Daily Dose: 02/29/08

> Koreatown in the Suburbs
> Monterey Park Tries to Find Itself
> Student Leaders Want ‘Campus Press’ Editor, Adviser Out
> Obama Backs U.S. Bill to Award Pension Benefits to Filipino WWII Veterans
> Lincoln Christian’s Choi to Walk on at NU
> Restaurants Must Rehire Deliverymen, Judge Rules
> Successful Refugee Helps Veterans in Vietnam
> API Voting Rights Problems Revealed
> Mandarin: A Possible Second Language for Michigan State Elementary Schools
> Yale: Task Force Seeks to Widen Asian American Courses
> NYC Raids Chinatown Counterfeit Triangle
> Forbidden City’s Singer, Frances Quan Chun Kan, Dies
> China Considers Scrapping One-Child Policy
> Candidate Wu Has Big Plans for Paris Chinatown
> Vancouver Sets Day to Honor ‘Fei Fei’
> No Mao Suits Here: China is Swingin’ With Love Hotels, Hookup Bars and One-Night Stands

BAY:

Koreatown in the Suburbs

A steady stream of Korean families have migrated to the northwest San Fernando Valley, and today the area has emerged as a significant population center for Koreans in Southern California.

About 1.4 million Koreans and Korean Americans live in the United States. The largest community, of about 350,000, is in Los Angeles County, where the population is centered in Mid-City’s Koreatown.

But as the Korean population has grown, Koreans have changed the face of Valley neighborhoods such as Northridge, where signs in Korean and English announce the presence of churches, hair salons, restaurants and home-goods stores catering to Koreans.

Community leaders estimate 50,000 to 60,000 Koreans and Korean Americans live in the Valley. What’s more, the San Fernando Valley Korean Business Directory lists nearly 1,500 Korean-owned businesses in the area, including acupuncturists, liquor stores and doughnut shops.

— Los Angeles Times

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Monterey Park Tries to Find Itself

Developer Jason Chung is offering Monterey Park — “the Chinese Beverly Hills” — the chance to lure jet-setters from Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong to a steel-and-glass condominium tower. Chung sees it as a first step in enticing wealthy immigrants back to the original Chinese suburb — of whom many have since moved east to newer communities.

City leaders have raised concerns about the development. Monterey Park has many small businesses catering the Chinese community that have left the city starved for tax revenue. Finding mainstream retailers to reverse the trend has been a chief goal in recent years.

Major efforts have already begun, including a 200,000-square-foot Atlantic Times Square project. Mixing national retailers with Chinese mom-and-pop stores is a formula that has worked successfully in other cities.

The city’s Planning Commission denied Chung an extension needed after a rejected construction loan, complaining of delays. He can appeal the decision.

— Los Angeles Times

NATION:

Student Leaders Want ‘Campus Press’ Editor, Adviser Out

BOULDER, Colo. — CU Boulder student leaders called for the replacement of The Campus Press Editor-in-Chief Cassie Hewlings and adviser Amy Herdy during an open forum with the university’s administration recently.

This comes after Assistant Opinions Editor Max Karson’s column, “If it’s war the Asians want … ,” enraged many students and community members who say it is racist and threatening to people of Asian descent. A diverse crowd of approximately 250 people attended the two-hour meeting, where selected individuals relayed their concerns and demands to the editors of The Campus Press and the administration.

Chancellor G.P. Peterson said he would assemble a group to work with the school’s chief legal council to examine any violations to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. And he would work to evaluate the current structure of The Campus Press, present their recommendations and discuss their findings.

— asiaxpress.com

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Obama Backs U.S. Bill to Award Pension Benefits to Filipino WWII Veterans

HONOLULU — U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama supports a bill that would award pension benefits to the 250,000 Filipinos who fought under the U.S. flag during World War II when their country was a U.S. colony.

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee already has passed a broad bill that includes the benefit measure. The full Senate has yet to vote on the legislation.

The veterans joined units under U.S. command at a time when U.S. law mandated that all Philippine citizens owe allegiance to the United States. After the war, however, Congress passed the Rescission Act of 1946, stripping Filipino veterans of their status as U.S. veterans. The move denied Filipinos the same benefits available to other veterans of U.S. military service.

Some 18,000 Filipino World War II veterans survive today, and only a few would remain in another decade.

— Herald Tribune

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Lincoln Christian’s Choi to Walk on at NU

Seung Hoon Choi’s first view of the game came from the window of a car, driving past a field cluttered with teenagers in shoulder pads.

Choi came from Seoul, South Korea. He was a shy type who could barely handle the weights in the Lincoln Christian High School weight room. Now he’s 6-foot-2 and over 320 pounds, and bench presses 450 pounds. To the best anyone knows, he will be the first Korean to be part of the Husker football program.

Choi came to Lincoln for high school because the academic standards back home are intense, and the chances to go to a university are limited.

He has worked to overcome both the language barrier and his shyness. Though still a project on the football field, Nebraska coaches would like to try to mold Choi into something special as an offensive lineman.

— Lincoln Journal Star

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Restaurants Must Rehire Deliverymen, Judge Rules

For nearly a year, devotees of Vietnamese food have encountered deliverymen picketing in front of two of Manhattan’s most highly rated Asian restaurants: the Saigon Grills on the Upper West Side and in Greenwich Village.

Judge Ray Green concluded that Simon Nget, the restaurants’ owner, had illegally retaliated against his 28 Chinese immigrant workers, by firing the deliverymen because they were planning to bring a wage and hour lawsuit against him.

Before being fired, the deliverymen were sometimes paid only $120 for a 75-hour work week, coming to $1.60 an hour, considerably less than the minimum of $4.85 an hour, before tips.

Judge Green ordered Saigon Grill to pay the workers for all the wages they had not received since their dismissal. He also ordered the deliverymen reinstated within 14 days, but that order could be suspended by an appeal by Saigon Grill.

— The New York Times

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Successful Refugee Helps Veterans in Vietnam

WASHINGTON — Ca Van Tran was a translator for the U.S. Marines in Vietnam and barely escaped his country when Saigon fell to Communist forces in 1975. He managed to get to the Philippines, where he was given a one-way ticket to the U.S.

Once in America, he accomplished the American dream, starting as a sweeper in a mall and advancing as a manager and owner of various restaurants. Ca and his family now own a mansion in Northern Virginia.

Ca ventured back to Vietnam, only to learn that his South Vietnamese war mates had been neglected and forgotten.

For this, he has developed two programs to provide Vietnamese amputees with artificial limbs and other forms of assistance for veterans of both sides of the war. His two Virginia-based organizations are Vietnam Assistance to the Handicapped and Health and Education Volunteers.

— New America Media

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API Voting Rights Problems Revealed

WASHINGTON — Congressman Bobby Scott questioned the Department of Justice on barriers for API voters at a voter suppression hearing held by the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Scott, chair of the Civil Rights Task Force of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) and member of the judiciary subcommittee, highlighted studies conducted by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Problems for APIs in the 2006 elections include mistranslated voting materials and inadequate interpreters, hostile poll workers, and improper or excessive demands for voter identification.

Rep. Mike Honda, CAPAC’s chair, agreed with Rep. Scott and has made voting rights a CAPAC priority for the past two congresses.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Agarwal testified that the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division would “look at bringing a lawsuit under Section 2 and/or Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act.”

— CAPAC

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Mandarin: A Possible Second Language for Michigan State Elementary Schools

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Tom Watkins, former Michigan state superintendent of public instruction, believes “it is critical that more of our students learn Mandarin Chinese if we are going to thrive economically.”

He argues that “one-fifth of the world’s population lives in China,” and “Mandarin Chinese has surpassed English as the most used language on the Internet. It is not unusual to have Chinese kindergarten students greet you in English and high school students be fluent in English and Chinese. How many students in your community can do the same?”

Ann Arbor School District will survey parents to find out what language they’d like to see added to the district’s elementary schools.

One new language is guaranteed to be added to Michigan schools by the start of the next school year.

— The Ann Arbor News

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Yale: Task Force Seeks to Widen Asian American Courses

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Asian American students make up the largest minority at Yale University, 14.9% of non-international undergraduates, but many feel their culture is underrepresented due to the lack of an Asian American studies program or major.

Students want the Asian American Studies Task Force to push for more API courses and an increase in the number of API faculty.

Several faculty members acknowledge that more needs to be done to incorporate Asian American studies into the Yale curriculum, but there are no current systematic faculty initiatives to bolster the field.

Although Asian American studies is not an official concentration, some ethnicity, race and migration majors have focused in Asian American studies in the past.

By year’s end, the Task Force hopes to host five faculty events, bringing both Yale and outside professors to speak on Asian American issues.

— Yale Daily News

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NYC Raids Chinatown Counterfeit Triangle

NEW YORK — City investigators raided dozens of storefronts on a triangular block in Chinatown in a major seizing of counterfeit goods with a street value of over $1 million. The city also obtained a temporary restraining order to close the storefronts.

“Counterfeit Triangle” is bounded by Canal Street, Walker Street and Centre Street. The owner of the property must “replace the counterfeit vendors with legitimate businesses and pay a substantial fine to the city before the buildings can be reopened” under the terms of a court order.

The Mayor’s Office hopes to improve the area’s standard of living, which is plagued by adult businesses, night clubs, counterfeiting bazaars and illegal conversions of apartment buildings into hotels.

An illegal massage parlor was also closed. The order includes a $1,000-a-day fine from early January, when the violations were first reported.

Industry representatives applaud the raids.

— The New York Times

ARTS:

Forbidden City’s Singer, Frances Quan Chun Kan, Dies

A known featured singer at Twin Dragons, Forbidden City and Kubla Khan night clubs from the ’30s and ’40s in San Francisco, Frances Quan Chun Kan, died peacefully in the company of her family on Feb. 23.

Chun Kan, who has lived in the Bay Area for the last 47 years, was honored and recognized by the Congress of the United States and the California state Senate, as well as the Chinese Historical Society of America, as a pioneer for entertainers who united to confront the discrimination against Asian Americans.

She joined Forbidden City as a featured singer and performed during wartime tours of the United States on behalf of the Stage Door Canteen, the USO and the Red Cross. Frances retired from show business in 1947.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, March 8th, 1 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland.

GLOBAL:

China Considers Scrapping One-Child Policy

China is considering scrapping its one-child policy after three decades, said Zhao Baige, a senior official for Family Planning.

She wants an “incremental” change in policy, but there are not yet any specifics or a timetable for change. Some form of population control would remain in place.

City families are restricted to one child and rural families restricted to two, but wealthy Chinese are having large families and choosing to pay the standard fines.

It is common for families in cities to have up to three children, but China faces a huge disparity in numbers of females to males, as rural families continue to favor boys.

China has at times considered changing its one-child policy but has always backed off, fearing a massive spike in population growth.

Strict family-planning controls were introduced during the 1970s to combat China’s spiraling population.

— BBC News

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Candidate Wu Has Big Plans for Paris Chinatown

PARIS — A young restaurant manager born in France to Chinese immigrants, Felix Wu, 37, is running for mayor of Paris’ 13th District, which is also home to Chinatown. He is the first French Chinese to seek a mayor’s seat, after lamenting that the district did not have a single councillor of Asian descent.

France is grappling with the idea of promoting its ethnic diversity, with many arguing that it is an affront to the cherished notion that every citizen is “French first.” But descendants of immigrants like Wu are challenging this view.

“They come around once a year for Chinese New Year, and that’s the only time we see them,” Wu said. There are no Asian faces on TV or film, and none in national politics.

“People say to me ‘finally’ when I introduce myself as a candidate for office,” Wu said. “It’s really time that we stopped being invisible.”

— Agence France-Presse

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Vancouver Sets Day to Honor ‘Fei Fei’

The late Lydia Sum was not only a household name in Hong Kong — it seems she was also an integral part of the Vancouver community.

So much so that a special day has been dedicated to her — June 1 will be known as “Fei Fei Day.”

Lydia, who is fondly known as “Fei Fei” (“Fatty” in Cantonese), died at the age of 62 recently. She is known for bringing together performance artists from Hong Kong and contributing to fund-raising events for the immigrant services group Success, raising in excess of $7 million.

The comedienne’s funeral in Burnaby drew a large crowd of about 300. A green tent was also built over Lydia’s grave to shield it from the media’s prying eyes.

“If my mother knows that the Vancouver government has set June 1 as Fei Fei Day, she will laugh her signature loud laughter even in heaven,” said Joyce Cheng, Lydia’s daughter.

— Asian One

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No Mao Suits Here: China is Swingin’ With Love Hotels, Hookup Bars and One-Night Stands

BEIJING — China is in the midst of a sexual revolution from the days when unisex Mao suits and drab austerity were the norm, a byproduct of rising prosperity and looser government restrictions on private life.

But topics of sex are spoken only among close friends, and then usually in a whisper.

As a result, sex education has not kept up with sexual activity. High school girls make up 80% of the patients at Shanghai abortion clinics during one-week school holidays. Studies indicate that 60% to 70% of Chinese have had sex before marriage, up from 15% in 1989.

The no-tell motels in Beijing’s university districts pulsate with sex.

Every weekend, lusty college couples book three-hour blocks of privacy. Students fill half the simple but tidy rooms at the Cheng Lin Ming Guang Hotel.

Compiled by Irene Aranya, Taylor Chen and Bradford Low