OCTOBER 14, 2022

Hello, everyone!

In Sacramento, California, the Sikh community held a vigil at the state capitol honoring the lives of Jasleen Kaur, 27; Jasdeep Singh, 26; their 8-month-old baby; and Singh’s brother, Amandeep Singh, 39.

On Monday, the gatherings started with a prayer for peace (Ardas), and local elected officials gathered with the crowd on the steps to mourn the loss.

Sacramento community leader Jasjit Singh explains the grief they feel: "I think all of us just felt like a part of us was lost. We're a small but mighty community."

"We're going to pray that their souls find peace, that their souls find love and their souls find unity with the creator.”

Spotlight 💡

Bernice Bing, who died in 1998, was an Asian American woman, lesbian, community activist, and artist. Like many of her peers, Bing’s work was overlooked for a long time.

Almost 25 years after her death, her work is finally being celebrated by the Asian Art Museum, which, like many institutions during Bing’s lifetime, excluded most Asian American artists. The exhibition, “Into View: Bernice Bing,” showcases her abstract expressionist paintings and drawings that fused Eastern and Western techniques. The exhibition also showcases her journal excerpts from the late ‘50s to mid-90s, as part of the ongoing movement in retelling the art history of the 20th century.

Abby Chen, an Asian American curator and inaugural head of the department for contemporary art at the institution summarized it best: “This demonstrates the museum’s investment in underrecognized Asian American artists.”

The exhibition will be on view until May 2023.

Race in America 🌎

A new report from Stop AAPI Hate, titled “The Blame Game: How Political Rhetoric Inflames Anti-Asian Scapegoating,” found that from its reported incidents, Asian Americans were being wrongfully blamed for “COVID-19, espionage on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, or economic insecurity.”

Russell Jeung, the co-founder of the organization and a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University, explains that the blame has not ended: “That sense that Asian Americans are to be blamed for COVID-19 has not subsided, even though Americans don’t wear masks, don’t get vaccinated. In fact, the number of Americans who believe Asian Americans are to be blamed for COVID-19 has doubled since 2020.”

In fact, the report also found that Asian Americans weren’t just being blamed for COVID-19. Around 4% of the total reported incidents accused Asians or Asian Americans of spying for the Chinese government, with one particular case in California where a resident recalled a cashier telling her that she believed her neighbor was a “5G China spy.”
 

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Pew Research Center has found that while Asian Americans have been the fastest growing racial group for the past two decades in the U.S., the community’s growth has leveled off since 2018.

Here are some other key facts you should know about eligible voters in our community:

• The Center estimates that 13.3 million Asian Americans are eligible to vote in the November elections, making up 5.5% of all eligible voters in the nation.

• The majority of eligible Asian American voters live in five states with California accounting for 4.2 million, nearly a third of the entire U.S. Asian electorate; New York, 1.1 million; Texas, 930,000; Hawai’i, 565,000; and New Jersey with 505,000.

• For Asian American voters, Hawai’i is still the only state where the community makes up a majority of the eligible voter population, and the state has the highest share of eligible voters in the Asian American community. 

• Nation-wide, a majority of Asian American voters are naturalized citizens rather than U.S.-born.

• And, compared to the overall voting population, Asian Americans are more likely to have a bachelor’s degree. In 2020, half of Asian American eligible voters had a bachelor’s degree or were pursuing higher education. 

In Other Asian News 🗞

In Iran, former speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, called for a re-examination of the compulsory hijab law and an acknowledgement of the protests’ deep political roots.

Larijani, who recognizes that these protests are not simply the product of U.S. or Israeli agitation, contrasted with the uncompromising line from leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with other parliament and security forces on Wednesday.

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The Indian Supreme Court, after being split over a case protesting a ban on hijabs in schools, has decided to leave the decision to the chief justice, leaving the state ruling against hijabs in place.

Karnataka remains the only state to ban hijabs in schools, which sparked protests earlier this year.

While Justice Hemant Gupta said that he wanted the appeal against the ban quashed, his colleague, Sudhanshu Dhulia, had a different opinion: "Secularism is applicable to all citizens, therefore permitting one religious community to wear their religious symbols would be antithesis to secularism," adding that “Asking girls to take off their hijab before they enter the school gates is first an invasion on their privacy, then it is an attack on their dignity and then ultimately it is a denial to them of secular education.”

Fashion and Film 📺

Vogue has published a profile of six South Asian fashion designers who are incorporating their culture and roots in their work.

Take for instance Sheena Sood’s label Abacaxi, which works with an ethical garment shop in New Delhi. Sood also teamed up with Oshadi, a fashion initiative that practices ancient Indian agricultural techniques.

“From a young age, I would dream away and sketch things I’d like the tailor to make for me. It was such a radical difference compared to how we shopped for clothes back home in America at the mall, as well as the contrast in the way of dressing in India—the use of color, embellishment, and balance in an outfit” Sood says. 

Lucy Liu is joining the cast of the Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans holiday comedy flick “Red One” on Prime Video.

The plot is being kept a secret for now, but it is described as a globetrotting  action-adventure comedy that will bring a new universe within the holiday genre. It will be directed by Jake Kasdan who previously worked with Johnson on the “Jumanji” franchise.

What else is on our minds? 🧠
 

• The U.S. is now considering China a potential long term nuclear competitor. 

• A case study of the significant impacts and numbers of long Covid.  

• Parul Agrawal has been named head of drama at Warner Bros. Television. 

• Chef Gary Yin of the 3-Michelin-starred restaurant King’s Joy in China is pioneering a vegetarian focused menu.  

• Aung San Suu Kyi is now facing a total of 26 years in prison for corruption charges.