guan, Dec. 9, 2005
“I was bored with my job,” Alice Wu recalls. “I asked myself — is this it for me? And I thought of my mom and wondered if she ever had this moment of what to do next?”
And the idea for Saving Face was born. The film tells the story of a 48-year-old Chinese American woman (veteran actor Joan Chen) who gets pregnant but won’t reveal the identity of the father to anyone including her surgeon daughter (Michelle Krusiec), who she herself is hiding her lesbian girlfriend (Lynn Chen) from her mom.
“I thought what if the mother messes up instead of the daughter which is what you would expect?” Wu explains. “I thought that could be interesting.”
– Phil Chung, June 3, 2005
9. Susan B. Ralston in the White House
As Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and Executive Assistant to Chief Strategist Karl Rove, Ralston is arguably one of the most influential Asian American women in federal government. But her closeness to Rove and republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff gets her embroiled in Washington scandals. Ralston may have the answer to the question, “What did Karl Rove know, and when did he know it?”
Investigators later found between five and nine erasures made by Rose Mary Woods, President Nixon’s loyal personal secretary, in this critical segment of taped presidential conversations, but Woods was not charged with any crime because by then, President Nixon had already resigned in disgrace and left the White House.
Now Susan Ralston’s testimony could provide the most pivotal evidence in Patrick Fitzgerald’s two-year-long independent investigation.
Only time will tell if Ralston is just a footnote in history, or the critical player in the unraveling of the Bush White House.
– Phil Tajitsu Nash, Dec. 15, 2005
10. Jun Choi Elected Mayor of Edison New Jersey
New Jersey Shock Jock radio hosts urge listeners to vote against Choi saying, “I don’t care if the Chinese population in Edison has quadrupled in the last year, Chinese should never dictate the outcome of an American election, Americans should.” After winning a close election Choi’s opponent refuses to concede, criticizing the high voter turnout in APA neighborhoods and saying Choi “played the Asian card.” Choi was one of two Korean American breakthroughs in this off-year election –– the other being Sam Yoon’s election to the Boston City Council.
College changed everything. “The world opens up when you first leave home,” says Choi. “I went on this religious, philosophical journey and asked myself: How do I make my life meaningful in the short time I have on this planet?”
One answer: a run for mayor of Edison Township more than a decade later, after earning a master’s in public policy and administration from Columbia University.
A bold move for a man who remembers being painfully shy as a child. “When guests came over to our home,” says Choi, “I would run to the farthest room possible and hide in a closet.”
– Ursula Liang, Aug. 5, 2005
Offbeat Story of the Year
Asian Female Fetish at Princeton University
White male student, 28, secretly poured his urine and/or semen into the drinks of Asian women, cut off locks of hair from Asian women and stole their mittens and underwear.
Shirley Hu, a sophomore at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, said the incident has made no more than a ripple on campus. “It wasn’t like people were really freaked out about it,” Hu said.
Hu said Princeton’s public safety e-mail about the incident did not even mention that Lohman’s victims were all Asian women. “It seemed like a little thing,” she said. “I didn’t think anything of it.”
Now Hu and her peers are taking precautions. “A lot of Asian American women are probably being more wary,” Hu said. “Before, I would just leave my drink there. Now, to be on the safe side, I don’t leave it unattended.”
– Lisa Wong Macabasco, April 29, 2005
You Are How You See
University of Michigan researchers find that Asians and Europeans view the world differently, with Asians observing context and perspective holistically while Europeans concentrated on one element that is most prominent. “Asians raised in North America were in the middle area, between native Asians and European Americans, and sometimes closer to Americans in the way they viewed things.”
And Asians really do see the world differently, showing a holistic curiosity, whereas North Americans seemed focused on what was right before their eyes.
In a previous test, researchers asked Japanese and Americans to look at underwater scenes and report what they saw.
Americans noticed the brightest or most rapidly moving objects like brightly colored fish swimming.
Researchers found that Japanese noticed the stream, details of the water and then maybe mention the fish. In all, the Japanese gave 60 percent more information on the background than the Americans, and twice as much about the relationship between the background and foreground.”
– Emil Guillermo, Sept. 2, 2005
Stay Tuned in 2006
National Security Cases Against APAs Fall Apart
Former Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson backpedals on Wen Ho Lee, Katrina Leung charges are minimized and former Army Chaplain James Yee writes a book –– all during a year when Fred Korematsu’s case continues to be invoked in the war on civil liberties.
General Geoffrey Miller had once given Yee letters of recommendation for his service at Guantanamo Bay, but he was the same person who ordered him to be arrested and imprisoned. Yee says he’s still waiting for an apology from him since his incarceration. In good times, Yee said that he had met privately with General Miller, who shared his feelings about the detainees.
“He was very angry, saying, ‘It was those Muslims who were responsible for the deaths of some of my friends and colleagues [at the Pentagon on 9/11].’ He told me his anger was so elevated to the point that he needed to seek counsel from a chaplain to control that anger,” Yee recounted.
Yee says that his arrest, incarceration, and finally, freedom have impacted him and his family for life.
“I’m still waiting for an apology from the government,” he said.
– Sam Chu Lin, Oct. 21, 2005