Posted by Melissa at 3:42 PM | Comments (2)

Hello from Hyphenland. We've been busy getting the new issue (#7) out to subscribers and stores around the country. Watch your mailboxes! And in case you haven't heard, we're throwing a party this Friday to celebrate the release of the Body Issue. You're invited!

Wish I could say more, but I'm pretty swamped and can't even get through all my emails. In the meantime, here's a couple things I've seen online the last couple days that I thought might interest you.

Posted by Melissa at 3:42 PM | Comments (2)

Hello from Hyphenland. We've been busy getting the new issue (#7) out to subscribers and stores around the country. Watch your mailboxes! And in case you haven't heard, we're throwing a party this Friday to celebrate the release of the Body Issue. You're invited!

Wish I could say more, but I'm pretty swamped and can't even get through all my emails. In the meantime, here's a couple things I've seen online the last couple days that I thought might interest you.

Posted by Melissa at 3:42 PM | Comments (2)

Just a little thought experiment for you blog commentators to sink your teeth into: Australia is currently beset by a controversy over white supremacist "science" (that again!)

A law perfesser, Andrew Fraser, who had been banned from teaching at one university for making racist remarks, wrote an article called "Rethinking the White Australia Policy," which was set to be published in an academic law journal. The White Australia Policy was a law or series of laws akin to the US's Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which excluded all Chinese from entering the US and was eventually expanded to include immigrants from any country in Asia. The Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943 and immigration quotas restricting Asian immigration effectively removed in the US in 1965. The White Australia Policy began similarly in the 1800's with the exclusion of Chinese laborers and was expanded to include "Asiatics" or "coloureds". The Policy was dismantled between 1949 and 1973.

"Rethinking the White Australia Policy" supported white supremacist ideas and policies and claimed that blacks were dumber (yawn, again) and Asians were gonna take over (something about "--peril", was it?) The University defended the publication by reminding folks that the journal is an academic one, and all articles are "peer reviewed", i.e. vetted by reputable academics in the same field, the idea being that any article that isn't up to academic standards will be kept from publication.

Here is the article himself, if ya wanna read it. So There. It's actually quite readable, kinda like the less syphilitic passages of Mein Kampf.

Ennyhoo,a Sudanese Australian group threatened to sue the Deakin University (where the journal is published) if they went ahead with publication. After some back-and-forthing and a lot of editorials, the University caved to pressure and ordered the journal not to publish the bad, bad article. Fraser accused the University and everyone else of censorship.

Additional background information: Australia, and certain states within the country in particular, have recently proposed laws permitting draconian measures against Muslims suspected of terrorism. This is accompanied by some incidents of racist speech from certain politicians and a revival of ideas about bringing back racial restrictions to immigration among right wing politicians. Fraser seems to be the ever-necessary academic wing of a white supremacist movement that appears to be stronger in Australia than the one/s we have in the US. Critics have also challenged Australian ivory tower self-criticism, claiming that students may be expelled for calling an academic "racist" or a "bigot". In addition, in his article Fraser calls upon some suspect racial "science" that he doesn't discuss at all or cite adequately, and that isn't his field anyway: he's a law professor writing for a law journal (and reviewed by fellow law professors), not a biologist or anthropologist.

So, given all that, here's my question: Where do we draw the line between social pressure and censorship?

It's hard to imagine something like this happening in the United States -- not because we don't have our kooks, quacks and klansmen, but because American Universities have set up their barricades of social pressure so effectively, that it would be difficult for one o' dem to get the stupid paper anywhere near an academic journal. But let's suppose for a moment that it did happen, that some white supremacist got past a dissertation committee, the tenure process, the peer review, and was about to publish an article so unrepentantly, openly racist. Imagine this is happening in America right now, especially given what was revealed about race by the Katrina disaster. How much would you want to silence this guy? Would you want to argue him down or just shut him up? How much and what kind of social pressure is acceptable at this point? When does ethical social pressure fall off into censorship?

Let me remind you guys, the Sudanese Australian group hadn't threatened the University with boycott, a student/teacher strike, picketing, letters to the editor and the administration, various protests and public humiliation and all other ethically unquestionable methods of social pressure ... no they had threatened the University with legal action, i.e. using the mechanism of the state to force the journal to silence this professor. Personally, I've always drawn the line of "censorship" between actions of social pressure and actions of state enforcement. When the state steps in to silence someone by law -- that's censorship, plain and simple. And when someone threatens to use the mechanism of the state to enforce silence, well, that's censorship, too. Anything short of that, that's still legal and ethical, is fair game to me.

This man's ideas are stupid and repugnant, and they should be repugnant to anyone who wishes to participate in the multicultural reality that is the US, or the one that is Australia. I understand that the political landscape in Australia is highly volatile right now (this is not to say that ours isn't.) However, how strong is a consensus on that multicultural reality that can't stand to be questioned? Fraser clearly intended to create controversy and discussion. But will that discussion result in a reinstitution of the White Australia Policy? Hardly. Will that discussion weaken public consensus on immigration policy? Maybe. Will that discussion align the public behind racist "anti-terrorist" legislation? Quite possibly. But if there is a groundswell of support for ideas like Fraser's, isn't it better to have them discussed and repudiated publicly, rather than supressed and allowed to fester and grow? Doesn't censorship tacitly support the ideas it attempts to suppress?

Is legal action against what is essentially free expression censorship? Should repugnant ideas expressed in a volatile atmosphere be censored?

And one more thing: if Fraser's article had simply been published in its obscure little academic journal without all the fanfare and lawsuits and been quietly, academically put down, do you suppose it would get even one hit on google news instead of 39?

Posted by claire at 3:39 PM | Comments (3)

Just a little thought experiment for you blog commentators to sink your teeth into: Australia is currently beset by a controversy over white supremacist "science" (that again!)

A law perfesser, Andrew Fraser, who had been banned from teaching at one university for making racist remarks, wrote an article called "Rethinking the White Australia Policy," which was set to be published in an academic law journal. The White Australia Policy was a law or series of laws akin to the US's Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which excluded all Chinese from entering the US and was eventually expanded to include immigrants from any country in Asia. The Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943 and immigration quotas restricting Asian immigration effectively removed in the US in 1965. The White Australia Policy began similarly in the 1800's with the exclusion of Chinese laborers and was expanded to include "Asiatics" or "coloureds". The Policy was dismantled between 1949 and 1973.

"Rethinking the White Australia Policy" supported white supremacist ideas and policies and claimed that blacks were dumber (yawn, again) and Asians were gonna take over (something about "--peril", was it?) The University defended the publication by reminding folks that the journal is an academic one, and all articles are "peer reviewed", i.e. vetted by reputable academics in the same field, the idea being that any article that isn't up to academic standards will be kept from publication.

Here is the article himself, if ya wanna read it. So There. It's actually quite readable, kinda like the less syphilitic passages of Mein Kampf.

Ennyhoo,a Sudanese Australian group threatened to sue the Deakin University (where the journal is published) if they went ahead with publication. After some back-and-forthing and a lot of editorials, the University caved to pressure and ordered the journal not to publish the bad, bad article. Fraser accused the University and everyone else of censorship.

Additional background information: Australia, and certain states within the country in particular, have recently proposed laws permitting draconian measures against Muslims suspected of terrorism. This is accompanied by some incidents of racist speech from certain politicians and a revival of ideas about bringing back racial restrictions to immigration among right wing politicians. Fraser seems to be the ever-necessary academic wing of a white supremacist movement that appears to be stronger in Australia than the one/s we have in the US. Critics have also challenged Australian ivory tower self-criticism, claiming that students may be expelled for calling an academic "racist" or a "bigot". In addition, in his article Fraser calls upon some suspect racial "science" that he doesn't discuss at all or cite adequately, and that isn't his field anyway: he's a law professor writing for a law journal (and reviewed by fellow law professors), not a biologist or anthropologist.

So, given all that, here's my question: Where do we draw the line between social pressure and censorship?

It's hard to imagine something like this happening in the United States -- not because we don't have our kooks, quacks and klansmen, but because American Universities have set up their barricades of social pressure so effectively, that it would be difficult for one o' dem to get the stupid paper anywhere near an academic journal. But let's suppose for a moment that it did happen, that some white supremacist got past a dissertation committee, the tenure process, the peer review, and was about to publish an article so unrepentantly, openly racist. Imagine this is happening in America right now, especially given what was revealed about race by the Katrina disaster. How much would you want to silence this guy? Would you want to argue him down or just shut him up? How much and what kind of social pressure is acceptable at this point? When does ethical social pressure fall off into censorship?

Let me remind you guys, the Sudanese Australian group hadn't threatened the University with boycott, a student/teacher strike, picketing, letters to the editor and the administration, various protests and public humiliation and all other ethically unquestionable methods of social pressure ... no they had threatened the University with legal action, i.e. using the mechanism of the state to force the journal to silence this professor. Personally, I've always drawn the line of "censorship" between actions of social pressure and actions of state enforcement. When the state steps in to silence someone by law -- that's censorship, plain and simple. And when someone threatens to use the mechanism of the state to enforce silence, well, that's censorship, too. Anything short of that, that's still legal and ethical, is fair game to me.

This man's ideas are stupid and repugnant, and they should be repugnant to anyone who wishes to participate in the multicultural reality that is the US, or the one that is Australia. I understand that the political landscape in Australia is highly volatile right now (this is not to say that ours isn't.) However, how strong is a consensus on that multicultural reality that can't stand to be questioned? Fraser clearly intended to create controversy and discussion. But will that discussion result in a reinstitution of the White Australia Policy? Hardly. Will that discussion weaken public consensus on immigration policy? Maybe. Will that discussion align the public behind racist "anti-terrorist" legislation? Quite possibly. But if there is a groundswell of support for ideas like Fraser's, isn't it better to have them discussed and repudiated publicly, rather than supressed and allowed to fester and grow? Doesn't censorship tacitly support the ideas it attempts to suppress?

Is legal action against what is essentially free expression censorship? Should repugnant ideas expressed in a volatile atmosphere be censored?

And one more thing: if Fraser's article had simply been published in its obscure little academic journal without all the fanfare and lawsuits and been quietly, academically put down, do you suppose it would get even one hit on google news instead of 39?

Posted by claire at 3:39 PM | Comments (3)

Just a little thought experiment for you blog commentators to sink your teeth into: Australia is currently beset by a controversy over white supremacist "science" (that again!)

A law perfesser, Andrew Fraser, who had been banned from teaching at one university for making racist remarks, wrote an article called "Rethinking the White Australia Policy," which was set to be published in an academic law journal. The White Australia Policy was a law or series of laws akin to the US's Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which excluded all Chinese from entering the US and was eventually expanded to include immigrants from any country in Asia. The Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943 and immigration quotas restricting Asian immigration effectively removed in the US in 1965. The White Australia Policy began similarly in the 1800's with the exclusion of Chinese laborers and was expanded to include "Asiatics" or "coloureds". The Policy was dismantled between 1949 and 1973.

"Rethinking the White Australia Policy" supported white supremacist ideas and policies and claimed that blacks were dumber (yawn, again) and Asians were gonna take over (something about "--peril", was it?) The University defended the publication by reminding folks that the journal is an academic one, and all articles are "peer reviewed", i.e. vetted by reputable academics in the same field, the idea being that any article that isn't up to academic standards will be kept from publication.

Here is the article himself, if ya wanna read it. So There. It's actually quite readable, kinda like the less syphilitic passages of Mein Kampf.

Ennyhoo,a Sudanese Australian group threatened to sue the Deakin University (where the journal is published) if they went ahead with publication. After some back-and-forthing and a lot of editorials, the University caved to pressure and ordered the journal not to publish the bad, bad article. Fraser accused the University and everyone else of censorship.

Additional background information: Australia, and certain states within the country in particular, have recently proposed laws permitting draconian measures against Muslims suspected of terrorism. This is accompanied by some incidents of racist speech from certain politicians and a revival of ideas about bringing back racial restrictions to immigration among right wing politicians. Fraser seems to be the ever-necessary academic wing of a white supremacist movement that appears to be stronger in Australia than the one/s we have in the US. Critics have also challenged Australian ivory tower self-criticism, claiming that students may be expelled for calling an academic "racist" or a "bigot". In addition, in his article Fraser calls upon some suspect racial "science" that he doesn't discuss at all or cite adequately, and that isn't his field anyway: he's a law professor writing for a law journal (and reviewed by fellow law professors), not a biologist or anthropologist.

So, given all that, here's my question: Where do we draw the line between social pressure and censorship?

It's hard to imagine something like this happening in the United States -- not because we don't have our kooks, quacks and klansmen, but because American Universities have set up their barricades of social pressure so effectively, that it would be difficult for one o' dem to get the stupid paper anywhere near an academic journal. But let's suppose for a moment that it did happen, that some white supremacist got past a dissertation committee, the tenure process, the peer review, and was about to publish an article so unrepentantly, openly racist. Imagine this is happening in America right now, especially given what was revealed about race by the Katrina disaster. How much would you want to silence this guy? Would you want to argue him down or just shut him up? How much and what kind of social pressure is acceptable at this point? When does ethical social pressure fall off into censorship?

Let me remind you guys, the Sudanese Australian group hadn't threatened the University with boycott, a student/teacher strike, picketing, letters to the editor and the administration, various protests and public humiliation and all other ethically unquestionable methods of social pressure ... no they had threatened the University with legal action, i.e. using the mechanism of the state to force the journal to silence this professor. Personally, I've always drawn the line of "censorship" between actions of social pressure and actions of state enforcement. When the state steps in to silence someone by law -- that's censorship, plain and simple. And when someone threatens to use the mechanism of the state to enforce silence, well, that's censorship, too. Anything short of that, that's still legal and ethical, is fair game to me.

This man's ideas are stupid and repugnant, and they should be repugnant to anyone who wishes to participate in the multicultural reality that is the US, or the one that is Australia. I understand that the political landscape in Australia is highly volatile right now (this is not to say that ours isn't.) However, how strong is a consensus on that multicultural reality that can't stand to be questioned? Fraser clearly intended to create controversy and discussion. But will that discussion result in a reinstitution of the White Australia Policy? Hardly. Will that discussion weaken public consensus on immigration policy? Maybe. Will that discussion align the public behind racist "anti-terrorist" legislation? Quite possibly. But if there is a groundswell of support for ideas like Fraser's, isn't it better to have them discussed and repudiated publicly, rather than supressed and allowed to fester and grow? Doesn't censorship tacitly support the ideas it attempts to suppress?

Is legal action against what is essentially free expression censorship? Should repugnant ideas expressed in a volatile atmosphere be censored?

And one more thing: if Fraser's article had simply been published in its obscure little academic journal without all the fanfare and lawsuits and been quietly, academically put down, do you suppose it would get even one hit on google news instead of 39?

Posted by claire at 3:39 PM | Comments (3)

New Jersey ex-professor Jonathan Nyce was sentenced to eight years in prison yesterday for murdering his wife Michelle, a Filipina mail-order bride, and staging a fake car crash to make it look like an accident. He's eligible for parole in five. The jury convicted Nyce for a "crime of passion" since his wife was having an affair with the gardener. Sorry, but the much-abused term of "passion" is no excuse for beating your spouse to death, and eight years is a joke when you can get 25-years-to-life for minor drug posession.

Here's the article:

September 23, 2005
Ex-Pharmaceutical Executive Sentenced to 8 Years in the Beating Death of His Wife
By JONATHAN MILLER

A former professor and pharmaceutical executive who was found guilty of beating his wife to death and then staging a car accident to cover it up was sentenced on Thursday to eight years in prison.

Prosecutors had argued that the former executive, Jonathan W. Nyce, 55, who founded and headed his own company, should get the maximum, 11½ years, for killing his wife, Michelle Nyce, 34, when he slammed her face into the floor of their garage in Hopewell Township nearly two years ago. On the night of her death, Mrs. Nyce had just returned from having a tryst with her landscaper in a motel.

In July, a jury here in State Superior Court of Mercer County found Mr. Nyce guilty of passion/ provocation manslaughter, a lesser crime than murder, the original charge.

"We're very, very displeased with the sentence," said Doris Galuchie, an assistant prosecutor, in an interview after the hearing. "We think it's far too lenient. He never ever accepted a shred of responsibility for his actions."

The day was fraught with drama, tears and accusations. Prosecutors said that Mr. Nyce had been dishonest from the beginning of the case, and they insisted that he should be punished for it. Michelle Nyce's family lamented their loss. The judge attested to what he saw as Mr. Nyce's otherwise good character but said he was troubled by the defendant's "dissembling."

As for Mr. Nyce, he made his first extended public comments since his wife was found in the middle of a creek behind the wheel of her S.U.V., her head bloodied and split, in central New Jersey on a snowy morning in January 2004.

"I love Michelle with all my heart," he said as he stood in an orange inmate jumpsuit, chains dangling from his shackled wrists and ankles. "I still love her." He paused and sobbed. "I loved her with everything I could. I supported her in any way I could."

Mr. Nyce said he cashed in half his pension and took a second job so he could buy property and build new homes for his wife's family in the Philippines. He said he sent food and developed a playground there.

The Nyces were the parents of three young children, two boys and a girl, who are now living with Mr. Nyce's brother in Pennsylvania. Mr. Nyce had started and had run EpiGenesis Pharmaceuticals, but his hopes for a revolutionary asthma drug were dashed and he was forced out of the company.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Nyce might not have been the doting father he had portrayed himself to be.

"He wasn't saving lives," Ms. Galuchie said. "He was an unemployed father who was, quite frankly, taking an interest in his children for the first time."

Mr. Nyce erupted. "That's too much!" he shouted. He glared at Ms. Galuchie and moved forward in his seat. His lawyer, Robin K. Lord, clasped his shoulder. "That's too much, your honor," he repeated.

A few moments later Ms. Galuchie said, "This man didn't even pay for his own wife's funeral."

Mr. Nyce again shouted from the defense table: "I was in jail! Jesus!"

Larissa Soos, a friend of Michelle Nyce, said that she "had to do everything herself and was lonesome at times." Ms. Soos added, "She died so young and so tragic, and she never had a chance to say good-bye."

Judge Wilbur H. Mathesius said he had taken Mr. Nyce's character and history into account in his sentencing. "Much of what Jonathan Nyce did in his life was good," he said.

But he took issue with the way Mr. Nyce and his lawyer described the events that led to Mrs. Nyce's death. "The term 'accident' in no sense sums up what was eventuated," he said. Mr. Nyce will most likely be eligible for parole in about five and a half years.

Posted by Lisa at 9:10 AM | Comments (17)

New Jersey ex-professor Jonathan Nyce was sentenced to eight years in prison yesterday for murdering his wife Michelle, a Filipina mail-order bride, and staging a fake car crash to make it look like an accident. He's eligible for parole in five. The jury convicted Nyce for a "crime of passion" since his wife was having an affair with the gardener. Sorry, but the much-abused term of "passion" is no excuse for beating your spouse to death, and eight years is a joke when you can get 25-years-to-life for minor drug posession.

Here's the article:

September 23, 2005
Ex-Pharmaceutical Executive Sentenced to 8 Years in the Beating Death of His Wife
By JONATHAN MILLER

A former professor and pharmaceutical executive who was found guilty of beating his wife to death and then staging a car accident to cover it up was sentenced on Thursday to eight years in prison.

Prosecutors had argued that the former executive, Jonathan W. Nyce, 55, who founded and headed his own company, should get the maximum, 11½ years, for killing his wife, Michelle Nyce, 34, when he slammed her face into the floor of their garage in Hopewell Township nearly two years ago. On the night of her death, Mrs. Nyce had just returned from having a tryst with her landscaper in a motel.

In July, a jury here in State Superior Court of Mercer County found Mr. Nyce guilty of passion/ provocation manslaughter, a lesser crime than murder, the original charge.

"We're very, very displeased with the sentence," said Doris Galuchie, an assistant prosecutor, in an interview after the hearing. "We think it's far too lenient. He never ever accepted a shred of responsibility for his actions."

The day was fraught with drama, tears and accusations. Prosecutors said that Mr. Nyce had been dishonest from the beginning of the case, and they insisted that he should be punished for it. Michelle Nyce's family lamented their loss. The judge attested to what he saw as Mr. Nyce's otherwise good character but said he was troubled by the defendant's "dissembling."

As for Mr. Nyce, he made his first extended public comments since his wife was found in the middle of a creek behind the wheel of her S.U.V., her head bloodied and split, in central New Jersey on a snowy morning in January 2004.

"I love Michelle with all my heart," he said as he stood in an orange inmate jumpsuit, chains dangling from his shackled wrists and ankles. "I still love her." He paused and sobbed. "I loved her with everything I could. I supported her in any way I could."

Mr. Nyce said he cashed in half his pension and took a second job so he could buy property and build new homes for his wife's family in the Philippines. He said he sent food and developed a playground there.

The Nyces were the parents of three young children, two boys and a girl, who are now living with Mr. Nyce's brother in Pennsylvania. Mr. Nyce had started and had run EpiGenesis Pharmaceuticals, but his hopes for a revolutionary asthma drug were dashed and he was forced out of the company.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Nyce might not have been the doting father he had portrayed himself to be.

"He wasn't saving lives," Ms. Galuchie said. "He was an unemployed father who was, quite frankly, taking an interest in his children for the first time."

Mr. Nyce erupted. "That's too much!" he shouted. He glared at Ms. Galuchie and moved forward in his seat. His lawyer, Robin K. Lord, clasped his shoulder. "That's too much, your honor," he repeated.

A few moments later Ms. Galuchie said, "This man didn't even pay for his own wife's funeral."

Mr. Nyce again shouted from the defense table: "I was in jail! Jesus!"

Larissa Soos, a friend of Michelle Nyce, said that she "had to do everything herself and was lonesome at times." Ms. Soos added, "She died so young and so tragic, and she never had a chance to say good-bye."

Judge Wilbur H. Mathesius said he had taken Mr. Nyce's character and history into account in his sentencing. "Much of what Jonathan Nyce did in his life was good," he said.

But he took issue with the way Mr. Nyce and his lawyer described the events that led to Mrs. Nyce's death. "The term 'accident' in no sense sums up what was eventuated," he said. Mr. Nyce will most likely be eligible for parole in about five and a half years.

Posted by Lisa at 9:10 AM | Comments (17)

New Jersey ex-professor Jonathan Nyce was sentenced to eight years in prison yesterday for murdering his wife Michelle, a Filipina mail-order bride, and staging a fake car crash to make it look like an accident. He's eligible for parole in five. The jury convicted Nyce for a "crime of passion" since his wife was having an affair with the gardener. Sorry, but the much-abused term of "passion" is no excuse for beating your spouse to death, and eight years is a joke when you can get 25-years-to-life for minor drug posession.

Here's the article:

September 23, 2005
Ex-Pharmaceutical Executive Sentenced to 8 Years in the Beating Death of His Wife
By JONATHAN MILLER

A former professor and pharmaceutical executive who was found guilty of beating his wife to death and then staging a car accident to cover it up was sentenced on Thursday to eight years in prison.

Prosecutors had argued that the former executive, Jonathan W. Nyce, 55, who founded and headed his own company, should get the maximum, 11� years, for killing his wife, Michelle Nyce, 34, when he slammed her face into the floor of their garage in Hopewell Township nearly two years ago. On the night of her death, Mrs. Nyce had just returned from having a tryst with her landscaper in a motel.

In July, a jury here in State Superior Court of Mercer County found Mr. Nyce guilty of passion/ provocation manslaughter, a lesser crime than murder, the original charge.

"We're very, very displeased with the sentence," said Doris Galuchie, an assistant prosecutor, in an interview after the hearing. "We think it's far too lenient. He never ever accepted a shred of responsibility for his actions."

The day was fraught with drama, tears and accusations. Prosecutors said that Mr. Nyce had been dishonest from the beginning of the case, and they insisted that he should be punished for it. Michelle Nyce's family lamented their loss. The judge attested to what he saw as Mr. Nyce's otherwise good character but said he was troubled by the defendant's "dissembling."

As for Mr. Nyce, he made his first extended public comments since his wife was found in the middle of a creek behind the wheel of her S.U.V., her head bloodied and split, in central New Jersey on a snowy morning in January 2004.

"I love Michelle with all my heart," he said as he stood in an orange inmate jumpsuit, chains dangling from his shackled wrists and ankles. "I still love her." He paused and sobbed. "I loved her with everything I could. I supported her in any way I could."

Mr. Nyce said he cashed in half his pension and took a second job so he could buy property and build new homes for his wife's family in the Philippines. He said he sent food and developed a playground there.

The Nyces were the parents of three young children, two boys and a girl, who are now living with Mr. Nyce's brother in Pennsylvania. Mr. Nyce had started and had run EpiGenesis Pharmaceuticals, but his hopes for a revolutionary asthma drug were dashed and he was forced out of the company.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Nyce might not have been the doting father he had portrayed himself to be.

"He wasn't saving lives," Ms. Galuchie said. "He was an unemployed father who was, quite frankly, taking an interest in his children for the first time."

Mr. Nyce erupted. "That's too much!" he shouted. He glared at Ms. Galuchie and moved forward in his seat. His lawyer, Robin K. Lord, clasped his shoulder. "That's too much, your honor," he repeated.

A few moments later Ms. Galuchie said, "This man didn't even pay for his own wife's funeral."

Mr. Nyce again shouted from the defense table: "I was in jail! Jesus!"

Larissa Soos, a friend of Michelle Nyce, said that she "had to do everything herself and was lonesome at times." Ms. Soos added, "She died so young and so tragic, and she never had a chance to say good-bye."

Judge Wilbur H. Mathesius said he had taken Mr. Nyce's character and history into account in his sentencing. "Much of what Jonathan Nyce did in his life was good," he said.

But he took issue with the way Mr. Nyce and his lawyer described the events that led to Mrs. Nyce's death. "The term 'accident' in no sense sums up what was eventuated," he said. Mr. Nyce will most likely be eligible for parole in about five and a half years.

Posted by Lisa at 9:10 AM | Comments (15)

I'm going to have to go to Madagascar now, to try Chinese Malagasy food.

NYTimes ran this fascinating article yesterday on "hyphenated Chinese food." Interesting that the anthro expert insist that Chinese food be some formula of soy sauce, garlic, ginger and green onions. That feels like someone insisting that I have black hair, be docile and give good massages. I can think offhand of about a thousand Chinese dishes that don't require those ingredients, but hey, i didn't write the book or anything.

Since their site requires registration i'm posting the whole hugemongo thing here --be warned, it makes you hungry.

Craving Hyphenated Chinese
By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: September 21, 2005

NEW YORKERS always think they know the real thing when it comes to Chinese food. Forty years ago it was egg rolls, chop suey and drinks with paper umbrellas. Then it was General Tso's chicken and sesame noodles.

But over the past decade, as large communities of people from India, Peru, Korea, Trinidad and Guyana have formed here, New York has had to expand its ideas about what Chinese food can be.

"I call them second-generation Chinese restaurants," said Cheuk Kwan, who has directed a documentary film about the spread of Chinese restaurants around the world. "These restaurants always have a hyphen: Chinese-Venezuelan, Chinese-Norwegian, Chinese-Mexican.
"Chinese-Malagasy," he said, on the island of Madagascar, "was the best food, with lots of coconut milk and spices."

Dishes like chili-spiked, deep-fried chicken lollipops, which are a Chinese-Indian specialty, and lo mein topped with chunks of peppery jerk chicken, served at De Bamboo Express, a Chinese-West Indian restaurant in Brooklyn, are what Chinese food is now to thousands of New Yorkers.

The city's first hyphenated version of the cuisine - after Chinese-American, of course - was Chinese-Cuban, which arrived in the 1960's, when thousands of Cubans of Chinese descent came to New York after Fidel Castro's rise to power.

"My grandfather was born in Zhanjiang, but his whole life was in Havana," said Manny Liao, a musician who lives in Washington Heights. "He always ate Chinese food, but he cooked Cuban."
Seafood soups, fried rice with pork, scallions and tiny shrimp, and chicharrones de pollo -chicken cut into small pieces and deep-fried in the Cantonese style - were and are standbys in restaurants like Caridad la Original on the Upper West Side and La Chinita Linda in Chelsea.

Over the years, as more Americans have visited China and more Chinese have imigrated to the United States, more authentic versions of Chinese food have come to town on a gust of hot chilies, Sichuan peppercorns and bean paste. Keeping up with the openings of restaurants serving the cuisines of Taiwan, Shanghai and Fujian in the city's burgeoning Chinatowns - Flushing in Queens and Sunset Park and Homecrest in Brooklyn - has practically become a second job for many New Yorkers.

But for others it does not matter how real the food tastes, so long as it tastes like home.
When New York's young Korean-Americans go out for Chinese food, they often eat ja jiang mien, boiled noodles in a rich meat sauce, mixed with Korean brown bean paste and studded with Chinese fermented black beans. "Kids grow up on Chinese noodles in Korea," said Jinny Song, a customer at Hyo Dong Gak in Midtown.

In Elmhurst, La Union, a Peruvian chifa (slang for Chinese restaurant), serves platters of chancho, a Hispanic rendering of char siu, Chinese for roast pork.

The roots of these hybrid Chinese cuisines around the world are the same as those of Chinese food in America. Millions of Chinese men, most of them from the province Guangdong (formerly known in English as Canton), left China in the late 19th and early 20th century. Only men were allowed to leave the country, often by becoming indentured workers to companies in need of cheap labor in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and South America.

Professional cooks were usually not among the emigrants, so the earliest Chinese restaurants outside China were started by men with little knowledge of cooking and a desperate need to improvise with local ingredients. The dishes they came up with, like chop suey, have long since been dismissed as "not Chinese" by scholars of the culture.

But Chinese food has never been quite what outsiders think it is.

"The term Chinese food represents an area four times larger than Western Europe and the eating habits of more than a billion people," Mr. Kwan said. "You could say that there is really no such thing as Chinese food."

Eugene Anderson, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, and author of "The Food of China," disagrees. "Chinese food is defined by a flavor principle of soy sauce, ginger, garlic and green onions" and methods including stir-frying and steaming, he said.

"Once you get too far away from those rules, it is no longer Chinese."

Whatever and wherever it is, it is in flux, said Eric Kwan, a New York native and chef and owner of Hip Hop Chow, a new East Village restaurant serving a hybrid of Southern American and southern Chinese cooking.

"Chinese food in China didn't change much in 2,000 years, but now it's changing," he said. "And Chinese food in America is something totally different."

At De Bamboo Express in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, Chinese cooks toss rice and vegetables in huge woks, then top that with peppery jerk chicken wings and handfuls of raw cabbage, which steams gently in the rice and adds a crispness to the plate. "Chinese food and Jamaican food are tight-tight," said Monica Lambert, a customer who was eating the dish. "This food is both. You know, like Naomi Campbell," she said, referring to the supermodel whose father is Chinese-Jamaican.

Questions of ethnicity, some of them awkward and others simply mysterious, inevitably come up when tracking the cuisine of the Chinese diaspora. The passionate relationship between American Jews and Chinese restaurants, for example, is well documented.

"These people love Chinese food," said Dov Kemper, a customer at Eden Wok, a strictly kosher Chinese restaurant in Midtown, gesturing at his fellow Orthodox Jews eating barbecued (veal) spare ribs and (mock) shrimp fried rice. The wontons in the chicken soup - "just like kreplach," Mr. Kemper said - are stuffed with ground beef, scallions and ginger.

Kevin Cohnen, the owner, claims to have invented the Chinese hot dog, a kosher beef frank encased in an eggroll wrapper and deep-fried. The result is crusty, incredibly juicy and excellent with hot mustard, either New York deli or Chinese style.

"Chinese food in India is very, very popular and always includes the same dishes: chili chicken, chicken lollipops and gobi Manchurian," said Vik Lulla, an owner of Chinese Mirch in Midtown, whose family owns two Chinese restaurants in Bangalore.

For chicken lollipops, cooks use a Chinese method to push the meat of the wing to one end of the bone, then coat these "drumettes" in a cornstarch batter, spiked with cayenne, that is traditionally used to fry vegetable pakoras. The dish is popular in India, Mr. Lulla's wife, Sienam, said, "first because, of course, fried chicken is delicious, and also because you remove the skin, which Indians never eat."

Manchurian is synonymous with Chinese food in India. It refers to a sauce made by simmering garlic, ginger, sugar, soy and cayenne or red chili paste. It is a spicy cousin of the sticky sweet and sour sauces that used to coat a lot of Chinese-American food. (It also resembles ketchup, which many culinary historians believe is descended from the intense Chinese sauce ke-tsiap.)

That sticky red sauce is still served as a dipping sauce for crisp fried wontons at the chifa La Union. (According to Professor Anderson, the word chifa most likely comes from the Mandarin chi fan, meaning eat rice.)

"My family has had a Chinese restaurant in Barranco for 75 years, and these are the same recipes we use there," La Union's owner, Antonio Mazarina Tong, said. The wonton soup at La Union is filled with noodles, chunks of taro and potato and leaves of bok choy, making it a filling lunch.
Lomo saltado, which many Peruvians consider a national dish, is a savory stir-fry of beef, onions and tomatoes, seasoned with soy sauce. It is sometimes served over French fries, but at La Union already fried potatoes are tossed in with the other ingredients; the result is rich, savory and, as a bonus, an excellent example of grass-roots fusion. A wok full of beef and French fries is not the kind of thing the upscale chefs who dabble in Asian fusion usually come up with.

Peruvian dishes that bear the description saltado are usually of Chinese origin: in Peru saltar means "to sauté" or "to jump," a good description of what food does as it is stir-fried in a wok. Tallarines saltados - tallarines, like tagliarini, are long, thin, flat noodles - are easily identifiable as lo mein.

"I didn't even know it was Chinese food," said Delia Ocaña, who was having a plateful for lunch at Rinconcito Peruano, a Peruvian restaurant in Midtown. Ms. Ocaña was raised in Cuzco. "In Peru now, it is hard to tell which restaurants are Chinese, which dishes, which people. It is all Peru."

Mr. Tong's most popular dish at La Union is chi gau kay, also a version of Cantonese fried chicken, dipped in a batter thickened with chuño, starch from potatoes freeze-dried using a method first developed 4,000 years ago by Andean farmers. Chinese cooks use rice starch or corn starch.

"Peruvians like this kind of Chinese food," Mr. Tong said. "The Chinese restaurants here aren't the same," he added, gesturing out the door to the rest of Elmhurst, a thriving Queens neighborhood with some of the most authentic Chinese restaurants in the city.

"There are only a few things that are always the same in Chinese food," said Guillermo Hung, a photographer who was reared in Caracas and lives in New Jersey. "I was born in a Chinese restaurant, and I end up cooking Chinese style no matter where I am or what the ingredients are. There is always stir-frying. And the most important thing is the rice. For true Chinese food, everything else is a side dish."

Posted by jennifer at 3:47 PM | Comments (2)

I'm going to have to go to Madagascar now, to try Chinese Malagasy food.

NYTimes ran this fascinating article yesterday on "hyphenated Chinese food." Interesting that the anthro expert insist that Chinese food be some formula of soy sauce, garlic, ginger and green onions. That feels like someone insisting that I have black hair, be docile and give good massages. I can think offhand of about a thousand Chinese dishes that don't require those ingredients, but hey, i didn't write the book or anything.

Since their site requires registration i'm posting the whole hugemongo thing here --be warned, it makes you hungry.

Craving Hyphenated Chinese
By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: September 21, 2005

NEW YORKERS always think they know the real thing when it comes to Chinese food. Forty years ago it was egg rolls, chop suey and drinks with paper umbrellas. Then it was General Tso's chicken and sesame noodles.

But over the past decade, as large communities of people from India, Peru, Korea, Trinidad and Guyana have formed here, New York has had to expand its ideas about what Chinese food can be.

"I call them second-generation Chinese restaurants," said Cheuk Kwan, who has directed a documentary film about the spread of Chinese restaurants around the world. "These restaurants always have a hyphen: Chinese-Venezuelan, Chinese-Norwegian, Chinese-Mexican.
"Chinese-Malagasy," he said, on the island of Madagascar, "was the best food, with lots of coconut milk and spices."

Dishes like chili-spiked, deep-fried chicken lollipops, which are a Chinese-Indian specialty, and lo mein topped with chunks of peppery jerk chicken, served at De Bamboo Express, a Chinese-West Indian restaurant in Brooklyn, are what Chinese food is now to thousands of New Yorkers.

The city's first hyphenated version of the cuisine - after Chinese-American, of course - was Chinese-Cuban, which arrived in the 1960's, when thousands of Cubans of Chinese descent came to New York after Fidel Castro's rise to power.

"My grandfather was born in Zhanjiang, but his whole life was in Havana," said Manny Liao, a musician who lives in Washington Heights. "He always ate Chinese food, but he cooked Cuban."
Seafood soups, fried rice with pork, scallions and tiny shrimp, and chicharrones de pollo -chicken cut into small pieces and deep-fried in the Cantonese style - were and are standbys in restaurants like Caridad la Original on the Upper West Side and La Chinita Linda in Chelsea.

Over the years, as more Americans have visited China and more Chinese have imigrated to the United States, more authentic versions of Chinese food have come to town on a gust of hot chilies, Sichuan peppercorns and bean paste. Keeping up with the openings of restaurants serving the cuisines of Taiwan, Shanghai and Fujian in the city's burgeoning Chinatowns - Flushing in Queens and Sunset Park and Homecrest in Brooklyn - has practically become a second job for many New Yorkers.

But for others it does not matter how real the food tastes, so long as it tastes like home.
When New York's young Korean-Americans go out for Chinese food, they often eat ja jiang mien, boiled noodles in a rich meat sauce, mixed with Korean brown bean paste and studded with Chinese fermented black beans. "Kids grow up on Chinese noodles in Korea," said Jinny Song, a customer at Hyo Dong Gak in Midtown.

In Elmhurst, La Union, a Peruvian chifa (slang for Chinese restaurant), serves platters of chancho, a Hispanic rendering of char siu, Chinese for roast pork.

The roots of these hybrid Chinese cuisines around the world are the same as those of Chinese food in America. Millions of Chinese men, most of them from the province Guangdong (formerly known in English as Canton), left China in the late 19th and early 20th century. Only men were allowed to leave the country, often by becoming indentured workers to companies in need of cheap labor in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and South America.

Professional cooks were usually not among the emigrants, so the earliest Chinese restaurants outside China were started by men with little knowledge of cooking and a desperate need to improvise with local ingredients. The dishes they came up with, like chop suey, have long since been dismissed as "not Chinese" by scholars of the culture.

But Chinese food has never been quite what outsiders think it is.

"The term Chinese food represents an area four times larger than Western Europe and the eating habits of more than a billion people," Mr. Kwan said. "You could say that there is really no such thing as Chinese food."

Eugene Anderson, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, and author of "The Food of China," disagrees. "Chinese food is defined by a flavor principle of soy sauce, ginger, garlic and green onions" and methods including stir-frying and steaming, he said.

"Once you get too far away from those rules, it is no longer Chinese."

Whatever and wherever it is, it is in flux, said Eric Kwan, a New York native and chef and owner of Hip Hop Chow, a new East Village restaurant serving a hybrid of Southern American and southern Chinese cooking.

"Chinese food in China didn't change much in 2,000 years, but now it's changing," he said. "And Chinese food in America is something totally different."

At De Bamboo Express in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, Chinese cooks toss rice and vegetables in huge woks, then top that with peppery jerk chicken wings and handfuls of raw cabbage, which steams gently in the rice and adds a crispness to the plate. "Chinese food and Jamaican food are tight-tight," said Monica Lambert, a customer who was eating the dish. "This food is both. You know, like Naomi Campbell," she said, referring to the supermodel whose father is Chinese-Jamaican.

Questions of ethnicity, some of them awkward and others simply mysterious, inevitably come up when tracking the cuisine of the Chinese diaspora. The passionate relationship between American Jews and Chinese restaurants, for example, is well documented.

"These people love Chinese food," said Dov Kemper, a customer at Eden Wok, a strictly kosher Chinese restaurant in Midtown, gesturing at his fellow Orthodox Jews eating barbecued (veal) spare ribs and (mock) shrimp fried rice. The wontons in the chicken soup - "just like kreplach," Mr. Kemper said - are stuffed with ground beef, scallions and ginger.

Kevin Cohnen, the owner, claims to have invented the Chinese hot dog, a kosher beef frank encased in an eggroll wrapper and deep-fried. The result is crusty, incredibly juicy and excellent with hot mustard, either New York deli or Chinese style.

"Chinese food in India is very, very popular and always includes the same dishes: chili chicken, chicken lollipops and gobi Manchurian," said Vik Lulla, an owner of Chinese Mirch in Midtown, whose family owns two Chinese restaurants in Bangalore.

For chicken lollipops, cooks use a Chinese method to push the meat of the wing to one end of the bone, then coat these "drumettes" in a cornstarch batter, spiked with cayenne, that is traditionally used to fry vegetable pakoras. The dish is popular in India, Mr. Lulla's wife, Sienam, said, "first because, of course, fried chicken is delicious, and also because you remove the skin, which Indians never eat."

Manchurian is synonymous with Chinese food in India. It refers to a sauce made by simmering garlic, ginger, sugar, soy and cayenne or red chili paste. It is a spicy cousin of the sticky sweet and sour sauces that used to coat a lot of Chinese-American food. (It also resembles ketchup, which many culinary historians believe is descended from the intense Chinese sauce ke-tsiap.)

That sticky red sauce is still served as a dipping sauce for crisp fried wontons at the chifa La Union. (According to Professor Anderson, the word chifa most likely comes from the Mandarin chi fan, meaning eat rice.)

"My family has had a Chinese restaurant in Barranco for 75 years, and these are the same recipes we use there," La Union's owner, Antonio Mazarina Tong, said. The wonton soup at La Union is filled with noodles, chunks of taro and potato and leaves of bok choy, making it a filling lunch.
Lomo saltado, which many Peruvians consider a national dish, is a savory stir-fry of beef, onions and tomatoes, seasoned with soy sauce. It is sometimes served over French fries, but at La Union already fried potatoes are tossed in with the other ingredients; the result is rich, savory and, as a bonus, an excellent example of grass-roots fusion. A wok full of beef and French fries is not the kind of thing the upscale chefs who dabble in Asian fusion usually come up with.

Peruvian dishes that bear the description saltado are usually of Chinese origin: in Peru saltar means "to sauté" or "to jump," a good description of what food does as it is stir-fried in a wok. Tallarines saltados - tallarines, like tagliarini, are long, thin, flat noodles - are easily identifiable as lo mein.

"I didn't even know it was Chinese food," said Delia Ocaña, who was having a plateful for lunch at Rinconcito Peruano, a Peruvian restaurant in Midtown. Ms. Ocaña was raised in Cuzco. "In Peru now, it is hard to tell which restaurants are Chinese, which dishes, which people. It is all Peru."

Mr. Tong's most popular dish at La Union is chi gau kay, also a version of Cantonese fried chicken, dipped in a batter thickened with chuño, starch from potatoes freeze-dried using a method first developed 4,000 years ago by Andean farmers. Chinese cooks use rice starch or corn starch.

"Peruvians like this kind of Chinese food," Mr. Tong said. "The Chinese restaurants here aren't the same," he added, gesturing out the door to the rest of Elmhurst, a thriving Queens neighborhood with some of the most authentic Chinese restaurants in the city.

"There are only a few things that are always the same in Chinese food," said Guillermo Hung, a photographer who was reared in Caracas and lives in New Jersey. "I was born in a Chinese restaurant, and I end up cooking Chinese style no matter where I am or what the ingredients are. There is always stir-frying. And the most important thing is the rice. For true Chinese food, everything else is a side dish."

Posted by jennifer at 3:47 PM | Comments (2)

I'm going to have to go to Madagascar now, to try Chinese Malagasy food.

NYTimes ran this fascinating article yesterday on "hyphenated Chinese food." Interesting that the anthro expert insist that Chinese food be some formula of soy sauce, garlic, ginger and green onions. That feels like someone insisting that I have black hair, be docile and give good massages. I can think offhand of about a thousand Chinese dishes that don't require those ingredients, but hey, i didn't write the book or anything.

Since their site requires registration i'm posting the whole hugemongo thing here --be warned, it makes you hungry.

Craving Hyphenated Chinese
By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: September 21, 2005

NEW YORKERS always think they know the real thing when it comes to Chinese food. Forty years ago it was egg rolls, chop suey and drinks with paper umbrellas. Then it was General Tso's chicken and sesame noodles.

But over the past decade, as large communities of people from India, Peru, Korea, Trinidad and Guyana have formed here, New York has had to expand its ideas about what Chinese food can be.

"I call them second-generation Chinese restaurants," said Cheuk Kwan, who has directed a documentary film about the spread of Chinese restaurants around the world. "These restaurants always have a hyphen: Chinese-Venezuelan, Chinese-Norwegian, Chinese-Mexican.
"Chinese-Malagasy," he said, on the island of Madagascar, "was the best food, with lots of coconut milk and spices."

Dishes like chili-spiked, deep-fried chicken lollipops, which are a Chinese-Indian specialty, and lo mein topped with chunks of peppery jerk chicken, served at De Bamboo Express, a Chinese-West Indian restaurant in Brooklyn, are what Chinese food is now to thousands of New Yorkers.

The city's first hyphenated version of the cuisine - after Chinese-American, of course - was Chinese-Cuban, which arrived in the 1960's, when thousands of Cubans of Chinese descent came to New York after Fidel Castro's rise to power.

"My grandfather was born in Zhanjiang, but his whole life was in Havana," said Manny Liao, a musician who lives in Washington Heights. "He always ate Chinese food, but he cooked Cuban."
Seafood soups, fried rice with pork, scallions and tiny shrimp, and chicharrones de pollo -chicken cut into small pieces and deep-fried in the Cantonese style - were and are standbys in restaurants like Caridad la Original on the Upper West Side and La Chinita Linda in Chelsea.

Over the years, as more Americans have visited China and more Chinese have imigrated to the United States, more authentic versions of Chinese food have come to town on a gust of hot chilies, Sichuan peppercorns and bean paste. Keeping up with the openings of restaurants serving the cuisines of Taiwan, Shanghai and Fujian in the city's burgeoning Chinatowns - Flushing in Queens and Sunset Park and Homecrest in Brooklyn - has practically become a second job for many New Yorkers.

But for others it does not matter how real the food tastes, so long as it tastes like home.
When New York's young Korean-Americans go out for Chinese food, they often eat ja jiang mien, boiled noodles in a rich meat sauce, mixed with Korean brown bean paste and studded with Chinese fermented black beans. "Kids grow up on Chinese noodles in Korea," said Jinny Song, a customer at Hyo Dong Gak in Midtown.

In Elmhurst, La Union, a Peruvian chifa (slang for Chinese restaurant), serves platters of chancho, a Hispanic rendering of char siu, Chinese for roast pork.

The roots of these hybrid Chinese cuisines around the world are the same as those of Chinese food in America. Millions of Chinese men, most of them from the province Guangdong (formerly known in English as Canton), left China in the late 19th and early 20th century. Only men were allowed to leave the country, often by becoming indentured workers to companies in need of cheap labor in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and South America.

Professional cooks were usually not among the emigrants, so the earliest Chinese restaurants outside China were started by men with little knowledge of cooking and a desperate need to improvise with local ingredients. The dishes they came up with, like chop suey, have long since been dismissed as "not Chinese" by scholars of the culture.

But Chinese food has never been quite what outsiders think it is.

"The term Chinese food represents an area four times larger than Western Europe and the eating habits of more than a billion people," Mr. Kwan said. "You could say that there is really no such thing as Chinese food."

Eugene Anderson, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, and author of "The Food of China," disagrees. "Chinese food is defined by a flavor principle of soy sauce, ginger, garlic and green onions" and methods including stir-frying and steaming, he said.

"Once you get too far away from those rules, it is no longer Chinese."

Whatever and wherever it is, it is in flux, said Eric Kwan, a New York native and chef and owner of Hip Hop Chow, a new East Village restaurant serving a hybrid of Southern American and southern Chinese cooking.

"Chinese food in China didn't change much in 2,000 years, but now it's changing," he said. "And Chinese food in America is something totally different."

At De Bamboo Express in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, Chinese cooks toss rice and vegetables in huge woks, then top that with peppery jerk chicken wings and handfuls of raw cabbage, which steams gently in the rice and adds a crispness to the plate. "Chinese food and Jamaican food are tight-tight," said Monica Lambert, a customer who was eating the dish. "This food is both. You know, like Naomi Campbell," she said, referring to the supermodel whose father is Chinese-Jamaican.

Questions of ethnicity, some of them awkward and others simply mysterious, inevitably come up when tracking the cuisine of the Chinese diaspora. The passionate relationship between American Jews and Chinese restaurants, for example, is well documented.

"These people love Chinese food," said Dov Kemper, a customer at Eden Wok, a strictly kosher Chinese restaurant in Midtown, gesturing at his fellow Orthodox Jews eating barbecued (veal) spare ribs and (mock) shrimp fried rice. The wontons in the chicken soup - "just like kreplach," Mr. Kemper said - are stuffed with ground beef, scallions and ginger.

Kevin Cohnen, the owner, claims to have invented the Chinese hot dog, a kosher beef frank encased in an eggroll wrapper and deep-fried. The result is crusty, incredibly juicy and excellent with hot mustard, either New York deli or Chinese style.

"Chinese food in India is very, very popular and always includes the same dishes: chili chicken, chicken lollipops and gobi Manchurian," said Vik Lulla, an owner of Chinese Mirch in Midtown, whose family owns two Chinese restaurants in Bangalore.

For chicken lollipops, cooks use a Chinese method to push the meat of the wing to one end of the bone, then coat these "drumettes" in a cornstarch batter, spiked with cayenne, that is traditionally used to fry vegetable pakoras. The dish is popular in India, Mr. Lulla's wife, Sienam, said, "first because, of course, fried chicken is delicious, and also because you remove the skin, which Indians never eat."

Manchurian is synonymous with Chinese food in India. It refers to a sauce made by simmering garlic, ginger, sugar, soy and cayenne or red chili paste. It is a spicy cousin of the sticky sweet and sour sauces that used to coat a lot of Chinese-American food. (It also resembles ketchup, which many culinary historians believe is descended from the intense Chinese sauce ke-tsiap.)

That sticky red sauce is still served as a dipping sauce for crisp fried wontons at the chifa La Union. (According to Professor Anderson, the word chifa most likely comes from the Mandarin chi fan, meaning eat rice.)

"My family has had a Chinese restaurant in Barranco for 75 years, and these are the same recipes we use there," La Union's owner, Antonio Mazarina Tong, said. The wonton soup at La Union is filled with noodles, chunks of taro and potato and leaves of bok choy, making it a filling lunch.
Lomo saltado, which many Peruvians consider a national dish, is a savory stir-fry of beef, onions and tomatoes, seasoned with soy sauce. It is sometimes served over French fries, but at La Union already fried potatoes are tossed in with the other ingredients; the result is rich, savory and, as a bonus, an excellent example of grass-roots fusion. A wok full of beef and French fries is not the kind of thing the upscale chefs who dabble in Asian fusion usually come up with.

Peruvian dishes that bear the description saltado are usually of Chinese origin: in Peru saltar means "to saut�" or "to jump," a good description of what food does as it is stir-fried in a wok. Tallarines saltados - tallarines, like tagliarini, are long, thin, flat noodles - are easily identifiable as lo mein.

"I didn't even know it was Chinese food," said Delia Oca�a, who was having a plateful for lunch at Rinconcito Peruano, a Peruvian restaurant in Midtown. Ms. Oca�a was raised in Cuzco. "In Peru now, it is hard to tell which restaurants are Chinese, which dishes, which people. It is all Peru."

Mr. Tong's most popular dish at La Union is chi gau kay, also a version of Cantonese fried chicken, dipped in a batter thickened with chu�o, starch from potatoes freeze-dried using a method first developed 4,000 years ago by Andean farmers. Chinese cooks use rice starch or corn starch.

"Peruvians like this kind of Chinese food," Mr. Tong said. "The Chinese restaurants here aren't the same," he added, gesturing out the door to the rest of Elmhurst, a thriving Queens neighborhood with some of the most authentic Chinese restaurants in the city.

"There are only a few things that are always the same in Chinese food," said Guillermo Hung, a photographer who was reared in Caracas and lives in New Jersey. "I was born in a Chinese restaurant, and I end up cooking Chinese style no matter where I am or what the ingredients are. There is always stir-frying. And the most important thing is the rice. For true Chinese food, everything else is a side dish."

Posted by jennifer at 3:47 PM | Comments (2)

My mother calls me the other day and says, "There's been something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about." Uh-oh. I brace myself, "OK, what is it?"

"Don't be mad," she prefaces. Double uh-oh. Then she asks, you remember So-and-So's Mom, right? (Note: I've never met So-and-So or his mom. So-and-So’s Mom is friends with my mom. Why she doesn't just refer to her by name instead of referring to her son is beyond me.) Well, it turns out So-and-So's Mom has a friend. And that friend has two sons. They are both doctors. One is 30 and married. The other is 33 and unmarried. I can see where this is going.

"Please don't set me up."

"It can't hurt. You never know!"

When I ask for more details (you know, what he likes to do, what his politics are), she has no information. All she knows is that he is a doctor and he works out a lot.

"Sounds pretty boring to me," I say.

"Boring is OK," she insists.

"I'd rather be alone than bored to death."

"Well, you never know. Now, can I give him your email?"

Sometimes the best way to deal with a parent is to take the path of least resistance. After triple checking the spelling of my email address, she adds "If you talk to him, don't be weird."

"So, you're telling me to not be myself."

"Oh, and he lives in Sacramento."

Sacramento? When there's an available Chinese American doctor, it doesn't matter if he lives hours away, or what his politics (if any) may be, or whether he has the personality of a box of rocks. These things are overlooked with one magic word. Apparently being a doctor is all one has to accomplish in life. Mothers everywhere will throw their single children at doctors.

When I shared this story with friends, some had similar stories to tell. One friend, after being pestered for months by her mother, was subjected to dull emails (and terribly unflattering photos) from a doctor who could not carry on a conversation. Another had to fend off efforts by her mother to set her up with guys who lived on the other side of the country.

Many of these friends are Asian American. Now, I doubt we are the only people beset upon by desperate mothers who are having old maid panic attacks on our behalf. This happens in any small community. Matchmaking is a time-honored tradition. Still, it seems like a very second generation immigrant experience to have your parents go through their small networks to find their children dates, sometimes over our objections.

Personally, I could not imagine my parents choosing someone who is right for me. But others are pretty comfortable with it. So here's a question for you: Would you be OK with your parents playing matchmaker? And does this happen to men too? It still seems less accepted in our society for women to remain single.

Oh, and the doctor in Sacramento? He emailed me two days later and turned out to be just as uninteresting as I had feared.

Posted by Melissa at 9:52 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

My mother calls me the other day and says, "There's been something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about." Uh-oh. I brace myself, "OK, what is it?"

"Don't be mad," she prefaces. Double uh-oh. Then she asks, you remember So-and-So's Mom, right? (Note: I've never met So-and-So or his mom. So-and-So’s Mom is friends with my mom. Why she doesn't just refer to her by name instead of referring to her son is beyond me.) Well, it turns out So-and-So's Mom has a friend. And that friend has two sons. They are both doctors. One is 30 and married. The other is 33 and unmarried. I can see where this is going.

"Please don't set me up."

"It can't hurt. You never know!"

When I ask for more details (you know, what he likes to do, what his politics are), she has no information. All she knows is that he is a doctor and he works out a lot.

"Sounds pretty boring to me," I say.

"Boring is OK," she insists.

"I'd rather be alone than bored to death."

"Well, you never know. Now, can I give him your email?"

Sometimes the best way to deal with a parent is to take the path of least resistance. After triple checking the spelling of my email address, she adds "If you talk to him, don't be weird."

"So, you're telling me to not be myself."

"Oh, and he lives in Sacramento."

Sacramento? When there's an available Chinese American doctor, it doesn't matter if he lives hours away, or what his politics (if any) may be, or whether he has the personality of a box of rocks. These things are overlooked with one magic word. Apparently being a doctor is all one has to accomplish in life. Mothers everywhere will throw their single children at doctors.

When I shared this story with friends, some had similar stories to tell. One friend, after being pestered for months by her mother, was subjected to dull emails (and terribly unflattering photos) from a doctor who could not carry on a conversation. Another had to fend off efforts by her mother to set her up with guys who lived on the other side of the country.

Many of these friends are Asian American. Now, I doubt we are the only people beset upon by desperate mothers who are having old maid panic attacks on our behalf. This happens in any small community. Matchmaking is a time-honored tradition. Still, it seems like a very second generation immigrant experience to have your parents go through their small networks to find their children dates, sometimes over our objections.

Personally, I could not imagine my parents choosing someone who is right for me. But others are pretty comfortable with it. So here's a question for you: Would you be OK with your parents playing matchmaker? And does this happen to men too? It still seems less accepted in our society for women to remain single.

Oh, and the doctor in Sacramento? He emailed me two days later and turned out to be just as uninteresting as I had feared.

Posted by Melissa at 9:52 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

My mother calls me the other day and says, "There's been something I�ve been meaning to talk to you about." Uh-oh. I brace myself, "OK, what is it?"

"Don't be mad," she prefaces. Double uh-oh. Then she asks, you remember So-and-So's Mom, right? (Note: I've never met So-and-So or his mom. So-and-So�s Mom is friends with my mom. Why she doesn't just refer to her by name instead of referring to her son is beyond me.) Well, it turns out So-and-So's Mom has a friend. And that friend has two sons. They are both doctors. One is 30 and married. The other is 33 and unmarried. I can see where this is going.

"Please don't set me up."

"It can't hurt. You never know!"

When I ask for more details (you know, what he likes to do, what his politics are), she has no information. All she knows is that he is a doctor and he works out a lot.

"Sounds pretty boring to me," I say.

"Boring is OK," she insists.

"I'd rather be alone than bored to death."

"Well, you never know. Now, can I give him your email?"

Sometimes the best way to deal with a parent is to take the path of least resistance. After triple checking the spelling of my email address, she adds "If you talk to him, don't be weird."

"So, you're telling me to not be myself."

"Oh, and he lives in Sacramento."

Sacramento? When there's an available Chinese American doctor, it doesn't matter if he lives hours away, or what his politics (if any) may be, or whether he has the personality of a box of rocks. These things are overlooked with one magic word. Apparently being a doctor is all one has to accomplish in life. Mothers everywhere will throw their single children at doctors.

When I shared this story with friends, some had similar stories to tell. One friend, after being pestered for months by her mother, was subjected to dull emails (and terribly unflattering photos) from a doctor who could not carry on a conversation. Another had to fend off efforts by her mother to set her up with guys who lived on the other side of the country.

Many of these friends are Asian American. Now, I doubt we are the only people beset upon by desperate mothers who are having old maid panic attacks on our behalf. This happens in any small community. Matchmaking is a time-honored tradition. Still, it seems like a very second generation immigrant experience to have your parents go through their small networks to find their children dates, sometimes over our objections.

Personally, I could not imagine my parents choosing someone who is right for me. But others are pretty comfortable with it. So here's a question for you: Would you be OK with your parents playing matchmaker? And does this happen to men too? It still seems less accepted in our society for women to remain single.

Oh, and the doctor in Sacramento? He emailed me two days later and turned out to be just as uninteresting as I had feared.

Posted by Melissa at 9:52 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

It's true, ladies and germs, our very own, brand spankin' new literary editor, Barbara Jane Pulmano Reyes has just been honored by the Academy of American Poets with a James Laughlin Award for a second book! Congrats, Barb! You better ride this mileage 'til the car breaks down. You know Hyphen will.

Posted by claire at 10:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

It's true, ladies and germs, our very own, brand spankin' new literary editor, Barbara Jane Pulmano Reyes has just been honored by the Academy of American Poets with a James Laughlin Award for a second book! Congrats, Barb! You better ride this mileage 'til the car breaks down. You know Hyphen will.

Posted by claire at 10:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

It's true, ladies and germs, our very own, brand spankin' new literary editor, Barbara Jane Pulmano Reyes has just been honored by the Academy of American Poets with a James Laughlin Award for a second book! Congrats, Barb! You better ride this mileage 'til the car breaks down. You know Hyphen will.

Posted by claire at 10:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

A new true-crime book on the violent murder of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old Indian girl living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, recently hit the stands. 1n 1997, Virk was lured to a popular hangout spot and then beaten, kicked and burned with cigarette lighters by seven girls and one boy. She escaped, only to be followed by two people who made sure she didn't survive. Her body washed up a week later. The book, entitled "Under the Bridge", got a pretty bad review in the NY Times. This murder, which happened in 1997, kicked up a lot of media on the violence of young women but mostly failed to raise the question of race -- focusing instead on the way Virk was overweight and didn't fit in with her peers. Here is an interesting piece on the way race was ignored during the media coverage of this case.

When this incident occured, I remember being fascinated by the hip hop references that these young Canadians were making, like that Reena tried to fit into the crowd by being more into hip hop and that the girls who killed her identified with mobster John Gotti, a la rap lyrics. Kelly Ellard, the alleged mastermind behind Virk's murder and the one who finished the job, recently was sentenced to life in prison after a third murder trial.

Posted by neela at 2:55 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

A new true-crime book on the violent murder of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old Indian girl living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, recently hit the stands. 1n 1997, Virk was lured to a popular hangout spot and then beaten, kicked and burned with cigarette lighters by seven girls and one boy. She escaped, only to be followed by two people who made sure she didn't survive. Her body washed up a week later. The book, entitled "Under the Bridge", got a pretty bad review in the NY Times. This murder, which happened in 1997, kicked up a lot of media on the violence of young women but mostly failed to raise the question of race -- focusing instead on the way Virk was overweight and didn't fit in with her peers. Here is an interesting piece on the way race was ignored during the media coverage of this case.

When this incident occured, I remember being fascinated by the hip hop references that these young Canadians were making, like that Reena tried to fit into the crowd by being more into hip hop and that the girls who killed her identified with mobster John Gotti, a la rap lyrics. Kelly Ellard, the alleged mastermind behind Virk's murder and the one who finished the job, recently was sentenced to life in prison after a third murder trial.

Posted by neela at 2:55 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

A new true-crime book on the violent murder of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old Indian girl living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, recently hit the stands. 1n 1997, Virk was lured to a popular hangout spot and then beaten, kicked and burned with cigarette lighters by seven girls and one boy. She escaped, only to be followed by two people who made sure she didn't survive. Her body washed up a week later. The book, entitled "Under the Bridge", got a pretty bad review in the NY Times. This murder, which happened in 1997, kicked up a lot of media on the violence of young women but mostly failed to raise the question of race -- focusing instead on the way Virk was overweight and didn't fit in with her peers. Here is an interesting piece on the way race was ignored during the media coverage of this case.

When this incident occured, I remember being fascinated by the hip hop references that these young Canadians were making, like that Reena tried to fit into the crowd by being more into hip hop and that the girls who killed her identified with mobster John Gotti, a la rap lyrics. Kelly Ellard, the alleged mastermind behind Virk's murder and the one who finished the job, recently was sentenced to life in prison after a third murder trial.

Posted by neela at 2:55 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

Now that Issue Seven (the body issue! yay! coming next week! yay!) is at the printer, we are turning our full attention to Issue Eight. So now's a GREEEEAAAT time for you to empty out those drawers of half-assed creative writing you've been trying to ignore.

Just kidding! Hyphen only publishes the best, especially since we have so little space (only one story and one or two poems per issue.)

Actually, you better watch out, you better not cry, 'cuz the baton is being passed and I'm stepping down as literatary editor. I'm telling you why: Barbara Jane Reyes, zee poet herself, is taking over lit for Issue Eight and she is a real, book-published writer, not a one-story hack like me. Plus, she gots some scary energy on her.

I'm looking forward to the sudden sharp increase in poetry published in Hyphen. I'm looking forward to Barb's inevitably different take on fiction. And I'm fascinated to see whom she reels into her velvet creel. Start sweatin', ladies and gents; there's a new sheriff in town!

We are looking for:
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Drama, and uncategorizable Experimental Sh*t: do it! send it in!

For guidelines, please email barbara (at) hyphenmagazine (dot) com.

Please forward this post far and wide, to all the Asian American writers you know, and some you don't.

Posted by claire at 1:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Now that Issue Seven (the body issue! yay! coming next week! yay!) is at the printer, we are turning our full attention to Issue Eight. So now's a GREEEEAAAT time for you to empty out those drawers of half-assed creative writing you've been trying to ignore.

Just kidding! Hyphen only publishes the best, especially since we have so little space (only one story and one or two poems per issue.)

Actually, you better watch out, you better not cry, 'cuz the baton is being passed and I'm stepping down as literatary editor. I'm telling you why: Barbara Jane Reyes, zee poet herself, is taking over lit for Issue Eight and she is a real, book-published writer, not a one-story hack like me. Plus, she gots some scary energy on her.

I'm looking forward to the sudden sharp increase in poetry published in Hyphen. I'm looking forward to Barb's inevitably different take on fiction. And I'm fascinated to see whom she reels into her velvet creel. Start sweatin', ladies and gents; there's a new sheriff in town!

We are looking for:
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Drama, and uncategorizable Experimental Sh*t: do it! send it in!

For guidelines, please email barbara (at) hyphenmagazine (dot) com.

Please forward this post far and wide, to all the Asian American writers you know, and some you don't.

Posted by claire at 1:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Now that Issue Seven (the body issue! yay! coming next week! yay!) is at the printer, we are turning our full attention to Issue Eight. So now's a GREEEEAAAT time for you to empty out those drawers of half-assed creative writing you've been trying to ignore.

Just kidding! Hyphen only publishes the best, especially since we have so little space (only one story and one or two poems per issue.)

Actually, you better watch out, you better not cry, 'cuz the baton is being passed and I'm stepping down as literatary editor. I'm telling you why: Barbara Jane Reyes, zee poet herself, is taking over lit for Issue Eight and she is a real, book-published writer, not a one-story hack like me. Plus, she gots some scary energy on her.

I'm looking forward to the sudden sharp increase in poetry published in Hyphen. I'm looking forward to Barb's inevitably different take on fiction. And I'm fascinated to see whom she reels into her velvet creel. Start sweatin', ladies and gents; there's a new sheriff in town!

We are looking for:
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Drama, and uncategorizable Experimental Sh*t: do it! send it in!

For guidelines, please email barbara (at) hyphenmagazine (dot) com.

Please forward this post far and wide, to all the Asian American writers you know, and some you don't.

Posted by claire at 1:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Anyone who knows the AA communities knows that our folks maintain close ties with government and service organizations in our countries of origin. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Asian countries are being mobilized through the efforts of their overseas children to send help to Katrina victims. Here's a short list of current efforts from the past two weeks:

Some 50,000 Vietnamese Americans may have been hit by Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Vietnamese government has pledged aid for Vietnamese hurricane victims, most of whom appear to have evacuated ahead of the storm and many of whom are being housed in Catholic churches and Vietnamese malls in Houston.

Pakistan is sending doctors and medics, using Pakistani American community orgs to coordinate with the Red Cross. 2700 Pakistani Americans were affected by Katrina. Link.

The Philippines is sending a 25-member medical team and President Arroyo appealed to her constituency for donations. Efforts coordinated through the Filipino embassy will include a contingent from the National Federation of Filipino-American doctors.

About 2500 Koreans lost their homes in New Orleans and will be assisted and taken in by Korean Americans into churches and homes around the country, rather than being sent to refugee centers. The churches have also coordinated setting up a headquarters for a government team from South Korea sent to assist with Katrina relief.

The government of India will donate $5 million and medical support. Through the The U.S.-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) India is encouraging Indian Americans to donate and give help and support to Katrina victims. Help is being coordinated through the government and NGOs like the Red Cross by USINPAC and the congressional India Caucus.

Posted by claire at 1:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Anyone who knows the AA communities knows that our folks maintain close ties with government and service organizations in our countries of origin. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Asian countries are being mobilized through the efforts of their overseas children to send help to Katrina victims. Here's a short list of current efforts from the past two weeks:

Some 50,000 Vietnamese Americans may have been hit by Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Vietnamese government has pledged aid for Vietnamese hurricane victims, most of whom appear to have evacuated ahead of the storm and many of whom are being housed in Catholic churches and Vietnamese malls in Houston.

Pakistan is sending doctors and medics, using Pakistani American community orgs to coordinate with the Red Cross. 2700 Pakistani Americans were affected by Katrina. Link.

The Philippines is sending a 25-member medical team and President Arroyo appealed to her constituency for donations. Efforts coordinated through the Filipino embassy will include a contingent from the National Federation of Filipino-American doctors.

About 2500 Koreans lost their homes in New Orleans and will be assisted and taken in by Korean Americans into churches and homes around the country, rather than being sent to refugee centers. The churches have also coordinated setting up a headquarters for a government team from South Korea sent to assist with Katrina relief.

The government of India will donate $5 million and medical support. Through the The U.S.-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) India is encouraging Indian Americans to donate and give help and support to Katrina victims. Help is being coordinated through the government and NGOs like the Red Cross by USINPAC and the congressional India Caucus.

Posted by claire at 1:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Anyone who knows the AA communities knows that our folks maintain close ties with government and service organizations in our countries of origin. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Asian countries are being mobilized through the efforts of their overseas children to send help to Katrina victims. Here's a short list of current efforts from the past two weeks:

Some 50,000 Vietnamese Americans may have been hit by Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Vietnamese government has pledged aid for Vietnamese hurricane victims, most of whom appear to have evacuated ahead of the storm and many of whom are being housed in Catholic churches and Vietnamese malls in Houston.

Pakistan is sending doctors and medics, using Pakistani American community orgs to coordinate with the Red Cross. 2700 Pakistani Americans were affected by Katrina. Link.

The Philippines is sending a 25-member medical team and President Arroyo appealed to her constituency for donations. Efforts coordinated through the Filipino embassy will include a contingent from the National Federation of Filipino-American doctors.

About 2500 Koreans lost their homes in New Orleans and will be assisted and taken in by Korean Americans into churches and homes around the country, rather than being sent to refugee centers. The churches have also coordinated setting up a headquarters for a government team from South Korea sent to assist with Katrina relief.

The government of India will donate $5 million and medical support. Through the The U.S.-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) India is encouraging Indian Americans to donate and give help and support to Katrina victims. Help is being coordinated through the government and NGOs like the Red Cross by USINPAC and the congressional India Caucus.

Posted by claire at 1:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There's been a few stories I've been meaning to link to. Sorry if these seem old (some of them came out earlier this week) and you may already know about them. What can I say? It's way busy over here. We're preparing for the arrival of Issue 7, The Body Issue, which is showing up any day now! Lots of prep work goes into getting ready to mail them out (which we do ourselves. we don't have the luxury of using a subscription fulfillment service) and delivering them to bookstores (which we also do ourselves.) Hyphen -- living the DIY dream (or nightmare).

OK, on to some stories...

It was Nguyen versus Nguyen for San Jose city council. Guess what? Nguyen wins.

A book on activist Yuri Kochiyama is coming out, so the SF Chronicle interviews her. She's over 80 and can't walk due to a stroke, but she's still active protesting and kicking ass! I met her a couple years ago. You think you do a lot? Not in comparison to Yuri. She's nearly three times my age and her social life is more happening than mine.

Also from the SF Chron, an obituary on Willie Wong, a five-foot-five basketball star in the 40s.

And fear not if you have no plans for the weekend. We've got some suggestions:

Here in the Bay Area, it's time again for APAture, Kearny Street Workshop's annual Asian American multidisciplinary arts festival. It kicked off with an art opening earlier this week and continues through the 24th with performing arts, music and readings. Our very own literature edtior, Claire Light, will read next Friday, September 23rd. And the Hyphen crew will be tabling on the 24th at the Main Event.

Boston, here's something for you. The Boston Asian American Film Festival started yesterday and continues through this weekend.

Also taking place this weekend are the South Asian Film Festival in Seattle and the Los Angeles Korean International Film Festival

And the San Diego Asian Film Festival is at the end of this month.

So many film festivals! Seems like there are more and more festivals starting up and they get more and more ethnic specific.

Posted by Melissa at 2:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There's been a few stories I've been meaning to link to. Sorry if these seem old (some of them came out earlier this week) and you may already know about them. What can I say? It's way busy over here. We're preparing for the arrival of Issue 7, The Body Issue, which is showing up any day now! Lots of prep work goes into getting ready to mail them out (which we do ourselves. we don't have the luxury of using a subscription fulfillment service) and delivering them to bookstores (which we also do ourselves.) Hyphen -- living the DIY dream (or nightmare).

OK, on to some stories...

It was Nguyen versus Nguyen for San Jose city council. Guess what? Nguyen wins.

A book on activist Yuri Kochiyama is coming out, so the SF Chronicle interviews her. She's over 80 and can't walk due to a stroke, but she's still active protesting and kicking ass! I met her a couple years ago. You think you do a lot? Not in comparison to Yuri. She's nearly three times my age and her social life is more happening than mine.

Also from the SF Chron, an obituary on Willie Wong, a five-foot-five basketball star in the 40s.

And fear not if you have no plans for the weekend. We've got some suggestions:

Here in the Bay Area, it's time again for APAture, Kearny Street Workshop's annual Asian American multidisciplinary arts festival. It kicked off with an art opening earlier this week and continues through the 24th with performing arts, music and readings. Our very own literature edtior, Claire Light, will read next Friday, September 23rd. And the Hyphen crew will be tabling on the 24th at the Main Event.

Boston, here's something for you. The Boston Asian American Film Festival started yesterday and continues through this weekend.

Also taking place this weekend are the South Asian Film Festival in Seattle and the Los Angeles Korean International Film Festival

And the San Diego Asian Film Festival is at the end of this month.

So many film festivals! Seems like there are more and more festivals starting up and they get more and more ethnic specific.

Posted by Melissa at 2:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There's been a few stories I've been meaning to link to. Sorry if these seem old (some of them came out earlier this week) and you may already know about them. What can I say? It's way busy over here. We're preparing for the arrival of Issue 7, The Body Issue, which is showing up any day now! Lots of prep work goes into getting ready to mail them out (which we do ourselves. we don't have the luxury of using a subscription fulfillment service) and delivering them to bookstores (which we also do ourselves.) Hyphen -- living the DIY dream (or nightmare).

OK, on to some stories...

It was Nguyen versus Nguyen for San Jose city council. Guess what? Nguyen wins.

A book on activist Yuri Kochiyama is coming out, so the SF Chronicle interviews her. She's over 80 and can't walk due to a stroke, but she's still active protesting and kicking ass! I met her a couple years ago. You think you do a lot? Not in comparison to Yuri. She's nearly three times my age and her social life is more happening than mine.

Also from the SF Chron, an obituary on Willie Wong, a five-foot-five basketball star in the 40s.

And fear not if you have no plans for the weekend. We've got some suggestions:

Here in the Bay Area, it's time again for APAture, Kearny Street Workshop's annual Asian American multidisciplinary arts festival. It kicked off with an art opening earlier this week and continues through the 24th with performing arts, music and readings. Our very own literature edtior, Claire Light, will read next Friday, September 23rd. And the Hyphen crew will be tabling on the 24th at the Main Event.

Boston, here's something for you. The Boston Asian American Film Festival started yesterday and continues through this weekend.

Also taking place this weekend are the South Asian Film Festival in Seattle and the Los Angeles Korean International Film Festival

And the San Diego Asian Film Festival is at the end of this month.

So many film festivals! Seems like there are more and more festivals starting up and they get more and more ethnic specific.

Posted by Melissa at 2:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Back in August, police officers fatally shot two Korean men in Dublin, California while responding to an alleged domestic dispute. This shooting has galvanized the Asian American community -- once again -- and many believe that the use of deadly force was unnecessary. This confused-police-officers-reaching-for-guns issue has happens over and over in Asian American and Latin communities. Recent cases include a 1997 shooting in Rohnert Park of Kuan Chung Kao -- who was armed with a wooden stick, the 2003 shooting of Cau Tran in San Jose -- who was armed with a vegetable peeler, and last year's shooting of Rudy Cardenas in San Jose, who was unarmed. The Asian American community has been coming together to organize across ethnic lines around this issue. There will be a candlelight vigil on Sept. 20th at the Dublin City Hall.

Posted by neela at 11:44 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Back in August, police officers fatally shot two Korean men in Dublin, California while responding to an alleged domestic dispute. This shooting has galvanized the Asian American community -- once again -- and many believe that the use of deadly force was unnecessary. This confused-police-officers-reaching-for-guns issue has happens over and over in Asian American and Latin communities. Recent cases include a 1997 shooting in Rohnert Park of Kuan Chung Kao -- who was armed with a wooden stick, the 2003 shooting of Cau Tran in San Jose -- who was armed with a vegetable peeler, and last year's shooting of Rudy Cardenas in San Jose, who was unarmed. The Asian American community has been coming together to organize across ethnic lines around this issue. There will be a candlelight vigil on Sept. 20th at the Dublin City Hall.

Posted by neela at 11:44 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Back in August, police officers fatally shot two Korean men in Dublin, California while responding to an alleged domestic dispute. This shooting has galvanized the Asian American community -- once again -- and many believe that the use of deadly force was unnecessary. This confused-police-officers-reaching-for-guns issue has happens over and over in Asian American and Latin communities. Recent cases include a 1997 shooting in Rohnert Park of Kuan Chung Kao -- who was armed with a wooden stick, the 2003 shooting of Cau Tran in San Jose -- who was armed with a vegetable peeler, and last year's shooting of Rudy Cardenas in San Jose, who was unarmed. The Asian American community has been coming together to organize across ethnic lines around this issue. There will be a candlelight vigil on Sept. 20th at the Dublin City Hall.

Posted by neela at 11:44 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

If you're as angry about the government's non-response to Katrina as I am, please consider signing this petition from Moveon.org. The petition simply asks for congress to create a Katrina commission--like a 9/11 commission. And this time I think there may well be more will among the people to act upon the information gathered.

Posted by claire at 11:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

If you're as angry about the government's non-response to Katrina as I am, please consider signing this petition from Moveon.org. The petition simply asks for congress to create a Katrina commission--like a 9/11 commission. And this time I think there may well be more will among the people to act upon the information gathered.

Posted by claire at 11:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

If you're as angry about the government's non-response to Katrina as I am, please consider signing this petition from Moveon.org. The petition simply asks for congress to create a Katrina commission--like a 9/11 commission. And this time I think there may well be more will among the people to act upon the information gathered.

Posted by claire at 11:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Muslims and Catholics unified by image of Bruce Lee.

Two years after the Urban Movement came up with the initial proposal, the Bosnian town of Mostar, has collected enough financial and popular support to erect a monument to Bruce Lee in their town center.

Interestingly, he was chosen at least partly because he is distinctly different the local population. From MSNBC.com:

"If he were from some place that is closer," says artist and writer Veselin Gatalo, "we would be asking, what was he doing during the war? What was his faith? What kind of meat did he eat?" Elsewhere in Bosnia, the monuments are "just a continuation of war by other means,” says Gatalo. But Bruce Lee will be something else. "He reminds us that skill can fight firearms, that good intentions and bravery can defeat power, corruption, violence and injustice."

Posted by Seng at 5:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Muslims and Catholics unified by image of Bruce Lee.

Two years after the Urban Movement came up with the initial proposal, the Bosnian town of Mostar, has collected enough financial and popular support to erect a monument to Bruce Lee in their town center.

Interestingly, he was chosen at least partly because he is distinctly different the local population. From MSNBC.com:

"If he were from some place that is closer," says artist and writer Veselin Gatalo, "we would be asking, what was he doing during the war? What was his faith? What kind of meat did he eat?" Elsewhere in Bosnia, the monuments are "just a continuation of war by other means,” says Gatalo. But Bruce Lee will be something else. "He reminds us that skill can fight firearms, that good intentions and bravery can defeat power, corruption, violence and injustice."

Posted by Seng at 5:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Muslims and Catholics unified by image of Bruce Lee.

Two years after the Urban Movement came up with the initial proposal, the Bosnian town of Mostar, has collected enough financial and popular support to erect a monument to Bruce Lee in their town center.

Interestingly, he was chosen at least partly because he is distinctly different the local population. From MSNBC.com:

"If he were from some place that is closer," says artist and writer Veselin Gatalo, "we would be asking, what was he doing during the war? What was his faith? What kind of meat did he eat?" Elsewhere in Bosnia, the monuments are "just a continuation of war by other means,� says Gatalo. But Bruce Lee will be something else. "He reminds us that skill can fight firearms, that good intentions and bravery can defeat power, corruption, violence and injustice."

Posted by Seng at 5:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Of the forty-nine convenience store clerks arrested this summer in Georgia for selling common products that contained ephedrine or pseudoephedrine (a main ingredient in home-made methamphetamine), forty-four were Indian American.

Should these clerks really be held responsible for what other people do with cough syrup? Is there really no ethnic bias, no discrimination based on language barrier or simple difference, in the overwhelming ethnic make-up of the prosecuted?

But before we even get to all of that, is there really even a meth epidemic going on? John Tierney doesn't think so. And if everyone, down to cough-syrup sellers, can be held responsible for the making and using of drugs, why can't the government be held responsible for not stopping this whole mess by legalizing and regulating it?

Posted by claire at 5:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Of the forty-nine convenience store clerks arrested this summer in Georgia for selling common products that contained ephedrine or pseudoephedrine (a main ingredient in home-made methamphetamine), forty-four were Indian American.

Should these clerks really be held responsible for what other people do with cough syrup? Is there really no ethnic bias, no discrimination based on language barrier or simple difference, in the overwhelming ethnic make-up of the prosecuted?

But before we even get to all of that, is there really even a meth epidemic going on? John Tierney doesn't think so. And if everyone, down to cough-syrup sellers, can be held responsible for the making and using of drugs, why can't the government be held responsible for not stopping this whole mess by legalizing and regulating it?

Posted by claire at 5:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Of the forty-nine convenience store clerks arrested this summer in Georgia for selling common products that contained ephedrine or pseudoephedrine (a main ingredient in home-made methamphetamine), forty-four were Indian American.

Should these clerks really be held responsible for what other people do with cough syrup? Is there really no ethnic bias, no discrimination based on language barrier or simple difference, in the overwhelming ethnic make-up of the prosecuted?

But before we even get to all of that, is there really even a meth epidemic going on? John Tierney doesn't think so. And if everyone, down to cough-syrup sellers, can be held responsible for the making and using of drugs, why can't the government be held responsible for not stopping this whole mess by legalizing and regulating it?

Posted by claire at 5:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Then hire more Asian American Journalists!

A study commissioned by the Asian American Journalists Association found that newsrooms with a larger number of Asian American journalists do better at reporting Asian American stories.

Well, duh.

For information on how to access those hard-to-reach Asian Americans, contact AAJA.

Posted by claire at 5:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Then hire more Asian American Journalists!

A study commissioned by the Asian American Journalists Association found that newsrooms with a larger number of Asian American journalists do better at reporting Asian American stories.

Well, duh.

For information on how to access those hard-to-reach Asian Americans, contact AAJA.

Posted by claire at 5:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Then hire more Asian American Journalists!

A study commissioned by the Asian American Journalists Association found that newsrooms with a larger number of Asian American journalists do better at reporting Asian American stories.

Well, duh.

For information on how to access those hard-to-reach Asian Americans, contact AAJA.

Posted by claire at 5:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Looks like somebody at the San Francisco Chronicle is reading Hyphen. In our summer issue, we had a feature on Korean adoptees moving back to Korea, and today, the Chronicle has a story about Korean adoptees moving back to Korea.

It's nice that they're reading Hyphen.

Posted by harry at 11:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Looks like somebody at the San Francisco Chronicle is reading Hyphen. In our summer issue, we had a feature on Korean adoptees moving back to Korea, and today, the Chronicle has a story about Korean adoptees moving back to Korea.

It's nice that they're reading Hyphen.

Posted by harry at 11:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Looks like somebody at the San Francisco Chronicle is reading Hyphen. In our summer issue, we had a feature on Korean adoptees moving back to Korea, and today, the Chronicle has a story about Korean adoptees moving back to Korea.

It's nice that they're reading Hyphen.

Posted by harry at 11:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

This is for you artsy creative types. Tomorrow the Hyphen crew will be hanging at the Sixth Annual Expo for the Artist & Musician. What is this thing? This is what happens when more than 100 Bay Area arts organizations gets together.

There will be live performances, free workshops, good eats. You can find out how to do all sorts of stuff, like make a music demo, find out how to find and apply for grants, put a collective together. It's a great event to network at if you're looking to get involved with other artists.

Anyhow, it's at SomArts tomororow. Costs a measly $2 to get in (but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.)

Click here for more info

Also, here's a new multiculti blog that carries news on all kinds of people of color. CrayonPeople.com

Posted by Melissa at 11:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This is for you artsy creative types. Tomorrow the Hyphen crew will be hanging at the Sixth Annual Expo for the Artist & Musician. What is this thing? This is what happens when more than 100 Bay Area arts organizations gets together.

There will be live performances, free workshops, good eats. You can find out how to do all sorts of stuff, like make a music demo, find out how to find and apply for grants, put a collective together. It's a great event to network at if you're looking to get involved with other artists.

Anyhow, it's at SomArts tomororow. Costs a measly $2 to get in (but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.)

Click here for more info

Also, here's a new multiculti blog that carries news on all kinds of people of color. CrayonPeople.com

Posted by Melissa at 11:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This is for you artsy creative types. Tomorrow the Hyphen crew will be hanging at the Sixth Annual Expo for the Artist & Musician. What is this thing? This is what happens when more than 100 Bay Area arts organizations gets together.

There will be live performances, free workshops, good eats. You can find out how to do all sorts of stuff, like make a music demo, find out how to find and apply for grants, put a collective together. It's a great event to network at if you're looking to get involved with other artists.

Anyhow, it's at SomArts tomororow. Costs a measly $2 to get in (but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.)

Click here for more info

Also, here's a new multiculti blog that carries news on all kinds of people of color. CrayonPeople.com

Posted by Melissa at 11:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ursula passed along this article (pasted below) from the Foil-I mailing list (provenance, Weekly Kagoj) about New Orleans' Bangladeshi Immigrants. A consequence of the destruction that we hadn't foreseen: some of the ... uh ... browner foreign students studying in the hurricane region might have a problem transferring their studies to other cities. Let's keep an eye on this one.

Hurricane Katrina Wrecked New Orleans' Bangladeshi Immigrants

By Partha Banerjee

Weekly Kagoj (Bengali), September 7-13

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and destroyed the city on August 29,
it also devastated the city's thousands of immigrants and their lives. Many
of these immigrants came to the U.S. from countries ravaged by Katrina-type
storms and their aftermaths. Now, they are faced with similar experiences,
all over again.

The Bangladeshi immigrants of New Orleans are one community that got
wrecked.

"We see this back there all the time: havocs, misery because of the big
monsoon storms. We never believed we'd see such a catastrophe here that
turns our lives upside down," said Moti, an undocumented immigrant from
Sylhet, Bangladesh. He would not disclose his full name.

Moti fled Metairie, a northern suburb of downtown New Orleans the Sunday
before the hurricane struck. He left behind all the belongings in his
first-floor apartment that was inundated with five or six-foot-deep water.
He doesn't believe he'll be able to put his life back together soon.

He believes many others like him had a similar fate.

"I didn't have much in the first place," he said. "But now, I don't even
know where to begin. I lost it all."

The Bangladeshi students attending various schools including Tulane
University also left the Orleans Parish en masse the day before the city was
evacuated. Most of them are now staying at friends' or relatives' in
Houston, Texas, Jackson, Mississippi, Mobile, Alabama, or Baton Rouge,
Louisiana. Apart from losing their belongings that include books, term
papers, bikes and blankets, these students also lost their meager income,
which worries them a lot.

"Students' biggest worry is though, if New Orleans is shut down for a long
time and they can't go back to their schools designated by immigration
[authorities], they'll be considered illegal, without valid papers," Md.
Shahed, a part-time Tulane Student, said. International students study in
U.S. at schools specifically mentioned on their I-20 immigration papers.
Under normal circumstances, while on their student visa, they're not allowed
to study anywhere else. They're not allowed to work outside, either.

"I think these students should be relocated properly just like any other
American students [impacted by Katrina]," Mamud, another student at Tulane,
said.

Shahed fled New Orleans in the nick of time only to find himself and some
twenty other students huddled in a Bengali doctor's house in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, a town that took the hit of the deadly hurricane's eye. He
thought out of an estimated 1,000 Bangladeshis in Greater New Orleans, a few
long-time immigrants lost everything.

According to him, a couple of doctors living close to the instate highway
near the hurricane eye saw their houses completely blown away.

"We're lucky to have survived," Shahed said. "But [in spite of the]
generosity provided to us, it's not the happiest situation. We have to find
a way to put our lives back together soon," he said.

Shahed described how the city residents and its immigrant students did not
really get any serious warning about the oncoming storm.

"Tulane students just got one five- or 10-minute alarm, and basically that's
it," he said. "We were playing soccer with a bunch of kids even on Saturday.
Never thought it was going to be so bad."

Two days later, Hurricane Katrine walloped the city. New Orleans residents,
who are used to relocating to nearby places at hearing official warnings,
did not know what was coming at them."

"We moved to Houston three or four times before," Mariam Nessa, a
Bangladeshi immigrant mother from Kenner, another suburb of New Orleans,
said. On Sunday, just the day before the hurricane stormed the city, she
left with her husband and child for Houston again, to stay with some
friends. This time, however, she doesn't know when she can go back to her
home, if ever again.

"They tell us now that we can go check on our home in Kenner, but I'm afraid
we'd get mugged or something if we went," she said. "I don't know what to
do. They say houses are being vandalized and the water to drink is not safe.
I have a child and I'm afraid."

Hurricane Katrina impacted Bengali immigrants in Baton Rouge, a city about
50 miles northwest of New Orleans.

"Our population has suddenly gone up twice, three times because of the
people who escaped New Orleans and came here," Khasruzzaman Chowdhury, a
university professor, said. "This is unprecedented -- traffic jams and all.
Where are they going to put up so many people in grave needs?"

Chowdhury and his family had no electricity for nearly a week since Katrina
hit Louisiana. "We moved from friends' to friends' to eat because we have an
electric oven and couldn't cook," he said. "But our discomfort is negligible
compared to theirs," he agreed.

Chowdhury and his wife are now helping Bangladeshi and other South Asian
immigrants to rehabilitate. He's using his connections to help those who
need it.

"We're also reaching out to other poor communities," he said. "I have
students from poor families and they're in serious trouble."

###

_______________________________________________
Foil-l mailing list
Foil-l@insaf.net

Posted by claire at 2:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ursula passed along this article (pasted below) from the Foil-I mailing list (provenance, Weekly Kagoj) about New Orleans' Bangladeshi Immigrants. A consequence of the destruction that we hadn't foreseen: some of the ... uh ... browner foreign students studying in the hurricane region might have a problem transferring their studies to other cities. Let's keep an eye on this one.

Hurricane Katrina Wrecked New Orleans' Bangladeshi Immigrants

By Partha Banerjee

Weekly Kagoj (Bengali), September 7-13

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and destroyed the city on August 29,
it also devastated the city's thousands of immigrants and their lives. Many
of these immigrants came to the U.S. from countries ravaged by Katrina-type
storms and their aftermaths. Now, they are faced with similar experiences,
all over again.

The Bangladeshi immigrants of New Orleans are one community that got
wrecked.

"We see this back there all the time: havocs, misery because of the big
monsoon storms. We never believed we'd see such a catastrophe here that
turns our lives upside down," said Moti, an undocumented immigrant from
Sylhet, Bangladesh. He would not disclose his full name.

Moti fled Metairie, a northern suburb of downtown New Orleans the Sunday
before the hurricane struck. He left behind all the belongings in his
first-floor apartment that was inundated with five or six-foot-deep water.
He doesn't believe he'll be able to put his life back together soon.

He believes many others like him had a similar fate.

"I didn't have much in the first place," he said. "But now, I don't even
know where to begin. I lost it all."

The Bangladeshi students attending various schools including Tulane
University also left the Orleans Parish en masse the day before the city was
evacuated. Most of them are now staying at friends' or relatives' in
Houston, Texas, Jackson, Mississippi, Mobile, Alabama, or Baton Rouge,
Louisiana. Apart from losing their belongings that include books, term
papers, bikes and blankets, these students also lost their meager income,
which worries them a lot.

"Students' biggest worry is though, if New Orleans is shut down for a long
time and they can't go back to their schools designated by immigration
[authorities], they'll be considered illegal, without valid papers," Md.
Shahed, a part-time Tulane Student, said. International students study in
U.S. at schools specifically mentioned on their I-20 immigration papers.
Under normal circumstances, while on their student visa, they're not allowed
to study anywhere else. They're not allowed to work outside, either.

"I think these students should be relocated properly just like any other
American students [impacted by Katrina]," Mamud, another student at Tulane,
said.

Shahed fled New Orleans in the nick of time only to find himself and some
twenty other students huddled in a Bengali doctor's house in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, a town that took the hit of the deadly hurricane's eye. He
thought out of an estimated 1,000 Bangladeshis in Greater New Orleans, a few
long-time immigrants lost everything.

According to him, a couple of doctors living close to the instate highway
near the hurricane eye saw their houses completely blown away.

"We're lucky to have survived," Shahed said. "But [in spite of the]
generosity provided to us, it's not the happiest situation. We have to find
a way to put our lives back together soon," he said.

Shahed described how the city residents and its immigrant students did not
really get any serious warning about the oncoming storm.

"Tulane students just got one five- or 10-minute alarm, and basically that's
it," he said. "We were playing soccer with a bunch of kids even on Saturday.
Never thought it was going to be so bad."

Two days later, Hurricane Katrine walloped the city. New Orleans residents,
who are used to relocating to nearby places at hearing official warnings,
did not know what was coming at them."

"We moved to Houston three or four times before," Mariam Nessa, a
Bangladeshi immigrant mother from Kenner, another suburb of New Orleans,
said. On Sunday, just the day before the hurricane stormed the city, she
left with her husband and child for Houston again, to stay with some
friends. This time, however, she doesn't know when she can go back to her
home, if ever again.

"They tell us now that we can go check on our home in Kenner, but I'm afraid
we'd get mugged or something if we went," she said. "I don't know what to
do. They say houses are being vandalized and the water to drink is not safe.
I have a child and I'm afraid."

Hurricane Katrina impacted Bengali immigrants in Baton Rouge, a city about
50 miles northwest of New Orleans.

"Our population has suddenly gone up twice, three times because of the
people who escaped New Orleans and came here," Khasruzzaman Chowdhury, a
university professor, said. "This is unprecedented -- traffic jams and all.
Where are they going to put up so many people in grave needs?"

Chowdhury and his family had no electricity for nearly a week since Katrina
hit Louisiana. "We moved from friends' to friends' to eat because we have an
electric oven and couldn't cook," he said. "But our discomfort is negligible
compared to theirs," he agreed.

Chowdhury and his wife are now helping Bangladeshi and other South Asian
immigrants to rehabilitate. He's using his connections to help those who
need it.

"We're also reaching out to other poor communities," he said. "I have
students from poor families and they're in serious trouble."

###

_______________________________________________
Foil-l mailing list
Foil-l@insaf.net

Posted by claire at 2:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ursula passed along this article (pasted below) from the Foil-I mailing list (provenance, Weekly Kagoj) about New Orleans' Bangladeshi Immigrants. A consequence of the destruction that we hadn't foreseen: some of the ... uh ... browner foreign students studying in the hurricane region might have a problem transferring their studies to other cities. Let's keep an eye on this one.

Hurricane Katrina Wrecked New Orleans' Bangladeshi Immigrants

By Partha Banerjee

Weekly Kagoj (Bengali), September 7-13

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and destroyed the city on August 29,
it also devastated the city's thousands of immigrants and their lives. Many
of these immigrants came to the U.S. from countries ravaged by Katrina-type
storms and their aftermaths. Now, they are faced with similar experiences,
all over again.

The Bangladeshi immigrants of New Orleans are one community that got
wrecked.

"We see this back there all the time: havocs, misery because of the big
monsoon storms. We never believed we'd see such a catastrophe here that
turns our lives upside down," said Moti, an undocumented immigrant from
Sylhet, Bangladesh. He would not disclose his full name.

Moti fled Metairie, a northern suburb of downtown New Orleans the Sunday
before the hurricane struck. He left behind all the belongings in his
first-floor apartment that was inundated with five or six-foot-deep water.
He doesn't believe he'll be able to put his life back together soon.

He believes many others like him had a similar fate.

"I didn't have much in the first place," he said. "But now, I don't even
know where to begin. I lost it all."

The Bangladeshi students attending various schools including Tulane
University also left the Orleans Parish en masse the day before the city was
evacuated. Most of them are now staying at friends' or relatives' in
Houston, Texas, Jackson, Mississippi, Mobile, Alabama, or Baton Rouge,
Louisiana. Apart from losing their belongings that include books, term
papers, bikes and blankets, these students also lost their meager income,
which worries them a lot.

"Students' biggest worry is though, if New Orleans is shut down for a long
time and they can't go back to their schools designated by immigration
[authorities], they'll be considered illegal, without valid papers," Md.
Shahed, a part-time Tulane Student, said. International students study in
U.S. at schools specifically mentioned on their I-20 immigration papers.
Under normal circumstances, while on their student visa, they're not allowed
to study anywhere else. They're not allowed to work outside, either.

"I think these students should be relocated properly just like any other
American students [impacted by Katrina]," Mamud, another student at Tulane,
said.

Shahed fled New Orleans in the nick of time only to find himself and some
twenty other students huddled in a Bengali doctor's house in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, a town that took the hit of the deadly hurricane's eye. He
thought out of an estimated 1,000 Bangladeshis in Greater New Orleans, a few
long-time immigrants lost everything.

According to him, a couple of doctors living close to the instate highway
near the hurricane eye saw their houses completely blown away.

"We're lucky to have survived," Shahed said. "But [in spite of the]
generosity provided to us, it's not the happiest situation. We have to find
a way to put our lives back together soon," he said.

Shahed described how the city residents and its immigrant students did not
really get any serious warning about the oncoming storm.

"Tulane students just got one five- or 10-minute alarm, and basically that's
it," he said. "We were playing soccer with a bunch of kids even on Saturday.
Never thought it was going to be so bad."

Two days later, Hurricane Katrine walloped the city. New Orleans residents,
who are used to relocating to nearby places at hearing official warnings,
did not know what was coming at them."

"We moved to Houston three or four times before," Mariam Nessa, a
Bangladeshi immigrant mother from Kenner, another suburb of New Orleans,
said. On Sunday, just the day before the hurricane stormed the city, she
left with her husband and child for Houston again, to stay with some
friends. This time, however, she doesn't know when she can go back to her
home, if ever again.

"They tell us now that we can go check on our home in Kenner, but I'm afraid
we'd get mugged or something if we went," she said. "I don't know what to
do. They say houses are being vandalized and the water to drink is not safe.
I have a child and I'm afraid."

Hurricane Katrina impacted Bengali immigrants in Baton Rouge, a city about
50 miles northwest of New Orleans.

"Our population has suddenly gone up twice, three times because of the
people who escaped New Orleans and came here," Khasruzzaman Chowdhury, a
university professor, said. "This is unprecedented -- traffic jams and all.
Where are they going to put up so many people in grave needs?"

Chowdhury and his family had no electricity for nearly a week since Katrina
hit Louisiana. "We moved from friends' to friends' to eat because we have an
electric oven and couldn't cook," he said. "But our discomfort is negligible
compared to theirs," he agreed.

Chowdhury and his wife are now helping Bangladeshi and other South Asian
immigrants to rehabilitate. He's using his connections to help those who
need it.

"We're also reaching out to other poor communities," he said. "I have
students from poor families and they're in serious trouble."

###

_______________________________________________
Foil-l mailing list
Foil-l@insaf.net

Posted by claire at 2:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sita found this in the Dallas Morning News. Gives some history on Asian Americans in the region and some info on current AA efforts to help refugees. Also pasted below.

Esther Wu:
Gulf Coast region rich with Asian-American history
06:54 AM CDT on Thursday, September 8, 2005

For days now, we have been watching news reports of how Hurricane Katrina has ravaged the Gulf Coast. We have seen pictures of the tens of thousands who have been relocated throughout Texas.
The evacuees include Asian-Americans, who have a long history in the coastal region.
One of the first known Filipino settlements in America was established in the 1700s in St. Malo in the bayous near New Orleans. According to historians, these early settlers were called Manilamen and may have been deserters from Spanish galleons that sailed along the Gulf Coast. Newspaper accounts of these Filipino enclaves were reported as early as 1883.
The first Chinese arrived in Mississippi during Reconstruction immediately after the Civil War. Relations already were strained between the black freed men and the white landowners. Because the labor system had been broken, planters recruited the Chinese as possible replacements for slaves. By 1880, census records showed 51 Chinese living in Mississippi.
Those early settlers opened the door for many other Asian-Americans – including many Southeast Asians who, in the 1970s, were lured by the fishing industry to the coastal region.
Today, according to the census, Asian-Americans make up 1.2 percent of Louisiana's population. Of that estimate, 2.3 percent lived in New Orleans and 2.6 percent in Baton Rouge. Mississippi reports less than 1 percent of its population as Asian-American. But in Biloxi, Miss., one of the cities hardest hit by Katrina, 5.1 percent of the city population is Asian-American.
Michael Grabell, a Dallas Morning News reporter who has been covering Hurricane Katrina, filed this account last week:
Sang Le sat with a man he considers his grandfather. He wandered the bridge, shirt over his shoulder, begging for a ride to Baton Rouge. He offered $1,000 that he kept in a wad in his pocket. But he refused to leave alone.
"I've got an old man over there. He's 91 years old. He can't walk. I can't leave him here. He can't speak English. Who's going to help him?" Mr. Le, 41, a tuna fisherman in New Orleans East, considers Loc Nguyen his grandfather because he has been with him for 30 years ever since his family left Vietnam.

The Associated Press reported last week that half of Louisiana's Vietnamese population of 30,000 has taken refuge in Houston. Dallas Assistant City Manager Ramon Miguez said Tuesday that it was impossible to know at this point how many Asian-Americans have been relocated to North Texas.
Justo Hernandez, head of the FEMA team overseeing the federal-intake program in Dallas, said it would take a while to sort through all the names. "Right now, our first priority is to get these people help – food, clothing and shelter," he said.
If you would like to offer temporary housing to evacuees, call 214-670-4275. According to Mr. Miguez, because language may be a problem, you can specify that your offer go to an Asian family.
In the meantime, local Asian-Americans stand ready to help Asian and non-Asian evacuees. Among some of the efforts:
•The India Association of North Texas held a candlelight vigil and prayer session at its offices on Sunday and has launched a relief fund. Donations may be mailed to 777 S. Central Expressway, Suite 7C, Richardson, Texas 75080.
•Theresa Bui Creevy, Nancy Hong and Vi Nguyen have begun collecting food and clothing for evacuees. Items may be dropped off at 445 Walnut St., Suite 113, in Richardson or at Nexus Recover, 8733 La Prada Drive in Dallas. Call 214-432-6586.
•Tzu Chi, a nonprofit Buddhist organization dedicated to charitable works, has started delivering beds to a shelter in Garland and has committed to providing up to 400 beds to Plano if needed. The group has also been providing meals for relief workers.
•The Federation of Chinese Organizations will hold a fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 24 at the China Town Shopping center, 400 N. Greenville Ave. in Richardson. Vendors will sell food, arts and crafts.
Proceeds will go to the relief effort.
E-mail ewu@dallasnews.com

Posted by claire at 2:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sita found this in the Dallas Morning News. Gives some history on Asian Americans in the region and some info on current AA efforts to help refugees. Also pasted below.

Esther Wu:
Gulf Coast region rich with Asian-American history
06:54 AM CDT on Thursday, September 8, 2005

For days now, we have been watching news reports of how Hurricane Katrina has ravaged the Gulf Coast. We have seen pictures of the tens of thousands who have been relocated throughout Texas.
The evacuees include Asian-Americans, who have a long history in the coastal region.
One of the first known Filipino settlements in America was established in the 1700s in St. Malo in the bayous near New Orleans. According to historians, these early settlers were called Manilamen and may have been deserters from Spanish galleons that sailed along the Gulf Coast. Newspaper accounts of these Filipino enclaves were reported as early as 1883.
The first Chinese arrived in Mississippi during Reconstruction immediately after the Civil War. Relations already were strained between the black freed men and the white landowners. Because the labor system had been broken, planters recruited the Chinese as possible replacements for slaves. By 1880, census records showed 51 Chinese living in Mississippi.
Those early settlers opened the door for many other Asian-Americans – including many Southeast Asians who, in the 1970s, were lured by the fishing industry to the coastal region.
Today, according to the census, Asian-Americans make up 1.2 percent of Louisiana's population. Of that estimate, 2.3 percent lived in New Orleans and 2.6 percent in Baton Rouge. Mississippi reports less than 1 percent of its population as Asian-American. But in Biloxi, Miss., one of the cities hardest hit by Katrina, 5.1 percent of the city population is Asian-American.
Michael Grabell, a Dallas Morning News reporter who has been covering Hurricane Katrina, filed this account last week:
Sang Le sat with a man he considers his grandfather. He wandered the bridge, shirt over his shoulder, begging for a ride to Baton Rouge. He offered $1,000 that he kept in a wad in his pocket. But he refused to leave alone.
"I've got an old man over there. He's 91 years old. He can't walk. I can't leave him here. He can't speak English. Who's going to help him?" Mr. Le, 41, a tuna fisherman in New Orleans East, considers Loc Nguyen his grandfather because he has been with him for 30 years ever since his family left Vietnam.

The Associated Press reported last week that half of Louisiana's Vietnamese population of 30,000 has taken refuge in Houston. Dallas Assistant City Manager Ramon Miguez said Tuesday that it was impossible to know at this point how many Asian-Americans have been relocated to North Texas.
Justo Hernandez, head of the FEMA team overseeing the federal-intake program in Dallas, said it would take a while to sort through all the names. "Right now, our first priority is to get these people help – food, clothing and shelter," he said.
If you would like to offer temporary housing to evacuees, call 214-670-4275. According to Mr. Miguez, because language may be a problem, you can specify that your offer go to an Asian family.
In the meantime, local Asian-Americans stand ready to help Asian and non-Asian evacuees. Among some of the efforts:
•The India Association of North Texas held a candlelight vigil and prayer session at its offices on Sunday and has launched a relief fund. Donations may be mailed to 777 S. Central Expressway, Suite 7C, Richardson, Texas 75080.
•Theresa Bui Creevy, Nancy Hong and Vi Nguyen have begun collecting food and clothing for evacuees. Items may be dropped off at 445 Walnut St., Suite 113, in Richardson or at Nexus Recover, 8733 La Prada Drive in Dallas. Call 214-432-6586.
•Tzu Chi, a nonprofit Buddhist organization dedicated to charitable works, has started delivering beds to a shelter in Garland and has committed to providing up to 400 beds to Plano if needed. The group has also been providing meals for relief workers.
•The Federation of Chinese Organizations will hold a fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 24 at the China Town Shopping center, 400 N. Greenville Ave. in Richardson. Vendors will sell food, arts and crafts.
Proceeds will go to the relief effort.
E-mail ewu@dallasnews.com

Posted by claire at 2:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sita found this in the Dallas Morning News. Gives some history on Asian Americans in the region and some info on current AA efforts to help refugees. Also pasted below.

Esther Wu:
Gulf Coast region rich with Asian-American history
06:54 AM CDT on Thursday, September 8, 2005

For days now, we have been watching news reports of how Hurricane Katrina has ravaged the Gulf Coast. We have seen pictures of the tens of thousands who have been relocated throughout Texas.
The evacuees include Asian-Americans, who have a long history in the coastal region.
One of the first known Filipino settlements in America was established in the 1700s in St. Malo in the bayous near New Orleans. According to historians, these early settlers were called Manilamen and may have been deserters from Spanish galleons that sailed along the Gulf Coast. Newspaper accounts of these Filipino enclaves were reported as early as 1883.
The first Chinese arrived in Mississippi during Reconstruction immediately after the Civil War. Relations already were strained between the black freed men and the white landowners. Because the labor system had been broken, planters recruited the Chinese as possible replacements for slaves. By 1880, census records showed 51 Chinese living in Mississippi.
Those early settlers opened the door for many other Asian-Americans � including many Southeast Asians who, in the 1970s, were lured by the fishing industry to the coastal region.
Today, according to the census, Asian-Americans make up 1.2 percent of Louisiana's population. Of that estimate, 2.3 percent lived in New Orleans and 2.6 percent in Baton Rouge. Mississippi reports less than 1 percent of its population as Asian-American. But in Biloxi, Miss., one of the cities hardest hit by Katrina, 5.1 percent of the city population is Asian-American.
Michael Grabell, a Dallas Morning News reporter who has been covering Hurricane Katrina, filed this account last week:
Sang Le sat with a man he considers his grandfather. He wandered the bridge, shirt over his shoulder, begging for a ride to Baton Rouge. He offered $1,000 that he kept in a wad in his pocket. But he refused to leave alone.
"I've got an old man over there. He's 91 years old. He can't walk. I can't leave him here. He can't speak English. Who's going to help him?" Mr. Le, 41, a tuna fisherman in New Orleans East, considers Loc Nguyen his grandfather because he has been with him for 30 years ever since his family left Vietnam.

The Associated Press reported last week that half of Louisiana's Vietnamese population of 30,000 has taken refuge in Houston. Dallas Assistant City Manager Ramon Miguez said Tuesday that it was impossible to know at this point how many Asian-Americans have been relocated to North Texas.
Justo Hernandez, head of the FEMA team overseeing the federal-intake program in Dallas, said it would take a while to sort through all the names. "Right now, our first priority is to get these people help � food, clothing and shelter," he said.
If you would like to offer temporary housing to evacuees, call 214-670-4275. According to Mr. Miguez, because language may be a problem, you can specify that your offer go to an Asian family.
In the meantime, local Asian-Americans stand ready to help Asian and non-Asian evacuees. Among some of the efforts:
�The India Association of North Texas held a candlelight vigil and prayer session at its offices on Sunday and has launched a relief fund. Donations may be mailed to 777 S. Central Expressway, Suite 7C, Richardson, Texas 75080.
�Theresa Bui Creevy, Nancy Hong and Vi Nguyen have begun collecting food and clothing for evacuees. Items may be dropped off at 445 Walnut St., Suite 113, in Richardson or at Nexus Recover, 8733 La Prada Drive in Dallas. Call 214-432-6586.
�Tzu Chi, a nonprofit Buddhist organization dedicated to charitable works, has started delivering beds to a shelter in Garland and has committed to providing up to 400 beds to Plano if needed. The group has also been providing meals for relief workers.
�The Federation of Chinese Organizations will hold a fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 24 at the China Town Shopping center, 400 N. Greenville Ave. in Richardson. Vendors will sell food, arts and crafts.
Proceeds will go to the relief effort.
E-mail ewu@dallasnews.com

Posted by claire at 2:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

And now, appropriate of nothing, is possibly the most embarrassing and unintentionally hilarious video I've seen in months. A Laotian teen with too much time on his hands acts hard, surfs MySpace and sings the hits to his webcam.

Click here to watch.

Discuss.

Posted by at 10:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

And now, appropriate of nothing, is possibly the most embarrassing and unintentionally hilarious video I've seen in months. A Laotian teen with too much time on his hands acts hard, surfs MySpace and sings the hits to his webcam.

Click here to watch.

Discuss.

Posted by at 10:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

And now, appropriate of nothing, is possibly the most embarrassing and unintentionally hilarious video I've seen in months. A Laotian teen with too much time on his hands acts hard, surfs MySpace and sings the hits to his webcam.

Click here to watch.

Discuss.

Posted by todd at 10:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

People tell me that Minnesota is very white. Well, it's somewhat true, but I lived there for 14 years and I know it's a lot more than that, at least in Minneapolis, where I spent most of my time.

More importantly, perhaps, is that it's got real working class roots and a fair bit of Scandinavian egalitarianism. So maybe that's why even though I never liked Chino Latino, especially during its infamous ad campaign of the early 2000s, its wielding of first-world priviledge was not quite as surprising as the very existence of Betelnut, essentially the same restaurant, but in San Francisco, a city which claims progressive ideals and an international understanding.

Maybe it was the staff dressed in faux-Chinese outfits, or that all the actual names for the foods were set off in quote marks (eg. Malaysian "laksa" noodles). Maybe it was that there appeared to be more Asians in the open kitchen than in the dining room and bar. I could be wrong, of course- maybe they were presenting their food as a humble imitation of the real thing or they were just going along with baffling trend of excess quotation mark usage. Maybe the customers really do appreciate the work that goes into their meals and the class and race differences between the customers and the cooks was all in my head.

You could go to decide for yourself, but I'll warn you that the food isn't worth it, unless you like sauce trying to cover otherwise bland and carelessly cooked food. How appropriate.

Posted by Seng at 11:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

People tell me that Minnesota is very white. Well, it's somewhat true, but I lived there for 14 years and I know it's a lot more than that, at least in Minneapolis, where I spent most of my time.

More importantly, perhaps, is that it's got real working class roots and a fair bit of Scandinavian egalitarianism. So maybe that's why even though I never liked Chino Latino, especially during its infamous ad campaign of the early 2000s, its wielding of first-world priviledge was not quite as surprising as the very existence of Betelnut, essentially the same restaurant, but in San Francisco, a city which claims progressive ideals and an international understanding.

Maybe it was the staff dressed in faux-Chinese outfits, or that all the actual names for the foods were set off in quote marks (eg. Malaysian "laksa" noodles). Maybe it was that there appeared to be more Asians in the open kitchen than in the dining room and bar. I could be wrong, of course- maybe they were presenting their food as a humble imitation of the real thing or they were just going along with baffling trend of excess quotation mark usage. Maybe the customers really do appreciate the work that goes into their meals and the class and race differences between the customers and the cooks was all in my head.

You could go to decide for yourself, but I'll warn you that the food isn't worth it, unless you like sauce trying to cover otherwise bland and carelessly cooked food. How appropriate.

Posted by Seng at 11:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

People tell me that Minnesota is very white. Well, it's somewhat true, but I lived there for 14 years and I know it's a lot more than that, at least in Minneapolis, where I spent most of my time.

More importantly, perhaps, is that it's got real working class roots and a fair bit of Scandinavian egalitarianism. So maybe that's why even though I never liked Chino Latino, especially during its infamous ad campaign of the early 2000s, its wielding of first-world priviledge was not quite as surprising as the very existence of Betelnut, essentially the same restaurant, but in San Francisco, a city which claims progressive ideals and an international understanding.

Maybe it was the staff dressed in faux-Chinese outfits, or that all the actual names for the foods were set off in quote marks (eg. Malaysian "laksa" noodles). Maybe it was that there appeared to be more Asians in the open kitchen than in the dining room and bar. I could be wrong, of course- maybe they were presenting their food as a humble imitation of the real thing or they were just going along with baffling trend of excess quotation mark usage. Maybe the customers really do appreciate the work that goes into their meals and the class and race differences between the customers and the cooks was all in my head.

You could go to decide for yourself, but I'll warn you that the food isn't worth it, unless you like sauce trying to cover otherwise bland and carelessly cooked food. How appropriate.

Posted by Seng at 11:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I've been searching for news about the Vietnamese Americans who were hit by Katrina. Not only did a large number of Vietnamese settle in the Gulf Coast, but many of them depend on the Gulf for their living. They are shrimpers.

Back when I was a reporter in Texas, I went down to the little town of Palacios, Texas to write about Vietnamese American shrimpers. I went shrimping with them one morning. And it was not easy. We had to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning and crawl out into the water to drag the nets. We didn't bring the nets up until well after the sun had come up. I had never seen live shrimp before. I was not used to seeing them a completely different color, and staight, not curled.

The Vietnamese had faced a lot of resistance and racism from the existing, and mostly Anglo, shrimpers when they first arrived. Twenty plus years later, they were working together against fishing restrictions. Government wildlife departments said the shrimpers were rapidly depleting shrimp in the Gulf and they were going to fish themselves out of business. Shrimpers said the government restrictions, not the lack of shrimp (which they questioned), was going to shut them down. One of the people leading the charge against the government was the tough and level-headed daughter of a Vietnamese American shrimper.

Now, it looks like many of the shrimpers in Lousiana will have to find a new line of work. Their boats and businesses were destroyed in the hurricane. But there's been very little coverage in mainstream media. There's been one whole story by a national media outlet on Vietnamese Americans, by the Associated Press, which went out on its wires yesterday.

A couple days before that, A Vietnamese American reporter at the Houston Chronicle checked out a shelter being run by nuns, who decided to do something after finding out that refugees were sleeping inside one of Houston's largest Asian strip malls. Katrina evacuation evokes memories of fleeing Vietnam three decades ago.

Posted by Melissa at 11:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

I've been searching for news about the Vietnamese Americans who were hit by Katrina. Not only did a large number of Vietnamese settle in the Gulf Coast, but many of them depend on the Gulf for their living. They are shrimpers.

Back when I was a reporter in Texas, I went down to the little town of Palacios, Texas to write about Vietnamese American shrimpers. I went shrimping with them one morning. And it was not easy. We had to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning and crawl out into the water to drag the nets. We didn't bring the nets up until well after the sun had come up. I had never seen live shrimp before. I was not used to seeing them a completely different color, and staight, not curled.

The Vietnamese had faced a lot of resistance and racism from the existing, and mostly Anglo, shrimpers when they first arrived. Twenty plus years later, they were working together against fishing restrictions. Government wildlife departments said the shrimpers were rapidly depleting shrimp in the Gulf and they were going to fish themselves out of business. Shrimpers said the government restrictions, not the lack of shrimp (which they questioned), was going to shut them down. One of the people leading the charge against the government was the tough and level-headed daughter of a Vietnamese American shrimper.

Now, it looks like many of the shrimpers in Lousiana will have to find a new line of work. Their boats and businesses were destroyed in the hurricane. But there's been very little coverage in mainstream media. There's been one whole story by a national media outlet on Vietnamese Americans, by the Associated Press, which went out on its wires yesterday.

A couple days before that, A Vietnamese American reporter at the Houston Chronicle checked out a shelter being run by nuns, who decided to do something after finding out that refugees were sleeping inside one of Houston's largest Asian strip malls. Katrina evacuation evokes memories of fleeing Vietnam three decades ago.

Posted by Melissa at 11:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

I've been searching for news about the Vietnamese Americans who were hit by Katrina. Not only did a large number of Vietnamese settle in the Gulf Coast, but many of them depend on the Gulf for their living. They are shrimpers.

Back when I was a reporter in Texas, I went down to the little town of Palacios, Texas to write about Vietnamese American shrimpers. I went shrimping with them one morning. And it was not easy. We had to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning and crawl out into the water to drag the nets. We didn't bring the nets up until well after the sun had come up. I had never seen live shrimp before. I was not used to seeing them a completely different color, and staight, not curled.

The Vietnamese had faced a lot of resistance and racism from the existing, and mostly Anglo, shrimpers when they first arrived. Twenty plus years later, they were working together against fishing restrictions. Government wildlife departments said the shrimpers were rapidly depleting shrimp in the Gulf and they were going to fish themselves out of business. Shrimpers said the government restrictions, not the lack of shrimp (which they questioned), was going to shut them down. One of the people leading the charge against the government was the tough and level-headed daughter of a Vietnamese American shrimper.

Now, it looks like many of the shrimpers in Lousiana will have to find a new line of work. Their boats and businesses were destroyed in the hurricane. But there's been very little coverage in mainstream media. There's been one whole story by a national media outlet on Vietnamese Americans, by the Associated Press, which went out on its wires yesterday.

A couple days before that, A Vietnamese American reporter at the Houston Chronicle checked out a shelter being run by nuns, who decided to do something after finding out that refugees were sleeping inside one of Houston's largest Asian strip malls. Katrina evacuation evokes memories of fleeing Vietnam three decades ago.

Posted by Melissa at 11:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Chinese American rapper The Emcee, who used to go by the name Jin, is releasing his new album independently on Oct. 25.

He talked about how his race affected how his first album was marketed and why he's going independent now in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News (registration required).

Full disclosure: I work for Knight Ridder Digital, which produces mercurynews.com

Posted by harry at 8:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Chinese American rapper The Emcee, who used to go by the name Jin, is releasing his new album independently on Oct. 25.

He talked about how his race affected how his first album was marketed and why he's going independent now in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News (registration required).

Full disclosure: I work for Knight Ridder Digital, which produces mercurynews.com

Posted by harry at 8:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Chinese American rapper The Emcee, who used to go by the name Jin, is releasing his new album independently on Oct. 25.

He talked about how his race affected how his first album was marketed and why he's going independent now in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News (registration required).

Full disclosure: I work for Knight Ridder Digital, which produces mercurynews.com

Posted by harry at 8:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

What does the Katrina disaster say about who the "problem people" are in this country?

In this alternet article Robert Jensen talks about what all people of color already know: in America, white is standard, all else is deviant. He also utters an opinion we have all at one time, secretly or loudly, held: white people are the problem with race in this country.

That is the new White People's Burden, to understand that we are the problem, come to terms with what that really means, and act based on that understanding. Our burden is to do something that doesn't seem to come natural to people in positions of unearned power and privilege: Look in the mirror honestly and concede that we live in an unjust society and have no right to some of what we have. We should not affirm ourselves. We should negate our whiteness. Strip ourselves of the illusion that we are special because we are white. Steel ourselves so that we can walk in the world fully conscious and try to see what is usually invisible to us white people. We should learn to ask ourselves, "How does it feel to be the problem?"

The Journal Race Traitor, goes Jensen one better by advocating a "New Abolitionism":

The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race, which means no more and no less than abolishing the privileges of the white skin. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue, domestic and foreign, in U.S. society.

The existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a predictor of behavior will lead to its collapse.

Yes, it's true, the white-blindess. Yes, it's terribly frustrating fighting this battle against a dominant majority that abhors racism in the abstract, but can't see the reality of it. Yes, it's wonderful to hear white commentators and activists starting to get the clue. But racial finger-pointing to the exclusion of all else? It's tempting for privileged multiracials like me still licking school-age wounds and filtering out the low-level background noise of being daily stereotyped. But I'm sitting in a dry apartment in San Francisco blogging with electricity from my own walls and drinking water from my own tap.

Maybe after all it's not just white people and rich people who are the problem. Maybe it's also middle-class people who are the problem. Check out John Scalzi's already classic post on what being poor is like. It highlights something that has long been an item of ethnic studies: that the racial divide is not just a cultural but an experiential divide. So, also, the class divide. The simple, now homicidally naive question, "why don't they just leave?" is the latest, most transparent manifestation of that experiential divide. For the middle-class, no matter how cash-strapped, decision and action are the experience of life. "We should evacuate" is followed by evacuation. There is a relative somewhere, a credit card, a car. As this Washington Post article from yesterday demonstrates, for 100,000 people in New Orleans, there simply weren't such things.

The question of the extent of the responsibility of a dominant majority to recognize itself as a problem to the impoverished minority seems awfully naive in the face of the decisions of national, state and even local authorities to sell out poor blacks (not to mention poor whites) for corporate tax breaks. The floodwaters have come home to roost and, at least for the moment, blindness to race issues and class issues isn't entirely possible.

Today's article by Lynne Duke and Teresa Wiltz in The Washington Post begins a new discussion:

To talk about race, for those who are weary of it, is to invite glazed-over eyes and stifled yawns -- or even hostility. But Katrina blew open the box, putting the urban poor front and center, with images of once-invisible folks pleading from rooftops, wading through flooded streets, starving at the Superdome and requiring a massive federal outlay of resources. Or dead, wheelchairs pushed up against the wall, a blanket thrown over still bodies. The Other is there, staring us in the face, exposing our issues on an international stage.

... The fact is, the most vulnerable victims of Katrina, though largely black, are also poor whites and Latinos. The poor are paying the highest price. So it is no wonder that Katrina has re-ignited the debate over race and class. There are those who argue, as does Manning Marable, director of Columbia University's Center for Contemporary Black History, that "the class element is inextricably bound to the race element." It has always been so because of the way policies and laws historically have been framed.

The much-blogged opposing "looting" vs. "finding" captions on photos of black and white scavengers seemed to miss an essential point. While we dry, fed, electrified Americans were objecting to the terms the media were using to characterize blacks and whites, both blacks and whites, as well as Latinos, and presumably--although the media hasn't mentioned them yet--Asians were starving and dying of thirst on the Gulf Coast. The majority of the poor in cities like New Orleans are black, but that is the product of history, not immediate disaster relief policies. Part of the attitude toward "the poor" our country abandoned to this disaster has to do with the fact that "the poor" are predominantly black. But, photo-captioning aside, it was "the poor" in general who were left to their fates, and we can't ignore the fact that many of those poor are white.

It's hard to find footing in this new territory. Whenever you want to blame it on race, there are pictures of impoverished whites trapped in their attics, not just in New Orleans, but all along the hurricane coast. Whenever you want to blame it on class, you can't help but notice that the impoverished of New Orleans and environs are overwhelmingly black. It's a sucker-punch not just for smug, white liberals, but for screaming, middle-class, ethnic activists. What stance to take? What policy to promote? Where to give money? How to vote? When to act? Whom to be angry with? ... How to feel?

If anything good will come out of this disaster, it will be a new, visceral understanding of the facts that both race oppression and class oppression are alive and well in America. But a simplistic understanding of either out of the context of the other is useless, as the legions of starving and drowned attest. I'm too angry and sad to understand any of this now. I only know that I have a lot of thinking to do in the coming years. The destruction of New Orleans is an enormous tragedy that brings with it the enormous opportunity of reconstruction. I'm not talking about the physical reconstruction of the city or the port. I'm talking about the opportunity of a more equitable reconstruction of the city's public resources and infrastructure, one that starts at the bottom by recognizing the cost of ignoring inequality in any form--and one that employs new strategies to overcome historical injustices still all too present.

Pray to Whatever that this particular discussion doesn't recede with the flood waters.

More recent discussion on the race/class issue:
• Seattle Times, "Was rescue a race, class issue?"
• NorthJersey.com, "Disaster highlights issues of race, class"
• The Roanoke Times, "Race, class disparity torn open by Katrina"
• Canada's Globe & Mail, "Katrina's Toll: Disaster Bares Divisions of Race and Class Across the Gulf States"
• The New York Times, "What Happens to a Race Deferred"

• Here is a chronological links dump of Katrina coverage and blogging.

Posted by claire at 5:12 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

What does the Katrina disaster say about who the "problem people" are in this country?

In this alternet article Robert Jensen talks about what all people of color already know: in America, white is standard, all else is deviant. He also utters an opinion we have all at one time, secretly or loudly, held: white people are the problem with race in this country.

That is the new White People's Burden, to understand that we are the problem, come to terms with what that really means, and act based on that understanding. Our burden is to do something that doesn't seem to come natural to people in positions of unearned power and privilege: Look in the mirror honestly and concede that we live in an unjust society and have no right to some of what we have. We should not affirm ourselves. We should negate our whiteness. Strip ourselves of the illusion that we are special because we are white. Steel ourselves so that we can walk in the world fully conscious and try to see what is usually invisible to us white people. We should learn to ask ourselves, "How does it feel to be the problem?"

The Journal Race Traitor, goes Jensen one better by advocating a "New Abolitionism":

The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race, which means no more and no less than abolishing the privileges of the white skin. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue, domestic and foreign, in U.S. society.

The existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a predictor of behavior will lead to its collapse.

Yes, it's true, the white-blindess. Yes, it's terribly frustrating fighting this battle against a dominant majority that abhors racism in the abstract, but can't see the reality of it. Yes, it's wonderful to hear white commentators and activists starting to get the clue. But racial finger-pointing to the exclusion of all else? It's tempting for privileged multiracials like me still licking school-age wounds and filtering out the low-level background noise of being daily stereotyped. But I'm sitting in a dry apartment in San Francisco blogging with electricity from my own walls and drinking water from my own tap.

Maybe after all it's not just white people and rich people who are the problem. Maybe it's also middle-class people who are the problem. Check out John Scalzi's already classic post on what being poor is like. It highlights something that has long been an item of ethnic studies: that the racial divide is not just a cultural but an experiential divide. So, also, the class divide. The simple, now homicidally naive question, "why don't they just leave?" is the latest, most transparent manifestation of that experiential divide. For the middle-class, no matter how cash-strapped, decision and action are the experience of life. "We should evacuate" is followed by evacuation. There is a relative somewhere, a credit card, a car. As this Washington Post article from yesterday demonstrates, for 100,000 people in New Orleans, there simply weren't such things.

The question of the extent of the responsibility of a dominant majority to recognize itself as a problem to the impoverished minority seems awfully naive in the face of the decisions of national, state and even local authorities to sell out poor blacks (not to mention poor whites) for corporate tax breaks. The floodwaters have come home to roost and, at least for the moment, blindness to race issues and class issues isn't entirely possible.

Today's article by Lynne Duke and Teresa Wiltz in The Washington Post begins a new discussion:

To talk about race, for those who are weary of it, is to invite glazed-over eyes and stifled yawns -- or even hostility. But Katrina blew open the box, putting the urban poor front and center, with images of once-invisible folks pleading from rooftops, wading through flooded streets, starving at the Superdome and requiring a massive federal outlay of resources. Or dead, wheelchairs pushed up against the wall, a blanket thrown over still bodies. The Other is there, staring us in the face, exposing our issues on an international stage.

... The fact is, the most vulnerable victims of Katrina, though largely black, are also poor whites and Latinos. The poor are paying the highest price. So it is no wonder that Katrina has re-ignited the debate over race and class. There are those who argue, as does Manning Marable, director of Columbia University's Center for Contemporary Black History, that "the class element is inextricably bound to the race element." It has always been so because of the way policies and laws historically have been framed.

The much-blogged opposing "looting" vs. "finding" captions on photos of black and white scavengers seemed to miss an essential point. While we dry, fed, electrified Americans were objecting to the terms the media were using to characterize blacks and whites, both blacks and whites, as well as Latinos, and presumably--although the media hasn't mentioned them yet--Asians were starving and dying of thirst on the Gulf Coast. The majority of the poor in cities like New Orleans are black, but that is the product of history, not immediate disaster relief policies. Part of the attitude toward "the poor" our country abandoned to this disaster has to do with the fact that "the poor" are predominantly black. But, photo-captioning aside, it was "the poor" in general who were left to their fates, and we can't ignore the fact that many of those poor are white.

It's hard to find footing in this new territory. Whenever you want to blame it on race, there are pictures of impoverished whites trapped in their attics, not just in New Orleans, but all along the hurricane coast. Whenever you want to blame it on class, you can't help but notice that the impoverished of New Orleans and environs are overwhelmingly black. It's a sucker-punch not just for smug, white liberals, but for screaming, middle-class, ethnic activists. What stance to take? What policy to promote? Where to give money? How to vote? When to act? Whom to be angry with? ... How to feel?

If anything good will come out of this disaster, it will be a new, visceral understanding of the facts that both race oppression and class oppression are alive and well in America. But a simplistic understanding of either out of the context of the other is useless, as the legions of starving and drowned attest. I'm too angry and sad to understand any of this now. I only know that I have a lot of thinking to do in the coming years. The destruction of New Orleans is an enormous tragedy that brings with it the enormous opportunity of reconstruction. I'm not talking about the physical reconstruction of the city or the port. I'm talking about the opportunity of a more equitable reconstruction of the city's public resources and infrastructure, one that starts at the bottom by recognizing the cost of ignoring inequality in any form--and one that employs new strategies to overcome historical injustices still all too present.

Pray to Whatever that this particular discussion doesn't recede with the flood waters.

More recent discussion on the race/class issue:
• Seattle Times, "Was rescue a race, class issue?"
• NorthJersey.com, "Disaster highlights issues of race, class"
• The Roanoke Times, "Race, class disparity torn open by Katrina"
• Canada's Globe & Mail, "Katrina's Toll: Disaster Bares Divisions of Race and Class Across the Gulf States"
• The New York Times, "What Happens to a Race Deferred"

• Here is a chronological links dump of Katrina coverage and blogging.

Posted by claire at 5:12 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

What does the Katrina disaster say about who the "problem people" are in this country?

In this alternet article Robert Jensen talks about what all people of color already know: in America, white is standard, all else is deviant. He also utters an opinion we have all at one time, secretly or loudly, held: white people are the problem with race in this country.

That is the new White People's Burden, to understand that we are the problem, come to terms with what that really means, and act based on that understanding. Our burden is to do something that doesn't seem to come natural to people in positions of unearned power and privilege: Look in the mirror honestly and concede that we live in an unjust society and have no right to some of what we have. We should not affirm ourselves. We should negate our whiteness. Strip ourselves of the illusion that we are special because we are white. Steel ourselves so that we can walk in the world fully conscious and try to see what is usually invisible to us white people. We should learn to ask ourselves, "How does it feel to be the problem?"

The Journal Race Traitor, goes Jensen one better by advocating a "New Abolitionism":

The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race, which means no more and no less than abolishing the privileges of the white skin. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue, domestic and foreign, in U.S. society.

The existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a predictor of behavior will lead to its collapse.

Yes, it's true, the white-blindess. Yes, it's terribly frustrating fighting this battle against a dominant majority that abhors racism in the abstract, but can't see the reality of it. Yes, it's wonderful to hear white commentators and activists starting to get the clue. But racial finger-pointing to the exclusion of all else? It's tempting for privileged multiracials like me still licking school-age wounds and filtering out the low-level background noise of being daily stereotyped. But I'm sitting in a dry apartment in San Francisco blogging with electricity from my own walls and drinking water from my own tap.

Maybe after all it's not just white people and rich people who are the problem. Maybe it's also middle-class people who are the problem. Check out John Scalzi's already classic post on what being poor is like. It highlights something that has long been an item of ethnic studies: that the racial divide is not just a cultural but an experiential divide. So, also, the class divide. The simple, now homicidally naive question, "why don't they just leave?" is the latest, most transparent manifestation of that experiential divide. For the middle-class, no matter how cash-strapped, decision and action are the experience of life. "We should evacuate" is followed by evacuation. There is a relative somewhere, a credit card, a car. As this Washington Post article from yesterday demonstrates, for 100,000 people in New Orleans, there simply weren't such things.

The question of the extent of the responsibility of a dominant majority to recognize itself as a problem to the impoverished minority seems awfully naive in the face of the decisions of national, state and even local authorities to sell out poor blacks (not to mention poor whites) for corporate tax breaks. The floodwaters have come home to roost and, at least for the moment, blindness to race issues and class issues isn't entirely possible.

Today's article by Lynne Duke and Teresa Wiltz in The Washington Post begins a new discussion:

To talk about race, for those who are weary of it, is to invite glazed-over eyes and stifled yawns -- or even hostility. But Katrina blew open the box, putting the urban poor front and center, with images of once-invisible folks pleading from rooftops, wading through flooded streets, starving at the Superdome and requiring a massive federal outlay of resources. Or dead, wheelchairs pushed up against the wall, a blanket thrown over still bodies. The Other is there, staring us in the face, exposing our issues on an international stage.

... The fact is, the most vulnerable victims of Katrina, though largely black, are also poor whites and Latinos. The poor are paying the highest price. So it is no wonder that Katrina has re-ignited the debate over race and class. There are those who argue, as does Manning Marable, director of Columbia University's Center for Contemporary Black History, that "the class element is inextricably bound to the race element." It has always been so because of the way policies and laws historically have been framed.

The much-blogged opposing "looting" vs. "finding" captions on photos of black and white scavengers seemed to miss an essential point. While we dry, fed, electrified Americans were objecting to the terms the media were using to characterize blacks and whites, both blacks and whites, as well as Latinos, and presumably--although the media hasn't mentioned them yet--Asians were starving and dying of thirst on the Gulf Coast. The majority of the poor in cities like New Orleans are black, but that is the product of history, not immediate disaster relief policies. Part of the attitude toward "the poor" our country abandoned to this disaster has to do with the fact that "the poor" are predominantly black. But, photo-captioning aside, it was "the poor" in general who were left to their fates, and we can't ignore the fact that many of those poor are white.

It's hard to find footing in this new territory. Whenever you want to blame it on race, there are pictures of impoverished whites trapped in their attics, not just in New Orleans, but all along the hurricane coast. Whenever you want to blame it on class, you can't help but notice that the impoverished of New Orleans and environs are overwhelmingly black. It's a sucker-punch not just for smug, white liberals, but for screaming, middle-class, ethnic activists. What stance to take? What policy to promote? Where to give money? How to vote? When to act? Whom to be angry with? ... How to feel?

If anything good will come out of this disaster, it will be a new, visceral understanding of the facts that both race oppression and class oppression are alive and well in America. But a simplistic understanding of either out of the context of the other is useless, as the legions of starving and drowned attest. I'm too angry and sad to understand any of this now. I only know that I have a lot of thinking to do in the coming years. The destruction of New Orleans is an enormous tragedy that brings with it the enormous opportunity of reconstruction. I'm not talking about the physical reconstruction of the city or the port. I'm talking about the opportunity of a more equitable reconstruction of the city's public resources and infrastructure, one that starts at the bottom by recognizing the cost of ignoring inequality in any form--and one that employs new strategies to overcome historical injustices still all too present.

Pray to Whatever that this particular discussion doesn't recede with the flood waters.

More recent discussion on the race/class issue:
� Seattle Times, "Was rescue a race, class issue?"
� NorthJersey.com, "Disaster highlights issues of race, class"
� The Roanoke Times, "Race, class disparity torn open by Katrina"
� Canada's Globe & Mail, "Katrina's Toll: Disaster Bares Divisions of Race and Class Across the Gulf States"
� The New York Times, "What Happens to a Race Deferred"

� Here is a chronological links dump of Katrina coverage and blogging.

Posted by claire at 5:12 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Several things:

A quote from a friend of hers in the story: "What makes Sandy distinctive is that she's successful as she is without pandering to the white image of what an Asian should look like. Most Asian women we see onscreen have had their eyelids done. She hasn't decided to have the surgery to look like a Caucasian Asian."

Another reason why I like Oh.

I wonder who has had their eyes done.

Posted by Melissa at 2:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Several things:

A quote from a friend of hers in the story: "What makes Sandy distinctive is that she's successful as she is without pandering to the white image of what an Asian should look like. Most Asian women we see onscreen have had their eyelids done. She hasn't decided to have the surgery to look like a Caucasian Asian."

Another reason why I like Oh.

I wonder who has had their eyes done.

Posted by Melissa at 2:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Several things:

A quote from a friend of hers in the story: "What makes Sandy distinctive is that she's successful as she is without pandering to the white image of what an Asian should look like. Most Asian women we see onscreen have had their eyelids done. She hasn't decided to have the surgery to look like a Caucasian Asian."

Another reason why I like Oh.

I wonder who has had their eyes done.

Posted by Melissa at 2:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Here are some links to appropriate outrage and pertinent information.

The Nielsen Haydens' "Making Light" site has the most comprehensive collection of Katrina information links I've seen, including check-in sites for residents who got out to post to their loved ones. Go here and scroll down, way down, to the appropriate dates.

Jose Marquez just blogged this incredible collection of NOLA spins on his "Outis" site. We love news junkies!

Turns out that NOLA disaster management was privatized recently. Surprisingly, the IEM are reticent about their plans.

Columnist Greg Palast makes a plea for a Huey Long-style demo demogogue to arise out of the ... well I was going to say "ashes", but I'll quick-change that to "mud". And I'll second the plea: one democrat with balls, please!

WANNA DO SOMETHING?

Contact the White House and tell Bush and his cronies to get off their asses. Send in the troops, commandeer some Greyhound buses, urge the Governor to declare martial law, etc.

Donate to the Red Cross.

Posted by claire at 11:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Here are some links to appropriate outrage and pertinent information.

The Nielsen Haydens' "Making Light" site has the most comprehensive collection of Katrina information links I've seen, including check-in sites for residents who got out to post to their loved ones. Go here and scroll down, way down, to the appropriate dates.

Jose Marquez just blogged this incredible collection of NOLA spins on his "Outis" site. We love news junkies!

Turns out that NOLA disaster management was privatized recently. Surprisingly, the IEM are reticent about their plans.

Columnist Greg Palast makes a plea for a Huey Long-style demo demogogue to arise out of the ... well I was going to say "ashes", but I'll quick-change that to "mud". And I'll second the plea: one democrat with balls, please!

WANNA DO SOMETHING?

Contact the White House and tell Bush and his cronies to get off their asses. Send in the troops, commandeer some Greyhound buses, urge the Governor to declare martial law, etc.

Donate to the Red Cross.

Posted by claire at 11:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Here are some links to appropriate outrage and pertinent information.

The Nielsen Haydens' "Making Light" site has the most comprehensive collection of Katrina information links I've seen, including check-in sites for residents who got out to post to their loved ones. Go here and scroll down, way down, to the appropriate dates.

Jose Marquez just blogged this incredible collection of NOLA spins on his "Outis" site. We love news junkies!

Turns out that NOLA disaster management was privatized recently. Surprisingly, the IEM are reticent about their plans.

Columnist Greg Palast makes a plea for a Huey Long-style demo demogogue to arise out of the ... well I was going to say "ashes", but I'll quick-change that to "mud". And I'll second the plea: one democrat with balls, please!

WANNA DO SOMETHING?

Contact the White House and tell Bush and his cronies to get off their asses. Send in the troops, commandeer some Greyhound buses, urge the Governor to declare martial law, etc.

Donate to the Red Cross.

Posted by claire at 11:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

And yet another one ...

Posted by claire at 7:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

And yet another one ...

Posted by claire at 7:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

And yet another one ...

Posted by claire at 7:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This was forwarded to me in an email. Caveat: I'm not sure whether or not these were the actual captions written (though it would not be surprising), and who wrote them. The same person? Different people?

Our founding publisher, Yuki, is from New Orleans. Luckily, her family evacuated in time, though they are now without homes or jobs for many months. I've also not heard from a writer friend of mine; we had not kept in touch recently. But our other friends have not heard from him either.

Posted by Melissa at 3:14 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

This was forwarded to me in an email. Caveat: I'm not sure whether or not these were the actual captions written (though it would not be surprising), and who wrote them. The same person? Different people?

Our founding publisher, Yuki, is from New Orleans. Luckily, her family evacuated in time, though they are now without homes or jobs for many months. I've also not heard from a writer friend of mine; we had not kept in touch recently. But our other friends have not heard from him either.

Posted by Melissa at 3:14 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

This was forwarded to me in an email. Caveat: I'm not sure whether or not these were the actual captions written (though it would not be surprising), and who wrote them. The same person? Different people?

Our founding publisher, Yuki, is from New Orleans. Luckily, her family evacuated in time, though they are now without homes or jobs for many months. I've also not heard from a writer friend of mine; we had not kept in touch recently. But our other friends have not heard from him either.

Posted by Melissa at 3:14 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

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