Adventures in Multicultural Living: In wake of infamous YouTube rant by UCLA student, responses display humor, grace

from ACJ Advisory Board Member Frances Kai-Hwa Wang in Ann Arbor.com:

I did not want to write about now-infamous UCLA student Alexandra Wallace and her ignorant racist YouTube rant complaining about Asian American families, manners and Asians talking on their cellphones in the library during “the tsunami thing,” complete with mocking ching-chong nonsense. I found her young and dumb and hoped that it would all blow over and she would be forgotten.

No such luck. The story is all over The New York Times, National Public Radio and MSNBC. Asian American students at the University of Michigan and across the country are discussing it.

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Adventures in Multicultural Living: Remembering the dolls of Girls' Day, facing forward from Japan's tsunami

from ACJ Advisory Board Member Frances Kai-Hwa Wang in AnnArbor.com:

The first time I went to visit my parents in Hawaii, I went during mid-winter break at the end of February, scheduled to return to Michigan on March 1 or 2. Strangers were indignant. “What? You’re leaving before Girls’ Day?”

March 3 is Girls’ Day or Hinamatsuri, a Japanese and Japanese American holiday to celebrate girls. Girls are given one beautiful Japanese doll a year in order to build a collection of dolls which they bring out every year on Girls’ Day to create a red-tiered display of emperor and empress, ladies, musicians, and guardians.

I am entranced by the idea of bringing the big box of treasured dolls out of the closet, quietly unwrapping them, one by one, and gently arranging them for all to see. To recall each dolls’ familiar face like an old friend, to remember beloved parents and grandparents who gave which one, to replay one’s memories of Girls’ Days of years past.

Remembering the dolls of Girls' Day, facing forward from Japan's tsunami

Adventures in Multicultural Living: Just being there at Losar Tibetan New Year and standing with our Muslim American neighbors

from ACJ Advisory Board Member Frances Kai-Hwa Wang at AnnArbor.com:

The woman at Jewel Heart temple recognized me, saying, “We have met before,” but she could not remember my name.
“I came last year for Losar,” I said. “And the year before.”

I was a little embarrassed to admit I was like those once-a-year-Christians my Catholic School nuns used to complain about, the folks who only went to church once a year on Christmas. “If they are only going to go to church once a year, they ought to at least go on Easter. Easter is the more important holiday,” the nuns said.

However, I was even worse. Not only did I only come once a year, I did not even arrive until after services had ended — the three-hour services, I should add. I passed the restless children playing outside in their Tibetan silks, “Are services still going on?”

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Adventures in Multicultural Living: One perfect day with my professor: real connections with real people - AnnArbor.com

from ACJ Advisory Board member Frances Kai-Hwa Wang's column, "Adventures in Multicultural Living":

On the first day of my Philosophy of Mind course my junior year of college at UC Berkeley, Professor John Searle picked me out of a crowd of 200 undergraduates and gruffly barked, “You look troubled. Come see me in office hours.”

I was scared to death, but I dared not disobey. With the help of all my friends, I managed to come up with some passable questions worthy of asking this very famous philosopher. Then — for reasons I still do not fully understand — he took me under his wing and taught me philosophy.

For the next two years, I spent nearly every day walking with my professor to cafes and bookstores and lecture halls, learning how to ask questions, how to extend arguments, how to analyze the structure of thought and action, how to search for logical inconsistencies, how to fight intellectual battles like a prizefighter.

Under his tutelage, I was thinking a mile-a-minute all the time. I loved philosophy, and I loved being a philosopher.

I had no idea how special and rare this sort of teacher-student relationship was. I thought it was normal.

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Social Media for Social Change, Recorded on 2/26/11 banana-2 on USTREAM. Conference

Here is a video of our Banana 2 APA Bloggers panel, on social media for social change, about which Angry Asian Man live-tweeted: "This panel on activism is pretty darn awesome. #banana2" (and more:). Panelists include Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Fatemeh Fakhraie, Jehanzeb Dar, Cynthia Liu, and Marissa Lee. Keith Kamisugi was the moderator. Eddy Hong organized the panel.

Social Media for Social Change, Recorded on 2/26/11 banana-2 on USTREAM. Conference

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/12963184



Social Media for Social Change, Recorded on 2/26/11 banana-2 on USTREAM. Conference

Politics Talaga?: What We Face, and What We Can Do

Additional thoughts I wrote to answer an unhappy audience member’s comments on social justice activism and social media after the Banana2 Conference on the Politics Talaga blog: What We Face, and What We Can Do

http://politicstalaga.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-we-face-and-what-we-can-do.html

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