Jin the Emcee Rocks Asian Heritage Street Celebration
May 25, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO — The city’s South of Market neighborhood rocked to the beat of rapper Jin the Emcee, one of many headliners who entertained a crowd estimated at 90,000 for the third annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration.
Lingering for autographs and photos, Jin said he “had a blast” during his half hour performance where he invited a few fans to be backup dancers.
Jin performed “American Born Chinese” in Cantonese as he celebrated his roots in one of the nation’s largest APA Heritage Month celebrations. Read more
Coalition Proposes Two Smaller Towers as Option
May 25, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - Community leaders who oppose a new 17-story Chinatown campus of City College, called for two smaller scale campuses instead located in the North Beach/Chinatown area.
Adorned with bright yellow buttons reading “College Campus Yes. Tower No,” members of the Education Coalition for Responsible Development gathered at Portsmouth Square Monday to unveil an alternative 8 and 10-story design by Heller-Manus Architects. Read more
Shadows are Minimal According to Draft EIR
May 25, 2007
Supporters of the single building plan for a new Chinatown City College campus pointed to the findings of the draft EIR, that the project “would not add shade to Portsmouth Square on any day” in Chinatown except briefly around sunrise for less than three months.
Other effects would be the structure’s “unavoidable” impact of visual quality of views from the Chinatown park at Portsmouth. Public transit would also be affected. Read more
Letters to the Editor
May 25, 2007
Marriage Doesn’t Make It Right
Who cares if Jeff Vandergrift is married to a woman of Korean descent (“Letters to the Editor,” May 4)?
So does it make it okay for me to make racist comment to other ethnicities because I’m married to one of them? He made racist comments against Asians.
It’s great to see the Asian American community band together to get these racist DJs fired from their jobs. Read more
The Time to Stand For APA Families
May 25, 2007
After a spring of backroom bargaining, Asian Pacific American families have received the raw end of a U.S. Senate compromise — all made during a celebratory May of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Family reunification has been the incomprehensible sacrifice in the give and take of a so-called comprehensive immigration bill that primarily secures borders and legalizes 12 million undocumented immigrants.
While legislators have preached family values, they have not practiced it. Read more
Nice, Shiny Cancerous Nails
May 25, 2007
When buying cosmetics, consumers usually know whether their purchase should deliver shinier hair, dewy-looking skin or glossy nails. What they usually don’t know is whether those cosmetics are riddled with carcinogens.
One-third of cosmetics on the market contain one or more carcinogens, like formaldehyde, toluene, lead acetate and coal tar. Other carcinogens, like phthalates found in nail polish, cause birth defects or reproductive harm. Read more
Missing Family Values in Immigration Reform
May 25, 2007
Come to America? If you’re a family member, brother, sister, mother, father, forget it. Unless you represent profits to some corporate concern. And then, if that were the case, you must really be special indeed — because in this global economy, it would be cheaper to outsource you and keep you foreign. No need to come here to be an American. Stay home, be a “virtual American,” and don’t bother making the ultimate commute. Read more
The Surgeon General on the State of APA Health
May 25, 2007
AsianWeek spoke to Acting Surgeon General Rear Admiral Kenneth P. Moritsugu, M.D., M.P.H. about the state of Asian American health today. Moritsugu was speaking out at the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center’s Third Annual National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.
What are your priorities with Asian American health?
One of the things we are focused on in the Department of Health and Human Services is prevention. Read more
Pelosi For Family Immigration
May 25, 2007
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke last week on the Senate immigration bill during a Leadership Reception celebrating nonprofit housing development in the Asian American Community.
Pelosi and Doris Koo, president and CEO of Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., a nonprofit capital provider for affordable homes, were honored for their contributions to the APA community. Read more
One Philly Win, One Loss
May 25, 2007
Philadelphia’s May 15 primary election brought one win and one loss for this city’s burgeoning Asian American electorate, but it was enough to move the city one step closer to its first Asian American councilmember.
Contenders for city council at-large Republican David Oh and Democrat Andy Toy battled with candidates from their parties in the May 15 primary. But only Oh garnered enough votes to move into the general election in November. Read more
Ex-Rove Aide Seeks Immunity
May 25, 2007
WASHINGTON — In what is becoming an uncomfortable pattern, the woman who was once the most powerful Asian American in the White House of President George W. Bush, Susan Bonzon Ralston is once again at the center of an investigation into corruption and abuse of power. Read more
Asian and Latino Exclusion Act of 2007
May 25, 2007
The closer and closer I look at the provisions of the compromise deal reached between the White House and the bipartisan group of senators that is being discussed in the Senate, the more evident the underlying racism of the bill becomes. The crux of the problem is the elimination of family reunification categories related to siblings and adult sons and daughters, and the placing of a numerical cap on the parents of adult citizens-a category that had previously been unlimited. Read more