Reappropriate

Tennessee is currently considering a bill that would make it illegal (re: a bonafide crime) to teach about homosexuality. Opponents are calling it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Well, George Takei, in his infinite wisdom, has come up with a solution for Tennessee teachers: It’s Ok to be Takei

I really, really, really want a t-shirt.

I caught this commercial last night while catching up on Hawaii 5-0 On Demand last night (btw, that show is totally off the chain right now; what a cliffhanger!) This commercial made me tear up a little bit, and also made me delighted to see such a positive example of an Asian American father on television.

Why do I have an incredible urge to procreate now?

Goodwin Liu, Associate Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, has been nominated by the Obama administration to the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit. The GOP is trying to obstruct his nomination.

Judge Goodwin Liu, whom I blogged about last year, is facing a critical confirmation vote in the Senate, which may occur as early as tomorrow morning at 10am EST. Former Secretary of Transportation for the Bush Administration Norman Mineta had this to say about Liu’s nomination:

But despite their achievements in the social, legal and economic sphere of American life, Asian Pacific Americans are rarely chosen for the federal judiciary. Among the approximately 875 federal judges with lifetime tenure in the U.S., only 14 are Asian Pacific American. The percentage is even lower among active federal appellate court judges, where only one out of 175 is Asian Pacific American. In U.S. history, there have been only five Asian Pacific American federal appellate court judges.

Shockingly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — the federal appellate court covering the West Coast and Hawaii, where almost 40 percent of all Asian Pacific Americans in the U.S. reside — has no Asian Pacific Americans. Indeed, the Ninth Circuit has not had an active Asian Pacific American federal appellate judge since 2004, even though that court traditionally has had at least one on the bench during the prior 30 years.

That oversight can and should change soon, and the Senate has the opportunity to do that. Professor Goodwin Liu, of the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Law, has been nominated by President Obama to serve on the Ninth Circuit Court. Liu was first nominated more than a year ago, on Feb. 24, 2010. He has waited longer for a full Senate vote than any appellate court nominee during the Obama administration. During that time, he has provided approximately five hours of testimony and submitted over a thousand pages of documents. He has been scrutinized more than any Obama nominee except for Supreme Court justices.

Liu is well overdue for a confirmation vote by the full Senate. As a former Cabinet member for both a Republican and a Democrat, I understand and respect the role that the Senate plays in evaluating presidential nominations. Nevertheless, that evaluation must at some point result in a decision. The Senate should not hide behind secret holds, cloture votes and filibuster threats to prevent an up or down vote. When that vote is called, Senators should vote in favor of this exceptionally qualified, measured and inspirational second-generation Asian Pacific American nominee.

Sadly, Senate Republicans have worked tirelessly to obstruct Liu’s confirmation over the past year. Currently, Democrats and Asian American activists are attempting to coordinate a nation-wide campaign of concerned voters to call your senator and urge them to vote in favour of Goodwin Liu’s confirmation tomorrow. The Asian American Justice Center notes that particular attention should be focused to the states of Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and South Dakota.

AAJC is also helping to coordinate and publicize the following social media efforts:

Here are sample facebook & twitter stuff you can use to circulate our call to action:

• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AsianAmericanJusticeCenter/posts/10150248047862803
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/AsianAmJustice/status/70909514903330816

We’re trying to get buzz on #GoodwinCalls twitter hashtag (follow it here) or on our facebook fanpage wall to capture ppl making calls. If you made a call let us know about it!

 Please call your senator today, and publicize these efforts to your network!

Judge Edward M Chen's nomination to the US District Court for Northern California was confirmed today by the Senate in a 56-42 vote.

Just heard the news through my email and Facebook that Judge Edward Chen has been confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Judge Chen’s confirmation occurred after a 56-42 vote in the Senate, and represents the seventh Asian American judge nominated by President Obama to be confirmed.

Here’s the full press release from the Asian American Justice Center and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association:

JUDGE EDWARD M. CHEN CONFIRMED AS FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT JUDGE

WASHINGTON – Today, the Senate voted 56-42 to confirm Judge Edward M. Chen to be a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.  

“This is a day of true celebration as we congratulate Judge Chen on his long-awaited confirmation vote,” said Paul O. Hirose, president of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. “He has been an exemplary federal magistrate judge, and we know that he will be an equally excellent federal district court judge. Judge Chen has been an active member of the Asian Pacific American community for a long time and a hero to many of us, and we are so proud of him today.”

With Senate confirmation of the nomination of Judge Chen, President Obama has confirmed more Asian Pacific American federal judges than any other President in history (emphasis added). There are now 14 active Asian Pacific American Article III judges in the nation, 7 of whom were nominated by President Obama.

“Judge Chen has been a tremendous leader within the Asian Pacific American community and a great example to all Americans. We could not be happier for Judge Chen, or prouder of his achievement,” said Karen K. Narasaki, president and executive director of the Asian American Justice Center. “The Asian Pacific American community applauds the President’s continued commitment to diversity and thanks all those Senators who agreed to end debate on his nomination and give Judge Chen the vote that he deserves.”

Judge Chen is the first Asian Pacific American to serve as an Article III judge in San Francisco. He has served as a U.S. magistrate judge for the Northern District of California since 2001, where he was the first-ever Asian Pacific American federal judge in the 150-year history of that court. Prior to the bench, Judge Chen had over 20 years of litigation experience, including serving on the legal team that overturned the conviction of Fred Korematsu in a coram nobis case. Judge Chen is the recipient of numerous awards, including “Judge of the Year” from the Barristers Club of San Francisco in 2007, California Law Review’s “Alumnus of the Year” in 2002, and NAPABA’s highest honor, its Trailblazer Award, in 2001.

NAPABA and AAJC are proud to have supported Judge Chen. The organizations applaud President Obama for his nomination, Senate Majority Leader Reid for bringing Judge Chen’s nomination for a vote, and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein for her stalwart support of Judge Chen. NAPABA and AAJC also thank California Sen. Barbara Boxer and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy for their unwavering support of his nomination, and the Senate Republican Leadership for agreeing to the expedited time agreement before Judge Chen’s roll call vote.

Of Paper Tigers and Men...

By now, Wesley Yang’s latest New York magazine piece, titled “Paper Tigers” – a lengthy, self-aggrandizing rant against the model minority — has made a dizzying circuit around the Internet, spreading furiously through the inboxes of Asian American bloggers like a bad rash. And yes, I, too, have slogged my way through all twelve pages of Yang’s article.

It would be safe to say that I am not amused.

Now, discussions of the Asian American identity are nothing new in Asian American circles, but where these discussions become problematic are when they begin, as Yang does, not with questions surrounding the model minority myth, but with an assumption of a “model minority fact“. In his article, Yang spends an inordinate amount of time characterizing the typical Asian American as pious, non-aggressive, and nerdy. Yang further asserts that these “inherently Asian” characteristics are responsible for everything from the Bamboo Ceiling — the underrepresentation of Asian Americans in upper managements — to the difficulties Asian men face in the dating game. Like Amy Chua, author of “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother“, Yang juxtaposes the product of the Asian upbringing with that of White children, and likens the former to a debilitating hinderance for upward mobility and social success.

Chua and Yang are correct that the Tiger Mother phenomenon is relatively common amongst Asian Americans — like many Asian American youths of my generation, I am the first-born cub of a textbook “Tiger Mother”. I played piano in lieu of sports. I learned my multiplication tables before I knew the lyrics to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. I went to prep school and extracurricular Kumon. I had home-work – math drills my mother wrote for me — that I had to do on top of my normal homework and my Chinese school homework. Bringing home a B was tantamount to murder.

But do I consider myself successful, yet socially handicapped, as a specific consequence of my oh-so-Asian childhood in the den of the tiger? One could attribute my attendance at an Ivy League school and my budding career in the biological sciences to my strict Asian mother, but this neglects other factors: I, like the children of many immigrants (including but not limited to Asian Americans), am economically privileged, and consequently had access to preparatory classes that others didn’t. I like science. I worked hard. I am more than the sum of my Asian upbringing. As one of my friends put it: the “Tiger Mother” phenomenon doesn’t exclusively describe Asian mothers; it’s a new label for “Foreign Mom Syndrome”, which afflicts immigrant parents of all race and ethnicities. The drive to push second-generation children to excel is common across race and ethnicity, and is associated with a general drive to better one’s life that is shared by most immigrants. Further, the association of Asian Americans with academic neglects the many Asian Americans (East Asian and otherwise) for whom this is not the case: Hyphen Magazine‘s Sylvie highlights the all-but-invisble cross-section of Asian America who are economically and academically underprivileged.

As for my social skills: unlike Yang, I do not consider myself socially castrated. I know how to make conversation, how to toot my own horn, how to behave at cocktail parties, how to dance and joke and be confident in who I am. As an irrepressible optimist, I can’t help but laugh at Yang’s assertion that many Tiger Cubs find it difficult to affect a smile in day-to-day social interactions — or at least I would laugh if I could somehow teach the facial muscles of my green-tinted (?), pancake-flat, round face to approximate such an unfamiliar, Caucasoid configuration.

Yang considers his fantastic description of the Tiger Cub Asian to be  fact,  and in so doing, he deliberately establishes stereotypical characteristics along decidedly racial lines. In Yang’s world, Asians are the model minority, whereas Whites (not North Americans) are socially well-adjusted alpha males; as if bravado and confidence is a racial, not cultural characteristic. We fight against any example of external racism that would typify Asian Americans as one cookie-cutter stereotype or another; how can we tolerate such a blatant example of Asian American stereotyping in our midst? 

Yang lauds the Asian American who rebels against their self-limiting “Asian-ness”, highlighting J.T. Tran’s (aka, the ‘Asian Playboy’)'s ABC’s of Attraction workshop as an prime example of Asians breaking out of this racial fatalism. This, incidentally, is where the article completely jumps the shark: I’ve already ranted against the unabashed sexism of encouraging men (of any race) to view dating as a hunt, and objectifying women as prey. Not only does the Asian Playboy reinforce racial hierarchies of beauty, with the blonde-haired, blue-eyed White woman as the pinnacle of achievement, but it encourages men (of colour) to view (White) women as prizes to be won, used, and ultimately discarded, all in the pursuit of racialized male self-confidence.

Yet, Yang celebrates the Playboy’s sexist schtick as a prime example of Asians breaking out of their inherent nerdiness and into the exclusive realm of the cool. Yang further congratulates himself on having done the same, supposedly by rejecting his genetic programming as an Asian, and by describing in lurid detail his decision to embrace non-conformity.

Except there’s one problem: cool people don’t have to tell people why they are cool.

And that’s ultimately Yang’s problem in Paper Tigers; the article is nothing more than a wordy, chauvinistic, description, followed by disgusted dismissal, of the uncoolness of Asian people, all designed to highlight how Yang is oh-so-much-cooler than the rest of us because he’s willing to say “fuck” a bunch of times in New York magazine. How incredibly edgy and non-Asian of you, Mr. Yang!

From one Tiger Cub to another: Fuck the model minority myth. Fuck stereotyping Asians as meek, mild-mannered, and genetically uncool. Fuck characterizing Asian Americans as one homogeneous, seething mass of sameness. Fuck self-hatred or embarassment over being born Asian. Fuck the ABC’s of Attraction and its exploitation of men and women alike.  Fuck Amy Chua. Fuck the assumed racial binary of White vs Other. Fuck masturbatory, self-congratulatory manifestos written by angry nerds. Fuck desperate rebellion and affected bravado. Fuck trying so hard to be cool. High school is over.

This is the real world. The only people who need to put others down in order to establish their own cool quotient are the people who haven’t found the self-confidence needed to just accept themselves as who they are — Asian or otherwise. I like who I am, Mr. Yang. Why don’t you?