OCTOBER 6, 2022

Hello, everyone!

Last Friday, Black and Asian American employees who filed a class action lawsuit against NASA for discrimination were granted a class certification to impacted workers by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Their case, originally filed in 2013, argues that NASA kept its Black and Asian American employees in salary grades 13-15 (which are usually given to professionals and middle-level managers) which assigns them a lower performance appraisal rating on average compared to their white counterparts.

After reviewing the performance reviews obtained by the plaintiff, experts determined that racial rating disparities are statistically significant, lending less strength to the argument that these racial gaps happened by chance.

NASA has until November 10 to appeal the decision, which can be read here.

Spotlight 💡

On to Miss USA — in 1962, Macel Wilson, who competed at the national competition as Miss Hawai’i, became the first Asian American and Filipina winner in Miss USA pageant history.

R’Bonney Gabriel joins the list of Asian American winners which includes title holders like Mai Shanely (1984), Brook Lee (1997) and Rima Fakih (2010).

But, for Macel Wilson, not only was she the first Asian American and Filipina, she was also the first non-white contestant to win the national title for Miss USA. While Wilson would go on to place as a semifinalist for Miss Universe, her career extended into visual art and Danish broadcasting.

Race in America 🌎

The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) received $3 million in federal funding to study the sexual and reproductive health needs of Asian American women, with special attention on collecting data from various ethnic groups and communities with different citizenship statuses.

To do this, one of the methods the study will employ is a social ecological model and life course perspective to assess many factors that mediate the relationship between immigration status and sexual reproductive health. To read more about the aims and methodology, refer to this summary by the National Institute of Health.

The short term goal of this study is to identify and inform both outreach and intervention efforts to improve the inequities experienced by immigrants, families and communities of color.
 

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According to a 2021 study led by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on cancer treatments, specific genetic markers used in testing may not work for patients of African and Asian descent.

Currently, many doctors attempt to identify specific genetic mutations when sequencing tumor DNA to determine the best treatment plan. Previous trials have shown that tumors with lots of mutations, also known as a high tumor mutational burden (TMB), respond well to immune checkpoint inhibitors that recognize and attack the tumors.

Even the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab, the immune checkpoint inhibitor used in many healthcare settings. However, researchers in this study questioned the efficacy of the drug considering how doctors typically use a tumor’s genetic material against reference genomes found in large databases – which unfortunately, mostly uses European sequences. Because these databases are not diverse, researchers set out to see if this disparity could affect diagnoses. 

After comparing 3,600 cancer samples with sequences from a reference panel, tumors from people with European ancestry showed a 50% higher TMB than they actually had. But, for patients that did not have European ancestry, their estimated TMB was more than twice their actual TMB, with the highest disparity in African and Asian patients. If these results hold up in clinics, doctors who are prescribing the drug may not be helping them as much as they think, and could be putting them into debt as the drug costs more than $10,000 per dose.

In Other Asian News 🗞

The U.S. government is ramping up their distribution of weaponry to Taiwan despite President Biden’s position that the administration is “not encouraging” Taiwan’s independence.

While it remains unclear how China will react if the U.S. accelerates their weaponry shipments, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, said last month that U.S. activities are undermining the one-China policy “by repeated official exchanges and arms sales, including many offensive weapons.”

As we previously covered last month, the Biden administration announced its sixth weapons package for Taiwan, a comprehensive $1.1 billion sale which includes 60 Harpoon coastal antiship missiles.
 

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In Myanmar, young people are not only leading the fight for their future, but they are being killed by the military junta as a result.

Joint Secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, Ko Bo Kyi, explained that the “junta is treating every single youth as their worst enemy” even though “the youth should be the future of the country…we have this so-called militiary detaining, torturing and killing them.” The rights group documented more than 900 people between the ages of 16 to 35 who were killed during the military crackdowns on pro-democracy movements. As of right now, more than 2,800 people in that age group were arrested. 

In this report by Al-Jazeera, eight people in their 20s and 30s detail their lives in Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi region, the epicenter of local armed resistance groups.

Entertainment 📺

Malala Yousafzai is onboard as executive producer of the film “Joyland,” which is Pakistan’s Oscar submission in the international film category this year.

The film is about a patriarchal family wishing for the birth of a baby boy to continue their lineage, while their youngest son surreptitiously joins an erotic dance theater and swoons after a transgender performer.
 

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Constance Wu is joining the cast of the four-person play “2:22 — A Ghost Story” from the nonprofit theater company Center Theatre Group in L.A.

The play centers around protagonist Jenny, played by Wu, who believes her home is haunted. Her husband dismisses the claim and an argument ensues with their two dinner guests. The four make a pact to stay up till 2:22 to verify their spooky suspicions.

What else is on our minds? 🧠
 

• The Fuji Motorsports Museum, housed inside the Fuji International Speedway in Japan, will open on Oct. 7 and highlight over 40 classic and performance cars from around the world. 

• Malaysia has passed its first anti-stalking bill, criminalizing the activity with a punishment of up to three years of jail time, a fine, or both.  

• Naomi Osaka’s first children’s book, titled "The Way Champs Play," will be published through her own production company, Hana Kuma, with a slated release on Dec. 6.  

• A restaurant, Vandals Street Kitchen, is dishing up Asian-Latin fusion fanfare in Alabama. 

• Princeton is naming its campus arch after Kentaro Ikeda, the university’s sole Japanese student during WWII.