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JULY 15, 2022
Hello, everyone!
In Hawai’i, a monumental bill to expedite housing for Native Hawai'ians was just signed by Gov. David Ige.
The bill, dedicated to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, will give $600 million “to pursue a multi-pronged approach to eliminating its waitlist,” and consequently “enable beneficiaries of the Hawai'ian home lands trust to acquire a residence and to enable the department to fulfill its fiduciary duties to beneficiaries.”
Signing this bill means a strong first step toward ensuring Native Hawai'ians have adequate shelter and property on their own land and is an act that solidly creates more safety for Hawai'ians and their families. Discussions later this month will aim to make Native Hawai'ians on the list become homeowners.
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Race in America 🌎
The University of Michigan announced its new, and first, Asian American (and Canadian) president.
After his predecessor was fired after an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, Santa J. Ono, a Japanese American Canadian biomedical researcher and the current president of the University of British Columbia, was chosen to succeed him for the next term. The University recently experienced a myriad of scandals and controversies regarding its staff and sexual assault, as well as exorbitant tuition costs and application rejections.
Dr. Ono plans to make his time at the University one that works “toward the public good.” As a staunch advocate of college affordability and action against climate change, Dr. Ono hopes to unify the student body, faculty and staff. He is also a devout Christian and surprisingly, goes against the University’s statement on providing safe and accessible reproductive care, including abortions.
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The next Bronx Museum of the Arts director of curatorial programs is Asian American Eileen Jeng Lynch.
Jeng Lynch comes to fill in a previously vacant position after her work as the senior curator of visual arts at Wave Hill, a garden in the Bronx that hosts art exhibitions and galleries. At Wave Hill, Lynch’s work primarily focused on the environment and the surrounding politics of climate change. Her most recent curatorial work being the museum’s newest exhibition, “Water Scarcity: Perpetual Thirst,” which talks about access to clean water.
Her passions directly align with the current direction of the museum, and Lynch vows to “broaden access to the arts through exhibitions and programming that are responsive and community engaged.” She will return as one of the museum’s full-time staff, something the institution hasn’t seen since the onslaught of COVID-19.
In Other Asian News 🗞
Photographs are a glimpse into the past and the present, and some of those photos hold power in the timelessness of their imprints. National Geographic featured photographs from 85-year-old Marie Ann Han Yoo, who rediscovered rare, old pictures from a suitcase in her house, detailing scenes from postwar South Korea and in color.
Yoo took those photographs during 1956-57 when she ventured with her mom to South Korea on a political business trip. Her mother was close with then-President Syngman Rhee, which allowed Yoo access to photographing elites and commonfolk. Because Yoo was born to Korean immigrants in Hawai’i, she entered the budding nation as a foreigner, which also allowed her to roam freer than regular South Korean women.
Her photographs are now held in great esteem for many historians. Colored images capturing postwar South Korea are rare, and these preserved the era that the country began to step towards a Westernized, modern society.
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A new bipartisan bill recognizing Tibetans’ right to “self-determination” was introduced by Congress this Wednesday.
This bill, aiming to reject China’s claim on Tibet, challenges the Chinese government and pushes Beijing to restart negotiations with the Dalai Lama. Previous requests from the U.S. for Beijing and the Dalai Lama to negotiate had failed, and so current lawmakers, like Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), seek “to strengthen U.S. policy by grounding it in international law and countering Chinese disinformation, with the aim of getting the two sides to negotiate a durable solution.”
If approved, this piece of legislation would legally recognize “Tibet” as the Tibet autonomous region and Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces. Senators have yet to introduce the companion bill, “Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act,” which is currently undergoing discrepancy checks at the White House.
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Food 🥘
Chef Asma Khan is the owner of the acclaimed London restaurant Darjeeling Express, holds a PhD in law, is an activist, cookbook author and the subject of an episode on Netflix’s “Chef’s Table.” For her, food “is always about power [and] politics” so she uses her platform to discuss topics around global hunger, gender equality and toxic kitchen culture.
Khan’s award-winning restaurant is helmed by a team of all-women chefs. On the issue of a typically male-dominated kitchen and abuse, Khan said, “The whole justification of violence, bullying and aggression, saying this is under pressure is crazy. I needed women in my kitchen who cooked like me — instinctively, intuitively — without weights and measures, gizmos and sous vide. This is how our cuisine has passed from generation to generation: it is about someone watching, tasting, then recreating it. Women are the custodian of recipes.”
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Born and raised in Korea, chefs Jongwook Lee and WonGoo Joun are hoping to take their experiences from French and Japanese cuisines and merge it with their Korean heritage. Opening what they call a Korean tapas concept in Montreal, restaurant 9 Tail Fox will “broaden Montrealers’ horizons when it comes to Korean specialties, flavors and techniques.”
Take for instance soy-marinated capellini with Matane shrimp and perilla, or the pig’s head terrine and trotter torchon, invoking Korean pyeonyuk. Chef Lee said, “A lot of the Korean food in Montreal is quite typical or traditional with dishes like bibimbap or bulgogi. It’s great food, but we don’t believe it gives people enough of an idea of what Korean food can be.”
What else is on our minds? 🧠
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