Fascinasians
Arizona raised, New York grown. Turning my rage into power!
Proud Asian American Feminist.
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Posts tagged chinese american
“Teenage angst” had a different meaning for UC Berkeley junior Victoria Hu in high school.
Most describe it as the insecurities and anxieties of adolescence. But Victoria describes teenage angst in reactive terms — a way to cope with the unthinkable when she was 16, a method to internalize the anger, confusion and sadness over her father’s disappearance.
While peers stressed about AP tests and college applications, Victoria confronted a potential future without her father. He wasn’t dead, but he was gone in other ways — absent from the dinner table and from her family’s life, trapped in legal limbo in China.
In 2008, Victoria’s father, Dr. Zhicheng Hu, a Chinese-American scientist who worked on automobile emissions, left for China in what he thought would be a short business trip. But when a former associate accused him of stealing trade secrets, he was arrested and imprisoned by the local police. He was released 17 months later, cleared of all charges without trial.
However, Dr. Hu still remains in China, living as a caged citizen. While there is no official record restricting him from leaving the country, he has been stopped every time he tries to return home.
It has been five years since the family has been together, and it’s uncertain when — or if — her father will come home.
But Victoria, a political economy major, said she will keep fighting for her father’s freedom. Back then, Victoria didn’t understand the situation, and it’s only marginally clearer to her today. But her former teenage angst has been replaced with a drive to bring her father home, by any means necessary.
“I learned pretty quickly that you choose how you act and what emotional state you will be in,” Victoria said. “I wanted to give my family emotional support. I wanted to step up to the plate and help the situation, instead of keeping the negative feelings to myself.”
Victoria now freely shares her once intensely personal, internalized struggle with the world, using social media to convey her story in hopes of inciting change. It was a bottom-up approach she tried after her mother’s letters to American politicians, asking for diplomatic interventions, remained unanswered.
“My younger brother has been forced to grow up without a father for the past four years,” she wrote on the onlinepetition posted over a year ago. “My mother spent all of her energy trying to bring my father home, and the stress has had a devastating effect on her health.”
The petition now has more than 60,000 signatures. A Facebook page entitled “Free Dr. Hu” has more than 20,000 likes.
Despite the support, little has changed. But that doesn’t discourage Victoria. When the Chinese government blocked the online petition, she wrote, “Let’s keep sailing strong!”
“My general philosophy is that failure is temporary if you’re still alive,” Victoria said. “There are people who have got it a lot worse — they’re in war or fighting. My dad isn’t dead.”
UC Berkeley lecturer Crystal Chang, who researches government and business relations in China, said that Dr. Hu’s situation illustrates that “the rule of the law is not clear in China.”
“Even if there are rules, they’re not always applied consistently, which means individuals can get caught in the ambiguities or the bureaucratic red tape,” Chang said.
Victoria said she recognizes that change will not be immediate and continues with her life as a normal college student. She is busy with her schoolwork, works at a start-up that produces online comics and draws when she can. Last semester, she drew editorial cartoons for The Daily Californian.
“Victoria is very kind, upbeat and generous. When I first met her, I never thought she would be going through something like this because she’s so positive,” said Wenqing Yan, her friend. “But she does have these moments when she does show it is always a weight on her heart.”
Her mother, Hong Li, said she is continually amazed by her daughter’s efforts. The shy 16-year-old her mother remembers has been replaced with a proactive and extroverted girl.
“When this is all over, I want to eventually sit down and thank her, because I really don’t know what made her like that,” Li said. “I can’t summarize how much she’s done besides that she tried her best and she figured it out. It’s really amazing.”
Currently, Victoria is doing what she can: keeping with her social media and trying to learn more about Chinese government and business, which she says actually makes the situation seem more complicated. But other things are clearer to Victoria, things that her formerly “angsty” self might not have understood.
“I’ve learned that everyone has a story they’re not sharing,” Victoria said. “You don’t know what they’re going through, so you shouldn’t be too harsh on them.”
And she’s even able to laugh a bit about her situation, too.
“I’m no suffering artist,” she said, with a smile. “I’ll be okay.”
Contact Sophie Ho at sho@dailycal.org.
My Dad Said I Sounded Like a Slant-Eyed Malcom X
he’s still a misogynist though.
First generation Chinese American Le Le Tong just recently retired was stricken while visiting her hometown in China. While there, she fainted and was admitted to a local hospital where they found bleeding in the brain and had emergency surgery. She is in a local ill-equipped hospital outside of a small, rural village in China. Her family is raising fund for international medical transportation. Unfortunately, her insurance does not cover any of the expenses. The cost to medi-vac Mrs. Tong back to the US for treatment is around $72,000. The family thus far has gone into debt with medical expenses paid in cash to the hospital in China.
On Feb 23, a benefit Lion Dance throughout Chinatown will be held to benefit the family. Please come down to the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, 62 Mott St. on 2/23 to give what you can. You can also make a donation via click-through link.
Her daughter says:
We have simply run out of options. The US Embassy said they can’t help. Medicare & Medicaid does not cover the costs of repatriation. No one in any Federal, State, or local agency has been able to provide us with any information about how we can bring our Mom home.
Ultimately, the purpose of this fundraiser is to bring our mother home to get the treatment that she so desperately requires in order to recover at the most optimal speed. We believe, with a joint effort – together, we should be able to save our mother. Every little bit counts and your generosity is greatly appreciated. Hopefully, with your help – we can get her home before it’s too late.
Please help save our mother.
Please share, signal boost, and contribute if you can.
The Chinese American Community Folk Dance Troupe: dancing for tradition
Tanya Somanader | 2013pic.org
In 2009, dance teacher Ling Tang stood with the crowd in D.C., watching a procession of performers from across the country celebrate the first inauguration of President Obama and Vice President Biden. Now, four years later, Ling and the Chinese American Community Folk Dance Troupe will finally get a chance to be part of the inaugural parade.
In 1992, a group of parents in Hockessin, Delaware formed the troupe as a way to share traditional Chinese dance and culture with their daughters. Twenty years later, 22 young dancers aged 8 to 18 have mastered the art of their ancestors and are bringing their talents to parades around the world. “We danced in London’s 2012 New Year’s Parade and we were the first Chinese dance group ever to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade,” says Debbie French, Director of the Folk Dance Troupe. But little can compare to performing before President Obama, she says. “We’re in complete awe. The girls will remember this forever.”
Ling—who started choreographing the troupe’s routines last year—and the dancers have been putting in extra hours to prepare for the big day. The troupe includes fan dancers, little lion dancers (an omen of good luck), and ribbon dancers who symbolize joy and happiness. They’ve held three full-day workshops over the holiday and will run a complete dress rehearsal next week.
The girls have chosen to march to “Dance of the Golden Snake,” a traditional Chinese song that is fitting for 2013. “Twenty days after the inauguration is the Chinese New Year, and this year is the year of the snake.” said Debbie. “We’re absolutely thrilled to offer our congratulations and celebrate with Barack Obama in the new year.”
Don’t miss out on any of the inaugural events. Sign up to get all the information you need on the 57th Presidential Inauguration.
22 notes (via demnewswire)
Kitty Tsui
“Community activist and poet Kitty Tsui became the first Chinese American lesbian to come out publicly when her collection of poetry and prose, The Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire, was published by Spinsters, Ink, in 1983.”
Fuck Amy Tan, Kitty Tsui is my new hero. She is who I want to be. Damn.
20 notes (via mermaidheartsongs)
Voting And The Battle For White Cultural Dominance
“It’s not as tortured a connection as it seems. You see, I think the current voting-rights fight isn’t just about politics. Instead, I think of it as just one more battle within a larger war over who gets to be an American and who among Americans gets to control the meaning of America. That war is not just about political rights: it’s about who controls our culture, and that’s something to be very concerned about.
Why? Because culture is at the heart of identity. Our identities–how we are defined, whether or not we are recognized as who we believe ourselves to be and found worthy–drives our politics. When our identities are threatened, we will do almost anything to protect ourselves.
Food, especially food that “swings American,” is a great gauge of American culture and identity. For instance, we think of hamburgers as an all-American food. But hamburger is named after Hamburg, Germany. The hotdog also has German roots. But these are truly American foods. Just as American as chop suey, General Tso’s chicken, and fortune cookies–all also invented in America but that we, nonetheless, think of as Chinese.
I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, back when that La Choy commercial was considered about as offensive as selling water softener as an “ancient Chinese secret.” That was a much more naive time for whites. That naivete was rooted in the unquestioned dominance of whiteness. In fact, so dominant were whites that American was synonymous with Caucasian.”
Interesting take on what America’s ethnic and social minorities have at stake in the upcoming elections.
Excerpt taken / Read the full article at :
http://racefiles.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/voting-and-the-battle-for-white-cultural-dominance/
by Scott Nakagawa
-MVDE
25 notes (via thisisnotasian)
18mr:
Evan Low, the gay Chinese vice mayor of Campbell, CA, was verbally assaulted over the weekend about his race and sexuality. Ugh.
Even with a record number of Asian American/Pacific Islanders running for public office this November, hate and discrimination persist.
Evan, I love you.
I’ve got one more post in the queue, but now I’m in Vegas for the OCA National Conference so I’ll be offline!
If you’re there, look for me! Come to the college track tomorrow. It’s free!
Lessons Learned From Vincent
Vincent Chin would have been 57 today. But the Michigan man never made it out of his 20s. Instead, 30 years ago this week Chin was brutally murdered when he was bludgeoned with a baseball bat wielded by two white, jobless auto workers who thought Chin, a Chinese-American man, was Japanese. “It’s because of you little [expletive] that we’re out of work,” witnesses said Ronald Ebens yelled at Chin before he and his stepson Michael Nitz trailed Chin and attacked him.
Chin’s Asianness made him a target at a time when it was popular to blame Japanese automakers for the crumbling U.S. auto industry. His death, and the protracted and largely unsuccessful fight to bring his killers to justice galvanized Asian-Americans, spurring the community to organize and act and speak out. On the 30th anniversary of his killing, civil rights advocates are telling his story again with fresh urgency. As racialized hate trains its eye on new targets, communities of color have had to learn and relearn the lessons Chin’s death offered many times over in the decades since.
Here now, civil rights advocates and activists offer up the key lessons they’ve carried with them in the 30 years since Chin was killed.
Sharing our stories and knowing our history is a necessary, political act. The effort to keep the lessons of Chin’s death and the fight for justice from being swallowed up by the unstoppable passage of time is not about any romantic nostalgia—understanding the past is key to making sense of the ongoing fight for justice today, activists say.
“The facts of the story are never going to change. It’s never going to have a happy ending, but it can move people to get indignant. It can move people to action,” said Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, a Michigan-based writer and activist. It’s often said that in the the aftermath of Chin’s murder, the Asian-American community was born. Asian Americans, who tended to identify by ethnicity first, came to unite around a new political identity. Chin became a symbol in the Asian-American civil rights movement, a reminder that the struggle for justice is never quite over. Wang organized the Vincent Chin Postcard Project to collect exactly these sorts of stories. Among Wang’s favorite responses was one which asked: “How long will it be before we forget Trayvon Martin like we forgot Vincent Chin?”
Images and language matters. Dehumanizing language and images make it easier to attack those who are treated as less than fully human. Whatever the community, whoever the target, demagoguery comes with a real human cost. “People who do this are putting our lives at risk,” said Wang. She cited this year’s fearmongering political ads which played on American fears about the economic ascendance of Asian countries. In transparently coded images and words, politicians exploit those fears, but not without with great risk. “People see those ads and even if they don’t fully understand the message of the ad they take away this fear of China, and that makes it dangerous for those of us real Asians who are walking around on the street.”
Immunity from hate is an illusion. “Even within impacted communities, I often hear: ‘Oh, that happened years ago,’ or ‘Oh, we’re going to be good Americans and it won’t happen to us,’ or ‘Oh that sucks for him but that hasn’t happened to me yet.’” said Zahra Billoo, the executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Billoo has organized South Asian, Muslim and Arab communities in response to post-9/11 Islamophobia. “The question becomes: how do you deal with the desensitization of hate? It’s frightening to see that history repeats itself, which is why it’s so important to connect the history.”
“When Vincent was killed it was a wake-up call that Asian Americans had to be vigilant about racist attacks, that they had to be vigilant about how animosity toward Asian countries would continue to have an impact on Asian Americans,” said Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. Suddenly, Kwoh said, Asian Americans couldn’t afford not to be involved and to organize themselves and others, and to build alliances with people who weren’t Asian.
We are stronger when we speak up for each other within and across racial lines. “A lot of times our mistake in advocacy is not to connect the dots between communities. Would we be in a different place if we were speaking out against hate crimes when they weren’t impacting us directly?” said Billoo. “Where I find inspiration is in looking at the Japanese-American community’s evolution around the [World War II] internment issue, in challenging it and continuing to talk about it and broadening that conversation to say: ‘You did that to us. You cannot do that to other people,’” Billoo said.
Justice is also about the small acts of solidarity and community-building. “I’d love if people could ask themselves: are we challenging hate in our daily lives?” Billoo said. “What does it mean to interrupt someone when they’re saying something that’s inappropriate?”
This weekend Asian Pacific Americans for Progress is organizing a nationwide townhall this Saturday, June 23 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Chin’s death. The event which will be streamed live at 2pm ET at www.apaforprogress.org.
Please join AAJC Youth Network in Remembering Vincent Chin!
Hi Friends,
Please join us in commemorating the 30th Anniversary of Vincent Chin.
Vincent Chin was a 27-year-old Chinese American raised in Detroit, Michigan who was beaten to death with a bat by two autoworkers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz. Ebens and Nitz blamed the Japanese for the U.S. auto industry’s troubles and had mistaken Chin to be Japanese. Ebens and Nitz were only sentenced to 3 years probation and fined $3,780 and neither man spent a single day in jail. This was a catalyst which sparked the first Pan Asian movement over civil rights.
The tragedy occurred on June 19, 1982, a week before his wedding.
Now, thirty years later, we would like for you to join us in the commemoration of Vincent Chin by participating in our screenshot/photo campaign and signing our online groupcard. To become apart of our campaign, take a photo of yourself holding a sign that says “Remembering Vincent” to post on http://www.facebook.com/AAJCYouth and follow this link to sign our group card:http://www.groupcard.com/c/_FmLQbt1NxV
We appreciate your involvement in continuing to strengthen the ongoing Asian American movement for civil rights.
Sincerely,
Sydney Nguyen
Avy Kea
Hate Crimes Task Force
AAJC Youth Advisory Council
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