Sacramento author on Okinawa + Hmong community shares thoughts on Fresno shooting: Your AAPI newsletter
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It is Wednesday, Dec. 4, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter, brought to you by yours truly.
Here’s a recap on the stories I recently covered and issues I’m following:
More than two weeks have passed since four men were killed in a Fresno backyard shooting, leaving families to grieve. Many in the Hmong community who share their pain remain shaken by the unexplained burst of violence. I spoke to the Sacramento-area Hmong community on their thoughts on Asian gang stereotypes, healing and how social media plays a role in the tight-knitted community.
One person said talks about possible gang involvement minimizes the larger conversation of how gun violence plays a part in the community.
Rewards are being offered for tips leading to the arrest of the suspects. Also, online fundraisers have been set up.
Akemi Johnson, a Sacramento-based author and California native, talks about her 300-page investigative literary piece titled “Night in the American Village” which dives into the complex tensions, including cultural politics and gendered violence, between locals and American soldiers at a U.S. military base in Japan established after World War II.
The two-folded narrative focuses on the true, empowering tales of 11 Okinawan women – wives, academics, activists and mixed-race children based in the island. Each story – some about sexual abuse survivors, others about dating and eventually marrying U.S. military men – weaves together to construct a broader picture that captures the complexities rippled in the lives of the locals at the base.
The American point of view of military bases, Johnson said, is seen. But the perspectives of the locals are not.
“We are building this new military base against the will of the local people,” she said. “I wish we can have a dialogue as Americans about this and to think if they want to support it or not.”
Undocumented Asians say they must speak up or risk losing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status as a Supreme Court decision is nearing, the Los Angeles Times reports. Often overlooked, there are 1.7 million undocumented members who are DACA recipients of Asian and Pacific Islander descent in the country.
“They organize and show they have a stake in society, setting an example that others can follow,” one source told reporter Anh Do.
Khermara Buddhikarama temple, a Cambodian temple in Long Beach reopens to discord after evicting monks in response to a series of financial mismanagement and internal politics, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Read this thought-provoking opinion article by Marie Myung-ok Lee on how Andrew Yang, the Democratic presidential candidate having denied visibility on media several times, may be deploying stereotypes as a “subversive way to actually get visibility.” The article explains the struggles of Asian Americans battling invisibility and daily micro aggression in the workplaces, schools and the job markets.
According to Lee, Yang called out MSNBC for omitting him for more than 12 times. He also tweeted that he was allotted the least amount of time (6.9 minutes) in four out of five debates.
Orange County man Michael Phuong Minh Nguyen has been accused of trying to overthrow the Vietnamese government and still faces up to 12 years in Vietnamese prison after appeal is denied, the Orange County Register reports. Nguyen was accused in July 2018 by the Vietnamese authorities during a trip with friends through Da Nang in central Vietnam.
He and his wife, Helen Hieu, a surgical nurse at UCI Medical Center and Kaiser hospitals, owns a printing shop in Garden Grove and raises four children. He arrived the U.S. in 1975, when he was 10 years old. U.S. lawmakers have tried petitioning for support to Nguyen through letter and speeches in Congress but to no avail so far.
Read about the Cambodian student conference to discuss “going beyond survival” held at California State University, Long Beach, and co-organized with UC Irvine to focus on “moving past the Khmer Rouge and focusing on more the current happenings within the Khmer-American communities.
Dil Mil, a dating app for the Indian diaspora, is redefining “arranged” marriages, Quartz reports. More than 80 percent of South Asians marry other south Asians but those who are living abroad have trouble meeting each other. Dating.com Group recently acquired the San Francisco-based dating app geared toward south Asian nations. Dil Mil has more than 1 million users in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. The app reportedly averages a marriage each day.
Finally: What do you want to read about on Sacramento or California’s AAPI population or newsletter? Send your thoughts to me at tyu@sacbee.com.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter. Thank you for reading!
Theodora Yu covers Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in California for The Sacramento Bee. She is a member of Report for America’s 2019 corps of journalists.