Anti-Asian Violence - Part II
Cover inspired by California’s Lost (and Found) Punjabi-Mexican Cuisine
🥰 Thanks to everyone who has stuck around for this - we're on the 5th newsletter, and it's been a really interesting and educational experience writing these. Our goal when we first started was to fill the gaps in our own educational and promote dialogue and discussion around shared (or not shared) experiences within the Asian American community. We hope that reading this helps you learn just a little more, and if you have any topics you want to cover, please email aroundthetablenewsletter@gmail.com! We also hope you consider sharing this with a friend.
For those of you who are new, we usually put a prompt for reflection purposes (we would love to read your response via this anonymous form or email!):
Prompt: At this point in July, we have either been around family members for a lot more time than we had expected or ...been alone, quite removed from family. Is there anything you’ve always wanted to say or do with a family member that you haven’t yet? Any relationships you want to change? As we are getting older and probably spending less and less time with them each year, what are your intentions for these relationships?
Also, huge thank you to Asfand Cheema for writing the spotlight this week on Kumail Nanjiani! Follow his project to create data visualizations on Pakistan (@graphical_tajziya on Instagram - tajziya means "analysis" in Urdu!)
- Jamie & Melinda (also a note from Melinda: Jamie makes the awesome artwork each week!! Thank you)
P.S. Sorry this is a little late - both of us had work meetings that went long. 🤡
✨ Shameless Self Plugs ✨
✨Melinda ✨ is helping build a Google calendar with Hello Prosper to collect all the Asian holidays that you and your family/communities may celebrate. Check it out! If you see a tab/important holiday that's missing, please leave a comment!
Some Things You Should Know
😷 In Hawaii, COVID racial disparities are particularly bad for Pacific Islanders. Pacific Islanders make up a significant portion (30-35%) of the essential workforce and face similar issues like "higher rates of asthma, diabetes, heart disease". They make up 4% of the population but 25% of cases in the state. Just as minority communities on the mainland have experienced, the pandemic is exposing "structural racism ... and inequities in the social determinants of health".
⚖️ Caste, California, & Cisco. The first discrimination suit on the basis of caste was filed by California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed against Cisco on behalf of Dalit employees. In Silicon Valley, where a large proportion of engineers are Indian, many companies do not have caste as a protected category, and only recently in 2016 was the first survey on caste discrimination in the US conducted.
😢 "Grant Imahara was an electrical engineer who dedicated his life to using his skills to make people smile." The former host of "Mythbusters" died on Tuesday.
😡 Not Fun Updates. There were two recent instances (and probably more...) of Starbucks baristas being racist by writing "ISIS" and "Ching" on the cup of a Muslim and Asian girl's order, respectively. Really? Sis, read the room - aren't we too old for this shit?
👀 “These titanium legs don’t buckle."Ahead of VP speculation, Tammy Duckworth responds to Tucker Carlson's comments on her support for removing statues of Founding Fathers who owned slaves.
🙌 Much needed relief for international students. After settling a lawsuit filed by Harvard and MIT - and joined via amicus briefs by schools and states around the country, the Trump administration reversed the ICE guidance on deporting international students only taking online classes in the Fall. The vast majority of these students are from Asia, and while this episode of panic seems to have passed, it's important to remember that administrative policies and practices continue to target immigrant families and children and undocumented individuals.
The new CAREN Act... to stop the Karens!
In the past month, we've come across several pretty upsetting videos of "Karens" a.k.a. white women who not only have made condescending and racist remarks but also have weaponized 9-1-1 calls against people-of-color. We remember the video of a Black man (a birder), who asked a White woman to leash her dog in a part of Central Park, per the rules, to which she responded by calling 9-1-1 and lying that he was putting her in danger—he was standing a safe distance away while recording her yelling and almost strangling her dog. ☹️ Just last Monday, she was charged with filing a false police report. Fewer than three weeks later, a video emerges of a woman reprimanding a Filipino man for writing "Black Lives Matter" outside his own home, which she failed to consider when she continued to "educate" him on how it's illegal to deface someone's private property.
Most recently, another "Karen” stopped an Asian family during a hike, saying "you can't be in this country" and "you guys are breaking the law" for bringing a dog. She tried to call 9-1-1. But, the family's dog was leashed, which the trail permitted. (Some people called her "Backwoods Beth," which is a bit problematic since such names stem from historical classism. Still, we're sad that her behavior was xenophobic.) Dozens of more Karen-like situations caught on camera can be found here.
Although #Karen has become a meme (there are almost 820,000 posts tagged #Karen on Instagram), the "Karen" character speaks volumes to the history of white women "falsely accusing Black men" (most infamously, Carolyn Bryant and Emmett Till) and "use of police power to enforce the racial order." With additional nicknames like "BBQ Becky" and "Permit Patty," and even "Ken" for male Karens, people on the Internet have continued to poke fun at, express anger towards, and criticize these folks for creating harm. We're reminded that although the memes do seem to be calling out racist acts, generating dialogue, and maybe even helping push legislation forward, it's important that the comical aspect of the meme doesn't somehow minimize the real harm that "Karens" have done to people-of-color.
Luckily, action is being taken. On July 7, San Francisco District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton introduced the CAREN Act (Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies) at San Francisco's Board of Supervisors meeting to make it illegal for someone to "fabricate false racially-biased emergency reports." He noted, "Under existing laws, there are no consequences for people who make fraudulent emergency calls based on the perception of another individual to be a threat due to their race, religion, ethnicity...sexual orientation, gender identity, or outward appearance." The highlights of this act? (1) Those harmed by racially motivated calls can sue the callers (2) Those who violate the act would be liable for damages of at least $1,000. This act was introduced alongside a bill drafted by California State Assembly member, Rob Banta, on discriminatory emergency calls. The amendment added on June 26, 2020 would designate discriminatory calls as hate crimes. One could be sued for up to $10,000. Will these acts pass into law? We'll see.
Last year, the Oregon Senate and House passed a bill that punishes racist 9-1-1 callers up to $250. Signed by the governor, this bill was introduced by Representative Janelle Bynum, who was questioned by police after a 9-1-1- call on her, alongside the only two other Black lawmakers in the Oregon Legislature. Washington also passed a similar law that took effect on June 11, and similar proposals are being brought up in New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota.
Anti-Asian Violence - Part II
Last week, we wrote about confronting current and historical of Anti-Asian violence. At least for us, openly talking about violence is quite a new experience and feeling, something that we've been pretty privileged not to have grappled with. But, as we are learning about instances of COVID-related violence, we wanted to dig into the underlying history and complex forces at play when this violence is unfolding, being portrayed, and being discussed.
First, we’re thinking about the divisions among different minority groups in America, as well as among different ethnic groups within Asian Americans. For one, COVID-19 violence may remind Asian Americans of how they've had to hang on to every opportunity to show that they belonged, sometimes having to abandon other minority groups to fight for their own communities. For example, in 1952, when Congress was revamping immigration, Asian Americans, alongside Jewish, Italian, and Black folks, fought to lift the strict ethnic quotas Congress had in place since 1924. However, due to the Red Scare, Congress still wanted to limit immigration from certain parts of Europe. Although Asian Americans didn't want to work against other immigrants, they still stood in support for Congress' McCarran-Walter Act in order to achieve progress for their own communities. This is just one example that makes us think about how pivotal and uncertain moments might make way for heightening division. The person who cursed at me and my sister was not a White person, but another person-of-color. I'm still new to the conversation, but I've recognized that solidarity among different groups is often hard to achieve (it might be why the term “people-of-color” was popularized in the 1960s).
We also learned that 61% of reports of coronavirus discrimination came from non-Chinese folks (of all those who reported, 16.5% are Korean, 7% are Vietnamese, 5.3% are Japanese). Media coverage of anti-Asian violence in these past few months has predominately Chinese-centric, and often, ignore the existing nuances within the reports. The same study found that Asian women were three times more likely to report harassment than men. Many of the hate incidences are directed at "high proportions of vulnerable populations--children, youth, elderly and limited-English speaking communities". Even in Asian countries, existing discrimination plays out in COVID related violence (e.g. Malaysia targeted refugees and migrant workers amid coronavirus fears).
It's not surprising that people of other Asian ethnicities might resent Chinese folks for what's happening to them. This has happened before—for example, after the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese folks didn't want to be associated with Chinese folks, while during WWII, Chinese folks didn't want to be confused for being Japanese. This makes us wonder—how are East-Asian passing folks of different ethnicities supporting or not supporting each other? And then, we reflect—how have East-Asian passing folks supported or not supported Asians of other ethnicities during times of conflict in the past? When I say we probably haven't built coalition or supported enough, I realize that it's hard to blame ourselves entirely, especially when White Supremacy™ has an incentive to make building coalition difficult...
This blog post, titled "Tou Thao and the Myths of Asian American Solidarity," is relevant here—the author points out that there's a "tendency for wealthy, privileged Asians to use groups like the Hmongs to not 'so much come out and confront anti-Blackness in our community, but rather to disassociate oneself from the racist in the video." (More on anti-Blackness in a bit.)
On a related note, we wanted to end this stream of thoughts with the topic of anti-Blackness and anti-Asian violence. It's important to address all situations of violence, but we think there is a distinction to be made here in the historical context and the portrayal of violence. COVID-related anti-Asian attacks, bad as they are, are felt in interpersonal relationships and settings. That, however, is "very different from the anti-Black, multigenerational systemic violence" that movements like Black Lives Matters have been trying to address. Likewise, the COVID-related anti-Asian violence that we talk about today often does not touch on the history and systemic issues among other Asian communities, particularly South East Asian and South Asian folks (e.g. Islamophobia).
We end this piece for the newsletter with some unfinished thoughts (to be frank, we also ran out of time partially because we felt there was so much to discuss here and didn't know the best way to say or present all of it but will follow up in a different post lol). Regardless, we hope some of you all might've been considering these things, and we can talk more about it together moving forward too.
Small Feelings
Lately, competition is something that I have been feeling more acutely - partially because being isolated in quarantine has made me more aware of my emotions and partially because I'm in my early 20s and everything feels like a competition. For me, it's always been a double-edged sword where I thrive off of competition as a motivating force, but it also leaves me in a perpetual state of angst and anxiety (thoughts like I should be doing more, I can be doing more, why am I not doing XYZ, look how X is doing this, feeling like I have something to prove, gotta catch up because I haven't created my own startup, etc.). I've noticed lately that the feeling of zero-sum competition is particularly prominent when I'm comparing myself to other minorities - especially when it comes to Chinese American women. And, it's not something I am super proud of - In my mind, I know that I want to support people who are doing really great and important things like starting their own creative projects, being successful at work, and making a name for themselves, but it is difficult to bury those feelings of envy. So, I'm trying to be more honest with myself about those thoughts, why they occur, and why I feel them, and in general, I want to celebrate other people's successes and draw on them for motivation instead of competition.
Also, FOMO. If any of you have read that "fig tree" passage in The Bell Jar, that's kind of the mood right now. Trying to figure out and prioritize what's important. This is probably related to a thread on competition, but I haven't figured out the words to say that just yet. So I'll just leave you with this unfinished thought.
💡S P O T L I G H T💡
Kumail Nanjiani
Kumail Nanjiani is a Pakistani-American actor best known for his work on Silicon Valley and The Big Sick. He was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, and at the age of 18, immigrated to the US to study computer science and philosophy at Grinnell College.
The last person to leave Pakistan from Kumail’s family was his uncle who ended up marrying a white woman which resulted in him being expelled from the Nanjiani family. Four decades later, Kumail came to the US, married a white woman, and made an Oscar-nominated film about his relationship with his wife. Seems like the Nanjiani family kinda gave up this time around since Kumail and his wife were accepted with open arms when they had their second marriage in Pakistan. They also had a third marriage a while later because they didn’t want their friends to think Kumail married Emily because she was in a coma and almost died (Just watch The Big Sick, it’ll all make sense).
Kumail’s been involved in the comedy and TV scene for over a decade now and is best known for playing Dinesh in Silicon Valley and co-hosting The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail on Comedy Central. Perhaps what made him even more famous than all of his work combined, and shattered the internet in the process, was a shirtless photo he shared showing the results of a grueling yearlong workout regimen in preparation for his role in Marvel’s The Eternals. He discusses his training and the aftermath of sharing the photo in an absolutely hilarious interview with Jimmy Kimmel. Kumail’s been up to some amazing stuff, including the recently released The Lovebirds on Netflix but nothing beats his SNL monologue. I won’t spoil it for you by giving you any details, just watch it. It’s 100% worth it, I promise!
Chef's Specials
🔦 Learn about Operation Searchlight, a military operation launched by West Pakistan to suppress the Bengali nationalist movement in East Pakistan in March 1971 (also done by graphical_tajziya)
💥 Warrior Nuns (In real life, not on Netflix) Himalayan Buddhist nuns in the Kathmandu Valley are shifting traditional power dynamics in religion and society. They practice kung fu, watch horror movies together, lead girl's self-defense workshops in India, and bike around the country to educate people on human trafficking. True icons.
👧🏻 Claudia Kishi Club - a 17-minute documentary on Netflix on the iconic Japanese-American VP of the Baby-Sitters Club (now on Netflix), featuring Asian artists/writers who reflect on her legacy for them as Asian kids growing up in the’80s/’90s. It mattered that they could identify with her, someone who wasn’t the “typical” Asian shown in media or the model Asian child all the parents wanted. :’) Phil Yu, who runs Angry Asian Man, is in the documentary and had created these HILARIOUS remakes of the book covers to show Claudia’s perspective.
📸 re: the Almost Asian, Almost American project I featured last week - I did DM her on whether she’d feature South Asian women soon. See below.
🏳️🌈 Thailand could be the first SE Asian country to legalize same-sex civil partnerships, CNN
Events
Thursday, July 16: Mental Health & Healing in the South Asian Community: Instagram Live by @southasians4blacklives
Friday, July 17:PAACH - ReSTORYing in the Modern Age (on retelling our narratives to rectify personal or societal injustice) - sign up here
Monday, July 20: Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs - Changing the World in 2020 and Beyond (the speaker lineup is pretty stacked!) "Attend this free online event where you will hear seasoned leaders and fearless neophytes alike make the case for diversity, vision, and courage."
Thursday, July 23: Asian Americans Advancing Justice x Hollaback! Bystander Intervention Training to stop Anti-Asian and xenophobic harassment (it's free & Melinda's been before—definitely useful!)