I’m a little late to the party but…

…with our new President Barack Obama becoming recently inaugurated, I just wanted to share more stories from my last trip to Japan.

My shiny new passport in hand, wherever I went, I proudly announced to friends and family that as of last summer, I am now an American citizen. And, invariably, one of the first things everyone said was:

“You got to vote for Obama?!”

It seems Obama Mania had caught hold in Japan as well. My new American citizenship might have further legitimized the Cool Relative From America status I frequently enjoy (and yes, I’m a fittingly arrogant American), but people seemed really, really excited that I was able to vote for Obama. Of course I was excited too, and I am excited that this is my first real President, but not being much in touch with the pulse of Japan these days, I was a bit surprised at the extent of the hoopla around him.

I’d heard about the city of Obama, Japan being into Barack Obama, but it seemed to be common knowledge in Japan that they sell Obama manjuu there. I love the pun on the bottom of that packaging, too — they combined “Obama” and “manjuu” to create…”おばまん” or “Obaman.” Haha! My dad and I wanted some of these novelty items, but apparently they only sell them in Obama.

One day in Japan, I was watching TV and I even heard about this book of Obama’s speeches printed in English as well as Japanese, with a CD included so readers can follow along. I just did a quick Google search and it looks like NPR has recently picked up on this. It’s a pretty cool idea.

On another side of things, maybe I just forget how much the U.S. is scrutinized by other countries. I talked a bit with some of my dad’s cousins, and one of them asked me if I ever engaged in protests in college (I’ve never been to a protest of any kind), and commented that student protests don’t seem to occur much anymore. Curious, I asked what she was protesting, and she answered, “the Vietnam War.” This prompted me to ask a rather dumb question: “With America?” I guess it never occurred to me that there were young people overseas protesting the Vietnam War. She laughingly exchanged stories with her sister about their eyes burning from tear gas and how nobody was probably paying attention, all the way in Japan. It was an enlightening conversation for me.

San Francisco Trip, Part I – Elections Madness

I just got back from a 4-day trip visiting a friend in San Francisco. Lots happened in those 4 days, but as it’s Election Day as I’m writing this, I’ll start with an Elections-theme.

Prop 8 is huge in California. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit I’d somehow completely missed it living up in Oregon, but apparently it’s been in the national spotlight. In case you’ve been living in the same cave I’ve been in, Prop 8 seeks to change the California Constitution to ban gay marriage.

As you might imagine, being in San Francisco days before the Elections was…interesting. There were anti-Prop 8 people on every corner holding signs and giving out stickers and buttons — even in driving rain.

And as it happened, I was in The Castro on Halloween night. Unfortunately, most of my pictures didn’t come out well because the flash on my camera doesn’t work, but this one came out decently due to the good lighting:

The friend I was visiting? Walking around sporting an Obama button and a “No on Prop 8″ button:

What the hell happened to this guy who voted for Bush in 2004 and used to casually drop homophobic comments?

It’s never too late to turn to the light side!

(…and I mean that all as a compliment, John. Thanks for letting me stay at your place!)

The Asian-American vote

It’s elections season!  This is going to be the rare post about politics, since I don’t want this to be that kind of blog.

Good ol’ Slate recently had an article about why we never hear about the Asian-American vote. Nothing I haven’t already considered before, but it does bring up some interesting points.

Aside from the obvious (few in total numbers, and even fewer eligible to vote), there’s the issue of heterogeneity. Unlike Latinos, we don’t even have a unified language, and Asians here tend to not go far back enough living in this country to have developed any party loyalties.

But…personally, I don’t see why this is all such a bad thing. I don’t feel the need for Asian-Americans to be “recognized” by the pollsters and campaigners and fellow citizens when it comes to elections. I do believe that the concept of “Asian-American” can be useful (that’s a whole future post, I think), but I don’t need to be lumped together into a bloc of voters.

I registered to vote as an Independent because I think the whole idea of a party system is destructive. It undermines individual thought (ironic in the USA, isn’t it?) by putting people in categories, so all people in said category can vote in the same predictable way.

So similarly, I don’t think there needs to be an “Asian-American vote.” Of course I think every Asian-American U.S. citizen should vote, but they can make their own decisions on how. I find this whole 80-20 Initiative — trying to get 80% of Asians to vote for one side or another — is bordering on offensive. If 80% of Asians really do feel one way or the other, fine, we should all vote that way. But artificially constructing a voting bloc just for the sake of creating a voting bloc? That’s completely ridiculous.

More Asian-Americans in politics would be nice, but I want that to be because they’re qualified people that their constituents voted for, not because a bunch of Asian-Americans wanted an Asian-American politician in office. (Sort of like the whole Hilary Clinton and feminists thing…) I’d like to point out that here in whitey-white Portland, Oregon, we have David Wu, the first Chinese-American member of the U.S. House of Representatives, now seeking his sixth term.

When I vote in November, it’ll be as my own, intelligent, whole self — which obviously includes being Asian-American but it’s far from the whole story.