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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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Yellow Is Not the New White: The New South Asian Miss America Gets Blasted on Twitter

On Sunday the 15th, history was made when Nina Davuluri was named the 87th Miss America, making her the first Indian American to hold the title. Nice.

I know some of you are rolling your eyes over the notion that a young woman of color winning a beauty pageant that involves walking around in high heels and a bathing suit in order to prove “physical fitness” is historically significant, but I happen to think it’s a big deal. Miss America is an important cultural symbol and beauty is one of the arenas in which race is often contested. Messed up … Read more “Yellow Is Not the New White: The New South Asian Miss America Gets Blasted on Twitter”

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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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What do Chen’s News Director and a U.S. Military Surgeon Have in Common?

“One of the defining features between an individual of Asian descent and someone of Western descent is the presence of an upper eyelid crease. Approximately 50% of Asians do not have an upper eyelid crease. The double eyelid operation, or creation of a supratarsal crease, is the most common cosmetic procedure requested in Asia and the third most common procedure requested by Asian Americans.”  Marilyn Q. Nguyen, Patrick W. Hsu, and Tue A. Dinh. “Asian Blepharoplasty.” Seminars in Plastic Surgery (August 2009). Cosmetic Surgery in the Ethnic Population: Special Considerations and Procedures.

As you may have already heard, talk and … Read more “What do Chen’s News Director and a U.S. Military Surgeon Have in Common?”

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Julie Chen’s Anti-Asian Surgery Admission

Julie Chen’s recent admission that she had double eyelid plastic surgery to make her look less Asian, or, in the words of a former boss of hers in her days as a newscaster in Dayton, Ohio circa 1995ish, “less disinterested and bored,” came as no surprise. In an industry in which bi-racial Ann Curry is dumped from the co-anchor post at the Today Show for not being “relatable” enough, a little anti-Asian surgery may be the equivalent of broadcasting training for Asian women. Kind of a prerequisite for the job.

Apparently she succumbed to pressures from a big-time … Read more “Julie Chen’s Anti-Asian Surgery Admission”

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Meet Miss Saigon, Not the Box Office Kind

“[S]mall, weak, submissive and erotically alluring…eyes almond-shaped for mystery, black for suffering, wide-spaced for innocence, high cheekbones swelling like bruises, cherry lips…. When you get home from another hard day on the planet, she comes into existence, removes your clothes, bathes you and walks naked on your back to relax you … She’s fun you see, and so uncomplicated. She doesn’t go to assertiveness-training classes, insist on being treated like a person, fret about career moves, wield her orgasm as a non-negotiable demand…. She’s there when you need shore leave from those angry feminist seas. She’s a handy victim of … Read more “Meet Miss Saigon, Not the Box Office Kind”

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Another Reason Foodstamps and Welfare are Racial Justice Issues: It’s Not What You Think

I’m going to begin this article with the assumption that we’re all agreed that conservative attacks on food stamps and welfare recipients as entitlement junkies are racist. If you aren’t in agreement, you’re reading the wrong article.

These attacks have been going on for as long as civil rights reforms have assured people of color equitable access to public entitlements. Once upon a time, when welfare was white, this wasn’t an issue. Of course, back then, we thought “decent” white women should be excluded from the workforce, or at least from jobs with family wages, so when they lost … Read more “Another Reason Foodstamps and Welfare are Racial Justice Issues: It’s Not What You Think”

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The Colorblind Racism of Michael Bloomberg

The September 7 issue of New York Magazine featured an interview with outgoing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that I’m guessing you’ve heard about. In it, Bloomberg accused Bill de Blasio, the Democratic frontrunner in the current mayoral primary, of running a racist campaign because some of his ads feature his black wife and bi-racial children…seriously.

It’s a case of the salt calling the pepper white that would be funny is it wasn’t an example of colorblind racism, the prevailing racist logic of our supposedly post-racial age. Here’s what I mean.

Bloomberg’s accusation imposes a double standard on de Blasio … Read more “The Colorblind Racism of Michael Bloomberg”

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Racism and the Threat to American Civil Liberties

Whatever you think of Edward Snowden, we have him to thank for revealing the shocking fact that our federal government is collecting data on millions of us in the name of national security. Worse, it turns out, private contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton, the firm that employed Snowden, have been doing a bunch of that spying, especially post 9/11. So, to state what is probably already obvious to most of you, private companies outside of any kind of real accountability to the public have access to our personal information, not just the government.

It seems unbelievable that a country … Read more “Racism and the Threat to American Civil Liberties”

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The NYPD: A “New Low” That’s Not So New

Recently news broke of the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) unbridled, secret surveillance of Muslim communities and organizations, monitoring intimate aspects of people’s lives and designating entire mosques as terrorist organizations without evidence. I reacted to this with a familiar combination of rage and fatigue.

In an interview on Huffington Post, Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York expressed a similar lack of surprise, while calling these police practices a “new low.”

The NYPD’s approach to counterterrorism policing seems to start from a place that all Muslims are inherently suspect, raising serious civil rights and safety … Read more “The NYPD: A “New Low” That’s Not So New”