Solidarity

With all the racist acts that have been happening on my campus, I just have to keep reminding myself that there is a large support system out there for us and we have truth and right on our side.

Keep fighting the good fight.

http://stopracismucsd.wordpress.com/

Surgery

Coming across this post by one of my monolid role models reminded me of my recent trip to Las Vegas with my godparents. Note to self: do not travel with family if I can help it. Being around criticizing Asian adults 24/7 gets emotionally tiring. They pretty much hit upon every aspect of my life from my looks to my social life to my major. One of the things they said that really infuriated me was when they asked if I would get eyelid surgery, as if encouraging me to do so. I played a lot of scenes in my head of how I would have retaliated with a biting remark. But to sum up the main point: There's absolutely nothing wrong with my beautiful monolids, so why would I change a thing?

Sellout

If I, an Asian American womyn, date a white guy, does that make me a "sellout"? I hate when Asian American men say statements like these, as if to imply that I'm following some fairytale, White Knight fantasy and I have no independent thoughts of my own. When Asian men say this, I think it's just their own insecurity talking.

Racial State of Emergency

If one Googled "UCSD" and "Compton Cookout," you'll know what's been going on at my university for the past week, if you haven't heard already. Today, in my Filipino American Literature class, my professor dedicated the entire class time to discussing what happened and how students felt about it. I had a lot of thoughts going around in my head at the time, but didn't voice them out loud. Later, I sent an e-mail to my professor to tell him my thoughts.

At this moment, I feel really compressed, like a spring. I'm having a hard time working it all out in my head.

Here's what I wrote in the e-mail:
I wanted to thank you for holding a discussion about the party in class today. I really appreciated it when some of my professors last quarter dedicated some class time to talking about the tuition increase, especially because a lot of students were not aware of the context behind it all. I think as students, we tend to see ourselves living in an academic vacuum where outside events don't necessarily affect what's going on in the classroom. But that's not true because we are a part of a community on campus and the social affects the academic and vise versa.

I was actually surprised by some of the comments my peers made today about
the situation being blown out of proportion. Someone mentioned how there
have been other racially themed parties in the past that didn't get as
much negative attention so why should this one. But the problem with this
statement as I see it is that the people who are throwing these parties
come from a place of (usually white) privilege. They can have fun for a
few hours role playing another racial group but at the end of the night,
they have the ability to return to their safe, comfortable lives. If our
campus were predominately black, there's no way a party like this would
have happened. And that just shows the power discourse of the majority
believing that the minority is small enough to overcome and that it
doesn't have the strength to fight back. To say that this has happened and
will happen again in the future so there's no point in fighting it is only
to allow for such a cycle to continue.

So to answer the question you posed at the end of class: yes, I think it
is incredibly important to care about what's going on, because parties
like these could have been directed at any minority, which is dangerous
because hate speech and stereotype representation can lead to violence and
hate crimes. Vincent Chin is a clear example of this.
____________________________________________________

And this is what the Ethnic Studies department at my school wrote:
Ethnic Studies Faculty and Student Response to UCSD Campus Crisis Precipitated by the Event Dubbed the “Compton Cookout”

Asian American Films I've Seen

This is just a running list of films so I can keep track of API-related ones that I've seen.

American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (2013)
Oh, Saigon
New Year Baby
The Cats of Mirikitani
My America...Or Honk if You Love Buddha
a.k.a. Don Bonus
Chan is Missing
Daughter From Danang
The Slanted Screen
Slaying the Dragon
Red Doors
Second Class Veterans
First Person Plural
Fall of the I-Hotel
Picturing Oriental Girls
Children of Invention
Kimjongilia
Another America
On Strike! Ethnic Studies: 1969-1999
Better Luck Tomorrow
The Debut
Seeking Asian Female (2012)
Shanghai Kiss
Slaying the Dragon: Reloaded
Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1987) Watch on YouTube
Vincent Who? (2009) Watch on YouTube
Pass or Fail in Cambodia Town via America By The Numbers
Breathin': The Eddy Zheng Story
Twinsters (2015)
Touch (2011)

(updated 01/20/18)

Asian Eyes

Maybelline places all Asian eyes into one category:

Lump summing Asian Eyes

Don't ignore us, Maybelline

Race & the Media

Two interesting takes on race that I've come upon on the Internet this week.

When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?

Kim Kardashian, a vanity fair skinned beauty