Happy New Year! According to the Year of the Dragon, 2012 is a time to be bold, start a new business, and pop out babies (and if you’re still single, to once again gloat over the fact that you get to hoard red pockets instead of give them out. The mun-mun-muny, the yen and the pesos!).
BCB wishes all our readers a 2012 filled with happiness, success, and just a tad less to bitch about. And Mr. President himself wishes you a very happy New Year too:
恭喜發財! Gong Hay Faht Choy! Chúc mừng năm mới!
Photo: GETTY
Obama recently signed an Executive Order reestablishing the President’s Advisory Commission and White House Initiative on Asian American and Pacific Islanders, first created by Clinton a decade ago.
Reading through the transcript of the President’s remarks, I have to give props to him (and his speechwriters) for offering thoughtful acknowledgment to the AAPI community, instead of the usual “thanks for working so hard and being industrious and keeping your head down” tokenism rhetoric spouted by most politicians.
In fact, Obama spoke against buying into the model minority myth, and recognized multiple barriers faced by the AAPI community — from health disparites (i.e. diabetes and Hep B), high dropout and low college enrollment rates, poverty, language barriers, violation of voting and civic rights, and even the often overlooked but extremely important need for collection of data on AAPIs and disagreggation by ethnicity and other variables so we’re not invisible or lumped together. Finally. He also condemned post-9/11 and ongoing hate crimes, which usually elicit barely a blip on CNN and in the papers.
Obama further gave a nod to our folx as “leaders” “who’ve helped build this nation for centuries”…thanking railroad laborers, farmers and veterans like those in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the 442nd, who fought despite their families’ internment. Mr. President continued to bust through stereotypes by naming musicians, athletes, and public service pioneers like His Awesomeness Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tammy Duckworth.
Obama also made it personal: “When I talk about America’s AAPI communities, I’m talking about my own family: my sister Maya; my brother-in-law Konrad; my beautiful nieces…and the folks I grew up with in Indonesia, and in Honolulu as part of the Hawai’ian Ohana…”
He called AAPI history “uniquely American” while understanding our reality as a transnational community, with “roots that span the globe”, and by describing Diwali holiday as celebrated by ”some of the world’s greatest faiths…Hindusm Jains, Sikhs, and some Buddhists, here in America and around the world…” Obama is the first US president to personally take part in a White House ceremony for the festival of lights, lighting a diya inside the executive mansion and bowing before a Hindu pandit. It’s refreshing to hear what has usually been portrayed as Other and un-American unapologetically supported by our most powerful leader.
To boot, AAPI community advocates South Asian Americans Leading Together, Asian American Justice Center, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, APIAVote, Organization of Chinese Americans, and others released statements applauding Obama’s signing. One step closer to earning that Nobel Peace Prize.
two words: FUCK YEAH.
Its gonna be hard as hell to write a review of a book like this without spoilers. So let me just say this book has gently nestled its way into my Murakami top 3, just under Wind Up Bird Chronicles and barely inching above Norwegian Wood. This means a lot cause I'm a fanatic over his ish and spend way too much money on multiple copies of his books... If you're a veteran Murakami reader, you'll love how long this book is. More time before the Murakami-withdrawal hits. You'll also like hearing from a female protagonist for the first time. If this is your first Murakami book, I'd read one of his books with less magical realism first, After Dark or Kafka on the Shore then move up to 1Q84 about 3-4 books later. Also, you might wanna buy the digital version (although the US hardcopy if a sight to behold) cause this book be phat!
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