AUGUST 19, 2022

Hello, everyone!

In St. Paul, Minnesota, the Hmong community experienced its second murder-suicide this summer.

Yia Xiong, 33, shot his 30-year-old wife, Ka Lor, before turning the gun on himself while his five children, all under the age of 10, were still inside the house. Local Hmong organizations within the city are continuing to work on preventing domestic violence through educational programs and directly assisting survivors of domestic violence situations.

Pheng Thao, the executive director of Transforming Generations, an organization that works exclusively with Hmong families to intervene amid crises, has spent 20 years addressing relationship violence within his communities, expressing that, at the root of it, patriarchy supports and reinforces a privilege for men to inflict violence. He emphasizes the need to have more readily available resources for these families centering on prevention and intervention.

Thao also revealed a terrifying correlation: One murder-suicide often leads to another a couple of months later because of a continuing fear to victims that they will be killed “the same way that that other man had just killed his wife."

Spotlight 💡

Japanese couturier and fashion legend, Hanae Mori, died on August 11 in Tokyo at the age of 96.

Hanae Mori, born Hanae Fujii on Jan. 8, 1926 in Shimane Prefecture, originally started her journey in fashion at her atelier in 1951 in Shinjuku that catered to the wives of American G.I.s. Later in 1977, she was admitted as the first Asian woman to join the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, a Parisian guild with the world’s top designers. Her collection that year was shown with the likes of Christian Dior, Armani and Versace, along with her signature mark - the butterfly.

Her designs, which were predicted to become classic staples, combined conservative Japanese fashion with Western molds. At the height of her career, her name was deeply associated with iconic Japanese fashion, and she became a powerful Tokyo businesswoman owning mansions in New York and Paris, a French restaurant near her five-story Tokyo home, and saw global annual sales of about $500 million.

While she faced struggles later in her career and filed for bankruptcy in 2002, she continued to hold shows until she retired in 2004 at 78.

Race in America 🌎

Tourism in Hawai’i continues to wreak havoc on the environment and on local residents.

A simple vacation to the archipelago continues to reinforce the dominance of the tourism industry that prices out residents from their homes which furthers the irreverence of sacred land, a disregard for indigenous land rights and environmental degradation, giving the island chain the name the “extinction capital of the world” to showcase how many species have gone or on the verge of going extinct. 

Furthermore, Native Hawaiians and residents were the first to be asked to lower their water consumption during last year’s drought while resorts and hotels continued to use large amounts of water. Currently, John De Fries is the first Native Hawaiian to lead the state’s tourism authority. He aims to restructure tourism to become sustainable.
 

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In San Francisco, Taiko Dojo, a drum studio, is getting priced out due to high rent costs. 

Taiko Dojo was the first Japanese drum studio to allow women and non-Japanese communities to play the instrument. It is currently run by Seiichi Tanaka who brought the tradition over when he immigrated in 1968. Tanaka’s grandson, Ryuma, explained that the rent almost tripled in price, which is the reason for their impending closure at its current location. While the students and owners hope to search for a new place to call home for their taiko studio, they are hoping to stay for one more month to pack everything up.
 

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In Arizona, a federal complaint filed on Tuesday by the Arizona Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander for Equity Coalition argues that recent House Bills 2492 and 2243 hinder AAPI voters through citizenship status inquiries.

According to the suit, voters who are unable to prove their citizenship within 35 days from the voting rolls will face referral to the state attorney general for potential criminal investigation. The group argues that for individuals who are racial minorities, naturalized citizens, or struggling with language barriers, this bill will act as a deterrent from the polls. As proving one’s citizenship is time-sensitive, time-consuming and costly, the organization also claims that the bills will disproportionately affect these communities and single these voters out.

In the lawsuit, the group writes, “HB 2243 requires that for any voter who a county recorder has ‘reason to believe’ is not a U.S. citizen, their voter registration depends on whether the government’s databases, which contain outdated and unreliable data, indicate that they are or are not a U.S. citizen,” and that it “essentially allows anyone, without evidence, to simply give a list of names of people who are purportedly not citizens to the county recorders, thus triggering a check that can lead to improperly canceled voter registrations and potential investigation and prosecution of eligible and registered Arizonans.”

In Other Asian News 🗞

In South Korea, a Vietnamese massacre survivor from the Vietnam War is suing the government for an official acknowledgment and financial compensation.

During the years the South Korean military was involved in the Vietnam War, around 80 massacres were committed against Vietnamese civilians. On February 12, 1968 in the cities of Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat, Nguyen Thi Thanh survived the violence that took her mother’s life. Now, at 60, she and her 86-year-old uncle, Nguyen Duc Choi, are the first to sue the South Korean government for the atrocities during their nine-year involvement back in April 2020.

Supported by South Korean activists, Thanh is demanding an official apology and about 30 million won ($23,000), the minimum amount to serve as a de facto acknowledgment of the crime. At last week’s hearing, government officials attempted to cast doubt to witness testimonies, suggesting perhaps the soldiers were Viet Cong disguised as South Koreans.

Despite the evidence that first surfaced in 1999, the government has yet to officially recognize those massacres. 

The United Nations’ recent report on forced labor in Xinjiang has claimed that it’s “reasonable to conclude” that there is forced labor in the region.

According to Tomoya Obokata, the special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery including its causes and consequences, there is evidence of forced labor in Xinjiang’s “vocational skills education and training centers.” Despite the employment and income opportunities for Uyghur minorities in the area, Obokata said that evidence suggested the “involuntary nature” of these cases.

Through victim’s testimony, academic research and government accounts, Obokata was also able to determine that “given the nature and extent of powers exercised over workers during forced labour, including excessive surveillance, abusive living and working conditions, restriction of movement through internment, threats, physical and/or sexual violence, and other inhumane or degrading treatment, some instances may amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity.” Simultaneously, Obokata also pointed out the continuing domestic servitude practices in Gulf countries, Brazil and Colombia, as well as the traditional enslavement in Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

While international Uyghur activists have supported the report, the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the rapporteur of believing disinformation and abusing his position by encouraging anti-Chinese forces.

Entertainment 📺

Andrew Ahn, the filmmaker behind “Fire Island,” interviews filmmaker Gregg Araki who was a pioneer in the 90s for the New Queer Cinema movement.

His 2010 film “Kaboom” won the first ever Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm award.

Araki reflects on the 90s and thinks back to the era fondly. “I was born at the exact right time. If I was born too much earlier, there wouldn’t have been the independent film world,” he says. He also mentions, “I’m so interested in music and so influenced and inspired by music, my whole work aesthetic comes from punk rock music and that attitude of not giving a shit and doing your own thing.”

Chef George Chen is pushing the envelope of what fine dining Chinese cuisine can be.

At his San Francisco restaurant, Eight Tables, Chen is thinking about wine pairings with his world-class dishes. For instance, the first course of his tasting menu is nine dim sum samples called “Jiu Gong Ge,” embodying different classic flavors of salty, savory, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, three fragrances of truffle, smokey noodle and rose shrimp. With this, he pairs a bubbly, vintage 2013 Champagne Larmandier-Bernier Premier Cru. Chen’s restaurant has been named in the 100 best in the world by Time.

What else is on our minds? 🧠
 

• 20 people have died in a fiery bus and oil tanker crash in Pakistan. 

• Teens in Japan are hosting smartphone classes and most of the applicants are the elderly. 

• Bangladesh is backtracking and is now telling the U.N. that their Rohingya refugees must return to Myanmar.  

• A bombing at a mosque in Kabul has left at least 21 dead.

• New Mexico is hosting an inaugural Asian film festival.