Sichuan Earthquake Shows Hope to the Future of Chinese

“In the aftermath of the great Sichuan earthquake, we’ve seen a hopeful glimpse of China’s future: a more open and self-confident nation, and maybe — just maybe — the birth of grass-roots politics here.” Such opening is so refreshing and enlightening. It was from Nicholas Kristof’s Earthquake and Hope on New York Times.

Chinese government has always been portrayed as a no-freedom-no-right communist by Western media (American and European). Most of the coverage is on unsafe products, trade surplus (i.e. deficit in the other countries), human right, property copyright, Tibetan freedom and other negative events. Different culture, and in some cases lower education level, somehow got translated into being uncivilized. To some, communist must be autarchic.

Sichuan earthquake proves them wrong. China has been changing to the right direction. I am glad Kristof shared his thoughts on NYT.

After the earthquake, the Propaganda Department instinctively banned news organizations from traveling to the disaster area. But journalists all around the country ignored it and rushed in. The order was withdrawn the next day. After then, the authority ordered media to focus on the outstanding relief effort. Yet journalists investigated why schools collapsed when government offices stand; and if there were corruptions. Apparently, media scored again.

Earthquake is sad. But I am very impressed by the overall positive attitude.

• Prime Minister Wen Jiabao rushed to the disaster area to oversee rescue operations.


• There are crying faces who lost their loved ones, but those who survive are thankful.


• Many children lost their limbs, but are grateful being saved.


• Buildings were collapsed, but will be rebuilt.


• Schools could be ill-structured; those responsible will be punished.


• Food and supply were short; help is being transported over every day.


• No one fighting for limited resources. Everyone try to help each other.


• Chinese traveled from around the nation to volunteer.


• Mourning messages, articles, video, and animations flooded all major Chinese websites.


• Billions of dollars of donation were collected domestically and from overseas.


• Media offered a good balance of the coverage.

I do not know if such affirmative outlook is a result of pressure from the authority. No doubt it helps to heal those were hurt, unite the country, lift up the nationalism overseas, and build a positive image of the nation’s value around the world. I am pleased to see how Chinese united together. I am proud to be Chinese.

Asian Americans are “In Play”

In the article Anderson Cooper Explains Little About Asian Americans at Huffington Post, Scott Kurashige criticized Anderson Cooper’s special report “Race, Gender and Politics” at CNN fell short on Asian American. By saying Asian Americans are “in play” is not just an understatement, I think, but an insult. Kurahige complains how little the mainstream media understands the political dynamics within the Asian American communities. Well, this isn’t a surprise.

To help the media understand how ethnic identity politics functions, Kurashige outlines how minority interest groups form. Such groups conform perfectly to niche marketing of politics. I couldn’t agree with him more on that. Yet winning endorsement of such groups is not enough, endorsements from minority politicians, community leaders and media are no less important.

Kurashige argues “ending the marginalization of Asian American voices and stopping the monolithic portrayal of Asian American political attitudes would be great strides toward eliminating the conditions that sustain the ‘bloc vote’ mentality.” Can everybody hear that?

Quiet Minority Swings Vote

Every vote counts. Asian American make up 5% of the U.S. population and as much as 12% in states like California, our power and influence should not be underestimated. We may not be as active as we should, but we could swing and change landscape.

Asian American is known to be the quiet minority. We don’t speak out for what we need – at least not as loud as African American and Latino. Many of us don’t vote. Politicians would think “If I do them good, they won’t give me their votes since they don’t vote. If I do them bad, they are not noisy enough to hurt me. With limited resources (time and money), I’d rather focus on the other groups.”

Asian’s quietness is part of the culture. A lot of us are brought up and taught not to question authority or the system. For someone who was told to follow the assigned leaders without questions, voting does not come natural. In fact, voting system is still relatively new in some areas in Asia.

The no-questioning mentality not only leads to low voting turnout, it also translates to reluctance to run for political office. To improve this, education is the key. There are groups like Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE), Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) and 80-20 that try to counter the fear and barrier.

“[The Asian population] is growing really quickly, and it’s a shame we’re not harnessing our potential,” said Sharon Chen, Executive Director of CAUSE.

I personally think it is a chicken-or-egg issue. Politicians will devote more attention to Asian Americans only if they vote and raise their voice. More Asian Americans will vote and raise their voice only if politicians devote more attention to them.

With the sizeable influence Asian Americans can wield in an election, as evidenced by Super Tuesday, candidates running for office would do well to campaign within this community. Bel Leong-Hong, the chair of the Democratic National Committee's Asian Pacific Islander American Caucus believes “the conversation needs to go beyond just addressing this constituency as an afterthought to other ethnic groups. In a close election, the result could come down to a swing group, which, considering their support for Clinton, could very well be Asian Americans.”

(Source of Chen and Leong-Hong’s quotes: The Huffington Post “The Asian-American Minority Swing Vote” by Natasha Chen)

Presidential Forum by APIA Vote

None of the presidential candidates showed up at the presidential forum organized by APIA Vote last weekend in Irvine, California. What does that mean?

Politicians have been talking about diversity. We heard news talking about how women support Clinton, whether African Americans are in favor of Obama, who could get the most Latino votes. Did anyone in the mainstream media mention Asian American?

While presidential candidates may not care enough about the Asian American votes, we do offer financial support to the leaders who we believe will make a change. But hold on, which should come first? We pay them, so they care? Or they care, so we pay? Regardless, the reality is that we pay and they could care less.

Here is a video taken at the APIA Vote presidential forum. I watched it over and over. I wanted to memorize his speech. I believe all Asian American should watch it too.



Key messages to the Presidential Candidates (quotes from the video):

• We (Asian American) want to give, but have never felt like our giving has ever mattered. And now it is the time to prove us wrong. Inspire us. What must be done for you to embrace us?


• You could talk about us more. I can't wait to hear Asian would be mentioned in a real American speech. I just want to be in one story. Can you please just put us in one of your speech? Recognize that we have helped to build [America].


• We know without your help, we cannot get what we want. But the world is changing fast. If you don’t see this, you must understand you can't get what you want without us.

Asian Women in Politics

The match of Hilary and Obama makes this year's presidential election the most interesting ever. Either one wins (at least for the Democrats Party) will make the history, because they are minority – woman and African American. Imagine it was an African American woman versus a white man. How about an Asian American woman? Trust me, it will happen one day, just not soon.

According to Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University of New Jersey, there are 86 women serving in the 110th U.S. Congress, only two of them are Asian Americans. Of the 1,741 women state legislators serving nationwide, only 30 are Asian-American women. Consider 5% of the population in the U.S. is Asian; we are definitely underrepresented in Asian women politics.

Knowledge and culture could be the major reasons for the disproportion. Many Asian women immigrants simply do not know much about American politics. Some of them do not even realize women have the right to and should vote. They think their husbands, fathers or sons would represent the families.

Another issue is the complex composition of Asian Americans. Chinese, Filipinos, Asian Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese are only some of the subgroups under the Asian American label. We speak different native languages and have different community issues. The challenge is to unit the Asian American. Only then, Asian voice – men and women alike – will be heard in politics.

When it comes to Asian marketing, I always remind people to be sensitive about the differences among subgroups of Asian Americans. As for politics, I urge all the Asian American to look at our similarities instead.

To unite is to empower. I sincerely hope I will have a chance in this lifetime to vote for a capable Asian American woman to be the President of the United States.