Hello hello,
We realize that a while ago, we sent out a link asking if anyone wanted to join us in writing and promoting our newsletter (thank you for those who already filled it out!! we didn't forget you). We're gonna link it again here to ask if you want to be a part of Around the Table! We'll follow up tomorrow.
Prompt for the week:
What's something that you've always wanted to do, but haven't?
As always,
Jamie and Melinda
News
👩🏼⚖️ AAPI groups "condemn the choice of Amy Coney Barrett to SCOTUS."Asian Americans Advancing Justice stated that her stances against immigrants' permanent residence in the U.S. if they've applied for public benefits, against immigrants seeking relief from deportation, and against the Affordable Care Act (which 2 million AAPIs rely on), will hurt the AAPI community.
The National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum said, "through her support of sex-selective abortion bans, [she] demonstrated that she supports the racial profiling of Asian American and Pacific Islander women based on nothing more than disproven stereotypes about our communities." But, UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo (who wrote the "torture memos" of 2002 re: the War on Terror) said, "Amy Coney Barrett should win the support of anyone who wants judges of intelligence, experience, and character." (uhh...)
🏃🏾🏃🏻♀️Who are the Asian Americans running for the U.S. House of Reps or Senate in November??
From this site tracking AAPI candidates, I filtered for (1) federal level (2) those who won their primaries. There are 18 challengers (new people running against incumbents), 5 running for open seats (new people not running against any incumbents), and 9 incumbents. Previously, we shared that currently, the U.S. House of Representatives is 14/538 Asian (~2.6%) and the U.S. Senate is 3/100 Asian (3%). Asian Americans make up 5.9% of the U.S. population.
Is there anyone from your state? Do you know them? Does anything surprise you?
Challengers
Open Seats
Incumbents
🏡 Intergenerational homes + COVID-19: 29% of Asian Americans live in multi-generational homes (2 or more adult generations + grandkids under 25), compared with 27%, 26%, and 16% for the Hispanic/Latinx, Black, and white population, respectively. This number reveals how many Asian American families have faced increased burdens, with younger family members worried about protecting their older, more vulnerable members from COVID-19. Women (moms) especially "carry more of the mental and physical caretaking load" with having to take care of both kids and parents during the pandemic (mothers have reduced work hours 4-5x more than fathers during the pandemic).
With the number of deaths from Jan. to July 2020 in the Asian American population 35% greater than the annual average of 2015-2019 (!!), we realize that the toll of COVID-19 on Asian Americans is quite great... 😢 And one factor, among many, contributing to this reality might be difficulties around social distancing in crowded multigenerational homes.
📬 The Deputy Sandeep Singh Dhaliwal Post Office Act was recently passed in the House and now moves to the Senate to be voted upon. The bill intends to name a post office after Deputy Dhaliwal, a Sikh police officer who was killed one year ago while conducting a traffic stop. After his death, "the Houston Police Department and the county's eight constables have changed policies to allow officers on duty to wear turbans and carry religious items."
🍔 McDonald’s announces the first scholarship program for APIA students to address racial disparities in higher education. Some things we learned: "According to APIA Scholars, the top 10% of APIAs earn more than 10 times the bottom 10% of APIAs. And while half of the community have college degrees, only 25% of all Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and Southeast Asian Americans finish higher education." We're sharing this at the top because applications are open and go until Jan 14th. Get that bread...
A Note on Heritage Language Loss
This is going to be a little different. About a week ago, one of our readers, Eris, reached out about her short film Mother Tongue, which touches on heritage language loss and senior care by following a Chinese American daughter's journey to reconnect with her mother, who lost English to Alzheimer's disease.
Initially, we were going to just link it as one of the events at the bottom of the newsletter (check them out!), but something about this kind of struck me as reminiscent of my experience both with languages and with my immediate and extended family.
Until recently, I never knew there was a specific term for this: "heritage language loss". Eris shared this statistic from a UC study that cited
"Only 60% of second-generation Asian Americans speak their heritage language, and the number drops to a shocking 8% for the third-generation"
In my experience, that is definitely true. I was lucky enough to attend Chinese school as a child to learn the language, but - partially as a result of my own shortcomings and partially as a rejection of Asian culture when I was younger - I never really picked up any of the speaking or writing skills. To this day, I can understand and casually converse with my parents in Chinese, but I'm afraid that I'll never reach the level of fluency that I want to be able to.
It's particularly straining on my relationship with my grandparents and extended family. My grandfather passed away two years ago, and it was a distressing situation for many reasons, but among them, it was the fact that I never really got to know him or hear about his life story. Now that all my grandparents are getting old (and to some extent, aunts, uncles, and parents), I really want to have those full conversations, but how do you communicate that when there is a language barrier? And, even then, how do you start that conversation?
It's also really weird, like hearing about events in China in classes/history, knowing that people in my family have definitely been affected by those situations - just that I don't know about it.
I took an intro Chinese class last year (in which we watched The Farewell), and it was great, but I still feel rather anxious and inadequate when trying to speak in Chinese. I really want to learn, but it's also been hard to fit in with school, and as a student, it's a little financially constraining to find a tutor. Wondering if anyone has recommendations or tips for this...let me know.
Anyways, Mother Tongue is screening at Silicon Valley Asian Pacific Film Festival during Oct 2 -10 (direct link to film here) and CAAMFest Forward (the largest Asian American Film Festival in the country) during Oct 14 - 18 if you want to go take a look at it!
That said, if anyone has any sort of their own creative endeavor that speaks to the AAPI experience that they want to share, we would absolutely love to check them out :')
Small Feelings
I don't even want to talk about the debate last night. My absentee ballot should be coming in the mail in a few days?
Discovered Rilakkuma a couple days ago and i’m fucking obsessed (i love Rilakkuma. the stickers on FB are great)
Thinking about climate change...
I wish italics could go the other way.
Also, for whoever asked, the book I'm reading is "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande. Initially borrowed from my roommate, who is reading it for nursing school.
✨ S P O T L I G H T ✨
Source: Time Magazine
🏆 Time 100 most influential people of 2020 was recently released, and I highly recommend you read through the profiles below (I left more details out because all the brief profiles are great to read).
✊🏽 Activists: Bilkis, Nury Turkel, Nathan Law, Naomi Osaka, Shiori Ito (reading about her work made me cry—she's leading the fight against sexual violence in Japan)
🔬Scientists: Ravindra Gupta, Shi Zhengli,Zhang Yongzhen, Zhong Nanshan
🎨 Comedian Ali Wong, Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Filmmaker Bong Joon Ho, Actor Ayushmann Khurrana
📣 President Tsai Ing-wen, President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Senator Kamala Harris, Commissioner Jung Eun-kyeong, Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba
💼 CEO Sundar Pichai, CEO/Founder Eric Yuan, VP Lisa Nishimura, Executive Chairman Daniel Zhang
Chef's Specials
🗣️ The pronunciation of 'Kamala' and identity, name changes, and code-switching for South Asians.
🥮 Mid-Autumn Festival is tomorrow! Make sure to go look at how big the moon is 🌝 Note, celebrations for the holiday take place across Southeast and Northeast Asia, in countries including China (中秋節), Taiwan, Japan (Japanese Tsukimi 月見), Singapore, South Korea (Korean Chuseok 추석/秋夕), Malaysia, Vietnam (Têt Trung Thu), and the Philippines. In anticipation of "Over the Moon" (which seems to be inspired by the myth behind this holiday) coming out on Netflix Oct. 23, check out these clips / this article :)
🤸🏾♂️I just discovered Akash Modi!! He's a 25-year-old gymnast who was possibly going to the Tokyo Olympics this year. He just got a mechanical engineering master's at Stanford too?! AND HE'S FROM MY HOMETOWN OF EDISON, NJ. Check out his floor exercises and parallel bars... just watching those makes me miss the Olympics... and this interview with Brown Girl Magazine! (I guess this is a bonus spotlight haha)
🧚🏽 Yara Shahidi is playing Tinkerbell in the live-action movie Peter Pan & Wendy! Born to an African American mother and Iranian father, she's the first person of color to play Tinkerbell.
Events
Saturday, Oct 3, 2-4pm ET: Sakhi Youth Programs Open House - they have “7+ different virtual workshops and groups for young people of all genders between the ages of 7-24 on topics ranging from financial literacy, to arts, to health, to activism, to career counseling, and beyond!” - sign up here
Tues. Oct 6, 8pm ET: Dope Asians for Democracy - a panel / “a candid chat between Asian-Americans within the creative community” hosted by the Asian American Collective - sign up here