SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

Hello, everyone!

According to recent data from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a quarter of adults in the U.S. are worried about being attacked in their neighborhoods. 

After surveying 4,192 adults, the groups also found that the majority of those expressing these sentiments were adults of color. The racial breakdown notes that 21% of Asian adults feared someone might threaten harm on them in their neighborhoods - for other racial groups, the poll lists 25% of Black respondents, 26% of Latinos, 36% of Indigenous respondents and 19% of white people as feeling the same way. 

NPR also interviewed several respondents about their experiences with racism and race-based attacks, many of whom vary on who or what they think is responsible for the violence.

Spotlight 💡

Melody Ehsani, a Persian American, is one of the few women designing performance shoes for elite athletes. Her design for Nike, the Melody Ehsani Air Jordan 36, is even rarer because they will not receive a public release.

Ehsani, 42, wears her heritage and passions proudly, with design and life stories winding together in her daily fashion. An industry veteran, Ehsani leads her own namesake streetwear brand and is the first creative director for Foot Locker’s women’s offerings and the lead designer on a basketball performance sneaker. Oftentimes, women in the industry are not kept in high positions - rather they are invited to bring ideas or designs for a short season.

Nike, being one of the biggest retailers to hold a stake in sneaker and basketball shoe culture, is still fighting a 2018 class action lawsuit filed by a previous employee that argued women were being paid less and kept out of key roles at the company.

Ehsani’s career, from high school basketball to NBA intern and now designer, was a long journey but is far from over: “I’ve been slowly working my way up to having the opportunity to work on a performance shoe,” noting that her ultimate “dream” is to become like long-time Nike shoe designer Tinker Hatfield, who created many iconic Air Jordans. 

Race in America 🌎

Protecting Asian Americans (and specific vulnerable communities within the larger racial group like women and the elderly) has sparked a new movement of legislative and political action, but that energy has largely moved toward carceral solutions.

Unlike the Asian American movements following the murders and mistreatments of many Asian individuals like Vincent Chin and Yang Song, this new wave of activism is labeled by Asian American writer Seth Berkman as “aesthetic Asian activism”-- the antithesis to old Asian American organizing that centered around liberation.

This new brand of activism contains more focus and influence from more middle class or white-collar individuals who are mostly novices to social justice. For mainstream Asian activists, shouting for solutions and representations became a call for politicians to use in justifying and maintaining the status quo of incarceration.

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In New York, Mandeep Kaur, an Indian woman who allegedly endured eight years of domestic abuse, committed suicide. Now, her family is pushing for custody of her two minor daughters.

Her family, who lives in India, are appealing to the Indian government to send the two girls, aged four and six, back to them as they fear the father, who currently lives with the two girls in New Jersey, will continue his destructive and harmful behavior.

Kaur, a Sikh woman, hanged herself on August 3 after posting a video on Instagram about the abuse she suffered. The video went viral and the Punjabi community demanded legal accountability against the father. While she previously filed a police complaint against her partner in April, she later withdrew it.
 

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Previously appointed by Barack Obama in another position, John Z. Lee is now the first Asian American judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which is based in the Chicago area. The decision was a bipartisan vote of 50-44.

In Other Asian News 🗞

Days before the Korean holiday Chuseok, the South Korean government offered to discuss reuniting families separated by the Korean War with North Korean officials.

While these are not the first family reunions conducted on the peninsula, it is the first in President Yoon Suk-yeol’s term. While odds are stacked against South Korean officials as North Korea is focusing on other issues such as weapons design and a general refusal to work with Yoon’s administration, South Korean Unification Minister Kwon Young-se, who handles inter-Korean affairs, pushed Pyongyang to respond – giving North Korean officials the opportunity to choose date, venue and format.
 

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India’s tech hub, Bangalore, experienced torrential rains which flooded their streets. Locals in the affected areas are using tractors as their mode of transport.

While significant economic growth occurred in the region, the rain and floods highlighted another concern: infrastructure. Without proper infrastructure updates, The Outer Ring Road Companies Association, an industry group that represents companies in this area, argues that global investors are unsure whether or not Bangalore can “​​handle future growth.” According to the Indian Meteorological Department, the region expects to see even more rain.

Film and TV 📺

A new report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that Muslims only make up 1% of characters shown in popular television series across the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

The study looked at 200 top-rated television shows from 2018 and 2019 and surveyed 8,885 characters with speaking roles.

Additionally, a majority of the Muslim characters were Middle Eastern or North African men, a paltry reflection of Muslims who are one of the most racially and ethnically diverse religious group on the planet. Of the 98 Muslim characters analyzed, 30% were violent and 40% were victims of violence.
 

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“Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae has just been cast as the male lead in the upcoming “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte” on  Disney+. His exact role is unknown at this point, but the series is described as a mystery-thriller that will explore powers of the Dark Side.

What else is on our minds? 🧠
 

• The death toll of victims in a fire at a karaoke bar in Vietnam has reached 33 people.

• A young woman held captive by ISIS for eight years has now been rescued. 

• Salman Rushdie’s alleged attacker appeared in court briefly on Wednesday. He has pleaded not guilty in the charges against him. 

• Los Angeles is designating September 17th as “Squid Game Day” in celebration of the Netflix series. 

• Three men have been charged for an assortment of robberies targeting Asian Americans across Los Angeles and Orange County.