Poet

Next to check off the list is the Poets. I chose Janet S. Wong as my poet. To tell the truth I just ask my mother if she had any books by Asian American poets, and she gave me "Good Luck Gold and other Poems", by Janet Wong. She tells me that this was one of her favorites and i went okay. And her work is interesting. Even if most of the poems are for young adults, i felt that her work is very important to all. And I’m glad that it is aimed for the younger generations. Because they need to know the things she talks about. Her poems tell of stereotypes, our struggles, and culture, that is important knowledge for, young Asians to know. It can teach them how to deal with their own struggles and also teaches culture.

Here is a quick bio on her:

Janet was born in L.A., the child of a Chinese immigrant father and a Korean immigrant mother. As part of her undergraduate program at UCLA, she spent her junior year in France, studying art history at the Université de Bordeaux. When she returned from France, Janet founded the UCLA Immigrant Children's Art Project, a program focused on teaching refugee children to express themselves through art. After graduating from UCLA, summa cum laude, with a B.A. in History and College Honors, Janet then obtained her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was a director of the Yale Law and Technology Association and worked for New Haven Legal Aid. After a few years she took a major career change and started to devote to writing to young people. Janet and her books have received numerous awards and honors, such as the International Reading Association's "Celebrate Literacy Award" for exemplary service in the promotion of literacy, and the prestigious Stone Center Recognition of Merit, given by the Claremont Graduate School. Janet also has been appointed to two terms on the Commission on Literature of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Next post will have some of her poems and small explanations.

Midterm Reflection

OK, so Ryan here. Need to catch up on the blog like everyone else. So the first one to check off the list, is the midterm reflection. So the midterm was to do something in honor to the Third World Liberation Front Strike, by making up a skit, video, poetry, etc. This year marks the 40^th anniversary of this memorial event.

So the CPG and Team Kamikaze teamed up and made up a skit, that relates to the current events that ethic studies are going through, budget cuts and classes are being cut. The first skit idea we came up with was cool and seems like it will send the right messages, but when we attempted to perform it……it failed. Everyone was just messing around that no one can keep a straight face. We were at least able to gain some attention, but it just didn’t turn out right. Luckily, we were given a second chance to do things right. The next day we, and along the rest of the class performed our skit in front of Malcolm X plaza. This time it went a bit more smoothly and was able to entwine it with the other group’s skit. We changed the skit up completely, we basically have individuals in our group speak out their thoughts about the current budget cuts. We felt that this is a better way to honor the TWLS. Overall this was a entertaining, and very motivation experience. It allows me to understand more how people feel when they fight for what is right. It allows me to understand more why my mother and uncle did what they did when they had to fight for Asian rights. And they are still fighting, and after this midterm i felt that it is my turn to fight for our rights.

Asian American Poet: Nellie Wong

Nellie Wong is an Asian American poet and feminist activist. She was born on September 12, 1934 in Oakland, California and now currently resides in San Francisco. Her parents were Chinese immigrants who came to the U.S. in 1912. Wong worked for almost 50 years before retiring as an analyst in affirmative action at UCSF in 1998. She also attended San Francisco State University in her mid-30's where she began to write her poetry. She was involved with several organizations and later found herself in an AA feminist literary and performance group called Unbound Feet who visited different college campuses. Wong writes about her work life, her family history, and the Asian American identity.
I chose Nellie Wong because she is native to the Bay Area and focuses on feminism and the Asian American identity in her writing. She struggled growing up as an AA during WWII and have experienced situations that have greatly impacted her life. Wong has been recognized by various associations and has also been featured in a few documentaries. Some notable collections of her poetry are entitled: Dreams in Harrison Railroad Park, The Death of Long Steam Lady, and Stolen Moments.
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Mama, Come Back
by: Nellie Wong

Mama, come back.
Why did you leave
now that I am learning you?
The landlady next door
how she apologizes
for my rough brown skin
to her tenant from Hong Kong
as if I were her daughter,
as if she were you.

How do I say I miss you
your scolding
your presence
your roast loin of pork
more succulent, more tender
than any hotel chef's?

The fur coat you wanted
making you look like a polar bear
and the mink-trimmed coat
I once surprised you
on Christmas morning.

Mama, how you said "importment"
for important,
your gold tooth flashing
an insecurity you dared not bare,
wanting recognition
simply as eating noodles
and riding in a motor car
to the supermarket
the movie theater
adorned in your gold and jade
as if all your jewelry
confirmed your identity
a Chinese woman in America.

How you said "you better"
always your last words
glazed through your dark eyes
following me fast as you could
one November evening in New York City
how I thought "Hello, Dolly!"
showed you an America
you never saw.

How your fear of being alone
kept me dutiful in body
resentful in mind.
How my fear of being single
kept me
from moving out.

How I begged your forgiveness
after that one big fight
how I wasn't wrong
but needed you to love me
as warmly as you hugged strangers.


- Angelie Angeles.

Restaurant Review: Ihaw-Ihaw

Ihaw-Ihaw is a Filipino restaurant located on San Mateo Ave in San Bruno, CA. They were formerly located on El Camino Real in South San Francisco near Kaiser Permanente hospital until it was burned down, unfortunately. I'm not quite sure of how or why it happened but they were able to reopen in their current San Bruno location. At Ihaw-Ihaw, you can find many of your favorite Filipino dishes including: Kare-Kare, Sinigang, Sisig, Pancit, Lumpia, Lechon Kawali, and Crispy Pata. They have a variety of a la carte dishes with either beef, pork, chicken, seafood or vegetables. They also offer appetizers, soups and noodle dishes, all with reasonable prices ranging from $5.95-$13.95. For dessert, you can choose from different kinds including: Sago Gulaman- a dessert drink with gelatin and tapioca pearls topped with shaved ice- and Halo-Halo- a mixture of tropical fruits, shaved ice, milk, and a scoop of ice cream. Ihaw-Ihaw welcomes all kinds of people which is probably the reason why they are usually busy. On holidays and most weekends, they have a waiting list to be seated because many families and other people come to celebrate or to just have a good meal.
From personal experience, I must say their food is HELLA good. I've been there many times with my family and relatives and even had dinner there as a celebration for my high school graduation. The waiters are kind and usually provide good service. Depending on how busy it is, you can either get your food right away or may have to wait a while. But once you get your order, it's all worth the wait! The restaurant isn't fancy but is still nice. And only seats around 50? or so people at a time. I'd recommend Ihaw-Ihaw to anyone who loves Filipino food because surely, their food is delicious! Or at least, I think so...

Ihaw-Ihaw
422 San Mateo Ave
San Bruno, CA 94096


- Angelie

POP!! by Leslie Lau

POP!
POP, which stands for Power of People, is an event where all 4 sections of ethnic studies 210 show off their presentation and theatrical skills to show the struggles of todays Asian American culture. I was part of Irene Duller’s class. The show was a blast especially when your on it. For my class we decided to split the class into 5 sections, dance, skit, video, music and poetry. I was in the skit crew. However, our skit crew was two big so we decided to split the skit crew into two. I stayed in my group, which is called the CPG’s (Chinese Pilipino Group). The other students were from the other group called the Just So Sick Girls. We only had about a week worth of time to prepare for our skit. Together we decided on doing a skit where we show how experience changed us through our required blogs. It was kind of hard because everybody had conflicting schedules so practice was not enough. Though it was hard, we actually got the work and layout done, all we have do now is rehearse. The only time we got to rehearse was the day of the POP!. During the rehearsal there were some kinks in our skit but we fixed it before the show. I sat through the first classes performance, thinking “ oh man they’re good”. Thinking on the back of my mind, how are we going to top that. Our class was the second to perform. The order for our performances was news video, skit #1, dance, skit #2, poetry, music, and compilation video. I did not get to see the video or the dance because my group was backstage getting ready for our performance. We quickly did a quick run through. Overall I think the performance was great. It was better than how we rehearsed it even though the lighting was kind of off for us. At the end of our skit, we had a compilation video of our class that the music group made. I think their was a big mix up because they shown the wrong video.
The overall experience was great. I like how everyone participated and no one showing like they don’t want to be there. I especially like how this is going to be the last time we are going to have 4 ethnic studies 210 classes working together. Although planning the skit was kind of hard, it was kind of fun being able to speak out in front of people and saying what you feel like. Even though I left early, I heard the other classes did an awesome job as well. This was a great way for students to come together to show what they learned during the class. I believe that someone learns more about a subject by doing what they feel like doing instead of forcing students to write essays and read books. You get to experience and be a part of this generational movement we have. This whole project taught us that if you have the mind and effort into something, you can achieve anything you want.

Random Blog on my fables class

Ay its Alvin. I did a project on Aladdin for my fables and tales literature class and it was so FUCKIN hard to analyze it. When you hear Aladdin, you probably will think about the cartoon where the prince picks up the princess and live happily ever after. but this is the ancient old version of it. Where Aladdin is more of a stalker rather a handsome prince. And rather than a heroic hero, he is a lazy bum to start with.

In the novel “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” one can compare the differences of the novel to the movie. There are so many differences between the novel and the movie like for example when in the novel he falls for the princess while spying on her and in the movie it’s a totally different thing because he meets the princess in the street and than he falls for her. So basically the novel and the movie are not similar to each other and their both a lot different.

The analytical part of this story is the concepts of "Id" and "SuperEgo", in the beginning of the story, Aladdin is a lazy bum who wastes his days spending time with his friends. And his mother is the one supporting the family as Aladdin is not doing anything. And this demonstrates the concept of "id" which means self, and the selfishness of Aladdin plays with it. Going to meeting the princess, the princess is wandering around a shop looking for random stuff, but behind the wall is Aladdin. He creeps up and spies on the princess. Aladdin then gets interaction with a magic lamp and a jinni inside. The superego concept is demonstrated when Aladdin asks for wealth to share with his town. And eventually, Aladdin brings the princess away to a far away kingdom to live happily ever after.

Midterm Reflection by Alvin Yu

Ay wassup...for our midterm we have decided that we, one at a time, rise upon the class crowd to speak our opinions on the budget cut crisis. 1968, San Francisco State University student and faculty called for a third world liberation front strike and caled for a ethnic studies department occur on our very campus, as a part of our AAS skit, we made this skit to remember their effort and no one shall strip this from us. In the past 40 years, we are gradually being stripped of our Ethnic studies by Budget cut crisis and such, which urges us students for this strike. I, myself, am a Asian American full tie student at SF state, and stripping our ethnic studies is demoting diversity at SF state, it lags my graduation, and puts my dreams on hold. We have Ethnic Studies, but is this enough? This was very motivating as Irene gathered us and ended this with a chant that goes, "The students united will never be defeated!!" This activity not only influenced me to participate in these budget cut actions, but it introduced me to a whole new level of education. Irene brought our class to a united stage and i do not regret any minute of this activity.