API Heritage Month

Claire Light
May 1, 2005

I fumbled my clothes on and ran after her, half expecting to see that we were being sued for something I had written, only to find that "Pacific Fusion" on Channel 4 was re-running a segment on Hyphen they'd taped nearly a year ago. Why, I asked myself, why? The answer came to me a few minutes later when my roommate was flipping channels in search of her cooking show and came across the last half of "Daughter from Danang" on KQED.

IT'S API HERITAGE MONTH!!!

Yes chicks and chicos, it's May first, celebrated by the rest of the world as May day, and known by the slant-eyed of the northern part of the Western Hemisphere as the first of 31 intense, coercive, togetherness-packed days of kulintangplayin'-taikodrummin'-streetfestwalkin'-foodeatin'-panelattendin'-artlookin'-dancelearnin'-publictelevisionwatchin'-independentfilmaudiencin'-workshoptakin'-dead-serious-Asian-Pacific-American-community love.

I'm exhausted already, but being the good little shrilly outspoken half-Asian that I am, I'm gonna be goin' out to community events like gangbusters. Here are some highlights:

SAN FRANCISCO

• May 3-29: Kearny Street Workshop's visual arts exhibition Pirated: A Post-Asian Perspective runs for most of the month at Somarts cultural center and includes a schedule of related events. I think the title says it all, but if you're looking for a little post-Asian in your API Heritage Month, check out the website and make your way down there this Thursday evening for the opening (sure to include tasty snacks.)

• May 1 - June 18: The Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center offers its United States of Asian America multidisciplinary festival, of which the abovementioned exhibition is a part. This is the center of the whirlwind this month! Check out the schedule, there's something for every taste!

NEW YORK CITY

• May 8: The Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans offers its 26th annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Festival in Union Square, with additional events on May 1 and May 10. Jet Li will be there! (is he Asian American? Does he live here now? How exciting! Will he get to kiss a girl in public?)

HOUSTON

• May 7/8: Our very own editor-in-cheek Melissa Hung curates the annual film showcase Slant: Bold Asian American Images from her high perch here in SF. Tell me that's not centralization! Go to the website and scroll down for information. And bring your moms for mother's day tea on May 8.

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL

• ALL MONTH: I can't tell you which of these to attend, since I don't know the cityscape, but the AA Press has an online schedule of events throughout the month of May in the twin cities

NATIONWIDE

• The National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA) presents an annual month-long program of television with PBS and film screenings for Heritage month. Check out the website for more information.

• Or just try googling "API Heritage Month" and your city or region.

Please feel free to post your (any) API Heritage local events here! And have a good month!

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Comments

Comments

Moragod Sinkul... wrote on Thu, 05/05/2005 - 8:25pm
Investigation of the Death of Iris Chang========================================I have completed extensive research of this incident and would like to share my ideas.Certainly, I cannot completely rule out suicide. Nor can I completely rule out assassination by one of the following:* Japanese Rightists* Pro-Japanese so called "Taiduists" from Taiwan* US based, anti Chinese racist groups* Etc.However, in considering the "long game" I have had a most disturbing thought. Let me begin with a series of questions. We can see that the Holocaust in Europe has been examined with vigor, with much public acknowledgement of it by the Germans. In the case of Japanese Fascist genocide and warmongering, certainly, while not entailing a response on par with that from the Germans, nonetheless, there was an Allied occupation of Japan and at least some of the perpetrators were punished, some died in Soviet Gulags.However, what of the Communists? Where lies the exhumation of Communist pogroms, massacres, purges, liquidations, mass starvations, relocations and other depredations?Let us ask further - where would Iris' road have eventually led? Imagine a scenario - on a trip to the PRC, she is approached by a dissident with his or her own story to tell - a story of current misery in a Lao Gai. Where would that have led? Perhaps, after researching and exposing the sins of the CCP, Iris might have explored the demons of Soviet Communism. How many skeletons are still in the closets of the Northern half of Asia and in Eastern Europe?Given all this, I propose a challenging hypothesis. The entities who were most threatened, ultimately, by Iris Chang, are those of "ex" and current Communist "pedigree" - who, if their worst works were exposed - would face an angry world, hungry for justice never served. This would make sense, since the most capable and widespread intelligence services in the world are those of the "former" and current Communist countries. And given the overall laxity of US border control, the USA's poor ability to keep out spies and operatives, combined with the large diaporas from "former" and current Communist countries living in Santa Clara County (within which intelligence operatives can hide) - all the ingredients for a covert intelligence operation to assassinate Iris Chang were in place at the time of her passing.Moragod Sinkultawongrit
claire wrote on Fri, 05/06/2005 - 9:12pm
dude, while i appreciate a good conspiracy theory as much as the next armchair thinker, could you maybe repost this under the last iris chang blog entry, rather than this one? you know, so that people looking for iris chang conspiracy theories can find it.
Moragod Sinkul... wrote on Mon, 05/09/2005 - 2:36pm
Hi Claire - thanks for the comment. I also have some comments related to Iris on the original thread about the death of Iris - I believe it was November 11. Check out the November archive of this blog. Take care! :=)Moragod