Inspired by: Aloo Gobi
Got a tattoo instead of going to therapy this week
it's really cool btw^^
I'm feeling quite numb and disheartened right now. Also really tired. Didn't get good sleep and just really frustrated by how we can change such entrenched things like white supremacy and systemic injustices.
News
😰 8 people killed and one person injured in a shooting of 3 massage parlors in Georgia yesterday. 6 of the 8 murdered were Asian women, and authorities believe the shooting was race related (see: anti-Asian), and the shooter has been arrested. This is super close to where I live, so definitely a bit scary... Below photo source: AAFC IG
🇲🇲 The past few weeks have seen an increase in violence in Myanmar as the military coup leaders crackdown on the previous administration and former leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The US announced new protections for that allow ~1,600 people from Myanmar who are currently living in the US to remain temporarily.
✌️ (From our friends at the Yappie!) After pressure from community activists and AAPI advocacy groups, Biden condemned anti-Asian violence during his first address to the nation last week. While he did not release any tangible details on specific action to address discrimination, be on the lookout for upcoming legislation from Congress.
🇻🇳 33 Vietnamese immigrants were deported by ICE on Monday despite the Biden Administration's 100-day deportation moratorium. Many were refugees who arrived before 1995, and the deportation violates a 2008 bilateral agreement between the US and Vietnam.
🚕 An Uber passenger's racist tirade against their Asian driver was caught on camera earlier this week. Their account has since been suspended by the company.
💡 Steven Yuen is nominated for Best Actor for his performance in Lee Isaac Chung's "Minari". He's "the first best actor nomination for a man of Asian heritage in nearly 20 years".
🎥 On the topic of Oscar Best Actor nominations, Riz Ahmed is also nominated for his performance in "Sound of Metal", making him the "first Muslim nominated for best lead actor". (Also check out our spotlight feature on him!). Below photo source: Goldhouse IG
🎬 And more OSCARS news! Chloé Zhao is "the first Chinese woman and the first woman of color to be nominated for Best Director" for her work with "Nomadland". She also became the second woman & first Asian woman to win Best Director, Motion Picture at the Golden Globes. Her film Nomadland also won for Best Picture, Drama. Below photo source: CAPE IG
TIL Colonization - Part 1.0
Do you ever want to learn about something and get so overwhelmed with the amount of information that you don’t know where to start?
Ok I thought we were going to write a TLDR piece on colonization (not that we ever expected to cover all of it in a newsletter lol but like a short short historical summary). None of my formal education ever really covered it, and other than some casual mentions about British Imperialism in South Asia and the French and Spanish in SE Asia, it was never something that I heard much about at school. However, as we continue to write this newsletter and also be more conscious of AAPI experiences and history (including our own histories), it's clear that there's a lot of learning to do.
But as soon as I started reading into it, I immediately got overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information that was presented. I feel like it’s kind of embarrassing that I really have no knowledge of history! that's okay, I don't know that much either. we can all learn together!
Below is a tl;dr of the colonial powers that took over different parts of Asia. We definitely didn't cover everything, but we wanted to make this list to shift the narrative and make known the oppressors*. I think it's interesting how we are going about this grouping in terms of the countries that colonized others. Is that problematic? Unsure - what is the better way to do it? It was hard to find something from the perspective of the countries/nations/people that were colonized and we were unsure how to group them together there*
This will simply be a partial list of things that we either didn't know or think are important to remember. By no means does this even come close to an exhaustive list.
Britain
Source: Portrait by English artist Joshua Reynolds, 1765
Throughout the 18th century, India was "progressively conquered by the East India Company, a violent and rapacious enterprise, supported by the British crown." In 1857, Indian folks led an uprising against this company, which was known as the First War of Indian Independence. From there on, the British Crown took over governing India.
Britain devastated India, to say the least. They destroyed thriving industries (textiles, shipbuilding, steel) with violence, taxes, and tariffs. They took a lot of resources from India and divided the country too.
There are some estimates that "some 35 million Indians died because of British policy in a succession of famines." Other atrocities, like the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (or Amritsar massacre) in 1919 led to the murder of 400 people, including kids. (source)
India finally gained independence from Britain on August 15, 1947, but the hasty partition and the resulting migration left overwhelming issues between India, Pakistan, and other areas including Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. So...much here...
In 1839-1842, China and Britain fought the first Opium War. In 1841, China ceded Hong Kong to the British as an "agreement seeking an end to the first Anglo-Chinese conflict." (source)
Context: China was trying to stamp out the opium trade and destroyed 1,000 tons of illegal opium that they seized from British traders. Britain wanted China to pay for the destruction of this property and declared war on China.
Hong Kong became an "East-West trading center" for Britain; the British were granted another 99 years of rule over Hong Kong by Beijing. (Hong Kong-China relations is a whole other topic to address.) Britain "handed over" Hong Kong to China in 1997.
France
By the late 1880s, "Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were all controlled by France" and became known as the "French Indochina." During the time, the French aimed to "civilize" and colonize Asian and Africa for economic interests. Apparently, the French never designed a "coherent colonial policy in Indochina" aside from making sure they reaped economic benefits (e.g. cheap labor, raw materials like rubber, salt, and rice, resources; the French benefited from growing and selling opium in Vietnam.) (source)
Those who worked on plantations were seen as "coolies" (derogatory term); there was a lost sense of identity during this time.
There wasn't a large French military presence in Indochina, so they mainly relied on local officials/bureaucrats.
(Note: I think Thi Bui's memoir The Best We Could Do does a good job of shedding some light on French influence on Vietnamese families through the generations)
Source: Women insurgent troops who took part in Ba Dinh uprising arrested and kept by French colonist.
The First Indochina War between 1945-1954 left Vietnam in a stalemate with the French (tons of complexities here). Vietnam became free of France after the Viet Minh successfully attacked the French base at Dien Bien Phu.
Spain
Source: The arrival of the Spanish in the Philippines
In 1521, Ferdinand Magellan (yeah, that guy you were told we should applaud for his exploration) reached the Philippines. He named that group of islands after King Philip II of Spain: Las Felipinas. (source). The Philippines was under Spanish rule for 300+ years basically. During this time, Filipinos were "seen as savages that needed to be controlled and civilized" and had to adopt the beliefs of the Spanish colonizers... think white supremacy, colorism, etc. (source).
A notable revolutionary leader, Jose Rizal, wrote two books about the abuses of Spanish rule in the Philippines that were widely read; he was executed in Dec. 30, 1896.
All things considered, we will revisit this topic later with more comments and details. If anyone has any recommendations on books/articles to read, lectures to watch, or people to listen to, that would be HIGHLY appreciated!
Small Feelings
Bad body image days these past few weeks? off
Also, I feel like im getting so so so addicted to my phone HELP!!!
me too.... it's so bad
Thinking about warm winds and laying down in the grass in a Philly summer
and rooftop parties : )
same D:
✨ S P O T L I G H T ✨
Alok Vaid Menon (they/them)
Writer, Activist, Performance Artist
Photography by Elif Kücük via Platform Mag
I'm so excited to her Alok speak tomorrow on day 2 of Microsoft Include. I first heard about Alok through their Instagram (which is really educational and inspiring).
Alok Menon, who was born in 1991, grew up in a small, white, conservative town in Texas. They did have a tight-knit brown community in Texas, but when it came to queerness, "there was no community there." They say, "Growing up as part of the Indian diaspora I was always made to feel that my sexuality and my gender were something that I picked up 'in America', and was routinely told that there were no LGBTQ people in India" (source).
While at Stanford, where they studied Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies, and Sociology (Masters), they experienced a culture shock (first exposure to white liberalism). They studied all the time, became involved in activism, and found the vocabulary to express their life experience.
In 2011, Alok moved to Cape Town, South Africa to work at a trans organization, their first time community organizing. Later, they were a part of the "South Asian trans performance duo DarkMatter along with fellow gender non-conforming artist Janani Balasubramanian." In 2016, they worked on The Trans List, a film about transgender stories in America.
Alok has traveled around the world, presenting their work in over 40 countries. They noticed that everywhere they went, people stared; they realized (esp. after an assault), "everyone could be a potential threat." This led to their writing the book Femme in Public (2017). Last year, they published another book, Beyond the Gender Binary.
Today, Alok leads the #DeGenderFashion movement, is an artist in residence at the Annette von Droste Foundation Center for Literature, and continues to speak out and create work on gender non-conformity, transness, self-determination, trauma, and bodily diversity.
Podcast Episode Recommendation
Events
💪 Asian Americans Advancing Justice is running 3 free workshops on bystander intervention training this month with the org iHollaback. I’ve been to one of them before, and it was really helpful! One of them is specifically for Asian Americans facing harassment:
• Bystander Intervention 2.0 - Conflict De-Escalation Workshop: today, March 17th, 2021. 2:00 PM ET/ 1:00pm CT/ 12:00pm MT/ 11:00 am PT/ 9:00 am HST. Register Here
• How to Respond to Harassment for People Experiencing Anti-Asian/American Harassment Training Workshop: March 19th, 2021. 04:00pm ET/03:00pm CT/ 02:00pm MT/ 01:00am PT/ 11:00am HST Register Here