Asian Americans know that the competition to get into the top colleges and universities is quite intense these days. With that in mind, as the Korean newspaper JoongAng Daily reports, many Korean American students have decided to skip the U.S. entirely and instead, attend the top universities in South Korea:

A year ago, 19-year-old Korean-American Choi Joo-eun chose Korea¡¯s Yonsei University over the prestigious University of California system in her home state. Having gotten into both UC San Diego and UC Irvine, she had earned a place in two schools even many California teenagers dream of entering.

So far she has no regrets. On campus, she takes classes taught entirely in English while spending her spare time learning Korean culture and language. Off campus, Choi, who had never visited Korea before deciding to study here, keeps busy building a new network of friends and pursuing her dream of working for the United Nations one day. . . .

While it is well known that many Koreans opt out of the highly competitive race to get into a top local university like Yonsei for an American university, an increasing number of Korean-Americans and overseas-educated Koreans are heading in the opposite direction. . . .

Still, regardless of Korea being the land of their parents, it is far from home, and the students have to overcome their share of hardship and difficulties in adjusting to a new country and culture.

The article highlights the many advantages associated with such a process -- reconnecting with one’s ancestral ethnic roots, exposure to an international climate, becoming fluently bilingual in English and Korean, etc. But as the last line of the quote I cited above alludes to, there can also be loneliness and cultural adjustment issues.

Nonetheless, this particular trend of Korean Americans “going back” to Korean schools is likely to accelerate in the coming years, as the world in general but American society in particular become increasingly globalized and transnational. As such, such transnational Korean American students are likely to have a competitive advantage.

However, it is worth noting that as the article points out, being Korean American does not automatically mean that you will have an easy time in Korea -- being Asian and Asian American are two difference things.

Nonetheless, seen another way, being Korean American does provide another avenue of personal and academic enrichment when it comes to having the cultural international connection to Korea -- one that can be seen as an asset rather than a liability as we move forward into the 21st century.

A former student of mine, Nate Bae Kupel, has been hard at work on helping to create a new radio show devoted to Asian Americans and is happy to report that the show is finally ready. His announcement is below:

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As I Am: Asians In America Radio Pilot

As I Am is an hour-long program, hosted by author-activist Helen Zia, that examines the American experience – present, past, and future - with an Asian American lens. Through politics, arts, popular culture, history, and everyday encounters with the famous and not so famous, As I Am offers listeners a unique opportunity to learn from and about the nation’s dynamic Asian American community. In the process, those who tune in from all backgrounds will gain fresh perspectives on their own lives and experiences.

The program is produced by the Institute for Asian American Studies and WUMB Public Radio at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

About the Pilot
The As I Am pilot features reports, analyses, and commentary on social, political, cultural and artistic topics seldom heard on traditional public radio broadcasts. Hosted by the award-winning journalist, author and scholar Helen Zia, public radio audiences will hear unique voices and perspectives on a variety of issues from across the country.

The Pilot features up and coming author Min Jin Lee as she discusses her new book Free Food for Millionaires with Boston College’s Professor Min Hyoung Song. As I Am’s Paul Niwa reveals the effects of gentrification on Boston’s Chinatown through one man’s battle against his landlord’s rent increase.

Minnesota Public Radio’s Angela Kim’s journey from California to the Midwest reminds us that no matter where we may move we are often searching for something, anything, to remind us of where we came from. Nationally recognized slam poet Regie Cabico performs a piece that challenges the notion that we can be easily defined by a census box. Known for his cookbooks and popular television show Yan Can Cook, Chef

Martin Yan steps out of the kitchen to talk with the award-winning broadcast journalist Sydnie Kohara. A group of UMass Boston students’ trip to the Gulf Coast is chronicled as they discuss rebuilding the Vietnamese American communities ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. And International Studies Professor at Trinity College Vijay Prashad comments on why his ideal home isn’t in the present, it is in the future. You can hear these stories and more, on As I Am: Asians In America.

The program will be distributed on the Public Radio Exchange and is expected to have national carriage on non-commercial radio stations across the country. The program will be available for listening and downloading on our website soon. For now, listeners may go to the Institute for Asian American Studies’ website to download or stream the program.

Musical consideration for the pilot has been provided by Boston Progress Radio a community-based online radio station and blog focusing on independent Asian American music and art.

For more information on As I Am, please visit our website: www.asiam.us

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Kudos to Nate and his crew for putting this project together. As I’ve said many times in the past, we Asian Americans need to create more outlets like this where we can express ourselves however we want, instead of relying on others to do so however they want.

One of the main themes in my research as a scholar in Sociology and Asian American Studies is the connection between individual and institutional processes of assimilation. As I’ve written about in various posts on this blog, this particular focus can take many different forms.

One form that I’ve recently started to follow more closely concerns anti-communist political activism among Vietnamese Americans. In fact, I’ve just completed a chapter entitled “‘Better Dead Than Red’: Anti-Communist Politics Among Vietnamese Americans” in an upcoming book that’s titled Anti-Communist Minorities in the US: The Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, edited by Ieva Zake (Palgrave-MacMillan Publishing) that’s set to come out early next year.

In that chapter, I write that while the inevitable forces of assimilation are likely to result in a moderation of fervent anti-communist sentiment among younger Vietnamese Americans, there is still a strong level of ethnic solidarity within the Vietnamese American community. Combined with continuing incidents of human rights abuses in Viet Nam, I conclude that anti-communist activism among Vietnamese Americans may evolve into different forms but is unlikely to become eliminated or even notably lessened any time soon.

As the latest examples of the continuing salience of anti-communism among Vietnamese Americans, two recent incidents illustrate the power of symbols and visual images and how they reflect upon the legacy of the Viet Nam War.

The first incident, as reported by the Orange County Register, involves a community college in Irvine, California (located only a few miles from Little Saigon) recently deciding to remove the flag of Viet Nam from public display after local Vietnamese Americans threatened to demonstrate against it:

The 144 miniature flags have hung from the second-floor atrium for many years without controversy, in a gesture designed to symbolize the diversity of the college’s student body. On Thursday, college officials removed the display in the wake of threats that busloads of protesters could arrive to disrupt the campus if the Vietnamese flag were not removed. . . .

Westminster Councilman Andy Quash and Garden Grove Councilwoman Dina Nguyen said they met with college officials Wednesday after receiving calls from numerous constituents about the flag display.

“We reminded them that in 1999, in the city of Westminster, that flag hung in a video store led to a 49-day protest peaking at 50,000 people,” Quash said. “I’m sure the college hung the flag without realizing it is very provocative to certain students.” . . .

“It’s offensive because this flag represents a regime that is very dictatorial and does not respect human rights,” Nguyen said. “It is not democratic, and that is why a lot of Vietnamese Americans are here as refugees. To see that being honored, well, millions of people lost their lives over that flag.”

The second incident, as described by the San Mateo County Times, involves a work of art created by a young Vietnamese American that was intended to pay tribute to the refugee experience of Vietnamese Americans but instead has been interpreted by many as pro-communist.

The offending photo was of a piece of art by a University of California, Davis, graduate student and Vietnamese immigrant who saw the creation — a yellow-and-red foot-spa tub — as a salute to Vietnamese refugees like her mother-in-law who toiled in a nail salon after the family came to America.

But the protesters saw something far more menacing.

The tub was yellow with three red stripes, which the protesters said must be a reference to the flag of the fallen country of South Vietnam. And the spa’s yellow power cord was plugged into a red outlet, which seemed to resemble the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, now under communist rule.

“Why is the South Vietnamese flag on a thing that people wash their dirty feet in?” asked Uc Van Nguyen, 70, who attended some of the rallies, which began in late January. . . .

Meanwhile, the artist said she had no intention of offending anyone when she bought a foot spa from a nail shop, painted it yellow and red. . . . She saw the art creation as a way to honor Vietnamese women who have “toiled and sacrificed enormously for the future of their children and family,” she wrote.

To try to put these two incidents in perspective, as I wrote in my chapter that I mentioned above, it would be easy for many Americans to criticize the Vietnamese American protesters and to say things like, “You may find the images offensive, but as Americans, you should respect the right of people to freely express themselves however they want. If you don’t, you’re just replicating the same kind of authoritarianism that you blast the communists for committing.”

While there is some truth to this particular argument, I would point out that first, in the same way that the artist or school has the freedom to express themselves however they want, so too do others have the right to criticize such expressions. In other words, freedom of expression is a two-way street -- express yourself however you want, but be prepared to receive potentially critical expressions in return.

This is not to say that I always agree with the protesters and in fact, I do not share their interpretation that the “foot tub” artwork shown above (thanks to Kym Pham for the URL) is offensive and an insult to the Vietnamese refugee experience. There are other instances as well in which I disagree with many anti-communist opinions. At the same, I respect and defend their right to express their interpretations that may be counter to mine.

In fact, it is this particular right that allows historically marginalized groups such as Asian Americans to criticize recent media portrayals that many of us find offensive, including a college newspaper column meant as “satire” or the anti-Filipino Desperate Housewives episode.

Secondly, when people criticize such Vietnamese American protests (particularly non-Vietnamese), in many cases they have little or no connection whatsoever to the refugee experiences that form the basis of such strong anti-communist sentiments. In other words, it is easy for others to say, “Come on, that was 30 years ago -- just let it go already” without truly understanding the level of suffering that many Vietnamese endured and still endure in the form of family members killed or separated.

Therefore, in the same way we need to truly understand the historical impacts of past experiences of injustice and suffering experienced by other racial/ethnic minority groups, so too should Americans be careful not to minimize the impact of the Viet Nam War and their forced exit out of their ancestral land by hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees.

At the same time, Vietnamese Americans should hopefully understand that there is a limit to their protests. Verbal criticisms and mass demonstrations are perfectly legitimate expressions of dissent, but threats and acts of violence are not. In those cases, the laws of this country are clear and there are no exceptions, regardless of how angry one feels or one’s level of past suffering.

In short, these are the factors and boundaries involved in Vietnamese American political activism and freedom of expression -- we have broad opportunities to express our experiences, our grief, and our anger, but there are limits that we need to keep in mind. This is ultimately part of what it means to be Vietnamese American.

As a university professor, I tend to be particularly sensitive to how Asian Americans are treated on college campuses. With that in mind, two recent events highlight both the good and the bad aspects of how Asian Americans are treated in higher education.

First off is the bad part: as many Asian American bloggers have already commented on, last week there was a racist “satire” column published in the student newspaper at the University of Colorado at Boulder that perpetuated numerous racial stereotypes against Asian Americans.

As you can read for yourself, here are some excerpts:

Asians are not just “a product of their environment,” and their rudeness is not a “cultural misunderstanding.” They hate us all.

And I say it’s time we started hating them back. That’s right-no more “tolerance.” No more “cultural sensitivity.” No more “Mr. Pretend-I’m-Not-Racist.” It’s time for war. . . . If you’re not sure if someone is an Asian, give them a calculus problem to do in their head. If they get it right, net ‘em. . . .

Before we let the Asians go, we will go to their homes and redecorate them in a traditional American style. We will replace their rice cookers with George Foreman Grills, their green tea mochi with fried Snickers bars, and their rice rockets with Hummers. And booster seats. . . .

The only other way to make peace would be to expel you.

At best, the column is a rather idiotic and incoherent diatribe against perceived cultural differences. But in reality, it reinforces racial biases and prejudices against Asian Americans and sets us further apart as “foreigners” who will never, ever be considered “Americans.”

Of course, there are defenders of the column who argue that freedom of speech allows the writer to say whatever he wants and that ultimately, it’s meant as a joke and that we Asian Americans should all just lighten up. To that argument, here is my standard response:

What we need to recognize is that there are fundamental institutional power differences inherent in situations in which White public figures denigrate minorities and that each time an incident like that happens, it reinforces the notion of White supremacy -- that Whites can say whatever they want against anybody at any time.

I’m also not surprised to hear a White person say that they don’t feel offended by anything because as a collective racial group, Whites already enjoy so many other privileges associated with their skin color. Isn’t it just typical for Whites and their lackeys to say “sticks and stones” and “get just it over it.” Unfortunately, that comment only serves to provide us with nothing else than a clear illustration of White privilege and supremacy.

As an update to this story, after meeting with university officials, staff at the student newspaper have agreed to undergo diversity training to ensure that such “editing lapses” in the future. I suppose that’s good news, but it would have been nice if someone, anyone involved could have come to their senses in the beginning and realized that perpetuating racial stereotypes, even when it’s meant as satire, is almost never a good idea.

Fortunately, I have better news to try to offset this episode: the University of Washington recently announced that they will award honorary baccalaureate degrees to hundreds of former Japanese American students whose education were terminated when they were imprisoned after the Pearl Harbor attack at the start of World War II:

UW spokesman Bob Roseth said the decision to award the degrees was at least partly because of a two-part series of articles that ran two years ago in the university’s alumni magazine, Columns. The series detailed the stories of a handful of the students who were forced to leave the university more than 60 years ago. . . .

“It’s only taken … 66 years to address this injustice,” UW Regent Stanley Baer said. “It occurs to me to take some comfort in the fact that a president couldn’t do that today,” added Regent Bill Gates Sr. . . .

Tetsuden Kashima, UW professor of American ethnic studies, said limited information has been gathered about 390 of the students. Kashima, who petitioned the regents to approve the measure, isn’t sure how many of the students are still alive.

It is a little unfortunate that it took the University of Washington more than 60 years to take this step but nonetheless, it is a noteworthy and symbolic acknowledgment of a grave historical injustice.

I can only hope that as we move forward into the increasingly globalized and transnational 21st century that I will see more events like the University of Washington declaration, and less of incidents like that at the University of Colorado.

It always seems to be two steps forward, one step back.

On my other blog, I’ve written before about how many aspects of traditional Asian culture are increasingly becoming incorporated into mainstream American culture, with some of the most recent examples being manga, food and cuisine, and meditation. As the Associated Press/Salon.com report, we can now add feng shui in fast food restaurants to that list:

The only familiar signs at the McDonald’s in this large Asian community are the golden arches, the drive-through and the menu. Gone are the plastic furniture, Ronald McDonald and the red and yellow palette that has defined the world’s largest hamburger chain. Leather seats, earth tones, bamboo plants and water trickling down glass panels have taken their place.

The makeover elements are meant to help diners achieve happiness and fortune — whether they realize it or not. That’s because the restaurant was redesigned using the principles of feng shui, the ancient Chinese practice of arranging objects and numbers to promote health, harmony and prosperity. . . .

The McDonald’s in this Los Angeles suburb boasts wood ceiling, silver-coated chairs, plus red accents throughout the dining area to symbolize fire and “good luck, laughter and prosperity,” said Brenda Clifford, who designed the dining area.

The textured walls patterned after ocean waves symbolize “life and relaxation — the balanced things that you want in your life,” she said. . . . Two workers at the nearby post office said they’ve been taking more lunch breaks at the remodeled McDonald’s, which opened in late December. . . .

Nevermind that this is the same McDonald’s that’s been vilified by critics over its artery-clogging Big Macs and fries.

Can capitalism and natural harmony coexist, or as the last line that I quoted above suggests, is it simply akin to putting lipstick on a pig? At this point, you can judge for yourself.

My main observation for now is that while it is nice that the “mainstreamization” of traditional Asian cultural elements such as feng shui are mostly positive and hopefully symbolize the larger acceptance of Asians and Asian Americans into the fundamental fabric of American society, it would also be nice if the cultural acceptance of things like feng shui were also accompanied by larger institutional changes such as more political power, fewer hate crimes, more opportunities for corporate advancement, etc.

This past week was extremely busy and tiring for me and therefore, I did not have the chance to comment on the Super Tuesday results, especially as they relate to Asian American voters. The basic summary is that, as you have probably already heard, it was pretty much a dead heat between Clinton and Obama, with Clinton winning slightly more delegates but Obama winning more states.

Regarding Asian American voters, the biggest story was that in California, they voted for Clinton by a surprisingly large margin of 3-to-1. These particular results have led many to ask to what extent did racial prejudice against Blacks (and therefore, against Obama) play in their decisions to overwhelmingly support Clinton.

Fortunately, others have argued quite convincingly that rather than racial prejudice, the main reasons why Asian American voters in California voted in large numbers for Clinton more than likely included a preference for more familiar, “establishment” candidates, and those who are currently more associated with being powerful and influential, both of which Clinton personifies more than Obama. For example, Jeff Chang succinctly writes:

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.”

Jeff goes on to note that since Obama’s strength seems to lie more with younger voters, rather than older ones, it’s likely that he did much better with younger Asian American voters in California as well, while less successful with their parents.

It’s also conceivable that Obama experienced some fallout from the controversy regarding the 80-20 Initiative’s initial call to defeat him over whether he would endorse its official platform.

For now, what we do know is that Obama and his campaign have some work to do in terms of winning over Asian American (and Latino American) voters. While they appeal quite successfully to younger members of both groups and their anti-establishment sense, that message and orientation apparently do not play as well with older members.

The campaign and fight for the nomination is still wide open between him and Clinton but at the least, Obama’s campaign should now know where they stand and what they need to do.

You may have heard that today, February 7, 2008, is the Lunar New Year and the start of the Year of the Rat. For Vietnamese Americans such as myself, it is also the start of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year.

Read about some characteristics of people born under the Year of the Rat (those who turn 12, 24, 36, etc. from this day forward until one year from now) and a list of some famous “rats” at my article on Tet, a Celebration of Rebirth.

As our nation celebrates the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. today, it’s appropriate that we reflect on the state of his quest toward racial harmony and equality in contemporary American society.

Specifically, in this day and age, racial/ethnic relations seem to influence many of the most controversial and hotly-debated issues in modern American society. This includes immigration (especially illegal immigration), racist imagery such as recent noose incidents, and most recently, issues surrounding Barack Obama’s campaign.

With that in mind, I think it’s useful for us -- or at least for me as a sociologist -- to try to take a step back and look at these issues from a more institutional or contextual perspective. In other words, to understand each of these specific issues that I just mentioned better, I think it’s useful for us to first understand the social context which forms the framework within which each issue unfolds.

With that in mind, the results from two national-level surveys have just been released to try to give us this larger, societal picture of the current state of racial/ethnic relations. Specifically, studies conducted by the Pew Research Center and New America Media each provide data and insight on attitudes toward and between different racial/ethnic groups in America. So let’s take a look at each to see what they say and how they can help us understand American racial/ethnic relations better.

The Pew Research Center study generally concludes that among Whites, Blacks, and Latinos, large majorities of each group report that they get along “pretty well” or “very well” with members of the other groups. However, there are some differences -- Black and Latino seem to be slightly less positive:

While 70% of blacks say blacks and Hispanics get along very or pretty well, just 57% of Hispanics agree. Meantime, some 30% of Hispanics say blacks and Hispanics get along not too or not at all well; this is the most negative assessment registered by any group in the survey about any inter-group relationship.

It’s important to note however, that although this 57% of Latinos who report good relations with Blacks is lower than what Blacks report themselves, it is still a numerical majority.

The Pew study also reports that generally speaking, those with higher education and income tend to report better cross-racial relations. Perhaps surprisingly, Blacks living in rural areas tend to report better relations with Whites than Blacks who live in urban or suburban areas. Also, there were no significant differences in terms of attitudes by region of country. Finally and perhaps on a discouraging note, younger Blacks report worse relations with Whites than older Blacks.

In general, I found the Pew study informative but with one significant drawback -- they chose to exclude Asian Americans from the study.

In my opinion, this omission is absolutely inexcusable in this day and age when the Asian American population is close to 15 million, in which Asian Americans are some of the most socioeconomically successful ethnic groups in the U.S., and when Asian Americans increasingly make up large proportions of the population of many states and majorities in many cities.

I am extremely disappointed that an organization as otherwise professional and well-regarded as the Pew Research Center chose to exclude Asian Americans from this important study.

To remedy that, let’s turn to the other national study on racial attitudes, from New America Media (NAM), in conjunction with Bendixen & Associates. This survey included Asian Americans, Latinos, and African Americans, but because it focused on attitudes among and between racial/ethnic minority groups, the study did not include Whites.

Similar to the Pew study, I am a little disappointed that Whites were not included, but in relative terms, there is already a sufficient level of racial attitude data that exists among Whites, but much less so when it comes to data on racial minorities, especially Asian Americans.

Also, I am impressed that the NAM study was conducted in multiple languages to maximize its overall validity and generalizeability. A Powerpoint presentation of their major findings is also available for download. To summarize, the study notes:

[The poll] uncovered serious tensions among these ethnic groups, including mistrust and significant stereotyping, but a majority of each group also said they should put aside differences and work together to better their communities. . . .

Predominantly immigrant populations - Hispanics and Asians - expressed far greater optimism about their lives in America, concluding that hard work is rewarded in this society. By contrast, more than 60% of the African Americans polled do not believe the American Dream works for them. . . .

[Regarding tensions and mistrust], 44% of Hispanics and 47% of Asians are “generally afraid of African Americans because they are responsible for most of the crime.” Meanwhile, 46% of Hispanics and 52% of African Americans believe “most Asian business owners do not treat them with respect.” And half of African Americans feel threatened by Latin American immigrants because “they are taking jobs, housing and political power away from the Black community.” . . .

[Nonetheless], the poll found “a shared appreciation” for each group’s cultural and political contributions. “Hispanics and Asians recognize that African Americans led the fight for civil rights and against discrimination, forging a better future for the other groups,” she said.

“Asian Americans and African Americans say Hispanic culture has enriched the quality of their lives. African Americans and Hispanics perceive Asian Americans as role models when it comes to family and educational values.”

Generally, I am saddened -- but entirely shocked -- to hear that apparently, there is still a lot of racial tension and suspicion between Asian Americans, Latinos, and African Americans. I agree that important issues need to be addressed for these stereotypes to eventually be disproved.

Nonetheless, I would point out two points in regard to this NAM survey. The first is that as the Pew Research Center study generally showed, more educated and higher-income respondents are likely to be more positive about cross-racial attitudes and experiences.

With that in mind, it appears that the NAM survey did not disaggregate its responses by social class, instead lumping everyone from all kinds of educational, income, and occupational backgrounds together within each racial/ethnic group. This is disappointing and unfortunately, distorts the findings a little bit.

But perhaps more importantly, I am disappointed in some of the wording of the questions in the NAM survey. For example, it asked Asian and Latino respondents whether they agreed with the statement “I am generally afraid of African Americans because they are responsible for most of the crime.”

I must say that I finding that wording to be a biased, leading, and confusing, based on conventional sociological methodologies and guidelines of creating empirically valid surveys. First of all, it asks two questions in one -- whether they are afraid of African Americans, and two, whether they agree that African Americans commit most of the crime. One of the key rules about questionnaire design is that you should only ask one question at a time.

Second, presenting the statement that African Americans “are responsible for most of the crime” is leading -- it should have just asked the question, “Do you agree or disagree that African Americans are responsible for most crimes committed” would have been less leading and more direct. The distinction between the two is subtle, but empirically valid.

Another example of a poorly-worded and misleading question is “Latin American immigrants are taking away jobs, housing and political power from the Black community,” asked of African American and Asian respondents. Again, the problem here is that there are three questions combined into one -- whether Latino immigrants take away jobs, take away housing, and take away political power are all three distinct issues and questions that are unfortunately all rolled into one.

Take together, I would argue that these two questions may have distorted and exaggerated the overall level of racial tension between Asians, African Americans, and Latinos, especially considering most of the other findings in the NAM study, which generally showed a high level of willingness to cooperate with each other.

Specifically, 86% of Asians, 89% of African Americans, and 92% of Latinos agreed with the statement, “African Americans, Latinos, and Asians have many similar problems. They should put aside their differences and work together on issues that affect their communities.”

Ultimately and in my opinion, that is the probably the most significant finding from the NAM survey -- although some tensions and stereotypes still exist between Asians, Latinos, and Africans Americans (although the true extent is still unknown because some of the questions asked were biased and misleading), overwhelming majorities of each group are willing to work together to address issues of discrimination and inequality that they have in common.

To conclude, both the Pew and NAM studies stand as useful examples of both useful and interesting data, but also how shortcomings in their fundamental design unfortunately compromised their overall value.

As sociologists and as Americans in general, these are the kinds of institutional issues we need to keep in mind when we try to apply them to better understand specific issues.