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My Turnby Maileen Hamto |
 |
From The Asian Reporter, V18, #1 (January 1, 2008), page 6 & 7.
Asian year in review
The New Year is a time of reflection for many. Calm and quiet after the holiday maelstrom is a good time to take stock, assess your wins and losses, and look forward to a fresh start.
Since we can’t move forward without looking back, how did Asians and Asian doings fare in 2007? We cannot forget about the hysteria over toys manufactured in China and the panic about monks being massacred in Burma (Myanmar).
Late last week, the world was shocked to hear the news about the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Long exiled from Pakistan, she returned to her homeland in October to lead a growing number of supporters who demand an alternative to the unpopular military government of President Pervez Musharraf.
The Bush administration condemned the acts of "murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy." Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, we have long called the Musharraf government an ally in the war against terror. The increasing distrust of Musharraf’s dictatorship has fuelled anger in a growing number of Pakistanis who suspect the involvement of Musharraf’s government in Bhutto’s assassination. Surely, the complex political entanglements in the region place the United States government in a delicate political ropewalk.
The United States mourned over a national tragedy in April, when Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded many more before committing suicide. His rampage is the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. The tragedy serves as a reminder of the fragility of the human mind, and underscores the need to bring to the open issues about mental and behavioral health among immigrant communities.
Not quite as bloody, but just as tragic was news about General Vang Pao, a prominent and well-respected Hmong leader. He was charged with conspiracy to overthrow the Lao government, which rocked the core of the Hmong community throughout the U.S.
Then there’s Japanese American Ehren Watada, first lieutenant of the U.S. Army, who made headlines in 2006 for refusing deployment to Iraq. Watada said he believed the war is illegal and immoral. Under the doctrine of command responsibility, he said going to Iraq would make him party to war crimes. He was dismissed from service and endured court-martial proceedings in 2007.
Also in 2007, Major-General Antonio Taguba, the second Filipino American to attain General Officer rank in the U.S. military, retired from a 34-year military career without explanation. In 2004, he authored the controversial and politically inconvenient report on rampant abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. In 2006, his superiors told him to retire within a year.
In October, we heard from the Bush White House about Iran’s impending nuclear threat, alarming Americans and the world. Bush has said that if the U.S. doesn’t keep Iran’s nuclear ambitions in check, the world could soon be witness to World War III.
Sure sounds like the Bush administration is setting the stage for yet another battlefront on a long drawn-out and largely unsubstantiated assault on the "enemies" of freedom and democracy. Posturing about possible U.S. military action against Iran continues to heat up, despite a CIA report released recently that Iran abolished its nuclear weapons program in 2002.
News about Asia wasn’t all bad. An Indian company’s bid to buy British luxury auto brands Jaguar and Land Rover raised many eyebrows and served as a reminder of India’s rising stature as a major economic player on the world stage.
Beauty pageant news rarely make headlines in the U.S., but the Miss Universe and Miss World pageants continue to have a strong following in many parts of the world. This year’s Miss Universe crown was won by Miss Japan’s Riyo Mori, a 20-year-old dancer from the small town of Shizuoka. China’s Zi Lin Zhang won the Miss World pageant, making history in the process. Since the Chinese government lifted the 50+ year ban on beauty pageants several years ago, Zhang became the first Chinese to win an international beauty pageant in a very long time.
Victory was won by Louisiana’s Indian-American governor Bobby Jindal, who made history as the first non-white governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction. He comes to office with mixed reviews from the Asian-American community. A Republican, Jindal is against abortion, pro-Iraq war, and supports erecting a fence along the Mexico-U.S. border. Although he is a Rhodes scholar, he believes in intelligent design.
To many, Jindal is a classic poster boy for American acculturation. Born to immigrant parents from India, he converted from Hinduism to Catholicism. He changed his name from Piyush to Bobby after watching "The Brady Bunch." He downplays his race and hardly represents people of color in his constituency. His mantra on the campaign trail is: "The only colors that should matter are red, white, and blue."
Perhaps the color of a person’s skin wouldn’t matter in a utopian world where the history and legacy of oppression is permanently erased and racial struggle no longer exists. If only such things as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were as simple, then we wouldn’t have racial and ethnic disparities in wealth and access to resources.
At least in California colleges, things aren’t looking half as bad. Campuses in the University of California system are making headway in deconstructing the Asian model minority stereotype that causes many Asian Americans to fall through higher education cracks. In 2008, the undergraduate application will include 23 Asian American and Pacific Islander categories, up from the eight currently recorded. The student-led "Count Me In" campaign was successful in convincing University of California officials to look more closely at the diversity of Asian groups.
Too often, Asians are portrayed as academically, socially, and economically successful. In higher education, the broad Asian designation fails to tell the whole story — that some Asian subgroups are, in fact, underperforming.
The change expands the current eight categories for Asians Americans. This list now includes: Chinese (except Taiwanese), Taiwanese, Asian Indian, Pakistani, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Hmong, Thai, Cambodian, Lao, Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Malaysian, Sri Lankan, and other Asian. For Pacific Islander, the categories will be Native Hawaiian, Guamanian/Chamorro, Samoan, Tongan, Fijian, and other Pacific Islander.
It will be interesting to see if California will serve as a model for other higher education institutions in the U.S. in recognizing the diversity of the Asian-American diaspora. When the most vulnerable members of our communities enhance their prospects, everyone wins as well.