Historical Note: Japanese Americans Support Black Civil Rights Struggle

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Amerasia Journal blog

Twenty years after Japanese Americans had left the World War II concentration camps, the Black Civil Rights and Black Power Movements stirred Japanese Americans into a four-year movement to repeal the law that gave the U.S. President executive fiat to institute concentration camps at any time.  This was one of the earliest issues at the beginning of the Asian American Movement that shows how Japanese Americans have an intertwined history with African Americans, and the interactions it produced.

What follows are excerpts from an article in Amerasia 2:2 (Fall 1974)…

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From the editor’s introduction:

The Emergency Detention Act, as Okamura points out, “might have become another obsolete and unenforced law, but it started to gain new meaning in early 1967.” Rumors spread rapidly through Black communities that concentration camps were being prepared for Black people in order to put an end to their “riots.” Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Malcolm X , and eventually Martin Luther King, Jr. claimed that if Japanese Americans could be placed in concentration camps, so could Black people. Rumors also spread through the anti-war movement that mass incarcerations were being planned to thwart its protest of the Vietnam war.

It was in this setting that a four-year campaign to repeal the Emergency Detention Act was launched and spearheaded by the authors of the following articles and commentaries. Ray Okamura and Edison Uno served as national co-chairmen for the National Ad Hoc Committee for Repeal of the Emergency Detention Act. Judge Robert Takasugi was the national legal counsel for JACL, and Hiroshi Kanno served as the JACL’s Midwest District chairman for the repeal drive. These articles are the first public discussions, which have been written by the participants themselves, on the campaign that culminated with the successful repeal of Title II on September 21, 1971.

More on the campaign to repeal Title II, below the fold…

Continue reading →

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Remembering Bunchy Carter and John Huggins

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Amerasia Journal blog

Back in January 2008, the African Student Union at UCLA held a memorial for Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, two Black Panthers who were shot and killed in UCLA’s Campbell Hall on January 17, 1969. While appearing to be the result of a power struggle between the Black Panther Party and the Us Organization (led by Ron Karenga), the FBI’s Cointelpro had a manipulative hand in setting up the shooting deaths of Carter and Huggins.  Bunchy Carter formed the So. California Chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968, and both Carter and John Huggins were Deputy Ministers of the L.A. Chapter.

Ericka Huggins (John Huggins widow) and Elaine Brown were featured speakers for the day-long memorial event.  Elaine Brown asked the people in the audience to raise their hands if they were there that day.  I raised my hand, even though I arrived at Campbell Hall several hours after the shootings had happened and only the hush of death was left.  In those days, Campbell Hall was always full of life—the halls were filled with members of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, Brown Berets, and Yellow Brotherhood.  The stillness of Campbell Hall on that fateful day and what I was to later learn about John Huggins and Bunchy Carter has left a lifelong imprint on me.

Later that day, I wanted to give copies of Asian Americans:  The Movement and the Moment, to Ericka and Elaine, as a way of thanks to them for the inspirational role that the Black Panther Party had played for the Asian Americans in the 1960s, which helped the development of the Asian American Movement from the late  1960s to the early 1970s.  As people were gathering for the afternoon workshops, Ericka saw me and said “You were there that day…” and gave me a hug.  I felt like I was truly blessed by angel at that moment.  Ericka passed on that trademark Black Panther love for the people, and continues to give life to the spirits of John Huggins and Bunchy Carter.

I dedicate this blog to the memory of Bunchy Carter and John Huggins who gave their lives in the fight for bettering the lives of all oppressed people.  The Carter/Huggins memorial is now an annual event as part of a movement to rename Campbell Hall to Carter-Huggins Hall and to educate the local community on the tactics of the powers-that-be when they are threatened by a strong people’s movement for change.

My encounter with Ericka Huggins prompted me to include her in some way in Amerasia’s women’s issue, which I was co-guest editing with Stephanie Santos.  Our call for papers was focused on women involved in social movements.  To have Ericka talk about the roles of women in the Black Panther Organization would certainly be a highlight that would help bond women of color.  When I approached Ericka to write something, she countered with a suggestion to do a conversation with Yuri Kochiyama—our own human bridge between Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders and African Americans.

This conversation took place on another historic date—August 8, 2008, opening day of the Beijing Olympics.  As Yuri and Ericka compared notes on women’s organizations, Ericka mentioned an African American women’s group named Black Women Stirring the Waters.  Yuri exclaimed, “That’s a good name…”  And Ericka shared how the group’s name came from a Sojourner Truth quote—“I am glad to see that men are getting their rights, but I want women to get theirs, and while the water is stirring, I will step into the pool.”  The published conversation was titled “Stirrin’ Waters and Buildin’ Bridges.”

It was coincidental that the women’s issue was published during the 40th anniversary of UCLA Ethnic Studies.  A year long calendar of activities celebrated the growth and development of all four ethnic studies centers at UCLA.  The Asian American Studies Center sponsored an event to highlight this Amerasia Journal women’s issue on November 5, 2009 as one of our 40th anniversary events, as well as to bring people to see the “Breaking Ground” exhibit at Powell Library.  The title of the event “Buildin’ Bridges and Stirrin’ Waters.”

As it turned out, featuring Ericka Huggins as our keynote speaker was a great magnet for this event.  The fact that it was a “bridge building” event, and it was celebrating women of color activism, there was no trouble getting involvement from staff and students at the Asian American Studies Center.  Members from the Asian American Studies Graduate Student Association, AASC staff, and undergrad workstudy students all helped to produce an enthusiastic celebration.  Students, faculty, staff, and community members—about ninety people filled a room just off the Powell Libary Rotunda, with food, laughter, and good energy.

So from the premature deaths of Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, Amerasia gained the insights of two women who are joined by the tragic losses of revolutionary Black leadership—as Yuri was holding the dying Malcolm X that devastating day of February 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom, four years later Ericka was a widow with a two-week-old child.

In closing, respects to the memory of Bunchy Carter and John Huggins this January 17, 2011.  May their souls continue to inspire younger generations to struggle for a more just world to live in.

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Thomas I. Yamashita Prize accepting nominations for 2011

Posted on January 12, 2011 by admin

UC Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Social Change is now accepting nominations for the 2011 FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize

The FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize is awarded annually to an outstanding young social change activist/scholar in California.  The award of $2,500 honors a person whose work transforms the existing social landscape and serves as a bridge between the academy and the community.  An awardee helps to build the capacity of community-based organizations and social movements to confront pressing issues by applying her/his academic expertise.  Simultaneously, she/he enriches academic scholarship by sharing the insights and knowledge produced from community engagement with the broader academic community.

NOTE: The award is not limited to students or scholars, but an honoree’s work should reflect a commitment to strengthening ties between the academy and communities.  There is no age limit for this award, but the honoree should be in the early stages of his/her career as a social change activist/scholar.

Past Recipients

Catalina Garzón, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley, was the 2010 Yamashita Prize recipient. Catalina has dedicated herself to building bridges between the university and communities facing environmental and economic injustices. In her academic work, Catalina develops community-led social action research models that emphasize equity and power-sharing between grassroots groups and researchers. Catalina’a activism and advocacy spans several years and two continents, and is consistently and consciously linked to her research collaborations. As a UC Berkeley undergrad, Catalina was co-chair of Nindakin: People of Color for Environmental Justice, a statewide advocacy group for communities facing environmental injustices. Nindakin was involved in linking resources on the UC Berkeley campus and surrounding communities of color in the Bay Area. In 1999 Catalina also worked with PODER, an environmental justice group based in San Francisco’s Mission District, to develop a student solidarity campaign at UC Berkeley for Fuerza Unida, a group of former Levi’s garment workers in Texas organizing for workers rights and corporate accountability. Catalina’s undergraduate senior thesis focused on the redevelopment of abandoned contaminated properties (brownfields) in West Oakland and Bayview Hunter’s Point. She worked with staff at the Urban Habitat Program to examine if and how community residents were being involved in decision-making about how brownfields should be cleaned up and redeveloped in low-income communities of color around the Bay Area. After graduation, Catalina was selected as a fellow in the Bay Area Communities Initiative and placed at the Land Restoration and Community Revitalization Project at the Urban Habitat Program, where she engaged in policy advocacy efforts to advance community-driven brownfields redevelopment. In 2001 Catalina returned to UC Berkeley to pursue a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning, focusing her master’s thesis on providing a community-friendly guide to the brownfields redevelopment process in West Oakland. Selected to be a fellow in the Sustainable Communities Leadership Program, Catalina worked with an Oakland-based nonprofit research institute (Pacific Institute) to develop and implement a series of trainings on refinery flaring and open space preservation with community leaders and activists in Richmond and North Richmond. In 2003 Catalina began her doctoral studies. Two years later she traveled to the nation of Colombia as a Human Rights Center Fellow to provide research support to the U’Wa Defense Project, an indigenous rights organization working to protect U’Wa land and communities from oil extraction. Currently, Catalina is writing a dissertation on participatory research collaborations between researchers and community groups in the environmental justice movement in the Bay Area. She continues to work part-time at the Pacific Institute, developing and facilitating popular education trainings and community-based planning projects with environmental justice groups in the Bay Area and beyond.

To read about other past recipients of the FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize, go to: <http://issc.berkeley.edu/yamashita_prize.php>http://issc.berkeley.edu/yamashita_prize.php .

2011 Nomination Process

The FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize uses a nomination system, where someone other than the nominee identifies the nominee, their contributions, and the kinds of expertise they bring to understanding how change works.  To download a nomination form, go to <http://issc.berkeley.edu/yamashita_prize.php>http://issc.berkeley.edu/yamashita_prize.php.

Nomination due date:  Monday, February 14, 2011, by 5pm

(The Prize will be announced within four to six weeks after the deadline date.  An award ceremony will be held in the spring.)

Please send nomination forms and supporting materials to:

FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: The Thomas I. Yamashita Prize

Center for the Study of Social Change

Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

University of California

2420 Bowditch Street, MC 5670

Berkeley, CA  94720-5670

About Thomas I. Yamashita

Thomas Isao Yamashita was an undergraduate student in civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the class of 1942.  He was one of the first Asian-Americans elected to two of the University of California’s honor societies—Winged Helmet and the Order of the Golden Bear.  The internment of Americans of Japanese descent on the West Coast of the United States in 1942 made it impossible for him to graduate from Berkeley.  He eventually received his engineering degree from the University of Nebraska.  Even so, Tom supported and cherished the University of California at Berkeley and was a life member of the Alumni Association.

As a civil engineer, Tom spent the majority of his career in Hong Kong. His work did not involve building the structures that typify its landscape.  His work is unseen, focusing on foundations, on solving the complex engineering problems that enable steel and glass towers to be built.  His work made possible the transportation corridors that allowed the city to become a regional economic hub.  Through his leadership, Tom developed new construction techniques that altered the practice of building.  His work changed the city’s landscape.  In this spirit of engineering the foundations of change, the FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize is housed at the Institute for the Study of Social Change.

To make a contribution to the FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize click <http://givetocal.berkeley.edu/browse/?u=64>here.

For more information about the Prize and nomination process go to <http://issc.berkeley.edu/yamashita_prize.php>http://issc.berkeley.edu/yamashita_prize.php or contact Dr. Christine Trost: (510) 643-7237, <mailto:ctrost@berkeley.edu>ctrost@berkeley.edu.

To download a nomination form, go to <http://issc.berkeley.edu/yamashita_prize.php>http://issc.berkeley.edu/yamashita_prize.php.

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Frank Emi of Heart Mountain Draft Resisters Passes On

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Frank Emi, one of the prime movers of the Heart Mountain Draft Resisters, passed away on December 1, 2010.  His funeral will be December 10, 2010 at the Nichiren Buddhist Temple, 2810 East Fourth Street, Los Angeles at 10:00 a.m.

For a full story on Frank Emi’s life, please see Martha Nakagawa’s article in the Rafu Shimpo.

From Amerasia Volume 33, Number 3 (2007)—”World>War<Watada,” this excerpt describes Emi’s role in the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee:

The Resisters teleconference with Lieutenant Watada: (from left to right) Yosh Kuromiya, Frank Emi, and Paul Tsuneishi. From Curtis Choy's DVD "Watada, Resister." Photograph courtesy of Curtis Choy

Frank Emi, Yosh Kuromiya, and the Heart Mountain Resisters

While interned, second generation Japanese American Frank Emi refused to sign a government loyalty document renouncing allegiance to Japan.  He never had an allegiance to Japan, so how could he renounce such an allegiance?  The U.S. government, he remarked, asked “a very stupid question.” The U.S. government had forced the Southern California-raised Emi to sell his family’s business for six percent of its value and had imprisoned him at Heart Mountain. There, his wife bore a son into a world without the rights Emi once possessed as a U.S. citizen.

As a married man with children, Emi was not eligible for the military draft.  He nevertheless stepped forward to help form the Fair Play Committee (FPC) at the Heart Mountain internment camp and to spearhead the resistance against the draft of male internees. The FPC professed loyalty to the U.S. in part by supporting the restoration of Japanese American civil rights.  It fought the military draft because “it was unfair, unjust, immoral and legally questionable.” The group’s circulars revealed the harsh deprivation of the American civil liberties and roused internees’ support. To stop the spreading protests, Wyoming’s U.S. Attorney indicted Emi and six others for conspiring to counsel, aid, and abet Heart Mountain’s draft-age Japanese Americans in evading the draft.

These defendant-resisters argued that they did not engage in a “guileful and stealthy avoidance of the duty to serve.” Instead, they encouraged interned young men to test the legality of applying selective service laws to people incarcerated based on race. They viewed their acts as patriotic efforts to uphold the U.S. Constitution—to establish Japanese Americans’ right to equal treatment as U.S. citizens. Federal Judge Eugene Rice convicted the FPC leaders and sentenced them to four years in federal prison.  After one-and-a-half years of incarceration, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the resisters’ convictions because the judge’s jury instructions “prevented the jury from considering whether the FPC ever urged Heart Mountain’s Nisei to ‘evade the draft. . .as opposed to refusing it out of a good-faith belief that the draft law was unconstitutional as applied to people illegally confined on account of their race.”

Excerpt from:  “From Heart Mountain to Iraq:  Lieutenant Watada and a Long Line of Resistance” by Eric K. Yamamoto and Ashley Kaho’omino’aka Kaiao Obrey.  Eric K. Yamamoto is Professor of Law, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii.  Ashley Kaho’omino’aka Kaiao Obrey is a student at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii.

For interview video clips of Frank Emi and a short biography, please see the Discover Nikkei website.

Below is an excerpt from Curtis Choy’s documentary film Watada, Resister that features Frank Emi:

There is another blog posting on Frank Emi by Gann Matsuda on the Manzanar Committee website.

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Russell C. Leong E-Book Series Demo

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

For those of you interested in the Russell C. Leong Literary E-Book Series and want to know what an E-Book is, we filmed a demo of what it looks like as an app on the iPad.  We will be developing E-Book apps for other platforms as well, including the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, and smart phones.  For more information on the series, please see our earlier post announcing it.

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“Breaking Ground” Powell Library Exhibit: 40 Years of UCLA Asian American Studies

Posted on November 8, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Poster for Breaking Ground Exhibit Sept. 24-Dec. 11, 2009

When I was a high school student in the mid-1960s, I used to trek up to the West Wing of UCLA’s Powell Library on Sunday nights.  This was the place to see and be seen in the social scene of Japanese Americans back in the day.  Not just UCLA students, but (pre-) Asian Americans from many different southland college campuses were part of this scene.  From Friday night volleyball at what was then called Cal State L.A. (now CSULA), to Saturday night’s dance at the Roger Young Auditorium, to Sunday night at the West Wing—this was the weekend schedule of many Sansei students in the 1960s.

Fast forward to 2009, Powell Library is to be the venue for the first exhibition of Asian American Studies that we know of.  Marji Lee (Reading Room Librarian for the  UCLA Asian American Studies Center) and I embarked on a project that neither of us, nor anyone at the center had experience in.  Our challenge was to create a 40-year retrospective of UCLA Asian American Studies as part of the  commemoration of the 40th anniversary  of the Ethnic Studies centers at UCLA.  To say the least, Marji and I were both overwhelmed with the task at hand, having no idea where to start.  This would be my first close working relationship with the steward of the Reading Room, after having worked at the Center for over 20 years.

Flyer information on Breaking Ground Exhibit

Come two months before we were supposed to have the exhibit finished and up for display in the hallowed space of the Powell Library Rotunda, we finally got our butts in gear with whatever half-baked thoughts or fancies we had for this exhibit.  With some general vaguish ideas, we proceeded to work on what we knew we had material for and what we could handle in the quick time table that we had left.  Marji had a good idea of what needed to be shown, and I had my own mindset of what I wanted to show…but she insisted on making staff involved in some of the planning to insure that their ideas were incorporated into the exhibit.  Ah, the collective efforts of bygone days still find a means of expression even in 2009!

Panel entitled: From Classes to Interdepartmental Degree Program (1976-2004) to Asian American Studies Department

We arrived at the title of the exhibit:  “Breaking Ground:  40 Years of UCLA Asian American Studies.”  Gena Hamamoto (former Asst. Director of EthnoCommunications)  came up with “Breaking Ground” at one of the staff meetings.  Marji came up with the three themes:  “Creating Knowledge, Preserving Legacy, Promoting Leadership” which captured the broad strokes of the exhibit.  I created the plant which had broken ground and designed the poster to advertise the event.  And then the pressure was on.

Marji and I divided up the three of the four corners of the Powell Rotunda.  I took one corner to do a 40 year timeline, showcasing old vintage photos and posters from 1969 to the present.  Marji took two corners to showcase student leadership and work, civic and community engagement, the development of faculty and staff, from the beginning to now, and the transition of the teaching unit from the IDP (interdepartmental program that was formerly the teaching unit of the AASC) to the birth of the new Asian American Studies Department.  Marji was also in charge of the seven glass cases that housed vintage to current  AASC publications, and publications of current members of the AASC FAC (Faculty Advisory Committee) and past staff.  Marji got the help of Reading Room assistant Anna Lu, and Gena Hamamoto working with Asian American Studies MA students—all the pieces started started coming together.

Christmas newsletters from the Yuri Kochiyama Special Collection; program from an event commemorating the Fred Korematsu Special Collection.

Archival materials were also housed in the cases, such as buttons for various causes from International Women’s Day to Jesse Jackson for President.  Since the Reading Room has been a huge reservoir of “goodies” from the past, and had also just suffered from a mini-disaster where many of the books in the Reading Room suffered water damage from a leaking pipe upstairs (the 3rd floor of the Center), Marji was at once anxious to showcase some of her collections.  At the same time, Marji was having a hard deciding what to show and what not—because you can’t show everything!  She provided the posters for the timeline, as well as many vintage shots.  Jolie Chea, AASC’s first 40th Anniversary coordinator, and Jean Paul deGuzman helped me gleen the old CrossCurrents of the Center, which are all on line thanks to Tam Nguyen and his many helpers.  I incorporated Susie Ling’s Timeline of the Center (which ends at 1995), to our own gleening of past CrossCurrents, along with additions from 1995 to 2009—to give a selected timeline from 1969 to 2009,  broken into decades.

There was a grand opening event for the exhibit on October 6, which welcomed a crowd of about 100 people. Head of the College Library Alison Armstrong welcomed guests to Powell Library followed by Don Nakanishi, Director of AASC, to kick off the 40th anniversary of Ethnic Studies and AASC.  News of the exhibit was covered in UCLA Today:  Faculty and Staff News, the Theta Kappa Phi Sorority website (which I am an alum), and halfspoon.com—ART news! as well as our press release on the UCLA Newsroom website.

Opening event, October 6, 2009.

Don Nakanishi, Marji Lee, Tritia Toyota, and Melany Dela Cruz Viesca at the opening event.

Timeline: 1960s-1970s, From High Potential to Bakke

Unfortunately, the exhibit never got covered in the Daily Bruin.  But AASC held three events there to draw people to the exhibit.

Besides the opening event, we had an event for the Amerasia Journal women’s issue entitled “Where Women Tell Stories” which I co-edited with Stephanie Santos, our former assistant editor.  My next blog post will cover that event, which was called “Buildin’ Bridges, Stirrin’ Waters” featuring guest keynote speaker Ericka Huggins (who is featured in the women’s issue in conversation with Yuri Kochiyama). Pacific Ties staff reunited at another event sponsored by AASC.

The “Breaking Ground” exhibit at the Powell Rotunda was another milestone for UCLA Asian American Studies.  It is as if we had arrived into the institution. However, with no illusions intended, this was but a moment.  We still need to be concerned with our continued relevance within the institution.  This includes our responsibility to keep relevant to students and community, as well as the university continuing to recognize our relevance to the broader education of American society.

A second post will contain pictures that I couldn’t fit into this one…

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“Breaking Ground” Exhibit—continued

Posted on November 8, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog
Pacific Ties Newsmagazine:  UCLA student newspaper produced by Asian and Pacific American students.  Collage of past frontcovers.

Opening night: Staff, students, faculty, and friends.

Student and Community Panels: collage of past Pacific Ties frontcovers on the nearest panel.

EthnoCommunications had a monitor set up to show a sample of the student films that have been produced from their class every year.
History of AASC’s Directors and Staff
Co-curators Marji and Mary celebrate opening night—(“whew, we came out of this alive!”)

University librarians (from left) Normal Corral, Lise Snyder, Alison Armstrong, Miki Goral and me, opening night event.
Collage of Amerasia Journal covers from past years.
Vintage Center publications and Free Chol Soo Lee button.
Publications from faculty and past students of the Asian American Studies MA Program.
Timeline: “The 2000s: From 9/11 to the Internet Universe”
Timeline: “The 1990s: From Concentration Camps (50th Anniversary) to Wen Ho Lee.”
Timeline: The early 1970s, when Asian American Studies was part of the Asian American Movement, Anti-War Movement, and Third World People’s Movement.
Timeline:  Vintage posters and photos, early 1970s.
AASC vintage publications.  Roots:  An Asian American Reader was the first textbook publication of the Center, selling over 20,000 copies.

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Call for Abstracts: Chinese Writing in the Americas

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

An International Editorial Collaboration among UCLA, Tsinghua University, and Brown University

Amerasia Journal, UCLA Asian American Studies Center

Consulting Guest Co-Editors:

Prof. Wang Ning
Tsinghua University
wangning@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn

Prof. Evelyn Hu-DeHart
Brown University
Evelyn_Hu-Dehart@brown.edu

Amerasia Journal Editor and Adjunct Prof. Russell Leong
UCLA
rleong@ucla.edu

Abstract Review & Publication Deadlines

Due date for two-page abstracts: December 1, 2010
Due date of final papers: April 1, 2011
Publication date of issue: Spring 2012

Abstracts and essays should be sent to the individuals above.

The editorial procedure is a three-step process.  The guest editors, in consultation with theAmerasia Journal editors and peer reviewers, make decisions on the final essays:

a. Approval of abstracts
b. Submission of essays and peer review
c. Revision and final submissions

Chinese Writing in the Americas is a collaborative transnational effort among three prominent institutions and their editors in the U.S. and China: UCLA and Amerasia Journal(Russell Leong), Tsinghua University and Prof. Wang Ning, Brown University and Prof. Evelyn Hu-DeHart. All three—together with other scholars and writers from the U.S., mainland China, and Taiwan—participated in the recent conference at Nanjing University in 2009 organized by Nanjing University and the UCLA Asian American Studies Department by Profs. Cheng Aimin (Nanjing) and Jinqi Ling (UCLA).

More information below the fold…

Continue reading →

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Karen Tei Yamashita, in the pages of Amerasia

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Last week, we marked the welcome news that Karen Tei Yamashita’s I Hotel was named as one of the five finalists for the National Book Award for Fiction.  As we mentioned, Amerasia has had a long-running relationship with Yamashita, going as far back as 1976, when we published her short story “The Bath.”  Below, we are reprinting an excerpt from “The Bath,” along with portions of two interviews with the author and a critical piece about her writing.  In particular, the interviews provide valuable background and context to Yamashita’s work.

For those interested in reading more by and about Karen Tei Yamashita in Amerasia, we have provided links to the pieces, available via Metapress.  (Registration with Metapress is required for the PDF downloads of the articles.)

Karen Tei Yamashita atop the new International Hotel, 30th anniversary of the eviction of International Hotel tenants. © Mary Uyematsu Kao, 2007

“The Bath” (1976)

By Karen Yamashita

(Note: “The Bath“ is the first-place winner in Amerasia Journal’s Short Story Contest for 1975.)

In their house they have often said that mother has a special fascination for the bath. Father pointed this out many years ago. Perhaps it was only in answer to mother’s suggestion that father might take a bath more frequently. Remembering, father seemed to take baths once a week on Saturday nights. Father bragged of his once a week bath but only in relation to mother’s nightly affair. Over the years, it seems mother has taken to early morning baths as well, so father’s comments on mother and the bath continue with an added flourish.

He seems to believe that certain of mother’s habits have come together to conspire against him by beginning all at once in the morning….

The complete story is available at  Amerasia Journal 3:1 (1976): 137-152.

More on Karen Tei Yamashita from the pages for Amerasia after the jump…

Continue reading →

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Unburying/Part 2: Ching Ming

Posted on October 25, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Food offerings for the ancestral monument.

A bag of tortilla strips, two cans of Bud Light beer, red-and-white striped peppermint candies, and a bag of American grown Blue Ribbon long grain rice were the food offerings to the 1888 ancestral monuments. While appearing somewhat humorous, and jarring to the senses, the Taoist practitioner bridged the age-old Chinese traditions with local modern-day products. Holy water inside a bug sprayer allowed for better coverage of the land to be blessed. This is Ching Ming in the 21st century, East L.A.

On April 4, 2009, the Chinese Historical Society held Ching Ming rites at the Los Angeles Historical/Cultural Marker Number 486 at Evergreen Cemetery. About 45 people attended to support the completion of two historical markers that were in the process of being built. The original historical site, marked by the monuments built in 1888, are the oldest known Chinese structures in Los Angeles.  The surrounding area is where the new monument will honor the Chinese ancestors whose graves were covered over in the 1930s. Irvin Lai, who has since passed away, spoke on the need to keep the pressure on Los Angeles City government to complete this project, as the architect’s plans for the memorials were viewed by those who gathered for this Ching Ming event.

Volunteers offer incense at the 1888 site. Yeah that's Russell Leong offering incense.

The Taoist practioner guided a group of volunteers in offering incense at the Historical Marker, which served as a place for many Los Angeles Chinese Americans to practice their Ching Ming traditional rites from the early days up to 1965, when access to the monuments was denied by Evergreen Cemetery (Evergreen Cemetery was bought by a Chinese American funeral company in 1993).  It wasn’t until 1997 that the efforts of the Chinese Historical Society culminated in the restoration of these original monuments, making them accessible again for Ching Ming practitioners.

After everyone had lunch, the group took a walk over to view the graves of Donaldina Cameron and Tien Fuh Wu, one of the slave girls she had saved. Cameron’s grave serves as an ironic historical tidbit in the history of Chinese Americans at Evergreen Cemetery.

For more information on the Ching Ming project, email Gilbert Hom—gilberthom@hotmail.com

Coming event on Irvin Lai:

Chinese American Citizens Alliance & Chinese Historical Society of Southern California Invite You to Attend a Community Memorial Tribute & Celebration Honoring Irvin R. Lai

Irvin Lai, past president of Chinese Historical Society, took up many civil rights struggles affecting Chinese Americans.

Saturday, November 6, 2010, 9:45 am – 11:00 am

First Chinese Baptist Church (942 Yale Street, Los Angeles Chinatown 90012)

(Parking in rear: access from Adobe Street off of College.)

Text of the plaque reads: "Nineteenth Century Los Angeles Chinese Cemetery Shrine. This monument is the oldest surviving structure of Chinese settlement in the Los Angeles area. It illustrates the use of traditional ceremonies brought from China and honors the lives of 19th century Chinese Americans. The Chinese Historical Society of Southern California respectfully dedicates the preservation of the shrine to the memory of those pioneers. Built 1888—Declared 1990"

Prominent community members and leaders will celebrate and give recognition to the life and dedication of Irvin R. Lai. Most notably remembered as the leading spokesman for California’s landmark “Roast Duck Bill” in 1982, Irvin Lai had a significant and enduring impact in fighting for fair and equal opportunities of Chinese Americans in Los Angeles.

For related subjects, see Amerasia Journal 34:3 (2008), “How Do Asian Americans Create Places?”

Donaldina Cameron's headstone at Evergreen Cemetery, East L.A.

Tien Fuh Wu's headstone, about two headstones away from Donaldina Cameron's.

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