Letter to the Editor: Support Prop 16
March 19, 2010
The Asian Business Association of Los Angeles is writing this letter in support of Prop 16. The Taxpayers Right to Vote is critical to keeping California from reckless spending that can happen when government controls businesses. California’s many business undertakings have been costly over the years and entering the retail electricity business can be a risky move for taxpayers.
As a business association representing Asian American business owners it is a smart vote for our members to requiring government to get voter approval before they can barrow or spend public dollars to create retail electricity.
Please join the Asian Business Association as we support Prop 16.
Sincerely,
Dennis Huang
Executive Director
Black and Whitewashed Up at the Oscars
March 10, 2010
Seattle - Diversity ruled the the 2010 Academy Awards. It was all about the who would be the first woman director (“I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”) or the first black director, or whether Mo’nique won a good award for an awful black part. Even Sandra Bullock won one for the Sara Palin Christian crowd, as there were cracks about Nazis surrounded by Jews. I was almost happy to see that the one movie with an Asian American lead was nominated for five categories, including best picture, original screenplay, and sound editing. “Up” the story about an old man and a pesky scout won Pixar’s fifth Oscar for best animated feature film as well as musical score. But I really got my buns steamed when I realized something was terribly wrong. If Asians are finally pulling head of the West in the Olympics, nobody seems to recognize that in show biz, it is the “model minority” that is the most pitifully represented. That might partly be due to a lack of even a minimal amount of “affirmative” casting and consciousness. But it might also be because we’ve spent so much of our cultural capital taking over Harvard, Stanford and the Boston Symphony at the expense of other cultural territory previously exploited by Asian greats such as Nancy Kwan and Yul Brynner (yes, Buryat on his mom’s side),
The first thing everybody says about the Princess and the Frog is that she was Disney’s first African American princess, even if she’s drawn as a frog for most of the movie. Pixar had cast just about every stereotypical ethnic part EXCEPT Asians, and painted a bleak Asian-free future in WALL-E. But when they finally cast an adorable Asian kid in a long tradition of Asian sidekicks, they not only failed to promote the unique diversity milestone, but they deliberately swept it under the rug. Daveonfilm.com noticed that the screener package sent to the judges traded the picture of Russell’s Asian American boy scout in favor of Carl’s wife Elle. As an adult, she didn’t even have a speaking part in the silent tear-jerker backstory. The awards audience saw only the solo picture of Ed Asner’s Carl. If the entire studio team including co-founder Steve Jobs was there, I couldn’t track down any trace of Jordan Nagai in press pictures, videos or stories. While the Asian American Movement ™ continues to crusade for alternative marriage and Affirmative Action Against Chinese, why is it me, the Asian American Glenn Beck-alike that spills his cold noodles when Hollywood diversity doesn’t even throw Asians a fortune cookie? My other Oscar mugging nomination goes to the score of Princess which was full Disney musical just like the Lion King. While disfunctional blacks have no problem attracting awards, when a movie features a rare feast of authentic African American soul, zydeco and blues, it loses to Up, which didn’t have enough catchy songs to even release as a soundtrack album.
Last year, Clint Eastwood’s Grand Torino was spurned by the Oscars despite or perhaps because of an under-appreciated Asian American cast. I would have nominated Star Trek’s John Cho (of Harold and Kumar Prove Asians Can Be Complete Asses Too) for the other Best Asian American Actor. The only Asian American actresses I noticed was Liza Lapria’s geek FBI agent in the disposable Fast in Furious (which at least outsold Hurt Locker by a bazillion dollars) No East or South Asian film made even a nomination for foreign films which were dominated by 3 Latin American films. Avatar featured two Latinas, both of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, Zoe Saldana as Pocahontas (also Star Trek’s young Uhuru) and Michelle Rodriguez as the chopper jockey. The only Asians I saw that night were the dolphin-clubbing Japanese in “The Cove”, who look like the inspiration for the “premeditated” lone-whale Orca jihad attack against its unfortunate trainer at Sea World.
As a Vietnam war buff, Avatar was hardly about “peace and harmony”. It was a high tech update on the old Cowboys and Indians / Viet Cong / Jihadist theme. If you took Star Wars, National Geographic, Miss Saigon, Dances With Wolves, Blackhawk Down and the Matrix and mixed it all together, you’d get Avatar.
America is oddly unfazed that the FBI still stands by their determination that Major Nidal Hassan’s Fort Hood rampage had no terrorist connection AFTER reviewing e-mails with Al Queda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki asking for “spiritual guidance”. What kind of spiritual guidance do you think he got from Imam Awlaki who celebrated Hasan as hero for defending Islam? How innocent can Awlaki (who wasn’t even named as a person of interest) be when his other student arrived in America in exploding underpants the day after America announced he was thought he had been killed in an airstrike?
Which brings me back to director Cameron’s script which boldly spoke of “fighting terrorism with terrorism” and contemplating “martyrdom”. It was the eyes of an enraged Nidal Hassan that I saw in Jake and pilot Trudy Chacon in Navi warpaint as they sent dozens of hapless “sky people” to their deaths in flames as we cheered them on. As much as any audience can feel the same passion in Avatar’s final “struggle for justice”, that’s exactly what drove people like Hasan or even disgruntled contract software engineers to shoot their comrades or fly airplanes big or small into buildings. Asians have been on both sides since the “The Sand Pebbles” showed how the Chinese pushed the Americans back across the sea before the Viet Cong did. I know what side I’m firmly on, but those who count Yassir Arafat, Che, Ho Chih Minh, Mao or Marx among your heroes might check where your true loyalties lie if you ever have to choose between America, Insert-Your-Race-Nationality-Or-Religion, or Mother Earth.
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Stand and Be Counted in US Census
February 17, 2010
This month, ten questions are coming to your mailbox. Amid the myriad of mail, this is one you will not want to toss. It is the constitutionally mandated decennial Census, which dictates congressional representation, determines how $400 billion in federal funding is spent on hospitals, schools, job training centers, senior centers, bridges, tunnels and public works projects, and emergency services, and creates 1.4 million jobs. Millions of forms, however, will elude the Census, either because people do not know about it or because they are fearful of the assumed consequences of participation, specifically data sharing with immigration authorities.
Nonparticipation costs us dearly. In California, the state with the most uncounted in 2000, the Census missed over 522,000 persons, resulting in a loss of $1.56 billion in federal funds over 10 years. Nationally, for every one percent of forms that go unfilled, the financial cost is $100 million for door-to-door collection of unreturned forms. That’s 3 million people missed, often the minority and low-income communities who could benefit mightily from representation and aid.
The need to participate, then, is vital and we all must do our part to communicate this to our neighbors and our communities. With impending deadlines and with precious little time left, we must redouble our efforts so our counts do not fall short.
First, we must make sure we’ve funded outreach sufficiently. As a member of the House Commerce, Science, and Justice Appropriations subcommittee, which oversees Census funding, I advocated for boosting FY10 funding to over $7 billion and fought several floor amendments to cut Census spending. In California, the story is dismal, given Sacramento’s fiscal shortfalls and the Governor’s misguided priorities: the $25 million in state Census funding in 2000 was slashed to $3 million in 2010. To counteract California’s cuts, I led a delegation letter asking Governor Schwarzenegger to boost funding for community-based organizations that conduct local outreach. Shortly after, the State announced an increase, albeit substantially smaller than needed. In California’s 15th district, organizations like the Silicon Valley Community Foundation have come to the rescue by giving $250,000 to community-based organizations. Given state limitations, it is these local organizations that hold the key to a successful count.
Second, the Census must ensure outreach is targeting hard-to-count communities by speaking their language, since one in five residents speak a language other than English at home. This is particularly important for CA-15 district. In 2007, the San Jose Mercury News reported that Santa Clara County (SCC) is the California County with the highest percentage of immigrants, with 36 percent of its population born outside of the United States. SCC also ranks first nationally in terms of Vietnamese speakers, second in Hindi, third in Chinese and fourth in Farsi. That the Census Bureau increased SCC census staff to 33 in 2010, up from 3 in 2000, will certainly help with outreach to hard-to-count communities. Additionally, the Census is spending much of its $133 million ad campaign to reach linguistically isolated ethnic audiences.
This is a good thing. Television spots in 28 different languages, and consultations with 150,000 business and community groups, indicates that the Census is serious about ensuring comprehension. Yet errors still exist. Guides and forms are still missing the mark, with one poorly translated form for Vietnamese speakers describing the Census as a “government investigation”. One state erred by hiring Chinese linguists in response to a recent request for Korean and Vietnamese specialists. The lack of specialists is impacting a broad swath of Asian Americans, including Bangladeshi, Korean, Cambodian communities and South Asians more generally. We must remedy this and fast.
Third, our outreach to these hard-to-count populations must convey the Census commitment to confidentiality. To use the information for any other purpose puts any Census official at immediate risk of imprisonment. It is a federal offence, one taken seriously by the courts, and one I’ve articulated at every opportunity.
Lastly, our outreach must leave no stone unturned. My meeting with Census’s regional director, my video and online public service announcements, and my advocacy for a strong paid media plan for SCC are representative of the diversity of approach needed. This, along with more traditional press conferences, including statewide conferences we’re organizing on February 26, meetings, and coordinated messaging with community-based organizations, businesses and schools, we can together make sure that we do not fall short of a full count in SCC.
While the 2010 Census will not be perfect, hopefully we avoid a repeat of the 4.5 million missed in the 2000 census. Between now and April, when Census forms are resent, we must do everything in our power to get as close to perfect as possible. Our ability in Congress to shape sound policy depends on it.
Rep Michael Honda is the Chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. This article first ran in the San Jose Mercury News.
Natalie, 8, needs a bone marrow donor to save her life
February 16, 2010
The text message from my good friend Grant Nakatani was chilling: “Leukemia is back. No calls pls.”
After a weekend of fretting over pending blood tests, the Nakatani family’s worst fears were confirmed by her doctors on Jan. 19, 2010. Eight-year-old Natalie’s cancer is back, and this time her doctors tell the family that she needs a bone marrow transplant to live.
I’ve know the Nakatani family since before Natalie was born. Grant, wife Tammy and I all graduated from Cal Berkeley, we go to church together, used to live next door to each other in Walnut Creek, and our 5-year-old boys are best friends. Natalie has acute myeloid leukemia, and, with no suitable donor match in her family or the registries, we’re in a high-stakes race to find her a match even as she goes forward with intense chemotherapy.
Like many of the Nakatani’s friends, I’ve had to quickly learn the ins and outs of bone marrow donation. I was surprised to learn that blood type is not an issue, and that after a marrow transplant, Natalie could end up with a new blood type herself. Natalie is Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese, and experts say a new Asian donor is most likely to save her life.
After an initial diagnosis in 2008 and five painful rounds of chemotherapy, Natalie’s cancer went into remission and she spent the summer of fall of 2009 regaining her youthful vigor. When her family took her for a routine checkup last month, her doctors were concerned. Her platelet counts were low. As they waited for the more tests, Grant worried. “Natalie looks great and she’s happy,” he updated friends. “We’re at her book fair. Trying to stay positive.”
A week later, Natalie was back in the hospital, with no visits from her 5-year-old brother for the duration of the flu season.
Now we’re asking someone who today may be a perfect stranger to the Nakatani family to donate bone marrow stem cells, and as someone who flinches during regular blood donations, I know it’s a significant thing to ask. But even as I got lightheaded reading about the donation process (not terribly difficult, according to those who’ve done it), I made a decision that it’s nothing in exchange for saving a life. I’m joining the national registry at the drive for Natalie in Pleasant Hill on Feb. 20. There are many opportunities to sign up as a donor, but very little time to find the right match for Natalie.
“Our little girl needs an Asian donor match urgently, so please do whatever you can to make it a priority to get tested at a bone marrow drive,” said Tammy Nakatani. “We hope that you will be the special miracle that will save her life.”
Major donor drives are planned for Natalie on Feb. 20 in Pleasant Hill and Feb. 22 at UC Berkeley. More information on drives around the U.S. can be found at hopefornatalie.com, and Natalie’s doctors are also checking international registries. I’m joining the Nakatani family to ask that you get tested – a simple cheek swab – as a possible match for Natalie. Please spread the word - in person, by e-mail, on Facebook, and however else you can – and ask others to do the same.
“There are so many wonderful things to say about Natalie,” said Tammy. “She is curious, joyful, artistic, a great big sister, intelligent, silly, loves life and loves to be around people. We love her so much that it hurts deeply to even be separated from her at the hospital.”
APIs Need to Take a Stronger Stance on Immigration Reform
February 5, 2010
When it comes to the issue of immigration, what quickly comes to American minds? Given that reporters repeatedly write about immigrants crossing the Mexican-U.S. border, the likely response: Hispanics. This focus, unfortunately, has devolved into deleterious scapegoating of immigrants from Central and South America. This is hardly a fair burden for Hispanics to carry, as immigration realities are much more diverse.
Reform will affect millions who emigrated from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, who come with a shared struggle, shared dreams and shared abilities to contribute to this country. Standing side by side, Hispanics are diverse minority groups who will be equally impacted by immigration reform, including Asian and Pacific Islanders (APIs). As chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and as a Japanese-American born to migrant workers, I know firsthand the frustration felt by API immigrants. Our stake in the immigration debate is substantial, our concerns unique, the reasons many.
Drawing District Lines to Ensure Better API Representation
January 27, 2010
Proposition 11—the Voters FIRST Act, which voters passed last year—changes the process by which the legislative and Board of Equalization district lines are drawn. The Voters FIRST Act essentially transfers the responsibility to draw the lines from the Legislature to a new 14-member independent commission made up of citizens from throughout California. It is important that the applicant pool reflect the diversity of the state to ensure all communities are represented in this important process. Applications are only available on line at www.WeDrawtheLines.ca.gov. The application process closes Feb. 12, 2010.
“This is an exciting time in our state’s history,” said California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle. “This is the first commission of its kind in the United States, and we’re ready to take this next step. We’ve already established regulations and laid the foundation for creating the 14-member commission.”
Since the opening of the application period Dec. 15, more than 6,000 applications have been filed. This is an outstanding start to the application process, but the Auditor’s office is always seeking more applicants and more diversity. One area of concern is the lack of applications filed by the API population. Only 4.5% of the applicants are API, yet this group accounts for 13% of the state’s population.
My Journey with Alzheimers: A Caregiver’s Notebook
November 25, 2009
By Collin Tong
It was more than ten years ago, in 1999, when I first discovered that my wife was having serious problems with short-term memory. We were on a walking tour of Provence in southern France when I noticed that Linda had forgotten to bring several items for our vacation.
After we arrived in Paris, we spent a half a day wandering around the city looking for stores to buy contact lens solution, sunscreen, toothpaste, and a face cloth.
I didn’t think anything was amiss until we returned to Seattle that October. Unanticipated events had dealt us a major blow when her younger sister, who had recently had a kidney transplant, died from complications during a routine dialysis. Linda’s memory lapses only increased during her protracted grieving process.
Coworkers noticed that Linda was having more difficulty at Seattle City Light where she had worked for 20 years as an energy conservation analyst. A normally well-organized person, she forgot her appointments and drove colleagues to distraction by endlessly repeating questions.
This was the same Linda who had been so meticulous about gardening, cooking, taking care of the family finances, and just about every aspect of our 38 years together as a married couple. She was always upbeat, vivacious, with an effervescent gleam in her eyes, and the smile that won my heart when we first met in 1971.
Linda took an extended leave-of-absence so that I could take her to see a neurologist, clinical psychologist, and other dementia specialists. All had reached the same conclusion, namely that her short-term memory loss stemmed from clinical depression, a diagnosis that later proved to be incorrect.
I continued my communications director job at Washington State University and put Linda’s memory problems in the back of my mind. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was in denial and slow to face the dreaded possibility that she might be suffering from something more consequential than depression.
Indeed I was only living through the stages of grieving itself: denial, despair, frustration, and increasing isolation from family, friends, and even the person I was caring for.
My normal way of dealing with terminal illness was to not deal with it. Like many people who care for a loved one with dementia, I knew little about Alzheimer’s and was hesitant to learn more. I went to bookstores to scan medical books about the disease, but the more I read the less hopeful I became for any improvement in Linda’s condition.
The daily press of work left me little time to focus on her disability. Instead, I took on additional responsibilities, which was a way of coping with the demands of her slow but irreversible deterioration. My mother in San Francisco had died two years earlier of pancreatic cancer, and I was still in the throes of mourning her death.
As time went on, Linda’s behavior grew more erratic. Our lives became more challenging as her grief over the passing of her sister continued unabated. Overburdened by the demands of work and caregiving, I took early retirement from my university job.
My growing acceptance of Linda’s memory problems notwithstanding, I could not ignore the signs of her cognitive decline. By then, our familiar world was slowly dissolving. She was 57 years old in 2005 when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The news devastated our families and friends. Our lives were about to change profoundly.
Shortly after her diagnosis, I called the Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 Helpline in Seattle and spoke with a very helpful staff employee, Karl Thuneman. Karl and I soon realized that we had been colleagues at the Eastside Journal-American newspaper in Bellevue many years ago. But his dedication to assisting me and Linda through our unexpected life crisis was obvious long before either of us realized we had a connection.
The physical and emotional toll of being a full-time caregiver are daunting. However much one tries to prepare for being a caregiver, nothing adequately prepares one for the challenges of caring for a loved one. I felt overwhelmed with the daily chores of cooking, cleaning, shopping, paying bills, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry, or just attending to the daily necessities of keeping our lives afloat.
We went to church less frequently and began skipping social activities, and even the unthinkable, missing my nephew’s wedding in California. Our absence was felt all the more keenly by our friends because we had been so active in the community before her debilitating illness.
Fortunately, our families in the San Francisco Bay Area and southern California helped us tackle the financial, legal, and related issues such as helping Linda to secure her Social Security disability and retirement pension, my health insurance, our living trust and power of attorney, and health care directive.
Linda’s brother and family spent a week with her when I attended my Peace Corps reunion in New York.
Friends brought over hot meals and cared for Linda whenever I ran errands, visited friends, or needed a break. One retired couple helped mend a broken fence, fix a leaky faucet, and organize our disheveled home. Another bought a new carpet. Our church organized a weekend work party to mow the lawn, and beautify our weed-strewn garden. Still another even helped with more mundane tasks like doing our laundry.
Through trial and error, I learned that while being a caregiver is challenging, help is always available if one is intentional about seeking it. One only has to reach out to others.
Self-care is of utmost importance. Going out to lunch with friends, seeing a Mariners game, or just taking walks were replenishing. Equally important is developing a strong network of supportive friends.
Fortunately, the Alzheimer’s Association became our lifeline, along with our faith community at University Temple United Methodist Church. The Alzheimer’s Association put together a comprehensive care plan for Linda.
Most important of all for me was accepting the inevitable feelings of grief and loss as Linda changed, and acknowledging the things that were beyond my control while making decisions about things I could control.
At the encouragement of a social worker friend, I joined an early-onset Alzheimer’s support group in Seattle. Additionally, the Alzheimer’s Association’s Connections program helped put us in touch with a placement specialist to find Langland House, an adult family home located less than ten minutes away from our home in the Sunset Hill neighborhood of Ballard.
That year, I volunteered with the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2008 Champions advocacy campaign, began getting involved in advocacy work and staffed an information booth at the Memory Walk, the association’s annual fall fundraising campaign. Through the Association, I have met some wonderful, dedicated people. The Association has become an integral part of our support system. In a very literal sense, it became a part of our extended family.
Sadly, ours is not a unique experience. More and more people under 65, that is, baby boomers, are getting early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. At last count, Washington state has more than 110,000 people with Alzheimer’s. About 70 percent of those individuals live at home, and 70 percent are cared for by unpaid caregivers, mostly family and friends.
Worldwide, an estimated 35.6 million will be living with dementia in 2010, a number that is estimated to nearly double every 20 years, according to the 2009 World Alzheimer’s Report.
Because of the unrelenting demands of 24/7 caregiving, taking good care of one’s physical and emotional well-being is all too often given short shrift. Stress and anxiety inevitably lead to social isolation and the downward spiral of frustration, despair and hopelessness.
Fortunately, many organizations exist that provide respite care. I helped enroll Linda at ElderHealth Northwest, an adult day health program located at the Ravenna neighborhood, one of several sites in Seattle, where skilled and dedicated care professionals engage her in daily social interaction that helps maintain her health. Some 36 adult day health centers offer services throughout Washington state. In King County alone, ElderHealth NW serves about 1,400 elderly and disabled citizens.
Organizations such as Volunteers in America also provide invaluable respite care services. In many instances, I turned to friends and family for assistance with taking care of Linda when I needed to take time out from caregiving.
Navigating the formidable challenges of caring for a loved one with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease need not be a private, solitary journey. Indeed, as I learned, it is next to impossible to attempt to surmount those hurdles without reaching out to others. Because of our extended network of family and friends who went the extra mile to be our lifelines and safety net, ours has been a life-transforming and life-affirming journey.
Collin Tong is the former senior director of communications at Washington State University. He is currently pursuing graduate studies in theology and ethics at Seattle University.
*This story is reprinted with permission from Seattle Post Globe and first appeared here: http://www.seattlepostglobe.org/2009/11/12/my-journey-with-alzheimers-a-caregivers-notebook
The Fort Hood Shootings Have Al Qeda Written All Over It
November 20, 2009
When the first reports came out of a terrible shooting at Fort Hood, there was no hints of who might have committed such an act. Then a television station reported that a woman called her parents saying “we’ve been attacked by terrorists” and she heard the shooter cry “Allah Akbar”, which has become known in America as the signature war cry of the 9/11 hijackers. When they finally announced the name of Nidal Malik Hasan, a lot of people instantly knew that it could explain a lot of things. If you’d believe his family who lives “near Jersalem,” he’s a nice all-American boy who wouldn’t harm anybody and never said anything radical or bad about America that was picked on for being a Muslim who was a psychiatrist deeply affected by horror stories of returning veterans.
Clearly the government was concerned about Muslim connections when Obama to asked America not to ”jump to conclusions.” Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano vowed to stamp out the imminent threat of Islamaphobia, while General George Casey bravely stated “as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.” It’s bad enough FBI officials still state the “motivation has not been determined” but the booby prize has to go to Max Fisher who wrote on the Atlantic “Why Home-Grown Islamic Terrorism Isn’t A Threat.”
There’s no need to immediately expel or investigate all Muslims in the military, but what’s with all the op ed pieces that point the blame on Post Traumatic Stress disorder while either leaving out or condemning any mention of Islamic terrorism? We don’t need to get rid of all Muslims, just the ones that think they are on a mission to kill people. The whole problem with the Japanese internment of WWII is that it didn’t stop any real bad guys like the embassy officer who flew around Pearl Harbor taking pictures. Surely Virginia Tech’s Seung-Hui Cho, Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder acted didn’t need a Quran, but that hardly proves this wasn’t terrorism, or wasn’t motivated by radical religiouis beliefs.
If we had proof or reasonable evidence that Hasan was directed or influenced by an affiliate of Al-Qeda to kill soldiers justified by radical Islamic beliefs, then we call it an act of Islamic Terrorism. We don’t need a smoking gun CC of the actual order when “Blind” Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman issued a fatwah, but it was his followers who first bombed the World Trade Towers based on his Rahman’s instructions and religious justifications. The fact that he had advocated an act which had influenced his followers was good enough to justify a life term and making him the one responsible for the attacks. Now if we know that Hasan had been convinced by his spiritual leader to put god first, and that god wanted all good Muslims to kill soldiers, how is that any different?
Though Hasan is a native born American, both of Hasan’s parents are from the same Palestine (as in PLO which revolutionized modern terrorism) which has served as poster child to those with grievances against Israel. His mother was traumatized by her experience in the 1967 Six-Day war as Israel captured the “occupied territories” when she was 15. Hasan’s family still owns land “near Jerusalem” in Ramallah, which is in the occupied West Bank, and the capital of the Palestinian National Authority. While his family states that his parents opposed Hasan’s joining the Army, one wonders if Mom and Dad might have set up little Nidal as a Manchurian Candidate planted in the Army.
Hasan wasn’t just any muslim, he was considered a devout radical even by friends in his own mosque and fellow muslim soldiers. His favorite flavor of Islam was that of his personal spirtual mentor Anwar al-Awlaki, who is widely considered to be the leading English language clearance house for iihadist publications from al Queda, and author/translator of the virtual “lone wolf jihadist bible.” Unlike most of Awlaki’s internet fans, Hasan was an in-person follower at one of Awlawki’s mosques, where the FBI also notes that 3 of the 9/11 hijackers had “developed close relations” and may have had “closed door meetings” with the imam. By continuing to seek out Awlawki in Yemen, Hasan stumbled over a national security trip wire because Awlakwki was on FBI terrorism radar even before 9/11, and he was still deemed worth gathering signals on by US intelligence agencies. The FBI first conducted a counterterrorism inquiry after he was visited by Ziyad Khaleel who helped buy bin Laden’s satellite phone. The FBI also belives Awlawki has contacts with the Holy Land Foundation and others raising money for Hamas, but there was not enough evidence for criminal charges.
Hasan’s 10-20 e-mails worth of “spiritual guidance” starting in December 2008 were handed over to a joint FBI / Defence Department terrorism task force. But investigators promptly hit the snooze button when they didn’t see anything that wouldn’t be at home in a research paper about “Islamic Jihad in the US Army”. [”Imam From Va. Mosque Now Thought to Have Aided Al-Qaeda” By Susan Schmidt Washington Post February 27, 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022603267_pf.html ] One source told the London Telegraph that they decided to keep in in place and monitor him. It was hoped that his contact with Awlawki would lead them to a “big fish”, though they could have known Awlawki was already a pretty big fish. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6532904/Fort-Hood-massacre-Gunman-linked-to-al-Qaeda-as-he-awakes-from-coma.html
London Telegraph Fort Hood massacre: Gunman linked to al-Qaeda as he awakes from coma Nick Allen Nov 9, 2009]
The National Security Agency couldn’t find anything over Bin Laden’s satellite phone either until they figured out the code phrases for terrorist acts.[PBS: Nova The Spy Factory] But there are no hidden messages when Awlawki has called for the faithful in clear text to serve Allah by killing US soldiers. In case there can be any question if he was just kidding, Awlawki’s website announced that Hasan was “a hero” and declared “The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason”. It isn’t hard to guess what kind of spiritual guidance went into the powerpoint slide that warned of “adverse events” if Muslim soldiers were called upon to fight in Afghanistan. Duane Reasoner who had accepted Hasan as his spiritual mentor eerily echoes Awlawki’s statements. Whether it was from Hasan or reading, the notion “They were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims” could only have come directly from the radical Imam.
And where is Awlawki now? His website has gone dark, and authorities have been searching for Awlawki who has disappeared for eight months after having been released from prison. The government’s counterterrorism sweeps have killed many al Qaeda fugitives, and detained hundreds of suspects, possibly provoking the Yemen US Embassy bombing in 2008. Awlawki only popped up in Shabwa province which is part of the ”triangle of evil” so named because it has become a known refuge for extremists, and recruiting al Queda members fleeing other nations. The Washington post learned that Awlawki confirmed that he blessed the killing of soldiers who were about to be shipped off to combat anyways. But since he “neither ordered nor pressured Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to harm Americans”, and insists that it was actually Hasan’s idea that Islam demanded shooting soldiers, we still can’t tie anything to al Queda.
The FBI probably didn’t notice that Hasan’s favorite imam was also a visiting professor at Yemen’s Iman University. Sure, they’ve claimed to have cured 20 cases of AIDS completely, this Institute of Terrorist Technology is runs the ROTC version of the training camps that were shut down in Afgahnistan. Among its notable alumni are people thought to be responsible for killing three American missionaries, the second in charge of the Yemeni Socialist Party, and John “Jihad” Walker Lindh who is prison for being picked up as part of the Taliban army.
The man who founded and leads this fine institution of higher armed resistance in 1995 is none other than Awlawki’s former boss, the red-bearded Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani. This fellow has managed to get himself on the al Queda / terrorist / banned lists of no less than the US Treasury Department, United Nations and the United Kindom. Zindani is still wanted for questioning by the FBI over the attack on USS Cole in Yemen which killed 17 and injured 39. In the good old days when the United States backed the Mujahdeen against the Soviets, Zindani was a recruiter for fighters who was reputed to have fought alongside and was one of Bin Laden’s most trusted “spiritual advisors”. He later helped raise funds and recruit volunteers for the Bin Laden organization.
While Kevin Bacon might be only six degrees away from everybody, Hasan was only two connections away from Bin Laden through Awlawki and Zindani. Zindani is now a prominent businessman and leader of the most radical wing of the Islamic reform party. Back in the early 2000s Zindani ran a Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW) which the FBI called “front organization to funnel money to terrorists” where Awlawki served under him as Vice President. That outfit also had ties to the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, Italy which is a center for al-Qaeda in Europe.[ [Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 243; Washington Post, 2/27/2008] Zindani’s office is now the contact for the Ansar al-Sunna group that took credit for the explosion at an American base in Mosul, Iraq that killed 22. Military commander Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar is Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s half-brother who recruited mujaheddin fighters for Bin Laden who established establish training camps in Yemen. The US Justice Department believes Zindani suggested using charities in Pakistan to bin Laden as a front for terrorists.
In the Yemen Post, Zindani largely denies all of the accusations made against him, adding “America has proved to the world that it is the most oppressive nation in history. It is the country which killed two million and displaced five million in Iraq by a lie it spread to the world. In all its accusations to its enemies it fabricates lies and depends on its arrogance of power”.
Given Zindani’s position as the leading radical Islamist in Yemen and his recent ties to Alwaki, it can only be assumed that any investigation of Awlawki must also look into Zindani whether or not they lead to Bin Laden himself.
Only a terminal case of Political Correctness can explain why nobody (that can’t immediately be dismissed as a right wing kook) from President Obama down can utter the obvious. Fox news contributor Walid Phares was quick to call it a “terrorist act”, and possibly the “largest terror attack on America since 9/11. Phares believes that the Obama admininstration can’t use the t-word because of its rebranding of the “global war on terror” to the “Overseas Contingency Operation”.
Once I heard the name of the Virginia Tech shooter, I instantly knew he was a Korean whose parents worked too many hours in a dry cleaning store who were dissapointed he didn’t get into Princeton. NASA could have recognized and announced in a minute that the “foam strike” people were right about the Space Shuttle. Nobody wants to even speculate about who might have sexually assaulted and stabbed Robert Eric Wone in DC in a house full of the people and devices that could have done the job. Yes, our initial hunches can be wrong, but it doesn’t mean they are wrong, and we can’t get to the truth spending all our resources on everything but the obvious. We have a complete picture linking Hasan to known al Qeda terrorists who all show us their party membership cards and send telegraph a declaration of war to Obama. Few have seen the cartoon “Invader Zim” where a thinly disguised alien invader is liked by everybody except when he continually rants about wanting to destroy the planet. But he is cruelly harassed by a troublesome boy who is the only person crazy enough to realize Zim’s true identity. That explains everything about how the US authorities dropped the ball with the Fort Hood shootings. If McCain or GW Bush were in charge, the US would have sought and charged Awlaki and Zindani within hours. But at this rate our Commander in Chief is clearly in charge of an outfit determined NOT to connect any dots.
The Fort Hood Shootings Have Al Qeda Written All Over It
November 16, 2009
When the first reports came out of a terrible shooting at Fort Hood, there was no hints of who might have committed such an act. Then a television station reported that a woman called her parents saying “we’ve been attacked by terrorists” and she heard the shooter cry “Allah Akbar”, which has become known in America as the signature war cry of the 9/11 hijackers. When they finally announced the name of Nidal Malik Hasan, a lot of people instantly knew that it could explain a lot of things. If you’d believe his family who lives “near Jersalem,” he’s a nice all-American boy who wouldn’t harm anybody and never said anything radical or bad about America that was picked on for being a Muslim who was a psychiatrist deeply affected by horror stories of returning veterans. Clearly the government was concerned about Muslim connections when Obama to asked America not to ”jump to conclusions.” Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano vowed to stamp out the imminent threat of Islamaphobia, while General George Casey bravely stated “as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.” It’s bad enough FBI officials still state the “motivation has not been determined” but the booby prize has to go to Max Fisher who wrote on the Atlantic “Why Home-Grown Islamic Terrorism Isn’t A Threat.” There’s no need to immediately expel or investigate all Muslims in the military, but what’s with all the op ed pieces that point the blame on Post Traumatic Stress disorder while either leaving out or condemning any mention of Islamic terrorism? We don’t need to get rid of all Muslims, just the ones that think they are on a mission to kill people. The whole problem with the Japanese internment of WWII is that it didn’t stop any real bad guys like the embassy officer who flew around Pearl Harbor taking pictures. Surely Virginia Tech’s Seung-Hui Cho, Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder acted didn’t need a Quran, but that hardly proves this wasn’t terrorism, or wasn’t motivated by radical religiouis beliefs. If we had proof or reasonable evidence that Hasan was directed or influenced by an affiliate of Al-Qeda to kill soldiers justified by radical Islamic beliefs, then we call it an act of Islamic Terrorism. We don’t need a smoking gun CC of the actual order when “Blind” Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman issued a fatwah, but it was his followers who first bombed the World Trade Towers based on his Rahman’s instructions and religious justifications. The fact that he had advocated an act which had influenced his followers was good enough to justify a life term and making him the one responsible for the attacks. Now if we know that Hasan had been convinced by his spiritual leader to put god first, and that god wanted all good Muslims to kill soldiers, how is that any different? Though Hasan is a native born American, both of Hasan’s parents are from the same Palestine (as in PLO which revolutionized modern terrorism) which has served as poster child to those with grievances against Israel. His mother was traumatized by her experience in the 1967 Six-Day war as Israel captured the “occupied territories” when she was 15. Hasan’s family still owns land “near Jerusalem” in Ramallah, which is in the occupied West Bank, and the capital of the Palestinian National Authority. While his family states that his parents opposed Hasan’s joining the Army, one wonders if Mom and Dad might have set up little Nidal as a Manchurian Candidate planted in the Army. Hasan wasn’t just any muslim, he was considered a devout radical even by friends in his own mosque and fellow muslim soldiers. His favorite flavor of Islam was that of his personal spirtual mentor Anwar al-Awlaki, who is widely considered to be the leading English language clearance house for iihadist publications from al Queda, and author/translator of the virtual “lone wolf jihadist bible.” Unlike most of Awlaki’s internet fans, Hasan was an in-person follower at one of Awlawki’s mosques, where the FBI also notes that 3 of the 9/11 hijackers had “developed close relations” and may have had “closed door meetings” with the imam. By continuing to seek out Awlawki in Yemen, Hasan stumbled over a national security trip wire because Awlakwki was on FBI terrorism radar even before 9/11, and he was still deemed worth gathering signals on by US intelligence agencies. The FBI first conducted a counterterrorism inquiry after he was visited by Ziyad Khaleel who helped buy bin Laden’s satellite phone. The FBI also belives Awlawki has contacts with the Holy Land Foundation and others raising money for Hamas, but there was not enough evidence for criminal charges. Hasan’s 10-20 e-mails worth of “spiritual guidance” starting in December 2008 were handed over to a joint FBI / Defence Department terrorism task force. But investigators promptly hit the snooze button when they didn’t see anything that wouldn’t be at home in a research paper about “Islamic Jihad in the US Army”. [”Imam From Va. Mosque Now Thought to Have Aided Al-Qaeda” By Susan Schmidt Washington Post February 27, 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022603267_pf.html ] One source told the London Telegraph that they decided to keep in in place and monitor him. It was hoped that his contact with Awlawki would lead them to a “big fish”, though they could have known Awlawki was already a pretty big fish. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6532904/Fort-Hood-massacre-Gunman-linked-to-al-Qaeda-as-he-awakes-from-coma.html London Telegraph Fort Hood massacre: Gunman linked to al-Qaeda as he awakes from coma Nick Allen Nov 9, 2009] The National Security Agency couldn’t find anything over Bin Laden’s satellite phone either until they figured out the code phrases for terrorist acts.[PBS: Nova The Spy Factory] But there are no hidden messages when Awlawki has called for the faithful in clear text to serve Allah by killing US soldiers. In case there can be any question if he was just kidding, Awlawki’s website announced that Hasan was “a hero” and declared “The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason”. It isn’t hard to guess what kind of spiritual guidance went into the powerpoint slide that warned of “adverse events” if Muslim soldiers were called upon to fight in Afghanistan. Duane Reasoner who had accepted Hasan as his spiritual mentor eerily echoes Awlawki’s statements. Whether it was from Hasan or reading, the notion “They were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims” could only have come directly from the radical Imam. And where is Awlawki now? His website has gone dark, and authorities have been searching for Awlawki who has disappeared for eight months after having been released from prison. The government’s counterterrorism sweeps have killed many al Qaeda fugitives, and detained hundreds of suspects, possibly provoking the Yemen US Embassy bombing in 2008. Awlawki only popped up in Shabwa province which is part of the ”triangle of evil” so named because it has become a known refuge for extremists, and recruiting al Queda members fleeing other nations. The Washington post learned that Awlawki confirmed that he blessed the killing of soldiers who were about to be shipped off to combat anyways. But since he “neither ordered nor pressured Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to harm Americans”, and insists that it was actually Hasan’s idea that Islam demanded shooting soldiers, we still can’t tie anything to al Queda. The FBI probably didn’t notice that Hasan’s favorite imam was also a visiting professor at Yemen’s Iman University. Sure, they’ve claimed to have cured 20 cases of AIDS completely, this Institute of Terrorist Technology is runs the ROTC version of the training camps that were shut down in Afgahnistan. Among its notable alumni are people thought to be responsible for killing three American missionaries, the second in charge of the Yemeni Socialist Party, and John “Jihad” Walker Lindh who is prison for being picked up as part of the Taliban army. The man who founded and leads this fine institution of higher armed resistance in 1995 is none other than Awlawki’s former boss, the red-bearded Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani. This fellow has managed to get himself on the al Queda / terrorist / banned lists of no less than the US Treasury Department, United Nations and the United Kindom. Zindani is still wanted for questioning by the FBI over the attack on USS Cole in Yemen which killed 17 and injured 39. In the good old days when the United States backed the Mujahdeen against the Soviets, Zindani was a recruiter for fighters who was reputed to have fought alongside and was one of Bin Laden’s most trusted “spiritual advisors”. He later helped raise funds and recruit volunteers for the Bin Laden organization. While Kevin Bacon might be only six degrees away from everybody, Hasan was only two connections away from Bin Laden through Awlawki and Zindani. Zindani is now a prominent businessman and leader of the most radical wing of the Islamic reform party. Back in the early 2000s Zindani ran a Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW) which the FBI called “front organization to funnel money to terrorists” where Awlawki served under him as Vice President. That outfit also had ties to the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, Italy which is a center for al-Qaeda in Europe.[ [Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 243; Washington Post, 2/27/2008] Zindani’s office is now the contact for the Ansar al-Sunna group that took credit for the explosion at an American base in Mosul, Iraq that killed 22. Military commander Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar is Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s half-brother who recruited mujaheddin fighters for Bin Laden who established establish training camps in Yemen. The US Justice Department believes Zindani suggested using charities in Pakistan to bin Laden as a front for terrorists. In the Yemen Post, Zindani largely denies all of the accusations made against him, adding “America has proved to the world that it is the most oppressive nation in history. It is the country which killed two million and displaced five million in Iraq by a lie it spread to the world. In all its accusations to its enemies it fabricates lies and depends on its arrogance of power”. Given Zindani’s position as the leading radical Islamist in Yemen and his recent ties to Alwaki, it can only be assumed that any investigation of Awlawki must also look into Zindani whether or not they lead to Bin Laden himself. Only a terminal case of Political Correctness can explain why nobody (that can’t immediately be dismissed as a right wing kook) from President Obama down can utter the obvious. Fox news contributor Walid Phares was quick to call it a “terrorist act”, and possibly the “largest terror attack on America since 9/11. Phares believes that the Obama admininstration can’t use the t-word because of its rebranding of the “global war on terror” to the “Overseas Contingency Operation”. Once I heard the name of the Virginia Tech shooter, I instantly knew he was a Korean whose parents worked too many hours in a dry cleaning store who were dissapointed he didn’t get into Princeton. NASA could have recognized and announced in a minute that the “foam strike” people were right about the Space Shuttle. Nobody wants to even speculate about who might have sexually assaulted and stabbed Robert Eric Wone in DC in a house full of the people and devices that could have done the job. Yes, our initial hunches can be wrong, but it doesn’t mean they are wrong, and we can’t get to the truth spending all our resources on everything but the obvious. We have a complete picture linking Hasan to known al Qeda terrorists who all show us their party membership cards and send telegraph a declaration of war to Obama. Few have seen the cartoon “Invader Zim” where a thinly disguised alien invader is liked by everybody except when he continually rants about wanting to destroy the planet. But he is cruelly harassed by a troublesome boy who is the only person crazy enough to realize Zim’s true identity. That explains everything about how the US authorities dropped the ball with the Fort Hood shootings. If McCain or GW Bush were in charge, the US would have sought and charged Awlaki and Zindani within hours. But at this rate our Commander in Chief is clearly in charge of an outfit determined NOT to connect any dots.
War and Peace and Vietnam
November 13, 2009
Andrew Lam, Vietnamese-American Author and Co-Founder of New America Media, was keynote speaker on the occasion of the 14th Anniversary of Peacetrees Vietnam, whose aim is to renew relationships with the people of Vietnam and promote a safe, healthy future for its families & children. It sponsors demining and mine risk education, survivor assistance, and community building projects in partnership with the people of Quang Tri Province. Below is his speech.
Quang Tri has a special place in my heart because when I think about the Vietnam War, memories of that place resurface. I was privileged as a child because I saw it first hand after the carpet bombing of that province. My father was a general who oversaw Quang Tri and Hue near the end of the war and he took me and my siblings there. I saw a ruined city, empty streets, and B-52 bomb craters that were filled up with water after the monsoon and children were swimming in them. That image of children laughing and playing amidst destruction stays deep in my heart.
I struggle to figure out what exactly to say today about Vietnam. My relationship with it remains complicated, with so many contradictions and without any final resolution. But i think of that contradictory image, laughter amidst horror and my relationship with Vietnam is a little like that: complicated, and it keeps on changing with time.
I left Vietnam at 11 at the end of the war. We lost everything when we came to America. We started over as poor exiles. There was a period in which we lived as impoverished refugees, first in the camps, then sharing an apartment at the end of Mission Street in San Francisco with two other Vietnamese families. We struggled for sometime to make it to the middle class.
Vietnam as some of you who are old enough to remember was never an easy to quantify topic, a hard to frame story. The issue of Vietnam keeps changing but as a writer and as someone who came from that country I wonder if, looking at current writing that involves Vietnam, that we really are talking about the same country even after all these years.
Just googling the news last few weeks and here are some headlines:
-CNN: Afghanistan haunted by ghost of Vietnam
-London Telegraph: Barack Obama must stop dithering - or Afghanistan will be his Vietnam -New York Times: The Vietnam War Guide to Afghanistan
-Baltimore Sun: Afghanistan is Obama’s Vietnam
Often times when we mention the word Vietnam in the US, we don’t mean Vietnam as a country. Vietnam is not Thailand or Malaysia. Its relation to the US is special: it has become a vault filled with tragic metaphors - it stands for American lost of innocence, of tragedy, legacy of defeat, and failure. For the time in our history, Americans were caught in the past, haunted by unanswerable questions, confronted with a tragic ending.
So much so that my uncle, who fought in the war as a pilot for the South Vietnamese army, once observed that, “When Americans talk about Vietnam they really are talking about America. “Americans don’t take defeat and bad memories very well. They try to escape them,” he said in his funny but bitter way of his, “They make a habit of blaming small countries for things that happens to the united states. AIDS from Haiti, Flu from Hong Kong or Mexico, Drugs from Columbia, Hurricanes from the Caribbean.”
Then there’s my father who only talk about the Vietnam of wartime. His memories go back to the time when he was a big shot, a warrior, when he fought battles and won. But he couldn’t talk about the aftermath, about losing and the end and ensuing humiliation and the horrible losses. Of his comrades sent to reeducation camps. He can only go further backward to a time before the war was lost. He holds so much anger still on what had happened. He, like so man of his generation, hadn’t been able to go past vehemence, hadn’t been able to make peace with the past.
I’ve been back Vietnam many times. And even coming back I have been trying putting Vietnam into perspective. A long time ago, I moved out of my father’s point of view to my own. Here’s a passage from my book, Perfume Dreams.
” Flipping through my United States passport as if it were a comic book, the young customs man at the Noi-Bai Airport, near Hanoi, appeared curious. “Brother, when did you leave Vietnam?”
“Two days before National Defeat Day,” I said without thinking. It was an exile’s expression, not his. “God! When did that happen?” he asked.
“The thirtieth of April, 1975,” I answered.
“But, brother, don’t you mean National Liberation Day?” he said, while trying to suppress a giggle.
If this conversation had occurred a decade or so earlier, the difference would have created a dangerous gap between the Vietnamese and the returning Vietnamese-American. But this happened a couple of decades after the war had ended, when the walls were down, the borders porous, and as I studied the smiling young official, it occurred to me that there was something about this moment, an epiphany. “Yes, brother, I suppose I do mean liberation day.” Not everyone remembers the date with a smile. It marked the Vietnamese Diaspora, boat people, refugees.
On April 28, 1975, my family and I escaped from Saigon in a crowded C-130 cargo plane a few hours before the airport was bombed. We arrived at the Guam refugee camp to hear the BBC’s tragic account of Saigon’s demise: U.S. helicopters flying over the chaotic city, Vietcong tanks rolling in, Vietnamese climbing over the gate into the U.S. embassy, boats fleeing down the Saigon River toward the South China Sea.
In time, April 30 became the birth date of an exile’s culture, built on defeatism and a sense of tragic ending. For a while, many Vietnamese in America talked of revenge, of blood debts, of the exile’s anguish. Their songs had nostalgic titles: “The Day When I Return” and “Oh, Mother Vietnam, We Are Still Here.”
April 30, 1976: A child of 12 with nationalistic fervor, I stood in front of San Francisco City Hall with other refugees. I waved the gold flag with three horizontal red stripes. I shouted (to no one in particular): “Give us back South Vietnam!”
April 30, 1979: An uncle told me there was an American plan to retake our homeland by force: “The way Douglas MacArthur did for the South Koreans in the fifties.” My 18-year-old brother declared that he would join the anti-Communist guerrilla movement in Vietnam. My father sighed.
April 30, 1983: I stayed awake all night with Vietnamese classmates from Berkeley to listen to monotonous speeches by angry old men. “National defeat must be avenged by sweat and blood!” one vowed.
But through the years, April 30 has come to symbolize something entirely different to me. Although I sometimes mourn the loss of home and land, it’s the American landscape and what it offers that solidify my hyphenated identity. This date of tragic ending, from an optimist’s point of view, is also an American rebirth, something close to the Fourth of July.
Assimilation, education the English language, the American “I”-these have carried me and many others further from that beloved tropical country than the Cargo plane ever could. Each optimistic step the young Vietnamese takes toward America is tempered with a series of betrayals of Little Saigon’s parochialism, its sentimentalities and the old man’s outdated passion.
When did this happen? Who knows? One night, America quietly seeps in and takes hold of one’s mind and body, and the Vietnamese soul of sorrows slowly fades away.
So -National defeat Day? National Liberation Day?
“It was a day of joyous victory,” said a retired Communist official in Hanoi. “We fought and realized Uncle Ho’s dream of national independence.”
Nhon Nguyen, a real estate salesman in San Jose, and a former South Vietnamese naval officer, said: “I could never forget the date. So many people died. So much blood. I could never tolerate Communism, you know.”
Mai Huong, a young, smartly dressed Vietnamese businesswoman in Saigon, had another opinion. Of course it was National Liberation Day, she said. “But it’s the South,” she told me with a wink, “that liberated the North.” Indeed, conservative Uncle Ho has slowly admitted defeat to entrepreneurial and cosmopolitan Miss Saigon. She has taken her meaning from a different uncle, you know, Uncle Sam.
The customs man, on the other hand, stamped my passport, said: “In truth, brother, there are no winners, no losers. You’re lucky, brother. You left Vietnam and became an American.”
**
But that piece was written 15 years ago. I’ve been back several times since then. And I find that there’s always new ways of looking at that country.
A few years ago, for instance, I went back to Vietnam to make a documentary called My Journey Home and I did the touristy thing: I went to the Cu Chi Tunnel.. near Tay Ninh Province, bordering Cambodia, a complex underground labyrinth in which the Viet Cong hid during the war many years ago.
There were several American vets in their late 60s there - they fought in Vietnam and lost friends. They were back for the first time. They were very emotional.
They went to Vietnam to look for the meaning of the past.
But the young tour guide saw it completely different: The old tunnels had mostly collapsed, she told me. It was tourism that forced the Vietnamese to dig up the old hideouts. The young tour guide then told me discretely: “It was a lot smaller back then. But now the New Cu Chi Tunnel is very wide? You know why? To cater to very, very big Americans.”
I jokingly called it Cu Chi 2.0. Another Vietnam vet responded that he now called it, like Charo, the Mexican singer would call it, Cuchi-Cuchi-Cu..
The young Vietnamese guide does not see the past: She has a dream for a cosmopolitan future. She spoke fluent English, made lots of friends overseas due to her job and dreams of Disneyland. She crawled through the same tunnel with foreigners routinely but she emerged with different ideas. Her head is filled with the Golden Gate Bridge and cable cars and two-tiered freeways and Hollywood and Universal studio. “I have many friends over there now,” she said, her eyes dreamy, reflecting the collective desire of Vietnamese youth. “They invite me to come. I’m saving money for this amazing trip.”
I stood there looking at the mouth of tunnel and realized in the end there may never be final conclusion about that war.. There can never be one story about that war, any war for that matter. There can only be stories. Here’s a young woman who looks at tunnel that was the headquarters of the Vietcong and what does she see? The Magic Kingdom. The Cu Chi tunnel leads some to the past surly but for the young tour guide it may very well lead to the future.
It’s a complicated by multiple point views, many sided versions of the same thing. In that sense when we talk about Vietnam we should not simplify but expand, so much so that it becomes the story of people, of human beings rather than any metaphor of tragedy.
**
My own story is that, through the years, I made my own peace with it.
James Baldwin once asked piercing essay, “Which of us has overcome his past?” and promptly answered in another: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” But with due respect, one can chase Baldwin’s grim discernment with M. Scott Momaday’s astute council: “Anything is bearable as long as you can make a story out of it.”
The more mature respond to one’s tragedy is not hatred nor resentment but the spiritual resilience with which one can, again and again, struggle to transcend one’s own biographical limitations. History is trapped in me, indeed, but history is also mine to work out, to disseminate, to discern and appropriate, and to finally transform into aesthetic self-expression.
And it is in stories about Vietnam, in looking at its current needs and its current problems, and trying to offer some insights, that I find my way home.
And I am not alone.
A young Vietnamese American friend of mine from Los Angeles whose sister was killed by Thai pirates while escaping Vietnam recently returned to Saigon where she is now a thriving entrepreneur. Another, the son of a colonel who spent 14 years in re-education, spent his honeymoon in Vietnam, despite his dislike of the Hanoi regime. Yet another friend, whose father was governor of Hue and was in solitary confinement came back, wrote a book and now has a bar in Hanoi.
My cousin whose family’s was robbed of everything has returned from France, married a woman, raised a family, and works in Hanoi. He’s prospering where his father once suffered. That was, he told me, his best revenge.
Another friend went a step further: she was forced to escape as a boat person with her family in the late 70s, has returned with money raised in Silicon Valley to help create a program to help impoverished families in Mekong Delta from selling their children to traffickers. She’s changing the destinies of many others like her for the better.
Having lost the war, these people have emerged as the victors of the peace.
They’ve managed to remake themselves and go on with their lives, and more important, by refusing to let rage and need for vengeance dominate their hearts, some have become active agents in changing Vietnam itself.
So in the end - Defeat or victory, National Loss or liberation, metaphor of tragedy or progress - none of that really matter.
Only lives lived every day matter, only in trying to influence the future for the better matters, and only by addressing present day needs and sufferings that the ghost of the past can be appeased.
And only when one looks at Vietnam through the view of human kindness, and not historical vehemence, that does the country open itself up.
Who was it that said “there’s no East or West when you look up to the blue sky?” There is no North or South either when you look at each other with an open mind and an open heart.
If we want see Vietnam beyond its geo-politics, its troubling history with the US, then we need to open our heart. More important, if we want to see human liberty then we best try to uphold human dignity. And if we want to find peace, we must first find a way to forgive.
And lastly, I just want to leave you with a wise council from the Dalai Lama:
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
It is easier said than done. But it’s certainly what I strive for. And in the face of enormous human suffering, I hope that’s what we all strive for.
(Author, Andrew Lam, writing his speech in Seattle)
Web Popularity Contest: 4 International Colleges and Universities
October 8, 2009
These guys list colleges by a web hit ranking, which has more to do with how famous a college is than how good it is. MIT ranks #1, Caltech is way down the list. It is a measure of how big a “name” your school has. University of Washington gets beat up a lot in reputation for being Seattle’s “local” school, but ranks fairly high in national and international rankings. Worcester Polytechnic ranks no higher than University of Massachusetts Boston (where my wife went), even though it’s a top tech school in Mass after MIT and Olin. But then she says she got great jobs compared to her friends who went to BU, Amherst and WPI. BU ranks higher than Brown (which is harder to get into). Santa Clara ranks higher than WSU Wash State, though WSU is huge in Wash.
I put in the top schools (they disable cut and paste on the web page!) and a few schools that we’re looking at.
International higher education directory and search engine
Colleges ranked by web popularity in 200 countries
2009 University Rankings
Top 200 Colleges and Universities in the World
(MIT beats Harvard, Berkeley, and Yale)
1. MIT
2. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
3. Harvard
4. University of California, Berkeley
5. Cornell University
6. Purdue University
7. Yale University
8. University of Cambridge, UK
9. Indiana University System
10. University of Oxford UK
60. University of Washington
63. University of California, Los Angeles
83. University of Southern California
89. University of California Irvine
101. Boston University
162. Brown University
382. Santa Clara University
757. Washington State University
789. Tufts University
1143. Worcester Polytechnic Institute
1221. University of Massachusetts Boston
1546. Seattle University
Popular colleges in North America http://www.4icu.org/topNorth-America/#
1. MIT
2. Harvard
3. University of California, Berkeley
4. Cornell University
5. Purdue University
6. Yale University
7. Indiana University System
8. University of California System
9. Stanford University
10. Penn State University
11. University of Texas at Austin
12. University of Michigan
13. University of Washington
14. University of Pennsylvania
32. University of Southern California
39. University of British Columbia
40. University of Chicago
44. Boston University
53. Oregon State University
57. University of Oregon
62. California Institute of Technology
66. Brown University
69. Drexel University
71. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Islanders Need Familiar Faces to Connect to Count
September 29, 2009
By Erik Fowle, New America Media
Editor’s Note: As the U.S. Census gears up to count traditionally undercounted communities, it’s relying on partnership specialists who have strong ties to those communities. Elaine Sihoatani Howard, a Tongan-American is one of them. AsianWeek media partner - New America Media has this profile.
The Census is coming. That seems to strike a note of fear in many marginalized, especially ethnic minority, communities in the Bay Area. Residents are either afraid their personal information will be shared with other government agencies or they simply are not informed about, or are unsure of, what the Census is and does.
This is why Elaine Sihoatani Howard, a U.C. Berkeley graduate and Marin resident of Tongan descent, literally dropped what she was doing and signed on with the U.S. Census Bureau this past June. Sihoatani Howard works out of the Bureau’s San Francisco office as a partnership specialist.
Sihoatani Howard’s mother emigrated from Tonga in the 1970s, while her father is of European descent. A self-proclaimed “data-nerd,” Sihoatani Howard once created a map of every Pacific Islander organization in the Bay Area. When Sihoatani Howard showed her map to the chairperson for Pacific Islander Affairs of the Census Race and Ethnicity Advisory Committee, she was asked to join the Bureau’s ranks for the 2010 effort. The Census advertised for a Pacific Islander Partnership but received no response. Next time, Sihoatani Howard decided to answer the call.
Her main task, says Sihoatani Howard, was to develop relationships with community leaders. Sihoatani Howard had already spent much of her time working with organizations and Pacific Islanders interested in helping their communities. As someone rooted in the community, she already knew who was who.
“It’s important for insiders to be partnership specialists,” she said, in order to “help reach people missing out on mainstream messaging.” An “insider” knows how to get to the elder leaders of Pacific Islander communities, mostly born overseas. They “are the gatekeepers to their communities” and “need to be approached in humble fashion,” she said.
The bigger issue at stake is trust.
Communities led by elders do not share the younger generations’ fascination or familiarity with technology, such as YouTube and Facebook and other hi-tech ways of reaching population groups. In order to reach and achieve better counts for these communities, Sihoatani Howard says, they need to be made comfortable, to see a familiar face. She will stress the message that the Census is confidential. The message partnership specialists send to these communities is not “participate in the Census!” but rather, “Can you help us?”
Sihoatani Howard remembers attending a Samoan Flag Day celebration in a particularly hard-to-count San Francisco neighborhood. At one point during the festivities, she became acquainted with a younger member of the community. He was a man in the most widely undercounted 18 to 25-year-old demographic and was unaware of the Census and mainstream advertising for the count.
When Sihoatani Howard provided the young man with a Census information sheet, he was elated, she said, to learn that not only were Pacific Islanders counted as separate from Asians, but that Samoans even had their own box to check.
“We count! We count in America!” Sihoatani Howard remembers the young man shouting, before sharing the news with every other member of his community at the festivities. “He became our Census advocate for the day,” she said, and a “very trusted messenger.”
And when the Census Bureau completes is decennial count in April 2010, Sihoatani Howard, like thousands of other Census workers, will return to their previous jobs, or, as she says with a sigh, begin the search anew.
But without specialists like Elaine Sihoatani Howard, people who stand to benefit from Census counts simply wouldn’t know about it. “Sure,” she said, “many census workers have given up other jobs” to join the brief campaign. But, she continues, “it’s to help our communities. And if not us, then who else?”
