Here’s one of those “The times are changing” or “Wow, I never thought I’d see that” stories: as reported by The Associated Press, many predominantly gay neighborhoods around the country are being gentrified or otherwise being inundated with non-gays and their long-time residents fear that their community’s identity will soon pass into history:

In just about any other place, the sight of a man and woman pushing a stroller would be welcomed as a sign of stability and safety. In San Francisco’s heavily gay Castro District, some people can’t help but think: There goes the neighborhood. Gay leaders in the Castro and other gay neighborhoods around the country fear their enclaves are losing their distinct identities.

These areas are slowly being altered by an influx of heterosexual couples, the forces of gentrification, and growing confidence among gays that they can live pretty much wherever they want nowadays and do not need the security of being in a “gay ghetto.” . . .

Don Reuter, a New York writer researching a book on the rise and fall of gay neighborhoods in the U.S., said he has observed a trend in cities as far-flung as New Orleans, Philadelphia and Seattle: Gay neighborhoods are becoming “Disneyfied” places, with chain stores and other businesses with little or no overt appeal to gays. . . .

Besides the brigades of baby strollers in the Castro, the signs of change include the security gates installed last year by a hotel to discourage “cruising,” and the recent closing of a store that sold erotic leather gear. National chains like Pottery Barn and Diesel now occupy prominent Castro locations.

This is actually an issue that virtually all racial, ethnic, religious, and/or cultural minority has faced in one form or another -- when it is better to integrate into mainstream American society instead of continuing to congregate in your own enclave? Assimilation or seclusion?

On the one hand, the fact that so many gays feel comfortable integrating into predominantly non-gay areas is certain a positive sign of greater social acceptance of homosexuality. On the other hand, the identity of a minority group is often based on historical symbols, which frequently take the form of “private” neighborhoods or areas in which they are surrounded by others who share similar characteristics and experiences. If those neighborhoods lose their distinctive identity, the minority group loses a piece of their history.

I would certainly feel very sad if one day, the various Chinatowns, Little Tokyos, Koreatowns, and/or Little Saigons around the country ceased to exist. But similar to what happened with the demise of the Negro Leagues after the great Jackie Robinson and other pioneering Black players integrated the sport of baseball, at least I could have the comfort of knowing that it was because their residents felt fully comfortable being an integral part of American society.

This story from CNN is absolutely mind-boggling: a teacher is at risk of being fired for publishing a high school student’s column in the school’s newspaper that advocated tolerance for ‘people different than you,’ in support of the student’s friend who revealed that he was gay:

At issue is whether [sophomore Megan] Chase’s opinion column advocating tolerance of homosexuals was suitable for a student newspaper distributed to students in grades 7 through 12 and whether newspaper adviser Amy Sorrell followed protocol in allowing the column to be printed. Media advocates say the debate has deeper ramifications.

“This is a real threat to quality student journalism if an adviser can be removed for not having censored a perfectly legitimate story that there was no legal reason why it shouldn’t have been published,” said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Virginia.

School officials in this community of 1,600 residents, 10 miles east of Fort Wayne, say the issue isn’t First Amendment rights but a teacher’s failure to live up to her responsibilities. They contend Sorrell should have alerted Principal Ed Yoder to the article because of the sensitivity of the material.

[District assistant superintendent Andy] Melin said Yoder would have allowed the article to be printed but likely would have suggested some changes. Sorrell has been placed on administrative leave and the school district has recommended she be fired. A public hearing is scheduled April 28, and the school board expects to vote May 1.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, argued that students have access to much more mature material in the school library and on the Internet. “Advocating tolerance is controversial?” she said.

All I can say is wow. We are living in the 21st century, right? Apparently not the school district officials in Woodburn, IN. Wow -- absolutely incredible.

The Don Imus incident seems to having a ripple effect for the benefit of people of color in general, and as CBS News reports, for Asian Americans in one particular case, as two White radio show hosts have been suspended indefinitely after making anti-Asian and anti-Chinese remarks on the air:

The hosts of the daily morning show, WFNY-FM’s “The Dog House With JV and Elvis,” have been suspended indefinitely without pay. . . . Local chapters of the Organization of Chinese Americans, an advocacy group, released a statement Sunday protesting the segment. By Monday, California State Sen. Leland Yee and others joined the campaign.

In the segment, broadcast on April 5 and again last week, a caller to a Chinese restaurant intersperses an order for takeout with lewd language and racial slurs. The caller tells one female employee he wants to come to the restaurant to see her naked and refers to a part of her body as “hot, Asian, spicy.”

The caller attempts to order “shrimp flied lice” and refers to a male employee as “Chinese man” before claiming himself to be a student of kung fu. At one point he refers to a part of the employee’s body as a “tiny egg roll.”

Kudos to all those who fought to make these radio hosts accountable for their racist actions. It would indeed have been a double standard if people had they not been punished after what happened to Don Imus. Ignorance and racism is the same, regardless of who it’s directed at.

Let this also be a lesson to public personalities out there that Asian Americans are no longer easy targets -- we will fight back and we will demand justice!

—————————————————————————————————--

Update: The Associated Press reports that on May 14, CBS announced that the “Dog House with JV and Elvis” show has been officially canceled, although there is no official word whether the two deejays still work for CBS. Kudos to CBS for doing the right thing in canceling the show, but there’s still one last step: fire the deejays.

At the risk of overanalyzing the events surrounding the shootings at Virginia Tech last week, I would like to offer one last set of observations. In my previous posts, I’ve acknowledged that certainly, there are many complicated emotions and reactions to these tragic events. This also applies to Koreans and Korean Americans, for whom this event stirs up additional feelings that include guilt, shame, and embarrassment based on the fact that the gunman was Korean American.

As one article from New American Media describes, many Koreans felt that Cho’s murderous rampage tarnished the image of Koreans and Korean Americans and that it would lead to a backlash against them. Korean government officials have also issued repeated apologies, perhaps fearing that an association with Cho would interfere with their diplomatic and/or economic relations with Americans.

In talking about this particular issue with my Korean American colleagues, many of them observe that for whatever reasons, many Asian Americans in general, but Koreans in particular, are very quick to personalize and internalize the high-profile public failures of anyone identified as Korean or Korean American, and to therefore feel a deep and profound sense of humiliation and guilt about such events. The implication is that somehow, the entire Korean/Korean American community is “responsible” or “at fault” in some way for Cho’s actions.

In contrast, many Koreans/Korean Americans, particularly younger or more “Americanized” members, feel that while they obviously share in the shock, grief, and sorrow regarding the tragic events at Virginia Tech, their community should not have to feel that they are somehow responsible for what Cho did just because he was Korean American, in the same way that Whites as a collective group were not responsible for the shooting massacre at Columbine High School eight years ago, nor any of the other high-profile school shootings in recent American history.

I happen to agree with that sentiment, but I think it’s a more complicated issue than that.

The question that comes to mind for me is, where do we as Asian Americans draw the line between shared guilt versus group solidarity? In other words, in most other respects, many Asian Americans including myself have consistently tried to encourage a sense of pan-Asian American unity and solidarity. This effort is based on the notion that in emphasizing our commonalities and uniting as a collective group, Asian Americans can speak with a louder and more powerful collective voice in American society, rather than as isolated individuals or ethnicities.

But with that in mind, is it then a contradiction to disassociate ourselves from Seung-Hui Cho in this case, and basically say that he wasn’t “one of us” and to reject any insinuation that his ethnicity had anything to do with his actions (which would also imply that some Asian American may share some of his feelings of alienation, etc.)?

Ultimately, I don’t think that it has to be an either-or proposition. That is, we can still say that ultimately Cho’s actions should be understood as the aberrant behavior of an extremely troubled individual, while at the same time saying that his mental illness could have been made worse by feeling like an outsider and ridiculed for being different -- sentiments that inevitably do exist among many Asian Americans.

Thankfully, even though many Asian Americans may have similar feelings of alienation, they do not react by going on a murderous rampage. Nonetheless, we as Asian Americans should recognize and advocate that (1) we be treated with respect and tolerance -- especially those who might be otherwise seen as outcasts, (2) members of our community who are emotionally troubled be actively encouraged to seek help, and (3) mental health services should be readily available and culturally-competent.

These efforts would go a long way in preventing not just tragic incidents like this, but also in reducing the difficulties many Asian American face in the complicated process of finding our identity within the complicated American racial landscape.

Following up on my last post about Seung Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman, the evidence that’s coming out seems to suggest that among other things, he felt ridiculed for his social class background (at least in comparison to the ‘rich’ kids that he railed against in his suicide note and video) and for being quiet -- but apparently not specifically for being Asian.

In other words, it does not seem that he was lashing out in reaction to incidents of racial prejudice or discrimination. I personally feel somewhat relieved to know that prejudice can now be removed from the equation. Why is that comforting to know? Because to me, it means that Asians and Koreans on the one hand, will not have to engage in the “blame game” with non-Asians on the other (specifically those who would have been the perpetrators of prejudice against him).

Nonetheless, a different aspect to the media’s coverage of his situation has gotten my attention and that of many others. Specifically, a lot of analysts, commentators, and observers have brought up the fact that he originally immigrated to the U.S. from Korea. One example of this is to refer to him in the traditional Asian way of using the surname first -- Cho Seung-Hui, instead of the American version-- Seung-Hui Cho.

Does his immigrant status make a difference in trying to understand what he did?

For many Asian Americans, the answer is no. First of all, even though he was originally from South Korea, he immigrated at a relatively early age -- 8. According to sociologists and demographers, that makes him part of the “1.5 generation” -- in between the first generation (that would be his parents) and the second generation (those born in the U.S.).

The distinction of being 1.5 generation also includes being raised and socialized primarily as an American. In other words, most of his formative schooling took place in the U.S. and by all accounts, he was perfectly fluent in English. In fact, he was so Americanized that he majored in English, rather than majors normally associated with Asian immigrants such as engineering, math, the ‘hard’ sciences, etc.

So why is it that so many people commented and even focused so intently on the fact that he originally immigrated from South Korea?

I think the answer is that they were consciously or unconsciously trying to culturally distance themselves from him. In other words, by emphasizing that he was an immigrant, they were basically saying “He was a foreigner, an outsider -- he wasn’t one of us, he wasn’t a ‘real’ American. ‘Real’ Americans would never have done something like this.”

That is, even though he was basically socialized as an American, much of America refuses to accept that he was in fact an American. And with underlying sentiments like that, they only function to reinforce notions of Korean Americans and Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners. In other words and unfortunately, many Asian Americans still need to overcome the perception that they are not “real” Americans.

This particular stereotype exists even though many Asian American families have been in the U.S. several generations, even though we tend to be the most educated racial group in the U.S., even though we are the group most likely to have high-skilled jobs, and even though on the family level, we have the highest income of all racial groups.

Of course, there are specific ethnic differences in this generalization, but the point is that in virtually all other respects of what it means to be an “American,” we meet or exceed those standards. But for various reasons, most of which have to do with our skin color and distinct physical appearance to be perfectly blunt, we’re more likely to be seen as foreigners.

That is exactly what is going on in this instance, with the American media’s focus on Cho’s immigrant status. In trying to distance ‘real’ Americans from him, American society is only reinforcing the notion that Asian Americans are not ‘real’ Americans. In the end, even though we may grieve and cry just like the rest of American society, we still have to pay a price for what he did.

By now, I’m sure everybody has heard of the tragedy that took place yesterday, Monday April 16, at Virginia Tech University. Words cannot adequately convey the profound shock and sadness that I feel about this unthinkable human catastrophe. As an educator, a parent -- as a human being -- I am struggling to come to grips with the enormity of what happened but at the least, I want to convey my deepest, most sincere condolences to everyone affected by these killings.

You may have also heard that gunman has been officially identified as an Asian American -- Seung-Hui Cho, a 23 year old senior English major at Virginia Tech who originally immigrated from South Korea in 1992.

The Associated Press article cited above notes that he was referred to school counselors after his instructors found his creative writing rather disturbing. The Chicago Tribune also reports that he apparently left a rambling suicide note that railed against “‘rich kids,’ ‘debauchery’ and ‘deceitful charlatans’ on campus” and that he had committed several strange and violent acts in recent weeks.

As a sociologist and Asian American Studies scholar, I will try to to put some sociological context into this horrific tragedy and several initial reactions come to mind:

If the gunman were White, his racial identity would go virtually unnoticed and unmentioned. However, because he was a person of color, much will probably be made of his racial identity. Specifically, because he was Asian American, much of the nation’s attention will be turned to examining what kinds of cultural characteristics may have influenced his behavior.

Also, inevitably, there will be some extreme reactions from xenophobes and people with anti-immigrant positions, perhaps along the lines of “This is what happens when we let in all kinds of immigrants, so we need to shut down our borders” or “We let in these damn foreigners and give them a chance at a better life and this is how they return the favor?” In addition, those who have anti-Asian sentiments are likely to say something like “Well, this just proves that Asians are so weird, foreign, and inscrutable --we just can’t trust them.”

Unfortunately these sorts of opinions are a classic example of confounding individual traits with group traits. In other words, yes, this one particular immigrant was responsible for this tragedy, but that does not mean that all immigrants or all Asian Americans are ticking psychopathic timebombs just waiting to go on a murderous rampage.

More likely, I think typical reactions will be along the lines of “Wow, I always thought Asian Americans were so quiet and passive” or “As an Asian, he must have been under a tremendous amount of pressure to do well in school.” Admittedly, these types of responses are a little harder to respond to because there are some kernels of truth to these particular sentiments.

For example, some Asian Americans do tend to be quiet and unassuming, although that is changing and also, much of these perceptions are based on biased media portrayals and cultural stereotypes. Nonetheless, the perception -- whether it’s true or not -- of Asians being quiet does exist. Similarly, it is also true that many Asian Americans, particular students, do experience a lot of pressure to succeed. In fact, I’ve written about such examples before and other barriers many Asian American students regularly face.

To this mix, we can also add other examples in which various social pressures or contentious incidents have pushed Asian Americans over the edge, causing them to snap and commit murder. But does that mean that Asians are more prone to psychotic episodes that result in them killing those around them?

My answer is, absolutely not. If anything, I believe the opposite is true -- that despite having to frequently deal with various incidents of prejudice, hostility, and outright racism, the vast majority of Asian Americans react with dignity, courage, and perseverance. Perhaps too many still keep their emotions buried inside them and need to share their frustrations more openly in order to move beyond them, but as a group, I think that in the face of persistent examples of inequality and injustice, we do not react more violently than any other group.

Did the Virginia Tech gunman’s reasons include having to deal with racism as an Asian American? At this point, I don’t know. But if that turns out to be the case, my reaction would be the same as it was in the case of Chai Soua Vang, the Hmong American convicted of killing six White hunters in Wisconsin after a hostile encounter that allegedly contained anti-Asian profanities.

That is, many of us Asian Americans face racism as well, but we don’t go on murderous shooting rampages. In other words, my point is that ultimately, what Seung-Hui Cho did at Virginia Tech was an example of someone who was clearly emotionally unstable and that he just snapped for whatever reasons known only to him.

I would not be a sociologist if I did not also point to the culture of violent masculinity that frames mass shootings like this. My UMass Amherst colleague Sut Jhully has produced several acclaimed documentaries that detail this phenomenon, most notably the video Tough Guise. For now, I will leave it up to him and others who have greater expertise in this particular sociological context to contribute their analysis.

In the end, this entire episode is an opportunity to remind Asian Americans and anyone else out there who are facing emotional issues or challenging situations that there are resources out there for them to access in order to more constructively deal with those pressures before they get out of hand. Suffering in silence doesn’t help anyone.

How do college freshmen compare these days to their counterparts 40 years ago, in terms of their socioeconomic characteristics and personal beliefs? As Inside Higher Education reports, each year, UCLA conducts a comprehensive survey of such questions and has just recently released a report that chronicles trends over the past 40 years. There results are quite interesting, particular in terms of racial/ethnic questions:

In 1971, 90.9 percent of first-time, full-time freshmen were white, while today the percentage is down to 76.5. Since then, all minority groups have made attendance gains, although at different rates and some, like African Americans, already reached their numerical peak and, due to various factors, have slowly decreased their share of the freshman population. . . .

About two-thirds of students today socialize with people of another race or ethnicity in high school, and a similar percentage expect to do so in college. This contrasts markedly with students’ views on racism and their institutions’ obligation to foster interracial dialogue: A little over a third believe promoting racial understanding is “essential” or “very important,” down from its peak just after the Rodney King incident in 1992, while 19.1 percent believe to some extent that racism is no longer a major problem in society.

In a departure of tone from the rest of the document, the authors expressed explicit disapproval of these trends, writing, “students’ personal goals and beliefs at college entry may be cause for concern.”

Let’s summarize -- college freshmen are increasingly non-White, but the overall percentage of all college freshman who think that race relations is a major issue has been steadily declining. Like I said, quite interesting. Is that a contradiction?

On the surface, it may appear that way but as many sociologists have commented, American society in general and the media in particular, have increasingly shied away from discussing race relations issues in recent years, so in that context, it’s not surprising to learn that their primary audience (young people) have bought into the myth of living in a colorblind society.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of the controversy regarding radio talk show host Don Imus’s recent comments about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, in which he called the student-athletes “nappy-headed hos.” Imus has a history of making controversial and even racist comments and surviving, but as many observers point out, he finally crossed the line this time.

As you’ve also probably seen, the outrage and backlash against Imus has been significant. He’s been suspended for two weeks and several of his show’s advertisers have pulled out. It goes without saying that I join the overwhelming chorus of those who condemn his comments as profoundly offensive and blatantly racist.

His comments clearly expose the racial differences involved as a White male making racist comments toward Black women. Despite his apologies and the fact that he runs a ranch for disadvantaged children (many of whom are of color), I absolutely agree that he deserves every bit of the criticism he’s received and needs to be fired, immediately.

The point of my post here however, is to try to place this incident in the larger context of American race relations. Specifically, in the wake of this entire controversy, I find myself asking, “Where was the overwhelming national collective outrage when Asian Americans were the targets of racist comments by various radio personalities?”

As detailed on the pages of sites like AsianMediaWatch.org, in the last few years, there have been several incidents in which radio talk show personalities have made equally offensive and racist comments about Asian Americans. Some examples:

• December 2004: Star (aka Troi Terrain) of Philadelphia’s Power 99 WUSL morning radio show yelled to an call center work in India, “Listen to me, you dirty rat eater. I’ll come out there and choke the ‘F’ out of you. You’re a filthy rat eater.”
• January 2005: hosts of the ‘Miss Jones in the Morning’ show sang a ‘Tsunami Song’ which mocked the victims of the South Asian tsunami, using racist terms such as “chink” and “Chinamen,” and called the drowning victims “bitches.”
• April 2005: Craig Carton and Ray Rossi (the “Jersey Guys” of New Jersey 101.5 FM) made racist comments and characterizations of Arab Americans and Asian Americans, calling them “Damn Orientals and Indians” and speaking in “ching chong” gibberish.
• January 2006: Adam Corolla made disparaging “ching chong” comments against Asians on his show and disparaged the Asian Excellence Awards.

To be fair, in most of these instances, due to pressure from Asian Americans and other community organizations and activists, the guilty parties did issue apologies and in the case of Troi Terrain, he was fired from his job. But to the best of my knowledge, none of these incidents attracted nearly the same level of overwhelming national, collective outrage as we’re seeing regarding Imus’s comments.

In other words, it was almost exclusively due to the outrage and work of Asian Americans that we were able to receive some justice in these cases -- we received very little, if any, help from the mainstream media or American society in general. So my question is -- is that fair?

Before I go further, I want to make it clear that I am not interested in perpetuating some sort of “Oppression Olympics” in which groups of color compete with each other in pointing out that historically, they’ve been more oppressed and institutionally victimized than other groups and that therefore racist incidents perpetrated against them are more important or significant.

Instead, my point is that I hope incidents like this remind us all that whenever we encounter racism that we should feel compelled to attack it, regardless of what racial group we identify with and/or to what racial group the offense is directed. This also applies to the mainstream media -- they need to keep in mind that racism happens to all groups of color. In other words, in the immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”