Category: Columns

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Blog Columns Guest Bloggers

The Slants’ Battle Over Their Name Wages On

Loyal readers may remember back in October of 2013 we ran a post from Simon Tam of the band The Slants. They have been engaged in a long battle with the US Trademark Office to trademark the name of their band. But the US government, always sensitive as it is to perceived racial injustice, believes the name to be a racist slur. The backstory can be read here. This is an open letter Simon Tam has written to the US Trademark Office as their battle continues.

To the US Trademark Office:

Of all government departments, you should know that … Read more “The Slants’ Battle Over Their Name Wages On”

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Blog Columns

When Blacks and Asians Clash

Pictured Above: RadAsians a group of anti-racist, feminist, anti-homophobic, trans-inclusive Asian-identified students at UNC Chapel Hill. For more information please check out:

Media stories about clashes between Asians and Blacks during the ongoing uprising in Baltimore, Maryland have been getting a lot of attention over the last week or so. There was this one on NPR, that at least attempted to offer a balanced view, and this one in the Daily Beast that, not surprisingly, didn’t. In the end, most of the coverage is incomplete, and more designed to drive page views than provide real news.

Jeff Yang … Read more “When Blacks and Asians Clash”

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Arts & Culture Guest Bloggers

“Beyond Bollywood” But Perhaps Not Beyond the White Gaze

The majority of American museums are institutions of white male privilege. They usually “contemplate” a history of white male conquest uncritically, without space for alternative narratives. So when I heard of the new “Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation” exhibit at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, I warily went to explore it with low expectations.

Among the bright red and orange hues of the exhibit, I found Indian Americans, but I also found whiteness on display as the exhibit struggled to walk the fine line between highlighting successes and mentioning the struggles of this rich and diverse … Read more ““Beyond Bollywood” But Perhaps Not Beyond the White Gaze”

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Columns Reviews

Book Review: Haoles in Hawaii

If you’re interested in Hawai’i or just interested in critical race studies, you ought not miss Haoles in Hawai’i. I found it to be a fast, accessible read, mercifully short and to the point, unapologetic without being polemical and one-sided, and highly educational.

Literally translated “haoles” are foreigners, but in contemporary Hawai’i, “haoles” include all white people, including those born in the islands. Living as they do in a state of racial limbo, at once the power elite by race in the U.S. (and Hawai’i is most definitely even if reluctantly part of the U.S.) and as both a racial … Read more “Book Review: Haoles in Hawaii”

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Blog Reviews

Book Review: Baseball in April

Baseball in April and Other Stories is a collection of short stories written by one of the dons of Latino literature in the U.S., Gary Soto. It was first published in 1990, but it remains relevant today – a classic.

The stories in the collection filled me with nostalgia for my own childhood (or at least the parts of it where I wasn’t being beat up for being a fag). It reminded me of the resilience of children who, somehow, nearly always manage to find their way to the cracks in the oppressive forces that too often isolate and … Read more “Book Review: Baseball in April”

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Columns Reviews

Book Review: Unfamiliar Fishes

I found this book to be one of the most readable and entertaining texts on the history of Hawai’i since Cook, and I’ve read a lot of them. It’s practically the history of Hawai’i as a beach read. In fact, I read most of it on a beach in Hawai’i.

Vowell’s writing is accessible and her sources are contemporary. Contemporary is good, because a lot has been learned about Hawai’i history in the last 30 or so years, and a whole generation of Hawaiian academics have changed the way we understand the traditional English language historical materials while adding Hawaiian … Read more “Book Review: Unfamiliar Fishes”

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Blog Columns Guest Bloggers

How Not To Win Immigration Reform

Something rather bizarre has been happening for the past few weeks.
Enthusiasm for comprehensive immigration reform is waning, despite many wonderful and brave political actions to the contrary.
Why is that? I will leave the explanation for some other day. What I find more curious and perplexing is that self-proclaimed advocates for immigration reform are not busy trying to work on saving comprehensive immigration reform. Instead, many of them have turned their attention to attacking undocumented immigrant organizers.
Ever since the path-breaking DREAM 9 action, where several undocumented youth self-deported to Mexico, and brought back six other individuals to
… Read more “How Not To Win Immigration Reform”
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Columns Reviews

Book Review: Shoal of Time

Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders occupy an awkward space in the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) coalition. Many groups call themselves API, but the PI is often absent. In some cases, it doesn’t appear that PIs were ever present to begin with. With this in mind, I undertook a project of reading everything I could get my hands on about Hawaii as a first step in building my knowledge of the PI in the API and toward grappling with my own history. This book, one that I first read many years ago, was the first in the series.

Shoal of … Read more “Book Review: Shoal of Time”

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Columns Reviews

Book Review: Aloha Betrayed

A must-read for those interested in Hawai’i. Much of the colonial history of the islands is built around the notion that the “bloodless revolution” was an indication of the passive consent of the Hawaiian people to the takeover of Hawai’i by white business interests. This book uses Hawaiian language resources to demonstrate that Hawaiians did in fact resist, and powerfully, and by so doing, puts a whole new spin on an often-told story that has served to justify the evil of colonization to Hawaii’s children for generations.

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Columns Reviews

Book Review: The Glass Palace

At the risk of sounding cliche, Amitav Gosh’s The Glass Palace is an important book. It’s importance begins with the subject matter – a one-hundred year span of history that unfolds in India, Malaya (now Malaysia) and Burma (now Myanmar), all countries of which most Americans, myself included, know precious little. The book addresses the impact of colonialism in the region over these one-hundred years by telling the stories of three generations of families whose lives are bound together by political change.

The sweep of history is breathtaking, carrying the reader through two world wars, and the independence movement that … Read more “Book Review: The Glass Palace”