Racial Tensions at South Philly High

I grew up in Philadelphia in the 1980’s and am an alumnus of Central High School, one of the city’s public schools. We had our share of racial tensions back in the day but it never got very bad from what I remember.

The Angry Asian Man blog has been chronicling racial tensions and violent encounters at South Philadelphia High School the past few weeks primarily between African-American students and Asian-American and immigrant students. These reports have been shocking me in a “I can’t believe these things are still happening in 2009” kind of way.

What the hell is happening in Philadelphia? Yesterday, 26 Asian students at South Philadelphia High School were attacked and beaten by a gang of other students throughout the day: Asian students under attack at S. Phila. High.

District officials said that ten students have been suspended. (That's it?) No arrests were reported, but students who were outside the school yesterday said they had seen students being led out of the building in handcuffs. Well, that's great -- but how about some actual arrests and charges?

This is just the latest in several ongoing incidents of violence against Asian immigrant students that were reported at the school last year. Can you blame these students -- many of whom came to the U.S. specifically to attend school -- for just wanting to stay home? It beats going to school under fear of getting your ass kicked every day, all day.

This week's spate of attacks began Wednesday, when a Vietnamese student was jumped by 14 students across the street from the school. Yesterday, the attackers were apparently roaming the halls "searching for victims class by class during school."

26 Asian Students Attacked at South Philadelphia High

Asian Students Boycotting South Philly High

Students Speak Out Against South Philly High School Violence

Superintendent Refuses Meeting With South Philly High Students

AALDEF to File Civil Rights Complaint Against Philadelphia School District

Fear and Loathing in South Philadelphia (Philly.com)

Asian Students Describe Violence At South Philadelphia High (Philly.com)

PA Human Rights Will Air Strife On South Philly High (Philly.com)

Model Minorities Revisited

Here are two interesting articles on Indian Americans that I ran into recently. They illustrate the very old debate between those who would want to classify certain ethnic groups as the "model minority" and the burgeoning resistance by Asian-American communities in rejecting these ideologically-loaded ethnic stereotypes.

The author of the Forbes.com article, interestingly, is a fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. If this is the type of stupid propaganda that the AEI is coming up with these days in their effort to indoctrinate Americans they are gonna have to do better as Deepa Iyer deftly demolishes Richwine's condescending, racist argument. Despite this note which perspective got the wider and more prominent distribution in Forbes Magazine.

Indian Americans: The New Model Minority by Jason Richwine
From Forbes.com

The superior educational attainment, academic culture and likely high IQ of Indian Americans has already made them an economic force in the U.S., and that strength can only grow. Does this continuing success imply they will become a political force? Here, Gov. Jindal is actually a rarity. Indians are still underrepresented in politics, and they do not specialize in the kinds of fields (law and finance) most conducive to political careers. Time will tell if they are able to convert economic power into serious political influence, as a Jindal presidency could.

A much clearer implication of Indian-American success is that immigrants need not be unskilled, nor must their economic integration take generations to achieve. In sharp contrast to Indian Americans, most U.S. immigrants, especially Mexican, are much less wealthy and educated than U.S. natives, even after many years in the country.

Model Minority? No, Thanks by Deepa Iyer
From RaceWire: The Colorlines Blog

In reality, Indian Americans, much like other immigrants, have diverse experiences and backgrounds. Indian Americans are doctors, engineers and lawyers, as well as small business owners, domestic workers, taxi drivers and convenience store employees. Community members hold a range of immigration statuses and include naturalized citizens and H-1B visa holders, guest workers and students, undocumented workers and green card holders. Some have access to higher education while others struggle to learn English in a new country. As with all communities, Indian Americans do not come in the same shape and form, and cannot be treated as a monolith.

Another danger with the model minority label is that it creates divisions between Indian Americans and other immigrant communities. Beneath the seemingly positive use of the “model minority” label is a pernicious racist undertone: the purpose, after all, is to compare one set of people with another, and the result is to pit people of color against one another.

Redemption Through Breakdancing

U.S. Deportee Brings Street Dance to Street Boys of Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — It may be the only place in Cambodia where the children are nicknamed Homey, Frog, Floater, Fresh, Bugs and Diamond.

And there are not many places like this small courtyard, thumping with the beat of a boom box, where dozens of boys in big T-shirts are spinning on their heads and doing one-hand hops, elbow tracks, flairs, halos, air tracks and windmills. And, of course, krumping.

It is a little slice of Long Beach, Calif., brought here by a former gang member by way of a federal prison, an immigration jail and then expulsion four years ago from his homeland, the United States, to the homeland of his parents, Cambodia.

The former gang member is Tuy Sobil, 30, who goes by the street name K.K. The boys are Cambodian street children he has taken under his wing as he teaches them the art he brought with him, break dancing, as well as his hard lessons in life.

K.K. is not here because he wants to be. He is one of 189 Cambodians who have been banished from the United States in the past six years under a law that mandates deportations for noncitizens who commit felonies. Hundreds more are on a waiting list for deportation. Like most of the others, K.K. is a noncitizen only by a technicality. He was not an illegal immigrant. He was a refugee from Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge “killing fields” who found a haven in the United States in 1980.

He was an infant when he arrived. In fact, he was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and had never seen Cambodia before he was deported. But K.K.’s parents were simple farmers who failed to complete the citizenship process when they arrived.

Like some children of poor immigrants, K.K. drifted to the streets, where he became a member of the Crips gang and a champion break dancer. It was only after he was convicted of armed robbery at 18 that he discovered that he was not a citizen.

Like many deportees, he arrived in Cambodia without possessions and without family contacts. He was a drug counselor at first and then founded his break dancing club, Tiny Toones Cambodia, where he now earns a living teaching about 150 youngsters and reaching out to hundreds more.

With the financial support of international aid groups like Bridges Across Borders, based in Graham, Fla., he has expanded his center into a small school that teaches English and Khmer and computers in addition to back flips, head stands and krumping, or crazy dancing.

Full article at the New York Times

The article above is about an American cultural art form (hip hop and breakdancing) making its mark overseas in interesting ways through an unlikely social worker -- a deportee to Cambodia from California.

Below is a couple of their YouTube videos.

Congratulations, President Obama!

It is no secret that I was ambivalent about Obama early in this election cycle. As a self-defined Independent, I had a distrust of political candidates of either of the two major parties. As a Filipino-American, I also had misgivings towards Obama’s possible approach to foreign policy especially as it relates to my original home country of the Philippines (where I am supportive of leftist opposition movements to the established elites in power). I even agreed with much of what political scientist and Obama critic Adolph Reed had to say regarding the insanity of relying exclusively on electing Democratic politicians as a way to enact a Progressive agenda.

It wasn't until my sister weighed in on what an Obama candidacy meant to her as a biracial Asian-American that I softened a bit. But still I harbored my doubts even as I announced my intentions to vote for the Obama ticket.

After the election results were announced last night, my wife and I walked around the U Street area in Washington DC surrounded by a jubilant, multiracial crowd of young and other adults. This was near midnight and it was raining. People were high-fiving, dancing and hanging out en masse in a spontaneous street celebration of Obama’s victory. It was at that moment that I forgot about my ambivalence and recognized the significance of Obama as the 44th President of the U.S.

• This was not just a normal victory -- it was a resounding landslide. Americans overwhelmingly voted to oust the Republican administration and to usher in, not just the candidate of the other major party, but a candidate who specifically ran on the promise and symbolism of Change and Hope. Obama's inclusive, post-ideological message which promised solutions to social and economic problems and cast itself as being above ideological or partisan rancor galvanized people in droves to support his candidacy by volunteering, giving money and voting in unprecedented numbers.

• Obama's campaign was a true, grassroots, up-from-the-bottom operation. Staying true to his community organizer roots, Obama's field operations were tremendously effective in mobilizing volunteers, voters and raising money. It is a cliche by now to say that the Obama campaign re-wrote the book on how American political and fundraising campaigns are conducted.

• I kept thinking to myself throughout the elections that if a Progressive movement were to truly become a reality, it would have to borrow its playbook on organizing, mobilizing and raising money from the Obama campaign. In fact, much of the leadership and membership for any theoretical Progressive movement will most likely come from engaged veterans of the Obama campaign.

• Many lefty critics (myself included) love to argue how Obama is not Progressive or Left enough. How he will surround himself with Establishment types to staff his cabinet and nothing will truly change under an Obama administration. But I can't remember the last time people felt joyful and exuberant enough in winning an election to flood the streets of Washington DC at midnight in joyful, spontaneous revelry. Obama's victory did that. Damn, I thought to myself last night. I am witnessing something special tonight. Obama may not be my type of Leftist politician but you have to admit that his victory and candidacy for the Presidency was meaningful to ordinary people in a way that no other political figure has been for a very long time.

So Mr. Obama, a hearty congratulations on a well-deserved victory. There will be time in the near future for me to be critical once again. There will be a time for engaged citizens and activists to mobilize to make sure that you enact your platform of Change. But right now, the unrestrained joy of the young (and not-so-young) celebrants who flooded the streets of Washington DC last night has become contagious and made a reluctant believer out of this crusty lefty Independent. Well done, Mr. Obama. Well done.

Cross-posted in An Ordinary Person.

The Asian-American and Latino Vote

Here is an excellent and insightful post by Jeff Chang in the Huffington Post, "Why Latinos and Asian Americans Went for Hillary."

The reason Hillary won is because the Latino and Asian American votes remain emergent, not yet insurgent...

Early, she locked down important leaders in the Latino and Asian American communities. In Los Angeles, that meant securing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's support, and the predominantly Latino unions that have supported him. She also landed the support of Fabian Nunez and Dolores Huerta. In San Francisco, that meant seizing on Mayor Gavin Newsom's popularity amongst Asian Americans. She also captured a who's who of Asian American elected officials starting with Controller John Chiang and moving on down. Just as important, Hillary's campaign locked up a huge number of the leading Latino and Asian American party operatives--the people who actually deliver the voters.

All of them--from Villaraigosa to the Asian American precinct captain--were responding to what might be called aspirational politics. The individuals become proxies for the community. You hear them say in their campaigns, "When I win, you win." Clinton's main advantage is that she has the access to power and the party structures that deliver promises to officials and operatives. Obama doesn't. Emergent politics favors individuals seeking power. Think of it this way: Hillary, the woman candidate, is bringing Latino and Asian American leaders into the old-boy's network.

These leaders, in turn, deliver votes via their community's structures of power: business groups, labor unions, voter groups, community organizations. Those groups tend to deliver an older voter who is already "in the game", who can directly benefit from the opening of the old-boy's network. "Experience" really is a cover for "access".

Chang notes that younger Asian and Latino voters primarily went for Obama and were energized by his campaign. Chang's analysis is interesting to me in that he stresses the importance of old-style, top down patronage politics as a strategy in the Hillary camp--which can only be successful if you have long-term relationships and bases of support within specific populations. This is an interesting case study in the nuts and bolts of how an old-school political campaign is conducted.

In Jews, Indian-Americans See a Role Model in Activism

When Anil Godhwani and his brother, Gautam, looked into creating a community center for Indian-Americans in Silicon Valley, they turned to the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco as a model.

When the Hindu American Foundation began, it looked to groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center for guidance with its advocacy and lobbying efforts.

Indian-Americans, who now number 2.4 million in this country, are turning to American Jews as role models and partners in areas like establishing community centers, advocating on civil rights issues and lobbying Congress.

Indians often say they see a version of themselves and what they hope to be in the experience of Jews in American politics: a small minority that has succeeded in combating prejudice and building political clout.

Full article here from the New York Times