down on the brown side.

(API* Heritage 2011) Post #5:Association for Asian American Studies

2011-05-11T23:44:00.004-04:00

I am trying really hard not to make this the month of cynicism about the community. There's enough dark in the world; no one wants more grim for the sake of darkness. But beyond the day to day work where theory and practice occasionally work together but often challenge one another to fist fights, the rest of Professional Asian America seldom strikes the right note for me anymore.

I suppose a humble person wouldn't feel like they know more than a lot of the jokers out there claiming to be the voice of, the historian of, the advocate for these communities, but I'm not quite that humble man. Of course, academics and scholars get a very special kind of ire from the activisty crowd (unless they are one and the same, as some marxist, revolutionary phDs have been known to live out their fantasies by managing and governing nonprofit organizations that they claim espouse those values).

By finding fault in scholars and their very specific areas of interest and specialization, activists in the "APA" space often deflect similar criticism that could fairly be levied against them: privilege, disconnect, ego, distraction from the "real" community. commodification of community struggle for personal profit/fame/career/eccentricity, missing the forest for the trees, whatever.

The Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) is having its 2011 Conference on Asian American Studies. The line-up of papers and speakers is quite extensive, but of course, in perusing the titles of some of the work and topics, you almost feel like you are at the gateway to a thousand of Calvino's invisible cities. Each more remarkable and unbelievable than the last. I don't even understand some of the titles, let alone what might be discussed there. But does that make what these folks have committed their life work to do wrong? I can't really speak to that. It was not my path and I have come across some really obtuse "community scholars" but in the same breath could name some phenomenal scholar-activists.

Maybe scholars face a healthy dose of envy to go along with all the other emotions hurled at them. It isn't easy living on nonprofit salaries. Even if some of those lowly staffers don't want to admit that they have other ways to guarantee the standard of living they were expecting before going into nonprofit land.

(API* Heritage 2011) Post #4: Advancing... Nothing

2011-05-04T20:30:00.002-04:00

I am so tired of hearing groups use the phrase "advancing justice" or "advancing equality" as their catch phrase for what they do in the "social justice" space. In Asian America, this equates to towing the model minority line: speak in your turn, don't ask for anything more than the bigger children, and be polite about the crumbs you get.

I don't get the "good enough" mentality. The assumed role of these groups and individuals as brokers who "deal" away the maximum benefits that the community can hope for in their low level policy meetings to show that "we know how to sacrifice, so please give us this little thing" is just sickening. They have no power, but they still have more opportunity than any of the real folks who they claim to represent. Our community needs more than piddling "advancement" of rights and pushback on the attacks against us.

We need folks who know how and are willing to use all the pieces on the board, not just be/the pawns. We need a peoples' agenda.

(API* Heritage 2011) Post #3: Vapors of Community in Asian American Studies

2011-05-03T22:38:00.000-04:00

Asian America, I like to say, is on the fringe of a margin in American public consciousness and life. The big open secret is that it is hardly in the consciousness of most Asian Americans, which in a way, is very different from all other major communities of color in the United States.

African Americans - despite the systematic dismantling of the leadership and heart of the community over the decades - still have a shared history of slavery, the fight for freedom, and the many struggles for equality and self-determination. Even though they do not comport cleanly with the narrative put forward by American mainstream, at least these histories and stories are in some imperfect way part of the American consciousness, and most definitely part of the African American experience. There is power and strength in that.

For Native Americans, even if all members of the tribes do not believe in the militancy of some groups like AIM, nor do they all have the same experience, there is knowledge and deep understanding about their position as peoples struggling and charting their paths in and around modern America. Latinos have a range of experiences that have to compete with the master narrative of the long and more complicated one that the Mexican American community has, but uniform and non-particular anti-immigrant sentiment has given at least some common history of struggle to these communities.

Think about it: activism, history, anything that binds individuals their actions and their accomplishments for self and community together into some kind of narrative is not part of the shared knowledge or "orientation" to the community that most Asian Americans have. We hang onto the vapors of a movement that seems eons old. And in a coalition community that has changed in so many ways since the early 70s, I wonder if it would even be possible to create something coherent and useful as a "movement" moving forward.

It is a lot of work to be conscious and try to quilt together any kind of meaningful narrative for APAs. In a lot of ways, we are more a community without much of a history than one with a long, deep history as is often posited by the canonical discourse of APA Studies and others who need that narrative to exist for them to have jobs and some meaning to their choice of work.

One could argue that Asian America as it could exist has only lived in our imaginations, and in the rare arts and organizing spaces over the past 10-15 years, including informal arts spaces, deliberate cultural work, and college campuses. It's not too far to say that Asian America is often better formed and represented in the student movements to create the programs than in the eventual programs themselves.

Why? Because the folks who can lead these programs have often had to trim down their understanding and scope of engagement with communities in a very specific way to get through the academic obstacle course and be credentialed enough to stand up and be counted for a position leading a fringe program that most departments don't believe in. Add to that the myopia that is almost inherent in academia and is perhaps more present still in Asian American Studies, AND the fact that many of these folks are not practitioners or when they were as students or young community workers there was little in common with now, and you end up with very limited understanding of what is needed and representative now.

Students pushing for APA studies eventually feel that they don't have a connection to what happens once a program is created and the program is not engaged enough with the students to understand what they were hoping for. The programs are not only cut off from the communities that had once demanded ethnic studies, but they are actually often cut off from the activist students at the same campus who have inherited the framework from their organizational ancestors and feel confused, hurt, shut out from their vision of an inclusive and representative program where they could finally see themselves in the curriculum.

What a sad state of affairs.

(API* Heritage 2011) Post #2: Osama Bin Laden and Asian America

2011-05-02T23:06:00.001-04:00

Most non-Desi or non-Arab Asian Americanists would either downplay or completely miss the relevance of the title of this piece.

With the kick-off of our month, we get the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed by a covert special operation by the U.S. military. I haven't spoken with Asian Americanists around the nation, I don't know what people are thinking. Perhaps people are out in the streets "partying" like some of mainstream America (murder is not my choice cause for celebrations). Perhaps they are indifferent.

But most of conscious and progressive South Asian America is NOT doing that. People are worried, scared, unclear on what this means, realizing that the global is the personal again, and might become even more and very directly so if things go the way people are bracing for. Last night soon after the news broke, I received a series of text messages from a Pakistani American friend with whom I have had an ongoing dialogue about how complicated community politics are and how lacking mainstream and even ally efforts to speak to or gloss over these issues can be. The friend was troubled by the blood lust, and very conscious of the geopolitical ramifications of the details as they were being released.

It is not good for Pakistani Americans that he was found far from the "caves" in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan where he was rumored to be. This is all complicated by the mounting pressure in Pakistan to understand the role of the central government and domestic intelligence agency in this, as well as assert sovereignty despite what seems like collusion to U.S. state-sponsored terrorism in their own land. Meanwhile, India is faithfully rattling the "harboring and assisting" argument to garner a better foothold in the face of its arch-rival's dominant strategic position in the everWar against Terrorism.

I suppose you can try to argue that that is "over there" politics that should not trouble us so much as Americans, with the lines in the sand drawn by traditional Asian Americanists (removed from the internationalist and radical roots of the Asian American Movement) against transnational concerns. However, that is not the reality for South Asians in the United States; our communities are inextricably linked and tuned into homeland politics, culture, and changes in a way that feels different from many other communities in Asian America. And besides, this news has real world impact for South Asian American community work as well, as the internal politics and neo-nationalism flare up in migrant communities when things at this scale happen.

And of course, there is tremendous fear of backlash, reprisal or copycat attacks in the U.S., and unending suspicion (from the thin strata of Americans who can discern the difference between Pakistani Americans and their amorphous global enemy in the "war on terror"). FB status messages of "be careful" and "best to stay inside" made their way on many of my Sikh and Muslim friends' pages. While our compatriots celebrate, we have to take cover for fear that their rejoicing could end up in an "accident" with our name buried below the non-ironic headline with words like "unfortunate" and "mistake" rather than "murder" or "innocent."

Does mainstream Asian America see or realize any of this? Shouldn't it?

(API* Heritage 2011) Post #1: Again?

2011-05-01T22:18:00.004-04:00

Yeah I'm back this month, two years later. I guess there's something compelling, like a train wreck, about revisiting a place that I abandoned and making the commitment to try to write here once a day for the whole month. I find it a useful exercise to see if I can sustain. Clearly I was not able to do that the first time I tried to write a daily post in honor of "Asian Pacific American Heritage Month."

I read something and it reminds me of this space. I see some folks still rolling out the same tired stories and snapshots of history as the whole of our community's existence, and it makes me think of this space. More than add to the noise, I want to hear and share stories. Here's an example of someone doing that through photos and long-form interviews. The community's voices are far more important than ours. That said, I'll see what I can do to make this year interesting.

Ambition.

2011-04-22T22:10:00.007-04:00

I've seldom thought of my gigs as parts of a "career" as such. I don't really think out my next move as much as most people from my peer group seem to do. I'm here, I'm trying to do the best I can, something happens and I move on, but it takes me a while. I'm not afraid of change, just not planning for it in short intervals.

I am fast approaching an age where I can't think of myself as young anymore. It is a little shocking - you live with yourself from day to day and know there are changes, but when you take the long view backward, you realize 20 years have gone by since this or that memory.

This means that it's time to think more about what I want the rest of my time in this work to look like, I suppose. But for me, I'm ready to have people with a deeper skill set and the requisite love for the community take leadership and move the conversation forward. I'm not going anywhere, but I don't have delusions of being the next greatest anything. I think it's freeing, actually. Suspending the ego and ambition as best we can without sacrificing drive and passion for the work might be the only way to grow old in work such as this.

I much better understand the idea that many have put forward about a shift in priorities when you have a child. At this point, while it's not true that nothing else matters or that my passion for some of the work is still strong, I feel a different sense of purpose when I'm conscious about the role I play for this little one. There will be a hundred amazing organizers, writers, lawyers, workers who I can look at and say, if I did something or many things differently, perhaps I could have achieved what they did or will. But my little boy will only have one father, however I play that role.

And that's quite a difference - striving to be better than the best in everything in the outside world, or striving to be the best you can, which is all your little one will know, inside your unit.

The Death of So Called Political Power: They Want Our Land

2011-04-22T07:54:00.003-04:00

WaPost A-1 story today talks about the dilution of black influence/majority districts with black flight/sweep out of urban centers around the nation. All this talk about gentrification and the future of "chocolate cities" doesn't take into account the human element. African Americans, especially, but also Jews, Chinese communities, and a range of others have a history of being restricted from living where they choose, later or directly as a result choosing to create their own communities.

Then they began losing those communities through class segregation celebrated as "integration" when people left the city for affluent suburbs, new valuation of the land they settled on as populations shifted and "center city" became a target with cross hairs on their properties (witness Chinatowns throughout this land), generations of new immigrants bought the American dream of integration and suburbia while turning away from co-ethnic cohesion that protected their predecessors amidst such animosity.

Not to mention the fact that people aren't stupid: it is clear that some communities get better services, better schools, better quality of life. Those are places that are "integrated" (read, less than 30% POC). And that means the enclaves aren't where it's at. The cynicism/realism is that people of color with the privilege of mobility have to go to where the good stuff is at, because it's not going to come to our people, and we're not going to be able to create it ourselves without political power (or will, in this largely dormant period for massive domestic community action).

So if you read this article, the whole situation feels like a terrible spiral: community folks of color live in close proximity to one another, then move out because they can or they have to (depends on the city and level of gentrification/rising costs) realizing that they don't have the political power with whatever power they have amassed over these painful 40 years to actually make things significantly better for urban communities of color. they move to the 'burbs, and they have a better quality of life but that of the folks they leave behind gets worse as the numbers decrease, and we end up with people throughout who have less elected political power than before.

And this doesn't even begin to address the complex issues these communities face on the daily in the suburbs.

What Now?

2011-04-17T23:43:00.002-04:00

It has been so long since I came to this site and shared anything beyond an apology for not writing here. I enjoyed writing here, and though there were only a few folks who came through, it felt like something small and manageable. Of course, many of us who share in some way long for a larger audience, and perhaps the advent of indiscriminate and mass sharing via Facebook and Twitter (and Tumblr, Posterous, etc.) makes blogs feel that much more old fashioned. There was a point when I didn't really read many blogs anymore, either.

The internet has become something different from what it once was for many of us in my generation. I lived on sites and message boards, and comment archives for some sites. Now, I'm in and out quickly, though the internet seems to hum in the background in my work, personal, and waking life in a way much like music, passing in and out of my primary zone of attention, but never for very long. With that, so too have gone blogs and other forms of serialized (or random) writing.

If I had the ability, I would create a site with a few trusted folks who I know would add something interesting when they have time. I would send it to people much the way I share links or start email discussions with a curated group of friends - in the interest of sharing, interacting, gaining something from that interaction.

In the years where I have fallen quiet on this site, I have not been writing elsewhere - not on another website, not in a personal weblog or journal account, not even in long form. And my letter writing, which was already haphazard at best, has been reduced to occasional birthday cards. I long for the time - but more importantly - the discipline to write regularly, honestly, and in a way that seeks and debates truth, community, this thing of life that passes so quickly. I am less interested in cataloging the acts that intervene between entries and more interested in exploring where I've been and where I'm going (as well as where "we" have been and where "we" are going) through a community of trust.

Part of me feels like there was an opportunity for that with this site or some successor that I could have built with friends years ago. I'm still interested. I still think about and try to live this "Asian American" thing, and the years have made me feel not more skeptical about these ideas of community, but more interested in exploring the nuances of this little sliver of the American experience in which I have invested my hopes, dreams, blood, sweat, and tears.

How to do that is my next big challenge. If there's anyone out there, I welcome your thoughts.

Time and Cycles

2010-02-25T21:05:00.004-05:00

The more things change, ya'll. Four years, almost to the day, that I posted this, I've lost my last living grandparent. My other grandmother. I have been writing more regularly, both for work and for a private project, but I miss this space. There's likely no one out there anymore, but I can't believe it has been four years since that post.

Ain't no time to waste, ya'll. I won't be writing a lot here about this, or perhaps anything at all, but these lives we live across cultures and with families and generations split across continents - you know you're supposed to feel something specific because that's what society tells you. So what happens when you don't? Or when what you feel is related to other unexplained losses that you've experienced but still not processed? Is it too self-centered to explore that pain when something else is more immediate?

Growing Up

2009-11-21T13:54:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately. The silence on this site, sadly, doesn't mean that I'm writing a lot elsewhere right now, and that's been getting me down. I was in a rare funk for a bit, which my partner noticed. She mentioned her concern to me, but I didn't know what was going on.

I don't seem to really tackle these feelings head on - often they are fleeting, but I've been told, particularly by my live-in better half that I have a tendency to focus most on what's immediately in front of me. I denied for a while, but you know? When I look back on my years of work, of experiences, of failures, triumphs, WTF moments, and friends who have gradually fallen off of my map, I realize that there's more truth there than I wanted to admit.

So I'm thinking more, and I'm trying to figure out what is most important. The internet eats up hours, stressing about things we can't change in a day at work and otherwise takes up mental and emotional space, and time keeps on ticking. Effective people stay focused, even if not with a tunnel-vision that makes the journey just a means rather than an end. I have the confidence to recognize my voice is unique, important, maybe even funny sometimes. But sometimes we get too caught up in the paths not taken, enit?

I've had a blessed life, all things considered. It's funny though - when do you turn the corner and accept that some of the things you imagined of yourself will not come to pass? When do you give yourself the really hard look and say "this is where I'm at, this is where I'm going, and all the rest were options that I didn't choose"? I've always been the youngest in a group - and the transition to the oldest in a group seems odd to me.

Of course, seeing people who make later-in-life decisions gives me good hope, so I am coming to terms with "middle-age" in a new way. Funny as that sounds, I think it's a good thing. Dawdling on minor dream tributaries that were passing thoughts as a clueless post-teen is a waste of time.

I have shit to do.

Framing is Everything: Where is the Immigrants' Rights Movement Now?

2009-09-10T22:26:00.003-04:00

You know - the thing that irks me far more than Wilson's outburst last night? It's that the actual policy point that is being hammered again and again, both by the right wing fringe and mainstream conservatives AND the liberal media establishment (Keith Olbermann and the rest of them) as well as the spin doctors for the dopey Democrats, is that "illegal" immigrants are not going to get any kind of Federal subsidy for healthcare.

On the policy point, this means they may be forced to make decisions between breaking the new law because they didn't know or they can't afford the coverage, if maintaining healthcare coverage becomes mandatory through health reform, or paying full rates for health care coverage and not having money to send back home to their families, or not paying rent, or not feeding their families. The backwardness of this proposition, which is just an extension of wrongheaded policy decisions made as part of the 1996 Welfare Deform legislation, boggles the mind.

You know, if we have to outline who shouldn't get any government money for health care premiums, I would suggest it should be Federal income tax-evaders. But make sure we're clear: that would be people who actually have to pay taxes and don't, rather than just assuming that includes all undocumented folks. Because so many undocumented immigrants don't make a lot of money, those who do not file tax returns could be saving the Feds money by not claiming their Earned Income Tax Credit as very low income families.

But the biggest loss here is that democrats, liberals, "progressives" - they are all just willing to blindly accept that it's okay to leave out the undocumented in this debate. Sure! They aren't going to vote, they aren't going to donate, so let's scapegoat and toss them around as the political hot potato that we can all agree to ignore (or worse, talk about as if we're harder on them than the crazies on the right).

The "immigrants rights" people should be burning buildings down at this point. But I don't know if liberal white women do that kind of thing. So will the real immigrants' rights movement please stand up? There are people impersonating you, waiting quietly and patiently in the wings as the healthcare fiasco winds its way through the legislative halls until they can get a chance at gazing upon their icon and selling off large pieces of the movement as part of a "coordinated strategy on comprehensive immigration reform"... or at least their thinly veiled audition for coveted positions within the Administration. This anemic "movement" has no real vision, no real balls to take on the Administration the way that the right does every step of the way.

Dare I say it: they could learn something from the self-proclaimed "progressive caucus" of the House that is claiming that no health reform bill without a public option will be acceptable. They will likely be shut down (the President conceded more to the other side of the aisle than members of the "progressive caucus" last night, folks), but at least they finally said something. Will immigrants' rights folks do the same to stand up for our communities? The world waits to find out... or perhaps most sadly of all, they don't even know that this is an issue.

New Blue Scholars EP: OOF!

2009-09-07T14:07:00.002-04:00

Hey folks. So it's been a summer since I posted. Took some time off from the hectic life and reflected a bit. More time reading, chilling with peeps, and cooking and less time in front of a screen is my goal. But even as I've grappled with what to do with this space, I realize that I want to keep some semblance of this space alive because it's been a minute since I started it (2003?!) and I still have to find the right spot to call home for new writing. So thanks to anyone who's still reading, and hopefully there will be something interesting here once in a while still...

For now - the new Blue Scholars EP OOF! came out at the end of last month. Check it and stream below:

A Reason to Question Prez Obama's Departure from Bush

2009-06-22T18:33:00.003-04:00

I heard this on Democracy Now this morning. Check this link for the details.

Did you hear his comments this week (perhaps it was today?) about the plight of the Uyghur detainees who have been released after 7 years of detention (without any charges, and now without any apology), can't return to China for fear of persecution, yet are not being allowed to settle in the U.S., but are being pushed to Palau?

President Obama: “Nick at Nite has a new take on an old classic: Leave It to Uyghurs. I thought that was pretty good.”

Yeah - pretty good if you're not one of the Uyghur detainees, whose lives have been destroyed by racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic American policy that crosses a lot of different disciplines from Homeland Security, the "War on Terror", immigration and asylum policy, and the list goes on.

Dear Prez: I was kind of coming around a bit too, but this is really awful. Joking about the plight of people who have been completely fucked by the U.S. is really uncouth, uncool, and unlikely to win my confidence that you are different from McCain's "bomb bomb bomb Iran" comments.

API* Heritage Post #Fin

2009-06-11T02:27:00.002-04:00

I didn't give up on the posts: I just felt like the navel-gazing wasn't getting me anywhere, particularly without much dialogue on the site. Life has gotten incredibly busy through work (again) and just life. I think I have yet to find that balance folks talk about, but it's a healthy thing to always wonder if you've found it, I guess.

It was a crazy Heritage month this year: Al Robles and Ron Takaki left us last month. While they weren't perfect, they gave us different views, different benchmarks by which to measure our own lives in this work. I think the personal stories that people have started to share about their lives and what they did to touch people has been the most striking. And with more personal loss that we've just found out about, I realize that much more how even little things can really connect you to someone, and make losing them, in whatever way, that much more of a shock.

I'm kind of at a standstill again regarding my energy for this space. But it's hard to let go.

API* Heritage Post #20: Regenerate

2009-05-23T11:23:00.003-04:00

I really don't know what else to write about at this point. I feel like a curmudgeon in this space, partially because I can't get as specific as I'd like to, and then because I am actually hopeful about a lot of things, but again, the specificity makes me want to find another place to add these stories to our crazy kitchrie of a community.

Honestly - one thing I've been thinking about a lot is the need for more storefront/flexible community spaces. As our people continue to get pushed further and further from urban centers, it is so easy to lose sight of their unique histories and stories, which really are critical parts of what make each city.

Without geographic residential hubs, the lives of folks who live in the 'burbs but spend many of their working hours turning the wheels that keep the city going are lost. Even the sense of ownership of the city is lost, particularly as middle-class and white folks flood back into cities displacing the immigrants and low-income folks who lived there before.

So we need our own spaces. We need at least some kind of marker, beyond staid museums and exhibits: living, breathing spaces that are open to community, that take community needs and dreams and work them into something.

API* Heritage Post #19: Destroy and Rebuild

2009-05-19T20:33:00.004-04:00

I think all of the national APA nonprofits that have been around for more than 10 years should take 2010 to reevaluate their existence and purpose. I think they should be forced to reboot. The community needs it. They, like most peecees running windows, have grown fat, useless, obsolete. There isn't an ounce of fire in them - they push the same damn papers back and forth, meet in the same damn circles of contacts, tow the same damn line. Well, I. Ain't. Havin'. It.

I just wrote about the love in my last post, but I'm really down on these jokers. What do they bring to the conversation, I mean, really? If you've been doing the same time for more than 5 years, it's time to think: what am I getting from this, what else could I be doing, and you know - what am I keeping others from doing here?

API* Heritage Post #18: Family

2009-05-18T19:32:00.003-04:00

Yeah - it was a great idea while it lasted. But can we really force ourselves to write about community every day? Or even to think about it in that same old way? Today's post - I think I've just got to keep it close. I love talking about this work, and doing what I can, but sometimes it's easy to get carried away on that front and forget altogether who and what is most important.

The work will always continue, and you know - that Springsteen line about being afraid that we're not that young anymore? I think I'm finally feeling that regarding those days of just hanging out with people and building community over long dinners and longer drinking sessions afterwards. I have a lot of ideas for the future, but I'm also looking inward - if you don't have that peace at home, and that strength that comes from either quiet time alone or with the one(s) you love, you are missing something fundamental and cherished by the very people you are fighting with/for.

So don't forget your loved ones. The struggle continues tomorrow, as long as you wake up whole and warm with love. Because though the profiteers who bleed our community for their egos, their ever-rising ambitions, will never acknowledge it, it is the combination of relentless love and fearless struggle that will carry this beyond press releases and inside conversations.

API* Heritage Post #17: Cornershop's New Video by Prashant Bhargava

2009-05-17T23:33:00.000-04:00

Well before the current interest in India as a different locational source for film, Chicago's award winning Grafitti artist turned award winning Film-maker and Designer Prashant Bhargava put together his film Patang -- this feature length drama is set during the jubilant atmosphere of India's largest kite festival. Luckily for us he also did a video for "The Roll Off Characteristics"

You can catch Bhargava's short film Sangam on Netflix View Instantly, and get onto the Facebook fan site for Patang, which is due out at either the end of this year or beginning of 2010. Support our arts, ya'll.

API* Heritage Post #16: Solidarity and Disaggregation of Data

2009-05-16T11:13:00.003-04:00

This year, in an actual attempt to really observe API* Heritage Month, I'm trying to put up a post a day about what that means to me. Click the tag for API* Heritage to get the whole series.

Often with API* activists and advocates, we speak about common experiences where there may not be many - our discussions of solidarity are really that: not shared histories but analogies of struggle that we can bring to bear in whatever work we're trying to do together now. It's not that our people have the same histories and therefore our struggles are the same: it's that in the stories of the Manongs from the I-Hotel, there are themes and experiences that we can learn from, examples that we can use to build for the future.

Where we go wrong is when we overlook the differences, the uniqueness of Asian and other immigrant community experiences and try to create some kind of meta-narrative where there is none. Vast and discriminatory backlogs in visa processing affect many Asian communities, and offer an opportunity for common stories that bind, but the plight of Filipino American veterans, JA internees, Cambodian deportees, Thai sweatshop workers, and Bhutanese refugees are different from one another.

We, the privileged, can and should find ways to weave stories together to tell stories that are more complex than the 30-second elevator speech: we must find ways to build stories with layers and branching examples that build a narrative (even if it is non-linear) that better captures the multiplicity of experience rather than the simple reduction of this diversity into general bullet points.

While it will not be easy, if we don't do this, we definitely can't rely on the outside world to even begin to understand these complexities, nor to adequately capture the differences. People generally agree that there are big concerns with aggregation of data about our communities into "Asian" or "Other" without data about individual groups. Getting disaggregated data (quantitative and qualitative) is just step one; step two is making sense of that data, then reconfigure and arrange it to both emphasize unique communities and experiences and to find themes and patterns that can facilitate understanding, solidarity, and joint action for shared concerns.

API* Heritage Post #15: Beginning

2009-05-15T17:22:00.004-04:00

This year, in an actual attempt to really observe API* Heritage Month, I'm trying to put up a post a day about what that means to me. Click the tag for API* Heritage to get the whole series.

There are so many nonprofits in our communities and yet so many needs and possibilities still unmet and untapped. Here and there, I've alluded to an interest in breaking free of the nonprofit-industrial complex, partially because I think there's often such a weird aura of privilege (without acknowledgment) that surrounds these groups. And it's just so. much. talk.

At the same time, I feel like we're often limited by just thinking about the dollars we can raise through foundations, corporations, and government - all tethered in some major way to capitalism or militarism because where else will they get the money (or the guilt) to contribute to groups? Private and public grants are the opiate of the organizers, I'd say - the money keeps us going, but it also keeps their hands on our throats, fully limiting the possible ways that groups can truly focus on what is needed for their communities: social change that moves far beyond catch phrases and happy hours.

But how to start something that focuses on community before institution building? And how do you know whether you're the right person/group to start it, or if it's the right priority? I've been telling folks to ask these questions lately when they want to start a new group - and also to ask whether 501(c) anything is really what they want. The institutionalization and professionalization of this work has moved us all rightward.

API* Heritage Post #14: Preserving History

2009-05-14T22:49:00.003-04:00

It's funny how we have to search for our collective histories in the dusty corners of second-hand bookstores (which is where some of the old-timer API* literature heads first found John Okada's classic novel "No-No Boy"), or in the fading stories of elders and first generations of immigrants (like the oral history projects that have documented in pieces what early life for Asian immigrants was like), on the falling walls of the first immigrant detention centers (poetry carved into the walls on Angel Island), or even by dumpster diving in Chinatowns to preserve original signs from the and artifacts from the roots of our communities here.

We're always forced to look to the margins, and nowadays, with the cannonization of "Asian American History" and "Asian American Experience" by the academic elite, we sometimes have to look to the margins of these margins to find real stories, real talk, real struggles. So much of what people do - everyday struggles, victories, cultural evolutions, micro-movements, are lost in history. The act of documenting is in itself an act of filtering and valuing different things, casting aside and away some things or keeping them in boxes because a linear narrative is easier than the complex and often contradictory one to write and to use for whatever purpose we have in mind.

But what's lost in that process? How many moments, connections, and transformations don't make it into the books? It's not simply about the need to see yourself or the things you know in these historical accounts of times we've been through, but because the personal stories, the small steps, are what future generations can latch onto: the big movements and red-letter-days are few and far between. As they've said over and over about the Civil Rights movement, for example, it took a lot more than the iconic, memorialized moments (what broke the camel's back: one straw or the thousand that came before it?) to create what happened.

In our inability to really take the time to capture these things, and because every day is potentially full of moments worth documenting, are we building the stories to carry the next generation forward, or just singular narratives that simplify what has really happened in our time? Living in the margins (of the margins) do we run the risk of losing the complexity and varied intersections of these times in API* communities and community building altogether?

API* Heritage Post #13: The Next Generation

2009-05-13T22:25:00.000-04:00

Just when you think you can lose hope for the new generation of students coming up through colleges and graduate schools, the summer interns begin at your organization, and you realize that there are still folks with that fire in their belly for community work.

Our first intern started this week at my workplace, and she fit right in. Her personal story is one thing, but to see that a young person has so much energy, enthusiasm, and even the sheer will to learn is a really encouraging thing. I know friends who have become embittered about the excesses of young people, or even their disinterest or entitlement (I'm sure I've written about this here too). But I definitely feel like that's only one piece of the puzzle: there's hope out there. And it may be all the hope our community really has, if most of my generation is bitter now.

API* Heritage Post #11 & 12: Jean Shin and Hope for Asian American Art

2009-05-11T23:50:00.006-04:00

This year, in an actual attempt to really observe API* Heritage Month, I'm trying to put up a post a day about what that means to me. Click the tag for API* Heritage to get the whole series.

Saturday's post gave a tiny piece of context for a little review I wanted to share about artist Jean Shin's show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which I got to check out while in DC yesterday. First, Jean Shin came to the U.S. with her folks from Korea when she was 5. They settled in the suburban Washington area, and she eventually moved to NYC to pursue her career as an installation artist.

She has been featured in a number of different places in New York and around the nation, but this is (to my knowledge) her first significant show at a Smithsonian space. Smithsonian = free, so I made an effort to get to the city and check this one out.

Basically, this show is remarkable. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is in DC or planning on visiting there at some point before the show closes in late July. I'm hoping to go down to the show again before it closes, and definitely want to check out more of her work in the future - there are some permanent installations in NYC, actually.

Jean Shin takes ordinary items, amasses huge quantities of them, and does something quite interesting with them as part of an installation piece. Her thoughtfulness, her connection between the work, place, relationships is really fascinating, and while the work may seem initially abstract / "modern" (in the pejorative sense that people often use for art created principally for the sake of the artist), there's a lot more going on there.

Everyday Monuments is the piece that's new for the Washington show. She collected more than 2,000 athletic trophies from residents of Washington DC, which she and her staff painstakingly modified one at a time, removing signs and indications of the sport, and replacing the props held by the figure or the implied motion with something that represents an unheralded job or occupation. Where once there was a hockey stick, there is now a broom or a shovel. A football player's pigskin is replaced with a book. Trays of food and drinks, garbage cans, plungers, tires, paint brushes replace balls and other implements of sport, and fill empty hands that were supposed to represent the second after a free throw was made.

Taken one at a time, the pieces are interesting, funny, and innovative. Taken all at once in the context of Washington, a city filled with stoic monuments to people and times that sometimes mask the full scope of loss, complexity, and the many people who make any movement/moment in history, the work is revelatory. The title, "Everyday Monuments," and the deliberate placement of the work within a scale representation of the National Mall make the artist's intentions clear: she is highlighting the unsung heroes of our society, their labor building the foundation for all other great acts to follow. The fact that she and her staff had to physically alter the figures, sometimes removing limbs or torsos, is also quite symbolic of the transformation and losses that laborers often endure, which are often not fully evident when you just look at them (i.e. the very specific condition of immigrant laborers, who often perform their demanding jobs with torn and still raw familial and other connections that they have left behind to work, usually without much choice).

Why is the work so compelling? Because Jean Shin is a very thoughtful artist, and the scale and ambition of her work is extraordinary, even though multiple pieces fit into a relatively small gallery space. Another piece explores the interconnectedness of the Asian American arts community in 5 or 6 cities through a physical "mapping" of relationships by threads linking sweaters arranged on walls that have been donated by more than 200 other API* artists in the cities where the piece has been exhibited. The use of physical space and the direct engagement with the API* community immediately frames her sensibilities as directly linked to
the "community" even if all of her work does not derive solely or directly from those links.

It's probably this fact that leads me to believe that in many ways, this imagined, fractured community we still talk about is most evident, seems most real to me, in creative and arts spaces, where the communal is personal, and where both inform the political, but the discourse between the three and the outside worlds are seldom simple or just reduced to the uncritical space of "solidarity" amongst people. Even work that is not politically radical often explores boundaries, borders, definitions, and complex questions of belonging, heritage, and even worldview in ways that our political discourse and movement building have not been able to do since these conversations began more than 40 years ago.

API* Heritage Post #10: Thanks Mom

2009-05-10T21:17:00.003-04:00

I wasn't able to spend this Mother's Day with my mom, and frankly, I've not been able to spend as much time with Mom as I should over the past couple of years. As I talk about "API* Heritage" this month, I realized that I should first think about my personal heritage, and what I've received from my Mom and family.

Rather than go on here, I'm just going to say "thanks, Mom." All that I am able to write or pontificate about, all the space that I have for myself to question and reevaluate where I am, and what this imagined, fractured community is, is because you've given me that space. You haven't pushed me to do more than be happy, and to do the best at what I can in whatever I care about. You stress trying to be a good and honest person over blind passion for some kind of cause, but you understand when I go a bit overboard. You've given me tools, but I'm still learning how to use them.

Regardless, thanks mom. Even if I can't talk about all these little things that take up space in my head with you, you forgive my many faults, you listen and even repeat some of the things that I tell you, and you don't ask much from me at all, though you really could. The heritage that I don't question, and that which I am proudest of, comes directly from what you've given and taught me over all these years.

API* Heritage Post #9: Asian American Arts and the Movement

2009-05-09T23:19:00.006-04:00

This year, in an actual attempt to really observe API* Heritage Month, I'm trying to put up a post a day about what that means to me. Click the tag for API* Heritage to get the whole series.

My post about "The Snake Dance of Asian American Activism" a few days back didn't really get into the authors' discussion of Asian American arts in the movement. I thought some of their reflections on cultural work and the movement were quite good, actually.

One section in the book, labeled Art and Culture: The Making of Asian America discusses how cultural work gave a popular to some of the ideologies behind the early AA Movement mobilization such as self-determination, the "common person's role in making history," and other specific historic references. There was a point, which is also well-documented in Tad Nakamura's touching portrait of the life of Chris Iijima in A Song for Ourselves, when artists and cultural workers had to decide between representing and exploring collective personal histories of our people, and moving into work that looked inward (best captured in a quote in the book on page

I've had a long love affair with Asian American cultural work. Artists and cultural workers who are deliberate and thoughtful about their histories, our collective inheritances, and what world it is in which they live have been able to create powerful, lasting work that is not just propaganda on the stage, page, or track, but actually brings to light an experience, no matter how personal or individual it may seem, that comprises another patch in the quilt of Asian America.

Cultural workers can create spaces for community members to engage with questions of identity, belonging, community, and in/justice in ways that a speech, a manifesto, or a rally can never do. And by re/appropriating traditional cultural forms, from sampling filmi songs to using korean drumming at a rally for racial justice, Asian American cultural workers are able to bring together elements of the familiar and the new to many generations of community members at the same time. This is both a personal observation and something that the authors of Snake Dance brought up as well.

But it's when folks are lazy about "political work" that I get annoyed. While I like some overtly political/ideologically driven work, I think the worst example of rants masquerading as cultural work come in the spoken word arena - where there is often nothing artful about the framing of a piece that just seems hollow, angry, and gimmicky. Regular readers know how much I like some of the Fil-Am emcees who have been writing and living incredible work in the past 10 years - Geo, Bam, Kiwi, Koba, and the list goes on. I think the Two Tongues crew were really powerful because they were able to really write and not lose creativity while being clear about what they wanted to get across.

This post was actually the lead up to a show I just got to see at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, but I'll leave that for tomorrow's post at this point. Stay tuned!

Post #8: Movement is in the Heart

2009-05-08T23:08:00.003-04:00

Carrying over from yesterday's post, I had a piece of a conversation with a coworker about what some of the older movement folks did: living and working alongside the "community" they spoke about and advocated/organized with. She seemed skeptical of the whole thing: suggesting to me that there was still appropriation and//or crossing of lines in her mind: those with the privilege to decide where they want to live, and the ability to decide that they want to work as a laborer, even though they possibly had other options, was questionable to her.

I think part of it may be related to something I read in my poverty law class when I was in school: while other groups can coalesce around an identity, as a source of power and a foundation for organizing, the author argued that poor people are not proud to be poor, and poor people don't want to remain poor, particularly in the American system, but likely anywhere you go in the world. And for immigrants, the extrapolation goes, that should go double, because many were poor back home, and after years of backbreaking work in a hostile environment, the last thing they want is to remain in that same condition. I don't know either way.

But while I don't think that I idealize the harsh conditions that workers (or low-income renters) deal with every day, I do think that a part of me always feels disingenuous as I do the work that I've done and even as I do what I'm doing now. It's still a "career" to practice public interest law, and I'm still very much in a (c)(3) box. No matter what my message about peoples' power is while I'm at work, nor even if my personal vision for this work were crystal clear, it still feels like an act sometimes. Perhaps it's just because it's hard for me to reconcile "movement" with "career" - I think you could say this is a defining part of your life, but if you get paid for the work, and if you are not in control of how you spend all of your time, then there is a gap between that theory and practice.

I don't know if there's an ideal, but sometimes I wonder if people who volunteer are, in a way, more pure than those people who work on community-based projects as a paid job. I raise this only because it's so easy to be distracted by the day-to-day, or to get too comfortable (particularly as a lawyer, because you have that club card that non-lawyers do not have, even if firm big-shots don't acknowledge that you have the same training as they did.

For a long time, I've been saying that "policy" positions and jobs are bullshit: ultimately, you're just getting paid to spew your opinion in a more formalized, backed-by-quantitative-facts kind of way. But I'm seriously wondering if all community-based "jobs" are bullshit as well. As long as we make a career out of this work, there are potential conflicts between a more pure vision of what a movement or peoples' struggle should be, and what the constraints of your employer are and how they limit actions to support a radical social change agenda.

Perhaps movement is in the heart, to borrow from Carlos Bulosan, and not in the effort to get more funded positions to talk about it. And perhaps that movement is dying with those who are leaving us so quickly (Richard Aoki, now Manong Al Robles).

Post #7: The Snake Dance of Asian American Activism

2009-05-07T22:06:00.004-04:00

I mentioned earlier in this "series" that the SAALT Summit made me think about some things a little more than I have for a while. I won't be able to go in depth here, but I want to explore some of these points over the course of the next couple of weeks. Today, rather than get on my computer and muddle through even more work in the evening, I decided to just start reading, which I haven't done in a long time. I pulled out the relatively new book, "The Snake Dance of Asian American Activism," written by Michael Liu, Kim Geron, and Tracy Lai to add some context to the "Asian American Movement" that we keep hearing about.

The book was a surprisingly quick read - perhaps I was skimming some of the things I knew, but I felt like they did a good job of moving quickly through the material. As academics with pretty solid personal histories of organizing and activism, they seemed to know when to move on from a point or moment in history, citing to source material and not lingering too long. The interesting thing about this book is that rather than give me yet another academic tome to criticize for how it has completely left out South Asians from the framing of the "Asian American Movement", I had other things to ponder once I got through this book.

The authors' premise is that there are critical pieces of history and context for what is now referred to as the Asian American Movement that are often hidden beneath the more common accounts of identity formation and struggle for "equality" that take up much of the space in Asian American studies circles. I found the way that the framed when the Movement started interesting yet frustrating, because they actually went as far back as labor organizing on the West Coast in the '30s, but ignored the revolutionary Ghadar movement work that had happened in the early South Asian communities in the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps the idea was to trace the arch from labor organizers who were somehow connected to the Chinese and Japanese Americans who were involved in the '60s and early '70s (though the labor organizers were also Filipino and may not have been so connected).

My other issue was that while the authors mentioned South and Southeast Asians, there was little time spent investigating or thinking about the radical work that was happening in these communities as early as the 80s, and definitely further along into the 90s. Granted, a great deal of the professionalized organizational work (which the book does a good job of critiquing and discussing from the context of the earlier AAM organizations) in South Asian communities have not been driven by an ideology of broad systemic change, but there have been some interesting, and important developments over time that should have been explored.

In addition, some of the specific critiques of the hard-Marxist approaches that some organizations took on, with professionalized "organizers" trying to distance and legitimize themselves in contrast with less doctrinarian counterparts in service and advocacy organizations. This was particularly offputting in some of the organizations that the book's authors bring up, and the reason for some of the fissions that occurred in the 80s and 90s between groups, organizers, and different approaches to the work.

I think what I found the most interesting and thought-provoking, however, was that a lot of the activists in the 70s actually lived in the SROs and hotels with the low-income tenants. The organizations shared space in those buildings as well, sometimes run out of apartments. Activists took jobs in the labor industries to both make a living, and live the same life as the people whose voices they thought should lead or guide the movement. This is so different from what we all do now: we are professionalized, making a career out of talking about and minutely affecting the conditions that real working people deal with every day. The difference between this approach and that taken by some of the folks from the 70s is enormous, and something I plan to think and write a lot more about in this space.

For now - this is enough. Check out this book if you get a chance.

Post #6: McDonalds

2009-05-06T20:02:00.002-04:00

Okay - my post about APA Heritage month? I remember when McD's had some weird Asian campaign a few years ago. I just looked for it again, and WTF is this? Okay, so this is like guide 101 for white guys trying to pick up Asian women. But it's like so bizarre. And I can't even begin to understand how they can break down Cantonese and Mandarin under Chinese, but can't even come up with a real language for the "Henna Mouse" or "Jeepney Mouse."

The reason I went to this site is actually because I got a targeted mailing from McDonalds that I could see was for coffee. When I turned it over, I saw that the main tag line was "Taste Ki Baat Hai!" WTF part 5000. Either some group that knew I was South Asian sold my name to McDonalds, which is so low down I wish I could figure out who did it, or somehow, they figured out a way to do name-based micro-marketing. I don't live in a desi neighborhood, so I have no idea of how they hit their mark.

I just feel kind of violated: anything McDonald's that comes at me conjures up 2 radically different feelings: 1) I remember the family going to McD's sometimes, just getting 3 or 4 large fries and a couple of sodas, and then one or more of us would get a sundae or something. That's about all we could eat, but it was happy times when we went (I'm talking once a month or something). But then 2) I found out that McDonald's coats its fries with beef extract or something. How fucked up is that? I can't even begin to tell you. Fried potatoes made with beef extract. Meat-eaters are so insane.

Yeah. That's some heritage for you.

Post #5: Talking Community

2009-05-05T13:46:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm just starting on this journey of "community work" because of my "rebirth" as a working who actually has more direct contact with community members than I ever did in the past. But I realize when I think about the years and different hats I've worn, that rather than complain about "those old-timers" I'd better be careful that I don't become one of them.

It's weird to be in a setting where I'm both one of the oldest people at my office, and yet still one of the greenest in this line of work. There's the odd combination of respect for the barrel of years that I sometimes dip into to inform what I'm saying or where I'm coming from, and my personal acknowledgement that I don't really know much when it comes to actually practicing law.

But you know, actually working with community folks definitely humbles a guy like me. I'm realizing how little I know, and how much of what we do as "Asian Americanists" is still theoretical and privileged if it's not connected to regular folk, even if we're not on the ivory tower spouting theories. I realize that because the everyday stories and the ways that people connect to one another, and actually to us, is amazing.

Sometimes I forget that I speak a different language from my group client because we have a rhythm with the interpreter and we connect in some fundamental way. I mean, with that group, they refer to me as their lawyer and get really happy when they see me now. Then there's someone else who was at a general presentation I made to who referred to me as "the foreigner" in Chinese when speaking with a co-worker of mine. The difference is just context.

But it's humbling, and it's rewarding even on the tough days, because you feel that link both to the individuals and the many stories that paved the way for their own, and yours. But it's not a point to get on others' cases about if they aren't doing this - it's partially our role to find ways to make these stories get out there and are heard by more people. Maybe these stories of "community" can build community in their own right.

Post #4: Manong Al

2009-05-04T14:14:00.006-04:00

Al Robles, poet, activist, free spirit from the early days of Asian America passed away this weekend. I didn't know him. I didn't even know his work very well, save for a few poems that I've read in anthologies and the few times I read pages from his book, Rappin’ With Ten Thousand Carabao in the Dark, yet another on a long reading list that keeps getting longer.

But I know his name, and enough pieces of his story, and even a few of its intersections with stories with which I am familiar, such as that of the International Hotel. Manong Al, as he was known by the community, spent a lot of time with the older, single Filipino men, manongs themselves, who lived in the SRO units at the I-Hotel. He shared time, advocated for individuals to get social services, and just was around. His story, his life, and his light are interwoven with those stories from the early days of a conscious Asian American movement. As I think about ways to mark heritage month this year, I'm hoping to study his lessons and to celebrate his life.

Day #3: Margins and Margins

2009-05-03T12:21:00.003-04:00

There is always an uncomfortable gap between the "professionalized" Asian Americans who make it their living to speak on behalf of the communities that live within our imperfect, big-tent nation, and the people who they speak of (or ignore altogether). But I think there are even further divisions that separate us than just the elite and the non-elite.

There is also an elitism within community-based work that has created schisms in most major cities between people with different approaches and frameworks about working with immigrants, with the poor, and with the historically and currently oppressed. My personal priorities often align me with people who believe in peoples' movements and a move away from the successful immigrant class taking up all bandwidth when talking about "community issues" to policy-makers.

However, I have issues with both "sides" and still think there is a holier-than-thou attitude from some people on the left about what it means to be "real" and conscious when thinking about and addressing the significant class/gender/orientation/age/language/immigration status differences that can separate our communities and splinter our voices.

I believe that it's possible to be righteous about these important differences without always being self-righteous. I think if we work from a position that there is something to be gained for everyone if we find cooperative or collaborative ways to address shared concerns and stay out of each others' ways for things that don't affect one another, we can move things further and faster. By fully dismissing the prospect of working together, or for some kind of transformative process that can move people who have privilege to use that privilege to support a humanist, fully progressive agenda, we will continue to work in small silos and actually force our privileged, (and white-washed) static understandings of class differences upon a situation where that may not be the right answer.

I'm so tired of South/Asian marxist-leninists regurgitating white formulations of class struggle. What does that say to co-ethnics who are both class oppressors and relatives of people who are poor? Or those who have gone from one end of the poverty/realized power spectrum to the other? Do we assume that we can't move (or force) some of them to see the light and support poor peoples' struggles as their own? Why can't they be allies like we are? Is this all about the ego and insecurity of the "organizers," lest they be identified with the privileged, who they most likely more closely resemble?

Whatever it is, I'm not afraid of conflict at all, but I don't think we always have to start there. And I think using old, rigid ideologies to understand the current situation and condition of our communities is intellectually lazy and consciously insincere.

Day #2: Our Heritage Spreads Across the Sky

2009-05-02T10:08:00.004-04:00

Heritage Month feels kind of overwhelming on the East Coast. I think it's because we don't have a steady stream of things going on in the community or cultural arena at all times, particularly in parts of NYC and I'm sure in other seaboard cities. So to have a full calendar with multiple things going on every day makes me wish that 1) I had a lot more time to just go to events like I did when I was a pup; and/or 2) we need to get our act together and spread this shit out.

I remember really feeling community at some of the earliest events I went to. But it's far more than just the activities and social side of it, enit? We're not just creating new holidays to celebrate when most of our calendars already have many that we go through with family and community every year already. "Heritage month" isn't just to a time to see old friends, to gather and to celebrate. It's also a time to reflect, to say yo, "we're still here, we're growing strong, and we're getting tired of saying we belong" (Chris Iijima, "Asian Song").

In our celebrations this month, are we counting the histories of struggle, of resistance, of oppression, as part of this heritage? Or is this about just saying we're proud of Chinese food (again, hat tip to Chris Iijima) and Kal Penn? I'm asking that we remember that our "heritage" as Asians, Pacific Islanders, whomever, living within the boundaries and borders of the United States extends far beyond our ancestral links and traditions. Our heritage is far richer, the things we pass on to our children far more vibrant than just those things that we've left behind or that may be worth leaving behind. Our heritage includes what we are doing today, and what we'll do tomorrow.

I'm all for celebrating that.

Day #1: Love for the People

2009-05-01T21:47:00.002-04:00

So why the hell do we still care about Asian America? (I'm leaving out the "Pacific" because of all the various issues I have with including it that I'm going to spare you from at this point.) I don't really know sometimes, even though I've been involved in this work and these conversations for a long time now.

Our differences are clear, our histories - at least those that we have uncovered - not so neatly intertwined or even inter-related. We have had moments when our people have actively stood in silence or distanced themselves from one another (WWII "I am not Japanese"; post sa-i-gu LA; the aftermath of Sept. 11). Even now, there is grudging respect between Indian and Chinese immigrants in the brain trust fields, but it's still all about the economic arms race - the new hot&cold war bubbling over from the messy Asian states to join us stateside.

But there's a spark still for some of us, at least the old-timers. I still think "maybe I'll get to have a conversation with an old-timer who remembers the I-Hotel" because those manongs speak to a history in the United States that I wish I could trace directly through my own family some times. Don't hate what you've got, right? And my own family history is important and special in what role it plays in the new immigrant stories of America. But hearing and knowing some of the other stories have kept me centered, and reminded me that things were not easy in the past, and they are not easy now for newcomers.

But community is about more than just struggle. It's about what people are building every day, in their homes, across their families, on blocks, streets, and through cities and vast expanses of territory all across the land. There are physical, real markers of what ordinary people make of that word "community", that we can easily forget in the midst of theory and discourse and academic wranglings about insiders and outsiders.

Heritage month is an opportunity for us to feel that love again: the love for the people that brought us into this work, or into this consciousness. A sense that we're not alone, that we have a cannon and a common framework simply in the conscious effort to create one. That the music I listen to now spans many genres and many years, but that there is some link between A Grain of Sand and Bambu or Himalayan Project or Vijay Iyer. A link, a thread, a song. These tapestries, which only some of us can really see, are sacred: they mark not only the passing of time, knowledge, and struggle, but the very spirit of those struggles are woven right into them.

This month, we study these stories, we honor them, and we write anew what community, and love, mean to each of us individually and together.

2009-04-30T07:32:00.002-04:00

Attended the SAALT South Asian Summit in Washington D.C. last week, and I have much to share. Listening to folks who have worked in the community for a long time, as well as new folks from all over the nation either working or hoping to connect to community-based work was really helpful.

Inspired by Giles Li's "poem a day" postings for National Poetry Month, I am hoping to post at least once a day about community-based work, reflections, and thoughts for APA Heritage Month this year. So please tune in, chime in, and let's build again.

Post #667: Building a Rep

2009-04-22T21:19:00.002-04:00

Yeah, so this is one after 666. For a lifelong (well, 20 years or so) Maiden fan, that's gotta have some significance. Anyway, today's quick funny/surreal moment: when a friend told his boss in government that I should be part of the "secret effort" to save her worthless job, he read her extremely negative reaction to be an "indictment" on my "radical reputation."

Ha. That made my day. Live what you feel, ya'll. And break those uncomfortable conversations out of the small circles where people nod their head in agreement with all that we say. These messages have to get out further.

Be well, enjoy the rain or moon or mud, because living this life is a blessing. And sticking your foot up the ass of anyone who gets in the way of your movement is a joy worth repeating.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna look into this co-op idea with my man KC.

More on Firm Associates Getting Paid Time Off

2009-04-13T11:18:00.005-04:00

As a follow-up to my post, here's a piece in the NY Times about Skadden associates being offered $80K to "take a year off." And part of the "taking a year off" for the associate they interview entails "practicing non-profit law" where they can.

It's really hard for me not to say "fuck you, associates." Go coast on the capitalist system you help to prop up during your day jobs. Leave the breaking it down - or at least working with people that the same system is crushing - to those of us who make half of your time off, play money.

More on Binghamton

2009-04-07T09:09:00.002-04:00

This article on CNN.com actually gives us more about the victims, and the secretary who played dead and then dialed 911. I haven't had a chance to process the new information, but 8/13 at my count were folks of Asian or Arab descent. That's crushing: I didn't expect the numbers to be that high.

I'm surprised that there is no Russian or Central Asian casualty on the list, just given how much play the Kazakh survivor was getting in the beginning. More later, I guess.

Burying the News

2009-04-04T07:52:00.002-04:00

I woke up this morning to see what the updates were on Binghamton, only to spend about 5 minutes trying to find it on the CNN website. Nothing updated since last night at 10:42PM. The national venue had moved on: the senseless slaughter of "Kurds, Russians, Chinese, Arabs, Laotians, and others" (NY Times) was not of interest to the nation, I suppose.

The New York Post has a cover story that does some justice to the situation, at least giving us more information and refraining from the assault against immigrants that we expect in the days to come. Although again, I wonder if this had been a mall rather than a citizenship services organization, what the response would have been. Will we get the stories of all those lost and saved: whose people may not be here in the United States, whose English skills are not as polished, nor names as familiar to the general American public?

Or perhaps this will open up a dialogue of some kind, or the sense that there is a need to protect refugees and immigrants who come into our small cities, live on the periphery, make out their existence quietly and patiently, trying to build a life out of the fragments that many come from, or without the familiar elements of home that we are all bound to miss if we have to leave things behind. I feel for these families, I feel that their stories must be shared and their lives grieved and celebrated as our nation does with many different victims. This is a moment for people to show that they care about more than the familiar.

Binghamton.

2009-04-03T23:20:00.002-04:00

Another shooting massacre, another brownyellow face that will make its way over every news channel. This time, the victims seem to all be immigrants, which makes this a different kind of tragedy from Virginia Tech, but quite related: there is an innocence with youth and an innocence that I connect with the long journey one must make to gain citizenship in this country.

Today is a chilling reminder that we're not safe, no matter where we are, and no matter who we think might be "one of us." But I'm wondering what the national mood will be: will people just move on from this, not taking the full tragedy to heart, or will they stand as firmly as everyone did with Virginia Tech? I was impressed by the Mayor of Binghamton, making it clear that these were residents and citizens of his city, and that together, they were a critical part of the fabric of that society.

While we don't know enough - or really anything - about the killer, I think that if the initial reports are true, and that this is a distraught or deranged man in his 40s, of Asian descent, there are a few things that I hope are talked about more. Mental health issues were paramount and discussed to some degree after Virginia Tech, but I haven't seen much movement. In addition, the cumulative effect of American wars in Asia: militarization, emasculation of males, and desensitization to violence of both the populations abroad and those here. It's not an excuse, of course, but a larger conversation that Asian Americans should be having within our communities, particularly those that have been war torn in past or present.

It's a sad day in upstate New York, and I feel an overwhelming heaviness about the whole thing. When they release the names and stories of the victims, suddenly the quick search through for immigrants / Asians that I inevitably do in any such tragedy will result in far more names than usual. It will become clear, as we can only imagine, that the victims' stories match those of people in our families, that we see every day, who have been making the time to learn what they needed to finally "become American" by naturalizing and looking back to the land of their birth no more as home. It is a sad day in America, where even a place where people go to become American is not safe.

I fear the wingnut commentators on this. If they even talk about it at all, or decide to just dismiss it all as third-world news from a small city no one will care about in a few weeks. I don't know what would be worse: their attention, or their disinterest.

Embracing a Radical New Future

2009-03-31T08:21:00.000-04:00

I got a message from someone when I made a snide remark about lawyers that got me thinking: I was just suggesting that lawyers make lousy organizers, a premise that is not very controversial to most organizers and many community lawyers. The response did not take issue with this so much as it recast 2008 electoral canvassing and partisanship as some amazing feat.

I wanted to discuss my general lack of faith in the traditional American electoral system as a true mechanism for transformative change. Perhaps that's because I've been wondering if systematic exclusion from suffrage for such large segments of the population for so long turned it into one of the main "prizes" for a rights movement, whether or not that's what the people most valued. At the end of the day, though the right to vote is important, would people choose that over the right to housing, education, or peace? While we speak of the history of struggle to gain the right to vote in this country, there are so many who still lose their right to vote because of incarceration, REAL ID, etc. Or don't have the vote at all, as non-citizens even if they fight in a war for this country or live here for a lifetime.

Maybe if we get away from republicanism (little r) and around to something more representative and truly democratic (proportional voting is one avenue) I will come around to see it as more than an opiate to keep the general population disengaged after an election is over. The whole marketing of presidential campaigns decides for the people what they should consider important. I find that to be incredibly problematic: just tonight I saw on MSNBC that Cheney said to some constituency that 'Obama was pro-Palestine' as a way to make him lose the election or at least confidence from influential segments of the powerful. This framing just proves that regardless of our small, mostly symbolic victories, by setting the parameters for debate before we even get in the ring. This is a different kind of game, people.

Trust me: it's not something I share with many people, and my status messages end up being in code half the time because I'll get people close to me blacklisted if I share what I'm really thinking about "American democracy". And civic engagement is so much more than just voting, can include so much more of our population, and doesn't have to conform to the old rules.

The Economics of Law Firm Deferments and "Public Interest Placements"

2009-03-30T23:30:00.000-04:00

There's a storm that's been brewing across Ameri¢a with this economic nuttiness. Law firms have been letting scores of lawyers go, and the once golden opportunities that locked people just entering their 3L years into jobs with fat paychecks when they graduate have all but dried up. The firms this year have been rescinding offers, and for some people, telling them that they can start in January instead of September, or that they can get a stipend for working in a public interest job for a year while the firm waits to see how the economy changes. That has led to new opportunities with all of these new lawyers who don't have anything to do - and many new challenges. First, an aside...

I've had an ongoing conversation with my sister that's spanned the last year or two about the way that there are stigmas that we both have to deal with - as a firm attorney and as a public interest newbie (not respectively). I say sometimes it's hard to convince the firm lawyers that my work is "real lawyer work" because I talk about and try to focus on community outreach, information sharing, non-legal advocacy, and respect for peoples' process rather than buy the line that this is a "nation of laws." For many firm lawyers, that just isn't "practicing law" - litigation is practicing law, or burying the world in reams of paper is practicing law, but what I think of as the most exciting part of this work is something totally else.

My sis tells me that she thinks that public interest attorneys scoff at firm attorneys regardless of their situation because they act as if they are better (i.e. not sell-outs). She (and definitely other friends of mine) have spoken about the privilege that allows many people to go into poor paying jobs in public interest: it's not a shocker that many of these positions are taken up by white women from well-educated, moneyed families. If you're the first attorney in your family, you may not have the full flexibility to just go do whatever you want to do. I buy this for some people, but not everyone. I don't curl my lip up at someone just for working at a firm, but I do if they don't seem at least interested in the other work that's out there, and don't acknowledge the privilege that they have in some way.

This all is relevant because we're starting to get inquiries from graduating students who have been asked to seek a public interest placement while the firms wait for this recession to blow over. Suddenly, students and "bright stars" from the law firm partner fast track seem to need our organizations, because they have nothing else to do. The thing is: we want to help out, but it's a tremendous burden to take someone on just for a year (or worse, 6 months), and it's not clear what the organization gets out of it, save for another breathing (and demanding) body. At a time when resources are so hard to come by, I'm sure that many groups will take them up on these offers. But what does it mean for us and for our work at the end of the day?

I'm worried, because while I want to open up our work and the prospect of doing something meaningful in the community for these new lawyers. But I've seen what they are being offered to work in our organizations for the time being, and even though it may be only 50% or 60% of what they were being offered as first-year associates, it's still incredibly obnoxious, and possibly moreso than even the full amount because it suggests how the firms value working in public interest. Half their worth/earning potential in the private sector, but that's still double what we currently make. What that says is that either the firms and foundations have been keeping us down as full time folks committed to this work, or it's our management. Either prospect is fairly grim.

These are interesting times.

Writing onward

2009-03-09T22:37:00.002-04:00

Hello faithful reader(s?). I'm back for a second, only to disappear again soon enough. Live has been a blur of trying hard to figure out my work and stay on top of life outside of work, only to slip back into a pattern of spending a lot of time on work-related stuff once again. But it's all good - no complaints, particularly in this economy. And it's good to feel like I still have mountains to learn.

I've been writing in my multiple notebooks and journals quite a bit too. I think being in a space where I have exposure to real people, and where I'm no longer just thinking about these things but trying to put some theory into practice has been really amazing. Work in the community has been slow, but gaining momentum, and the limitations of this space to write about what I'm thinking are becoming more clear as I get more specialized. So I'm searching for new places to write.

But I'm already missing this space.

So what to do? Not that the writing is going to be anything that much different from the rants and ravings that went on here, but I think I want to engage with more people and get feedback as I try to develop some ideas. Perhaps this truly does mark the end of this space... but perhaps I'll come up with specific topics to hammer on here. Like an accountability project for all the stupid National APA groups that are taking up space and pushing our community's agenda further and further into the mushy middle.

Radicals Use Cash

2009-02-14T09:34:00.003-05:00

You know - I've get to thinking every time I have to stand behind someone charging a $5 footlong at Subway's and we wait for the authorization to go through. Every time we charge something, the banks get a service fee. Every. Single. Time. So what are we doing if we talk about radically changing our financial system, but we're basically shoveling money down the throats of some of the biggest perpetrators of global economic inequity?

Of course I don't pay their bleeding predatory interest rates, but they had me hook line and sinker with their little rewards perks and all of that, but no more. I usually didn't charge things that were less than $15, but I think I'm getting to the point where I just want to use cash.

Fuck the banks, fuck their convenience, and fuck this system.

Slumdog, Briefly

2009-02-09T08:23:00.003-05:00

So much for writing more this year. It is what it is. The hoopla and excitement surrounding Slumdog Millionaire's Oscar hope has made conversations about the film more interesting, and more frustrating. I have held that it's just a film, and it's average: there are some fun moments, but what's the big deal about this film, particularly in the midst of such a good year in just American and British film?

I think one of my issues is that there is hardly any artistic rhyme or reason to the non-American or British films that make it to the regular film categories in the Oscars. Frankly, the Oscars are a marketing tool to get more people to buy the DVD (or for smaller films, to see them in wider release once the nominations come out). That's all this is about: it's a scheme by the producers and distributors. The choice of "Lagaan" as the first Indian directed movie to make the big leagues for best picture was smart: this is all about the distribution rights, not who makes the film (i.e. it's somewhat irrelevant (and not on other levels) that Danny Boyle is the director of "Slumdog"). It's all about the money, and this blatant exploitation just to get the dollars really bitters me to the whole possibility of cinema to be transformative. It's like "Crash" all over again.

I think my issues stem from the fact that the film opens up a number of social issues: poverty, the abuse of orphaned children, prostitution, corruption, Hindu-Muslim violence, but it uses most of these things as a backdrop to a love story. It's the typical Bollywood set-up, really (think "Dil Se" or any million other films). And it's not that they raise these issues, but that the movie kind of glosses over them. It's just another hook to hang the "feel good" sentiment on: commodifying people, hardship, and things that are not so easily resolved in real life. People argue "it's just a film!" but I guess I don't feel like we can just absolve the film and its creators of responsibility when it feels like they are using these elements to show how it's somehow different from the thousand other films made in India and around the world. If the film is to be an escape, so be it: but then make the love story more believable, and stop using people's suffering as your prop: then I won't care so much. But the reason this film shot up is because it kind of absolves middle class/rich, and/or white people of their guilt for fostering some of the problems that the film uses as backdrop. When you have "Milk" and "Che" out this year, what is "Slumdog" but proof that this system is nothing but jacked up.

I guess it's like when people get upset about progressive political messages getting into mainstream radio. "Keep it separated!" they yell (and really, how much of it gets through anymore?). It's not a selling point nowadays to be socially conscious and/or radical in our mass culture of escapism, but if it were, maybe those songs would be on the radio more (ala 60s?).

Video: Geologic Spits A Cappella, With a Glass of Wine in Hand to Boot

2009-01-30T08:49:00.002-05:00

If you already read the Blue Scholars blog, you just saw this. If you don't, get on it! This is why I love the Scholars:

It Begins.

2009-01-20T19:00:00.003-05:00

So this is the beginning of his 100 days. I can't say that I'm hating on the man, I really respect what window we've seen into his private life and the fact that he has held his composure in the midst of everything to this day. But I am uncomfortable with unbridled adulation, even for me. And I guess at noon today, he moved from being an outsider (in a way) and a symbol of hope for a broken and corrupt system, to the new inheritor of the throne.

Obama's decisions in transition have been far less than perfect, and I am wary of the strong Clinton mark on his choices for cabinet and close advisors. So let us take a deep, collective breath, because regardless of how this election turned out, there would still be homeless folks on the streets, poor people struggling to maintain some kind of stability in a rapidly changing world, and inequality, hatred, and violence acting out on everyone from individuals to nation-states. We're all yearning to be free, but are our definitions the same?

Resolution.

2009-01-10T07:32:00.003-05:00

Grim happy new year, ya'll. It's been one piece of bad news after another, from the brutal murders that are still going on in the name of "security" and with the blessings of our government, in Gaza, to the brutal murder of a 22-year old black man by Oakland police. Let's hope for some real hope soon.

Meanwhile, I have been working to close unresolved issues that have plagued my history for the last 15 years. I started upon this path at some point late last year, just looking back after hitting the personal milestone of finishing school, and realizing that life has been good for me, but there have been these moments along the way when I just had abrupt changes: people breaking off friendships, work situations not working out, losing people in more permanent ways, and collaborations fizzling. I've not been scarred, but the natural impulse to wax nostalgic and/or wonder what the hell happened has always brought me back to these moments, whether consciously or not.

I've been thinking lately that while those moments did not stop me from moving forward, this feeling of unease that something was unresolved in the past makes it hard to fully be in the present or plan for the future. With other aspects of life feeling peaceful, including finally trying to work through some of my personal weaknesses that had affected my life partnership, my attention kind of fell on these things. And some of them are actually starting to resolve themselves, one by one. Nothing is perfect, but closure is the best we can hope for. And sometimes apologizing - or getting that apology you didn't realize you'd been missing for all those years - is all we need.

And each of these things, really, can propel us forward like a nitro pack on a drag car. Not to get all touchy-feely, but if you can make that call, or find that way to confront demons of the past, do it, and be done with it. I don't keep a list on me, but I feel like some things are getting scratched off whatever list I might have kept for unresolved or messy endings. And the best thing I can do is try to avoid adding things to that list.

Video: Common Market "Tobacco and Snow Road" (response to Blue Scholars)

2009-01-08T22:07:00.003-05:00

A minute ago, I posted up the new little freestyle Blue Scholars track that they recorded and made a video about. Ra Scion from Common Market, which shares Sabzi as the DJ and is part of the MassLine family, made a little response video, because apparently the track was supposed to be for the new Common Market EP. The parody is hilarious. I love the spirit of these guys - so talented, but just fam, really.

Check the Scholars video first for full effect.

Gaza

2009-01-04T19:18:00.002-05:00

I hate feeling like I can't say what's on my mind through whatever media I have access to. At this point, because Israel and the official treatment of the Palestinian people still seems like a taboo topic in a lot of spaces, I don't even know if I can make my outgoing status message really reflect what I'm feeling: that the prevailing official Israeli position on Palestine and the value of Arab lives both within and outside of its borders must end if there's to be any semblance of peace in that area.

I know that there are many who just don't agree with the violence and anti-humanitarianism of the state's actions, but there has not been a safe way for people who dissent to fully voice their opposition and still feel like they can fully assert their belief that Israel deserves to exist at all. If there were some third path, some way that would give the moral majority the ability to take the country and steer it from the edge of totalitarianism - killing indiscriminately just to ensure its own place on the map (or so the radical set rationalizes, at least).

It's just that when people have so closely linked the state's existence with their own existence and history as a persecuted people, and then accept the agents of the state - diplomatic and military - as inevitable extensions of that existence, rather than evils that have formed around radical ideology, well how do you deal with that? And how do you get Americans to give a shit that they are complicit in our complacency?

Video: Blue Scholars "Coffee and Snow"

2009-01-01T01:13:00.004-05:00

Hey ya'll. Here's a new video from the Blue Scholars with a little track they pulled together while snowed in from some homecoming shows last week. I like Sabzi's beat, and I love the video, actually.

Wishing all of my comrades and friends, family and strangers alike, a happy new year. Let's all wish for peace in the Middle East.

Hope Begins with a Free Palestine

2008-12-30T20:42:00.004-05:00

It has been a grim week, with news of the bombings and massacres in Gaza filtering in through the virtual blackout in American media. My friends who care about this issue are heart-broken and torn: does living any kind of life in the United States, regardless of "politics" or "heart" make us complicit in this morally repulsive, violent oppression and massacre of a people already without a home?

Fair Housing: Do Asian Americans Matter At All?

2008-12-28T15:02:00.000-05:00

I have been tracking down and getting up to speed on some civil rights issues, fair housing being one of them. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity recently released a pretty extensive report looking at Fair Housing in the new millennium. The Fair Housing Act (FHA) was passed in the late 60s as one in a group of landmark laws that ensured the rights of those most likely to be discriminated against in a range of issues.

The FHA targeted landlords and others with the power of allowing or denying the right of people to rent or buy housing, outlining the criteria that may not be considered in deciding whether someone could rent or buy from you. The FHA itself outlines race, color, national origin, religion, sex, family status, disability, and age, among other things.

State and local acts have added to this, now including sexual orientation, gender and gender identity, source of income (for example, housing vouchers), and a number of other criteria that cannot be used to discriminate against people seeking housing. However, the report painted a fairly grim picture about where things are at with enforcement and gives a road map about where things could go with the inevitable reorganization expected when the new administration comes to DC.

There are some good recommendations there, however, looking at this report was quite sobering: there's only one mention of Asian Americans, and it's basically as a obligatory mention of all communities of color (it's also the only time that Native communities are mentioned). While there are some pieces about the impact of poor fair housing enforcement on immigrants, it is clear that they are talking about Latinos, and the priorities focus on issues central to Latino communities. While I don't question that these problems in equitable access to housing must be addressed, I'm very worried about the lack of concern or mention of Asian American/immigrant communities.

Hell - even Clint Eastwood's new movie (Gran Turino), which I haven't seen, seems to marginally deal with issues of Asian immigrants and housing better than this report. Clint Fucking Eastwood. So where is the outrage, or the addendum from the Asian American community? Where are the pieces that talk about the specific hurdles faced by many of these communities, which are pretty well documented by Fair Housing testers around the nation that actually include Asian Americans in their work?

I haven't seen anything at all, and I'm still waiting. I guess it begs the question of who should be looking at these issues? It's a civil rights issue, but I haven't seen the Asian American Justice Center, or really any of its three affiliates (LA, San Fran, and Chicago, though the Asian Law Caucus has done housing work in the Bay Area for a long time) deal with this issue at all. AALDEF seems to have just hired a housing attorney in NYC, so there's not much there either.

And that brings us to the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD). They were formed by a group of local Asian CDCs around the nation who thought we needed a national organization to push for policy change in the National Capital and support local efforts around the nation. But if we all agree that affordable housing falls generally into the "community development" universe, do tenants' rights?

Because aren't many CDCs housing developers? And doesn't that make them. in effect. landlords? And isn't that kind of in conflict with tenants' rights? So then where do they fit in when it comes to fair housing work? And isn't it just a little odd that there's no group out there that really claims fair housing advocacy to be part of what they do on behalf of Asian American communities, when there are documented studies that show that landlords in places as diverse and "accepting" as NYC and the Bay Area are screening potential renters by their accents, last names, and purported/assumed religious background, with Arab Americans, Muslims, and some other South Asians getting the short end of the stick most often.

Family status (and the relation between members of a "family") are touchstones for the Latino community, and this is very true for Asian immigrants too. They're basically saying not just that 10 people in a 2 bedroom is unacceptable, which is hard to argue with, but that even if there are only 3 or 4 people in that apartment, they have to have a very specific relationship, and grandma's gotta go. That's problematic for extended family connections that many Asian immigrants recognize, and allow for all kinds of crazy landlord shenanigans.

But the heart of this post, and my inquiry, is still: who out there gives a shit about Asian Americans and fair housing? And who is raising those issues in the public sphere? And why aren't we holding the groups who say they give a shit about our civil and housing rights accountable?

Film: Frost/Nixon (2008)

2008-12-28T13:35:00.004-05:00

Rounding out my holiday movie watching spree, I got to see Frost/Nixon as the result of a weird series of negotiations between three of us trying to manage dinner, our disinterest in going out to where the indie theater was playing a few different films we want to see, and the resistance of at least one in our party to seeing that Brad Pitt movie, The Wrestler (which I will still go see when I get a chance), Valkyrie (the Tom Cruise vehicle), and probably some animated movie about dogs or rodents (there's always at least one playing at all times, right?).

It was a pleasant surprise. The film was put together well, and who would have thought that Ron Howard could pull together such a compelling piece of cinema. Basic premise: it focuses on the first thorough interview that Nixon granted after his ignominious descent from the highest office of the land. The person who landed it: a pop/celebrity talk show host from London who saw this as a golden opportunity, and got a few lessons in real journalism along the way.

I thought the screenplay was sharp, the supporting characters were compelling enough to move the story along, but we didn't get too much unnecessary background on them, and the pacing was excellent. The leads, recapping their roles in the play upon which the screenplay was based (Frank Langella as Richard Nixon, and Michael Sheen as David Frost) were crisp and memorable, the dialogue sharp, and everything else smooth enough to not be distracting. If you like good political drama, check this one out. Highly recommended.

Unfortunately, we ruined the feeling and depth of this film by going to another right afterwards (see Seven Pounds (of crap) review below).

Film: Seven Pounds (2008)

2008-12-28T11:48:00.001-05:00

Caught this as a one of those spontaneous double-features last night. Man, spare yourself and don't watch this movie. Will Smith was awful - I don't know if I've seen a worse film of his, and I may have to see Pursuit of Happyness or some other not-well-rated film just to cleanse myself of this one.

I thought Rosario Dawson was the best part of the film: she was more believable than anything else, and I actually liked her character - she didn't overact, and I felt her vulnerability (details are unimportant in this one - trust me), but that just didn't rescue the film for me. I mean, think of her as the pearl sitting atop a bass drum-sized tub of 4-month old, slightly greening gazpacho that has not been chilled.

The plot wanders, the mind loses track of what is going on, and you just want it all to end. I can be a sucker for believable melodrama, and even the occasional romance, but man, please don't do this to me. Do yourself a favor: find another film with a believable, vulnerable role for a supporting actress, and just watch that instead of this one.

History is a Weapon

2008-12-27T09:51:00.002-05:00

I don't know if you've found any great resources online for alternative history, particularly to forward to folks who are looking for something more than the basic drivel they feed us in school, but I just did.

This site actually has a lot of content, including almost all of Howard Zinn's Peoples' History of the United States. Pretty awesome. Click around. There's a lot there, and even though it doesn't have much/anything about immigrant communities, there's the foundation for a social movements class in there somewhere.

Watchmen

2008-12-26T18:15:00.001-05:00

I'm very excited. As part of the end of year gift-giving, I received, from the love of my life, the full graphic novel. I'm quite excited to sit down and read through it. Actually, I have a lot of books to read at this point. I've tried to stop buying and start reading. More to come.

Film: Milk (2008)

2008-12-25T13:47:00.004-05:00

I was a little skeptical about a mainstream Hollywood movie about Harvey Milk, even though I have a lot of respect for Sean Penn's choices. After seeing the film a few days ago, I'm happy to say that my hesitation, though well-founded, was not justified in the end. Sean Penn really does throw himself into the role, and just in terms of great acting, it's a performance to watch.

But more importantly, I think the film gives you a real flavor for a particular character in American politics and social movements, not as a perfect or unmatchable soul, but as a full person. I liked that a lot - doing some sort of movement work for longer than a minute, there were a lot of moments when we thought "hey, we know people or situations that are similar or that this reminds us of." I checked out the documentary about his life and assassination a while ago. Rent that for a historical perspective when you get a chance.

Geo/Pro Brown from Blue Scholars said it best in his review here: "What makes Milk so much more than just another historical bio-pic or a generic plea for humanity is an awareness - by filmmaker, writer and actor - that the personal is political. That leaders are created by movements and not the other way around, as most other movies suggest." Here, you get a sense of the people around Milk too, that colorful cast of characters who are committed to more than just their own self-aggrandizement, or even just the cult of personality around that central figure.

Amen to that, and as far as mainstream movies go, this one is worth seeing before it gets kicked out of the theaters by the usual drivel that comes around during the holidays and beyond. Though I have to say, it's because of the holidays that I am actually catching up on some films finally. Look forward to a little writing about "Slumdog Millionaire" next, and have a peaceful week, ya'll. 2009 is rising!

Critical Perspectives on the Mumbai Attacks

2008-12-16T10:30:00.003-05:00

I haven't been able to keep up with news in India after the horrific Mumbai attacks during Thanksgiving weekend, but the whole thing has been a real roller-coaster of emotions for so many people. The inevitable saber-rattling about Pakistan has caused a lot of concern for many of us: the elite in this country, as well as the lobbies of power and influence in India could easily push for a new war, and the fragile peace and progress arising from overtures by the new political leadership in Pakistan would be swept off the table yet again, with the region and perhaps the world at risk this time.

Anyway, international affairs are something I have very limited contact with, so rather than write on, I'll point you to a few things to read if you want more in-depth analysis about Mumbai:

1) Arundhati Roy's "The Monster in the Mirror," a long and thoughtful piece in the Guardian (U.K.), is one that I just read and recommend.

2) SAMAR Magazine Issue #32 focuses on critical analyses of the Mumbai attacks.

Let It Rest!

2008-12-15T08:33:00.003-05:00

I'm so goddamn tired of hearing about - and being asked about - Sonal Shah. The drama, from all sides, is unnecessary and pointless: though I do believe there is still a need for true resolution. I didn't know much about her before her meteoric rise, I think she's either been given bad counsel or hasn't listened to good ideas about how to address the concern that she is tied to the Hindutva right, and honestly, she's coming across as kind of arrogant, even if there's nothing true in the statements against her.

I'm not interested in going after individuals in our community, but I do think that we must all be held accountable for inconsistencies in our past, and examples of poor judgment that may reflect on whatever position we're vying for in the future. I've said before that I'm naturally skeptical of people of color who are so ambitious in politics, because I think the community becomes their way of showing that they have a base, even if they don't really care for what that community thinks or is going through.

The growing number of South Asians in American politics is a natural phenomenon: there is a large segment of our 2nd generation that is well-educated, as the children of the "professional" immigrants who were allowed to come here after '65. But the real question is, what true cohesion is there between our different communities, and should I be made to feel guilty when I don't jump behind some of the jokers who are standing themselves up to claim that they represent more than their own self-interest?

Are these folks, particularly those who are really just opportunists looking to rise as fast as they can on the backs of others through "brown skin, white-collar affirmative action," worth our time and effort? And honestly, are they just looking for the rubber stamp of the "community" rather than a real engagement to win our support? Isn't that the old politics of race: "we're the same race/ethnicity so you should support me, no questions asked"? I guess that's kind of the Obama method, at least from the perspective of folks truly working for racial justice.

With this whole Sonal Shah thing - I think that even if we give her the benefit of all doubt and say that there's nothing shady with her past associations and affiliations, she has shown remarkably poor judgment with how she dealt with the initial questions in 2004 and how she's acted, both publicly and privately about this issue when it came up over the last few weeks. I truly don't know what to believe, and honestly, the vast majority of disinterested people (who don't have their career weighing on what happens with this flare up, or one of various axes to grind) just don't care.

Maybe I should post up my own advice to her, given that it seems like she's getting really awful counsel at this point, and you know, I should just want to help an ailing sister out. Because I can't imagine that if this thing got picked up by anymore mainstream media, the Dems would let it carry on for much longer, and her nascent political career would fade into a footnote, long before the root issues underlying this storm were ever really addressed in mainstream Desi America.

Those root issues include the very troubling infiltration of hard-right, political Hinduism into middle-class Indian America. The Hindu camps for school children, the programs that send kids over to India for unclear reasons, and the rhetoric that comes from groups ranging from USINPAC to the Hindu American Foundation should be enough to make us all worry a bit. We have enough homegrown extremism (militia, anyone?) in the U.S., thank you very much.

Bruce Lee and New Paradigms for Community Work

2008-12-14T19:10:00.002-05:00

I haven't been writing much lately, but I've been thinking a lot and using dead trees to capture some of the thoughts. The problem with blog posting, at least for me, is that I tend to be more of a perfectionist (couldn't guess, oh intrepid reader?) and I edit, edit, edit before I post. That's not the case on paper: I don't mind scrawling it out like freeverse and taking it from there.

My thinking lately has been about this work, particularly as I enter community-based work in a much more meaningful way than I've ever done, but with a law degree instead of just good intentions. And there are a lot of lawyers out there, doing all kinds of things: many of them good, some of them not. So I'm trying to see what kind of a "community lawyer" I want to be - in hopes that I don't fall into the ego/"anyone can be an organizer!" mentality that I see folks fall into. I don't think you're automatically disqualified from being an organizer if you have a law degree, but you gotta ask yourself, "why am I doing this, and can someone be more effective?"

Anyway - I'm also looking for new models of thinking about community-based work, strategy, and forms that break the molds and patterns that I've seen repeated again and again. Interestingly, my quest to figure out some things is leading me into unexpected directions. I think I'll be picking up at least one collection of Bruce Lee's writings about Jeet Kune Do, the martial art technique that he developed that broke dramatically from the rigid forms that came before, while integrating many techniques. His "way of the intercepting fist" also involved a lot of thinking about broken rhythm as a way of keeping yourself from falling into patterns and losing the freshness and innovation that comes from constantly challenging yourself to think outside of the box.

I'm hoping that his writing about the philosophy behind his radical break from much of martial arts training may illuminate new paths for me in my work. If people use Sun Tzu's Art of War for their corporate biz'ness, why can't we use non-canonical sources to guide us to reinvent in the new year, and with the new Administration? I'm just saying.

So Long 2008

2008-12-12T23:40:00.003-05:00

As this year comes to an ignominious end (at least to me), I'm looking forward to 2009 for a few reasons. First, I'm going to actually resolve to move forward with some of my ideas for self-development, particularly in exploring the relationship between how I try to engage in community work and how I live my personal life. I have been reflecting on the external stuff a lot in the last couple of months, writing about it more in journals than up here (obviously).

I think some of the lessons, or experiments at least, that I have gained or started at work may be useful personally, too. So I'm trying to figure out a reading list and some basic habits to put me in the right place with that side of things. Any suggestions would be welcome: I'm looking to read Bruce Lee's collected work on Jeet Kune Do and fluid styles, actually. I don't have the physical ability to make much of his theory on that level, but I think that some of the basic theories of Jeet Kune Do can be applied to other aspects of our lives: take from everything, work with broken rhythm, and don't get stuck in an orthodoxy. Learn, distill, absorb, integrate, and keep changing.

On the work end, I think I'm getting the hang of some things, but the work of things to learn is wide before me, and that's okay. More importantly, I have to remember that I'm in a setting with more people than just me as it was for much of school. I have to remember that I can't fly off the handle without possibly bringing repercussions to other people, and perhaps the very work itself. I haven't fully gone off the cliff yet, but that prospect seems to loom somewhat ominously above me sometimes. Goal: turn the conflict into transformative change. But it's so hard.

Innumeracy and Privilege

2008-12-02T08:52:00.001-05:00

There are a lot of people in the United States who are not comfortable or may have absolutely no luck or skills with math at all. There's a great book I read a while ago called (simply enough), Innumeracy, which lays out why the author thinks that the inability to understand numbers may be a more widespread issue than even illiteracy in the United States, and its long-reaching affects. While I'm not going to pretend that this is anything I know about, I have a few thoughts about innumeracy.

First, I think there's general consensus that the American education system has been in decline for a long time. Clearly, education is like health care, politicians, and any number of other things in the U.S.; if you have money, you can buy the best. But it's if you don't when things get difficult. So sure, there's a clear nexus between quality of education, poverty, and innumeracy. But I feel like there's also something beyond that that may also be going on.

Second, I think the cliched phenomenon of law students and lawyers who don't know anything about math underscore a totally different set of issues. These are clearly people who, for the most part, have had the privilege of going to elite or at least average schools, where issues affecting public schools that serve the very poor are likely less at issue. So what happened if the resources available to feel comfortable and even excel in simple mathematical skills?

I think there's inherent privilege built into this brand of innumeracy. It's a choice not to get up to snuff in math, because it's okay if some people let some subjects slide. It's a privilege because the numbers are abstract - they aren't connected to the very real arithmetic of poverty, the algebra of making ends meet, or the geometries of small and dangerous spaces in which other kids have to study. I think you can learn math in the classroom, but you can also learn it as you're trying to stretch that dollar into a lot more. If you're thinking that you have to manage your money in order to meet your expenses, pay the rent, feed your kids, and try to pay down your debt, you can't afford to say "I don't get the numbers."

This isn't to glorify the poor, or what they have to go through, or to somehow suggest that the poor are better at math because they have to be (and so then the reasoning would be, why deal with improving the public schools at all?). I'm just thinking that it makes no sense to me, and kind of offends me when people who have no deep-rooted mental/emotional block to math (or no chunk of the brain that deals with math gone missing) just dismiss having to learn it because numbers are more a hobby or something to scoff at than essential tools to survival. Basic arithmetic skills form the bedrock of responsibility by providing context (value) and analysis(logic).

It makes me wonder why people who don't have wealth are immediately thought of as being somehow inferior to those with means, when often, without the tools to understand the value of what they have at their disposal. I see this play out in so many ways, and while of course I can't make big assumptions about what this all means, it just gets on my nerves.

Music: Flobots

2008-11-23T18:42:00.004-05:00

Looking for more progressive/radical music to fill your music player? Check out the Flobots album Fight with Tools. I only got to hear a few tracks from the live at that Scholars show on election night, but imagine a slightly looser, younger (!) Rage Against the Machine. Really good politics, and they were awesome on stage right after the election, stating that Obama's selection was a great symbolic victory, but it was time to make it mean something by pushing the issues we care about: healthcare for all, a fair and humanitarian immigration policy, the end of Guantanamo, and a host of other issues.

I am So Sick of Reminding "Pan-Asian" Groups to Remember Desis

2008-11-22T16:30:00.005-05:00

This is a rant. I have been working in Asian American spaces for more than 15 years. I have had issues with being tokenized, marginalized, the "only one of my kind" (i.e. desi) in some places, and being stuck in the constant educating role when I'm in a positive mood about the place and conflicted history of South Asians in Asian American movements. Usually I just take that as the lumps that come with being in this weird space. But sometimes things get to me.

In the beginning, there just weren't a lot of desi folks working in Asian American spaces. I've written about how many of the people I came up with or learned from cut their teeth in "pan-Asian" organizations on the East Coast, but I don't know if that's the same on the West Coast (but it's interesting that there aren't very many strong South Asian community groups on the West Coast). Then we created our own spaces, and there have always been weird conflicts around turf, resources, and inclusion. South Asians often feel like our own spaces are important because it's hard to reach our communities - and pan-ethnic/national/lingual/cultural coalitions even between different South Asian communities are a new concept to begin with.

But that doesn't mean that in the interest of certain coalitions, and particularly in the places where community issues and interests intersect, that we shouldn't work more collaboratively and learn from one another. There's no need (and the opportunity for this has kind of passed at this point) for "pan-Asian" groups to try to co-opt or subsume South Asian groups, but there are a lot of places where we could be working together. Trust me, I fault a lot of South Asians for not thinking about possible ways to reduce inefficiency and work strategically with allies in the "pan-Asian" context.

But I'm so sick of groups, particularly those on the West Coast, though we have our share on the East Coast and in DC, who take up the space as "pan-Asian" but never do anything significant with South Asian communities. They get the funding, they shape the pan-community's stories in the media and to the funders, and they shape the little space that all APAs get on any legislative or policy agendas.

Most groups still don't have any South Asian staff in senior level positions, and few even in entry positions. They don't understand the complexities of the communities at all and are not culturally sensitive or understanding in any way (i.e. getting veggie food at many APA events is still a huge hardship, and no one understands various desi holidays). But because these groups are larger, they get first crack at the crumbs thrown down from funders, and they don't have to change their ways to better incorporate the desi communities issues. That leaves even less for South Asian groups, many of whom still feel betrayed by "pan-Asian" groups after September 11th, when they all looked the other way as our communities were targeted and became public enemy #1.

Motherfuckers, we are a full 25% of the community population and growth numbers that you use to get your funding. Stand up or get out of the way. Your relevance was always somewhat questionable, particularly on a national policy level, but now you're just pissing me off. And you know, the academy, the so-called API Progressive/Left Movement, and the Asian American media all perpetuate this. I read the AA Movement Zine online, and there are so few articles on the South Asian American left movement that it's not even worth mentioning it and I may just read SAMAR instead.

This whole thing was precipitated when I read this article in New America Media about possible APA cabinet/presidential appointments. The dude doesn't even mention one South Asian, and the only mention of the community at all is through a quote from Dale Minami. What the fuck? Can't this writer even ask a follow-up question like "who are you talking about?"

Arghhhhhhh. End of rant.

For now.

New Modes of Organizing the Left

2008-11-14T17:57:00.001-05:00

I went to a panel recently in DC in which different folks were asking critical questions about what the election results mean for the Left in the United States. I thought it was an interesting dialogue with new and respected voices from the Left - all of them people of color - responding to the question of what this could mean. There were some very different takes on what direction we should go in, or even what support of Barack Obama in the recent election means.

One of the folks spoke about how he supported the Green ticket, and it was now up to the people who supported Obama to make sure to hold him to the promises he made and change people believed he would bring. Another, longtime labor organizer Bill Fletcher, said that it was not practical to support a third party candidate in American democracy, where the system is one of the least democratic of any so-called democracy. He argued, instead, that there needed to be a massive Left project that brought together hundreds of thousands of people into a viable block that could and should move the Democrats leftward. He stated that "without a hard Left, the middle always collapses."

Fletcher's other point was that we had to drop some of our purist attitudes about the "Left." That to bring about some of the change that we actually want, we may have to work with people who we don't fully agree with. The Right did that well for Bush, with fiscal conservatives and social conservatives, who aren't very similar actually, but who came together to get their endgame to work. That's since kind of fallen apart because Bush ended up spending and expanding government more than the fiscal conservatives could stomach (witness the Ron Paul revolution).

Finally, Fletcher said that traditional organizations may not be the way to go. But he also said that a new political party may not be where to start either. He suggested 501(c)(4) organizations, which could get "politically engaged" were the way that people were starting to get organized, and used an example from Northern Virginia: Virginia New Majority, which was created by a (c)(3) organization to get out there and take a more aggressive electoral/political role. It was very effective at registering working people of color and immigrants and getting them out to vote.

I would argue that (c)(4) organizations are still too limited. They get the federal tax exemption, but at the cost of having to report to the Feds a lot more than other organizations, and still being limited in their ability to really support candidates or ballot initiatives. I think the aggressive ground game for the Left is in political organizations - which include Federal, State, and other kinds of Political Action Committees (PACs), as well as the well-known but misunderstood 527 groups (which is actually a misnomer because the 527 group that people talk about: the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth kind of groups, are only one kind of 527 organization - all PACs are another). PACs are usually organized solely to channel money to candidates and campaigns. But there's a way to create a PAC in some jurisdictions that can be involved in electoral politics, particularly locally, in ways other than dumping money at someone. PACs can call whoever they want and support whatever or whoever they want: they don't have the detailed rules governing them that the IRS imposes on tax exempt organizations. You can go to town.

I would argue that for the immigrant Left, engagement of this kind can create longer-term empowerment for individuals involved than just bundling money, getting photo opportunities, and not really seeing the influence on politicians or their policies. PACs that don't focus solely on money but rather on messaging and influence by people power and issues that are important to working people and immigrants can be a game changer. And because the level of reporting and hoops to jump is not as crazy as 501(c) organizations, maybe more regular people of color and immigrants can take this on than the very white "non-profit Left" that's still talking about how we should put socialism on the table this January.

Yes, as a long aside, that was a comment at this event from an audience member, which made me laugh out loud - these folks need to retire, move to Sedona, stop gumming up the new movement with old retreads - I believe in socialist ideals, but I think we need new ways of talking about them, particularly with immigrants who fled brutal, deadly regimes run under the guise of "socialism" that have forever embittered them to anything remotely similar in name, if not function. Yet another example of white and American privilege in our bizarre, out of touch Left.

The Abuse of APA Agencies by Mainstream Service Groups

2008-11-12T14:35:00.002-05:00

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Mainstream service organization that's been around for a long time always gets a big chunk of money to work with a large subset of the population - such as children in the City or seniors in the County. Said organization does not have bilingual staff, usually at all, though there are now more Spanish-speaking white folks around, particularly in legal service organizations.

But regardless, they just don't have bilingual staff, and they use LanguageLine or that old AT&T service to call in people with the language ability (but who may not be local, or have any knowledge about the subject matter at all - a critical need in health and legal service provision, let alone mental health). But of course, their actual mandate is to serve all people, often regardless of immigration status, who fit into their slice of the population (women, seniors, children, whatever).

So what happens? Often, they only do one or two outreach events a year in the APA community, in particular. They use community organizations instead of other spaces like libraries because they have absolutely no way of reaching out themselves (and many traditional legal service organizations don't outreach much at all anyway). And here's the kicker: they don't have the bilingual staff and don't hire interpreters to effectively communicate with the community members. For some reason, that's not important enough for these people, and they just don't get it.

These organizations end up asking (i.e. telling) the community-based groups to do last-minute translations and interpretations. You know the groups - those that are hanging on with bare bones budgets, in spaces that are too small, staff that is underpaid, directors who are often first generation and sometimes not the best managers, but groups that the communities trust and that have been there for their community day in and day out.

This is totally unacceptable. Asian American community organizations should be supported to work directly in their own communities - it makes sense in larger cities to have larger, mainstream service organizations that can take care of common problems, and I feel strongly that they should work with all communities, but they have to step up and integrate language and cultural competence across the board - from their staffing to their processes and expectations of clients. Until that happens, it ever will, there is a critical need that organizations serving immigrants fulfill.

Some Asian American community organizations can work with individuals in a number of different languages, which is still better than the mainstream organizations, but the established groups actually have other resources for the smaller language communities (like Ilocano or Thai) that the mainstream groups cannot even begin to understand. But our groups are not interpreter agencies. And our value should not be limited to just filling in the gaps that the big groups don't want to accept are their responsibility too.

This is why most of our organizations should move from just direct service provision to both advocacy within service circles for full and equal community access, and organizing within our communities so that they can create their own solutions and raise their voices against business as usual in the nonprofit-industrial complex.

A Note on Veterans' Day

2008-11-11T15:49:00.000-05:00

It's not enough to just get the day off to rest and do whatever we want. These holidays, rare as they are (particularly when you compare with the Indian calendar loaded with many holidays for its many peoples), should be a time when we think about what it is that we're celebrating. I don't know the history of Veterans' Day, but I know that in a time when constant, unending war seems commonplace for the American, we're still largely untouched by what our government is waging. Our perpetual state of war is different from that of the nations on the receiving end, or places like Palestine or Sri Lanka.

But where that toll is visible is in the faces, the stories, and the lost innocence and lives of soldiers who have given up everything in the belief that they were fulfilling a patriotic duty. Not all soldiers are perfect, but most of them are quite young, and regardless of their rationale or that of the nation to send them in harm's way and off to fight, it's hard not to get choked up when you think about what they and their families have given up. I am a pacifist: I don't believe there is any "good" war. I suppose there are times when one can argue that war is necessary, but it seems to me that it's always been a small group of people in control that either cause the harm that must be dealt with, or who send off the troops to do the dealing.

If we dealt with those people directly, millions of innocent people - the soldiers included - would not have to die or lose faith in human motives and judgment. It's a large price to pay. Even in movement work, many times we use the lexicon, the metaphor, the iconography of war: I am guilty of the same thing, and many of the radical groups I listen to or read use "soldier" and "battle", perhaps to reclaim the terms.

But I don't believe in war - real, imagined, or otherwise. I want to build, and I want to use words that come from places of strength, love, and peace. So as we remember veterans today and in the years to come, perhaps we can also take some time to challenge this culture of war - from the words and images we use to describe our work, to the way in which we imagine movement work as a whole.

Film: No Direction Home (2005)

2008-11-11T14:44:00.005-05:00

Finally got around to watching Scorsese's long doc on Dylan that revolved around his emergence as a folk artist and then the incredible Newport Folk Festival moment in 1965 when he pulled out an electric blues band, played only 15 minutes as the headliner to massive booing, and never looked back.

I don't really know Dylan's music that well beyond the big singles, but I've heard a lot about how brilliant and encyclopedic his knowledge of old American musical styles and traditions. I think I read that in the assessment of one of his latest series of albums (which folks have said are a remarkable run on their own). Watching this film is an introduction in some ways, but Scorsese does not focus on the chronological assessment of Dylan's ever-changing, ever-expanding musical persona, nor of his recorded output. I think it wisely looks at him from different angles and perspectives, including those of Joan Baez, whose heart he obviously broke, Allen Ginsburg in interviews that were late in his remaining life but quite riveting and dynamic, band members and producers, and other fellow artists like Pete Seeger and Peter Yarrow.

All I can say about the collective impact of the more than 3.5 hours of this documentary (took up two picks on my netflix rotation) is that it really made me think about bucking expectations, staying true to what you have inside, and trusting your voice. Baez has a really telling segment where she described what it was like to be active and political (and linked to him) once he'd moved on from topical songs and traditional folk, when she performed at protests and sit-ins and people asked for Bob: she had to say "he's not coming. He's probably never shown up, you poor fools."

It was so interesting to hear her talk about it - particularly because she's still doing that circuit more than 40 years later. It made me wonder about political art, actually, which I value so much in the Asian American context. Dylan's path gives us the rare opportunity to look at both forks in the road for artists (particularly with Baez or Seeger as a foil)... and activists, actually. He wrote some of the finest songs of his generation that captured the mood, inspired other great work (Sam Cooke wrote "A Change Gonna Come" after hearing "Blowin' in the Wind" and wondering why it was a white man who wrote it), and are still sung today. He then just had to move on.

Should we take note of this - not just in a creative context, but in movement work too? Sometimes I come across folks who haven't reinvented themselves and are still using the same rally chants and tactics (like street protests and petitions) as they've been using for decades. It seems like sometimes folks get so locked in, even when they're not that good at something, that they don't evolve or they stay the same to meet the expectations put onto them by followers or admirers. I wonder if that's true in a lot of contexts, actually, including civil rights leaders who still seem locked into a vision of America from the 50s and 60s, one that is not as diverse nor as complex as that which we work in now. These outdated models, and the people who continue to push them, may stall the evolution of movements for progress. And those are people who were actually once effective.

As a related aside (jumping back to the artist/activists thread) maybe the Two Tongues crew closed shop at the right time. They remain powerful (one of their tracks just came up on my Shuffle last night and the passion rocked my consciousness all over again), and they continued to evolve as individuals. It's a good lesson to keep in mind, and the film definitely hits that point for me. Strongly recommended for music fans and fans who consider the balance of consciousness and the creative process.

Hip Hop is Gentrified

2008-11-09T11:59:00.004-05:00

I went out dancing for the first time in a long time, and we ended up at a spot that was pretty popular and overwhelmingly white. In a city that's got a good amount of color in it, it's easy to end up the only color in the room, which is a little odd. More odd is that other people of color in the room are often other Asians. That model minority thing isn't always wrong, particularly in the young middle class / gentrifying force in America's cities.

But I was in a good mood, with mine and some friends, and I wasn't looking to start any trouble or have a mood. The DJ was playing all the big hip hop singles of round about the late eighties, but it was really odd to see these white kids sing along with every word. First, most of them were in diapers when these songs dropped, second were these all really that big as singles to cross over that long ago, and third: I was embarrassed that while I can name the songs and sing individual lines, these folks were singing the whole damn joints. I did think it was funny that when the D threw out "Bring the Noise" by Public Enemy (I would have loved any number of other songs), I was the only one shouting out lines. Maybe I got caught up in the hope of the week to think they'd spin Dead Prez next.

So what does this any of this mean? I have conversations with conscious friends about authenticity all the time. The question of who "owns" hip hop is out there, and there's the comment on who buys hip hop, of course. But then there's this other question - if the kids know the songs so well not because they were trying to appropriate the culture but because they just heard and knew the songs from years of growing up and going to parties, is that something to hate on them about? I don't really know. It was just awkward for me - I had a great time, but I guess just like so many other situations, I was far more self-conscious about how I sang the songs and what the dynamics of being brown and singing songs about black experience (mindless party songs are different of course) than most of the white folks around me.

Was I over-thinking it all? I decided not to give a shit and just lay back and enjoy the night, which I did. But it seemed kind of ironic that I ordered Son of Nun's new CD earlier that day, and was considering putting out a little more for a shirt with the slogan that I borrowed for the title of this post. The universe tells us in funny ways, enit? We just have to keep listening.

Tune out the radio
throw out the tv
breath

The Dawn of a New Age of Disappointments

2008-11-09T01:08:00.005-05:00

Went to a benefit dinner tonight for a group in the area, and their keynote speaker was, as I think much of the free and not-so-free world are still, running a high Obama fever. I don't begrudge him or the rest of them that. I mean, like I said, I was in the streets (or at least the bars) celebrating the victory too.

But I guess Tuesday already feels like a long time ago. And even though I'm not watching the news or following the twitter-like monitoring of P.E. Obama's (not Public Enemy, but Prez-Elect(ed) of course) every move, I feel like I've been disappointed a lot already.

I know - people will say "well, you people on the left are never satisfied. First Bush was terrible, now you get your liberal man, and you're just going to tear him apart for not being a freegan or something." Well, yeah, we can get a little critical and have issues with just celebrating once in a while. But I think I know how to celebrate real victories, and I'm not getting anything out of writing these things - not money, and no, not kicks. I want so much to believe in the hope hype.

But really, all I've been getting since Tuesday night is O-Bummers. I mean, we get built up to think change is coming, but first the Rahm Emanuel pick, which is bad news for Palestine, and bad news for a lot of other reasons as well. Now I feel like we're facing the prospect that while the vetting process for the transition team and appointees will likely knock out anyone who has even a touch of pro-Palestine leanings, possible ties to Hindu fundamentalists who say and do all kinds of things to Christians, Muslims, Dalits, and other "undesirables" in India are perfectly fine.

I hope this string of O-Bummers ends soon. It hasn't even been a week, and I was on such a high with the rest of the country, but I feel like it could be a long and painful hangover.

The First Signals of Business as Usual for Palestine/Israel

2008-11-06T20:16:00.002-05:00

I wrote earlier this year about Obama's statement at AIPAC, staking out territory far right of most moderate Israelis and certainly most Palestinians in his staunch lovefest with the racist, hostile government of Israel. Well, his choice of Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff seals the deal: the new Administration will not step away from the failed policies of the Bush and Clinton regimes in Palestine/Israel. It will continue them.

I can continue to rail on this choice and what it seems has been a systematic staking out of the far right, far zionist positions, but I'll just link to today's Democracy Now report on some of this so you can read it directly. It will be critical for people to raise up their protest and resistance immediately, and not allow the idealogues who exist on either side of the corporate duopoly's "aisle" to dig in and spell the real end of any hope for peace in the region, or for the Palestinian people.

ALI ABUNIMAH: But I think the important thing here is not just the appointment of Emanuel, but the greater context here, which is that from the days we knew Barack Obama as a small-time politician in Illinois, I won’t tell you, and I’ve never said that he was incredibly progressive on Israel-Palestine, but he was certainly more open-minded than he is now. And what he’s done systematically throughout the campaign is to distance himself or to throw under the bus, as the term goes, any adviser or friend who was suspected of having pro-Palestinian sympathies. In other words, he has succumbed to the McCarthyite and racist campaigns that says if you associate with even very moderate Columbia University professors, for example, or take their advice, that that’s the biggest crime.

So the signal he’s sending here is that that is not going to change, that people who could give him more balanced, more objective, more realistic advice that could change the course from the disastrous Palestine-Israel policies of the Bush and Clinton administrations, that that’s not going to happen. And that should be very, very worrying, because a lot of progressive people, a lot of people in the Middle East, a lot of leaders, have pinned hopes on Obama being quite different on this issue, and I just don’t see any evidence so far that that’s going to be the case. And it worries me that people will stay silent, rather than putting on the table now and loudly the demands for a more balanced, more objective, more fair policy that could bring peace for Palestinians and Israelis.

Organizing in the New Era

2008-11-06T19:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I wrote about the positivity, if even for just a day, that people exuded after the end of this long long campaign. I've been thinking about what organizing and resistance work may look like after the glow fades. I had written, in a bit that I cut out while editing, that perhaps that positivity is the most important first step that we can hope for, particularly in organizing work that starts with "yes we can" and moves to "let's get started" in the next breath. Does this victory and the jubilation afterward mean that finally, people think we can build again instead of just playing defense?

This victory came after a long campaign, but it still feels quick to me, in terms of making sure that the different elements of the "Obama Coalition" actually have some similar grasp of what his election means to people, if not systemic change. That coalition includes people from much further left than I'd expected would get involved in a major campaign like this one, all the way to young kids and old Democratic political hands who know and have tended over business as usual.

The real test will be whether the left has built up a strong enough skin to not back down from fights with the Dems because they aren't just going to change things without real pressure. And whether people will stand their ground and fight, not just bend over backwards to let the new powers that be, who are not altogether different from the old powers that be in their quest to keep and accumulate power, just do whatever it is that they want to do.

It's time to think about organizing for more than just defense, but also for breaking the weird commitment to political parties and moving to personal and community commitment to issues. I think the younger generation, who have shown little loyalty to brands, media outlets, modes of communication, and pretty much all of the old benchmarks are not really feeling the party identification. That confuses the older pollsters, old guard of leaders, and pretty much everyone else. I think that may provide an opening for people to talk more about issues and engage folks from different communities and age groups about solutions rather than just broad statements of who is "good" and who is "bad."

Of course, what this country needs are more than 2 political parties, but even with them, we need to build from the ground up. The government has to work for the people again (or finally, I suppose). And the people have to get organized beyond GOTV efforts. Everyone's saying the same thing: the proof will be in what happens next.

A New Day

2008-11-05T16:12:00.006-05:00

So he won it after all. I was in DC the night everything was declared, at a Blue Scholar show in fact, and first off, it was amazing to be with the Scholars when the declaration was made. But after that, it was so inspirational to see how the majority of Ethiopian and other African folks in the city were just jubilant about his election. People were dancing in the streets, ya'll. I never thought I'd see the day in the U.S.

This is the first day, so while I voted my conscience and have much to share about what that means, I'll keep other thoughts until later. For now, I think we should just take a collective deep, and tired, first breath. It is indeed as if the pallor of the last 8 years (or 16 or 40 depending on what marker you use to designate "when things were hopeful or better" if that's objectively possible when talking about American politics) has finally lifted.

People had a bit of spring in their step, really. Morning in America, and it was a new day. Maybe for one day, maybe for a brief stretch beyond that, this victory gives a little seldom-found relief to black men throughout this country. Plagued by negative images, stereotypes, and most every deck stacked against them, I will not make the audacious claim that this election is a game-changer in any way. But self-worth does not arise solely from what we have inside ourselves, and it's got to be hard to carry all that heaviness if you're conscious of it. While nothing has changed physically yet, I definitely felt optimism in people's hearts today, and just taking it at face value, more people of color, and in particular men of color, were smiling.

Not to mention the lines in front of the little corner stores that sell 2,000+ magazines and papers from around the world. Everyone wanted the papers that had cover stories. Everyone wants to keep that souvenir, that I was there, that memento that says "it's not just a dream anymore!" It's morning in America, and with this dawn came the promise, at least, of a new brighter day, if not in what actually happens, then at least in people's perception of what is possible.

But just to keep this real, here's a little perspective. There's much work still to do.

Election Eve

2008-11-03T22:53:00.005-05:00

We stand at a crossroads, America. A crossroads that has been hyped up a lot more than it may actually represent. I think the crossroads is not between a splintered America and a post-race America, or even one that has a more sophisticated take on its own complex racialized heritage and history.

I think more than anything, a peaceful change of power with a large part of the eligible electorate actually participating that just results in more snide comments and bitterness rather than bloodshed, would mark the movement of America from the democracy that is more concerned about defending its "freedom" by bombing others to one that celebrates the exercise of that basic tenet of true liberty: the ability of a nation to say "enough is enough"... even if the subtitle would be "and now for something not entirely different."

So here we are, America. It could be that today is the last day of an old era. Not just that of Bushs and Clintons in the White House, but also of the undercurrent of national discourse that recognizes that there has always been and still remains great inequality in this nation. I don't know whether the whole post-race and post-affirmative action angle will come in quickly or later as the conservatives in both parties regroup and rethink their attack on the poor, the dark, and the newcomers, but it will come.

The backlash towards whatever is left will definitely come. The brunt of anger and distrust will not fall upon the new leader, surrounded as he can be by the best that our money can train. The battleground, bloody or cold and calculated, will be in many states and towns across this nation. The targets will be simple, unchanged folks who hadn't suddenly felt like they won a lottery just because someone who looks like them but has had all kinds of access through education and opportunity was just elected president.

That's the funny thing: privilege seems to be okay if you don't realize you have it no matter how much you benefit from it. But if people in power even suspect that someone else will get some shade under that parasol of privilege, it's over: they will do what they can to stomp that out early. That ground game will be demoralizing if it happens, but mainly to those of us in the know, I think, because we won't write it off as just a coincidence or random events.

We'll connect those dots.

So this is a crossroads America. And it isn't. We'll travel together down the next road that you choose, but if it's another dead end or dive off a deep end, you're on your own this time.

Ever Have One of Those Weeks?

2008-10-30T22:34:00.001-04:00

Sorry dear faithful reader(s?) of DotBS. I've been sidetracked and crazy busy. Busier than I thought. Busier than makes it possible to get in all the writing I'm hoping to do for work, let alone getting up on here to ponder a bit. But you know what happens when a person like me doesn't have a venue like this to vent a little steam? I go a little crazy, for one, but then I also kind of let things go against people I don't even really know.

It's just that even as I want to walk the path of righteousness rather than self-righteousness - to stay focused on building and not tearing down (too much) - I slip up. I have to ask forgiveness sometimes of folks whose opinions aren't that important to me at the end of the day. It's like this: it takes a long time to build personal capital up with people who you don't politically align with right away, even if they are blood (or in my case, extended family). But once you do, you can still blow the load of it if you just pull a McCain and throw a tantrum.

I did just that on email today, in reaction to a racist/anti-Muslim Obama smear email that an uncle of mine, of whom I've written in the past, forwarded out to our family list serv. Rather than just say "that was stupid" to myself and my trusted partner and/or sister I decided to engage via email. Needless to say, it didn't become a flame war between me and my 75 year old uncle, or all his kids who have kids of their own who are approaching college. But it could have been, and I didn't see through the red enough to be tactical.

I'm usually okay in this regard - strategy is something I've tried to learn and teach myself, particularly in the last few years. And especially with the kind of work I want to do - tempers don't build things. And anger is okay, but we have to use it constructively, with a greater purpose in mind. And against true injustice. So I kind of messed up. I think need to write more often. Rage on these pages is better than rage on the internets. Better luck on Friday.

Be safe, have a good weekend, and no matter who you vote for: don't vote for McCain/Palin.

Things I Wish I Heard in Debate #3

2008-10-16T07:42:00.003-04:00

Last night was kind of funny. McCain held it together reasonably well in the first two debates, but I really felt like we were watching the man get unhinged on TV. It was kind of freaky, really.

I had just one zinger I thought Obama could have hit him with. Early in the debate, they went back and forth on the income tax issue (long live Joe the Plumber!), and McCain tried to turn Obama into Robin Hood with mass redistribution of the wealth (note to John: people like Robin Hood). There was a moment when McCain said "in such tough economic times, why would you want to raise taxes on anyone?" Obama wisely let that go, though he addressed it as a matter of fairness, hitting the bullet points for fair tax policy.

But then they started talking about corporate taxes, and McCain pulled a stat out of his ass about Ireland when he claimed that corporate taxes in the U.S. being the second highest in the world. It was remarkable that in an election that is still ostensibly to be decided by real, natural people, not the corporations who have dumped millions of dollars in each of their campaigns, that McCain, in his last guaranteed free prime time TV placement before he concedes on the evening of 11/4, decides to take up the cause of the "little guy": Exxon Mobil and all the rest of those bastards. I wonder how that played across the nation.

Obama basically let it go, but it was the perfect opportunity to nail McCain on this: the reason our corporate taxes are higher (on paper) than most other nations is because we have low personal income taxes. Does McCain prefer lower corporate taxes, which would shift the burden of paying for everything that the government does more directly to the people like Joe Plumber? Sounds kind of socialist, John. Maybe I should reconsider your candidacy.

Remembering Gujarat

2008-10-15T20:41:00.003-04:00

It's a funny thing: get a job doing work you want to do, and suddenly all that spare time you thought you'd have after the years of grueling/non-relevant law school doesn't really materialize. I have a lot of things I want to do in my spare time, but the train ride home at night is barely enough to write a quick note to self about the day, or jot down an idea in my other notebook that I'm keeping to store brainstorms, or read even a short article in the New Yorker, which I can love to hate, but still enjoy digging into deep stories that are disappearing quickly across the landscape of American journalism.

So today, on the ride home, I decided to open up a collection of Arundhati Roy essays called the Algebra of Infinite Justice that my partner brought back from a trip to India (that shit which would cost $15 here was Rs. 225: i.e. about 5 dollars. I now believe the best deal to be had from India is books, believe it or not). The book collects some of her best essays, including "For the Common Good," her brilliant essay about the Narmada Dam Project (before the dam-builders won).

As expected, I didn't get through a lot, but I read the better part of two pieces: the title piece, which was an amazing piece she wrote right after 9/11, presciently calling Osama Bin Laden the "dark doppelganger" of Bush. You have to read this piece to fully appreciate her mastery of language -- and the truth.

The second piece was written after the 2002 communal massacre in Gujarat, which she and many others have called pogroms orchestrated and enabled by the BJP-led government. On the shaky grounds of retribution for a train burning in Godra earlier that week that resulted in the death of more than 50 Hindu "pilgrims" that was attributed to Muslim activists (the truth came out later - the train was not lit up by Muslim anything, and the people on the train, though they did not deserve death, were enroute back from a Masjid destruction tour), Hindus in the state of Gujarat killed more than 2000 Muslims, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, and forced over 100,000 people into refugee camps in their own home state.

The detailed horrors of what happened are unspeakable, but Roy outlines some of it to start her essay (titled "Democracy"). Reading even these slivers that profile what happened shocked me to remember and realize what I did not really know. Gujarat in 2002, and Indian communal violence in general, are talking points of the South Asian left. But how much do those of us living comfortably in the United States really know of what happened? How do you reconcile "pride" in your heritage with this history?

And for me - as a non-Hindu, but someone who can easily pass because my people have strayed and are confused - how do I have an honest dialogue about these things with Gujarati Muslims? I feel like I haven't even started that process - and I want to do something about that, because this memory cannot fade, and it's not good enough to just namecheck it once in a while.

Things I Would Have Liked to Hear in Debate #2

2008-10-07T23:38:00.004-04:00

"You know who voted for that? SENATOR OBAMA" (the dude has a name, you imp).

"The American military should be used as a peacekeeping force, but we should realize that we don't have a monopoly on the meaning of 'freedom' and that more often than not, the United States has intervened and fucked things up in nations where peoples' movements were rising."

"You know what? I hate what the Rove machine is doing. I won't be dragged in the mud with the rest of them. Election be damned."

Okay - enough of my comments. If you haven't read this long-ass article about the real McCain, which was the cover story of this week's Rolling Stone, well my friends, you should. We just need more of these out there. Rolling Stone is best when it lets good writers research and publish what they find. This is a winner.

What I Wish We Heard at the Debate

2008-10-02T23:20:00.002-04:00

"Governor Palin, I know Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson is a friend of mine (though his take on Catholicism is a little severe). Based on my favorite Gibson movie, John McCain is no maverick."

"I support a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine. Let me talk about the Palestinian people instead of just focusing on one of the states, and let me talk about their democratically elected government instead of how I advised against allowing the West Bank to enjoy the same freedoms we're bombing Iraq to have."

"I'm such a Washington outsider, maybe I should just stay that way."

"War is a bad thing. We should stop talking about it as if it's something to plan for, something to anticipate and enjoy. We should be trying to build a world where war isn't necessary."

(Rosa Clemente's opening statement, answers, and closing statement).

The Long Road Into Darkness

2008-09-30T07:40:00.002-04:00

I've been so focused on the new job that I haven't had time to stick my head up and take a look around. Financial markets crashing, the investment pundits have fires to put out in their own houses but they are still stoking the flames throughout the rest of the market (witness Apple's major drop yesterday despite being a company with *no debt* and I think $20B in reserves. I guess the argument could be that they are sort of unAmerikan with no debt.

Don't really have anything deep to say here today, but as I continue to get pushed around to vote for Obama in November, I'm starting to lose sight of where the nation goes after the election. I'm glad that I'm focusing my efforts locally - my head starts to hurt with how screwed up things are, and how no matter how good the new president is, there's a lot to be undone from 8 years of Bush II, 8 years of Clinton, and everything that came before. I may believe in miracles, but this is gonna take a sturdy pair of thigh-high shit-wading boots and one mo'f'ing huge broom.

Have a good Tuesday, ya'll. More regular posting to come, when I get that work/life/sleep balance down.

Third World Rising: Paraguay

2008-09-23T08:36:00.005-04:00

Not much in this new world order gives me that much hope. Even as I struggle with the decision of whether to vote a mainstream candidate for President for the first time in 12 years, I'm not overcome with "hope" for American democracy. But there's something incredible afoot in South America. The latest turn left comes from Paraguay, where former liberation theologist Fernando Lugo was elected on a platform of land reform and peasants' rights.

So much of South America is moving in this direction, it can't be seen as a fluke anymore. With Asia split between isolated dictatorships and Americanesque capitalist states, and Africa dealing with extreme poverty, violence and corruption, and the preventable spread of disease, South America may be the only truly successful manifestation of the Nonaligned movement of the 40s and 50s. The nations and people of the South are moving on their own, and it seems like even the main early players (Castro, Hugo Chavez) aren't as influential as indigenous folks stepping up to take leadership.

When the Wall (Street) Came Down

2008-09-17T07:36:00.003-04:00

So the morning shows today, in the wake of yet more "bad" news about the financial companies going under (and Federal takeover of AIG), in addition to the expected comments on Wall Street greed, there was an interesting focus on "Main Street greed." Basically, after name-checking some of the splurging CEOs, they said "hey, it spread to all of us, with our moderate salaries, we were still buying $4 Starbucks, houses we couldn't afford on our salaries because of downpayment-free mortgages, etc etc.

It didn't sit well with me right away and here are the key reasons:

1) CEO greed and my neighbor's "greed" are one thing, but what about corporate greed? In my opinion, the culture of organizational greed far exceeds the impact of individual people grabbing for what they can get. Not only does it push people internally to strive for larger and larger margins, but the voice of common sense (i.e. "WTF are we doing?!") is silenced in the process. There is no room for alternative visions of community wealth or the common good when everyone is pushing for more, and dissent will cut you off from your ambition of rising to the top.

2) You're telling me that the person with the $30,000 salary who buys the $400K house is the reason that the economy is teetering now? Give me a fucking break. Blaming the individuals on the bottom of the economic food chain for the madness at the top is a lie. "Food chains" are an apt analogy: the companies managing the deals and looking the other way from their own economic forecasts were feeding off the dreams of the little guys. Zero-down mortgages have created some of these issues, but keeping people financially illiterate: give them the dream/end goal, but not the roadmap or tools to get there in a way that makes sense for their economic situation, is fraudulent. While the corporations trade in bundled, broken dreams packaged as mortgages in default, the rest of us could either keep sleeping or wake up.

3) Which brings me to my final point this morning: this should be a time to look at systems, more than just individual "greed." Reducing this to a "sin" analysis instead of another damning lesson about free market capitalism misses the point. When I hear people say "we've been here before, and we'll be here again" it makes me want to scream. This is not an inevitable thing, people: we could get some security if we weren't all driving 100 mph towards a cliff all the time. And who's setting that pace? Who's created this culture of greed?

Film: The Prestige (2007)

2008-09-16T10:11:00.001-04:00

Like so many films during law school, I slept on this one. Not through it, mind you. On it. I think this came out at just around the same time that The Illusionist came out. Isn't it funny how things like that happen? You get multiple movies about talking ants, sharks, what have you, all in the same year. Well, those are animated, these are not. Anyway, caught afore-mentioned Ed Norton flick on video first. I think it's better that way. If I saw this one first, I may have stopped watching the Norton film after the first 15 minutes because it didn't have the same level of attention-grabbing.

Directed by Christopher Nolan, of Memento and the great new generation of Batman features fame, and starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in great roles as rival magicians at the turn of the century, I have to say: this one was fun to watch. Where else will you see two superheroes go head on without possessing actual powers? Or is it that simple? The film isn't perfect, but there's enough mystery and period sets to keep things interesting. I definitely enjoyed it, but with plot holes and various jumps and skips, I'd have to give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. Still, there are some really interesting questions that the film makes you think about, particularly the way science and magic were perceived at that time (and maybe even still), and the line between performance and reality. It's a good ride.

2008-09-14T23:33:00.002-04:00

New job is kind of kicking my ass, but in a good way. I'm learning each day and feel like I have the space to grow. I'll find some time to write up some thoughts soon, so thanks for checking in once in a while. I have to say - being where I am, I feel like I can be positive about community-based work again. It's funny: law school is supposed to kill that spirit and kill your creativity. I was feeling that for a while, but I was lucky: found some community while putting in my three years, and found some faith in myself in the process.

As I've mentioned before, I may have to find another space to write more directly about my work, but starting out as someone who's waiting to see if he's licensed to practice law, it's less about confidential client information and more about this being a small community and all. But I'm definitely starting to think about how things connect - and it's nice to not just be someone sitting in cyberspace idly hypothesizing about things. Real talk, real walk is possible.

Anyway, time to catch some shut-eye before another full week. Keep the faith, ya'll. More to come.

Seven Years Have Passed.

2008-09-11T09:23:00.007-04:00

Seven years have passed.

The elementary school near where I live broadcasts its morning announcements to the streets via a speaker or two on the outside. Today, they took a moment of silence for 30 seconds and I wonder "Is this what it was like in the decade immediately following Pearl Harbor or the Triangle Shirt Factory tragedy?" Do kids who only read or hear about recent tragedies through newly edited textbooks feel anything, or are they all just going through the motions like we tend to do in so many other circumstances?

Seven years have passed.

And what was once too immediate and present to speak about with anyone, has now become almost too distant and faded. I had a hard time dealing with what other people were feeling and experiencing, and hadn't really addressed or come to terms with my own feelings, and now I wonder if the time has passed. Is it time now to "move on"?

Seven years have passed.

I got a message yesterday from an old friend from whom I've grown a bit distant because of time and place. But we had worked together in communities affected by the aftermath for more than 2 years. And his mind returned to that place and time, even if he just said that he was checking in. Something remains.

It's odd to think about time before a date was reduced to a soundbite and the same video clips played over and over. I'm just as tired as anyone else, but the memories trigger something, and I'm forgetting what that innocence was. And I start to feel conflicted sometimes, because I have a better idea than many of what real loss in the wake of that loss was like, but it wasn't my own or even that of people who I knew personally. And seven years have passed.

More Unsolicited Advice for the Dems

2008-09-08T07:30:00.002-04:00

Not much to write about, so I'll give the Dems some new ideas to pound their opponents:

1) Obama should start talking more about how Americans should be able to retire at 65, like they used to. I'm pretty sure that people are working longer, because they have to, and it's a way to talk to seniors, talk about the direction of the economy, and suggest that McCain should be able to sit on a beach and get some color on him rather than apply for a new job. I mean, we keep hearing about his service to the country: doesn't he deserve a break already?

2) The Dems should stop running from the "they want to make government bigger and they want government to choose your doctor, your school, etc." They can win this debate: government exists to fill in the holes, build and maintain society, and make sure that while all the greedy little capitalists are scheming to squirrel away more dollars, those who are less fortunate do not get eaten up in the process. It does not exist merely for its own sake, nor just to wage war.

And what's more, the Dems should flip the "family values" thing: we want to make sure that everyone has healthcare. We believe there are some minimum requirements that should be in place in a country as great as America. But they want government to tell you who you can love, what you can do with your own body, what faith you should follow, and even who will be allowed to see you in the hospital, provided you can afford one in their wholly privatized system. We don't need the government to tell us our values: we can do that part for ourselves.

These suggestions aren't even controversial, but I think at least the second one may strike a chord with the libertarians and energize people who want government to butt out. If the Dems want to win this thing, they have to move to new ideological ground and elevate this debate from where it's been in the past.

What is Meat? (Pt. 3: The Beer Conundrum)

2008-09-04T07:29:00.001-04:00

This is the last installment of this set (read Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven't) but I think I'll likely revisit the topic, particularly regarding Asian American spaces and vegetarianism.

While writing the previous posts, I discovered a very troubling fact from a search related to a non-alcoholic drink (Jamaican Irish Moss) I had recently. Apparently, some beer companies use isinglass in the filtration of their product. Isinglass is basically extracted from fish swimbladders, so therefore, pretty non-vegetarian. Check out the details on the substance here.

While getting more and more worried about what I've been drinking, I found these lists of beers that are vegetarian (with emails from the companies to back it up). Here's another list of acceptable vegetarian beers.

Note that Guiness is NOT on this list and therefore not a vegetarian beer. *sigh* I guess this means that I should have hard alcohol if I'm going to drink. Man, Jains had it right not to allow alcohol in the diet. But who the hell knew that you can't have beer without eating fish/etc parts?!?!

This is almost as disturbing as the ground-up insects in some of my favorite candy.

It kind of begs the question about what it is that some people won't eat. I guess some large part of this is the big corporation deciding what corners to cut and what preservatives and other substances will get the desired effect, without really stopping to think whether their consumers want to consume these pieces of animals, insects, and fish. Does it matter? For people like me, the answer is "definitely yes," but what for others? Aside from the grossout factor, is this as disturbing to non-vegetarians as it is to me?

Whatever the case, in post #1 I was crying out against the "pork: the other white meat" campaign in NYC subways. Maybe this revelation about non-veg beers could lead to a new slogan: "beer, the meat with hops."

Liveblogging the RNC

2008-09-03T22:08:00.006-04:00

Rudy must be a vampire. He doesn't age. I wish the ground would open up and take him back home.

***

Woah, though. He said "nada" a few times to move the RNC masses: I don't know how the English only lobby feel about that. And he should stop emphasizing how frail and injured McCain is. Not doing wonders

***

I really hate Rudy: mofo had the crowd laughing at community organizers. Wish we could stick our collective, community empowered boot up his ass.

***

Man. These speeches are so long. Thank God Rudy is gone. 30 years of him was enough, and he still managed to both mention 9/11 and say Dems were afraid to do so.

***

The chants of "USA! USA!" used to get on my nerves. Now I keep thinking "Ali bombaye!" Go figure.

***

"I guess being a small town mayor is kind of like being a community organizer, except you actually have responsibilities." Um, yeah.

***

If I were the Dems, I would get child advocacy groups - from the adoption advocates to the folks working on behalf of the developmentally disabled - to start making a lot of noise about how both Repugnicans are using their kids as political props.

***

Film: Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)

2008-09-02T10:07:00.003-04:00

Batman: Gotham Knight is an animated feature-length that went straight to DVD this year. It is noteworthy for a number of reasons. First, it is comprised of 6 short tales, each similar but shorter than individual episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. Second, I don't think that any of the segments are drawn by the same artists, and much of it is in anime style (think, The Animatrix concept, although I didn't see that film). A big plus, however, is that some of the vocal talents from the Animated Series reprise their roles in this film (most importantly, Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne/Batman). Finally, similar to the Animatrix, Gotham Knight is meant to take place between Batman Begins and this summer's smash hit Dark Knight

To take it back, I loved the Batman: Animated Series cartoon. It took me a while to get into it, because it was different from the other stuff that was out there (and I think I was in high school or something when it came out). I remember first watching and thinking "this is it? why is there so little music? It's just him talking, and then there's some action, then more talking." I finally gave it another chance, and realized what was going on.

The creators wanted to bring Batman back to his roots from the comic books - Frank Miller's reinvention of the character as a much more complex, dark figure in the DC Universe.Batman was much more aloof, harder to connect to the sunny optimism (and red, white, and blue Americanism) of Superman. He had a dark back story that led to the character that we know. He lived in the shadows, did not have supernatural or extraterrestrial origins to make him special: he was a bad mofo with a lot of money and personal discipline (most of the time).

Because of this, Batman was more human this way, and tapped into something deeper with real readers. Additionally, his realm, Gotham is a dark, sinister version of NYC, where retro, modern, and futuristic forms and technology clash and combine in interesting (but almost always gothic) landscapes. I think Nolan's Batman Begins and Dark Knight also went back to the source material, which is why the fans of the comic have been so taken by them, and the films worked in shadows and shades of black and gray.

I had mixed feelings about the film, only because it made me nostalgic for the old series, which I would record on VHS whenever I could (time to dig out that tape... and buy a VCR?) but it's definitely worth seeing for the fans. I don't think I could rank it better than Mask of the Phantasm, which I actually saw in the theater. You know, this just made me realize that I never saw Batman and Mr. Freeze: Subzero, which is actually ranked higher than Mask of the Phantasm on Rotten Tomatoes...

Three Cheers for the U.S. State Dept: Modi Denied Visa

2008-09-01T07:01:00.001-04:00

Well, this is what happens when the government actually does what it's supposed to do. Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the butcher of Gujarat, whose anti-Muslim (and anti-Christian, which I'm sure is most relevant here) positions and actions are legion, was denied his visa request by the U.S. State Dept. Modi was going to come to the U.S. to speak at the World Gujarati Conference, to be held this weekend in NJ.

Here's a link to the letter confirming their position on his "severe violations of religious freedom." Again, the reasoning is connected to the Religious Conversion legislation in Gujarat that required people to register with the state before they could convert their religion, which was largely seen by the media/West as a strong anti-Christian move.

I think the legislation was a hindutva move to address a history of conversion or perceived forced conversion in India (Hindus in India sometimes "Muslims in India used to be Hindu and were forceably converted en masse" instead of recognizing that people convert, it's part of human history). I wish the letter and the State Dept.'s stance reflected the genocide that Modi oversaw in Gujarat in 2002, when more than 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered and more than 50,000 displaced from their homes while the military and police stood idly by (or helped out). But we take what we can get, I suppose.

Flash forward to tons of hate mail to the government (this is what they choose to get upset about) and angry letters to the Indian American media by capitalist Gujaratis who don't care about hindutva (though they benefit from it) but see Modi as the chief architect of the economic boom that the area has witnessed in the last 5-10 years.

Film Recommendation: Heavy Metal in Baghdad

2008-08-31T09:31:00.003-04:00

Finally got to see this film (bless you, Netflix!), and I highly recommend it, particularly to metalheads of color and those against this (or any other) senseless war. The film tracks "the only Iraqi metal band" through it's struggles to just play the music that they love in their home country as it blows up around them. The insight of some of the members about what life in Iraq was like before Sadam, just after the overthrow, and in the years afterwards (portions of the film were shot in 2006 and 2007), is something else. And getting a video look at life both in Iraq during the war, and in the refugee communities in Syria where the band finally reunites is kind of mind-blowing.

One of the most amazing things is that the band had been together since 2002, but until their "reunion" show in Syria, they'd only played 6 times together. Their rehearsal spot in Baghdad was blown up by a rocket. They had nothing left, and yet they still push ahead to try to make music. It's phenomenal and really sad and triumphant all at once. Even if you're not a fan of the genre, you have to see this film. It's just very moving to see these young guys who have seen so much yet keep on pushing. And again, like that monk from Italy, they say that Metallica is an influence, but they kick Metallica's ass all over the place: their playing really rips.

On top of all of this, the film was co-directed by a South Asian Canadian: Suroosh Alvi - he has a welcome perspective that made me much less suspicious of it from the get-go (seeing the film-makers wearing kevlar vests just so they could make the trip out to Baghdad from the airport to meet the band in 2006 was pretty striking). They had to travel in an armored SUV and hire 2 gunmen and a fixer/translator.

You know, when I was talking about the film with a friend over breakfast yesterday, I realized that beyond the music element, the story personalizes the very real heartbreak playing itself out over and over again for people who have been forced to leave their homes as refugees, seeking asylum in places that are not as war-torn or dangerous. But it also reminds me that the story never ends with their entry into the accepting country: asylum seekers do not have it easy, and the band's travails and sharp observations of life in Syria (and to a lesser extent, Turkey) was quite telling. On the flip side, the way that the global metal community, upon watching the film and hearing that the guys had to sell all their gear to eat, came together, and raised money to get them more gear. Regardless of what people think about this subculture, there is a community here, and reading that just reminded me of that fact.

Anyway, not your average documentary about metal. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.

What is Meat? (Pt. 2)

2008-08-30T13:32:00.003-04:00

Continuing where I left off in post 1, I'm just talking more about vegetarianism here. Not in an effort to convert you, just thinking about it, particularly in an Asian American and "socially conscious" (whatever that means) context.

You know, I still can't take the cruel sad joke that's played on me every time I go to an event where the planners "didn't anticipate" that there would be more than a few vegetarians. I have a friend who gets visibly upset because she wants the offering to contain proteins, not solely starches. Heck, I'm happy if I can get black beans instead of refried, and white rice instead of Mexican, just because I'm careful about whether there are meat by/products used in the production of my food, beyond just big meaty chunks. You'd think that it's not that fringe anymore, but somehow, even if mainstream NYC has caught up, large segments of the Asian American "activist" community are still clueless.

As I said, it's not that I'm trying to convince anyone, because I tend to like the steak-eaters who don't push their diet on me more than the militant tofu-pushers, but I do see vegetarianism to represent many facets of social and personal consciousness:

First, and perhaps most obviously, I do think of it as a moral stance regarding animal welfare. The idea that the act of killing is for sustenance is a brutal and overstated worldview, especially when people have shown in Buddhism and Jainism that it is not necessary to kill to live. But beyond that - the way that animals are treated in massive industrial farms is simply beyond the pale. Upton Sinclair's seminal book, The Jungle, shone a light on the conditions of meatpacking for the humans involved, and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation did a similar job regarding the animals and the systems created to turn fellow life forms into just another (by)product of/for human consumption and waste.

Second, I could argue a health stance regarding my personal health (i.e. heart, blood, etc), and that of global public health for communities and populations around the world. Meat production has shown, especially in recent times, how susceptible it can be to widespread infection. And to think of how many people could be fed on the grains that are given to factory livestock just to "create" one pound of "good" meat. Farm-fresh meat, which is free of growth and other hormones, and allows the animals to live without eating pieces of their brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom, is ever more rare to find. The health consequences are off the chart. Do you really want to be eating that stuff?

Third, I could take an environmental/ecological stance with mega-farms and industrial commodification and genetic manipulation of species as destroying ecosystems and playing god where we shouldn't be. Why aren't those driven by "faith" more angry about this? We're meddling in God's designs: shouldn't there be a line here, as easy to draw as all the lines they draw about morality and abortion? In addition, the level of waste connected to the meat production industry is again, phenomenal. Animals are treated like fodder for the human shovel-headed kill machine, and even as their habitats are cleared and decimated to house our people, their lives have become meaningless and wholly subsumed into serving our "needs." There are also studies that directly link massive meat production to climate change.

Fourth, I could take an intellectual stance regarding the necessity of violence for self-sustenance. Have we not evolved from the "instinctual" enough to think before we destroy? Granted, we always like to think that we're at the top of the food chain, but it's sickening, really. To argue that there is some kind of perverse justification for the wholesale destruction and harvesting of other species in the framework of simple hunter/gatherers is reprehensible to me. The extreme species bias that humans have is reflected in the racial bias that I write about the most on this blog. Maybe man's newfound ability to reason pushed him to separate himself from the rest of the beasts and animals that surrounded him. The separation quickly became the grounds to decide that we are better than the animals, that a higher force put animals in front of us as our sustenance and for no other reason.

This attitude breeds the callous relationship most people have with animals - from the insects and small invertebrates that they carelessly kill, to the beautiful animals that they hunt for "sport." When we place our own interests, even entertainment and recreational, over life, we have lost something and we have become a risk to the rest of the world. There is little that shows that we are at the "top" of the evolutionary chain: it is just that our particular adaptations of reasoning, which led to technology, have allowed us to overcome natural challenges like disease and predators, and allowed our populations to flourish and edge out the natural order in ecosystems around the globe. But we were very wrong to allow this success to go to our heads in a kind of species chauvinism that recasts other species as grist for the mill of human progress. The reckoning, for Earth's own survival, will not be pretty.

Finally, as a matter of faith, vegetarianism and the respect for other life is an important consideration for me. I don't smash bugs or run over animals with my car on purpose. I try to let insects and spiders escape most of the time through an open window rather than just kill them. The Jain philosophy of my ancestors has rejected killing: it has decided that humans and our path on this earth must preserve and respect life. I don't agree with all of the tenets of Jainism, and there are always contradictions inherent in the interaction of these world views (especially those that are millennia old) with modern times, but the fundamental equalizing of the value of life across life beings is very striking. Is it an evolution for humans not to kill? Is our ability to reason our escape from what others believe is the inevitable "circle of life" that makes animals that are striving to survive killers for food, for territory, or for self-defense? I don't know. But it is remarkable for people to actively stop killing, or at least eating the spoils of others' killing.

I'll close here, though there's one (very unfortunate) thing that I found out in the process of writing this piece that will have to come out in part 3. Stay tuned, and whatever you do, don't forget the gravy!

Jessica Yu's Ping Pong Playa

2008-08-29T07:06:00.005-04:00

Okay, just listened to a report on Asia Pacific Forum (if you are reading this, you should be listening to the weekly show from the prog/rad collective in New York) about Jessica Yu's new film, Ping Pong Playa. I definitely want to see this film - seems like an insider's send up of a lot of the cliches in Asian American activism and community dynamics. Here's the synopsis from the Asia Pacific Forum piece:

Christopher "C-Dub" Wang, a suburban Chinese American kid, aspires to make it in pro basketball. He spends his days talking trash and overreacting to perceived slights against Asian Americans. But when misfortune strikes his family, C-dub must overcome living at home, working a dead-end job and living in the shadow of his older brother, a physician and ping pong champion, to run his Mom's ping pong classes and defend the family's athletic dynasty. We’ll be joined in the studio by director JESSICA YU and by JIMMY TSAI, who created the character of C-Dub and played him in the film. Ping Pong Playa is the first narrative feature for Yu, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker.

Catch the film as it debuts in NYC, LA, and the Bay Area next week!

Heavy Metal Monk: Fratello Metallo

2008-08-28T10:58:00.003-04:00

This is a real monk from Italy who was so taken by heavy metal that he decided to create a band and sing without pushing his faith on people too hard. The dude says he was inspired by Metallica but he could sure teach those losers a thing or two.

There are a range of really interesting metal books and films coming out. Heavy Metal in Baghdad made the circuits in film festivals last year. There's a new film that I'm very anxious to see, called Global Metal, by the excellent director (metalhead who is also an anthropologist) of "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey." The film tag "7 Countries, 3 Continents, 1 Tribe" captures a lot of the allure for me, actually. I'm looking forward to seeing that one and will report back once I track it down.

Meanwhile, get a good trappist beer and rock out to Fratello Metallo. Man, these monks are cool.

Tropic Thunder: Appropriation Revisited

2008-08-27T08:25:00.000-04:00

Tropic Thunder's much reported take on blackface (and Ben Stiller's dismal record in movies) kept us from seeing the film until this past weekend. We were hoping to see Wall-E, but in yet another cruel twist of this bar summer, it wasn't playing anywhere near us. So Tropic Thunder was the best thing that fit into our schedule. I had read enough to know that Robert Downey, Jr.'s take on blackface would either make me want to leave the theater, or get me to think about what it means and where we are now that a film not made by people of color can actually address some of the interesting aspects of representation and appropriation that we find ourselves confronting nowadays. I'm happy to report that it was more of the latter than I expected.

Without ruining too much, the whole film is a satire on the industry, and Downey plays a five-time Oscar winning Australian actor who is such a method actor that he decides to undergo a medical procedure to "look black." Downey plays his role to perfection - making fun of extreme method actors (Day-Lewis, anyone?), cultural appropriation, and the seeming paradox of actors with huge egos and overwhelming insecurity. There was also a black actor on the team calling him out each step of the way ("there's only one role for a black man in this film, and you get it!").

Stiller surprised me: I was expecting nothing but slapstick and bathroom humor (they make fun of some of that as well). I know there are criticisms of the film regarding its approach towards the mentally disabled, but I have a feeling that some of that was also tongue-in-cheek (saying to the viewer, we're so clever about race that we have multiple levels about that, but Hollywood doesn't get everything). Maybe that's giving them too much credit, but some of the "retard" comments were so over the top that I feel like they knew what they were doing.

But this also makes me think about representation and appropriation, particularly in light of some of the weird Mickey Rooney denial of the racism inherent in his much reviled Asian caricature in the otherwise classic Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Is there a space where this kind of caricature is acceptable? And does it matter who is doing it and for what reason? The film features Asian actors playing members of an Asian drug ring, and it begs the question: we get pissed off when white people play our people, even in "sympathetic" roles, but then our people play our people in crazy terrorist/trafficker/bad driver/whatever roles, and we're okay with it? Because an Asian/POC actor has to live and "Hollywood's fucked up - you have to play the game so you can get to where you don't have to play the game"? I'm not feeling that. But I guess I'm not an actor, either.

***

Anyway - if you want to see two octogenarian actors/movie people talk about this film (it's not perfect because they get caught up in the whole "PC" discussion) check this review out. But it's kind of funny to hear them talk to each other and about this film. Woah - just watched their review of the Dark Knight. Not cool.

Kucinich Speech at DNC today

2008-08-26T19:57:00.002-04:00

The new call to wake up America. I'm glad Dennis got the stage. Probably one of the more impassioned speeches on that platform. But don't type "wake up america" into Google: you'll get a lot of right-wing dribble.

What is Meat? (Pt. 1)

2008-08-26T13:51:00.001-04:00

With the early onslaught of Halloween preparations, a holiday that's never been the same for me since I found out that many of my favorite candies have shredded beetles and other unsavories in them, I thought this as good a time as any to post my consideration of the more-complicated-than-I-thought-it-was question: "what is meat?"

I have been surprised by the different ways that people in the Northeast (my only frame of reference) consider the various subgroups of "food" and justify the exclusion of each from their personal definition of "meat." I don't know if this is true in other parts of the U.S. or if even this is another one of those uniquely American propositions. But it just knocks me out that this is as debated (or at least contested) as it is. Pescatarian, Vegan, Non-Red-Meatatarian... the variations have promulgated in a way not unlike the many permutations of American Christianity.

I actually think it's not so complicated for people who aren't in the United States. Or maybe that's a massive generalization that isn't large enough - perhaps it is more the whole Western, Christian world that doesn't quite get the difference between a carrot, a crab, a carp, and a canary. Whatever it is, there are a number of observations and impacts on people who are trying to stick to one or more of these diets, and more importantly, the assumptions that come from people who just don't get the difference. It also has ramifications for movement work in communities that have heterogeneous and specific diets.

I know it's been a source of frustration for the older desi generation (well, my Mom is the sample for me here) when someone asks if they eat seafood or poultry right after they've said "I don't eat meat." Because to them, "meat" is anything that used to be an animal. And "animal" means anything that's not a plant, fungi, monote, or phytoplankton. For many of them, even eggs are included in that definition, but milk and dairy are not "meat" because they are not directly "animals" but rather animal products, I guess. For some reason, this is really hard to understand for a lot of people - I don't know if it's the penetration of the concept of "vegan" into the American psyche or sheer, complete ignorance. The number of questions about whether "x" or "y" are acceptable under old school immigrant definitions of "vegetarian" is sometimes frustrating. It used to be basic questions like "where do you get your protein?" and "that's weird!" but now that the concept of vegetarianism has permeated mainstream American life more, the questions have actually multiplied and become more specific.

Anyway, I believe that the regular exclusion of fish (and even poultry) in the Western conception of "meat" strongly normalizes carnivorism. Anthropomorphism is also a fairly common way of describing diet: "I won't eat anything with a face" translates to me that some of the Disney animated shows with cute talking animals must be having some lasting effect, at least on the subliminal level, and maybe some of the kids who watch the films over and over again will grow up wondering why Bambi equals venison, and Thumper makes a good stew. But then, why is Sebastian the crab is less sympathetic and more likely to find himself taking his final dip in a giant hot tub that is really a hot pot? Let's not even get to the fact that people get all freaked out by insects and spiders, but are more than happy to crunch into other, larger, many-legged arthropods like lobsters, shrimp, and crabs. I just don't get the logic: eat a damn spider already. And that's not because I'm an Indian, and we eat that kind of stuff regularly.

I also think that the inability of some people to fully understand that fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and the various other exceptions to the meat rule seem, at least to me, to signify one of two things: 1) "I don't care about science, I'm proud that I don't know what an animal is, and you should go screw yourself," or 2) "It's too hard to include all of these things, and as long as I'm not taking a bite out of a live whale's trachea or something, you should leave me alone to my drumstick. At least I don't go hunting these things (off season)."

Ah. Yes you do. You may not lay the trap, throw the net, or reel in the line, but you are hunting them as you maneuver between the CostCo, the Super WalMart, and the other discount food retailers (the nutritional-industrial complex?) to get your best price. You're driving this crazy market for faster, cheaper, and more "consistent" tastes in meat products. Your attenuated tolerance for variation and regional nuances in food and food preparation have lead to the mass production of these food products. For shame! Your burger just had to taste the same as what you just had in Chicago after your week away from home. I may have philosophical and faith reasons for rejecting a carnivore's diet generally, but I can accept eating for the sake of sustenance and survival, and in a way that doesn't turn fellow species into a commodity. But that's not what the modern method of meat and food production is about.

The furthest extreme includes so called "white meat" in the list of acceptable and consumable flesh. And does anyone remember the posters in the NYC subway announcing "pork: the other white meat"?! Man, come on. You've got to be kidding me - pig is the meat forbidden even to the most meat eaters. I'm convinced that the campaign was some crazy Christian right thing to piss off the Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and other assorted veggie heathens in one fell swoop. Ugh. I'll take those annoying peanut ads any day of the week.

I'll revisit this theme in at least one more post, to go through some thoughts on vegetarianism as a framework for social and political consciousness, and also for the challenges that remain for vegetarians in Asian American spaces.

Blue Scholars are in Denver

2008-08-25T23:21:00.002-04:00

DotBS revolutionary hip-hop faves, the Blue Scholars, are in Denver this week, performing at and checking out the anti-, agit-, and alterna-convention activities going on outside of the "main event." Check out this great post on Day One by Geo with images by Sabzi. Geo has sung about participating in the 1999 Seattle uprising, but also about how the last thing he wants to do is get arrested at these things, unlike many of the white radicals who agitate and wear their arrests as badges of honor. Geo alludes to this again in the post, where there were a handful of folks of color who just stood back and let the white folks do whatever they wanted to do to aggravate the police in riot gear.

"We all agree that while direct action is necessary in principle, its practice must be timely and tactical."

A lesson to live by.

I'm Getting to Hate the Post Office

2008-08-25T18:27:00.000-04:00

I have written earlier that I was enamored with the dying art of letter-writing and connecting through postal correspondence. I'm so over that now. As the price of sending letters continues to soar, and the range of possibilities for sending packages through the mail for anything less than exorbitant fees shrink, I'm thinking we need another option. Yeah, there are courier services, UPS, and FedEx, but those commercial venues are so focused on business clients that their offerings to poor schlubs like me are not very attractive. Also, there's a post office nearby, but not a UPS or FedEx depot (or whatever they call them).

That said, we need an alternative to the Post Office that is also fueled by public money. Before the establishment of the postal service's monopoly, there was competition with the pony express, and a variety of other alternatives. I know that the internet is supposed to play some kind of equalizing role, but if we want to send and get packages, if we want to reach out to loved ones in a personal way, the internet isn't doing it. So what do we do? I say we set up an alternative pathway, create nodes for the movement of letters and things, and bring it back to basics. There's something wrong when it costs me $8 to send a book that I'm selling for $3 via Half.com.

Proletariat Nonprofit Blues

2008-08-23T16:56:00.006-04:00

As I prepare to enter the nonprofit world full-time again in the next couple of weeks, I'm reminded that nonprofit organizations have a tendency to undervalue and underpay their staff. At a former employer in the Asian American community, I had a starting salary of $20K out of college. It was my first gig, and I was thankful to have a job, but that's pennies in NYC, even back then. And I was told that there was nothing else they could squeeze out. Honestly, I find that hard to believe - adding even $500 as a "bonus" makes a big difference, at least in the valuation of your work.

Nonprofit staff work like crazy, get paid shit, and don't get the additional perks that firms and other places dish out. I remember what it was like. I tried, when I was in a position of management, to give those little perks to my staff (and the staff of other community nonprofits) when I could. Getting free tickets through board members and other friends of the organizations, trying to give certain unexpected times off or mid-day mixing it up (we had the whole staff go out to see a movie premiere in the middle of the day once).

Regardless, I've been in the field for a long time, and re-entering it now, I'm finding that salaries have not changed much since then. It's kind of sobering. This issue is much more pronounced for public interest lawyers (though I think organizers have it even worse). A new staff attorney at a non-profit in NYC may make something between $35K and $40K. The starting first year associate in an NYC firm will start, off the bat, with a cool $165K. The disparity is incredibly grim. And the American Bar Association isn't doing much to address it.

At least for social workers, the National Association of Social Workers has lobbied to create a base starting salary that groups have to meet to gain accreditation (I think). Something like that from the private bar would really help public interest lawyers out. But it's just not what is done. So as the cost of living continues to rise, we're forced to smile and say nothing (well, I guess we can say something, but there isn't much hope for change).

More broadly, I'm concerned that low salaries directly affect retention and internal development of leadership with the new generation of community workers. If you aren't making a lot, how long can you stay in the work, particularly with the pressures pushing against affordable housing and cost of living in city centers where most of these jobs remain?

Add to this what I've heard about the new generation (take it as you will, since it's from other older fogies like me): younger folks tend to be more impatient, and possess a sense of entitlement that gets in the way of taking their lumps or playing the game until the right opportunity arises... and I don't know what the leadership for Asian American nonprofits will look like in the future.

I certainly don't think it will come from people who were committed full-time to the "movement." Maybe that's not a bad thing - moving us away from that tendency towards the professionalization of movement work ("I need the MPP from Harvard to do community policy work"). Then again, it could mean that people who don't have the field experience or feel, could move in from the professional schools to take over (though these low wages may prohibit that from happening). What do you think?