Sacramento bike party for former WWII internee + Hasan Minhaj talks racism on TV: Your AAPI newsletter
It is Thursday, June 18, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter.
Hello! My name is Ashley Wong, and I’m the new AAPI reporter for The Sacramento Bee. I’ll be taking over the newsletter from Theodora Yu. She’ll be working until June 26, so be on the lookout for more of her stories.
Here’s a recap of the stories I recently covered and issues I’m following:
Masayuki Hatano, a Japanese American man who was detained during World War II, got a ride-by party for his 92nd birthday. Hatano has quite the life story: He was imprisoned as a teenager during World War II in the Japanese American concentration camps. He served in the Korean War. He volunteered for more than 20 years at the California Railroad Museum and California Museum. He’s given dozens of talks about life in internment. He’s donated 17 gallons of blood. He’s even clocked in thousands of miles on his bicycle with the Sacramento Bike Hikers, where he led bicycling tours throughout California, Japan and China.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Hatano has been sheltering in place since March. So last Tuesday, Hatano’s friends at the Sacramento Bike Hikers arranged to honor his 92nd birthday with a ride-by party, some of them biking from over 30 miles away to see him from a distance.
“He never sat down watching TV,” Hatano’s youngest son, Gary, said. “He was always working out, doing push-ups, moving around. And that’s why he’s 92 today.”
“I always thought that I needed to be doing something and helping other people in the process,” Hatano said. “Now, I just do very simple things … I go across the street (to a senior center) and help stuff envelopes.”
In other news
- Unsung Heroes: Pho for Seniors hopes to warm hearts while feeding Sacramento seniors [The Sacramento Bee]
- ‘Our folks are resilient.’ Sacramento’s Little Saigon falters, looks for hope during pandemic [The Sacramento Bee]
- Ninja Sushi closes in downtown Roseville, city official says. The reason is unclear [The Sacramento Bee]
Meet Paula Boggs Muething – Cincinnati’s first Asian American and second female city manager [Cincinnati Enquirer]
- Civil rights leaders call for Assemblyman Kansen Chu to resign over “racist” remarks [The Mercury News]
- ‘Long Distance’ podcast chronicles untold stories of the Filipino diaspora [Rewire]
- Some Chinese parents want to defeat affirmative action in California again. It Could Prove Harder This Time [LAist]
- VIDEO: Racist rant launched at Asian woman exercising in Southern California parkways [ABC News]
- Meet the Asian Americans helping to uproot racism in their communities [CNN]
Coronavirus hinders memory of Japanese Americans at Manzanar [Los Angeles Times]
- South Asian American activism must go beyond viral stories, advocates say [NBC News]
This week in AAPI pop culture
“Patriot Act” host Hasan Minhaj, a University of California, Davis, alum born and raised in Davis, stopped by “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” this week to talk about confronting racism within the Asian American community and the importance of Asian American solidarity with Black communities. (And apparently, Hasan’s showrunner is living in his basement.)
Got a story suggestion? Please reach out to me at awong@sacbee.com.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget: Things may be opening up now, but you should still be careful!
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