Announcement: Non-Fiction Writer-in-Residence at Smith College, Fall 2011

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Joan Leiman Jacobson Non-Fiction Writer-in-Residence, Smith College

The English Department and the Program in American Studies at Smith College seek a distinguished writer of non-fiction for a 2-year visiting joint appointment as Joan Leiman Jacobson Writer-in-Residence. The appointment will begin in the fall of 2011.  Biographers, science and nature writers, immersion reporters, critics, essayists, and journalists are encouraged to apply.  Teach one writing workshop each semester: in American Studies, a course in writing about American society and culture; in English, a course in narrative and/or creative non-fiction.  Some teaching experience required.  This half-time position offers an annual salary of $50,000 and a housing allowance; college-provided housing may be available.

Submit application at http://jobs.smith.edu with letter of application and curriculum vitae; separately, mail copies of reviews of your work to Barbara Kozash, Department of English, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063.  Review of candidates will begin on December 1, 2010.

Smith College is a member of the Five College Consortium with Amherst, Hampshire, and Mount Holyoke Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Smith College is an equal opportunity employer encouraging excellence through diversity.

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Karen Tei Yamashita on I Hotel, from the pages of Amerasia

Posted on October 20, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

We were greeted by the happy news last week that Karen Tei Yamashita’s latest novel I Hotel was named as one of the five finalists for the National Book Award in fiction.  It’s definitely a worthy nomination for Yamashita, an innovative writer whose work is always engaging and intellectually challenging.  Amerasia has had a wonderful, long-running relationship with Yamashita, going as far back as 1975, when her short story “The Bath” won an Amerasia short story contest.  We will be excerpting and linking Yamashita’s contributions to Amerasia on the blog, including creative pieces by her, interviews with her, and an article on her work.  Today, we begin with an introduction to I Hotel from the author herself, written exclusively for Amerasia in 2006.

Karen Tei Yamashita standing atop the new International Hotel on the 30th anniversary of the eviction of the former International Hotel's tenants. © Mary Uyematsu Kao, 2007

I Hotel: An Introduction for Amerasia

Karen Tei Yamashita

A long time ago in the 1990s, Amy Ling, then Professor of English and Asian American Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, sent me a questionnaire that she hoped would turn into an essay that would be part of a collection of essays by Asian American writers.  I sent back the questionnaire with my simple answers, and this disappointed Amy who wanted more, wrote me back, and sent me an example of a more full-bodied essay written by another author.  Comparing my simple answers to another author’s essay, it seemed to me that we both had answered everything with the same ideas, except my answers were in shorthand.  At that moment, I thought, well, maybe I could answer Amy with something she really didn’t want at all, something she could reject outright.  So I wrote: “Siamese Twins and Mongoloids: Cultural Appropriation and the Deconstruction of Stereotype Via the Absurdity of Humor.”  This piece was a critical article about a work of fiction (Siamese Twins and Mongoloids) that I never wrote.  In the article, I quoted from the fictitious book, made a critical analysis, all with inserted footnotes and citations.  Long before Amy could ever publish the thing, I read it at UCLA for some poetry reading.  I distinctly remember Joel Tan and Al Robles were there reading as well.  I also remember that Russell Leong came up and said cryptically to me: “That was good. We need to be able to laugh at ourselves.”  Not being in the academy, I didn’t realize that I had taken a good jab.  As the editor of a journal, Russell may have said ouch, but Amy was always too kind to say.  All I thought at the time was that word processing programs had made it easier to put in footnotes, and, lazy as I am, I could now go back to school and become a real scholar.  But of course by then, I had gone to fiction hell.

More from “I Hotel: An Introduction for Amerasia” below the fold…

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Unburying Chinese American History in East L.A.

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Saturday, September 4, 2010, hit 100 degrees by 11 a.m., but that didn’t stop over 70 people from participating in the dedication of “Remembering Our Ancestors” Memorial Wall and Dedication Garden at Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles.  Dignitaries like L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, Assemblyman Mike Eng, and Congresswoman Judy Chu also attended, representing the broad alliance and political representation to honor past Los Angeles pioneers of Chinese ancestry, whose graves were accidentally found during the building of the light rail Gold Line (L.A. County Metro Rail System).  Supervisor Antonovich symbolically asked for forgiveness for what had happened to these Chinese pioneers, on behalf of L.A. county.  Taoist practitioners performed ceremonial rites to honor these unknown pioneers of Los Angeles.  The monuments are tri-lingual—English, Chinese, and Spanish—to honor the many Latino/a and other pioneers who were also buried at the potter’s field.  Grave markers for the unknown are placed before the larger monument inside the cemetery proper, where participants were given flowers to place on each marker.  The larger site inside Evergreen proper was built as part of the L.A. Historic/Cultural Monument Number 486, which was built in 1888 and restored in 1997.

Ching Ming events have been held in previous years leading up to this formal day of dedication with the completion of the monuments.  I attended last year’s Ching Ming, and after lunch, we took a walk to another part of the cemetery to view Donaldina Cameron’s gravesite, with one of the slave girls that she saved buried a couple of plots from hers.  Before leaving Evergreen, my husband and I went to visit my grandparents’ and uncle and aunt’s graves in the Japanese section of Evergreen, only to find that my Grandmother’s headstone had been shifted off-center from its cement base.

Cheers to Chinese Historical Society, and lead organizer, Gilbert Hom, for helping complete the efforts of former President Irvin Lai.  These kinds of discoveries of unmarked graves shows how history gets covered over, buried, and forgotten.  With good luck, generations later, they are rediscovered and reestablished by those who are willing to fight for a more accurate history.

Keep watch for Part 2 on last year’s Ching Ming event at Evergreen Cemetery.  For more information on this event:  email Gilbert Hom at gilberthom@hotmail.com

Taoist practitioners blessed the outside monument first. An assortment of symbols and food bring good wishes to the ancestors.

Congresswoman Judy Chu places flower on one of the symbolic headstones accompanying monument dedicated to the ancestors. Organizer Gilbert Hom (at right) and County Supervisor Mike Antonavich (behind Gilbert) look on.

Participants join together around the symbolic markers while the site is blessed by local American Indians representing the original keepers of the land, followed by Taoist practitioners.

Plaque text accompanying the outside monument.

Veteran community activist Mo Nishida pays respects to the ancestors at Los Angeles Historic/Cultural Monument No. 486, which is part of the dedication site.

Trilingual monument dedicated to all those whose graves were covered over.

Text of Plaque on the Outside Monument:

Memorial to the Unknown Pioneers of Los Angeles,

In 1877, Evergreen Cemetery granted an undeveloped rear section of its property to the City of Los Angeles for indigent burials.  Over 10,000 souls were interred in this potter’s field.  Chinese were buried in a separate section, and due to discrimination, were charged for each burial.  The Chinese community held seasonal rites and memorial ceremonies, and built a shrine in September 1888.  The Shrine still stands at its original site, as Los Angeles Historic/Cultural Monument No. 486.

By 1924, all burial space in the indigents’ cemetery was exhausted.  A crematorium was built by the County of Los Angeles; unclaimed deceased or indigents were henceforth cremated.  Remaining wooden markers and headstones in the potter’s field were removed or covered over.  In 2005, a section of the cemetery was excavated during the construction of the light rail line.  Over 186 gravesites were disturbed, the skeletal remains of more than 130 individuals were removed, and grave markers of deceased Chinese persons were found lining a roadway of the Crematorium.

This memorial is dedicated to these Los Angeles pioneers with the hope that their final resting place will be remembered and treated with utmost respect.

Boyle Heights Historical Society
Chinese Historical Society of Southern California
 Chinese American Museum
 Chinese American Citizens Alliance L.A. Lodge
 Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association
 The First Taoism Foundation
 Studio for Southern California History
 County Supervisor Gloria Molina, First District
 County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services
 September 2010

See Amerasia Journal 34:1 (2008) for articles on researching Chinese American ancestry by Catherine Gow and William Gow.

See Amerasia Journal 36:2 (2010) for Mayu Kanamori’s photo/essay on Japanese burial sites in Australia.  Email orders for this issue:  aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu

All photographs: © Mary Uyematsu Kao, 2010

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Amerasia 36.2 – Asian Australia and Asian America: Making Transnational Connections

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Cover designed by Mary Uyematsu Kao; Cover art: ABC (Aboriginal Born Chinese) (2007) by Jason Wing

Los Angeles – The UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press announces Amerasia‘s latest issue: “Asian Australia and Asian America:  Making Transnational Connections.” Guest edited by Jacqueline Lo, Dean Chan, and Tseen Khoo, with former Center Director Don T. Nakanishi of UCLA, the issue connects those working in Asian American Studies with their counterparts in Asian Australian Studies.  The issue provides a sampling of topics from community politics to film and literature.

In his introductory essay, Don T. Nakanishi illuminates the important demographic, political, and historical conditions that have shaped Asian Australia and the possibilities for comparative approaches to Asian American Studies: “Indeed, I eventually came to realize that uncovering what made the Asian Australian experience different from the Asian American experience—and then empirically probing deeper into understanding those differences—oftentimes led to a number of fresh and provocative ways of looking at both groups.”  The issue offers a transnational study of similarities and differences between Asian Australia and Asian America.  As the guest editors write, “By bringing Asian America and Asian Australia together in conversation in this volume, we hope to provide new insights into the study of Asian diasporas in western developed societies that go beyond the dominant perspective of Asian diasporics as domestic(ated) racialized minority subjects within the nation-state.”

Learn more about Amerasia 36.2 below the fold…

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“Is the World Becoming More Free?”

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Graphic from Amerasia Journal 15:1 (1989), "Commemorative Issue: Salute to the 60s and 70s; Legacy of the San Francisco State Strike." See the Table of Contents: http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/aascpress/ajindex/ajtoc.asp?id1=15&id2=1 For ordering information: email Ming Tu—ytu@aasc.ucla.edu

Thinking about my friends’ children, what kind of a world they would inherit?  Would the world be more free?  What form would democracy take, East or West?  What would my child dream?  When my child grew up, would their sweat and blood still be exchanged for gold on the global market?  I did not have the answer to any of these questions, but on the occasion of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo receiving the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, I nonetheless asked myself these questions.  You can see my thoughts on Chinese workers in “Blood in Exchange for Gold” at the U.S.-China Media Brief site.

Is the World Becoming More Free?
By Russell Leong

October 8 2010
Malibu/Cape Town/Oslo/Beijing

Is the world becoming more free?
I hear mountains whisper that
A man, texting on his expensive cell phone in Malibu
Drives his sports car over the cliff.

Is the world becoming more free?
I smell the oil of a thousand motors
Barges disgorging into the waters
of the sullied Yangtze.

Is the world becoming more free?
I feel the rustling of thin blankets
Over the roofs of Cape Town as mothers
tuck in their children tonight, to sleep.

Is the world becoming more free?
From an elegant podium, in Oslo
A man announces the prize for peace
for yet another man behind bars, in Beijing.

Your body is imprisoned
But your mind shatters the glass wall.
Whirling in thought and action
Each letter you write splinters
The glass eyes of rulers.

A car shatters, the river is poisoned.
A Norwegian pontificates, a Chinese imprisoned.
All rulers betray history
with glass eyes and false teeth.

A child dreams of a meal, a roof, a book
the freedom to free this world
When she awakes from her nap.

(The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was given to Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese writer, dissident, and literature professor).

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Introducing The Russell C. Leong Literary E-Book Series

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Russell Leong writes: The E-Book Series will continue the UCLA tradition of publishing Asian America’s most distinguished literary writers.  Amerasia has published stories, letters, poetry, essays, and interviews by and with: Carlos Bulosan, Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jessica Hagedorn, Karen Tei Yamashita, Monique Troung, Garrett Hongo, Lawson Inada, Amitava Kumar, Al Robles, Alan Chong Lau, Janice Mirikitani, Wakako Yamauchi, Shahidul Alam, Hisaye Yamamoto, Vijay Prashad, Andrew Lam, Wing Tek Kum, Gary Pak, and hundreds of writers, critics, and scholars during the past 40 years.  Read about the E-Book Series below and check back on this blog for manuscript application procedures.

Graphic by Mary Uyematsu Kao

The UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Amerasia Journal are proud to announce an innovative and unprecedented publishing project in Asian American arts and letters, The Russell C. Leong Literary E-Book Series.   A new 21st century venture, this series will showcase both new and neglected Asian and Pacific writers of the Americas.  Recipients of the Leong Literary E-Book Series will have their book designed and formatted in a downloaded E-Book format available internationally through the Leong Literary App.  Selected works will be published in Amerasia Journal, the premier journal of Asian American Studies, and will be promoted online, in print, and through showcase readings and interviews.

Russell C. Leong was the national editor of UCLA’s Amerasia Journal for over three decades, and has been awarded the American Book Award for his stories and the PEN Josephine Miles Award for his poetry.  His work has been published and translated in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Kobe.

Donate and become a friend of the series

Please consider donating to the Russell C. Leong Literary E-Book Series to help us get the project off the ground.  The UCLA Asian American Studies Center has received a matching challenge grant of $5,000, on our way to the overall goal of $50,000.

Tax deductible donations can be made online through the Asian American Studies Center website:

1. Go to the UCLA AASC Gift Giving site

2. Choose “Director’s Discretionary Fund – Asian American Studies Center” in the pull-down menu in the “Gift Information” section.

3. Please indicate you would like to donate to the “Russell C. Leong Literary E-Book Series” in the “Comments” box in the “Additional Information” section at the bottom of the page.

Questions regarding donations can be directed to Professor David K. Yoo, Director by email (dkyoo@ucla.edu) or by phone (310-825-2974).  Thank you.

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Welcome! Amerasia Enters the Big Blog Universe!

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Amerasia Journal blog

Welcome to the Amerasia Journal blog!  We’ve launched a transnational blog to expand the Amerasia‘s universe of writers, readers, scholars, cultural workers, and activists.  You are “the ones we have been waiting for,” to paraphrase Alice Walker.

Now: Hot-button topics as they hit us in the head or make our hearts thump.

What: Subjects we’ve covered in Amerasia, such as marriage equality, ethnic studies, community, immigration, racial and religious profiling, war and peace.

Inside the minds of: Amerasia‘s staff

* Find the informal thoughts and writings of Russell Leong, Amerasia‘s long-time editor and a leading voice in Asian American arts and letters.

* Insights into academia, popular culture, and Asian American Studies from Arnold Pan, assistant editor.

* Compelling images and community politics by Mary Uyematsu Kao, long-time designer of the journal and photojournalist of Asian America.

* Selected guest commentaries, prose, poetry, and graphics. In the near future, we plan to provide links and commentaries by members of our notable editorial board.

* News and announcements about what’s in the pages of Amerasia and what’s coming in the future.

The Amerasia blog will be connected to a wide range of social networking tools, including our Facebook group.  We hope you will join us in forming a virtual community to explore Asian American culture, politics, social movements, and scholarship, creating online what Amerasia Journal has been doing in print for the last forty years.

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