Defining normal: Asians and human sexuality

How do we define normal? That's a question we need to consider anytime we read newspaper articles or listen to reports. Are Asians and Africans--both nationals and ethnic communities--used in defining what is normal? Or are we allowing white Christian men and women to be the standard.

Recently I had a heated discussion regarding two Facebook postings of articles. One article was about Asian men and the other was not. Both articles were posted by white American women. Consider what both articles mean in regards to being normal. 

The first was a study conducted by the U.N. I don't fault the U.N. so much as the way journalists reported the study with catchy and sometimes misleading headlines. The resulting headlines I'm referring to included: "Nearly A quart of men in some Asian Countries admit to rape, study finds" or "1 in 4 men surveyed in Asia-Pacific say they committed rape" or "Rape widespread across Asia-Pacific, UN study says." The study itself is flawed, covering only six (Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Papua New Guinea.) out of 49 Asian countries. Notice that the study doesn't cover India or any country West of India such as Afghanistan. The study doesn't cover the economically powerful South Korea or Japan.

Yet there were other flaws to the study such as the respondents not being representative.  The title "Rape widespread across Asia-Pacific, UN Study Says" is from NPR and not some yellow journalism rag. Bloomberg.com used the headline "One in Four Men Surveyed in Asian Study Say They Raped." Imagine what kind of misinformation could be spread by other headlines and careless readers.

When a post by a white woman hit my Facebook page, I looked at the article and looked at the original source and made sure everyone commenting on that particular post knew that the study didn't represent Asia. Asian men are from one continent but they come from different cultures and different religious communities.

Limited research is always a problem but consider this: How many studies are Asians and Asian American left out of? Asians make up 60 percent of the world population, but we make up only 11 percent of the population in Los Angeles. Yet why wouldn't we want to add our voices to that 60 percent?

When discussing another recent issue brought up by an article posted (again by a white woman), research on mental health and human sexuality, I raised the lack of research into non-white communities such as Africa and Asia as problematic. I was told that this was a ridiculous concern. The study was reported by the Huffington Post as "BDSM Correlated with Better Health Mental Health, Says Study."  The Huffington Post writer cites other sources such as LiveScience and Reuters, but it doesn't seem that the study has anything to do with the United States. The study was done through online questionnaires using 902 BDSM practitioners and 434 people who practiced non-kinky sex, but it was done by a psychologist, Andreas Wismeijer,  at Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands. As the lead author, Wismeijer admitted that the study was limited.

The study is somewhat limited by a self-selecting response pool and by the fact that BDSM practitioners could have been answering in ways to make themselves look better and avoid stigma, Wismeijer said — though the fact that the participants didn't know the reasons for the study ameliorates that concern somewhat. The findings are reason for mental health professionals to take an accepting approach to BDSM practitioners, Wismeijer said.--LiveScience.com.

The Netherlands has over 17 million people. As the Netherlands has that Black Peter tradition and the possible limitations of the language spoken, Dutch, I would question how representative this study was of Europe and then of the world in general. From the three articles I read, it wasn't clear that the study went beyond the borders of the Netherlands or hit any English-speaking communities. The study did use the largest BDSM forum in the Netherlands and the so-called vanilla sex practitioners were drawn from "a women's magazine website, a personal secret website and a university website." Using those three sources, they were only able to find 434 people, that's less than half of the BDSM practitioners. Not good.

Yet even if we consider the studies representative of Europe, just watching movies like "Stranger by the Lake" or "The Warmest Color Is Blue" should indicate European attitudes (French in the case of the movies) are different from American attitudes toward sex and nudity. Why should we believe that this small limited study done in the Netherlands has anything to do with the United States and anything to do worldwide attitudes?

My points are:

1. We shouldn't allow news items that roll up Asia into one monolithic culture to go by without comment. Six countries do not represent the 49 Asian countries and are less representative if you add the Pacific Islands. The concept that Asia and the Pacific (and sometimes North Africa) can be seen as one cohesive culture is Orientalism at its worst.
2. A study of white people by white people, particularly in a nation that is predominately Christian (Protestant or Catholic) is not representative of the world and does a disservice to the peoples of Africa and Asia as well as people of other world religions such as Islam, Hindu and Buddhism. While "The World Factbook" lists Christians as 30.59 percent of the world population, Muslims as 23.2 percent and Hindus are 15 percent. Together that's 33.2 percent. Buddhists are only 7 percent. The majority of the world isn't Christian (and doesn't celebrate Christmas).  The largest ethnic group  in the world is the Han Chinese (18 percent worldwide) and Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language (14 percent to 5.52 percent for English).  The next most populous ethnic group is Arab. The Arabs are a panethnic group from West Asia and North Africa. As 1 out of 5 people in the world are Muslim and a large percentage of the world population is Arab, both Arabs and Muslims and even Arab Muslims should be included in any study that is meant to determine worldwide norms. 
3. If you want to claim that a small study of white people should apply to peoples of the world, then conversely a study about people in Asia or Africa should apply to all peoples of the world. That means instead of saying, Asian men, the headlines in the U.N. study should have said simply "1 out of 4 Men Surveyed Say They Raped."

Where we have seen movies such as "21" and "Emperor" whitewash East Asian Americans out of historical events--major and minor, we can also see Asians and Asian Americans being whitewashed out of research and data used to define normal. Minorities are part of normal in the United States. Asian Americans may only be 5.6 percent of the American population but we are the fastest growing ethnic group. There are cities in California where Asian Americans are a majority and citizens of those cities shouldn't be held to a measure of normality that was defined by research that excluded them. 

Moreover, Asia holds a little over 60 percent of the world population. If religion and culture define attitudes toward sex and other emotional issues, and the largest religion in Asia is Islam, followed by Hinduism and Buddhism, then sexual practices and attitudes of these populations should be part of any research on human beings so we understand what is average and what is normal. The true norms of the world may not be the norms of America or Europe. The true normal in this global community would best be defined by including research on Asia. 

Just as the U.N. research of 10,000 men in nine sites in six countries doesn't represent Asia or Pacific Asia as in the case of the rape, then less than 1,500 people in the Netherlands doesn't represent Europe, America, Africa or Asia in regards to sexual attitudes and mental health. 

According to world demographics, research on what is normal, mentally or physically, should include both Han Chinese and Arabs, Christians and Muslims as a significant percentage of the research subject pool. 

What we, as Asian ethnics, as Asian Americans, as non-Christians need to ask for is a new normal. 

Could Asian pugilists have changed stereotypes?

Since I went to see the play "The Royale" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, I've been thinking about men, manhood and racism in America.

The world premiere play "The Royale" takes its name from Battles Royale. You might remember a 1999 Japanese novel called "Battle Royale." The story about how the Japanese government forces junior high school students in a battle to the death competition became a movie in 2000. You can stream it on Netflix.

• Review of "The Royale" on Examiner.com
• Review of "Unforgivable Blackness" on Examiner.com

Historically, battle royale or a battle royal, pits more than one competitor against each other and the winner is the last one standing. Apparently, illegal fights had well to do white men betting on black men fighting for spare change. According to MuhammadAliBoxing.org.UK, the battles royals is "The purest form of depersonalization." The play, "The Royale," is a fictionalized account of Jack Johnson's winning the heavyweight championship by beating a white man.

What struck me as odd was that he wasn't the first black man in the ring to beat a white man. That had already been done (Joe Gans in 1902). He was the first black heavyweight to beat a white heavyweight boxer. I then watched "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson," a PBS documentary on the real Jack Johnson and the riots he caused.

This being Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I began thinking: What would have happened if an Asian had done the deed?  Jack Johnson was born in 1878. He died in 1946, after World War II had ended. Johnson knocked out Canadian Tommy Burns in 1908, and then in 1910 beat James J. Jeffries in Reno, Nevada.

Searching on the Internet, I found that the first and only Asian to hold a major heavweight title was Ruslan Chagaev. Born in 1978 in what was at the time the Soviet Union, he won the the WBA title in 2007. The city where he was born, Andijan or Andizhan is the fourth-largest city in what is now Uzbekistan. The Republic of Uzbekistan is a Central Asian country, bordered by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.  Internet chatter muddies up the matter. Some claim that Chagaev is either full or part Tatar. The Tatars were the western part of the Mongol Empire, the Golden Horde.

If a black man becoming a heavyweight champion started riots, what would have happened if some Asian or Pacific Islander guy had done it? Yellow perilism had brought the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.  How about instead of weightlifting and basketball, what if some Chinese sized large men had done boxing? What would have happened if a few Samoan guys had taken to boxing instead?

Boxing as a sport isn't good for your brains or your good looks. It's like asking for a concussion and whiplash daily. It's like wondering if your nose isn't flat enough. I know from watching a recent documentary that some Chinese are turning toward boxing as a means of escaping poverty. I also know from Frederick Wiseman's "Boxing Gym" that white collar workers are taking to boxing as a form of recreation.

• Review of "Chinese Heavyweight" on Examiner.com
• Frederick Wiseman's "Boxing Gym" on Examiner.com

My father used to watch boxing and he even got us two pairs of boxing gloves, mostly for my brother. We didn't take to pummeling each other though.  We all scrapped our way through college because we were poor and my father had passed away before we even graduated from high school. Our battles were more intellectual.

I guess what shocked me about Jack Johnson's story was that it wasn't a black man beating a white man that started riots or that rioting in the streets after a sports event started so early, but that was only the heavyweight title that carried so much cultural meaning, that was linked to concepts of manhood and race.

Weird what it takes to be considered a man in America.

• Frederick Wiseman's "Boxing Gym" on Wordpress Pasadena Art Beat blog
• "Chinese Heavyweight" review on Wordpress Pasadena Art Beat blog
• Review of "The Royale" on Wordpress Pasadena Art Beat blog
• Review of "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson" on Wordpress Pasadena Art Beat blog

*Help fund my education. 

The problem of Israel versus the Arabs

Three recent movies show a growing change in the public sentiment toward Israel: "Valentino's Ghost," "5 Broken Cameras," and "The Law in These Parts."  You might ask why this would concern an LA Asian?

First we have to locate Israel. It is in the Middle East, but that term covers once country in Northern Africa (Egypt) and several countries in Western Asia, including Israel. According to Wikipedia, the term was coined by the British India Office in the 1850s.

Oh, beware the British. They conquered Palestine in 1917. And from the British comes much of what we, or Hollywood knows about the Arabs according to the recent documentary, "Valentino's Ghost." The Valentino the documentary has in mind is Rudolph Valentino who died still young and much adored at the age of 31 in 1926. He had starred in the silent movie "The Sheik" and later "The Son of the Sheik." His father was Italian; his mother was French.

In the movie "The Sheik," he played the titular character, but the twist at the end, prevented this fantasy of love in Arabia from crossing the color line and threatening the tenants of Social Darwinism. Raised by Arabs, the character was half-British and half-Spanish. He was European, even if some Brits might look down on the Spanish for color or Catholicism. He was not Arab and rose above his surroundings as a superior man.

"Valentino's Ghost" looks at how we've portrayed Arabs and Persians in the media. We've gone from them as what Rudyard Kipling called, "The White Man's Burden," to the bestial hoards of fanatical terrorists. When European powers invade their lands, the Arabs are certainly not defending their land and rights to self-determination. The Arabs and later Persians are savages and rebels. That does make the question of Israel very tricky indeed.



Arabs, Persians and many Muslims are Asian and it's still PC to stereotype them. History is written by the victors, but that's only half the story. In America, we're mostly taking the story from a Eurocentric viewpoint.

Yet even Europe and America have to look at what's happening in Israel and wonder. "Valentino's Ghost" is narrated by bleeding heart liberal Mike Farrell of the TV series, "M*A*S*H" fame. I admire him for doing it.

The documentary "Valentino's Ghost" shows how movies and media have whitewashed history and supported the image of the Arab or Muslim rebel which has transformed into terrorist.

"The Law in These Parts" looks at Israel's viewpoint, but I didn't come away with much sympathy for Israel. Using archival footage as well as contemporary interviews, the documentary shows the men who shaped the Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. We're talking lawlessness within law enforcement. The documentary won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
On a more personal level, "5 Broken Cameras" has a father using cameras as a means of non-violent protest.



"5 Broken Cameras" was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary in 2013. It won Best Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival in 2012, the Busan Cinephile Award at the 2012 Pusan International Film Festival and a directing award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

My point is by buying into the Muslim, Persian or Arab terrorist stereotype Asians and Asian Americans are ignoring the concerns of other Asians and Asian Americans and participating in the whitewashing of history.

*Help sponsor me at USC. 

Love in the midst of yellow fever

The yellow fever I'm talking about isn't a virus transmitted by mosquitoes. It's the obsession non-Asian men, usually white, have towards East Asian ethnic women. I've also called it the East Asian Babe Syndrome--men who might have a functioning brain suddenly can't seem to deal with the evidence in front of their eyes and ears.

When you are the only East Asian woman in the room and a guy cuts across the crowd with his eyes on you and only you and he's not an undercover agent and you're not a Bond girl, that's pretty much a man made overly-friendly by yellow fever. You can speak English--you may only actually speak English, but he will think you have a charming East Asian accent. The Internet has given this symptom a charming twist: If the man formerly didn't know you were an East Asian ethnic and discovers your place of ethnic origin, then he suddenly is able to discern evidence that you are not a native speaker of the language you speak at home and at school, English. Sure, one could blame this on the rotten teaching methodology that results in most college students barely passing the English comprehension and writing college exams, forcing them into Subject A classes, but too often that person is also a product of that same educational system. Ironically, at times, your English language skills may surpass that person's.

I was thinking about yellow fever and all those people who thought they liked or disliked my people (and worse those East Asians and East Asian Americans who wanted to tell me how to be more Asian) when I watched the 2012 documentary "Seeking Asian Female." In this film, we follow a 60-year-old overweight underachieving white guy at the end of his 5-year search for another wife.

The man in this case, Steven, comes off as more than a little creepy with all of the catalogues and photos of the women he's corresponded with in his decade long search. You can tell that he's not actually accessed the situation well when he takes up with an attractive 24-year-old. You later come to question his ability to understand concrete matters of daily life--such as how can a man who works as a parking attendant at San Francisco International Airport afford to travel to China and  splurge on a big wedding.

Steven does find a woman to marry him--a 30-year-old Chinese woman, Sandy, who would be too embarrassed (lose face) if she returned home at the end of her 3-month fiancée visa. She's already told the director she just wants to earn her green card (the hard way) and then divorce Steven. According to the information at the end of the movie, Steven and Sandy are still married after four years. We'll have to see how that all plays out after the interest in the movie wanes and Sandy gets naturalized as a U.S. citizen.

Sometimes, I wish I could warn these guys with submissive geisha on their mind. Some women are looking for a green card or how about just a kid born in the U.S. Some have clearly made a decision to marry an American. Some go about it in different ways. Sandy isn't submissive. She's a real go-getter. According to her, she hasn't found a man in China because she didn't attend college and now she's, by China's standards, over the hill. The woman worked her way up from on the floor of a factory up to an executive secretary position at a fashion factory and speaks have local dialect, Mandarin and Cantonese.

Steven doesn't bother to learn Mandarin Chinese or much about the culture. He wants a Chinese woman, but he later complains, "This is not China and I am not Chinese."

Director Debbie Lum allows her feelings toward yellow fever and even Steven to color her documentary. We see Lum rushing around attempting to play interpretor for Steven and Sandy when Google Translate isn't quick enough. We don't get to hear enough from Steven's family--his son who married a Japanese woman, his daughter-in-law and his two ex-wives. All would give us a better idea of who Steven is.

You can look online and Steven isn't totally pleased with the product. According to Steven Bolstad:

I am not “rescuing” her from a plight in the rice fields. She had a great job, a cool apartment, and lots of friends in Shenzhen. And she has a mind of her own. She is a real person. That is exactly what i was hoping for. My friends all love her.She loves my family and my family loves her.

Steven feels somewhat betrayed by Lum and her editing style although they spent about five years together  as he commented elsewhere online.  In my review, I note that we really don't know much about Steven or Sandy except what Lum tells us or what they themselves reveal.

When I did a little undercover work, thinking that mail-order brides might be a good topic, I attended a seminar for Japanese women living in Los Angeles. They were mostly divorced and might have children. Those two issues might make it harder for them to find a husband in Japan where:

1. They might not want to live.
2. Few families can afford to have more than one or two children.
3. Divorce carries a heavier stigma there than in the United States.

The same is true with older divorced women from Catholic countries. Marriage can be a practical concern for some (over romantic) and that might be the case for Sandy. 

The ick-factor comes when it is all about looks. Steven doesn't really seem to embrace the Chinese culture and doesn't seem to have learned much Chinese. Perhaps that's changed in the almost four years they've been married. Another ick-factor would be someone who doesn't care what type of women he marries just as long as she is of that nationality. I shudder to remember one student at the exclusive Japanese study center who pursued every Japanese-American single woman at the center and also any Japanese woman. He seemed determined to be married in a month or less. He was married before the end of the year and his end of the year speech was about cross-cultural relations--totally anecdotal and about as deep as an ant's wading pool. 

I won't rant on like our favorite Asian American agitator, Frank Chinn, because I think you can be Christian and be a real Asian American. I think you can also find love across cultures and ethnicity. When my husband's father and mother married it was considered controversial for Hawaii. A lot of haole and mainstream Americans wouldn't understand because his mother is Chinese American and his father in Japanese American. He is by definition happa. I am not. I wanted someone who could enjoy eating most of the things I do and dance Argentine tango. 

I have relatives who married outside of the Japanese American community--notably three uncles who married Caucasian women. Two remained married until one of them died. The other divorced. At the time they married, it was a gutsy move for the women. I wonder how their family felt.

Yet I don't define that as yellow fever--not because it was a woman marrying an East Asian ethnic male, but because they were from the same general culture and spoke the same language. I don't think was a case where my aunts  only dated East Asians. They dated people. 

When I was dating, I had several ads that were essentially the same except how I identified my race: nothing, Asian or Japanese. No photos even though they warn you you won't get a response if you don't use a photo. Still, the one for a Japanese woman got a heavy response. As an experiment, I added a little lie: black and white. I can tell you that Japanese and Asian got the heavier response, but also that when I refused to date someone--sometimes for something as basic as geography, men responding to a Japanese or Asian woman got angry, very, very angry. Some would then claim I was a lesbian or that I should be grateful for their attention. Some would send me photos of their erection (which I forwarded to my gay friends). Some would tell me that they had women prettier than I for a few bucks when they were vacationing in Asia and informed me that I was probably to old to be a whore. 

Then there were the ones who seemed to be waiting for me to find my inner geisha and put down Asian and Asian American men, forgetting that my father was also Asian American. 

Of course, I can't let off Asian and Asian American men. There were Asian American men who were angry that I would consider men from any race and felt it their duty to tell me how to be more Asian. 

That's a different kind of yellow fever. 

Yesterday inscrutable; today asialogical

Stereotypes have unfortunately linked the word inscrutable with the whole continent of Asia and at times extended that domain to include North Africa (i.e. Orientals).  According to the Urban Dictionary, the new term, contributed by tdotcom on 4 January 2010 is asialogical.

The meaning of asialogical is "An Asian way of doing things that doesn't make sense in the Western tradition. Maybe the word inscrutable was to hard to spell for tdotcom because the example sentence was "The Chinese decided to build a building before drawing the plans, which which of course was totally asialogical."

I also learned that saying a person is an egg has been replaced by weeaboo for someone obsessed with Japanese culture or anime. Another word for such a person is wapanese. I wonder what they use for eggs who are into Chinese or Indian culture.

Looking at the Urban Dictionary's entries for "Asian" and "Asia" make me appreciate Wikipedia more. Did you know that Asia is a "Continent whose citizens would completely die out without rice. It is not just a stereotype, all Asian countries(except maybe some in the Middle East) depend on rice and even food that is not rice is often made of rice somehow"?

Personally I prefer bread (sorry, mom) and tortillas. 

Smithsonian exhibit on Asian Pacific Americans comes to L.A. in June

As part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service (SITES) and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center opened a new exhibit at the American History Museum, "I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story." The exhibit runs until 18 June 2013 and then travels to the Japanese National Museum in Los Angeles.

The exhibit takes its name from a poem by Filipino American poet Carlos Bulosan (1913-1956):

Before the brave, before the proud builders and workers
I way I want the wide American earth
For all the free
I want the wide American earth for my people.
I want my beautiful land. 
I want it with my rippling strength and tenderness
Of love and light and truth
For all the free. 

The exhibit goes beyond the usual story about the railroads, immigration laws and representation and the search for identity. Did you know that Punjabi men were unable to bring Indian brides to America and so married female Mexican field workers? How about Chinese traders were making trips to Mexico City as early as 1635. New Orleans already had Filipino communities in the 1760s. Asian Americans also participated in the American Civil War on both sides.

To give you historical context, Jamestown was founded in 1607 with only 61 of the original 500 colonists surviving the starving time of 1609 to 1610. In 1635, Japan forbid merchants to sail abroad and particularly wanted those Portuguese ships destroyed. The Tokugawa shogunate began in 1603.

In 1760 George III ascended to the throne of Great Britain. In 1644, the Ming Dynasty ended and the Qing Dynasty began and lasted until 1912. The Great Wall of China was already in place with small portions build in 220 BC and in the 7th Century BC although the majority of the exiting wall was reconstructed during the Ming Dynasty. India was under the Moghul Empire (1526-1757).

Currently JANM doesn't list this as a coming exhibit so keep you eyes out for this.

Why embracing purple is very LAsian

In Japan, Murasaki is both the name of a color and the name of a famous person. The color is purple or rather the shades of purple that can be produced by a certain type of dye. The famous person should be better known worldwide except she is Asian.

Murasaki Shikibu, or Lady Murasaki (紫 式部), in the early years of the Heian period in Japan wrote what is considered the world's first novel or at least the first novel to be considered a classic and this novel isn't just a tale that describes events, but it is also the first psychological novel. The story, "The Tale of Genji", was written in the women's language (hiragana) which more closely approximated the spoken language of the time because learned and aristocratic men wrote in Japanese Chinese, or kambun.

The novel can be broken up into three parts and has 54 chapters in all. Genji or the shining prince dies during the novel and the narration (the Uji chapters) then follows his supposed son. In the novel, Murasaki is the girl whom Genji abducts, raises and eventually marries.

East Asia gave the world the first novel and that kind of creativity is notable during Asian Pacific Heritage Month.

An English edition of "The Tale of Genji" is available free online.

'LAsian' is another derogatory phrase for Asians?

According to the Urban Dictionary, the first definition for LAsian is:

 

An Asian American, typically from Los Angeles or other large cities on the West Coast. Their style is a blend between street gang and skater. LAsians wear slightly tilted to the side baseball caps without curving the bill, oversized designer sunglasses, and sleeveless basketball jerseys even if they have no muscles. In their minds they are a player, in your mind they are a gigantic douche. You will find these types everywhere on the west coast. They are exceptionally bold in their Mecca, Las Vegas, where they constantly brag about their access to the hottest clubs on Facebook well into their 30 and 40s. There is a high probability that they are night club promoters and fill their photo albums with pictures with women who they never had a chance to sleep with.

That definition comes from Vegas Insider, that writer's one and only contribution to date as of 23 January 2013.

The example given is: Look at that LAsian and his Hyundai, must be on his way to their Mecca, Vegas...

I'm not originally from Los Angeles and the LAsians who I found a bit cliquish were the Gardena-area Japanese Americans who were sure they knew just what a banana was because I didn't understand their subculture or appreciate it. There is actually more to Japanese American culture than what grew up in Gardena and no one in San Diego had called me a banana before except as a rhyme with my name.

However, this description doesn't fit with the Gardena Japanese Americans (except for that 30-something who was still living at home that had nothing but disposable income but there are plenty of men like that in other ethnic groups) I knew nor many of the Asian Americans I've met.

The second definition in the Urban Dictionary is a "lesbian of asian descent." Seriously do writers for the Urban dictionary know how to use caps? That contribution came from Improve Asylum on 21 June 2005. This is Improv Asylum's only contribution as well. According to this expert, "lasian was first used in the show 'Pork Fried Clowns,' as performed by the Improv Asylum, Boston, MA, in the spring of 2005."

While I've been accused of being a lesbian (usually by white men who I wouldn't date while I was single, especially those who didn't believe heterosexual guys danced), I've never had the urge to be intimate in a carnal sense with a woman and I've also not fond of Las Vegas. I don't gamble at all.

The last definition, contributed by JLow on 28 October 2012 is Lasian for a "lady asian." JLow has also only given one contribution.

So as a lady Asian, a guerrilla geisha and dancing dragon lady, this blog is from the LAsian point of view. As a writer, I don't think we can erase some phrases but sometimes we can tweak how they are used and some of my short story writing is about tweaking, twisting and expanding the images and stereotypes of Asians, Asians Americans and women.

What's LAsian?
Who do we let define us?
Lady Asian asks

Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

What began as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week in 1978, eventually became Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

What better way to celebrate than to start a new blog.

Let's start with the history of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. You might be wondering why May? Because it was originally only one week, the date was chosen because the first week of May was when the first Japanese immigrants arrived in America (7 May 1843) and on 10 May (1869) was when the transcontinental railroad was completed.

The railroad was originally known as the Pacific Railroad (because the nation was very East Coast-centric). Later it was called the Overland Route. The 1,907-mile contiguous railroad line was begun in 1863 and connected the East U.S. at Bluffs, Iowa (on the Missouri River) with San Francisco.

At the start, many of the semi-skilled workers were former Union Army and Confederate Army vets and immigrants from Ireland. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (one of three private companies that built the line--the other two were Western Pacific Railroad Company and the Union Pacific Railroad Company). used slaves escaping during the Civil War and Chinese immigrants escaping the Taiping Revolution. Chinese manual laborers were the ones primarily responsible for the Central Pacific roadbed, bridges and tunnels.

However, the first Asians in North America was, according to the PBS documentary "Ancestors in Americas" Chinese Filipinos in Mexico. These Chinese Filipino sailors came to the U.S. in 1750 and other Asians were brought to the Caribbean islands and South America as slaves from China, India and the Philippines.

As slaves, then as laborers, then as menial workers, Asian immigrants came from countries that had unequal treaties with the U.S. and were often subjected to laws that prohibited them from becoming citizens, owning lands, marrying other races, etc.

Asian Americans have come a long way since then and so has Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Stargin as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week in 1978, by 1990, the week was expanded into a month. In 1992, the designation became permanent.

In Los Angeles, Asian Americans only make up 12 percent of the population. But Asia accounts for 60 percent of the world's current population. Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Baha'i Faith originated in West Asia. The Hindu and Buddhist religions originated in Central Asia. Islam is the religion in Asia with the largest number of adherents. Hinduism is the second largest religion in Asia (25 percent).

This month, it's time to remember our historic roots as well as our accomplishments and history in the United States.