The bus incident

[Warning--long post follows]

On Friday, May 23, I got on the #21 Hayes bus leaving downtown SF to head to Golden Gate Park so that I could show "Southern Man" the DeYoung Museum, which is one of my favorite museums in the Bay Area.


[view of the DeYoung's observation tower and part of the museum]


[view from the observation tower of the DeYoung looking at the Steinhart Aquarium, my favorite aquarium and set to re-open Fall 2008 after major renovations]

For anyone familiar with riding the MUNI bus lines in SF, or just anyone familiar with urban public transportation, some bus lines get very crowded, and the #21 on Friday afternoon was VERY CROWDED as it moved down Market Street, especially through Union Square (a touristy-shopping district) and the Tenderloin (a working class and crime ridden neighborhood, not necessarily dangerous, especially during the day, but there are a lot of panhandlers/homeless folks in this area and this is where the cops like to patrol for drug deals and prostitution).

Southern Man, and I, were sitting towards the back of the bus--with me at the window and him on the aisle. After about 10 minutes we were at standing-room-only capacity, and the bus was a representative of the various neighborhoods it was going to and from, which means it was filled with a pretty diverse representation of San Francisco--people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, ages, and classes (well, maybe if you were super affluent you weren't on the bus, but lots of upper-middle class people ride MUNI because parking can be awful downtown).

After about 15 minutes, a young couple snuck onto the bus through the back doors. This is pretty common on crowded routes, so I didn't think much of it. The girl was about 15 and the guy was about 19 or 20--maybe even younger like 17 or 18. They seemed pretty jittery--quite frankly, my immediate thought was that they were high, maybe on pills, maybe on crystal meth (which is running rampant in SF right now), maybe coke or crack. But I'm *pretty* sure they were on something given what followed.

They were talking very loudly and boisterously, as teenagers sometimes do, not terribly mindful of their surroundings or perhaps hyper-mindful and wanting to put on a show. After they were on for about 5 minutes, a seat opened up next to a very thin and small elderly woman in her 70s, who was seated on the aisle. At this point, let me say that the woman was Asian, and this is relevant because it's unclear how much she understood from the verbal barrage that came from the teenage girl, who wanted the woman to move over to the vacant window seat so that the girl could sit down in the aisle and continue talking with her boyfriend.

This is where things get bizarre & violent.

The elderly woman didn't move or even really register that the girl was asking her a question (actually, more like making a demand given the girl's tone and demeanor). The girl, frustrated by the woman's lack of response, got more and more agitated and became verbally abusive and LOUD, which culminated in her calling the woman a bitch and then she picked up the woman's grocery bag, threw it in the corner of the vacant seat and physically and violently shoved the woman into the vacant seat, plopping down in the free seat she had created all the while continually verbally abusing the woman.

The elderly woman then did something that surprised me, and perhaps all of us who were sitting in the back witnessing this performance. She elbowed the girl as hard as she could. Which the girl DID NOT LIKE and what ensued was a strange elbowing match between the girl and the elderly woman, with the woman never uttering a peep and the girl getting increasingly agitated and verbally abusive, her boyfriend goading her on and laughing--both of them taunting the woman.

Things were getting increasingly tense on the bus, as everyone seemed to be holding their breath to see what was going to happen next. Some people were staring (I was one of them); others were deliberately looking away; and one guy with a skateboard in the back was talking loudly on his cell phone to a friend about the incredible scene he was witnessing and how he was about to record it all on his cell phone.

The elderly woman, at some point, had stopped shoving and was simply absorbing the girl's abuse. Again, it's unclear how much she understood, although I suspect she understood more than she let on, since it's often easier to follow language than to speak it. She certainly could understand tone and body language, and it was unmistakable that when the girl stood up and told her that she was going to throw down with her RIGHT NOW ON THE BUS and FUCK HER SHIT UP that something was going to happen.

At which point, I intervened.

From my seat I told the girl to leave the elderly woman alone. I have to be honest and say that adrenaline combined with the events that follow make my memory fuzzy, but I know that I said something because I couldn't get out of my head the video of the woman on the MARTA harassing the elderly lady. I couldn't bear the thought that no one was saying anything to this teenage couple. And I couldn't live with myself if the girl actually carried out her threat, which seemed distinctly possible given how violently she had shoved the elderly woman into the vacant seat--which breaks all social codes of space and the rules of kindergarten (keep your hands to yourself).

What followed was a heated exchange first between me and the girl and then me and her boyfriend, who quickly leapt to his girlfriend's defense. I'm pretty sure that both of them threatened me, although interestingly enough, I never felt threatened--as in, I never felt scared or that they would actually hit me. I'm not sure why--again, maybe it was just adrenaline. Or maybe I thought they were teenagers who were high and that once a stranger intervened they'd back down. As the boyfriend got in my face, telling me to fuck off and telling me that he was going to fuck me up, the guy with the skateboard and cell phone informed him that he was recording the entire incident and was going to use it as evidence or post it on YouTube. Again, I'm fuzzy on details. The boyfriend quickly shifted his attention from me to the twenty-something cell phone skater, and the two of them were shouting at each other pretty forcefully.

At which point, a 40-something African American man came up behind the teenager and told him to beat the white boy.

You see, I've tried to avoid racial signifiers up to this point, but I have to fill you in , perhaps, to partially explain what happened. The young couple on the bus were black teenagers. The cell phone documenting skater was white, and as I said earlier, the elderly woman was Asian--probably Vietnamese or Cambodian if I had to guess. The rest of the bus inhabitants really were a mix of every race and ethnic group (and age and size). There was a young boy and his mother in the very back seat, and a few young teenage girls.

I don't know if it really was the verbal trigger that set the boyfriend off, but the next thing I knew, he was attacking the skater. What ensued was the most violent fight I've been witness to. Which isn't saying much--lets face it, I'm an academic. I grew up in a working-class, middle-class neighborhood, but aside from some childhood playground brawls, I really haven't seen any real fights. Not like this. Not this violent or bloody. Not in the tight quarters of a crowded MUNI bus in the middle of the afternoon, when bodies are falling on top of bodies and people are screaming and the voice of the 40-something guy is egging on the young boyfriend and others are trying to get out of the way and pull them apart, and block/shield the skater because he is getting the crap beaten out of him by the boyfriend.

I don't know at what point the bus stopped or at what point the back doors opened. I'm sure that mine was one of the voices that was screaming at them to stop and for someone to get help. All I know is that once the back doors opened, the 40-something guy grabbed the skater's cell phone and ran off the bus. The girlfriend grabbed her boyfriend and told him that they had to go, and they ran off the bus, quickly followed by the skater, who was trying to retrieve his cell phone.

The rest of us sat in stunned silence on the bus. Southern Man was literally gray and looked like he was going to throw up. The little boy (who looked to be about 3 or 4) was crying and his mother, and some other bus riders, were trying to comfort him. Other people were crying and looked pretty stunned. Then I got off the bus when I saw that there were two police cruisers, because I realized that I'd probably have to make a statement, seeing as I was somewhat involved in the incident. I also tried to talk to the elderly Asian woman, but she didn't say a word, just nodded her head when we asked if she was OK--she had this weird smile on her face, like it was plastered on. I think she was probably in shock from everything that transpired.

What followed is that I gave my card with my cell phone to both the skater (who came back to the bus empty handed and asked us if we knew the guy who took the cell phone or if maybe his cell phone had been dropped and was still on the bus) and I gave my card to one of the police officers, who followed up with me later that afternoon and took a statement from both me and Southern Man.

We then all got on another #21 Hayes bus--this one even more packed than the one we had left since it now had the occupants of two buses. I sat wedged between two women on the first bus, one, a college student who couldn't stop crying from the shock--she had been in the back and had been knocked around quite a bit, the other in the front who wanted to rehash the story again and again--both seemed to be coping strategies. Southern Man didn't say a word, and later, when we had time to talk and process, he told me that he had been listening to the teens' conversation and that they had talked about being in a gang and killing people the previous weekend--and predicted who they would try to kill the upcoming weekend, and he saw a bulge in the back of the girl's jeans that he said could have been a gun.

This is partly why he got paralyzed--and this is why he was so silent for a few days. Because you have to understand, my boyfriend is a BIG GUY. And he's trained in karate. And he was shocked that he didn't do anything--that he froze. That the things he had trained for in karate--to help defend those who can't defend themselves--that when he was faced with a moment of violence he didn't do anything.

And I kept telling him (and keep telling him) that it's normal for him to be paralyzed--how can any of us know what we will do in a situation like this? And especially given the racial turn of events--along with the violent turn of events--his participation in any way in trying to either verbally or physically intervene would undoubtedly have escalated things, as the 40-something guy seemed spoiling for a fight--as did the two teens. He has, since we've returned home, spoken to his sensei, who offered him good counsel in terms of similar situations he has been in--times when his sensei did act and made things worse, times when his sensei did nothing, times when his sensei was able to play the hero. And what Southern Man realized, which is what I wish I had realized, is that we should have tried to intervene before the girl got violent with the elderly woman. That at the moment when the girl started verbally harassing the woman, Southern Man wishes he had stood up and offered her his seat--to give both her and her boyfriend our seats and to have us make way for them, to calm down the tension on the bus.

All of this, of course, is easy to think about in hindsight. But what I can't help wondering is, did I make things worse? In watching the MARTA incident on Rachel's Tavern, I can see and hear passengers talking about how inappropriate the girls' actions are, telling her to chill out and relax, and then finally confronting her, perhaps not in the best fashion. And the minute that people did, directly, confront her, she got even more hysterical and out of control. And that's essentially what happened when I called out the girl on the bus. The minute she was confronted, she got even more agitated, verbally abusive, and violent--and so did her boyfriend. Like I said, I'm pretty sure they were in an altered state--not that they were mentally ill like the MARTA woman, but that they were high on something and spoiling for a fight because they were so hopped up. And the minute they were confronted, they got abusive--and violent in the case of the boyfriend.

Would it have mattered if I was an African American woman? Would it have been worse if I had been white? Would it have mattered if the people on the bus were all the same race as the young couple? In the MARTA video, it appears as if all the passengers in the car are African American. If all the passengers on MUNI had been African American, would the incident still have escalated to violence? Why did the 40-something guy turn it into a racial incident? This is especially troubling to me since up to this point, including all the nasty verbal harassment coming from the young couple, no one had mentioned race. I'm not saying that any of our actions weren't racially inflected, but it does seem amazing, in hindsight, that in all her abuse leveled at the Asian woman, not once did the teenage girl ever use a racial slur. And not once did either teenager use a racial slur when confronting me--I'm sure of that. I know I was called a bitch and a cunt and a few other choice words, but they never made it racial. It was only the 40-something guy who told the teenage kid to beat the white boy.

Do I wish I hadn't said something? No. I really couldn't not say something--it just became impossible to think that no one was going to call out this girl's bad behavior to this woman. Would I have acted differently if I had paid attention to their conversation or thought that they were packing heat? Impossible to know. Does this make me think twice about saying something in public? Yes. How can I help but second guess what I did and didn't do? What Southern Man did and didn't do? What everyone on the bus, including the 40-something guy and the skater, did and didn't do?

I don't hold any of us accountable--the young couple really are the ones who have to be held accountable for their violence, verbal and physical. But I am all too aware of the social reality and demographics of the Tenderloin (assuming that this is the neighborhood they live in, which I'm assuming based on where they got on the bus), and the social reality of being a young black man, and the reality of drug addiction. I'm not excusing them, but the level of violence in which they may live may have enabled them.

And that's what I really kept thinking about as I was riding the bus to Golden Gate Park. That here I am, an upper-middle class overly educated Asian American woman, riding this bus to go to the DeYoung museum, and feeling slightly traumatized by these events but realizing that this is all just a story for me. This is something I get to blog about--to write about--not to live out on a daily basis. I don't live with violence or the threat of violence on a daily basis. I never have. I don't have any idea what it's like to live in a neighborhood that isn't safe, where cops patrol, where drug deals go on, where people carry concealed weapons with or without permits. I don't live with violence in my daily life--that's a privilege I have. I get to speak out on a crowded bus because I've had the luxury of owning a laptop and reading blogs in my spare time and thinking too much about incidents that get recorded on YouTube. I am, essentially, clueless about how much of the world lives--because I think more people live with the threat of violence or the trauma of violence than I realize. Whether it's the Tenderloin in SF, the Gaza strip, or Iraq, imagine what it's like to live in a place where you can be confronted by violence in the place you call home.

I'm not sure how to end this post, so I'll just say that this incident, this bus incident, is going to stay with me for a while. How could it not?

[June 4, 2008 -- I've re-read this post, and I want to take back or amend something I wrote. I said that the only people accountable for the couple's actions were the couple. But the truth is, we are all accountable. I don't just mean that in a "we are the world/small world/one world way" but in the sense that we aren't just individuals--we are people who live in a community--local and global--in various concentric circles. We have to hold ourselves accountable for wanting and trying to make a better society in which these teenagers don't make these bad choices and where the 40-something guy doesn't default to making things worse by invoking race, and where my initial move to intervene happens earlier and happens in a calmer way where I try to defuse the situation through respect and humility--which isn't the same as being passive or humble but acknowledges the context of the situation I, and others, am in and takes into account the greater good of the bus and the elderly woman. Anyway, still processing all of this as you can see.]

Conflicts on public transportation

It's been about a week since I returned from California, and in my first post back, I alluded to a harrowing incident that really challenged the rosy-vision of race relations that I romanticize about San Francisco (and California in general).

And now that I've had a week to process what I'm going to call "the bus incident," I want to describe to you, dear readers, what happened, and to think about what it means to get involved in incidents in public transportation.

But before I give you my story, I'm going to refer you to a post on Rachel's Tavern by atlasien on "Analysis of a Local Public Disturbance." There is a youtube video that shows a disturbing incident of a woman berating and verbally harassing/threatening an older woman on MARTA in Atlanta.

If you have a minute, click on the link and watch the video. The incident that I got involved in was actually much more violent and disturbing than the one you see recorded on MARTA. I also have to put in a plug for atlasien's analysis--I thought it was very insightful, sensitive, and thoughtful in teasing out the complexities of race, gender, mental illness, and public discourse, as well as her own personal stories and perspectives.

I'll be back tomorrow to share the story with you.

The authenticity trap

One of the things I loved about being in San Francisco is the amount of Asian food I got to consume.


Let me amend that: authentic Asian food.


But how does one judge "authenticity"?

I usually go for word of mouth and recommendations from friends whom I know to be either foodies or who grew up eating that particular cuisine. Of course, I want to toss out a caveat--which is that, I think people should eat what they want to eat. Meaning, if you grew up on what author Mei Ng calls "gringo Chinese food"--that greasy suburban take-out style Chinese food, then more power to you. You should not feel ashamed of your childhood tastebuds. And it's understandable if you prefer General Tso's chicken to "bak jam gai" (this wonderful poached chicken that comes with this amazing ginger-garlic dipping sauce!) I grew up putting Log Cabin syrup on my pancakes and waffles and the first time a friend from Vermont served me *real* maple syrup I nearly gagged. I'm sure this shocks all my foodie friends, but it's true. To this day, I keep Log Cabin in my kitchen (but never Aunt Jemima--just can't do THAT).

Another indicator of authenticity seems to be if the clientele of the restaurant matches the ethnicity. This is imperfect, I admit, but lets face it--we all do it. We are more inclined to believe a Mexican restaurant is "authentic" if we see lots of Latino faces inside. And especially in an ethnic neighborhood, like Chinatown, a Chinese restaurant with lots of Asian faces and people speaking either Mandarin or Cantonese seems to be a good bet for real deal Chinese food.

I admit to falling into this trap. And I say it's a trap, or perhaps more accurately a catch-22, because the truth is, I'm always questioning my own "authenticity" when it comes to my "Asian-ness."

On the plus side of my Asian credentials is my face (I look Asian), my background (I have two immigrant Chinese parents, albeit one is an immigrant from Jamaica, so really, I only get to count my Dad in this column since my mother's heritage does problematize the authenticity bit). I grew up in the SF Bay Area in a suburb that was not majority white. I had grandparents who lived in Oakland Chinatown.

On the minus side there's my mother's complicated Jamaican heritage (and all those pesky Chinese Jamaican mixed-race cousins of mine), the fact that I didn't grow up speaking either Cantonese or Mandarin (I do a very bad version of restaurant Chinese in which I know the names of certain dishes but my pronunciation is atrocious), and I have dated predominantly non-Asian men (for the record, one Korean American, one Filipino American, and sadly only one Chinese American--sad for my father, who secretly holds out hope for a Chinese American son-in-law one day).

[I am obviously being tongue-in-cheek with this checklist, btw]

So that brings me to dim sum.


I went with my cousin "E" and her husband "J" and of course, I was accompanied by "Southern Man" who had his first taste of dim sum when we were in Toronto for my cousin's wedding this summer. The chinatown restaurant we went to, New Asia, was authentic both by its recommendation (my aunt and uncle take my cousin and her husband on a regular basis) and because it was chock full of Asian primarily Chinese people, most of whom were speaking Cantonese (a few Mandarin speakers were in the mix). A quick scan showed that "J" (who is of the Caucasian race) and my boyfriend were one of half a dozen non-Asian people in the entire restaurant (which looked to have 100+ patrons).

So it should not have surprised or annoyed me that when the dim sum women (they are always women...there's probably a certain type of sexism involved in Chinese restaurants over this--waiters are almost always men and dim sum cart pushers are always women--in fact, I just wrote "dim sum cart ladies" automatically because that's how I'm used to thinking about them) came by our table, they switched from Cantonese into English and then launched into a detailed explanation of the dish.

Why was I surprised and annoyed? Because both "E" and I grew up going to dim sum restaurants and eating Chinese food. "E" even speaks Mandarin. But we were instantly marked by our white partners--and for me, as a non-speaker, I am doubly marked. And I was annoyed that we were seen as "inauthentic." And the truth is, I understood that for everyone in the restaurant, we were.

But what does it mean to be authentically Chinese American?

Perhaps, what it means, is to face encounters like the one above and to realize that authenticity isn't just a recommendation for a great dim sum restaurant but to also recognize the problematics of trying to figure out real vs. fake, when everything is so gray and when Log Cabin maple syrup is more widely consumed than Vermont's finest.

Back at home in the South

I'm back--a bit jet lagged, especially after taking a red-eye flight. But the title of my post is true and accurate: I am back at home in the South.


[I live in one of these "red" states--although perhaps in the next election, one or more will turn blue? Actually, I got this map from the website Carbon Tax Center. Check it out--especially if you are interested in environmental issues and ways to offset our every increasing carbon footprint]

All in all, the trip was wonderful, although this was the first time that I traveled to California with "Southern Man" and seeing familiar things through the eyes of someone else, especially an intimate someone else, is always a good exercise in reality checking.


Case in point: my rosy colored portrait of California as this Promised Land, particularly a live-action version of Disney's "It's a Small World," as a multicultural/multiethnic/multiracial paradise. We had some interactions and one pretty harrowing bus incident that threw this romanticized vision out the window. I'll write about it later--it's a bit lengthy and complicated, and truth be told, I'm still trying to process parts of it.

What I will leave you with, dear readers, is a small anecdote that happened on my flight into California. We were on Continental Airlines, and I have to commend Continental to be one of the last if not THE last airline in the continental U.S. that will serve food gratis to its passengers. We were en-route during the dinner hour and got box sandwiches (turkey or ham) and the requisite beverage. Now, I always get orange juice as a help to the dehydration of flying but I noticed that the flight attendant was handing people soda cans that had Chinese script on them--and as she got closer, I could see that it seemed to be some kind of tie-in with the Beijing Olympics--you know, Sprite and Coca-Cola cans with the Beijing Olympic symbol and the writing in Chinese. Except I think these cans were actually meant for their Asian airline route because everything was in Chinese: the ingredient list, the advertising, the processing plant.

Apparently a few passengers were skeptical about the contents of the cans--sure, it looks like the classic Coca-Cola can--it says "Coca-Cola" in English, but everything else is in this strange foreign script?! How will I KNOW that I'm getting a real Coke? And the flight attendant wasn't helping matters much--especially when she apologized for the cans--acknowledged that the soda tasted different because it was bottled "over there" and that they were Japanese and Mexican sodas.

WTF???!!!

When she approached my row she had apparently grown so frustrated over these foreign soda cans that she got another flight attendant to help her swap out these offending cans with American ones (the foreign cans were put into a lower shelf and then who knows what was going to happen to them?). I actually told both flight attendants that there was nothing wrong with the sodas--they were simply cans with Chinese script on them and were promoting the Beijing Olympics and furthermore, that I WANTED a soda can with the Chinese writing. The first flight attendant, the one who had the cans banished, told me that the sodas were Japanese and Mexican. And I said, "Well, no they are Chinese." And she said, "Well, I can't sell them to people; they taste different because they were bottled over there in Mexico, but if you want one, here you go."

WTF???!!!

It seems fascinating to me that this woman, even after I confirmed that the script was Chinese and not Japanese (I may not be able to read Chinese but after years of growing up in a Chinese American home and having grandparents live in Chinatown, I can recognize Chinese script) still insisted that the cans were somehow Mexican, and THAT was bizarre because there was NOTHING resembling Mexican references let alone Spanish on these cans. It would seem, perhaps simplistically, that for this flight attendant, anything "foreign" and perhaps "distasteful" must come from south of the border.

Going Home

I'm flying home today. Let me be more specific: I'm attending a conference in San Francisco and extending my stay a few days because I grew up in the SF Bay Area and will therefore be seeing friends and family members in addition to do the usual conference schtick.


I had grappled, once-upon-a-time, about where I consider "home." Is it where I'm currently paying my gas bill; is it where my parents live; is it where I feel most comfortable?

I don't think there is a definitive answer--at least not for me. I have multiple homes. But truthfully, California and specifically the SF Bay Area will ALWAYS be home for me in a specific and special way because it is where I grew up--where I spent the years from 4 to 25.

Here are a few things I'm looking forward to when I arrive in California:

*Seeing my friends and my family (because I love them and miss them)
*Eating REALLY GOOD Chinese food (specifically Cantonese food) at one of my favorite restaurants
*Being near the Pacific Ocean--smelling the sea air--enjoying the view of the Bay
*Going to museums like the DeYoung and the SF Moma
*Urban hiking--because I miss the rhythm of cities and specifically SF
*Not standing out and seeing a truly DIVERSE array of folks

Let me concentrate on the last issue. I know I have waxed poetic about California before here. I know that I have created rosy-colored memories of my multicultural childhood, and I know that I, and other transplanted Californians take a perverse pleasure in elevating our cultural superiority over everyone by going ON and ON about how GREAT California is and how much BETTER it is than the current state we are living in.

[Note: the one key exception are people living in urban places like Chicago and especially New York and my friend P who lives in Minneapolis and prefers the cold even though he grew up in the Bay Area]

But the fact is: California is a diverse place. There is the ocean and the mountains. There is geographic diversity culturally and socially within California. There is conservative Orange County and the liberal-progressive SF Bay Area. And there is the history--one that hasn't been pretty--it's not like California erupted as a multiracial and multicultural utopia or emerged as a state of tolerance and benevolence towards all overnight. There has been and continues to be a history of discrimination and prejudice and bigotry--of racism and homophobia and sexism. California isn't paradise--as much as the rhetoric I use suggests it is "the Promised Land."

It is, however, mixed. It is open to difference in a way that does seem profoundly different from some other states in the union. And I know, when I step off the airplane in Oakland, that I will not be the only one. I won't be the only Asian American person in the airport, waiting at baggage claim, at a restaurant, riding the bus. And I certainly won't be the only person of color in a store or at the movies or in a coffee shop. And I don't know whether this will be true when I arrive back in "The South," because I've definitely been the only Asian American and sometimes the only person of color in all the situations I've mentioned above.

And this means I can breathe just a little bit easier when I'm in California. This means that my subconscious and sometimes not so subconscious guard is lowered. This means that I dial down the racial paranoia and hypochondria, and I don't have to second guess my interactions with people as much. If someone is a jerk to me in CA, it may or may not be because of my race/ethnicity. Chances are the person being a jerk could have a face that looks like mine. And they get to be just a jerk rather than a representative of their race. That's what you get when you have a critical mass and a mix of people.

Anyway, I'll share some observations about California when I return. In the meantime I won't be blogging or doing comment moderation, so please bear with me. And here are a few links to look at until I'm back blogging next week Wednesday.

*Interesting discussion about race fatigue at Anti-Racist Parent (tip of the hat to What Tami Said)

*George Takei announces his marriage plans to longtime partner Brad Altman on his blog (tip of the hat to Angry Asian Man). Be sure to scroll to the end of his announcement--he makes interesting and astute connections between his experiences being interned in a Japanese American concentration camp during WWII and public reaction to Japanese Americans during that time period and what is going on with same-sex marriage in our current cultural climate.

*Houghton-Mifflin is considering legal action against the Marietta, GA tee-shirt vendor who created shirts with a picture of Curious George eating a banana and the tag line "Obama '08" (tip of the hat to my friend B alerting me to this issue). For more, see this Boston Globe article.

*Finally, I forgot to wish Malcolm X a "Happy Birthday" on Monday, May 19. Here's an interesting article at The Root about the man, his legacy, and how we can honor his memory.

Not too late to do the right thing

On Sunday, May 18, 2008, about 200 Japanese American UW students, who were forced to leave the university and face incarceration during WWII, were granted honorary degrees.


[Tip of the hat to Angry Asian Man]

Most of the graduates are now in their 80s, but as Norm Mineta, the keynote speaker who was former Secretary of Transportation and a former internee himself said, it is never too late to do the right thing. Here is an excerpt from his commencement speech:

"It's never too late to do the right thing. It's never too late to rejoice that the right thing has been done. It's never too late to be grateful to people who do the right thing."

For more on the graduation, click on this link. I had tears in my eyes when I read it. Because it's true--it's never too late to do the right thing. It's never too late for us to remember that we CAN do something--we don't have to just sit back and say, "There's nothing I can do." The faculty and staff at UW who helped make this graduation ceremony possible should be commended. Because they didn't have to do this. But it was and is the right thing to do. Which makes me wonder, will our current administration ever be brave enough to admit its mistakes and apologize? Will we recognize, much later, the harm we've done to others--the racial profiling we do to anyone of Muslim or Arab descent--anyone who "looks" Middle-Eastern?

What do YOU excel in?

I'm doing home improvements this week, which includes some semi-major painting and home repair projects. Like re-porcelain-ing (is that a word? I just made it a word) a bathroom tub, and in this same bathroom, getting rid of all the horribly gross faucet knobs (circa 1960) with something more modern/clean, as well as a bunch of painting projects.

I am CLUELESS and HELPLESS when it comes to these kinds of things. I didn't even KNOW that the little "H" and "C" symbols on the knobs popped right off so that you could get to the screw that allowed you to unscrew said knob from the faucet fixture. This is where my boyfriend, whom I'll call "Southern Man" was useful. I wouldn't call Southern Man uber-handy, but he definitely knows MUCH MORE than I do about things in your home, and more importantly, he has a confidence about these things--he just believes that we can go to a hardware store, buy things we need, and figure it all out. In fact, when we went to one of the mega-home stores yesterday to buy our home improvement materials (our 3rd trip in 3 days of doing these projects), I was in despair of finding the right knob fixture (because the day before we bought ones that had circle openings when we needed square openings--I mean WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT TO LOOK!) Southern Man said:

"You're a smart woman--you've got a PhD, this is a piece of cake."

To which I replied: "Having a PhD does NOT mean you can screw in a lightbulb--in fact, most PhDs I know are NOT handy folks and are CLUELESS when it comes to home improvement."

[My apologies to those academics out there who know how to re-wire your house or install toilets, like my friend Dr. A who actually DID remodel his entire house, including a fair amount of the wiring]

What is my point?

I do not excel in home repair. I probably feel like some of my students when they encounter Teresa Cha's Dictee or some dense literary theory. My head hurts, my eyes swim, and my brain starts to feel like it's going to explode.

However, my friend in the blogosphere, "The Constructivist," whose blog "Citizen of Somewhere Else" is one I greatly admire, especially when he comes up with such smart lesson plans that have his students do blog entries about difficult texts like Cha's Dictee, has very graciously given me (and three other bloggers) an award:


[I blush, I stammer, I thank "The Constructivist" profusely!]

And so, as charged to me in this "E is for Excellent blogging" meme, I am going to name four blogs that I believe excel in the blogosphere. It was a tough choice, and one of the things I decided to do was to concentrate on blogs that I don't think get wide national attention (in other words, I'm not listing The Huffington Post). So, without further ado in alphabetical order:

*Land of the Not So Calm. Because Sang-shil shares her perspective with the world about transracial/transnational adoption in such a poignant, thoughtful, introspective manner. I not only learn from her posts, I *feel* from them too. Also, make sure you check out her post on the California same-sex marriage ban being overturned--she's got a great video by Vienna Teng with lyrics included.

*Poplicks. Junichi Semitsu and Oliver Wang provide smart, thoughtful, and ironic/humorous commentary on American culture and current events. You laugh AND you think when you read these guys. In particular, I was moved by Wang's thoughtful musings about reporting on disaster situations, like the recent earthquake in Sichuan, China.

*Tenured Radical. I aspire to both being tenured (3 years and counting on the clock--I begin my 4th year this fall) and radical, although I suppose radical is in the eye of the beholder since I'm sure many would find my stances on same-sex marriage, race, and gender to be radical, whereas I see them as simply logical/progressive. Tenured Radical is a sly and wily blogger--her posts are razor sharp and on point. They are rich not only in analysis but in provocation, which is what a tenured radical should do. For example, see this recent entry about Obama.

And last but certainly not least,

*What Tami Said. What can I say about Tami? Her blog is like my morning cup of coffee--I feel I haven't properly started my day if I don't read her latest post. Her writing is keen, sharp, and intelligent. I often find myself reading her posts and nodding along and saying to myself (or sometimes aloud to my dog) "YES! That's exactly what I think too!" Make sure you read her post on gentrification. One of the things I appreciate most about What Tami Said is that she never settles for easy solutions--she always pushes herself, and her readers, to think about matters in the complexity that complicated situations deserve/need/warrant. She struggles with issues, just as I do, just as we all do.

So there you have it. Four excellent blogs to kickstart your Monday (five including The Constructivist's "Citizen of Somewhere Else").

And if you have any tips about painting crown molding (or any other home improvement advice), I'm all ears!

The last word on APA heritage: Beau Sia

So maybe he isn't the last word for APA heritage month, but I'm concluding this week-long series on Asian Pacific American history/heritage with a shout out to spoken word artist Beau Sia. He is of mixed Chinese and Filipino heritage, which I think makes him a fitting spokesperson for my last APA heritage month tidbit. I'm going to post three of his YouTube performances below, the last of which is a spoken word tribute compliments of the now defunct AZN channel (a cable television station that had been devoted to all Asian/Asian American programming--sort've like the Asian Telemundo or BET). It's a slamming piece, if I don't say so myself, but so are the other two, the first called "Hip Hop" and the second "An Open Letter to all the Rosie O'Donnell." For more on Beau Sia, go to his official website. And of his art below, watch, listen, and learn.


["Hip Hop"]


["An Open Letter to all the Rosie O'Donnells"]


[Asian Pacific American Heritage Month PSA]