First Hmong chief of staff at state Capitol + contractor buried in Sacramento: Your AAPI newsletter

If you value coverage of California’s Asian American and Pacific Islander community, please spread the word about our newsletter and send to a friend. Sign up here to receive this newsletter each week.

It is Thursday, Jan. 9, 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:

Fresno senator appoints California’s first Hmong chief of staff at the state Capitol. Shery Yang, a first-generation American, has joined the office of state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, who represents the 14th Senate District covering cities in Fresno, Kern, Kings and Tulare counties. According to a news release, Yang will be in charge of directing, coordinating and supervising operations of the senator’s office, both daily and long term.

Yang said her appointment shows that Hurtado, D-Sanger, wants to give a voice to underrepresented communities.

“That’s why joining Sen. Hurtado’s team as the first Hmong chief of staff in the State Capitol is not only an opportunity to provide a fresh perspective but also to demonstrate that further diverse representation is needed in California,” Yang said.

In other news, the Iraqi-American contractor who was killed in a rocket attack in Iraq in late December, was buried in Sacramento on Saturday, The Sacramento Bee reports. His death was the start of a chain of events that U.S. leaders say prompted them to carry out drone strikes in Iraq and Syria, which culminated with the killing of Iranian military leader Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

The death of Sacramento resident Nawres Waleed Hamid is cited as one of the reasons the U.S. government killed Soleimani, sparking concerns of a potential war with Iran. The U.S. government defends its actions saying Soleimani planned to attack U.S. troops.

The Los Angeles Times Magazine talks about Gidra, an L.A.-based Asian-American Activist newspaper from the 1970s now back in print. Originally formed by a group of UCLA students to address issues faced by the Asian American community, the publication covers topics like gentrification, violence and racism.

Awkwafina made history. The actress from Queens, New York, whose name is Nora Lum, became the first Asian American woman to win the best actress in a musical or comedy award for her performance in “The Farewell”, NBC News reports. She portrayed a Chinese American woman who travelled back to China with her family to say goodbye to her grandmother, who had hidden from them about her terminal illness. The actress, who was raised by her grandmother and father after she lost her mother at 4 years old, said she felt deeply connected to her role.

Tina Wei Smith, a former staffer at a conservative think tank who worked for Secretary of Transport Elaine Chao, was named the executive director of the White House Initiative on Asian American and Pacific Islanders, NBC News reports.

The role aims to increase workforce diversity, after two thirds of President Donald Trump’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders resigned in protest of his policies in 2017.

Dr. Hassan Zee, a filmmaker originally from Pakistan, talked about his journey to San Francisco, how he found his place in the city, deviated from his career plan of becoming a medical doctor and started making films, the San Francisco Examiner reports. Zee’s productions include Pakistani-centered stories acted in English and Urdu.

“Walk Run Cha Cha,” a short documentary winner of O.C.’s Viet Film Fest that earned a spot in Oscar shortlist, features the love story of Chipaul and Millie Cao — a Chinese couple raised in Vietnam and later moved to the U.S. to flee the Vietnam War as refugees — and how they picked up dancing seven years ago, after decades of being in survival mode, Daily Pilot reports. Laura Nix directed the film.

For things to do in town and beyond, mark your calendars for the Oshogatsu New Year Protest organized by Tsuru for Solidarity at Yuba County Jail on Jan. 11. The advocates will lead the rally to demand the ending of the county’s indefinite contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and to stop the inhuman treatment of detainees, children and adults.

The next day, an informational gathering regarding the organization’s “National Pilgrimage to Close the Camps” project in June at Washington, D.C., will be held at Yu Ai-kai in San Jose.

Sacramento’s JACL and Senator Lions Club is presenting its 2020 Annual Crab and Spaghetti Feed on Jan. 26. UC Davis’ Bakuhatsu Taiko will be performing, along with raffle prizes, paper airplane contest, silent auction and great food. It will be held in the Buddhist Church Gymnasium, 2401 Riverside Blvd.

What better than spending time on books in the Californian winter? My pick this week is Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.” In beautiful writing and powerful, creative imageries, Vuong recounted the tale of how his mother and his grandmother brought him to the U.S. as a child to escape the war in Vietnam as refugees, and how the family endured racism and combated trauma as Vuong grew up in a pre-dominantly white neighborhood. He wrote about his acute observations that show the resilience of the women, who fought domestic violence and struggled to rebuild their lives in a foreign system. He also explored the issue of class and masculinity in his own story growing up as an American. A bittersweet, heartbreaking and compassionate memoir that won the 2019 New England Book Award for Fiction.

P.S. A little story about how the writer got his first name: Vuong’s mother learned the definition of the word “ocean” at a conversation with a client whom she provided manicure services to. It means a very large expanse of water, she learned, such as the Pacific Ocean, which connects the U.S. and Vietnam. She then renamed Vuong “Ocean.”

Finally: What do you want to read about on Sacramento or California’s AAPI population? 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.