This is a disturbing piece of news, San Jose police officers had brutally beaten a San Jose State University student Phuong Ho. Officers used batons to strike Ho at least 10 times, and also tasered the unarmed student. The incident began when Ho’s roomate Jeremy Suftin slopped soap on Phuong’s steak dinner. The two scuffled afterwards, at which point, Phuong grabbed a knife and said “In my country, I would kill you for this”. Suftin then called the police, and soon after, the beating ensued on the unarmed student. All this was captured on a video camera phone here.

Phuong Ho had no criminal record and was not resisting arrest, this beating was completely unnecessary and dehumanizing. A lot has progressed since the days of Rodney King’s incident, but I guess police brutality involving minorities is still here.

Is it cliche to say that I am impressed with President Obama? On Oct. 14th, The president of the United States observes Diwali after signing an executive order restoring the white house Advisory Commission and Interagency Group to absolve issues that each specific AAPI communities have. Many Asian American representatives were present during the signing including Secretary of Veteran Affairs Eric Shinseki and Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs Tammy Duckworth. The initiative will provide more federal programs to help in areas such as education, health care, and economic status for AAPI communities.

Here is the link to the video, For those of you who are impatient, the President starts speaking at around 5:00 minutes.

Jay Sean

Jay Sean’s hit single “Down” has reached the #1 spot recently, kicking off the Black Eyed Peas (finally) at the top spot after 26 consecutive weeks.

Jay Sean is a British pop singer with South Asian decent, and is the first person of such background to claim this title. Props and good luck to him on his debut album in the US – All or Nothing.

Kwak’s poster mocked Pang’s slogan “Small person, big ideas” and changed it to “Squinty eyes, big vision”. Instead of “Hurrah!”, Kwak’s said “Kimchi!”. Lastly, “Vote on Thursday” was changed to “Prease vote me! I work reary hard!”.

Alice Pang's poster

In-Goo Kwak's poster

In-Goo Kwak put the posters up under the suggestion of his roomates, and has since apologized to Pang about the incident. But Kwak still fervently argues that this is his freedom of speech against the constant political correctness on campus. He was displeased that he was contacted by Asian American Center on campus rather than students personally.

While I agree that  a lot Asian Americans sometimes come off as being too politically correct, this parody poster is just bad taste. I understand that this is free speech, and he thought this was funny. But he is also ignorant of the fact that when this kind of language is put on paper and released to the public, many people could draw from it painful memories of racism and stereotypes they have encountered in their lives. He is unaware of the context that this language has been placed on, and like many other examples of satire or parody we’ve seen previously, this type of “parody” just doesn’t work. I can only imagine him laughing with his roomates, while tossing around their arsenal of stereotypical sayings as they are making this poster. Sometimes, the worst kind of racism is perpetrated by others of the same race. I don’t know In-Goo Kwak personally, but I do know that if he doesn’t start educating himself about racial sensitivity, he will just be an embarrassment like this girl.

Le's Family members at the funeral

As many of you have probably heard, Annie Le, the Yale graduate student in pharmacology was brutally murdered on September 8th, 2009. The last sighting of Le was five days prior to her wedding day, her body was found on her wedding day stuffed into the walls of her research building, where she performed experiments on mice to study the roles of enzyme. Her killer has been confirmed to be Raymond Clark III, details of his motives are still closed to the public, but it is most likely not due to romantic interests. Some disturbing details of her murder has been released, read about them here.

Her funeral was held at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in El Dorado Hills, California. Due to her Vietnamese background, some rites were spoken in Vietnamese and hymns. Her fiance Jonathan Widawski was present but did not speak publicly, he was seen wearing their wedding ring.

Our sincerest condolences to Annie Le’s family, her fiance and his family for this tragic loss from all of us at Next Generation Voices.

What are your opinions on this matter? What kind of punishment should the killer receive? Is it good that the media is putting so much attention on this case? Leave your responses below.

“The 9th Annual Colorado Dragon Boat Festival (CDBF) is Saturday and Sunday, July 25-26, in Denver. This free family-friendly festival attracts over 100,000 people annually to experience Colorado’s diverse Asian Pacific American heritage through performing arts, cultural education, cuisine, arts and crafts, and two days of action-packed dragon boat races.” – Colorado Dragon Boat Festival

For more info on the event, click here.

University of Colorado, Aurora, CO 80045
Friday, July 10, 12pm-5pm, 6pm-8:30pm
Hensel Phelps Auditorium, Research Complex 1 North Tower, 12800 E. 19th Ave.

Satuday, July 11th, 8am-12:30pm
Nighthorse Campbell Native Health Building, 13055 E. 17th Ave.

TOPICS (Partial List):
Social Determinants of Health & Responsive Local Health Agencies
Comparative Effective Research
New Focus at Colorado Medicaid
Health Care Reform & Impact on CO
Inclusiveness in a Culturally Diverse Health Care Environment – the Reality

WORKSHOPS/BREAKOUT SESSIONS:
• Integrative Cultural Competent Community Health Clinic
• Clinical Trials and Community based Research – Optimizing Outcome
• AAPI Emerging Communities & Community Health Outcomes
• Providers and Community Preparedness for Pandemic Flu
• Health Information Technology for Minority Group Healthcare

Plus: Network with health care professionals, government health care policy influencers, and community leaders!

ETHNICITIES REPRESENTED: Cambodian, Chinese, Hmong, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Lao, Filipino, Polynesian, Taiwanese, Thai, Vietnamese, African American, Hispanic, Native American.

COST: $5 (Includes refreshment, breakfast and box lunch)

Please register at www.CAHEP.org or contact: Alok Sarwal • 303-953-8176 • alok.Sarwal@cahep.org

Alliance of Health Disparities • 303-456-5480 • alliance_health_disparities@q.com

• Adviser: help advise NGV in their area(s) of expertise.
• Secretary(limited to 1 position): Maintains NGV records and files. Takes minutes at the Executive Committee meetings and
  keeps an updated record of contact information for Executive Committee members and Council of Representatives members.
• General Member: Provides advice, information, and assistance to the other officers of
  the committee. Serves as voting members and may run for officer positions when available.

For inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us via email or the form on the Contact page.

*Correction 6/11/09*

Just a note for clarification:

Executive Positions include Secretary (1) and Adviser(s).
General Members are simply members.

“Police arrested two juvenile males, both 13, on charges of harassment and a bias-motivated crime as a result of phone calls they made on April 27 to a female classmate’s cell phone. The suspects are accused of threatening to rape the girl and using sexually explicit and violent language to describe what they wanted to do to her. In one of the messages, one suspect told the girl she would die. The suspects indicated that they were targeting the victim because she is Asian-American. A third juvenile has been identified, but he is younger than the statutory age that would allow police to pursue criminal charges against him. School officials have been notified and have been involved in the investigation. The law prohibits the release of the police records in this case because the suspects are juveniles. The charges are misdemeanors.”