1. Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok - 22-year old Charlie Wong is the daughter of a Beijing ballerina and noodlemaker from Chinatown. When Charlie begins work as a receptionist in one of New York’s finest dance studios, she starts to follow in the footsteps of her late ballerina mother, and quickly discovers her talent to teach ballroom dancing. But her new found happiness is soon to fall apart as the two worlds are in danger of colliding. When her younger sister Lisa falls ill, Charlie ultimately has to make a decision where her heart belongs.
2. The Partner Track by Helen Wan - Chinese-American lawyer, Ingrid Yung, must choose between the prestige of partnership and the American Dream that she—and her immigrant parents—have come so close to achieving.
3. Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok - Emigrating with her mother from Hong Kong to Brooklyn, Kimberly Chang begins a double life as a schoolgirl by day and sweatshop worker at night, an existence also marked by her first crush and the pressure to save her family from poverty.
4. Wrack and Ruin by Don Lee - Lyndon Song is a renowned sculptor who fled New York City to become a Brussels sprouts farmer in the small California town of Rosarita Bay. Lyndon has a brother, Woody, an indicted financier turned movie producer, and Woody has a plan involving a golf course on Lyndon’s land and an aging kung-fu diva from Hong Kong with a mean kick and an even meaner drinking problem. Over one madcap Labor Day weekend, this plan wreaks havoc on Lyndon’s bucolic and carefully managed life—leading to various crises, adventures, and literature’s first-ever windsurfing chase scene.
5. The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim - In early-twentieth-century Korea, Najin Han, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher, longs to choose her own destiny. Smart and headstrong, she is encouraged by her mother—but her stern father is determined to maintain tradition, especially as the Japanese steadily gain control of his beloved country.
6. Drifting House by Krys Lee - Set in Korea and the United States, from the postwar era to contemporary times, Krys Lee’s stunning fiction debut illuminates a people struggling to reconcile the turmoil of their collective past with the rewards and challenges of their present.
7. The Ghost Bride by Yangze Choo - Part 19th century novel, part magical journey to the Chinese world of the dead set in colonial Malaysia, Yangsze Choo’s debut novel is a startlingly original historical fantasy infused with Chinese folklore, romantic intrigue, and unexpected supernatural twists.
8. Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford - Confined to Seattle’s Sacred Heart Orphanage during the Great Depression, Chinese-American boy William Eng becomes convinced that a certain movie actress is actually the mother he has not seen since he was seven years old, a belief that compels a determined search for answers.
9. Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap - Set in contemporary Thailand, these are generous, radiant tales of family bonds, youthful romance, generational conflicts and cultural shiftings beneath the glossy surface of a warm, Edenic setting.
10. Moon Cakes by Andrea Louie - The second daughter of successful Chinese parents, Maya Li grew up in Ohio raised on equal measures of steamed rice and sliced white bread. Now, working in New York City in a series of dead-end jobs, she finds herself heartbroken and in search of the sense of self. Then, almost accidentally, she is drawn to the country of her parents’ youth and embarks on a trip to China.
Hells yes book lists! Read more books by authors of color in 2014. :)
Rest in peace, Sir Run Run Shaw.
If you love kung fu movies, you owe it to Run Run Shaw. He helped make Hong Kong kung fu an international phenomenon. He launched the careers of the likes of Chow Yun Fat and Maggie Cheung. He co-produced classics in Hong Kong, and also the U.S., including Blade Runner. And it’s likely that his 85-year career as a producer was the most prolific ever. We’ll miss you!
Anonymous
You are a young Asian-American who care a lot of Asian-American activism. Why should your generation care?
i know many people who avoid being labeled as asian american because they believe that identifying with a racial or ethnic group is self-restricting and essentialist or because they believe that it encourages assumptions about their experiences and cultural backgrounds. however, “asian american” is a political identity.i choose to identify as asian american because i stand for anti-racist politics and hold myself accountable to the communities that my politics describe and affect. it asserts that i am very much impacted by a past, present, and future based upon my position in a society that is racially unjust and that i believe others who feel the same way for the same or similar reasons.
while i may never know what it was like to be a transcontinental railroad worker, endlessly scrutinized on angel island, or disenfranchised because asian women were stereotyped as deplorable prostitutes, i know that certain things have happened to me because i am chinese or look asian. i identify as asian american to empowermy past experiences by claiming wounds from a history of racism that is still living. i have endured racist remarks because of my non-anglo name, been followed around in stores, and felt anger for being the only asian person in elitist classroom environments. my family’s immigration experience is very much affected by government policies and political ideologies, and many of my peers have also experienced physical, verbal, and socioeconomic racial violence.
my political identity is not what i say i am but what i choose to do as who i am. when i identify as asian american, it is not to label myself but to take action in the present. i believe in building communities because surviving within systems of oppression is difficult, and people, love, and support are invaluable resources. as a person from my generation, i care about asian american activism because racism has real and harmful consequences on asian/asian americans. not only do language barriers limit asian americans from educational opportunities, healthcare, and the ballots, they also create distance within immigrant families. asian american youth, especially sikh youth, are bullied at higher rates in school. tenants who are living in rent-stabilized and rent-controlled apartments are being harassed or illegally evicted in gentrification campaigns and chinatowns are disappearing. the asian american population is the fastest-growing immigrant group in the u.s. and comprehensive immigration reform is important for all races. these are so few of the many political actions that asian american and interracial communities work on together and there are many more reasons why people of any generation should care about asian american activism.
finally asian american activism is important to me as someone from my generation because it enables me and others to imagine a future of dignity, prosperity, and creativity. many people, oppressors and the oppressed alike, do and will tell us that it’s impossible to have dignity, prosperity, and creativity in a world of racism, but my social justice imagination gives me the hope and energy to take care of myself, take care of others, and work together towards that future that everybody deserves.
We’re deepening the #NotYourAsianSidekick conversation. Come participate in the next evolution.
We’re still working out details. But we’d love it if you’d join us for the next #NYAS conversation! We’re holding a forum next week online about intergenerational Asian American organizing.
We’re hoping this will be the first of several online forums. We’d love to hear what you want to talk about, so you can submit ideas, too.
RSVP on the website, and suggest a topic for a future forum.
Over the weekend, the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California voted to allow LGBT organizations to march in the Tet Parade. Victory!
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We’re bad lovers, so we continue the cycle of hate and self-hate. We let the producers of 21 whitewash Asian characters. We let Spike Lee remake Oldboy and cast Josh Brolin as its lead. We let shows like Friends and Girls show only white relationships and use Asian and black actors and actresses to play interim lovers. We let SNL go thirty-nine years without casting a single Asian comedian. We make talented Asian actors come to America and play ninjas and yakuzas. We cast Asian actors and models with stereotypical Asian faces and un-stereotypical Asian bodies. We fetishize them by giving “sexiest man of the year” or “sexiest woman of the year.” And we ignore Baldwin’s warning that we could “lose our faith—and become possessed.”
We lose our faith in ourselves and lose our faith in our ability to love.
And instead, we partake in phony performances and dialogues of love. Drake singing “Shout out to Asian girls, let their lights dim-sum” is not love. A commercial saying “White, black, brown, yellow, purple, green, we’re all the same” is not love. I want to hear our pop culture honestly try to articulate love. I want to stop reading buzzwords like “safe space” that generate the false illusion of safety and the false sense of invasion. I want to see us love and fight for each other when no one is watching.
Trans Immigrants Disproportionately Subject to Deportation and Detention, Suffer Special Gender-Related Harms in these Processes
Barriers to Getting any Legal Immigration Status:
employment-based immigration not available because of job discrimination
family-based immigration not available because trans people’s family members often reject them, trans marriages not seen as valid, chosen and extended family not recognized
asylum and other claims often not available because of lack of access to trans-friendly legal help, less connections with immigrant communities to get information combined with strict timelines, bias and harassment from immigration officers
Criminalization of Trans People:
most convictions and some arrests can make people deportable, even if they have status
trans people falsely arrested for lack of proper identity documents or for using bathroom
police profiling of trans people as violent, prostitutes
committing survival crimes because lack access to legal employment or education (sex work, drugs, theft, etc)
Trans immigrants likely to be detained and/or deported:
trans people disproportionately HIV positive, if from country where no access to HIV meds, deportation is death sentence. also, deportation can lead to serious transphobic violence, persecution, and imprisonment in home country.
in detention trans people often isolated and/or targeted for rape, harassment abusive searches and other violence by staff and other detainees. gender misclassified based on genitals in sex segregated system
can’t access hormones and other medical treatments while detained. forced to change gendered characteristics of appearance (cut hair, give up prosthetics, etc.). results in mental anguish and increased violence because appearance may conform even less to gender identity.
infograph via the Sylvia Rivera Law Project www.srlp.org info@srlp.org 212.337.8550
Cambodian garment workers are demanding a double in their monthly minimum wage to $160 US. The current government is also feeling the heat as the opposition party has supported the strikers. After yesterday’s arrests, police opened fire with live ammunition on strikers blocking a highway south of Phnom Penh.
The local human rights group LICADHO also said in a statement that at least four civilians were shot dead and 21 injured in what it described as “the worst state violence against civilians to hit Cambodia in 15 years….No efforts have been made to prevent death and serious injury.”
Photos from the South China Morning Post. Reporting from Al-Jazeera.
