JULY 22, 2022
 

Hello, everyone!

Earlier this week, documents from the University of Utah showed how administrators failed to protect 19-year-old Chinese international student Zhifan Dong, becoming complicit in her murder. On Monday, 29-year-old Pakistani-American Sania Khan was murdered by her ex-husband in a vengeful murder-suicide. 

These two women have one thing in common: both faced violence from their male partners which ended in their deaths. 

According to the timeline released by the University, Dong had repeatedly reported her 26-year-old partner, Haoyu Wang, to administration. Despite the pattern of violence on Wang’s record dating back to Jan. 14, the University did not report him to the police until February 11, the night she was murdered. Police restrained Wang before he could attempt suicide after murdering Dong. This is the second death in four years attributed to poor University communication regarding intimate partner violence. 

In Chicago, photographer Sania Khan was found dead in her apartment when police arrived for a wellness check. Her ex-husband, 36-year-old Raheel Ahmad, was discovered having shot himself but still alive in the other room with a suicide note nearby. Later, Ahmad was pronounced dead at the hospital. 

Both Dong and Khan are prominent cases in the continuous pattern of violence against women committed by men they were in relationships with. Khan explained on her social media about the cultural barriers that she faced during her divorce as a South Asian woman and how her decision to end her marriage made her feel like she failed. However, it is vital to realize that culturally and procedurally, society has failed these women and all the women before them who were victims of unchecked brutality. 

Race in America 🌎

In Detroit, a community-effort is bringing together sweet fundraising and AAPI action.

“Baker’s Box” is a collaborative initiative which has gathered over 200 Asian American and Pacific Islander bakers together to create a collection of goodies uplifting AAPI creatives in the culinary space and to fundraise for local Michigan non-profit Rising Voices, which aims to support Asian American organizers in the state.

Priced at $100, the two boxes offered are filled with 18 different baked goods including a cashew and mango butterscotch bar, mini chocolate eclairs, plum and coconut cake, a summer peach linzer cookie and so much more.
 

...

A new Sundance documentary titled “Free Chol Soo Lee” documents the failures of the criminal justice system and the racial profiling of then 20-year-old Korean American Chol Soo Lee.

His case dates back to 1973, when he was accused of a gang-related murder in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and the only evidence used to convict him was shaky witness testimony from a few white tourists. Chol Lee was sentenced to life in prison, despite the courts consistently mistaking him for being Chinese during the trial. The film goes on to show investigator K.W. Lee taking an interest in the case and discovering evidence that added to the Asian American civil rights movement.

While in prison, Chol Lee was acquitted of his original charge but was convicted of another murder of a fellow inmate, to which Chol Lee pleaded self-defense. Ultimately, he spent 10 years in prison, four of which were on death row. The film will premiere nationwide on the week of August 12, which would have been the week Soo Lee turned 70.

In Other Asian News 🗞

Like the trucker strike earlier this year, South Korean laborers at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering’s (DSME) shipyard are on strike. The union is willing to accept a lower wage increase if the companies drop their lawsuits against the workers.

Since last month, about 100 workers at the shipyard have gone on strike, delaying many major operations for DSME. Union negotiators originally demanded a 30% wage increase, but later lowered to a 15% increase due to stagnant conversation from larger contractors.

DSME is holding their wage increase at a gradual 4.5%, but tensions between workers and contractors due to threats of lawsuits for losses resulting from the strike continue to delay agreements. President Yoon Suk-yeol urged the workers to cease their strike, citing that their activities violated South Korean union laws.
 

...

Meta’s user rate is dropping in India and the reason lies in its lack of consideration for its women userbase.

On February 2, Meta published its first-ever quarterly drop in daily Facebook users in India. Although the pattern is becoming a global phenomenon, the decline in India is largely attributed to women feeling unsafe on the platform.

Recently, Meta found that a majority of women, around 79%, were concerned about content safety and privacy. The increased amount of unwanted contact (which led 34% of women to set their profile to private), family disapproval and explicit content were large reasons for the limited demographic. Other reasons included the general complexity of its app design, a decreasing appeal due to video content popularity and local dialect, literacy and language barriers.

Facebook has garnered international criticism for not doing enough to protect women from harassment and bullying, but one thing remains clear: “Meta cannot succeed in India while leaving women behind.”

Film and Food 🥘

Japan has snagged four spots on the latest list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants announced Monday. The highest placing Japanese entry was the restaurant Den in Tokyo, which also was named Asia’s best restaurant earlier this year. Modern French eatery Florilege was ranked number 30, followed by La Cime, the only Osaka restaurant on the list, at number 41 and Narisawa at number 45.

Denmark-based restaurant Geranium captured the number one spot this year. The highest positioned U.S. restaurant is the modern Korean restaurant Atomix in New York at number 33.
 

...

Black and Filipino R&B singer-songwriter H.E.R, born Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson. will play the Disney princess Belle in ABC’s "Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration.” The two hour show will be a tribute to the Disney classic and combine live-action with animation. “Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu is the executive producer on the project.

The five time Grammy and Academy Award winner Wilson said about the opportunity, “I can’t believe I get to be a part of the Beauty and the Beast legacy. The world will see a Black and Filipino Belle! I have always wanted to be a Disney princess, and I get to work with two wonderful directors Hamish Hamilton and my favorite, Jon M. Chu. It is very surreal and I couldn’t be more grateful.”

What else is on our minds? 🧠
 

• Two women, Misumi Kubo and Junko Takase, have won Japan’s top literary awards, the Naoki Prize and the Akutagawa Prize, respectively. 

• BTS, noodle brand A-Sha and Target are a recipe for fun BT21 themed ramen; the LINE Friends intellectual property collaboration with BTS is dishing up a collection of A-Sha ramen to be made available in Target stores in October.

• “Everything Everywhere All At Once” is getting a theatrical re-release, but this variant of the multiverse movie is a variant packed with eight extra minutes of film outtakes. 

• A Nepalese climber, Sanu Sherpa, became the first person to climb atop 14 of the world’s tallest peaks twice. 

• The world’s oldest giant male panda, An An, died at 35 today from euthanization due to eroding health.