| Music: | Film: | Dance: | YouTube: | Sports: | Causes: | Movies: |
| Rap: | FreddieW | Dance Crews: | HappySlip | Jeremy Lin | Hep B Free | The People I've Slept With |
| Dumbfoundead | Wong Fu Productions | Jabbawockeez | NigaHiga | Bone Marrow Drive | Better Luck Tomorrow | |
| Traphik | JustkiddingFilms | Quest Crew | Tim De la Ghetto | Harold and Kumar Series | ||
| J Reyes | Instant Noodles | Fung Brothers | White Frog | |||
| Lil Crazed | Kaba Modern | KevJumba | ||||
| Gowe | ||||||
| Magnetic North | Dance: | |||||
| J Reyez | Kanauru | |||||
| D Pryde | LXD | |||||
| Alternative: | ||||||
| AJ Rafael | ||||||
| New Heights | ||||||
| Jennifer Chung | ||||||
| Kina Grannis | ||||||
| Joseph Vincent | ||||||
| Jason Chen | ||||||
| Clara C | ||||||
| David Choi | ||||||
| Tim Be Told | ||||||
| Alyssa Bernal | ||||||
| Paul Detah | ||||||
| Hip Hop: | ||||||
| JRA | ||||||
| Blue Scholars | ||||||
| Iammedic | ||||||
| Far East Movement |
Monday, March 12, 2012
Contemporary Asian America 101: An Introductory Class
If you were like me, when you started paying attention to Asian American issues, activities, entertainment and so on, you didn't really know where to start. Here is a crudely organized chart to get you going on things that are going on right now! Hope it helps.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Perspective: I Want to Be a Doctor
Perspective: I Want to
Be a Doctor
I am Chinese. My dad is a surgeon at
a prestigious university medical center, and yes – I want to be a
doctor.
Surprise Surprise! Another high school
Asian who has been brought up…trained…indoctrinated to follow in
the footsteps of his all mighty doctor-dad.
I will graduate near the very top of my
class having taken 11 AP classes, spent summers in labs and clinics,
not to mention hundreds of hours of community service. I will go on
to a top university and graduate with a major in Molecular Biology
and apply to only the top medical schools in the country.
Oh wait. No I won’t.
In fact, I didn’t do most of that and
I’m not in high school – I’m 24.
While I did take 11 AP classes in high
school, do lab/clinic work, and go to a highly selective university,
I didn’t major in Biology. Quite the opposite, I majored in English
Literature. Don’t get me wrong, I also took all the pre-med
requirements, but I graduated with a 2.7 science GPA as opposed to my
3.9 English GPA.
If you didn’t know, applying to
medical school with a 2.7 science GPA is about equivalent to sending
in an application with nothing on it except: “I watch House on TV
and its cool.”
Forget top schools, even the least
competitive schools laugh at applicants with 2.7’s.
I loved my work in clinics, and loved
the science; I just wasn’t that good at it. In college, I began
studying for tests weeks in advance, putting in (and I say this quite
literally) 30 hours of study time for a big test. I found myself
teaching my roommate concepts the few days before the test (when he
started studying) only to find my scores 15% lower than his. If I was
lucky, I got a C.
So after college, I went on to do a few
other things. I did some tutoring in high school and college so I got
a Master’s in Education from UC Davis and a California State
Teaching Credential. I taught high school for a year and loved it. I
was so young and short that on my first day, my students refused to
believe I could be their teacher. It was one of the best experiences
I’d had in my life.
But when funding got cut and schools
had to fire the younger (and often better) teachers to save the
tenured teachers, I decided I needed some job security. So I followed
another passion of mine, technology.
I started working in start-ups. For
those of you who haven’t worked or heard about working in a
start-up let me explain what it is. Start-ups are companies that
receive millions in funding on the hopes they will hit it big on the
next amazing technology and/or product. Facebook is a great example,
along with Yelp, Groupon, Google, even Ebay was once a start-up.
But before they became giants, they all
started out the same: some young, hopeful people with an idea and
buckets of money that some big wig investors have bestowed upon them.
Most often, a dozen engineers are hired, some sales and marketing
folks, and in a few years, the company goes under or does alright.
Once in a while, one hits it big like Facebook.
Now having experience working at a few
of these, I can personally say that it’s a blast. They put you in a
room with a bunch of other young people and provide you with a nice
chair, desk, computer, etc. and ask what amounts to very little of
you. You don’t make much, but it’s better than most other jobs
that you’d qualify for and because the environment is so great, you
do good work, and have fun doing it.
To me, the work I do each week at the
start-up is not even half as hard as a single day of studying for my
college science classes. Eventually (or so you hope), you work your
way up and after 15 years or so, you’re a VP of something and
you’re set.
But the thing about this kind of work
is that it’s not that fulfilling. Maybe it’s just me, but my work
teaching and even in clinics felt more valuable. In the end,
start-ups are about money. When you’re company makes it big,
everyone gets a huge check and promotions. I wanted more than that…
Which brings me back to today. I am
still working at a start-up but spend 6 hours a week taking private
MCAT tutoring lessons. (The MCAT is the equivalent of the SAT for
medical schools) I got lucky and found someone who charges only
$80/hr and I spend almost half my paycheck each month on the
lessons. In April or May, I’ll take the test and apply to
international medical schools. These are schools outside the US with
vastly lower standards that won’t use my 2.7 GPA application as
toilet or scratch paper. If I don’t get in, I’ll try again next
year, and again the year after that. And if I still get rejected, I
still have the start-ups. Wish me luck.
I’m Chinese. My dad is a surgeon at a
prestigious university and yes – I want to be a doctor.
There are those that fit the model
minority stereotype and those that don't. To each their own. My
advice, Do what feels right. If you want to follow your parents
suggestions, do it. Even if you don't love the path they want for
you, its probably a safe and secure route. They only want the best
for you. IF you want to take more time and do your own thing, that's
fine too. Just remember that the life of a starving artist isn't as
glamorous at it may seem. Whether I end up a doctor or a startup
employee or even a teacher, I'll know that it was worth the
experience and hopefully I will be where I belong.
With a perspective, I'm GSo
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Asian Americans and Civic Engagement
There are currently 17.3 million APIs living in the United
States; 5.6 million of that total number are living in California.[1] APIs are one of the largest growing
ethnic groups in the US; according to the 2010 Census, the Asian population in
the United States has grown by nearly 50 percent over the past 10 years.
Although Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in the US, states such as
Texas, New Jersey, and Missouri show higher API growth. Additionally, it is
estimated that the API community will grow 150 percent by the year 2050. However, even with all of these
optimistic numbers, it won’t mean a damn thing if there isn’t a comparable
number of API elected officials to represent them.
According to UCLA's Asian American Studies
Center, there are more Asian Pacific Americans currently holding
public office in the United States than at any other time in U.S. history. From the current roster of API
electeds, we have two state governors, three U.S. senators, 10 members of the
U.S. House of Representatives, two Obama administration cabinet members, two
California statewide elected officials, four members of the California State
Supreme Court (including the chief justice) and three of the five members of
the California State Board of Equalization. It also includes the majority of
Hawaii's Legislature, three California state senators, eight California
Assembly members and 44 mayors of cities, including San Francisco, Oakland and
Irvine.[2] However, when you compare the
proportion of congressional members to population size between APIs and
Caucasians, the disparity becomes much more apparent. The API vote is simply not being effectively leveraged. More APIs need to run for office, and
more APIs need to vote for them.
2012 will be a significant election because of the
presidential race, as well as the large number of congressional seats that will
be in play. Up to 4 million APIs
are expected to vote this year, making this the most-voted election by the APIs
ever. An additional 600,000 votes will be cast by APIs, a dramatic improvement
from the 2008 presidential election.
Although APIs have made great strides in local
representation, it needs to expand at a federal level. Policy that can address the needs of
the larger API community can only be implemented through congressional
authority, which we are sorely lacking in. It doesn’t help that we recently lost a congressional seat
in Oregon due to a high-profile scandal. API candidates need to support each
other and not fight over the same seats and funders. API voters need to be apprised of the issues and the
candidates and must vote based on informed opinions. With an 85 percent high school graduation rate and a 50
percent college graduation rate, the only thing holding API voters back is
their lack of interest or commitment to political public discourse. The pressure is now on to maintain this
trend of ever-increasing API representation, which can only be accomplished
through regular participation by API voters.
We cannot become complacent within the electorate, even if
we are being accepted with open arms into the middle class. When you have an economy coming out of
a recession, simply having corporations declaring record profits doesn’t mean a
thing if a growth in job numbers fails to follow. This just means that the rich are getting richer. This same disparity can and will happen
within the API population if we do not change our voting habits. As the API population grows, we must
vote in our best interest and encourage ambitious and progressive APIs to run
for office, or else our voices will go unheard. Non-API officials consolidate their power over us when we refuse
to show up to the polls. If our
numbers increase and our level of representation doesn’t keep pace, then we
will continue to be ignored by the old guard and never get our seat at the
table. One vote cast in support of
an API issue can do so much more for our community than we give it credit
for. June is just around the
corner and November isn’t far out either.
Remember to vote early and regularly. Get Involved!
First, register to vote and vote! It is the first and most important step to get our voices heard.
Second, get involved with some local activist groups or political groups. See what your own representatives are doing. Do they represent Asian American community needs? If you are even more motivated:
Here are a few cool groups to look into:
AACI, Asian Americans for Community Involvement
SBFT, South Bay First Thursdays
VNA, Vision New America
ALC, Asian Law Caucus
OCA, Organization of Chinese Americans
CAPAL, Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership
These are just a few resources. I encourage you to find your own interests and get involved!
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