A letter from SFSU Professor Allyson Tintiagco-Cubales:
Dear Community,
We would like to invite you to join us to learn about the stories of Filipina "comfort women" who were abused during WWII. This is a timely issue because in the month of May, our representatives may be voting on House Resolution 121 (HR121). If passed, HR121 will ask Japan to take full responsibility for the systematic raping and enslavement of over 200,000 women and girls during WWII.
We are fortunate to have M. Evelina Galang, one of the main organizers pushing for the passage of HR121, visiting the Bay Area from May 15-17, 2007. Many of you may know her as the author of Her Wild American Self, Screaming Monkeys, and One Tribe. She will in the Bay Area reading from her new book, Lola¹s House, which focuses on her research on comfort women.
Please join us at the following events to learn about this pressing issue.
Salamat,
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies
San Francisco State University
P.S. Please see attached petition for you and your organization.
___________________
EVENTS
Laban for the Lolas: Fighting for the Rights of "Comfort Women"
Emergency Meeting and Informational Session on House Resolution 121
Location:
The Filipino Community Center
35 San Juan Avenue/ Cross Street is Mission
San Francisco, CA
Date:
May 15, 2007 (Tuesday)
Time:
6:00-8:30 P.M.
Special Presentation and Reading Featuring M. Evelina Galang (Author of Her Wild American Self, Screaming Monkeys, One Tribe, and Lola's House-forthcoming)
Along with Barbara Reyes Bermeo, Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Claudine delRosario, Korina Jocson, Jocyl Sacramento, and Michelle Ferrer
Special Performance by Aristel delaCruz and Aldrich Sabach
__________________________
Laban for the Lolas: Fighting for the Rights of "Comfort Women"
Student Presentation in Asian American Studies 363- Fil Am Lit
Location:
Burk Hall 225
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132
Date:
May 16, 2007 (Wednesday)
Time:
4:10-5:00 P.M.
Special Presentation and Reading Featuring M. Evelina Galang (Author of Her Wild American Self, Screaming Monkeys, One Tribe, and Lola's House-forthcoming)
_______________________
Laban for the Lolas: Fighting for the Rights of "Comfort Women"
Community Meeting and Informational Session on House Resolution 121
Location:
TBA
Daly City, CA
Date:
May 17, 2007 (Thursday)
Time:
6:00-8:30 P.M.
Special Presentation and Reading Featuring M. Evelina Galang (Author of Her Wild American Self, Screaming Monkeys One Tribe, and Lola's House-forthcoming)
_______________________________
For more information:
Website: http://labanforthelolas.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxKyeLOTA4E
WHO ARE WWII "COMFORT WOMEN"?
World War II "Comfort Women" are the 200,000 girls and women abducted by the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII forced to experience a life of systematic rape and enslavement. They are now mostly in their 80's and they are dying.
They were taken from Korea, China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan. In the Philippines, historians say there were about 1000 girls abducted.
On March 1, 2007 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe insisted, ³There is no evidence to prove there was coercion, nothing to support it (the coercion of WWII military sex slaves).² We ask Prime Minister Abe to look at the evidence, to see the coercion, to apologize and give appropriate reparations. The women are waiting.
H.RES.121: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force's coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as "comfort women", during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II.
Sponsor: Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15] (introduced 1/31/2007) Cosponsors
(115)
Committees: House Foreign Affairs
Latest Major Action: 4/17/2007 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight.
House Resolution 121, if passed, will ask Japan to take full responsibility for the systematic raping and enslavement of over 200,000 women and girls during WWII. In the Philippines, historians estimate that over 1000 Filipina girls young as eight years old to women in their forties were abducted and held captive in garrisons ‹ churches, town halls, schools and private homes captured by Japanese soldiers and turned into comfort stations. Those girls are now lolas in their eighties.
For a moment, imagine war and your family. Imagine this. Is it acceptable?
To date, House Res. 121 has 115 co-sponsors in Congress. We want at least 120 to get House Res 121 to pass.
We need to let Congressman Tom Lantos, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi know that the Filipino American community of Northern California, their constituents, believe in House Resolution 121. Please write them. Determine who is your representative and then cut and paste the email message below, sign it and send it to them. Even better, send them your thoughts on this issue in your own words.
If you live in the following zip code areas ‹ 94002, 94005, 94010, 94011, 94013, 94014, 94015, 94016, 94017, 94019, 94030, 94037, 94038, 94044, 94061, 94062, 94063, 94065, 94066, 94070, 94080, 94083, 94114, 94116, 94117, 94122, 94125, 94127, 94128, 94131, 94132, 94134, 94143, 94401, 94402, 94403, 94404, 94497 -- your congressman is Lantos.
USE THIS LINK TO EMAIL LANTOS:
http://lantos.house.gov/HoR/CA12/Contact+Tom/Contact+Tom+2.htm?zip5=94132&zip4=1722
COMMUNITY LETTER (Please sign on)
Dear Congressman Tom Lantos and House Speaker Pelosi,
We are the Filipino American Community of the 8th and 12th Districts in California and we are writing to you to ask you to support House Resolution 121.
During WW2 the Japanese Imperial Army wreaked havoc on the Philippines. Many Filipino Veterans fought for the United States Army and died in battle or were injured for life. But Filipino soldiers who fought side by side with American military are not our only WW2 casualties. Over 1000 women and girls, usually between the ages of eight and twenty were abducted and forced into Japanese ³Comfort Stations² where they were subjected to systematic rape and enslavement.
For example, seventeen-year-old Pilar Frias had two bouts with the Japanese soldiers before she was taken captive in the province of Bicol. After raping her five times, soldiers tied her at the waist and dragged her along with three other girls. Strung together by hemp rope, the four girls were raped every night, five times a night, a different soldier every time.
Many of those 1000 girls and women like Pilar Frias have suffered the trauma of WW2 for their entire lives their bodies, their minds and their spirits have never fully recovered.
We are a community that respects our elders and takes great pride in the spirit of family. It is time to take care of a generation of Filipinos who suffered a war that was not theirs.
House Resolution 121 is a resolution about human rights, about respect and justice. It is a statement that encourages Japan to take full responsibility for these war crimes and to make a full and unequivocal formal apology to the 200,000 women and girls of Asia who suffered these atrocities. Of these women 1000 of them are our ancestors, our mothers and grandmothers of the Philippines and it is our belief that these women deserve some peace of mind.
It is our belief that taking a stand against these war crimes sends a clear message to everyone that this behavior is intolerable, inhumane and unjust.
As your constituents of the 8th and 12th Districts of California, we urge you to support House Resolution 121.
Sincerely,
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Laban for the Lolas
CFP: STATES OF EM(URGENCY)
STATES OF EM(URGENCY): WHERE IS ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES A/CROSS DISCIPLINES?*
*OCTOBER 20-21, 2007*
Deadline for submissions: August 15, 2007
Call for proposal and conference website:
http://www.myspace.com/asagsgconference2007
More info on the Asian American Studies Graduate Student Group at UC Davis:
http://asagsg.blogspot.com
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Robert Jensen
Yesterday I attended Robert Jensen's talk titled "The Academy and Activism: Neutralizing Neutrality and Moving Past Polemics" and this afternoon he joined the graduate students in my cohort for a class and a dinner. Jensen is well known for his article U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts, which was published in the Houston Chronicle three days after 9/11 and invited a number death threats and poorly articulated diatribes about being callous and unAmerican. Here is a quote from that article:
... this act was no more despicable as the massive acts of terrorism -- theYou can probably see why that article ruffled a few feathers.
deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes -- that the U.S.
government has committed during my lifetime. For more than five decades
throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted
civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to
understand it except as terrorism. And it has supported similar acts of
terrorism by client states. If that statement seems outrageous, ask the people
of Vietnam. Or Cambodia and Laos. Or Indonesia and East Timor. Or Chile. Or
Central America. Or Iraq, or Palestine. The list of countries and peoples who
have felt the violence of this country is long. Vietnamese civilians bombed by
the United States. Timorese civilians killed by a U.S. ally with U.S.-supplied
weapons.
Tonight I spoke with him one on one and I cannot describe how exciting it was to have this opportunity. I thanked him for writing that article because it voiced a very unpopular opinion, one that I held but did not dare to discuss with anyone but my closest Canadian friends. I thanked him because when "my people," and I mean this in a collective sense meaning anyone of Asian, South Asian or SE Asian descent, make claims like this we're immediately dismissed and often told to "go home" if we "don't like America and all it stands for." Opinions like this are, after all, used as "proof" of our unassimilability in this country. In Asian American studies classes we talk about the millions of lives lost in SE Asia at the hands of the United States all the time, but this sort of thing doesn't enter into the wider discourse unless someone like him -- a white male professor -- initiates that dialog and he did and I couldn't imagine if he hadn't.
I also thanked him for writing The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege. I confessed that one of my most terrifying teaching moments was introducing the idea of whiteness and white privilege to a racially diverse class that included many white students. I told him that I made a very conscious and deliberate decision to front end the lesson with articles written by white men about white privilege because I felt that being an Asian woman simply wouldn't give me the credibility to get the message across. I admitted that at the end of the class I felt guilty and disappointed that I would not feel comfortable giving that lesson in my own words in my own skin. It's not fair that I feel that I have to direct students to articles written by white men in order to teach about a topic that I can articulate myself, but I feel like I have to and I hate it. We joked about our differences: white - Asian, male - female, older - younger (looking), tall - short. "Well you're screwed," he concluded with a laugh. But in all seriousness, Bob reminded me of what's really important. It's teaching and helping people to understand these things. It's about being strategic and doing what works for you. You can try to overthrow the system and I think we (as in people of color) are taking baby steps to at least shift the so-called system, but sometimes in the here and now you need to just work within it and do little things to make a difference. I forgot to thank him for this conversation. So, Bob, thanks for this (and for being a privileged white man who gets it).
-- Vanessa Au
Saturday, May 5, 2007
APA Heritage Month
It is APA Heritage Month, or as one woman I met at the Asian Pacific American Studies Conference at MSU calls it, "yellow month." I noticed that my apartment manager's monthly newsletter listed May as National Hamburger Month, National Salsa Month, and Personal History month. No mention of APA Heritage Month. Then again, looks like the White House forgot too. They announced it last year but this year it looks like W decided to focus on May as Physical Fitness month instead. So much for recognizing our contributions to this country.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
May Day
Thursday, April 26, 2007
"For the Dignity of Girls and Women Everywhere.. .Bear Witness"
This morning, I attended the "For the Dignity of Girls and Women Everywhere.. .Bear Witness" to demand the official apology and reparation for the former "comfort women" from the Japanese government with more than 50 people in solidarity with other protests happening all over the world (L.A., D.C., N.Y.C, Manilla, London, Seoul, Tokyo, etc...).
It is especially significant to have such a protest at this very critical moment here in the U.S. where a Japanese American Rep. Mike Honda introduced the House Resolution 121 which calls for the Government of Japan to formally acknowledge, aplogize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force's coercion of young women into sexual slavery during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asian and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II.
As a Zainichi Korean (Korean born and rasied in Japan), whom I think of first is my fellow Zainichi Korean halmonis ("grandmother" in Korean) who were forced to become "comfort women" and continue to live in Japan. Their experience as "former comfort women" is very different from that of those who now reside in Korea or elsewhere. Zainichi Korean halmonis live the reality of on-going Racism & Colonialsim on a daily basis in the Japanese society today, where their voice is continuously ignored and their existence is comletely denied. Today, I prayed for them and all women in the world who experienced and are experiencing sexual violence.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The Dog House off the radio waves
Tim from UCSD via Fremont just forwarded me this link regarding Elvis and JV of the Dog House morning radio show, currently on 92.3 WFNY in New York (formerly 94.9 KYLD in San Francisco and 97.7 KHQT in San Jose). Apparently, they went over the edge again, this time while speaking racist obscenities and sexist remarks during a prank call to a Chinese restaurant. And to make matters worse, they said they "found it ironic that a show called The Dog House would be done in by a Chinese restaurant gag gone wrong." I came across JV's blog and was perusing some of the recent comments. I found a number of comments from Asian Americans who claimed that they thought the skit was hilarious, and one suggested that if the Dog House falls victim to complaints from one race, then that could potentially lead to the end of such entertaining radio. Where do we draw the line between comedy and justice? Over-sensitivity and subordination?
So what can we do? Spread the news with all of your New York and Bay Area radio-listening friends. When one underrepresented minority suffers at the hands of ignorance, it's a setback for all of us. I'm going to remove the Dog House from my "friends" list on MySpace. It's not much, but it's a start.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Events at PANA
On April 24th, the PANA Institute (Institute for Leadership Development & Study of Pacific & North American Religion) will be hosting two events. I strongly recommend these if you are in or around the Berkeley area. For anyone studying Asian American religions/spirituality, you should definitely get in touch with the PANA folks. From my personal experience, they are extremely supportive, knowledgable, and just overall great people. Also, they host an annual conference APARRI Conference which provides prominent faculty members to serve as one-on-one mentors for undergrad/grad students (I was able to discuss all sorts of things with David Yoo!). Community Vigil for VA Tech — PSR Chapel Community Vigil In remembrance of all those affected by the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech (Please bring a flower) Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 1:00-1:30pm Steps of the Chapel at the Pacific School of Religion 1798 Scenic Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Development and Study of Pacific Asian North American Religion (PANA Institute) and the Office of Community Life at the Pacific School of Religion. For more information, contact Rev. Deborah Lee at (510)849-8260 or dlee@psr.edu. ______________________________ Workshop: "Interreligious Community: Camp Life and Pilgrimage” Join us for a Community Program on "Interreligious Community: Camp Life and Pilgrimage” the experience of Japanese American internment during WWII and its ongoing message for the present. Date: Tuesday April 24th, 2007 6:30-9:30 pm Location: Gather at the Jodo Shinshu Parking Lot (2140 Durant St., Berkeley, CA 94704) We may be meeting at the Jodo Shinshu Center or at the Berkeley Buddhist Temple. Look for posted signs PLEASE NOTE DATE AND VENUE MAY BE DIFFERENT THAT WHAT WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLICIZED. WE HAVE HAD A CHANGE IN THE ORIGINAL SCHEDULE. SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE. Reflections/Presentation: Dr. Joanne Doi, M . M . is a pilgrimage guide and teacher of the course "Manzanar: America's Internment," sponsored by the PANA Institute. Rev. David Matsumoto, Institute of Buddhist Studies and the Berkeley Buddhist Temple, Channing Way Carpool available, leaving Pacific School of Religion at 6:00 pm ( Meet in the PANA driveway, 2357 Le Conte Ave.) This is one of five sessions in preparation for the 38th annual pilgrimage to the former WWII site of Japanese American internment at Manzanar. For more information or to sign up for the pilgrimage, contact Shinya at pana2@psr.edu; 510-849-8226 or go to the PANA website: pana.psr.edu. ______________________________ PANA Film Screening at Major Film Festivals: PANA's film In God's House: Asian American Lesbian and Gay Families in the Church has been accepted to screen at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (Sunday, May 6th, 2007), Frameline International LGBT Film Festival in June and the Aomori International LGBT Film Festival in Japan. In addition, we have screenings scheduled in San Francisco, Tennessee, and Asilomar, CA. See below for schedule. For more information on the screenings, please visit www.ingodshouse.com.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
VC Call for Volunteers!!
Please click on the link below and support Visual Communications at this year's Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival!!
Asian American Mental Health, a Reflection
Minutes passed as I kept refreshing the page I was on on April 16th. Trying to gauge the brutality of what was going on at Virginia Tech and later trying to understand the expanse of what it meant for me. It's been almost 6 days and I still don't really have an answer. However, while I read about this guy, I realized that I read about him before.
The anger, the confusion, the reaction - the story was familiar. It could have been about the guys I knew growing up in high school. The same story could have been about a few kids in my alma mater. As an Asian American, I'm sure we have known of a few kids just like Seung-Hui Cho. The question of why Cho slipped through the cracks remains a mystery for me.
As a Asian American guy, I struggle with the idea of mental illness. I've known friends who discuss issues with me about feeling angry, sad, misunderstood by parents and peers. I've had friends who talked about suicide. Some folks I know read like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMMD) and some in fact, are Asian American .
We live with a difficult culture, especially in the light of immigration and a generation gap. A few of our parents grew up without the ideas of bipolar disorder, alcoholism, depression, manic-depression, and personality disorder. Many of these are not just endemic in youth culture, but found within pop culture. Yet, the discussion of mental health counseling for folks in our community is often encountered with silence and deflection.
It is unfortunate that Seung-Hui Cho became the focus of the Asian American community. He also became an argument with the increasing number of Asian American medical students that there is a need for counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists to address the issue APIA mental health. Asian American clinicians can directly address cultural and race specific issues that other people may have a hard time relating with and resolving with Asian Americans.
Just maybe, we can find kids like Seung-Hui Cho and prevent another tragedy. Here's to hoping for a change.