Opinions & Commentaries by Our Readers
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Asian American Net will publish your opinions and commentaries related to issues and problems facing the Asian American communities. Your letter must include your full name, complete mailing address, and telephone number (your address and phone number will not be published if requested, see our privacy policy). Please submit your letter (less than 800 words) to be published in this Opinion page. To submit your letter, please click here. |
Students of St. Scholastica's College Manila, Philippines Greetings! We are Laurice, Gela, Kim and Abby. We are students from St. Scholastica's College Manila, Philippines. We would like to extend our appreciation to your organization because of your objectives to help the different ethnic minorities. As students, we can't help the ethnic groups personally but through your organization, we can support your missions or activities. We would be delighted to receive your reply concerning simple things on how we could help. Thank you for your time and we hope you would continue doing what you have established. Have a nice day! Sincerely,
It's Not Women's Day in Afghanistan
In 1943 my mother reported from Kabul to her family in New York that she was buying a bicycle to commute to her job at Afghanistan’s only girls’ school. “People here hold their breath at our daring,” she wrote. “Firstly–no veil. I hope you realize how deliciously revolutionary that is here. First time in History. Second–I go to movies!!! Thirdly–I go swimming!!!! And now–a bicycle. At each step they’ve said, ‘You can’t get away with it.’ Then after several months they adjust, so I guess they will again this time.” A reckless troublemaker is what some people called Phyllis Anwar. Her husband was unusual for an Afghan, but not unique. Well before he came to the United States as a student, Mohammad Haider Anwar’s view of the world had been greatly influenced by the works of Tom Paine, pamphleteer of the American Revolution and popularizer of Enlightenment ideals. That books like The Age of Reason were being passed from hand to hand in isolated valleys of the Hindu Kush seventy years ago belies the stereotype of defiant Afghan religiosity. Dr. Anwar’s unveiled wife Phyllis was able to defy the muhtassibs, or religious police, for two and a half years, shielded in part by her semi-foreign status. But a menacing interview with Afghanistan’s prime minister convinced my father that violating hijab–women’s “modesty”–and promoting modernizing reforms, as he had done as head of the Teachers’ Training College, were about to land the couple in jail–or worse. Instead of caving in to the monarchy and the mullahs, they fled. A few months before leaving the land of his birth, my father wrote to his in-laws, “America is becoming more popular every day in these parts of the world and everyone is hoping that the high ideals that are cherished and put [forth] forcefully in speech and print will be put in practice as soon as the [second world] war is over.” Such hopes were illusory, as America’s subsequent intervention in Afghanistan would show. In 1979 the United States started lavishing arms and money on Afghan mujahedin, or holy warriors, fighting a nationalist government that offered full citizenship to women. In the world’s first civil war over the issue of women’s rights, Washington bankrolled the forces of male supremacy. When the Soviets, acting in self-defense, intervened militarily to save the Afghan government, Washington transformed its aid pipeline into the largest CIA operation in history. The U.S.-armed “freedom fighters” burned schools, flayed teachers alive, massacred ethnic minorities, and bombed Kabul to rubble. The fall of Kabul to the mujahedin in 1992 brought an orgy of violence–abductions, forced prostitution, gang rapes and mass killings–against women and girls. So horrific were the crimes of the mujahedin that many Afghans welcomed the Taliban into power four years later only to see conditions worsen, especially for women. Washington had little to say about Taliban atrocities until former mujahedin like Osama bin Laden started using Afghanistan as a staging ground for attacks on American targets. America’s response to the World Trade Center atrocity of September 11, 2001 was to shower 1.2 million tons of bombs on Afghanistan and turn the devastated remains over to the mujahedin. With consummate cynicism, the White House termed this outcome a victory for women. Three years later, Afghan women still live and die in a place called hell. Goons dispatched by the government’s Department of Islamic Teaching patrol the streets harassing women for “un-Islamic behavior.” Mujahedin militias control most areas of the country, including swaths of Kabul, and attack women with impunity. As one aid worker said, “During the Taliban era, if a woman went to market and showed in inch of flesh she would have been flogged. Now she’s raped.” (EurasiaNet, 8 March 2004). Women who report such assaults are jailed as adulteresses, along with women who refuse arranged marriages or run away from abusive male relatives. “It is because of these Mujahideen that many of our sisters drowned themselves in rivers and threw themselves from rooftops,” a man from Kunduz told representatives of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission last year. “Now the same Mujahideen are in top government positions.” Mohammad and Phyllis Anwar didn’t live to see what ideals the United States would put in practice when it militarily occupied Afghanistan, but they surely would have considered a theocracy where women are treated as chattel as the very antithesis of Tom Paine’s humanism. Charles Fourier, another thinker of the late Enlightenment, once wrote that “Social progress [is] brought about by virtue of the progress of women towards liberty, and social retrogression occurs as a result of a diminution in the liberty of women.” Social retrogression, thanks to Uncle Sam, is Afghanistan’s endowment this International Women’s Day. (Keith Anwar has edited and written an Afterward for the second edition of Memories of Afghanistan, by M.H. Anwar [AuthorHouse, 2004]. Please click here to view excerpts of the book ) Asian-Americans And Careers in Federal Government I saw a statistical racial breakdown of VA employees nationwide and was not surprised to see that Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders comprised the second to lowest group next to Native Americans (4.2% to be exact out of a 30% minority makeup). Frankly, being a former VA employee, I can attest that at the Los Angeles benefits office where I worked, I noted less than 10 Asian employees in an office of approximately 300 people for the over 5 years that I served there. I felt alienated at times, both by non-Asian employees and management, because people of my race were not strongly represented, and I think I was often targeted or used as a scapegoat for being an Asian female as well as a young minority with a college degree, which many employees there were not. While I can't say that the Los Angeles federal office is representative of the VA as a whole, I think there is a serious problem with hiring and recruitment at the VA in general with respect to Asian-Americans. To be honest, I think the VA is reluctant to hire Asian-Americans. I feel that people of my race are often treated like foreigners, in my opinion, like non-Americans, at the VA. The director of the office even felt it was perfectly ok to have a young Vietnamese girl on an ID card in his publicly displayed museum labeled as a "prostitute," even though there was no factual information on the card to identify her as such. Perhaps this mentality has something to do with the fact that a majority of American military involvement has historically been in Asian countries and there is a lot of resentment towards people who trace their heritage back to these countries. Also, I feel that this mindset has alot to do with ignorance and stereotypes about Asian women on the part of male Caucasian managers and directors at the VA. For those Asian-Americans who are seeking a career in federal government, and
particularly the VA, I would advise you to be sure you are comfortable in the
agency you are hired by before you decide to accept an offer of employment. I
worked at the VA for the past 5 years to support myself and my family, not
necessarily because I liked the environment. I was forced out because I was a
whistleblower who reported my superiors for the wrongdoing and injustice that I
personally experienced and witnessed. The museum incident was the first incident
I had reported, but there were many incidents as well where managers fabricated
information to make me look like a bad employee and then used these fabrications
as justification for suspending me without pay for weeks and weeks on end. The
union at my office was weak and powerless to defend me against any actions that
the managers took. The last 2 years at the VA from 2002 to 2003 were complete
hell for me and really took a toll on my health. Ironically, the managers
decided to concentrate their efforts on expelling me when there were many
employees of other races who, for many years, were not pulling their weight or
doing their jobs correctly. I would encourage federal agencies, such as the VA,
to open their eyes, stop being ignorant and intolerant, and give
Asian-Americans, like any other race of people, a fair chance and opportunity to
serve their country. Correcting Mistakes about 'ASIA' in US Government & Media The US government as well as the media groups frequently wrongly report and describe "Middle East" (West Asia / South-West Asia) as a separate region from Asia, e.g., writing /saying stuff like “…from Middle East to Asia…” (which in fact they truly mean ‘from Middle East to East Asia’). This is as senseless and idiotic as saying ‘..from Mid-west to United States’. I am not against the use of "Middle East" but US government must realize that "Middle East" is really West Asia, (just like ‘Far East’ is ‘East Asia’) and must not wrongly described or imply it as a separate region outside Asia. This is one perfect example of US government’s mistake. During the recent US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA), both US State & Commerce Departments wrongly described US-Singapore FTA as ‘First between US and an Asian country’ but they totally ignore the fact that US’s first FTA with an Asian nation is in fact with Jordan in West Asia (Middle East). The US-Singapore FTA should only be correctly described as First FTA between US with an ‘East Asian’ or ‘Asia-Pacific’ nation. In another wrong use of ‘Asia’, US media often wrongly add ‘Oceania’ nations (from the Pacific) into 'Asia’ (i.e. confusing ‘Asia-Pacific’ with ‘Asia’), e.g. frequently wrongly describing/classify Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, etc. as ‘Asia’ / ‘Asian’ when these should be correctly described as ‘Oceania’, ‘Pacific’ or ‘Asia-Pacific’, but never as ‘Asia’ / ‘Asian’. ‘Asia-Pacific’ is an imprecise term which refers to nations from BOTH ‘Asia’ AND ‘Oceania’ (‘OCEANIA’ means Continent Australia together with islands in the Pacific). This alone is sufficient reason why ‘Asia-Pacific’ is NOT ‘Asia’. Besides that, most people generally use ‘Asia-Pacific’ to refer to East Asia, South-east Asia, South Asia PLUS Oceania (Central Asia are sometimes excluded). However, ‘Asia-Pacific’ usually does NOT include West Asia (Middle East)and North Asia (Russia’s Asia). This is another reason why ‘ASIA’ must never be used interchangeably and wrongly with ‘Asia-Pacific’. US media also love to use ‘ASIA’ loosely to refer only to East Asia/South-East Asia, while totally forgetting that ‘ASIA’ refers to much more than just these two regions of Asia. For example, when capturing Hambali, South-East Asia top terrorist, US media hailed it as capture of ‘ASIA’s OSAMA’, totally ignoring the fact that Hambali is only operating in SE Asia and Asia is much more than SE Asia. The US government/media have also never realized that as a Saudi national, Osama Bin Laden is in fact ASIAN too!
United States Government & Media – Getting ‘ASIA’ Wrong: The abovementioned mistakes are likely due to US government’s methods of classifying world regions. Such US style ‘regions’ are named and defined differently from standard continental regions (e.g. Africa, Europe, Australia/Oceania) in that countries from the same continent may be divided up and placed under separate (US styled) ‘regions’ while a (US styled) ‘region’ can comprise of countries from different continents. The names and boundaries of these ‘regions’ are also NOT standardized across different US departments. Office of US Trade Representative splits up ‘ASIA’ into three regions of ‘Asia & the Pacific’, ‘Europe & the Mediterranean’ and ‘China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mongolia’. The US State Department splits Asian nations to be placed under four regions of ‘East Asian & Pacific’, ‘South Asian’, ‘Near Eastern’ and ‘Europe & Eurasian’. There is nothing wrong with those US ‘regions’ per se. However, with some Asian regions/countries are classified under US ‘regions’ with names that don’t sounds ‘Asian’ at all, the unintentional outcome is that with US’s global influence in international politics/economic affairs, those Asian regions are less frequently being described as ‘Asian’ / ‘Asia’. For example, West Asia/Middle East that is placed under ‘Near Eastern’ by the US State Department, and placed under ‘Europe & the Mediterranean’ by the Office of USTR; and North Asia (Russian Asian) & Central Asia are grouped under ‘European and Eurasian’ by the US State Department. The US coined words ‘Middle East’ is increasingly being used internationally. With less ‘Asia’/‘Asian’ in names of those US ‘regions’ and in words used by American government and hence US media, even the US government departments/officials began to consider Middle East (and other Asian regions) as separate / different from their concept of ‘Asia’ (i.e. only Eastern/Southern Asia). This is the most likely reason why most US official documents have wrongly describe US-Singapore FTA as US’s ‘first with an Asian nation’. With use of ‘East Asia & Pacific’ and ‘Asia & the Pacific’, the US government and media also wrongly and conveniently consider Oceania/Pacific nations as ‘Asia’ without bothering to check the facts. I am not against using ‘Middle East’,
‘Asia-Pacific’ or ‘Near Eastern’ but US government officials must
keep in mind that while ‘US regions’ are a little different from Continents, they must still know how to name and describe
nations and regions properly when using names of standard continental regions.
For example, it is alright to say from ‘Middle East to East Asia’ (no different to saying
‘from Midwest to New England’) but it is wrong and ridiculous to say ‘from Middle East to ASIA’ (equivalent to saying
‘from California to the United States’). I am not a Muslim, but respect people of peace. I hope this may
help undo even just a little of the damage being done in the aftermath of the
unspeakable terrorist strikes in the United States.
I just wanted to applaud your site for recognizing countries in Asia other than those where Chinese people live. Most AA site only consider Asians to be those who look Chinese. Basically making the term elite, exclusive and bordering on ridiculous. Comments by Asian American Net: Dear Audrey Poon: |
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