And the hits just keep on coming…

The background is as follows: this past November, Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri laid off all Southeast Asian interpreters at the Rhode Island Department of Human Services. The reasoning was that these translators only come in handy when there are clients who speak “not so commonly encountered foreign languages.”

Of course, there was no thought given to the fact that having native Southeast Asian language speakers on staff at DHS might actually help build trust between the department and the people they serve. Hiring private translators might get the job done on the surface, but it shows that there’s no investment in helping Southeast Asian communities in the state. From what I gather, folks at DHS know this and wanted to keep the interpreters on, but the governor’s budget cut them out. So many youth activists in Rhode Island – many of whom are affiliated with the dope organization PrYSM – criticized the move as racist.

To clarify: I don’t think anyone is saying the governor laid off people because of their race. I think the feeling is that by choosing not to have Southeast Asian language speakers on DHS staff, it shows a lack of care for the thousands of Southeast Asians in the state. And I think there is a reasonable way that the state’s executive branch could respond to that criticism, but…well…read for yourself:

I think they have mentors who are much older than them who are training them up. You know — how those terrorists have kids blow up, you know, Benazir Bhutto and so forth? You think the kids thought of it? I don’t think so.

Rhode Island First Lady Sue Carcieri

First of all: wow.

Secondly: there are so many faulty assumptions in these four sentences, it’s almost like the comment from another planet. I don’t actually know where to begin…but I will try:

1. Just to get it out the way, I never heard any indication that Bhutto was assassinated by youth?
2. The statement completely ignores the issue at hand! Instead she attacks the people who dare have an opinion counter to hers.
3. There is always an assumption that youth who refuse to accept whatever information they are spoonfed by people in power are actually brainwashed. Sorry ma’am, you got it backwards.
4. She calls them terrorists!
5. When asked to apologize, she refused and then said she expected an apology from them!

Anyway, it’s not even a surprise that people in power feel it acceptable to disrespect the powerless. What’s more: she actually turned it around and claimed that she is the one who is offended!

I begin this blog post with two pieces of information, which will seem unrelated. Please bear with me.

1. Yesterday, over at the Hyphen Magazine blog, there was this really interesting entry about the stage revival of Joy Luck Club. Interesting not because I’m a big Amy Tan fan, but more about the personal story that Neela, the post’s author, shares about being 15 and naively loving the movie because any representation – no matter how simplistic and self-loathing the material – was better than no representation. It brought back memories of purchasing Sex Packets by Digital Underground (on cassette!) when I was I guess 10 or 11, and actually feeling kind of proud when the guy in the skit was telling the packet dealer, “give me the Chinese girl man.” It was like, I never heard anybody say anything about Chinese people – except Chuck Norris, who had me actively hating the Chinese villains – and so I was like, “Cool! Digital Underground likes Chinese people! That’s probably because they’re from California…”

2. The Boston Red Sox victory parade was held yesterday as well. A bunch of people at work headed down there, as did my mom. Exciting times, I mean we haven’t had a major sports championship parade in Boston since, man, like, almost three years now! I can barely remember 2005 when the Patriots had the thing, then in 2004 the Patriots and the Red Sox won, and if I stretch, I can vaguely recall 2002 when the Patriots won the Super Bowl. Imagine, for some toddlers, this is their very first Boston team championship! But the one thing that has struck me as really bizarre for several years is the songs the Red Sox have chosen to affiliate themselves with.

The two I’m thinking of are “Dirty Water” by the Standells and “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond. The former is about how Boston is home to “muggers and thieves” and how women have to “be in by 12 o’clock.” The latter is about a couple in love that basically grows up together (but the song was used as a sing-along in the movie “Beautiful Girls,” which took place somewhere in rural Massachusetts – the connection to New England is weak, I know). The Standells were a California band from the 19060s, using a 12 bar song structure most closely associated with the Delta blues. Neil Diamond is from Brooklyn. Are these really the best songs the Boston Red Sox could find to represent themselves?

Click here to read the rest of this entry (at BPRLive.org)

So an old friend I haven’t heard from in a minute recently sent out an e-mail explaining why I hadn’t heard from her in a minute. Apparently she was participating in “The Amazing Race,” a CBS reality show, in which teams travel to various locales trying to win some kind of something in the end. As far as reality TV goes, it’s probably the one show with the lowest probability of being really offensive. So kudos CBS.

Now of course I hope she and her pops win, because they’ll get like a million dollars, and then the thought hit me: Asians tend to win reality shows. Tell me I’m wrong.

I don’t watch much television, but one of the few shows I’ve made an effort to catch over the past few years is Bravo’s “Top Chef,” and the excitement – at least among my friends – over Massachusetts-native Hung Huynh taking the whole thing still hasn’t died down. Throughout the run of the season, the judges constantly told Hung that his cooking had no soul, that there wasn’t enough “Hung” in his food. One couldn’t help but feel a lot of that came from the fact that the judges expected him to cook more Asian food. It’s interesting because Jennifer Aniston also competed on the show, and she considered herself an Asian fusion chef, and when incorporating Asian flavors, she didn’t get the same criticism, that there wasn’t enough Jennifer Aniston in the food. By the end of the season, the unfounded attacks began to wear Hung down, and in interviews he’d say shit like: “What do you want me to do? Make Sweet & Sour Chicken?” and “I don’t go to a restaurant and say, ‘that steak was so soulful.’” (more…)