PRC surveillance balloon could fuel more xenophobia and anti-Asian hate attacks

PUBLIC DOMAIN

US sailors haul in remnants of a suspected surveillance balloon first launched by the PRC.

With the discovery of a giant spy balloon from the People Republic of China (PRC) flying over the US, Asian Americans need to gird themselves for another surge of anti-Asian hate.

Sen. Joel R. Carter, R-Gulfport, shared a photo of a weather balloon on Feb. 11, with drawn-on red text that mocked a racist interpretation of an Asian accent. The image text on the balloon says, "Weather Barroon" and "Totary NOT For Spying."

With anti-Asian hate incidents still rising because people mistakenly blame COVID-19 on all Asian Americans, the last thing AANHPI need is a giant PRC balloon the US military suspect was used for espionage. 

Since the US military shot down the first balloon on Feb. 4, three more similar balloons have been shot down by US fighter jets and are in the process of being recovered. The origin of the three balloons shot down Monday have not been determined.

With the aim of preventing a possible hike in anti-Asian attacks, the Committee of 100, a nonprofit organization of prominent Chinese Americans, Monday issued a memo on language use related to the US-China relationship. 

FYI: The memo can be downloaded from the Committee of 100 website here.

The committee's memo explains the important distinctions among China, the Chinese people, the People’s Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China. It also highlights categories of problematic language and the historical context that may impact how messaging is perceived.

The language that lawmakers, public officials, and media is important. The use of terms such as kung flu, the Wuhan Virus and China Virus by the Donald Trump administration contributed to the rise of hate incidents against Asian Americans and reinforced the perception of Asian Americans as foreigners and dehumanizing them as threatening "others."

Xenophobia in the U.S. towards Chinese Americans and the larger AAPI population often manifests across a myriad of words, phrases, and tropes. To help combat this issue, Committee of 100 crafted an anti-hate glossary as a guide for identifying terms, phrases, and imagery often associated with the Asian community. 

The glossary can serve as an accessible reference with examples to illustrate the types of language to avoid.

FYI: The glossary can be downloaded directly from the Committee of 100 website here

Vocabulary and choice of language can either contradict or verify intentions, goals, and motives. This is especially true in diplomatic and international arenas. The Committee of 100 memo outlines specific categories of language that are dangerous, problematic, or unproductive, including examples of the categories.

Since the pandmic was began in 2020, Stop AAPI Hate has collected over 11,500 incidents of anti-Asian hate. In the year 2021 to 2022, the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, revealed that anti-Asian hate crime increased by 339%.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Famed writer Salman Rushdie hospitalized after stabbing attack

Author Salman Rushdie remains in the hospital after being attacked during a lecture.

Novelist Salman Rushdie in the hospital breathing after being stabbed multiple times during a lecture. His agent says that the Indian American author was breathing through a ventilator and probably will lose sight in one eye.

Rushdie, 75, was being introduced at New York's Chautauqua Institution Riday for a lecture on the importance of freedom of creative expression when he was attacked by a man with a knife.

“The news is not good,” said Rushdie's agent Andrew Wylie later Friday. “Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”

The assailant was detained by audience members during the attack while a doctor in the audience tended to Rushdie's wounds. The suspected assailant was identified as Hadi Matar, 24, from Fairview, New Jersey. No motive or charges have yet been confirmed by police, who are in the process of obtaining search warrants to examine a backpack and electronic devices found at the centre.

Rushdie has faced death threats for more than 30 years since the publication of The Satanic Verses. which offended some Muslims by the way the Prophet Muhammad was portrayed. 

The Satanic Verses was banned first in the author's country of birth, India, and then several other countries before Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued his infamous fatwa, a decree issued by a religious leader. It called for the death for anyone involved in the publication of the book and offered rewards to those who took part in the slayings. That fatwa has never formally been rescinded. Rushdie has been in hiding since the fatwa was issued.

In 1991 a Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death, while a few months later, an Italian translator was also stabbed and the book's Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was shot - but both survived.

The Mumbai-born Rushdie, who holds dual citizenships in Great Britain and the United States, was knighted in 2007 by the Queen. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted: "Appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie has been stabbed while exercising a right we should never cease to defend."

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter. 

China-bashing rhetoric might heat up anti-Asian sentiment in upcoming elections

Rep. Tim Ryans anti-China rhetoric is drawing criticism from the AANHPI community.

ANALYSIS 

As U.S.-China relations get more tense during the upcoming Midterm campaigns, expect anti-China sentiment to ramp up and anti-Asian hate incidents to increase.

While most of the world is still focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on the other side of the world, China begins to flex its military and economic power, the US attempts to reassert its influence in Asia after the Trump administration placed nervous neighboring nations on a tightrope between the two superpowers.

With Ukraine and inflation taking most of Biden's attention, he has recently turned his attention to repair relations with Asian leaders. He met with leaders from Souteast Asia at the White House before flying to Asia to meet with the leaders of Japan and South Korea.

“Even as President Putin’s war continues,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “we will remain focused on the most serious long-term challenge to the international order—and that’s posed by the People’s Republic of China.”

Relations with China will most likely be a hot topic during Congress' midterm campaigns this fall. Politicians on both sides will have to be careful about their language and tone to reassure that the foreign policy debates don't become more fuel for hate mongers to attack Americans of Asian descent.

There are many within the AANHPI leadership who believe the Trump administration's racist connotations when talking about the coronavirus helped spur the dramatic and troubling surge of anti-Asian attacks throughout the country. Police departments in major cities and the FBI released statistics showing the spike in hate incidents against AANHPI in the last two years.

When the Trump administration took over the foreign policy reins, he launched a trade war with China. As domestic issues took his attention away from Asia, aside from phone calls from strongman leaders in Beijing and North Korea, he allowed the trade war to fester, ignoring China's incursion into the Philippines Sea and continued coddling of North Korea's Kim Jong-un.

As a result of the trade war with China, the Department of Justice launched its China Initiative targetting scientists, students, and business of Chinese descent, further poisoning the general stereotype of the "sneaky" Asians.

When the coronavirus struck US shores, Trump's derisive use of the terms "China virus," "Wuhan virus" or the "Kung Flu" in reference to COVID-19 gave permission for the inner racists to emerge from societal reins among non-Asian Americans.

The anti-China, (and in general, the anti-Asian) attacks have taken a decidedly partisan nature, with most Republican picking up the language and attitude of the previous administration while Democrats denounced the racist rhetoric adopted by Trump's supporters in Congress.

(There are exceptions, of course. Most notably, Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat, has jumped on the anti-China bandwagon in his reelection campaign ads.)

The most dangerous situation continues to be China's claims in the Philippines Sea, which western maps continue to refer to as the South China Sea. China has bullied its way to the Spratley Islands near the Philippiines, which have long been fishing grounds for Filipino fisherfolk. Perhaps more importantly, the Spratleys lies smack dab in the middle of one of Asia's busiest waterways with goods of Japan, South Korea, the US, and all the Southeast Asian countries using the trade route.

WHITE HOUSE

President Biden met with leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last month.

Not only have Chinese fishing trawlers been fishing the Spratleys, but the Chinese government has aggressively militarized the islands by building airports and listening posts and daring the Philippines to do something about it. The Chinese Navy has enforced the PRC's claims by warning shots against the Filipino  fisherfolk and the Philippine's outgunned Coast Guard.

The US has sent destroyers and entire carrier fleets to the waterway to assert the waterway remains open to all trade and there have been some close encounters between the US and Chinese vessels.

Six years ago, an international tribunal in a landmark ruling dismissed Beijing’s claim to much of the South China Sea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague said on 12 July 2016 that there was no evidence that China had exercised exclusive control historically over the key waterway.

China simply ignored the ruling and continued to militarize the islands. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte's questionable strategy after the ruling was based on the belief that good relations with China would bring in economic benefits and that confronting Beijing will lead to repercussions.

While Duterte has successfully avoided a direct confrontation with China, the expected economic benefits have - thus far - failed to materialize.

The Spratleys dispute is only one flashpoint of contention between the US and China. Despite the racist results of the China Initiative, even Chiniese Americans admit that China has an aggressive espionage strategy that tries to lure Chinese in the US not only with outright promises of economic benefits, but with appeals to their favorable sentiment towards their "motherland" and not-so-subtle hints about their relatives remaining in China.

China also appears to be ignoring the protection of rights pertaining to intellectual property, research and technical secrets, the basis for launching the so-called China initiative, which went askew when federal investigators, college campuses and businesses went down the rabbit hole of racial profiling.

Rep. Ryan's ads blame China for the US economic woes which plays favorably to the blue-collar workers of Ohio but creates an us vs. them climate that will undoubtedly result in attacks against all Asians. The tactic worked for Trump and Ryan mining that racist trope for all its worth.

Asian American lawmakers warned the House Judiciary Committee a year ago that the nation had reached a “crisis point” resulting in a sharp hike in violence targeting the Asian community.

It was the first congressional hearing on this issue held in over three decades came about weeks after a mass shooting in Atlanta that killed six women of Asian descent. It was not long before the committee split along party lines.

“You can say racist, stupid stuff if you want, but I’m asking you to please stop using racist terms like ‘Kung flu’ or ‘Wuhan virus’ or other ethnic identifiers in describing this virus,” committee member Rep. Ted Lieu, D-CA,, told Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last year. 

“I am not a virus," Lieu continued. "And when you say things like that, it hurts the Asian-American community. Whatever political points you think you’re scoring by using ethnic identifiers in describing this virus, you’re harming Americans who happen to be of Asian descent.”

Roy's response was chilling; referring to the white tradition of lynching. “There’s old sayings in Texas about, you know, ‘find all the rope in Texas and get a tall oak tree.’ You know, we take justice very seriously, and we ought to do that — round up all the bad guys,” Roy said. “My concern about this hearing is it seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric.”

Rep. Grace Meng, D-NY, one of the drivers behind the anti-hate legislation signed by Biden, responded to Roy's remarks

“Your president, and your party, and your colleagues can talk about issues with any other country that you want, but you don’t have to do it by putting a bull’s-eye on the back of Asian-Americans across this country, on our grandparents, on our kids,” she said.

“This hearing was to address the hurt and pain of our community, to find solutions,” she added, “and we will not let you take our voice away from us.”

As Rep. Ryan has demonstrated, it is easy for Democrats to fall into that trap of blaming China for US economic failures. In the controversial campaign ad, he blames China for stealing jobs from the people of Ohio.

"China. It's definitely China. One word, China. It is us versus China," Ryan says in the ad. "China's winning. Workers are losing."

"There's a strong relationship between US-China relations and the treatment of Asians in the US domestically," Asian American Studies Professor at San Francisco State University, Dr. Russell M. Jeung, tells Insider. "That's a historic pattern that we need to decouple. So we've been saying that it's fair to criticize Chinese policies, but don't attack the people or the culture, or you know, the ethnicity, which is what Tim Ryan is doing. He's making these blanket statements that, therefore, have this sort of deleterious impact on us."

Words matter. Anti-China rhetoric fuels anti-Asian hate.

John C. Yang, the president of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, testified  to the House Judiciary Committee that “the health and economic fears caused by Covid-19 have led people to look for someone to blame.”

“The use of racist terms, the focus on a society or culture as the ‘cause’ for the Covid-19 pandemic, and policies that demonize immigrants all contribute to an atmosphere where racism and xenophobia is legitimized,” he said.

Elizabeth Grossman of the AAPI Victory Alliance cautioned politicians of both parties to be more mindful of their message and how it is being received.

"You have to understand that this is a scary time for Asian Americans and the country in particular," she told Insider. "I think stepping up and taking responsibility and making sure that you're using rhetoric that will not harm people or will do the least harm is really, really important."

Meng said it's important to acknowledge "challenges in the U.S.-China relationship" but when rheated campaign hetoric puts a "target on our backs ... Asians in the United States end up paying the price: We are scapegoated simply because of our skin.'"

The good news for Democrats is that Ryan easily won his party’s nomination for an open Senate seat in Ohio's May 3 primary.

The bad news is that his strong anti-China position worked. You can be sure that the racist scapegoating message will be taken up by other politicians.

Chinese Americans -- and because of misinformation and xenophobia -- we extend our warning to all Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander -- brace yourself for what's to come.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

AAPI leaders urge Congress members to think about the impact on Asian Americans when talking about China

GRAPHIC BY NIELSEN

Amid an historic surge in anti-Asian violence that shows no signs of fading and a heightened political focus on China, leaders of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) have issued guidance to their fellow members of Congress urging them to “avoid xenophobic rhetoric that exacerbates the bigotry and racism facing Asian Americans.” 

The guidance urges members of Congress to be specific in their criticisms of the Chinese Community Party and their actions in order to avoid spreading vague fears which have been proven to lead to bigoted violence and loss of life in the past.

"While there are valid reasons to critique the policies and actions of the CCP, history has taught us that using vague and broad anti-China statements too often conflate people with a political party," suggests the guidelines.

"When the language we use to refer to the actions of the CCP is not nuanced enough, or when we single out China for criticism even if other countries may be part of the problem as well, we run the risk of fueling a backlash against the entire Asian American community."

“History has shown us that heightened xenophobic speech creates a cycle which leads to violence,” said the CAPAC leaders in the guidance. Recent examples were cited:

• Within two months of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Executive Order 9066 was signed into law. The belief that Japanese Americans were untrustworthy and dangerous because of the conflict with Japan led to one of the darkest chapters in our country’s history, the mass imprisonment of American citizens, including children, in prison camps. 

• Again, in the 1980s, anti-Japanese sentiment fueled by economic competition and rising unemployment culminated in the brutal murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man who was scapegoated by two unemployed autoworkers. 

• In the aftermath of 9/11, hate crimes against South Asians, Sikh Americans, and American Muslims spiked dramatically - and have continued into the present day - due to faulty associations with the individuals who participated in the attacks on September 11, 2001.”

Specific criticisms of specific policies, how they threaten US interests, and what solutions are available will help Americans understand the legitimate threats from the Chinese Communist Party and their leaders without relying on xenophobia that puts all Chinese Americans at risk. 

For example, instead of making broad generalizations that include all the people of China or Chinese Americans, be specific on the action was taken by the CCP or a specific Chinese leader and specify the action taken.

The CAPAC leaders continued, “This guidance is not to discourage criticism of the policies and actions of the CCP, but rather to encourage specific criticisms that do not paint Chinese people as threats to America.”

The text of the guidance is available online here 

Vietnamese American teen succeeds Amanda Gorman as National Youth Poet Laureate

ALEXANDRA HUYNH

After her inspirational reading of her poem at President Biden's inauguration, Amanda Gorman will be a tough act to follow but a California teenager believe she's up to the task, drawing from the deep well of her Vietnamese heritage.

Alexandra Huỳnh, 18, from Sacramento, California last month was named the nation's new Youth Poet Laureate, taking the baton from Gorman.

An alumna of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, or SAYS, she is the country’s fifth National Youth Poet Laureate, which is presented by Urban Word, a New York-based youth literary arts and youth development organization.

“I just feel overwhelmingly grateful because I know this win is not mine alone — it’s my entire community’s, and I’m standing on the shoulders of my ancestors and all the sacrifices and wisdom that they’ve gained to bring me here,” Huỳnh said.

As National Youth Poet Laureate, Huynh will serve as a cultural ambassador for the United States using poetry as a platform for the literary arts and civic engagement.

Huynh will represent the National Youth Poet Laureate program and the national youth literary arts community through a series of performances and civic engagements through May 2022. Prior to being named the 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate, Huynh served as the Western Regional Ambassador for the United States.

A second-generation Vietnamese American, Huynh uses poetry as a tool of self-reclamation and social justice for marginalized communities, according to a press release from Urban Word.

Huynh says she has been writing song lyrics since age 7 and became serious about poetry in high school, especially after performing during a local poetry slam and sensing the added power of words when said out loud. 

She cites Ocean Vuong and Diana Khoi Nguyen as among her favorite writers, and she hopes to eventually publish her own work and see it translated into Vietnamese, her “mother tongue.”

“Vietnamese itself is a very poetic language,” she said. “In Vietnamese culture, poems are spoken every day. They're pop culture references. For me, having poetry in my life never felt like I was going against the grain.”

Huynh was selected from amongst four regional finalists. The previous National Youth Poet Laureate was Amanda Gorman, who became an international celebrity after reading at President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

“Her trajectory has changed what I thought was possible for a poet,” Huynh says, noting that Gorman has appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine and read at this year's Super Bowl. “She has encouraged me to dream big.”

This fall, as a first-year student at Stanford, Huynh aims to combine her passions for creative writing, science and civic engagement.

“I spend a lot of time in my head, so poetry is for me a sort of survival mechanism,” Huynh told USA Today. “I wouldn’t be able to move through the world with the same amount of clarity had I not worked it out first on the page.”

World Press Freedom Day -- Maria Ressa recognized by UNESCO

TWITTER / MARIA RESSA

Filipino American journalist Maria Ressa accepted her award virtually.

Investigative journalist and media executive Maria Ressa of the Philippines has been named as the 2021 laureate of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, following the recommendation of an international jury of media professionals. 

“Maria Ressa’s unerring fight for freedom of expression is an example for many journalists around the world. Her case is emblematic of global trends that represent a real threat to press freedom, and therefore to democracy,” said Italian investigative journalist Marilu Mastrogiovanni, chair of the Prize’s international jury.

The Award Ceremony took place on May 2 in Windhoek, Namibia, on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day Global Conference.

In her acceptance speech, delivered online, Ressa warned about the virus of untruths infecting democracies around the world.

"The virus of lies is highly contagious. They infect real people, who become impervious to facts. It changes the way they look at the world. They become angrier, more isolated. They distrust everything," she said.

"In this environment, the dictator wins, crumbling our democracies from within."

The rich and powerful, she said, have to choose and act. "Silence is complicity," she said.

"Whether you’re at the UN or heading a nation or a corporation, or you’re a politician, human rights worker, a journalist, or a citizen, fight – and win – your individual battle for integrity," she concluded.

Over a career spanning more than 30 years, the Filipino American journalist, has worked as CNN’s lead investigative reporter for Asia and the head of ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs.

Her campaign to protect press freedom in the Philippines has garnered worldwide attention. She was named one of Time magazine's Person's of the Year for 2018 and has been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Ressa has also been involved in many international initiatives to promote press freedom. In recent years, she has been the target of online attacks and judicial processes relating to her investigative reporting and status as manager of online outlet Rappler.

She has been arrested for alleged crimes related to the exercise of her profession, and has been subject to a sustained campaign of gendered online abuse, threats, and harassment, which at one point, resulted in her receiving an average of over 90 hateful messages an hour on Facebook.

Born in the Philippines, Ressa immigrated to the U.S. in 1973 at the age of 10 with her mother. Her  family settled in New Jersey. She graduated cum laude from Princeton with a degree in English.

The $25,000 Prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the defence or promotion of press freedom especially in the face of danger. It is named after Guillermo Cano Isaza, the Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper El Espectador in Bogotá, Colombia, on Dec. 17, 1986. It is funded by the Guillermo Cano Isaza Foundation (Colombia), the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation (Finland) and the Namibia Media Trust.

The 2021 World Press Freedom Day Global Conference Began April 29 and continues to May 3.

This year’s theme “Information as a Public Good” serves as a call to affirm the importance of cherishing information as a public good, and exploring what can be done in the production, distribution and reception of content to strengthen journalism, and to advance transparency and empowerment while leaving no one behind. The theme is of urgent relevance to all countries across the world. It recognizes the changing communications system that is impacting on our health, our human rights, democracies and sustainable development.

The conference also tackled ways to promote and support independent media struggling to survive a crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when national and local media everywhere face financial instability and other pressures threatening their survival and their journalists’ jobs.

Words matter: Trump's names for the coronavirus emboldened his followers, says study

Donald Trump's use of racist terms when referring to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, "likely perpetuated racist attitudes." according to a new study.

There apparently is some evidence that supports blaming the former White House occupant for unleashing a torrent of ant-Asian sentiment, giving rise to the year-long surge of violence against Asians and Asian Americans culminating (thus far) in the mass shootings in Georgia killing eight people, including six Asian women. 

A new study suggests that Donald Trump's inflammatory rhetoric around the coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in China, helped spark anti-Asian Twitter content and "likely perpetuated racist attitudes."

Over a year ago, in the week after Trump first tweeted about “the Chinese virus,” the number of coronavirus-related tweets with anti-Asian hashtags rose precipitously, a new study from UC San Francisco has found.

The study examined nearly 700,000 tweets containing nearly 1.3 million hashtags, the week before and after the president’s tweet on March 16, 2020, to see whether his use of the term “Chinese virus” – an expression that public health experts warned against using – may have led others to use anti-Asian language on Twitter.

The UCSF researchers found that users who adopted the hashtag #chinesevirus were far more likely to pair it with overtly racist hashtags.

Dr. Yulin Hswen

The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health in its March 18, 2021 issue, comes as the country is experiencing an alarming surge of violent attacks on people of Asian descent and lends support to warnings by public health experts that naming a disease after a place or a group of people is stigmatizing.

“These results may be a proxy of growth in anti-Asian sentiment that was not as prevalent as before,” said Yulin Hswen, ScD, MPH, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF and the study's lead author. “Using racial terms associated with a disease can result in the perpetuation of further stigmatization of racial groups.”

Officials of the World Health Organization purposely avoided attaching geography to the virus, as was the practice in the past, to avoid casting blame on a group of people or region. But Trump insisted on tying China to COVID-19 at every turn. A news photographer took a picture of one of Trump's early speeches and he had crossed out "corona" in the word "coronavirus" and replaced in thick black marker with "China."

Standing by his words, even in the face of criticism that it might lead to racial profiling of Asian Americans, Trump claimed it was a "very accurate term," the virus "came from China."

 In a prepared speech, Donald Trump crossed out "corona" and inserted "Chinese."

Playing to the racist nature of some in his base has been Trump's strategy from the beginning of his run for president. When he announced his candidacy in 2015, he blamed the undocumented immigrants from Mexico as "bad hombres" and "rapists." His deliberate appeals to white racists worked well enough to win him the White House.

Hswen said the results of the study demonstrate how important it is to use neutral language when naming diseases and other threats to public health. And she expressed alarm that as recently as March of 2021, Trump continues to refer to the Covid-19 vaccine as the “China Virus Vaccine.”

“Chinese virus, China virus, Wuhan virus, or any derivative of these terms is not something we should be using,” Hswen said. “We should not be attaching location or ethnicity to diseases.”

Trump concedes Asian Americans "may have' been subjected to 'nasty language'

After a week of defending his use of the term "Chinese virus," for COVID-19, Donald Trump said Asian Americans should be protected from the xenophobic attacks.

“It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States, and all around the world. They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus is NOT their fault in any way, shape, or form,” Trump tweeted Monday before his daily White House Press conference.

"They are working closely with us to get rid of it," Trump added. "WE WILL PREVAIL TOGETHER!"

Trump's insistence in calling the coronavirus the "Chinese virus," goes against the recommendations of the World Health Organization and the guidelines put forth by the US Centers for Disease Control. He was widely blamed for fomenting the anti-Asian sentiment arising from the coronavirus.

The xenophobia has sprouted numbers of attacks against Asian Americans, from verbal abuse to physical altercations, from being spit on to being beaten.

Hours later, Trump repeated what he tweeted at a press conference during which he avoided saying "Chinese virus." Trump added that Asian Americans were "incredible" and that they may have been subjected to "nasty language" in recent days.

"I don't like that at all," Trump added.

In a briefing last week, Trump denied that the term "Chinese virus" was racist. 

"It's not racist at all," Trump shrugged in response after a reporter told him that many people consider it racist. "It comes from China, that's why."

Trump's apparent turnabout on his language surrounding the coronavirus may be hollow, though, say his critics.

Observers noted that Trump referred to Asian Americans as "they" and other Americans as "us," thus perpetuating the stereotype of Asian Americans as the perpetual foreigner or outsider. 

Reading this weekend: the power of yellow,Hawaiian businessman gives back to community, words matter

Should East Asians refer to themselves as 'yellow?'

I'm a little late in reading this interesting article about the debate on what East Asians can call themselves is still ongoing today so Kat Chow's article in NPR is still relevant and should spur more discussion. 

The term "Asian American" seems to be useful when addressing the broader non-Asian American audience but it is proving inadequate when talking about the needs -- education, health, representation -- of specific groups from the multiplicity of cultures that fall under that category.

" People with roots from South Asia or Southeast Asia sometimes refer to themselves as brown, which seems like a useful shorthand. But for a bunch of reasons, brown doesn't work for East Asians. I'm wondering if there's a parallel word for us," she writes. "What about Yellow?"

Eddie Flores giving back to the community.

Rags to riches: Millionaire helping improve Filipinos' status in Hawaii

Hawaiian barbecue is no-frills and mixed, just like the Filipino-Chinese entrepreneur who made it mainstream: Eddie Flores, Jr. whose rags-to-riches story is featured in Fortune Magazine.

Flores’ family moved to Hawaii from China when he was a youth, the eldest boy of seven children. His Filipino father, a musician, and Chinese mother, have sixth-grade educations and were part of the middle class in Hong Kong. In Hawaii, his father worked as a janitor and his mother a restaurant cashier and dishwasher to make ends meet.

That’s what sparked Flores’ entrepreneurial spirit. “I told myself I’m not going to be poor,” he said. That determination gave birth to  L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, which was recently rated by Entrepreneur magazine as the top Asian American fast-food franchise in the U.S.

Now the multi-millionaire is turning his attention to political and socio-economic empowerment of the Filipinos in Hawaii. Watch out!

Journalists: Watch your language when writing about immigration

Ninety percent of news articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today that cited the Center for Immigration Studies from 2014 to 2017 did not mention “the extremist nature of the group or its ties with the Trump administration,” according to “The Language of Immigration Reporting: Normalizing vs. Watchdogging in a Nativist Age.”

The report by Define American, the immigration advocacy nonprofit founded by Filipino American Jose Antonio Vargas, one of the nation's most outspoken undocumented immigrants,  found that the Center for Immigration Studies — which was founded by the late John Tanton, a white nationalist considered to be the father of the modern anti-immigrant movement — was often cited as a neutral authority in providing expert opinion or data, according to an article in The Intercept.

The article notes that the news outlets under review increasingly used dehumanizing language, such as “illegal immigrants” or “illegal aliens,” the emotionallly loaded terminology used by the White House.

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Farewell to the controversial hyphen in 'Asian American'

The dreaded hyphen is dead the bible of journalism, the 2019 Associated Press Stylebook, has buried "Asian-American" in favor of "Asian American."
Huh, you shrug? Did you notice the difference? For non-journalists it might hardly be noticeable but the elimination of the hyphen makes a world of difference.

English teachers and grammar experts might cringe at the change but the Associated Press guidelines, used by a majority of U.S. newspapers, is simply falling back on an underlying style rule that overrules what might be grammatically correct: Call people what they call themselves.

The proper grammar rule is to have the word "Asian" as a modifier for the word "American." Under proper English-class rules, the modifier is attached to the subject with a hyphen.

But ever since the the word "Asian-American" was coined in 1969, the debate has raged among community activists who say the "Asian" part of how they identify themselves is diminished as a modifier and gives more importance to the "American" part of their identity. 

Using the hyphen may be grammatically correct but it implies that the hyphenated person is less than a full-blooded American.

Proponents of not using the hyphen said it gave equal status to both parts of their identity.

For years, it went back and forth. Some used the hyphen, some didn't . It became clear that usage of the unhyphenated American was gaining in popularity, particularly among progressive organizations.


However, in the world of journalism, editors who go strictly "by the book," and eagar to demonstrate the neutrality of "good" journalism, made sure that to put uppity young journalists of color -- the group most likely to leave out the hyphen -- in their place by making sure to add that damn hyphen. It was as if by insisting on the hyphen it was putting the journalists of color in their place.

Much in the same way the styleguide moved away from the word "Negro" to today's description of African Americans or blacks, the AP followed popular usage and dropped the hyphen.

For a while, this blog used the forward slash (/) instead of the hyphen between the two words because it gave equal weight to both "Asian" and "American."

The problem with using the foroward slash was people who Googled either "Asian-American" or "Asian American" could not find the posts from this blog.

The other big change in the AP Stylebook is it's now OK to call something or someone's remarks racist.

It was always a source of irritation and frustration for a person of color that editors, usually white, would downplay someone's racist words or actions. Their cautious editing, in itself -- I believe -- comes not from racist motives but a wish  to stay away from words that are so loaded that they conjure up strong feelings, one way or another.

"Race is central to many recent headlines: Jussie Smollett’s case, immigration, the viral video of a teenager and a Native American elder," writes Doris Truong for the Poynter Institute, a journalistic think tank that seeks to support and improve journalism.

"However we are in an era of dog-whistle politics — if you know what to listen for, you get the message. Some newsrooms have soft-pedaled describing actions as racist. Instead, they have hedged with language such as 'racially motivated,'" continues Truong, who provided input to AP for the new guidelines as a representative of the Asian American Journalists Association. 

The style guide entry on the race reads:

"The terms racism and racist can be used in broad references or in quotations to describe the hatred of a race, or assertion of the superiority of one race over others." 

It is no longer enough to take a "he said, she said" and a clinical approach to reporting the actions and words without describing them accurately.

If it is journalism's goal is to be accurate, in this age when racial inequality threatens our society, hate crimes are on the rise, xenophobia is nurtured by the White House, white nationalists emboldened and called "nice people" or the 19th century racist values embedded in some of our institutions continue to place obstacles to equality, it is difficult, if not impossible, to write about these issues without calling them for what they really are.

If the US is to have a real discussion on race, it needs to start in the nation's newsrooms.

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