Six Words on Love and Heartache

My six-word autobiography was in the first book. Now they're publishing a second one. Can you sum up your story of love and heartache in six words? Here's my attempt (submitted with image of my parents, circa 1956):

Proposal. Dowry. Betrothal. Marriage. Children. Love.

It's All In The Pleat: How To Wear A Sari

I like to bring a saree along to school visits and drape it on a student volunteer, but I gleaned some tips on tucking and folding from this rooftop expert:

We Wanted Chikezie the Immigrant

Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times argues that Americans might not have dinged Idol's one remaining black male singer if he'd shown off his Nigerian roots. Mourning the loss of the rich R&B and soul contributions of African-American male singers, Ms. Powers is troubled by "white America's seeming reluctance to universally embrace a strong black male voice, unless it belongs to a rapper selling blaxploitation fantasies to teens." We're okay with African-American male singers, she says, but only if they're relatively fresh off the boat:

(Chikezie) should have taken a cue from the black male singer to find the greatest recent success -- Akon, who almost beat Daughtry for last year's top spot. Like Chikezie, Akon has African roots, and he's used his immigrant voice to shake up preconceived notions of what a soul singer should sound like. Chikezie kept talking about "Nigerian cultural music" during his interviews; he should have incorporated some into this performances.

I'll admit the temptation to babble my way through airport security, wielding my "American" accent to escape random spot checks. But as I read Powers' article, I realized sadly that there's one demographic in our society who might actually benefit by faking a foreign accent -- young black men.

Senator Obama's Speech, the R-word, and the Generational Divide

Senator Obama's recent speech about race was an Emperor's New Clothes moment for this nation. A lot of Americans had been feeling pretty darn good about our progress in racial reconciliation, embodied by our first viable biracial presidential candidate. But this speech and the split reaction to it revealed the true condition of race relations in America: generally, white people still don't get how black people see things, as Nick Kristof eloquently argues.

That is, if we're over twenty-five or so.

Mr. Kristof's thesis might not hold as true for young Americans. Teens and twenty-somethings think and talk about race so differently that it's almost as if our country's divided by age instead of race. Granted, I live in Boston, which likes to think of itself as this society's hub but might actually be a strange little island unto itself. But tune in to the humor about race in youth culture, where people of all races are processing the pain in a raw, real way. Meanwhile the majority in my generation secretly tire of the word "tolerance," hoping it might be time to move "beyond the issue."

That's what Senator Obama tapped into when he told us earlier in the campaign that there's "no black America and no white America, only the United States of America." White people liked that, and black people accepted it because they know he gets their view of seeing things. But in this recent speech, the Senator told the truth: there are still two ways of viewing history in the past and history in the making.

Barack Obama with his maternal grandparentsPhoto courtesy of the Munoz Family via Creative Commons
The pivotal moment in the speech was when he described his black church for the "untrained ear." The color of that ear is most likely white-cum-pink. Then he went on to talk about his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, pictured above, who is still alive and living in Hawaii:

[She is] a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

In his book Dreams From My Father, he also told of his paternal grandfather who "didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman." Why not quote them equally? Because the heart of the speech was to show that he gets how blacks see things -- he talked about "our community" when he was speaking to blacks, but addressed whites as an outsider, despite painstaking diplomacy in the beginning and at the end.

Ending with a story about a twenty-three year old white woman and an older black man coming together around his campaign, Senator Obama repeated his hope that one day we might indeed move "beyond racism." But, as he eloquently reminded the nation, that day is not here yet. With new polls showing him falling behind Mrs. Clinton, I'm wondering if the risk was costly. Naming the naked Emperor makes an unseeing crowd feel foolish, and we typically take it out on the messenger.

KABA Modern, JABBAWOCKEEZ, and FUSION STORIES

Anybody catch Randy Jackson's America's Best Dance Crew this week? The show is down to fifteen great dancers, including eleven Asian Americans who are rocking Planet MTV. This type of fusion hip makes the embarrassment of William Hung a distant memory -- in fact Asian American teens today can hardly remember that American Idol contestant.

Times are definitely changing. That's why, in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month this May 2008, ten of us are launching FUSION STORIES, a menu of delectable next-gen hot-off-the-press novels for middle readers and teens.

A wave of middle grade novels (ages 7-11) featuring Asian American protagonists is catching the attention of readers, teachers, librarians, and parents – and not just within multicultural circles. Children’s literature experts are calling Grace Lin’s Year of the Rat (sequel to the popular Year of the Dog) a “classic in the making” along the lines of Besty-Tacy. Janet Wong’s forthcoming novel Minn and Jake's Almost Terrible Summer explores the joys of vacation and friendship, with Jake divulging that he’s a “quarpa,” or one-quarter Korean. Winner of the Sid Fleischman humor award, author Lisa Yee makes kids (and adults) laugh out loud with bestselling stories like Millicent Min: Girl Genius and her newest title, Good Luck, Ivy. When it comes to books like these, as Newbery winner Linda Sue Park told author Cynthia Leitich Smith (Tantalize) during an on-line chat: “At last it seems we’re getting ready to go to stories where a person’s ethnicity is a part but not the sum of them.”

New releases for teens, too, aren’t mainly immigrant stories or traditional tales retold. These YA novels deal with universal themes such as a straight-A teen struggling with a cheating scandal at her school (She’s So Money by Cherry Cheva), a promising athlete coping with a snowboarding injury (Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley), and a Pakistani-born blogger whose father is about to become President (First Daughter: White House Rules by Mitali Perkins). An Na’s The Fold, a novel about a teen considering plastic surgery to change the shape of her eyelids, speaks to all who long to be beautiful, and art-loving teens far and wide will connect with Joyce Lee Wong’s novel-in-verse Seeing Emily. Paula Yoo, a one-time writer for People magazine and television hits like The West Wing, fuses her pop culture savvy and love of music in Good Enough, a novel about a violinist in rebellion. Her brother, David Yoo, connected with hormone-crazed nerds of every race in his funny novel Girls For Breakfast and is offering his fans the forthcoming Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before.

FUSION STORIES aims to be a helpful resource for parents, educators, and young readers, so if you know of a novel that (1) is for middle readers or teens, (2) was published in 2007-2008 by a traditional publishing house, (3) features an Asian American protagonist, and (4) is set primarily in contemporary America, please send a .jpg of the cover, a .jpg of the author, one or two reviews, and a brief description of the novel to press@fusionstories.com. We at FUSION STORIES would be delighted to add titles and authors to the site.

A press kit package (available at FUSION STORIES, www.fusionstories.com) includes downloads, bios of FUSION STORIES authors, information on the books, and a few conversations with experts about Asian American literature for young readers. For more information, review copies, or interview requests with any of the authors, please contact press@fusionstories.com.

What Makes Ethnic Humor Funny?

Try, if you can, to see this movie trailer of Mike Myers' forthcoming flick The Love Guru through the eyes of an Indian-American teen with Hindu parents:



I'm a bit befuddled by my own responses to ethnic humor. Why does the Love Guru trailer strike me as not-so-funny and racially offensive, while bits of this trailer (warning: iffy content) of Harold and Kumar at Guantanamo Bay made me smile (although I'm pretty sure I'd find a lot in this flick offensive for other reasons)?

The Thighs of a Sherpa: SuperBowl Ads

Although I prefer last year's ad, Carlos Mencia and his gang of endearing immigrant geeks managed to pull off another one that comes near to but not quite crosses the line:

Meanwhile, another racist ad angered Asians everywhere. Check out the combo of Chinese accented English, anthropomorphized immigrants eating bamboo, and psychic savior with the "American" voice:

The crazy news is that the ads were designed to be racist. They were conceptualized and written by Vin Gupta, the founder and chairman of the company, in an effort to create the worst ads of the year and gain the company some name recognition. Gupta, born and educated in India before settling in the USA, once served as the ambassador to Fiji.

Since most viewers didn't know that the ads were purposely bad, how did they react to it? Some might not have even noticed the racism while others immediately and publicly berated it, thus fulfilling the company's hopes of spreading their brand. And then there's the group I'm concerned about -- first gen kids who winced at the thought of their classmates, most of whom aren't savvy enough to recognize a marketing ploy, watching it. 

Next year, if the company wants to pull this stunt again, why not add an honest last frame pointing viewers to a url like votefortheworstad.com? Wouldn't that be slightly more ... should we say diplomatic, Mr. Gupta?

Living In A Land Called Paradise

Little Willow shared this video made by Muslims in America after 9/11/01, and I loved it:

MTV Arabia: Oxymoron?

I'm all for crossing cultural boundaries, but I'm feeling a bit of virtual jet lag after hearing that MTV is launching in the Arab world. I've also been trying to make sense of tips on how a girl can glam up a winter hajib (i.e., top it off with a stylish beret) published in the latest issue of Muslim Girl magazine, which makes for a fascinating read.

Chief Wahoo Wa Who?

Can't help but be amazed yet again as I watch the Sox play the Indians that Cleveland still uses this caricature as their mascot. As Jonathan Zimmerman editorializes in the Christian Science Monitor:

...When you watch the Cleveland Indians on television this week, watch your kids as well. Ask yourself what the image of Chief Wahoo teaches them about Native Americans. And ask yourself if you can live with the answer...

No Place Like An RV

It wasn't the ideal holiday for a writer who requires copious amounts of solitude and space. Time: two months. Mode of Transport: Fleetwood Tioga Recreational Vehicle, 29', no pop-outs. Companions: one husband, two sons, and two labradors (both male). The testosterone level was high, high, high, and the space was small, small, small.

But as we drove through 25 of the United States, visited nine national parks, hiked, biked, and tasted small town hospitality, I began to see that the trip was the perfect gift for a zero-gen American like me. From sea to shining sea, the splendor of this land (is my land) was ... overwhelming. I felt much like I did when I walked into that Flushing, Queens library for the first time years ago and saw shelves of books waiting for me: "All this, for me?" Correct answer: "For us, beloved, so borrow, enjoy, but leave no trace."

It's good to be back on the Fire Escape.

Photo: Arches National Park, Utah.

Poetry Friday: Contest Winners

I'm delighted to present the winners of the Fire Escape's 2007 teen poetry and short fiction contests. Congratulations to the writers, and to all who entered. The 2008 contests open 9/1/07. Feel free to browse through the best poems from 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, and prize-winning stories from the past.

Poetry Friday: Help Me Choose The Winners!

I've been judging the 2007 Fire Escape Teen Poetry Contests, and am overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of entries. I've managed to narrow the entries to those I think are the four best poems. I've already ranked them in my head, but I'd love your input before I award the prizes. Which of the poems after the polling box deserves first place in the contest?

FIRST PRIZE SHOULD GO TO...

Strokes
The House at the Top of the Hill
Syncopation
Anugraha Heights

(View Results)

Strokes
by Sophia J.

In Chinese folklore, there was a boy who heard
upon his first day of calligraphy study
that one is a horizontal slash. Considering himself clever, he
deduced that each consecutive number
would merit an extra line,
and found no more need for education
not when the stream outside
and all its silver-throated fish enticed him,
and his fingers itched for the hook, the worm, the kill.

My parents, so eager to impound in me the validity of
"try hard, work long, no play"
went on to describe the old man with the cognomen of
"one thousand" who asked for his name
to be written on the creek bed. The character is,
after all, only three strokes long.

I often wondered at the image my mind produced
of this boy, of our similar mistakes,
our similar sorrows. In these dreams, his fingers are my own,
trembling as they complete line after line of meaningless scratch,
ten hundred streaks flooding away in the next day's rain.




The House at the Top of the Hill
by Alessandra S.

Where the grass hangs like hair over
The hot road
We watched the old men sitting in their
Fold out chairs in front of
Their houses, smoking
Like slow chimneys, puffing home made
Italian cigars clenched between
Ruddy-calloused fingers.

Living slower then the
Pace of the shadows moving across the piazza
And breathing lazily like
The monotonous humming of the crickets
We cupped our small hands to our mouths
And giggled when we passed
The deserted house at the top of the hill.

Listening for the ghosts whispering
Around the broken beams
Sounding like blades of grass rubbing
Their palms against each other.
We pulled our claves through the
Wavy grass up to the house.

The front doors hung from the frame
Like an old women’s teeth
Clinging to her gums.
Saturated boards
Felt the underside of our naked feet.

An empty bathtub in the middle of the room
Wondering at the decaying tile falling, falling
From the ceiling into its
White porcelain belly.
Stairs birthed from upper unexplored floors
Breathed dust clouds onto our ankles
As we stepped onto their chipping backs,

We explored wide rooms, where glassless windows
Stared at us like wide-eyed owls.
We wanted to hide behind invisible and non-existent furniture.

The sky began to drip the beginning of
Evening.
Deaf to
Calling aunties and uncles
Mommies and daddies,
Words that had been born from the rock
And carved out of the crevices
To become Swiss.
The old men folded up their chairs and
The daddies went down to
The piazza to drink.

At the top of the hill
We cupped our small hands to our mouths
And giggled because hiding was fun.
Flash light beams darted amongst the trees
At the top of the hill
When they came looking for us.
When they found us in the bathtub
Bathing in a pile of tile

That house at the top of the hill
Where fiestas were held on sweaty nights
Held memories for my family.
Returning now to the
Town tucked away in the Swiss-Italian Alps
I hear those same ghosts whispering
But they are whispering ancestral secrets
Into the curve of my ear,
Whispers I will remember even when I go back home.



Syncopation
by Claire G.

Clack clack claack
My grandmother jumps like a little brown bird,
whirling, stepping over the hollow poles
bamboo traps snapping
at ochre ankles in rhythmic time.

Clack clack claack
Schoolmates peer from black almond eyes
she hops and twirls to the syncopated braap-brap-brap
of the Arisaka rifles.
She dances the tinikling
to the beat of the firing squad.

The gauzy symphonic overtures of the West
pour frantically from a phonograph’s brassy throat—
but its staccatos and tremolos are too, too thin
to quell the angry spit of gunfire.
Bullets hurry forward, then settle
abruptly in pounding chests of sons of the republic.

Still dancing…
and the morbid percussion ends.
Wisps of anguish escape the lips of mothers and wives,
extinguished by the wails of the phonograph.
One thousand tiny eyes watch as the souls of their brothers
rise into the pink smoke sky.

With an upward glance and a whispered prayer
my grandmother continues to hop and twirl
to the clack-clack of bamboo
and the reverberating beat of the firing squad.




Anugraha Heights
by Runjini R.

Anugraha Heights pulls me into her soft insides; I climb
her foreign steps, the humidity placing pools of perspiration
into the curves of my arms. I want to fly back home,
cry into my Ninja Turtles pillow, where my tears
don’t mix with sweat. But Apu Mami points out the Bay of Bengal –
(the little children splash in her body) buys me an Arun Orange
(the sticky taste erect on my tongue) and flipping through Tagore,
wants me to love my mother’s country.

Under the perfunctory prose of Seaward Road,
the sweating current of sunned children, beside
the pillars of Krishna Koval, around the monolithic
art towards Mahabulipuram, it grew.
Muted obedience leaning
slightly towards interest, in the walk between
India’s gangling history and aggressive peace, I wanted
(first) more Arun Orange, and s l o w l y
more recapitulations.

Later when the thunder rolled, the family
moved upstairs to Meghna’s room; I tossed
my X-Men toys off the bed, so small
in relation to the huge rain. It fell on the house and
exotic plants, but our exotic insides were licked dry
with Ramayana stories and Cadbury Chocolate Crèmes.
As the lights slapped out, we formed
the ethnic lump of family, and
I admired triumphantly for India,
how Texas never saw this kind of rain.

Afterwards , Chennai was wearing pinpricks of light
on her black sari, and I roared passively through her pleats
in the Maruti, inhaling the explicit want
for permanent family.

And when the tears of departure
became tears for return, I couldn’t imagine India
flowering jasmine in the spring without me,
the Amar Chitra Kathas stacked like
cheap napkins in the bookshelf
and the chirping sounds of incensed Indian women
in nightly soap operas
pounding through the six-storied flat.

My Character Is Getting Bossy

How bad is it when a fictional character you've created tells you do something and you do it? Yesterday, Sparrow announced that YouTube and CNN want us to submit questions to the candidates before the next set of presidential debates. And so, without further ado (and no rehearsal, obviously), I asked my son to film my 30-second question:



What a great project for teens this summer. If you scroll through the submitted videos (mine didn't seem to make the cut -- must have broken the rules somehow), you'll see plenty of fresh, young faces and ideas from first-time voters.

Can U Bhangra Like Kashif?

Can't wait to watch my kaboodle of librarians and blogger buddies dance like this guy:


If you can't make it to the party, we'll upload a video of our own to YouTube for your enjoyment.

Old World Taste Buds: Mangoes and Lemons

They say that as immigrants mingle and marry and their descendants melt into the American soup, the last identifying sign from their countries of origin is a sense of taste. Could that be why I (and my sons) can't do without various jars of mango and lemon pickle? (Yes, that Taj Mahal imitation is completely made of lemons, courtesy of the Annual Lemon Festival in Menton, France. Source: Sepia Mutiny).

And for those who might be staying in D.C. after ALA, here's an option: check out the first-ever Indian mango tasting festival this harvest season, held June 27 during the Global India summit. India produces 58% of the world's mango crop, but you couldn't find any sign of them in North America ... until now. To really enjoy a Bengali langra, the juices must drip down your chin as you devour every last piece of flesh, discarding the pit only when it's white and bald (nothing personal intended, my white bald readers). Of if you prefer to peel and chop into chunks, here's the way to do it.

This Is Not Your Parents' Arranged Marriage

Connubial Bliss

Today is Ma and Baba's fifty-second wedding anniversary. As I tell kids at schools I visit, my still-in-love parents who met on the day of their wedding are evidence that it might not be about how you get married but about how you are married. Happy anniversary, Mr. and Mrs. Bose!

Poetry Friday: Fire Escape Contest Closes June 1st!

Since 2003, the Fire Escape has published poetry and short stories written by teens between cultures. I'm receiving entries for this year's contests until June 1st, and prizes will be announced June 30th. Feel free to pass on the details and rules, enjoy the short story winners here, and browse through the best poems from the past:

2006 Poetry Winners

First Prize:

Mel? by Amelia, Russia/Illinois, Age 15

Second Prize:

"Soy De" Means "I'm From" by Pedro, El Salvador/Kansas, Age 15

Third Prize:

Revolution by Amy, China/New Jersey, Age 16

2005 Poetry Winners

First Prize:

Two Worlds, Two Dreams by Andrea, Colombia/Florida, Age 17

Second Prize:

Dynasty or Wang Jo by Katherine, Korea/Georgia, Age 17

Third Prize:

Lumpia and Cornbread by Billimarie, Philippines/California, Age 17

2004 Poetry Winners

First Prize:

The Little Line by Cathy, China/Texas, Age 15

Second Prize:

Choosing Names by Grace, Singapore/California, Age 15

Third Prize:

Standing Strong by Beatrice, Philippines/California, Age 13

2003 Poetry Winners

First Prize:

Two Worlds by Natasha G., India/Alabama, Age 14

Second Prize:

The Perfect One by Zhan Tao Y., China/Nevada, Age 14

Third Prize:

From Russia With Love by Laura S., Russia/New York, Age 13

Sparrow Ghost-Blogs On The Weirdness of Race

Note: This was originally posted by Sameera Righton on Sparrowblog Thursday, May 10, 2007.


Here's something else to love or hate about the hunky golfer who refuses to identify himself by race.* Ten years ago, on Oprah, he got everybody riled up by saying, "I'm a Cablinasian." As in Caucasian-black-Indian-Asian. "I'm just who I am," Woods said, "whoever you see in front of you."

It's getting harder to label Americans by race. Take Halle Berry, for example. Or Derek Jeter. And on American Idol, when Jordin Sparks said, "I've got an average family," and a photo of her black Dad and white Mom came up, I found myself wondering if she'd say she was African-American or white, or both, or neither. (Weird note to self: they all have black Dads and white Moms ...)

People are talking race about candidates Obama and Richardson, describing them as black and Latino, but Obama's white American mother fell in love with his Kenyan father at a Hawaiian university, and Richardson has a half-white, half-Mexican father and a Mexican mother. So does that make him Latino? Even though I know it's important for the black and Hispanic communities to feel represented (hey, the day we have an Asian-ish candidate, believe me, I'm going to notice), maybe the real question to ask is whether these guys would make good Presidents.

*Technically, Tiger's 1/4 Chinese, 1/4 Thai, 1/4 Black, 1/8 Native American, 1/8 Dutch, his wife Elin is Swedish, so do the math for their babies if you care about the numbers.

Photo Source: Fifi LePew