Jeremy Lin: On "The Silicon Valley Suicides"

Atlantic graphic

RECENTLY, Jeremy Lin got a lot of attention because of his changing hairstyles even getting mentioned in a nationally published magazine.

When the NBA player posted on his Facebook page his thoughts on suicide, not so much. 

Reading "The Silicon Valley Suicides," in this month's Atlantic magazine caused Lin to reflect on his own high school years, darkened by the suicide of two his classmates, the pressures he placed on himself and the pressures he felt coming from others' expectations of him.

"The pressure to succeed in high school is all too familiar to me. I distinctly remember being a freshman in high school, overwhelmed by the belief that my GPA (grade point average) over the next four years would make or break my life. My daily thought process was that every homework assignment, every project, every test could be the difference," he writes on his Facebook page.

The Atlantic article written by Hanna Rosin focused on a couple of suicide clusters that occurred in Palo Alto, smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley, the cradle of 21st century innovation.

"Since I went to Stanford, in the early ’90s, the surrounding public schools have been utterly transformed by the tech explosion," wrote Rosin. "Gunn, and to a lesser extent Palo Alto High School, is legendary all over the world. Steve Jobs’s old house is in the neighborhood. Chinese patriarchs buy homes in the community and send their families, so their kids can go to school there. Parents sacrifice vacations and plan their budgets carefully so they can afford a house in the district."

Not all the kids who committed suicide in Palo Alto, where Jeremy Lin went to school, were Asian/American, but there was no denying that some Asian/American students were under some - sometimes unsaid - pressure to succeed academically. Rosin wrote:

Tragedies do not always bring people together; sometimes they just deepen the rifts between them. The day after Byron Zhu died, a Paly senior named Andrew Lu posted on his blog a diagram of three circles, labeled “Palo Alto,” “Male,” and “Asian.” “It seems that the demographic most at risk are Asian (Chinese) males in high school (hey, that’s what I am!),” he wrote. Three of the boys who had died in the past academic year had at least some Asian heritage. 

Andrew was broaching a very touchy subject, one that had come up more rudely in comments on Palo Alto Online. Heavy stress among “good kids” was the product of “a nasty competitive atmosphere contrived by unethical Tiger Mothers,” one commenter wrote. At the end of some of my conversations, a student, teacher, or counselor would look around to make sure no one was listening and then whisper a story about an Asian kid being punished or even kicked out of the house for a night after getting a B or failing to get into Stanford. I’d heard how new East Asian immigrant parents mistakenly transposed the reality of education in, say, China or Korea, which is that how you do on a single test can determine your entire future. Gunn is more than 40 percent Asian, and some non-Asian parents, particularly ones who’d grown up in town when the Asian population was smaller, felt the shift was poisoning the culture of the entire school.

The Atlantic article raises questions about a value that is part of the Model Minority trope and should make us stop and ponder the possible unintentional ramifications of those values. It should be noted that the vast majority of Asian/Americans grow up to be well-adjusted, healthy and successful individuals. 

Contrary to popular myth fed by the Tiger Mom archetype, Asian Americans do not have a higher suicide rate than other racial and ethnic groups. However, data in the National College Health Assessment Survey seem to indicate that Asian/American college students have suicidal thoughts and attempt suicide more frequently than their peers.

But what both the Rosin and Lin emphasize, we shouldn't  expect our young people to react in the same way, even though the environment they are in may be similar.

As we know, Lin survived high school. He found his close relationship with his Christian faith  and his parents to be his saving grace, but that might not be the solution for everyone. Lin went on to Harvard and onto a life in the NBA. In each stage of his life he had to meet everyone's expectations and defy the Asian stereotypes, which puts an awful lot on his shoulders.

Lin's Facebook entry drew lots of reaction.

"As an Asian American bicultural and bilingual psychologist I’ve had the privilege to work with so many over-pressured youth and loving but misguided parents who believe that their child’s exhaustion, anxiety, depression can be overcome by just not talking about it,” wrote Neleh Chimera. “Thank you for writing this — it will touch many young lives.”

Generally, Asian/Americans don't like to talk about mental health issues but not talking about it will make this issue go away. There is a dire need to gather more data on this subject considering the wide breadth of the 50 ethnic groups that fall under this broad Asian American category and their mental health needs vary as widely as their economic, educational and social status.

"We may not have the answers to how to completely solve these issues, but we can take more time to really listen to each other, to reach out and have compassion on one another," Lin concludes. "I don’t have any great insight and I don’t know exactly what it’s like to be a high school student today. I do know that I’m proud to be from Palo Alto, a resilient community that I see striving to learn how to better support and care for each other. I hope that my personal experience can remind someone else that they are worth so much more than their accomplishments."

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FOR ASSISTANCE

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United Sates and 8th among Asian Americans. 

If you are concerned that you or someone you know may be at risk for suicide, we strongly encourage you to do one or more of the following: 

• Contact a mental health provider within your community. 
• Call 1-800-273-8255 (TALK), the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, for a referral. (More than 150 languages are offered)
• Call 1-877-990-8585, Asian LifeNet Hotline (24 hours). (Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Fujianese are offered)
• In the United States, call 911.
• In addition, each state and county have their own hotlines. 

Do not leave the person alone even after phone contact with an appropriate professional has been made.

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Do European/Americans get too stressed out when talking about race?

From a BuzzFeed video.

DON'T BE too hard on your European/American coworkers or classmates. Life is getting more uncomfortable for them as they find it nearly impossible to not interact with people of color in our changing America.

As the Black Lives Matter movement, the political rhetoric of the presidential candidates,  the attacks against Muslims, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia and the attempts to use the Model Minority Myth against other people of color clearly demonstrates - race is still a dividing line in America.

The lens through which we People of Color (POC) see the world is dramatically different from the way European/Americans see the world.

While European/Americans may find it difficult to talk about race, that is a topic most of us are all too familiar with since we deal with it every day. EVERY DAY! 

Racism has taken a different form from the days of lynchings and cross-burnings that spurred the Civil Rights Movement.

In our country's discourse, racism is still defined as a matter of individual, intentional and overt action. If there isn’t a noose hanging, many people will not identify an action as being racist, even if it results in racial disparities. Redefining racism as something that is often systemic, unconscious and hidden is a reboot that all Americans need right now, whatever their age.

The brilliant satirist Molly Ivins said: ‘The second George Bush was born on third base but believes he hit a triple.’ In the same vein, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's father gave him $1 million to start his career and the Donald believes he's a self-made man.. That gets to the heart of what white privilege is all about, Bush, Trump and many folks in the top 1 percent are people who achieved their status in life and believe it’s solely because they have sacrificed and worked hard.

it may be too easy to dump on Euro/Americans in retaliation for all the slights and microaggressions heaped upon you as you were growing up, you might unwittingly push them into a self-defensive corner.

As this video from our friends at BuzzFeed demonstrates, not sharing the experiences of POC, even the most well-intentioned EA's - many of whom we call our friends - get tense and awkward about the topic or race. They may be reluctant to join the race conversation, you shouldn't avoid it either when the topic arises. It is important that they understand your perspective if you want your friendship to flower or professional relationship to prosper.

When is the best time for that conversation on race? It could be anytime or anywhere. Drinks after work, at a friend's party, during a video game, at a pizza joint or in the classroom. Your EA friend/corworker/classmate should feel honored that you trust them enough to include them with the thoughts we have been taught to keep to ourselves.

When the forbidden race topic comes up, try hard not to get defensive or too combative, says Derald Wing Sue, a psychology and education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and author of “Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence.”and “Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation,”

“Most whites get defensive – ‘Oh no, you are just over-sensitive. You are reading something into it,” Sue says. “Entertain a possibility that the individual bringing up the observation, complaint or a problematic situation may be accurate. Don’t shut it off immediately by denouncing it because it is not within your consciousness."

When people say that they are "color-blind" in their relationships, they are missing the point. The color of my skin helped define who we are. If someone doesn't see the tone of our skin, they are not seeing us.

People of color shouldn’t let themselves off the hook, either, says Sue. Consider how you might respond to the earnest efforts of whites you know by asking questions and allowing them to be human, too. “Committing blunders is okay if we learn from them. When you commit a racial blunder, it’s how you recover, not how you cover up. ... I try to communicate that we are all good, moral, decent individuals. I don’t see you personally as the antagonist or the enemy. ... You weren’t born wanting to be a racist. ... You took this on, through a painful process of conditioning, just like I as a person of color have been culturally conditioned in ways that have been harmful to me. . . . We need to work together to overcome these shackles of cultural conditioning.”

We are all human and we all have our own personal biases based on our own personal experiences and the environment in which we were raised. Maybe admitting that is Step One.

For more news about Asian/Americans and Pacific Islanders, link to AsAm News.

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Stephen Colbert admits to Margaret Cho he’s probably racist

COMEDY is good for your health. It's even better when comedians make you think too.

For those of you who couldn't stay up late for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, here he was talking about race and political correctness with Margaret Cho last November.

The headline to this post is deliberately misleading to get  your attention. Sorry, about that.  Host Colbert was playing a foil to Margaret Cho and together they were trying to make a point.

"I’m so happy to make racist jokes, because I can,” said Cho. “I grew up in the era where it was all Asian driver jokes, so I would come onstage, and I would say, ‘My name is Margaret Cho, and I drive very well.’ People would be taken aback, because they would realize, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize I was racist this whole time.'”

She loves challenging her audiences. Colbert's audience laughed nervously, know sure what to do - laugh or groan.

"I'm Korean," Cho said, as if to say, it's OK.

Colbert said he couldn't tell that joke. Cho agreed, as it should be.

“Do you think it might just be better if everybody just started with a baseline of, I’m just going to assume I’m racist when I’m talking about a race that isn’t mine?” Colbert asked. “Because I don’t know what that experience is like, and I have presuppositions about what it is like to be someone of another race or the behavior of another race. If I think of a person as part of a race and as not of an individual.”

Yes, Cho agreed.

Then Colbert shook Cho's hand, "Hi, I'm Stephen Colbert, probably a racist."Get it? It's OK to laugh, then file away the message in the back of your consience, let it percolate a bit. Ahhh, yes: Don't presume to know someone or their experiences based on your own racial prejudices.

Margaret Cho tells Steven Colbert's audience, "I'm Korean!"

George Takei on Trump, internment and New York buses

George Takei just before he went on a bus tour in the Big Apple.

CAN ONE ever get enough of George Takei?

The actor, best known for his role as Mr. Sulu in the iconic Star Trek television and movie franchise.  was honored last Dec. 10 for having his image emblazoned on a New York City double-decker tour bus - the Ride of Fame. 

Before he went on a bus tour of the city, he was interviewed by NBC (and here) and he talked about life in general, his own life, his Broadway musical Allegiance and why we should all get involved in our communities by giving back somehow.

He's an activist for human rights and has become a social media star and he's not afraid to go where no one has ever gone before. Most recently, he responded to Donald Trump's plan to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.

Trump's widely criticized proposal has drawn comparisons to the United States'  war hysteria-driven and xenophobic decision to place some 120,000 Japanese-Americans into internment camps during World War II -- a plan Trump would not outright disavow. 

Ironically, Trump issued his insane idea on Dec. 7, Takei noted, the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, "the very event that put us in those internment camps," said Takei.

Takei, ever a social media networker, issued an invitation on Dec. 9 to the Donald to watch the musical Allegiance, inspired by Takei's own experience. "If you want to see how tough it was from the comfort of your seat, you can be there with us in the camps and see what it was like for families like mine who were unjustly imprisoned by a politics of fear much like the one you're campaigning on," Takei challenged. 

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What's up with Jeremy Lin's hair?

Jeremy Lin's hair-dos and don'ts have evolved through the years.

SO, ... what can you say about Jeremy Lin's hair?

The hair style sported by Jeremy Lin that caught GQ's attention.

How a man wears his hair says a lot about the guy, so they say. I used to believe that.

We all go through "phases"  in our tonsorial life. I went through several hairstyles in my attempt to bring attention to myself. From the "good boy" look with lots of pomade, rebellious Sal Mineo style with lots of pomade, California relaxed surfer style, the modified "mod" Beatle-like cut, long past the collar, my "adult" look with lots of mousse, eventually resorting to the embarrassing comb-over and, finally, to my current style, which is shaved. (Which, by the way, attracts too much attention from airport security. Just saying!) It all got to be too much.

Jeremy, the only Chinese/American player in the NBA, is getting a lot of attention these days because he changes his hair so often. He has even generated some scorn in GQ, which struggled with what to call his latest style. Man-bun? Top-Knot? Samurai? Or, as some have speculated, a modern-day version of the pig-tail worn by Chinese coolies in the 19th century.

His hair style hasn't changed his style of play, which some say is reckless abandon or daring. His play generates almost as many adjectives as hair style.

RELATED: Jeremy Lin opens up about race

I think Jeremy's changing hair is - in a way - his attempt to counter stereotypes. It's his own private joke on a society that wants to pigeonhole him. 

The native of the San Francisco Bay Area talked about the racial bias he's encountered as a professional baskeball player and the stereotypes he's had to disprove over and over again: can't jump, not fast enough, can't shoot, not aggressive, He's been defying stereotypes his whole life. His hair is just another way of dismantling the unathletic-Asian stereotype that has been imposed on him - from the height of LInsanity to his current team,  the Charlotte Hornets - there's a lot we can learn from his story.

Jeremy Lin should be able to wear his hair any darn way he wants to.

UPDATED: Since this post was written, Jeremy Lin wrote an essay in the Oct. 3, 2017 issue of The Players' Tribune about his most recent hair style.

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TGIF FEATURE: "Today Show" looks into the gender gap in Silicon Valley

NBC's Today Show launched a special series this week titled "The Women of Silicon Valley." To start the series hosted by Natalie Morales, the Today Show interviewed two Asian/American women whose actions were instrumental to bringing high-tech's gender gap issue to the forefront, Tracy Chou and Isis Anchalee.

For Tracy Chou's Today Show video, click here.

Despite the few highly visible women executives past and present, such as presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, who at one time headed up Hewlett Packard, and Marissa Mayer, who is Yahoo's CEO, women have been highly underrepresented in the industry as a whole.

It wasn't until Chou asked for the hiring data from her own company, Pinterest, did the industry begin talking about the inequality within Silicon Valley. Since then, the industry giants such as Yahoo, Google, Facebook and others conduct their own surveys. Lo and behold, their data confirmed the gender gap and also the lack of diversity.

Isis Anchalee, founded #ILookLikeAnEngineer. Click here for her video.

Back in August, Isis Anchalee Wenger suddenly became the face — quite literally — of female engineers working in Silicon Valley.

RELATED: Asians hit a bamboo ceiling 

The 23-year-old started #ILookLikeAnEngineer on Twitter after an ad featuring her as a platform engineer at tech consulting firm OneLogin sparked a backlash, with people on social media expressing doubts about her profession.

The response to the disbelieving response was overwhelming with engineers around the world sending photos of themselves to #ILookLikeAnEngineer. A crowd-funding drive raised money to place billboards and other paraphanalia around the San Francisco Bay Area with the now famous hashtag trying to break the stereotype of who can be an engineer.

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No surprise, Asian Americans leaning towards Democrats, Sanders

Immigration is a top concern for Asian/Americans.

AMONG the so-called political experts, its was widely believed that Asian/Americans would be an easy demographic for Republicans because of their orientation towards family and entrepreneurship. As it turns out, that image is a couple of decades old and no longer holds true -- if it ever did.

That belief has apparently shifted according to a new Gallup Poll that shows Asian/Americans moving into the more progressive camp and preferring social democrat
platform of Sen. Bernie Sanders over the more traditional Democrat, Hillary Clinton.

Sanders enjoys the highest level of popularity for any major candidate of either party among Asian/Americans, with his favorable score exceeding his unfavorable score by 29 percentage points with this group. His competitor for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, is not far behind, with a net favorable score of +21.

Both Democratic contenders score better than any of the Republican candidates, especially for Donald Trump, whose favorability among Asian/Americans is a minus 43 points.

One reason Asian/Americans may prefer Sanders over Clinton, and indeed all other presidential candidates with this group, is the comparatively liberal lean of Asian/Americans. Over a third of Asian/Americans (35%) classify their ideology as liberal, much higher than the level of Euro/Americans (22%), African/Americans (26%) and Latinos (26%).

While this trend may not mean a whole lot for 2016 because Asian/Americans are only 5 percent of the voters, if the growth trend continues, it could have greater significance in the future since Asians make up the fastest-growing racial group in the country. In some jurisdictions with a large Asian/American community, their impact will be felt immediately, especially if they feel that their needs and issues are not being addressed.

RELATED: GOP makes a push for Asian American voters1965 refries changed the face of AmericaNew strategy targets immigrantsFrom Latinos to anchor babies

Through recent presidential election cycles, Republicans have successfully defined the political dialogue. Simplistically put, that meant family values, strong faith in God, patriotism, anti-choice, fiscal responsibility, small government were conservative values. We might as well through in mom and apple pie in there. A lot of conservatives were happy with this description.

But real life is not always so easily defined.

In 2008 and 2012, voters of color who overwhelmingly voted for Obama. GOP strategists felt that to have any real chance to win the presidency, they had to take away some of those votes from the Democrats. 

At the start of the current presidential campaign in 2014 and as late as early this year, Republicans believed they could woo enough Asian/American voters into their camp.

Since 1965 when immigration laws were  reformed so that Europeans didn't receive favored treatment, immigration from Latin America and Asia increased dramatically creating a sense of unease in the traditional - mostly Euro/American - conservative camp that they were losing control of "their" America.

Immigration is perhaps the one issue that unites the vast majority of Asian Americans. What has happened as a result of the 1965  immigration reforms is that first-generation immigrant Asian/Amerians now outnumber American-born Asian/Americans.

In addition, most of us are still closely connected to our immigrant roots no matter how many generations we may have been here because, more than likely, we are related to a first-generation immigrant.

So if you attack immigrants or espouse stricter immigration laws, what you are saying to Asian/Americans is that our families are not important and to Asian/Americans, family is of the utmost importance. Therefore, if you attack immigrants, you attack our relatives, our families.

And that's where the Republican party has missed the boat. Not only have they missed the boat, they are trying to sink it.

Donald Trump, the most reviled of all candidates in the eyes of many Asian-Americans. Trump has been outspoken on the issue of immigration throughout his campaign, vowing not only to end all illegal immigration (most notably with his pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border), but also to limit the level of legal immigration into the U.S. Given that around three-fourths of Asian-Americans are themselves immigrants, Trump's xenophobic rhetoric has almost certainly offended a large segment of this group.

The new Asian/American gothic

Just two decades ago, Asian-Americans were more apt to back GOP candidates -- in 1992, Republican President George H.W. Bush garnered 55% of the Asian/American vote as he unsuccessfully vied for re-election, according to exit poll data. But Asian/Americans have since abandoned the Republicans and now self-identify as Democratic (or as independents who lean Democratic) at a rate that far exceeds the portion of Asian/Americans who identify as or lean Republican.

With racist Donald Trump leading the way, GOP candidates for president have tripped over themselves trying to out-Trump Trump by voting against DACA, speaking against Obama's immigration reforms, proposing construction of a "wall"  across our southern borders and now, asking for stricter screening of refugees (beyond the 2-year process already in place) and Trump's latest proposal, an outright ban on all Muslims entering the U.S.

If you attack immigration reform, try to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment among the "conservatives," call the immigrants rapists, drug dealers, gang members, murderers and try to associate them with "anchor babies,"  curtail family reunification laws, threaten some with deportation separating children from their parents, you are essentially attacking our families, our cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

It's no wonder the family-oriented Asian/Americans are not buying the anti-immigrant rhetoric spewing forth from the Republican candidates. In the Asian/American view, family trumps all other issues.

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Seiji Ozawa honored at Kennedy Awards

Seiji Ozawa, 2nd from left in front, was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor,
the first Japanese/American to receive that honor.

CONDUCTOR Seiji Ozawa was honored with a Kennedy Center Award last Dec. 6. He was the first person from Japan to receive the prestigious award last Dec. 6 in Washington D.C. In fact, he is only the second Asian to receive the honor.

The 79-year old was joined by filmmaker George Lucas, singer-songwriter Carole King, actress/singer Rita Moreno, and actress Cicely Tyson as recipients of the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors. The honor recognizes their lifetime artistic achievements for their contribution to the arts over their careers.

“When I look at this year’s outstanding slate of Honorees, I am struck by a powerful common theme— artists as history-makers, artists who defy both convention and category,” said Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter in a statement. “Each Honoree and their career-spanning achievements exemplify a rare quality of artistic bravery.”

“The Kennedy Center Honors recognizes the extraordinary and unparalleled talents of individuals whose impact and genius have left an indelible mark on civilization,” stated Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein. 

“Quite simply, our Honorees represent the voices, soundtracks, and stories of our personal lives and memories. Carole King’s heartfelt lyrics and tunes are woven throughout the tapestry of American music; George Lucas’ films have enriched our world with stories of epic adventure; Rita Moreno’s iconic spitfire roles are embedded in the heart of American culture; Seiji Ozawa’s artistic leadership as a conductor has set a new standard for orchestras around the world; and Cicely Tyson’s range of strong female roles on stage and screen have broken boundaries for women of color.”

Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Symphony.

Although born in China and raised in Japan, his daughter Siera said her father considers the U.S. to be his home because of the long time he has spent here.

Ozawa was born in Fenytien (now Shenjang), in the Manchurian province of Liaoning, China, during the Japanese occupation of that region. When war broke out, his Buddhist father and Presbyterian mother moved the family to Tokyo.

His mother's decision to raise her children as Christians brought Ozawa into early contact with Western church music. This contact was reinforced by his older brother, who became a church organist. From the start Ozawa gravitated toward Western music and only developed an interest in the traditional music of his homeland through association with cross-over composers such as Takemitsu, after his career was well established.

As a youngster attending school in Japan, Ozawa broke his fingers in a rugby game causing him to shift his emphasis from piano to conducting.

At one point in his career in the 1970s, he was the director of both the San Francisco Symphony and the Boston Symphony. In 1976 he had to drop his San Francisco gig because the bicoastal duties prove to be too taxing. He remained with the Boston Symphony for almost three decades during which he received many international awards.

He gained a reputation of being a bit of a rebel in the symphonic world that is steeped in tradition. He is an advocate of 20th century composers introducing several during his various conducting stints. He also broke from tradition by wearing a white turtleneck with his tuxedo instead of the traditional white shirt and bow tie.

The 38th Annual Kennedy Center awards show will be aired on CBS on Dec. 29 at 9/8c with performances by several artists as diverse as Yo-Yo Ma (the first  and only Asian/American to be awarded the honor) and Aretha Franklin. 

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Amy Vachal says 'bye to The Voice; hello to her new singing career

IF I HAD HAIR, I'd be pulling it out, right about now. Amy Vachal's gamble didn't pay off. While all the other contestants went big, over the top or in a new direction, she stayed true to herself.

UPDATE (Dec. 10): Amy Vachal and the other 24 contestants will return to The Voice stage next Tuesday (Dec. 15) when the 2015 season's winner will be announced.

In the results of The Voice's semifinals show on Tuesday (Dec. 8), the top three are deemed safe, the bottom three are quickly dispatched and the middle three have a sing-off. To everyone's surprise, Amy was in the bottom three. She didn't even get a chance to sing for her life.

The Voice says goodbye to Amy Vachal

Her emotional and comparatively subdued interpretation of Bob Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love" was really, really good and played right into Amy's wheelhouse of smooth, dreamy musicality. It was good enough to get the No. 6 spot on iTune downloads showing a lot of people liked it, too.

However, it was not a performance that makes one stand up and cheer as they did for Jordan Smith's gospel-like number. Those showstoppers are the type of performances that win contests like The Voice. It was Amy's bad luck that she performed just before Jordan's performance. The contrast between the two performances couldn't have been more stark.

In these singing competition, in most part, viewers don't vote on superior musicianship or who's the better lyrical interpreter, they vote on how they felt at that particular moment.

A bit of advice to The Voice: I don't want to sound like sour grapes, but, in fairness, maybe the contestants should be allowed to compete on their singing ability, not the production number they happen to participate in. I mean, what went into Jordan Smith's number probably cost more than all the other contestants. It was a spectacular, hallelujah moment. Not to take away from Jordan's performance, but certainly, Amy's performance suffered in comparison.

RELATED: Joining the Amy Vachal bandwagon

Also working against Amy was that she was so unique, her smooth jazzy style didn't fit into any of the popular musical categories with broad built-in fan bases. She was the most original artist in the competition and deserved to be in the finals. Alas, originality doesn't win these popularity contests.

What's next? Will she disappear into the void full of almost-made-it singers that see their dreams die when they walk off the stage? 

First off, Happy Birthday, Amy! The Voice results may be a bit bitter sweet, but as a fellow Capricorn, I know you'll work through the disappointment and through hard work and determination, you'll enter a new exciting phase in your life. The Voice was just the start.

I thank The Voice for introducing Amy Vachal to America. Through it all, the Filipino/American songstress gained fans all across the country. She doesn't have to stick to Brooklyn bistros or Manhattan cafes. 

I also have to thank Amy, of course. Of the top ten posts of the past few weeks, posts I wrote about Amy's remarkable journey took seven spots and I gained readers from all around the world, especially the Philippines, Canada and France (who would've thought?). I hope you continue to read this blog. Salamat!

I look forward to hearing more of her original compositions like "Honey" and "Keeper" below"

Imagine if The Voice allowed her to sing "La Vie en Rose," Amy might have won hands down.

For those who criticized her for sounding the same all the time, when next we hear her she'll be able to let her hair down (or in this case, in pigtails) when she sings this ditty, "Price Tag."

For those of you who are going through Amy Vachal withdrawals, there's always Youtube where there are dozens of Amy nuggets to discover, including the numbers she sang on The Voice.

I don't think this is the last we'll hear from her. The next time you see and hear her sing, it won't be a competition where she's forced to be something she is not. She's a true artist - a singer/song writer - and like all true artists, she can heed guest singer Dolly Parton's advice to the Voice contestants, Amy Vachal can simply be true to her self.

Oh, I almost forgot. The finals on The Voice airs next Monday when Jordan Smith will win ... I mean ... battle it out with Jordan Smith, Emily Ann Roberts, Barrett Baber and Jeffrey Austin, but ... it just won't be the same.

UPDATE (Dec. 9): I reserve the last word from Amy Vachal's Twitter account:

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Teachers from the Philippines victimized by labor traffickers; hundreds win lawsuit in the U.S.

HUNDREDS of teachers from the Philippines won a multi-million dollar lawsuit when a U.S. appeals court last week upheld a decision against the placement agency that brought them to the U.S.

A $4.5 million award to about 350 Fllipinos was upheld Dec. 1. The teachers from the Philippines accused recruitment companies of demanding they pay massive processing and placement fees or face losing their teaching positions in Louisiana.

The Ninth Circuit decided that Los Angeles-based Universal Placement International Inc. and its principal, Lourdes “Lulu” Navarro, had to pay back the fees, along with about $1.3 million in attorneys’ fees. A class of 347 Filipino teachers, who came to the United States to work on H-1B guest worker visas, said recruitment agencies and their agents misled them and collected millions of dollars in fees, according to Courthouse News Service. They reportedly paid up to $16,000 each to work in public schools in Louisiana.

Louisiana school districts hired Universal International Placement, based in Los Angeles Koreatown, its president Lourdes “Lulu” Navarro, a Filipino/American, and Quezon City-based PARS International Placement Agency, to recruit the teachers.

“The outrageous conduct by the companies that recruited these teachers and those who assisted them in carrying out their scheme is part of a larger pattern of exploitation that we’ve documented in guestworker programs,” said SPLC Legal Director Mary Bauer, author of the 2007 report Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States. “It’s clear that the very structure of the program lends itself to pervasive worker abuse. Guestworker programs should not be the model for immigration reform.”

RELATED: Summary of complaint

About 200 of the teachers were assigned to the East Baton Rouge school system; others were spread among the Caddo Public School District, Jefferson Parish Public School System and the Recovery School District as well as other school districts in Louisiana," according to an AFT press release. Only the East Baton Rouge district was named as a defendant.

Instead of the American dream, they found themselves living in a nightmare. 

They suffered from culture shock in the American schools. In the U.S., students talked back and could not sit still — not like the students in the Philippines.

“Every afternoon, as soon as the bell rang, I was crying,” said Ingrid Cruz, a graduate of a prestigious University in the Philippines who was hired to teach sixth-grade science. “I didn’t expect them to be that rude.”

They also faced hostility from locals who accused them of stealing jobs.

“It was overwhelming for them,” said Donnabel Escuadra-Rayburn, who arrived in 2008. “My paraprofessional had been working 10 years. He was a good teacher, but he couldn’t pass his certification exam, so he lost his job.”

The teachers began arriving in the United States in 2007 after each paid about $16,000, several times the average household income in the Philippines, to obtain the jobs. The H-1B guestworker program, administered by the Department of Labor, permits foreign nationals with special skills to work in the United States for a period of up to six years.
Nearly all the teachers had to borrow money to pay the recruiting fees; the recruiters referred them to private lenders who charged 3 to 5 percent interest per month. Teachers were forced to pay these exorbitant fees because they had already made substantial financial investments that would not be returned and because the recruiters confiscated their passports and visas until they paid. 

The teachers were also forced to sign away an additional 10 percent of the salaries they would earn during their second year of teaching. Teachers who resisted signing the contracts were threatened with being sent home and losing the thousands they had already paid. The recruiters also charged fees for arranging substandard housing and threatened teachers who complained or sought to move to a new location.

The teachers were represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP.

“The jury sent a clear message that exploitive and abusive business practices involving federal guestworkers will not be tolerated,” said Mary Bauer, legal director for the SPLC. “This decision puts unscrupulous recruitment agencies on notice that human beings – regardless of citizenship status – cannot be forced into contracts that require them to pay illegal fees."
“These teachers have been victimized in ways reminiscent of the worst abuses students learn about in history class: labor contracts signed under duress and arrangements that remind us of indentured servitude,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “The goal of this lawsuit is to put an end to this exploitation, which should have no place in 21st-century America.”

In the interim, math and science scores began climbing in East Baton Rouge. Cruz started a robotics club. She and her colleagues had grown so fond of their students that it actually hurt their case. How can you assert human trafficking cases if the teachers liked their jobs?

Navarro claimed bankruptcy, so they don’t expect the money. But the verdict means they are free. They don’t owe her anymore.