Random News To Read: Asian American Monuments, Jenny Yang, And Sex Selection

Saturday, April 07, 2018

From my news readers to yours:

Asian-Americans, a Sleeping Political Giant

In the last midterm election, in 2014, the nationwide turnout for Asian-American citizens was dreadful — just 27 percent, according to the census. That’s far below the rates for whites and blacks and virtually identical to the Latino rate. In Virginia, however, turnout has been significantly higher — the highest Asian-American turnout in the nation, Desai writes — thanks to a deliberate strategy that has included...

Missouri’s Quiet, Racist Battle to Take Reproductive Rights From Asian American and Pacific Islander Women

Sex-selective abortion bans operate on the racist assumption that Asian immigrants in the United States will exhibit the same sex preferences for male children that may have existed in their countries of origin. The impetus behind this legislation is that Asian American women—in particular, immigrant Chinese and Indian women—will prefer sons over daughters and make reproductive care decisions based on the sex of their child. Not only is this an outdated and dangerously xenophobic belief, it is downright false. In fact, analysis from the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum has shown that foreign-born Chinese American, Korean American, and Indian American women are having more daughters than white American women, on average.


How one Asian-American woman’s comedy dreams came to be

In her comedy, Yang asked the audience two questions. In the first, she asked audience members to consider their typical response when someone asks what career they would like to pursue after finishing college. Second, she asked what they would pursue after finishing college if they felt no worries regarding money, skill sets, the expectations of others or time [...] “She brings a very unique Asian-American, female perspective to comedy that you don’t typically see,” said Asian-American studies professor Gena Lew Gong. “I think it’s good to put voices like hers out so more people – like students – can hear from other voices.”