Sacramento mourns Sikh victims of FedEx shooting + ‘Shang-Chi’ teaser: Your AAPI newsletter
It is Thursday, April 22, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter.
Here’s a recap of the stories I’ve covered and ones I’m following:
Dozens of Sacramentans, including some city officials, gathered outside the west side of Capitol Mall on Sunday evening to hold a vigil in memory of the Sikh victims in last week’s Indianapolis shooting and condemn ongoing gun violence and anti-Asian hate.
The shooting last Thursday at a FedEx facility left eight people dead, four of whom were of Sikh descent. It was yet another mass shooting tragedy for the country, as well as the second-deadliest act of mass violence in the Sikh community since 2012, when a white supremacist burst into a Sikh gurdwara in Wisconsin, wounding 10 and killing six.
A motive has yet to be established by authorities, but Indianapolis police have said the gunman was a former employee of FedEx who worked at the Indianapolis facility in 2020. But the attack is being seen as another blow to members of the Sikh community, who were increasingly targeted by hate crimes after 9/11.
On Sunday evening, the Sikh American organization Jakara Movement hosted a series of candlelight vigils across California, including in Fresno, Bakersfield and Modesto, to give speeches and honor the victims’ memories. In Sacramento, City Council members Mai Vang and Katie Valenzuela were among the crowd of approximately 60.
“Today we stand united in grief,” said Jakara Movement organizer Mandeep Singh, reading a statement during the vigil from another community member. “This was intentional and targeted. This was a hate crime.”
Sacramento’s tight-knit Sikh community felt the ripples of the Indianapolis killings from across the country. Amarjeet Kaur, one of the victims, was the grandmother of Tanveer Singh, a Sacramento student member of the Jakara Movement.
During the vigil, Kaur’s relatives remembered her as incredibly hardworking and someone who expressed her love through her cooking. Jasmeen Kaur, a cousin of one of Amarjeet Kaur’s grandchildren, said Amarjeet helped her practice her Punjabi and showed her what being a strong Punjabi woman meant.
“She was an angel amongst us all with her time on earth, and will continue to be so,” Jasmeen Kaur said. “When is it enough? How many children will be separated from their grandparents before something changes?”
In other news
Hate crimes against Asian Americans in L.A. more than doubled last year, LAPD reports (Los Angeles Times)
‘I’m not allowed to feel those things’: How adoptees experience anti-Asian hate (Los Angeles Times)
San Diego students start service to help pay for Uber/Lyfts for Asian women and seniors (CBS8 San Diego)
Why FedEx in Indianapolis is ‘much more than just a job’ for many Hoosier Sikhs (Indianapolis Star)
Racial unity campaign for Asian and Pacific Islander communities kicks off in S.F. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Neighbor charged with hate crime after family threatened (San Francisco Chronicle)
Asian-American Artists, Now Activists, Push Back Against Hate (The New York Times)
CNN producer asked if she speaks English during arrest in Minnesota, lawyer says (The Hill)
For Atlanta spa victim Suncha Kim, America was always where she felt she belonged (The Washington Post)
From Punchline to Oscar Contenders: The Overdue Rise of Asians in Hollywood (The Hollywood Reporter)
This week in AAPI pop culture
Marvel released its first teaser trailer Tuesday for “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” the hotly anticipated superhero action flick starring Marvel’s first Asian cinematic lead, Shang-Chi.
The teaser apparently came as a shock to the film’s lead actor himself, released as a surprise for Simu Liu’s 32nd birthday. Liu, best known for playing Jung in Kim’s Convenience, also dropped the first teaser poster on social media that morning.
The film follows the origin story of Shang-Chi (Shang rhymes with song), a young man who spent the first half of his life being trained to be the perfect assassin under his father’s strict tutelage in a remote Chinese compound. He’s since turned his back on that life in favor of a semi-aimless normalcy in San Francisco, only to find himself forced back into his father’s terrorist organization, The Ten Rings.
The father in question is named Wenwu, played by the legendary Tony Leung, a titan of Hong Kong cinema who is also — and this is true — a Perfect Man.
“The most exciting thing about stepping into this character was that his backstory has never been told before,” Liu told Entertainment Weekly, which got an exclusive first look at the film. “We know so many different versions of Batman’s origin story, how his parents were murdered when he was very young. We know Peter Parker, who was bitten by a radioactive spider, and he loses his uncle. Shang-Chi’s story is very much unknown to most of the world, so we had a lot of freedom and creative liberty to make it the way that we wanted to.”
Shang-Chi first appeared in Marvel Comics in the 1970s as a way to capitalize on Americans’ interest in martial arts due to Bruce Lee’s movies. The comics in their first iteration relied on racist stereotypes, such as the character of Fu Manchu — the basis for Wenwu’s character — who literally embodied Yellow Peril. Shang-Chi creator Jim Starlin said he was glad to see the character cut from the film.
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the filmmakers told EW they wanted to update the story to feel authentic, a more complete representation of Asian cultures and identities. As such, Shang-Chi was created by Asian filmmakers both in front of and behind the camera.
Cretton, known for quiet indie dramas such as “Short Term 12” and “Just Mercy,” told EW he envisioned the film as more of a family drama, exploring the complicated emotions of abusive family dynamics and dark secrets. He also wanted to create a superhero viewers could actually relate to, especially viewers of Asian descent.
“[Growing up] all I had was Spider-Man,” Cretton told EW. “Because he had the mask on, I could dress up like Spider-Man for Halloween. I had a handful of other characters that looked like me on screen, but there were maybe two or three that I could choose from, and superheroes were not a part of that.”
Personally, I found the teaser trailer kind of underwhelming. I’m always amazed by how much Marvel trailers show us while still providing absolutely no information. Also, if his performance in “Kim’s Convenience” is anything to go by, I have very little faith in Liu’s acting chops.
But if nothing else, I relish the opportunity to see Tony Leung on an American theater screen instead of pirated DVDs my parents bought off the street in Hong Kong.
“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” will be in theaters Sept. 3.
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 see you next week!
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