Asian studies blog by Elijah

In this blog, I decided to stick with the school wide habit of watching movies, as content. Since The Last Samurai includes a non Asian writer, director, and is based around a white Cavalry officer, it did not qualify for film paper element of class. Despite this, it makes for an interesting watch, especially when reading about the era in a history class. The film takes place during the Satsuma rebellion, a revolt by disenfranchised samurai against the new imperial government, nine years into the Meiji Era. Its name comes from the Satsuma Domain, which had became home to unemployed samurai after reforms rendered their status obsolete. While the story does have some beautiful shots, and messages about western imperialism, I felt excited to talk about one particular character. The film features one character the class would have a fascinating time discussing. That is the role of Simon Graham who is serves as an "interpreter", who seems to the be the resident orientalist of t

Here is a video to switch things up for people, I think its unique. Its a story about the unique cultural appropriation, in a somehow respectful way (I think.) Either way its a story that will leave you thinking!

In the first part of this I discussed how worrying it is to see events of racism and bigotry in the Bay Area. Now I first want to talk about this worrying trend across the nation, as there have been some terrible occurrences. Then Id like to highlight a short piece written by Congresswoman Grace Meng, Bel Leong-Hong the Chairwoman of the AAPI caucus for the Democratic Party, and Seema Nanda the Chief Executive Officer of the Democratic Party. The occurrences of violence and hate perpetrated against Asian Americans across the nation has been on rise. While no official study has been conducted, San Francisco State published that they had found a 50% increase in articles related to incidents of racism aimed at Asian Americans. During this time one would hope that American leaders would step up, and protect their citizens, and fellow Americans. So I felt it right, that this letter called out a clear and flagrant moral failing of these leaders. By moral failings Im alluding to obvious rac

Over the course of the past month in this country, awareness around the COVID 19 pandemic has grown, unfortunately so has the misinformation and bigotry around the virus. The people bearing the brunt of the wholly ignorant racism, bigotry, and hate has been the Asian American community. This rise is shameful behavior was covered by the Huffington post in a recent  article . The most shocking part to the participants of our class, is the sad truth, these incidents are taking place in the Bay Area. The article cites one story that took place on a BART train. An older Filipino couple were riding back to their home in Hayward, from their remittance business in San Francisco, when they began to be showered with insults. “All of a sudden another passenger yelled at them, telling them to go back to their country,” their daughter told the reporter that “The person called my Filipino mother a ‘Chinese Coronavirus bitch’ and that both of my parents are ‘bearers of the virus.’” Lets get past the

With the absence of much news that is not related to the Covid 19 pandemic, I thought I would do something different. I am writing about famous Asian Americans because, well it made for a good, reasonable to write about topic. In this edition I will write about Chef/Author/TV personality David Chang. Chang is famous for opening Momofuku restaurant group which operates Michelin starred locations around the world. Chang grew up in Arlington Virginia, as the son of two Korean immigrants. During his childhood Chang grew up around the two restaurants his parents owned, both of which served exclusively American food. After college Chang floated around travelling, and working odd jobs in America and Japan, before starting his culinary training in New York City. After completing his training  and a short stint working in fine dining Chang left the United States. Chang claims he started to hate fine dining, and decided to work in many of the different kind of noodle bars throughout Tokyo. It

This week I will be talking about the campaign I am working on. The Candidate is Otto Lee, who has a unique story for someone running for office as an Asian American immigrant. Here is Otto with his two younger daughters, Hillary and Stella. Otto spent his childhood in Hong Kong, however at the age of 15, his family was forced to make the hard decision to immigrate to California due to rising political upheaval. Like many immigrant families, his parents made massive career changes in order to provide for the family. While his father was an attorney in Hong Kong, he became a restaurant owner in America. Due in large part to those sacrifices, Otto was able to attend and graduate from University of California, Berkeley with a B.S. in Chemical and Nuclear Engineering. After graduating UC Berkeley and the ROTC program, Otto was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy.  He first served active duty during the Gulf War on board a Guided-missile Cruiser as the Ship’s Treasu