JadeLuckClub

Some Asians’ college strategy: Don’t check ‘Asian’

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 08:19:50 +0000

Tao Tao Holmes, daughter of a Chinese mother and white father, chose not to check “Asian” on her Yale application. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

By Jesse Washington, AP National Writer/Race and Ethnicity
AP National Writer

December 4, 2011Lanya Olmstead was born in Florida to a mother who immigrated from Taiwan and an American father of Norwegian ancestry. Ethnically, she considers herself half Taiwanese and half Norwegian. But when applying to Harvard, Olmstead checked only one box for her race: white.”I didn’t want to put ‘Asian’ down,” Olmstead says, “because my mom told me there’s discrimination against Asians in the application process.”For years, many Asian-Americans have been convinced that it’s harder for them to gain admission to the nation’s top colleges.

Studies show that Asian-Americans meet these colleges’ admissions standards far out of proportion to their 6 percent representation in the U.S. population, and that they often need test scores hundreds of points higher than applicants from other ethnic groups to have an equal chance of admission. Critics say these numbers, along with the fact that some top colleges with race-blind admissions have double the Asian percentage of Ivy League schools, prove the existence of discrimination.

The way it works, the critics believe, is that Asian-Americans are evaluated not as individuals, but against the thousands of other ultra-achieving Asians who are stereotyped as boring academic robots.

Now, an unknown number of students are responding to this concern by declining to identify themselves as Asian on their applications.

For those with only one Asian parent, whose names don’t give away their heritage, that decision can be relatively easy. Harder are the questions that it raises: What’s behind the admissions difficulties? What, exactly, is an Asian-American — and is being one a choice?

Olmstead is a freshman at Harvard and a member of HAPA, the Half-Asian People’s Association. In high school she had a perfect 4.0 grade-point average and scored 2150 out of a possible 2400 on the SAT, which she calls “pretty low.”

College applications ask for parent information, so Olmstead knows that admissions officers could figure out a student’s background that way. She did write in the word “multiracial” on her own application.

Still, she would advise students with one Asian parent to “check whatever race is not Asian.”

“Not to really generalize, but a lot of Asians, they have perfect SATs, perfect GPAs, … so it’s hard to let them all in,” Olmstead says.

Amalia Halikias is a Yale freshman whose mother was born in America to Chinese immigrants; her father is a Greek immigrant. She also checked only the “white” box on her application.

“As someone who was applying with relatively strong scores, I didn’t want to be grouped into that stereotype,” Halikias says. “I didn’t want to be written off as one of the 1.4 billion Asians that were applying.”

Her mother was “extremely encouraging” of that decision, Halikias says, even though she places a high value on preserving their Chinese heritage.

“Asian-American is more a scale or a gradient than a discrete combination . I think it’s a choice,” Halikias says.

But leaving the Asian box blank felt wrong to Jodi Balfe, a Harvard freshman who was born in Korea and came here at age 3 with her Korean mother and white American father. She checked the box against the advice of her high school guidance counselor, teachers and friends.

“I felt very uncomfortable with the idea of trying to hide half of my ethnic background,” Balfe says. “It’s been a major influence on how I developed as a person. It felt like selling out, like selling too much of my soul.”

“I thought admission wouldn’t be worth it. It would be like only half of me was accepted.”

Other students, however, feel no conflict between a strong Asian identity and their response to what they believe is injustice.

“If you know you’re going to be discriminated against, it’s absolutely justifiable to not check the Asian box,” says Halikias.

Immigration from Asian countries was heavily restricted until laws were changed in 1965. When the gates finally opened, many Asian arrivals were well-educated, endured hardships to secure more opportunities for their families, and were determined to seize the American dream through effort and education.

These immigrants, and their descendants, often demanded that children work as hard as humanly possible to achieve. Parental respect is paramount in Asian culture, so many children have obeyed — and excelled.

“Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best,” wrote Amy Chua, only half tongue-in-cheek, in her recent best-selling book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

“Chinese parents can say, ‘You’re lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you,’” Chua wrote. “By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they’re not disappointed about how their kids turned out.”

Of course, not all Asian-Americans fit this stereotype. They are not always obedient hard workers who get top marks. Some embrace American rather than Asian culture. Their economic status, ancestral countries and customs vary, and their forebears may have been rich or poor.

But compared with American society in general, Asian-Americans have developed a much stronger emphasis on intense academic preparation as a path to a handful of the very best schools.

“The whole Tiger Mom stereotype is grounded in truth,” says Tao Tao Holmes, a Yale sophomore with a Chinese-born mother and white American father. She did not check “Asian” on her application.

“My math scores aren’t high enough for the Asian box,” she says. “I say it jokingly, but there is the underlying sentiment of, if I had emphasized myself as Asian, I would have (been expected to) excel more in stereotypically Asian-dominated subjects.”

“I was definitely held to a different standard (by my mom), and to different standards than my friends,” Holmes says. She sees the same rigorous academic focus among many other students with immigrant parents, even non-Asian ones.

Does Holmes think children of American parents are generally spoiled and lazy by comparison? “That’s essentially what I’m trying to say.”

Asian students have higher average SAT scores than any other group, including whites. A study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade examined applicants to top colleges from 1997, when the maximum SAT score was 1600 (today it’s 2400). Espenshade found that Asian-Americans needed a 1550 SAT to have an equal chance of getting into an elite college as white students with a 1410 or black students with an 1100.

Top schools that don’t ask about race in admissions process have very high percentages of Asian students. The California Institute of Technology, a private school that chooses not to consider race, is about one-third Asian. (Thirteen percent of California residents have Asian heritage.) The University of California-Berkeley, which is forbidden by state law to consider race in admissions, is more than 40 percent Asian — up from about 20 percent before the law was passed.

Steven Hsu, a physics professor at the University of Oregon and a vocal critic of current admissions policies, says there is a clear statistical case that discrimination exists.

“The actual dynamics of how it happens are really quite subtle,” he says, mentioning factors like horse-trading among admissions officers for their favorite candidates.

Also, “when Asians are the largest group on campus, I can easily imagine a fund-raiser saying, ‘This is jarring to our alumni,’” Hsu says. Noting that most Ivy League schools have roughly the same percentage of Asians, he wonders if “that’s the maximum number where diversity is still good, and it’s not, ‘we’re being overwhelmed by the yellow horde.’”

Yale, Harvard, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania declined to make admissions officers available for interviews for this story.

Kara Miller helped review applications for Yale as an admissions reader, and participated in meetings where admissions decisions were made. She says it often felt like Asians were held to a higher standard.

“Asian kids know that when you look at the average SAT for the school, they need to add 50 or 100 to it. If you’re Asian, that’s what you’ll need to get in,” says Miller, now an English professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

Highly selective colleges do use much more than SAT scores and grades to evaluate applicants. Other important factors include extracurricular activities, community service, leadership, maturity, engagement in learning, and overcoming adversity.

Admissions preferences are sometimes given to the children of alumni, the wealthy and celebrities, which is an overwhelmingly white group. Recruited athletes get breaks. Since the top colleges say diversity is crucial to a world-class education, African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders also may get in despite lower scores than other applicants.

A college like Yale “could fill their entire freshman class twice over with qualified Asian students or white students or valedictorians,” says Rosita Fernandez-Rojo, a former college admissions officer who is now director of college counseling at Rye Country Day School outside of New York City.

But applicants are not ranked by results of a qualifications test, she says — “it’s a selection process.”

“People are always looking for reasons they didn’t get in,” she continues. “You can’t always know what those reasons are. Sometimes during the admissions process they say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with that kid. We just don’t have room.’”

In the end, elite colleges often don’t have room for Asian students with outstanding scores and grades.

That’s one reason why Harvard freshman Heather Pickerell, born in Hong Kong to a Taiwanese mother and American father, refused to check any race box on her application.

“I figured it might help my chances of getting in,” she says. “But I figured if Harvard wouldn’t take me for refusing to list my ethnicity, then maybe I shouldn’t go there.”

She considers drawing lines between different ethnic groups a form of racism — and says her ethnic identity depends on where she is.

“In America, I identify more as Asian, having grown up there, and actually being Asian, and having grown up in an Asian family,” she says. “But when I’m back in Hong Kong I feel more American, because everyone there is more Asian than I am.”

Holmes, the Yale sophomore with the Chinese-born mother, also has problems fitting herself into the Asian box — “it doesn’t make sense to me.”

“I feel like an American,” she says, “…an Asian person who grew up in America.”

Susanna Koetter, a Yale junior with an American father and Korean mother, was adamant about identifying her Asian side on her application. Yet she calls herself “not fully Asian-American. I’m mixed Asian-American. When I go to Korea, I’m like, blatantly white.”

And yet, asked whether she would have considered leaving the Asian box blank, she says: “That would be messed up. I’m not white.”

“Identity is very malleable,” says Jasmine Zhuang, a Yale junior whose parents were both born in Taiwan.

She didn’t check the box, even though her last name is a giveaway and her essay was about Asian-American identity.

“Looking back I don’t agree with what I did,” Zhuang says. “It was more like a symbolic action for me, to rebel against the higher standard placed on Asian-American applicants.”

“There’s no way someone’s race can automatically tell you something about them, or represent who they are to an admissions committee,” Zhuang says. “Using race by itself is extremely dangerous.”

Hsu, the physics professor, says that if the current admissions policies continue, it will become more common for Asian students to avoid identifying themselves as such, and schools will have to react.

“They’ll have to decide: A half-Asian kid, what is that? I don’t think they really know.”

The lines are already blurred at Yale, where almost 26,000 students applied for the current freshman class, according to the school’s web site.

About 1,300 students were admitted. Twenty percent of them marked the Asian-American box on their applications; 15 percent of freshmen marked two or more ethnicities.

Ten percent of Yale’s freshmen class did not check a single box.

Kristy Lin Jewelry with Discount for JadeLuckClub Readers!

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:17:18 +0000

I love the simple but playful silver jewelry by Kristy Lin.Like this Monsieur ring … it’s rings stacked up but look at the rings when they line up. Can you see it? Yes, it’s a face!

Monsieur Stack Ring Set, $275

Ear Ring, $95

Blood Red Heart Ring, $88

How Kristy describes her line:

It’s inspired by films, conceptual art, and the human preoccupation with beauty. I’m a young Asian-American designer that recently launched earlier this year. Collections feature unconventional yet refined rings, earrings and bracelets that are effortlessly combined with surrealism and a high-end aesthetic for something a little quirky and a little classic. All pieces feature sterling silver, and 14 or 18K gold. Made in NY, NY, with recycled metals.

She is giving JadeLuck Club readers a special 15% discount.Please use promo code jadeluckclub. Click here to shop at her site.

Discover Viennie V: Next Katy Perry?

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 08:25:51 +0000

On iTunes.
In Viennie V’s latest video “For You,” she finds herself in the midst of an outrageous dating show on her hilarious quest for true love. Watch as she saves her dates from drowning, choking and falling before finding sweet love on a rooftop at sunset.

Viennie V’s sweet single “For You” is #50 on Mediabase’s published Top 40 Chart! Being on the same list as music greats such as Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift is an amazing honor. As an Asian American musician, Viennie V is proud to represent the Asian community on the music charts. She is a prime example of how lifelong dreams can become reality with hard work, determination, and passion.

“Follow your heart and happiness will follow!” -Viennie V

Please continue to show your love for Viennie V by requesting “For You” at your local radio stations and spreading the word to friends and family.

Viennie V’s site is here.

Check her out on Amazon by clicking on image.

Top 10: Favorite Asian American Children’s Book Around Food

admin — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:06:27 +0000

The pleasures of eating and how food brings people together. This is a concept that is very strong in countries with a strong food culture: the French, the Italians, and of course, pretty much all Asian countries!

The themes in all these picture books and chapter books ring true. Ethnic food that bonds a family into our culture can also isolate them. Our Asian ethnic food is “weird” or “stinky.” In rejecting our food, we feel rejected or at least, on the periphery, longing for “American” food to be like everyone else.

But then that miracle happens, when our food is accepted, enjoyed and even requested. Our complicated relationship food, it turns out, is not so different from any other nationality obsessed with food. And the result is similar — food as pleasure. Family bonded around the dining room table. And meal after delicious meal to build memories around.

Picture Books

Bee Bim Bop by Linda Sue Park

A wonderful paperback picture book about the joys of family and food, from Newbery Award winning author Linda Sue Park.

Bee-bim bop (“mix-mix rice”) is a traditional Korean dish. In bouncy rhyming text, a hungry child tells of helping her mother make bee-bim bop: shopping, preparing ingredients, setting the table, and sitting down to enjoy a favorite meal. The enthusiasm of the narrartor is conveyed in the whimsical illustrations, which bring details from the artist’s childhood in Korea to his depiction of a modern Korean-American family. The book includes Linda Sue’s own bee-bim bop recipe!

Henry’s First Moon Birthday by Lenore Look

Jenny’s baby brother Henry is having his one-month birthday — his first-moon, as it’s called in Chinese. And even though Jenny’s sure he doesn’t deserve it — all Henry does is sleep, eat, and cry — there’s a big celebration planned for him. Together, Jenny and her grandma get everything ready, from dyeing eggs a lucky red to preparing pigs’ feet and ginger soup. And someday, when Henry’s old enough to appreciate all her hard work, Jenny will tell him how lucky he was to have her in charge.

The childlike charm of Lenore Look’s story is perfectly captured in Yumi Heo’s naïve illustrations, which give readers the impression that Jenny drew them herself.

Jo Jo Eats Dim Sum by James Kye

Jojo Eats Dim Sum is the first in a new and exciting series of children’s books with the aim of introducing children to the joys of various Asian cuisines. The star of the book is Jojo, a young girl with a sense of adventure and a daring appetite. In stark contrast is her baby brother, Ollie, who prefers to eat pea soup at every meal. The story encourages children to be more open to foods that are unfamiliar, thereby opening doors to other cultures. In Jojo Eats Dim Sum, Jojo eats her way through some of the most popular dim sum dishes, culminating in chicken feet, which are unfamiliar to most Westerners or unappetizing to those who have encountered them. But Jojo loves chicken feet, as she loves most dim sum dishes. Each story in the Jojo Eats series leverages a fun narrative to carry the young reader through the culinary journey, which is interspersed with lessons on how to pronounce foods in the local language. Jojo Eats Dim Sum is an irresistible book that children will want to read over and over again. Each beautiful book is in the shape and size of a menu, adding to the charm of Jojo’s culinary adventures.

Apple Pie Fourth of July by Janet Wong

No one wants Chinese food on the Fourth of July, I say. We’re in apple-pie America, and my parents are cooking chow mein! . . . They just don’t get it. Americans do not eat Chinese food on the Fourth of July. Right?

Shocked that her parents are cooking Chinese food to sell in the family store on this all-American holiday, a feisty Chinese-American girl tries to tell her mother and father how things really are. But as the parade passes by and fireworks light the sky, she learns a lesson of her own.
This award-winning author-illustrator team returns with a lighthearted look at the very American experience of mixed cultures.

Yoko by Rosemary Wells

Mmm, Yoko’s mom has packed her favorite for lunch today—sushi! But her classmates don’t think it looks quite so yummy. “Ick!” says one of the Franks. “It’s seaweed!” They’re not even impressed by her red bean ice cream dessert. Of course, Mrs. Jenkins has a plan that might solve Yoko’s problem. But will it work with the other children in class?

Now in paperback for the first time, this tender story from Rosemary Wells demonstrates the author’s uncanny understanding of the pleasures and pains of an ordinary school day.

One of my all time favorite books. Ever!

The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin

It’s easy to appreciate a garden exploding with colorful flowers and fragrances, but what do you do with a patch of ugly vegetables? Author/illustrator Grace Lin recalls such a garden in this charming and eloquent story.

The neighbors’ gardens look so much prettier and so much more inviting to the young gardener than the garden of “black-purple-green vines, fuzzy wrinkled leaves, prickly stems, and a few little yellow flowers” that she and her mother grow. Nevertheless, mother assures her that “these are better than flowers.” Come harvest time, everyone agrees as those ugly Chinese vegetables become the tastiest, most aromatic soup they have ever known. As the neighborhood comes together to share flowers and ugly vegetable soup, the young gardener learns that regardless of appearances, everything has its own beauty and purpose.

The Ugly Vegetables springs forth with the bright and cheerful colors of blooming flowers and bumpy, ugly vegetables. Grace Lin’s colorful, playful illustrations pour forth with abundant treasures. Complete with a guide to the Chinese pronunciation of the vegetables and the recipe for ugly vegetable soup! Try it . . . you’ll love it, too!

Asian American Advanced Picture Book

Where Food Brings Everyone Together (after realizing that no one is going to freak out about the “weird” food.

Halmoni and the Picnic by Sook Nyul Choi

When Yunmi’s class plans a picnic in Central Park, her Korean grandmother, Halmoni, agrees to chaperone. But Yunmi worries that the other children will make fun of Halmoni’s traditional Korean dress and unfamiliar food.

Asian American Chapter Books with Food Themes

Kimchi and Calamari by Rose Kent

Kimchi and calamari. It sounds like a quirky food fusion of Korean and Italian cuisine, and it’s exactly how Joseph Calderaro feels about himself. Why wouldn’t an adopted Korean drummer—comic book junkie feel like a combo platter given:

(1) his face in the mirror

(2) his proud Italian family.

And now Joseph has to write an essay about his ancestors for social studies. All he knows is that his birth family shipped his diapered butt on a plane to the USA. End of story. But what he writes leads to a catastrophe messier than a table of shattered dishes—and self-discovery that Joseph never could have imagined.

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama.

For all the ten years of her life, HÀ has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by . . . and the beauty of her very own papaya tree.

But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. HÀ and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, HÀ discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape . . . and the strength of her very own family.

This is the moving story of one girl’s year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.

It’s the papaya tree and fruit that remind HÀ most of what she’s lost since it’s not available in ber new home in Alabama. Sometimes food memories are like that. They link us to our past and remind us of what we’ve lost.

To view any book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book.

Asian Estrangement: YA Novel Money Boy and Music Video Run Away Train

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:10:30 +0000

If Money Boy by Paul Yee were a song, it would be Run Away Train by Alexander Jung.

And vice versa.

Rapper Alexander Jung’s Run Away Train track made me think immediately of Paul Yee’s critically acclaimed and award winning young adult novel, Money Boy. If a book could have it’s own sound track, it would be Run Away Train. It’s not just teen angst but the real deal, at least if you play it while reading the book, about being thrown out of your house when you are a teen for being gay. And then trying to make it on the streets as a prostitute. Gritty reality. But at least it has an anthem.

If Money Boy gets made into a movie, this is my choice for the soundtrack!

Money Boy by Paul Yee

Ray Liu knows he should be happy. He lives in a big suburban house with all the latest electronic gadgets, and even finds plenty of time to indulge in his love of gaming. He needs the escape. It’s tough getting grades that will please his army veteran father, when speaking English is still a struggle. And he can’t quite connect with his gang at high school — immigrants like himself but who seem to have adjusted to North American life more easily. Then comes his father accesses Ray’s internet account, and discovers Ray has been cruising gay websites. Before Ray knows what has hit him, his belongings have been thrown on the front lawn, and he has been kicked out. Angry, defiant, Ray heads to downtown Toronto. In short order he is robbed, beaten up and seduced, and he learns the hard realities of life on the street. Could he really sell himself for sex? Lots of people use their bodies to make money — athletes, actors, models, pop singers. If no one gets hurt, why should anyone care?

I found this gritty young adult novel riveting to read and sadly realistic. I can picture an Asian American dad freaking out in the same way to discover his child’s homosexuality and react by throwing him out of the house and onto the streets. It’s an important book that explores the fringes of Asian American life that isn’t front and center as a “Model Minority.” Tiger parenting is not just demanding top grades from your kids, but also that they fit a particular acceptable mold. And when the child can’t or won’t comply, the consequences are dire.

Paul Yee’s excellent young adult novel is recommended for ages 14 and up. To view it more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book.

• A Stonewall Honor Book, 2012

• “Yee’s sophisticated juxtaposition of immigrant narratives with questions of sexual identity is compelling and poignant.” — School Library Journal

• “Yee’s latest offers insight into the city’s immigrant-Chinese and gay communities…sure to invite both thought and discussion.” — Booklist

• “Paul Yee’s novel is a valuable intervention into the representation of gay and lesbian experience in the young adult genre.” — CM Magazine

The Slants: Their Trademark Saga Continues

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 08:39:37 +0000

It was nice to get an update from Simon of The Slants on their trademark filing. He’s the one in front.

This is Simon with The Slants. I just wanted to take a moment to give you an update on what’s been happening with our trademark filing.

First, I wanted to thank you again for your willingness to help in this matter. I can’t tell you enough how much this means to me as an Asian American who is fighting for equal rights. It’s been nearly two years but we are still continuing the fight. As I go through the Trademark Office’s records once more, it’s interesting to see that of the 50 trademark applications containing the term “slant,” ours is still the only one that they’ve raised the issue of it being a racial slur (every other applicant who was not of Asian descent experienced no questions or doubt at all).

In our most recent appeal, we sent over 700 pages of evidence. From expert testimony showing the history/use of the word to a national survey of Asian Americans, letters of support from respected API activists, support from API media, and much more, it was an unbelievable collection that reflected thousands of hours of work. However, the Trademark Office expressed no interest in seriously considering anything from the Asian American community but instead dismissed all of the evidence presented because they believed it would be more politically correct to do so. Because our band is associated with a proud form of Asian American activism, we were struck down.

Since then, we’ve teamed up with a new attorney to assist us. We have reapplied using a different tactic and are working our way through the system again. I believe that we have a long road ahead of us but it’s an important one for the community. Some day, all of us will be able to look back and see how this case contributed to changing history for all minorities who have suffered the inequities of outdated laws.

Thank you again, I hope to send you some good news soon.

Regards,

Simon Tam

The Slants are the only all-Asian American dance rock band in the world.

Kicking off the band’s career at a tiny dive bar in Portland, OR, The Slants soon found themselves on tour and in demand worldwide performing at music halls, colleges, and anime conventions. Within months, they released their debut album “Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts” winning multiple awards from the likes of Willamette Week, Rockwired, AsiaXpress, and the Portland Music Awards. Since that first iconic show in 2007, The Slants have been cited as the “Hardest Working Asian American Band” (slanteyefortheroundeye.com), toured North America ten times, rejected a million dollar recording contract, were the first and only Asian band to be a Fender Music artist, and according to U.S Congress, the first rock band to play inside a state library.

The Willamette Week, summarizes The Slants’ history perfectly: “It’s a great story: All-Asian synthcore troupe lands anime festival, achieves instantaneous notoriety from overpacked fireball-laden maelstrom, inspires John Woo and Dragon Ball Z fans toward aggro electro and—just months after its first practice—books gigs across the globe. As shadow-warriory as the Slants’ rise has been, it’s still all about the tunes, and the band’s debut—floor-filling synth pop bristling with all the menace and grandeur of its oft name-checked cultural icons—is propulsive, cinematic and impossible to ignore.”

Infectious Dance Group Aziatix: The Next 98 Degrees?

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:31:19 +0000

AZIATIX releases their newest music video for “Nothing Compares to You,” an infectious new dance track from the Japanese release of their debut album Nocturnal.

Click to view at Amazon

Hot off winning the award for Best New Group at the international Mnet Music Awards, Aziatix drops “Nothing Compares to You” as a tribute to their fans who had made their incredible rise to international stardom and success possible.

Have you checked out this super talented group?

Paper Dolls: Can’t Concentrate. Better than Britney Spears!

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:20:28 +0000

“Can’t Concentrate” is PaperDoll’s fourth official music video. The track was produced by Meteor Award Winner Michael Moloney and is available on itunes, amazon, and all major online retailers. The multi-cultural group is currently featured in a NIKE campaign airing in Greater China. Fronted by Chinese American Teresa Lee, PaperDoll is known for their uninhibited, high-energy live shows.

The video features the best of New York’s “hooper” (hula hooper) talent and was filmed in Navatman dance studio in Midtown Manhattan. PaperDoll is quickly gaining a reputation for finding the best in emerging subcutlures and talent. Past videos have featured underground animator Richmond Lee, Japanese director Tomoyuki Kato, and hip hop video director Court Dunn.

Back from their six-city, seventeen-show tour of China, indie pop band PaperDoll releases their latest music video for single “Can’t Concentrate“.

The unintended consequences of racial preferences

admin — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:53:45 +0000

image from American Civil Rights Institute

… what if many of the minorities used in this process[Affirmative Action] are injured by it?

In six devastating words, the Heriot-Kirsanow-Gaziano brief distills the case against the “diversity” rationale for racial preferences: “Minority students are not public utilities.”

Now, it seems, that Affirmative Action action hurts the very minorities that it was created to assist. And not just Asian Americans, who have been hurt by racial quotas at top colleges and universities that served as an invisible “upper quota” keeping qualified applicants OUT based on race alone. So it seemed the beef with Affirmative Action was limited to Asian Americans and only with regard to college admissions. And we were unwilling to fight the good fight. But not anymore. Will the rules change if African-Americans are affected negatively by Affirmative Action? There’s change in the air … and it’s just a matter of time until this outdated policy gets rewritten for the new millennium.

And for the record, the policy should be based on socio-economics and not on race. Race is outdated, people. Let’s get with the program.

Here are some quotes from the article:

The Supreme Court faces a discomfiting decision. If it chooses, as it should, to hear a case concerning racial preferences in admissions at the University of Texas, the court will confront evidence of its complicity in harming the supposed beneficiaries of preferences the court has enabled and encouraged.
… institutions of higher education have a First Amendment right — academic freedom — to use race as one “plus” factor when shaping student bodies to achieve viewpoint diversity. Thus began the “educational benefits” exception to the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws.
Liberals would never stoop to stereotyping, but they say minorities necessarily make distinctive — stereotypical? — contributions to viewpoint diversity, conferring benefits on campus culture forever.
In 2003, when the court ruled on two cases arising from University of Michigan undergraduate and law school racial-preference policies, the court contributed more confusion than clarity. It struck down the undergraduate policies as too mechanistic in emphasizing race but upheld the law school’s pursuit of educational benefits from a “critical mass” of certain approved minorities.
Sander and Taylor report: “Research suggests a similar pattern nationally; scholars have found that the use of large racial preferences by elite colleges has the effect of reducing diversity at second-tier schools.”
Another study showed that even if eliminating racial preferences in law schools would mean 21 percent fewer black matriculants, there would still be no reduction in the number of blacks who graduate and pass the bar exam.
There are fewer minorities entering high-prestige careers than there would be if preferences were not placing many talented minority students in inappropriate, and discouraging, academic situations: “Many would be honor students elsewhere. But they are subtly being made to feel as if they are less talented than they really are.”
… diversity bureaucracies on campuses will continue to use minority students as mere means to other people’s ends, injuring minorities by treating them as ingredients that supposedly enrich the academic experience of others.

The full article bu By George F. Will, published November 30, 2011, is here.

B-Boy Instant Noodles’ Chuck Maa in Monster Energy Drink Commercial

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:47:42 +0000

Monster Energy Drink starring Chuck Maa from Instant Noodles crew. Directed by Steven Butler. Choreography also by Steven Butler. I am happy to see Chuck Maa depicted as the guy who can compete in a street tough club scene and get the girl! How about you? Is this commercial breaking new ground? Please leave a comment!

In hopes of impressing a girl, an unlikely b-boy breaks the only rule at an underground hip-hop dance club.