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Washington University in St. Louis Asian American Association
Citation preview
I asked my mom what she
remembered eating at Thanks-
giving growing up and she said
she remembered eating turkey with Chinese seasoning. This
is clearly an Asian American
invention. Today, my Thanks-
giving meal includes a mix of Chinese and traditional
Thanksgiving foods. To me,
nothing goes together better
than chow fun and stuffing, duck and turkey. I love how
this authentically American
holiday has been integrated
with Asian culture to create this uniquely Asian-American
eating experience.
We also have some exciting news… AAA is bringing Tak
Toyoshima, creator of ―Secret
Asian Man‖ comic strip, to
Wash U on Dec. 5. You will not want to miss him! Start
listening to ―Secret Agent
Man‖ to get ready.
Hello everyone!
I hope that everyone survived
their midterms and are enjoy-ing a slight break before final
exams. Thanks to all of you
who came out to AAA events
this month! I had a great time beating, I mean playing many of
you at laser tag. I also hope
that everyone was able to kick
back and enjoy the movies we selected for this year’s Asian
American Film Festival. The
annual AAA Week is coming
up so be sure to check out all of the fun events we have
planned!
This is the last time you’ll hear me say it but, GO OUT AND
VOTE! Included in this
month’s newsletter is a special
election insert to get you geared up to vote on Nov. 4.
If you still need some inspira-
tion, check out my favorite YouTube video of the month,
―Black White Whatever‖. It
really speaks to all minorities
that are not being heard dur-
ing the election season. The more presence we have at the
polls, the more attention they
will give APIA’s in the future.
So as Thanksgiving ap-proaches, I try to remember
what Thanksgiving food
memories I had growing up. I
remember sitting around a large table at our family res-
taurant eating a typical Chi-
nese meal, but with turkey included as one of the dishes.
This summer I went with
three friends from high school
as a grad trip to the Olympics
in Beijing. One of the tickets we got was the opening night
of track and field at the famed
Bird’s Nest. That night was
our last night in Beijing before we flew back to Shanghai in
the morning. Track and field
didn’t start till 7:30pm, but we
didn’t get the Olympic Green
until 8:30pm.
The weather was humid as
usual and you could literally feel the excitement surround-
ing the area. The streets were
incredibly crowded with peo-
ple trying to catch a mere glimpse of the stadium lit up at
night. People lined the fences
staring, admiring the stadium
as if it was a flying saucer from
outer space. Children were
climbing on their parents’
shoulders; camera flashes clicked on and off, lighting up
the overflowing sidewalks. As
my friends and I tried to find
the entrance to the Green, we finally realized the worst –
there was only one entrance
into the Green which was on
Greetings From Your AAA Prez Sarah Wong
My Memorable Olympic Experience Brandon Lee
Asian American Association
Newsletter November 2008 Volume 2, Issue 3
AAA Executive Board
2008-2009
President Sarah Wong
External VP Alex Lin
Internal VP Jeff Lin
Treasurer Charles Qiao
Secretary Alice Gu
PR Yena Kwon
PR Marina Cheung
Historian Andrew Shaw
Fresh. Rep Amy Lam
Fresh. Rep Brandon Lee
Fresh. Rep Patrick Ng
Upcoming
Events:
AAA Week! Tues. Nov 4
Go out and VOTE!
Voting Booth
Wed. Nov 5
Movie and Dumplings
Eliot Lounge
6:30pm
Thurs. Nov 6 T-shirt Making
Ursa’s Fireside
6:30pm
Fri. Nov 7
Badminton Tourney Meet at the
Clock tower
6:30pm
Sat. Nov 8
Charity Auction Ursa’s Stageside
5:30pm
Cont. OLYMPICS on pg. 2
Asian American Film Festival “The Motel” & Korean Food
P A G E 2
YouTube Pick of the Month
Spoken Word: "Black White
Whatever" Kelly Tsai (Def
Poetry)
From OLYMPICS pg. 1
the opposite side of the
square.
Dodging in and out of
pictures, side-stepping between people lei-
surely walking, and do-
ing some of our own
bumping, we started jogging to the entrance.
The night setting was
anything but calm. The
humidity made it feel as though it was still as hot
as daytime. Our back-
packs bouncing up and
down, pumping our arms as if we were in
the Olympics ourselves,
we cried mixtures of
―Sorry!‖ and ―Dui bu
chi!‖ as we darted be-
tween families and in front of pictures.
Finally, we reached the
familiar, Olympic-colored
security tent. Bent over at the waist, we all
caught our breath and
got in the short security
line. As my friends filed one-by-one through the
metal detectors, I was
the last one to go; only
to be stopped and held back by security. I was
so close to the colorfully
lit stadium and its
famed aurora of criss-
crossed design of metal
supports, only to be refused entry; because
in my backpack, I held
the emergency epi-
needle for my friend’s nut allergy.
Note: I was later ad-
mitted into the Olym-pic Green and the
Bird’s Nest after a
heated fifteen minute
argument with the head of security.
I discovered
the next
artist,
Meiko, while
surfing the
internet.
Born and
raised in Georgia, Meiko and
her sister adopted the names
Meiko and Keiko in an at-
tempt to get in touch with
their Japanese heritage;
Meiko is one-quarter Japa-
nese, on her maternal grand-
mother's side. She inde-
pendently released her self-
titled album in 2007 and be-
came an iTunes success.
Now her music is featured
on popular shows like Grey’s
Anatomy. My
favorite
tracks on her
album are
―Reasons to
Love You‖
and ―Boys
With Girl-
friends‖.
Yamagata and Meiko are
both touring the country as
part of the Hotel Café Tour
and will be stopping by the
Loop’s Blue-
berry Hill on
Nov. 8 to
perform
(+21 only).
Also per-
forming in St.
Louis will be
Thao Nguyen (Priscilla Ahn
is on the tour but is not
stopping in St. Louis). This is
a great opportunity to sup-
port four Asian American
women who have broken
into the mainstream music
scene and are doing it with
ease.
-Sarah Wong
HOTEL CAFE TOUR 2008 Rachael Yamagata•Meiko Thao Nguyen•Kate Havnevik•Alice
Russell•Jaymay Blueberry Hill Doors 8 pm • Show 9 pm
$17 in Advance / $20 DOS
In an industry that’s hard
enough for female singer-
song writers, four Asian
American
women are
succeeding
and causing
quite a stir in
the music
industry.
I first became a fan of Rachel
Yamagata when I heard the
song ―Be Be Your Love‖ on
FOX’s So You Think You Can
Dance (you discover a lot of
music from that show). Ya-
magata is fourth-generation
Japanese American on her
father's side and of Italian
and German ancestry on her
mother's side. Her first full
length album Happenstance
came out in 2004 to much
acclaim and her songs have
been featured on many TV
shows, including The OC and
One Tree Hill, and the movie,
Sisterhood of the Traveling
Pants. Yamagata released a
new album this past month.
A S I A N A M E R I C A N A S S O C I A T I O N
Join the
“Asian American
Association”
Facebook Group!
Become a AAA
Member Today!
Contact
Restaurant Review: Bobo Noodle House Yena Kwon
P A G E 3 Volume 2, Issue 3
Bobo is a restaurant that is located
right next to Kayak’s, at the corner of Forest Park Parkway and Skinker.
I recently went to dinner there with a friend, and we instantly got good
vibes as soon as we walked in. It was small and cozy with an artsy
flair. My friend, let’s call her Liz, no-ticed and commented on their
rather extraordinarily-simple-yet-ingeniously-creative chandeliers—
chandeliers that were creations of ordinary things, such as paper, wire, little clips, etc., and yet when they
were put together….a masterpiece.
After we had briefly admired the chic
space, we perused Bobo’s menu. All the dishes listed sounded delicious, and, best
of all, the prices were relatively afford-able. We both decided on a mixed green
salad with mango and salmon (interesting combination, no?), which
cost $9 each. So the prices aren’t too extravagant, though not super cheap, either. We placed our order—Liz or-
dered a glass of wine along with her salad—and we walked to an open table
and sat down. The ordering system re-minded me of restaurants like Panera,
where you place your order at the cash register, pay, and then wait for the food
at your table. We didn’t have to wait too long for our
salads to arrive, and when they did, they didn’t disappoint. The salad portions
were just right, and the taste was su-perb. There was plenty of salmon (no
skimping here!), and the pieces of mango added a unique touch of sweetness to
the dish. Liz and I ate and chatted for a long time, doing much-needed catching up. During
our stay, our waiter frequently came by
to refill our water glasses—sometimes
even when our glasses were still full (one time he tipped a drop more into
my completely full glass as he said, ―Just a tad bit more…‖). He seemed like a
generally good fellow, though, albeit goofy, and we secretly laughed after his
constant visits to our table. Personally, I thought he might have either been bored or just extremely courteous.
Before Liz and I knew it, we had stayed at Bobo’s for over 2 hours, and the res-
taurant seemed like it was slowly closing up for the night. As we gathered our
things to leave, Liz commented that Bobo’s would be a great date place. I
agreed; what with the soft subdued lighting and intimate atmosphere, Bobo’s
would be a terrific place to take a date. It’s a nice and relatively elegant restau-
rant (though not high-class by any means), and it won’t kill your wallet
(which is of the utmost importance to most of us college students). I would
recommend people to try it out, either with friends, family, or a special some-one.
Restaurant Review: Thai Gai Yang Café Amy Lam
Thai Gai Yang Café is part of a Thai
cuisine chain located on the Delmar Loop. It was opened in 1996 to mir-
ror the ―fast, inefficient, outdoor eateries in Thailand‖ and to bring
Gai Yang, Thai for barbequed chicken, to Saint Louis. Since then,
the restaurant has grown very popu-lar with its tasty, ethnic food. It is
open for lunch and dinner everyday from 11:15 am to 10:00 pm.
The café has a diverse menu, includ-ing salads, noodle soups, noodle
plates, rice plates, and fried rice. Its
entrees have cheap prices, ranging
from six to nine dollars, and in my
with people from all walks of life who
come to the restaurant for a taste of Thailand. A visit to Thai Gai Yang Café
is an upbeat experience with excellent food at a great price.
opinion, they have the best Pad Thai
in town. A mere eight dollars will get you a huge plate of authentic Pad
Thai with a peanut sauce that is sec-ond to none. Along with Pad Thai, I
would also recommend a plate of curry. The vegetables in the dish
soak up the curry, making them ex-tremely flavorful. A glass of Thai iced
tea is a great compliment to either dish with its sweet, refreshing flavor.
Service is quick and the atmosphere
is quite appealing. The restaurant is
very colorful with its ethnic paintings
and decorations. It is always crowed
October 10, 2008 There are legions of voters in this country who are completely invisi-ble -- at least to the GOP. Even though McCain can't seem to stop talking about
his war experiences in Asia (specifically 'Nam), what he hasn't been able to do is address the unique issues impacting the millions of Asian American voters in this country. And unlike George W. Bush, he can't play the blame game and cling to ignorance as this pathetic excuse. Since the start of this election, an Asian American Advocacy group known as the 80-20 Initiative has been pressing hard for the presiden-tial candidates to commit to issues disproportionately plaguing Asian America. Obama signed a pledge during the primaries. And McCain? No dice. Like I said, McCain can't see us -- something that might cost him big in November. I get that in the past racial policies have proven divisive and polarizing, but the 80-20 Initiative isn't some radical, left-wing group asking that the presidential candidates commit to extreme racial projects. They're ask-ing for commitments to fight the very real racism that Asian Americans face in the work force, from racial-ized glass ceilings to hiring discrimi-nation practices to being consistently overlooked for federal judge appoint-ments. And given that there's a fairly
wide support for equal protection, signing wouldn't exactly cause the non-Asian American electorate to rush the streets and use it as the one issue to block a McCain administra-tion from seeing the light of day. But has he lost the the Asian Ameri-can swing vote by not signing the pledge? That's a different story. As an Asian American, I can testify firsthand how incredibly frustrating it is when the issues we care about are completely removed from the political discourse. We're often told that we belong to this "model minority" who has already transcended racism and as a result, our experiences with dis-crimination aren't valid. I'm not going to go into all of the rea-sons why the widely over-generalized "model minority" stereo-type is untrue and racist. But I will say this: Telling me that you don't acknowledge my experiences isn't going to convince me that they aren't real. It's going to convince me to not vote for you. What McCain doesn't seem to get is that by not going after voters that happen to look like me, he's going up against a political force that shouldn't be taken lightly. Asian Americans constitute roughly 5 percent of the nation - more than enough to make the difference in a race that has been so up and down. And thanks partially to an ugly history of racial-segregation practices, the power of the Asian American voting bloc is even more powerful than the num-bers suggest. This swing bloc is disproportionately
located where our votes matter even more: swing states. Going by the 2000 census data, there are nine states where the Asian Ameri-can population exceeds the national average. And five have been dubbed possible swing states in the 2008 race by USA Today. These include Califor-nia, Washington and New Jersey - tra-ditionally blue states which have proven receptive to Republican candi-dates at the state-level, two of which Hillary Clinton won in the primaries; Virginia - a traditionally red state that is now up for grabs thanks to Obama's unprecedented popularity among Afri-can American voters; and the more traditional swing state of Nevada, an-other state that Obama couldn't win during the primaries. But it's not too late for McCain to win our votes. I know this is going to sound odd coming from an Asian American, given an ugly stereotype about our physical appearance that I won't di-rectly mention, but Sen. McCain: open your eyes! The key to this election is often said to be in the hands of swing voters and former Clinton supporters, over one fifth of whom have already decided to support you. Asian Americans repre-sent both. Given that we voted Hillary almost 3:1 in the California primary, it's not an incredible jump to think that a renewed effort from the McCain Camp to address issues we care about could mean more defection -- something that could reverse the McCain slide in the polls. Joseph Bui is a writer for The Daily Californian, a student at the University of California-Berkeley and a former associate for the Hillary Clinton cam-paign.
McCain losing his chance to win over the
Asian American vote washingtonpost.com
Comprehensive new survey shows Asian Americans could
play key role in outcome of presidential election http://www.naasurvey.com/
October 6, 2008 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Among Asian American voters, many are supporting presidential candidate Barack Obama, but another sizable portion remains undecided - a development that could set the stage for Asian Americans to play a pivotal role in the outcome of the election, according to a new national survey released today. This groundbreaking study, released at a Washington, D.C., press conference this morning, was conducted by researchers from four leading universities: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley); Uni-versity of California, Riverside (UC River-side); and University of Southern California (USC). The researchers' 2008 National Asian American Survey (NAAS) shows that 41 percent of Asian Americans are likely to favor Obama, while 24 percent support John McCain. In battleground states, where either candidate could win on Election Day, Obama leads with 43 percent of Asian Americans supporting him and 22 percent favoring McCain. Researchers point out that a key finding of the study is the high proportion of unde-cided Asian American likely voters: 34 per-cent. Among the general population, na-tional polls conducted since the major party conventions show that undecided voters are approximately 8 percent of the elector-ate. Karthick Ramakrishnan, an associate pro-fessor of political science at UC Riverside, points out that "with such a high proportion of undecided voters, Asian Americans are a critical source of potential votes for either candidate in the final weeks of the cam-paign." "Even in battleground states and among those Asian Americans who were interviewed in the second half of Septem-ber, more than 30 percent were undecided between Barack Obama and John McCain," he says. The multi-ethnic, multi-lingual survey of more than 4,000 Asian Americans likely to vote in the election was conducted from Aug. 18 to Sept. 26. It is the most compre-hensive survey to date of the political views of Asian Americans, with interviews con-ducted in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and
Vietnamese. Janelle Wong, an associate professor of political science at USC, says that "most national polls cannot report the preferences of these likely voters because they do not interview in multiple languages, and the number of interviews they conduct among Asian Americans is very small." By drawing on the knowledge of political scientists with expertise in survey research and ethnic politics, and with support from several foundations, the NAAS data pro-vide insight about Asian Americans as a whole, the researchers say, as well as about their six largest ethnic subgroups: Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japa-nese, Koreans and Vietnamese. The research shows that support for the candidates does vary by Asian American ethnic groups. Among those who have made up their mind on a candidate, two-thirds of Vietnamese Americans support McCain; Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, and Indian Americans support Obama by more than a three-to-one ratio; and Korean and Filipino Americans who are likely voters also support Obama over McCain, but the gap is much smaller, with ratios less than 1.4 to 1. Many of the differences can be attributed to party affiliation, according to the research-ers. Vietnamese Americans identify with the Republican Party over the Democratic Party by nearly a two-to-one ratio, while the opposite is true for other ethnic groups such as Indian Americans and Chinese Americans. Still, as UC Berkeley associate professor of political science Taeku Lee says, "A very large number of Asian Americans are non-partisan. The Asian American vote is very much up for grabs: Nonpartisans who see either the Democratic or Republi-can party as closer to them on issues that matter to them are much likelier to vote for that party's candidate." Among the survey's other findings: The majority of Asian Americans who voted in the primary supported Hillary Clinton over Obama by nearly 2 to 1; but 59% of Clinton supporters now plan to vote for Obama and 10 percent support McCain. About 80 percent of likely voters who are
Asian American list the economy as one of the most important problems the nation faces, followed by the war in Iraq. On both issues, there are strongly divided opinions between Obama and McCain supporters. "Even as the Iraq war has receded from the headlines as concerns about the economy have become more prominent, the war still plays a powerful role in the Asian American choice for president," says Jane Junn, an associate professor of political science at Rutgers. Overall, 32 percent of all Asian Americans identify themselves as Democrats; 14 per-cent as Republicans; 19 percent as inde-pendents; and 35 percent as nonpartisan, not fitting into any of the major party cate-gories. One third of Asian American citizens get informed about politics from Asian-language television and newspapers, and more than one in four (28%) say they would use Asian-language ballot materials. Next to Latinos, Asian Americans are the fastest growing share of the U.S. popula-tion. Currently, they comprise 5 percent of the population and, according to the re-searchers, will likely play a significant role in battleground states such as Virginia, Nevada and Washington, where they ac-count for 5 percent or more of the popula-tion. Even in states such as Colorado, Ohio and Florida, where they are less numerous, Asian Americans may provide the margin of victory, the researchers said. The full NAAS report, including information on the survey methodology used, will be posted online at: http://www.naasurvey.com/.
Angry Little Girls By Lela Lee
AAA Newsletter Edited By Sarah Wong
Laser Tag Oct. GBM
Moon Festival
Laser Tag
Oct. GBM Film Fest Day 1
Film Fest Day 2
Moon Festival
Film Fest Day 2
AAA in October! Film Fest Day 3
Oct. GBM