The
Asian American
University of Connecticut
Newsletter of the Asian American Studies Institute
No. 9, Fall 2003
(Re) Presenting Filipino Americans
A National Conference
Exploring Filipino culture, histories and politics through
panels, performances, round table discussions, visual
works, literary readings and a poetry slam, some 150
academics, students, activists and community members
gathered in Storrs, September 20-22, 2002.
America is in the Heart, by Carlos Bulosan, University
of Washington Press, art by Francis O’Brien Garfield
In This Issue
Director’s Desk ......................................2
Human Rights ........................................3
Conference Highlights .........................4-5
Asian American Heritage .......................6
Political Participation .............................7
Day of Remembrance ..........................8-9
Philippine-American War .....................10
Nonviolence: Principle & Practice .........11
Fred Ho Fellowship ..............................12
Fred Ho Prize .......................................13
Course Offerings ..................................14
In Gratitude ........................................15
Coordinated by UConn’s Asian American Cultural Center and
Asian American Studies Institute, the conference came about
primarily as the result of a partnership with key members in
the Filipino American community of Northeastern Connecticut
who were motivated by their frustration over the relative
invisibility of Filipinos in the American imagination. Some
also expressed frustration with references to Filipino
Americans as the silent majority among Asian Americans.
Over the year and a half of planning, committee members
pressed for the need to raise collective pride and political
consciousness by showcasing Filipino American scholarship
and talent, and to critically address the opportunities for
moving the community forward.
The first Filipinos in America are said to have arrived in 1765,
settling in the bayous of Louisiana. From 1906 to 1934, tens
of thousands of single and male Filipinos were recruited for
agricultural work in Hawaii and California. Following the end
of World War II, a smaller wave of immigration resulted from
allowing Filipinos who had served in the U.S. military access
to citizenship, and many of them brought back war brides
from the Philippines. The Filipino American population
quadrupled between 1965 and 1980.
Today, Filipino Americans number 2 million, according to the
2000 Census. The largest communities reside in California,
Hawaii, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Virginia,
Texas, Florida and Maryland. The Census figures also reveal
that Filipino Americans are mostly Philippine-born immigrants
who entered the U.S. after the relaxation of restrictions in the
1960s. The Filipino American population is expected to grow
to about 4 million by the year 2030.
continued on page 15
2.............................................................................................................................................................................................................The Asian American
Director’s Desk
10 Years of Excellence
Time does
indeed seem
to fly. The
Asian American
Studies Institute
is ten years old
this summer.
Roger N. Buckley
These past ten
years have witnessed many accomplishments despite budget cutbacks.
For example, we have a core faculty,
all in tenure track positions. Our curricular offerings span and connect
several schools with a concentration
in the College of Arts and Sciences.
We now have an approved Minor in
Asian American Studies. In addition
to a biennial student prize, the Fred
Ho Collection now supports an
annual faculty Fellowship. We are
also formally affiliated with the Tagore
University in West Bengal, India,
and I am happy to report that Dr.
Jaylaseela Stephen, Chair of the
History Department at Tagore
University, will visit Storrs in
October to inaugurate the faculty
exchange program.
I must not forget to mention the
critical and generous support we
received from the Asian American
community in our area and across
the country.
Then there is our continuing work
with the Asian American Cultural
Center, which is also ten years old
this year. The benchmark of this
close cooperation was undoubtedly
the successful September 2002
Filipino American Conference. This
meeting involved the faculty and staff
of the Institute and Center, students,
and our dear friends in the Filipino
American community.
Together we have built the Asian
American movement into an integral
part of the University community,
one that we are rightly proud of.
These activities, and many more,
will be the subject of a commemorative booklet, which will be published
by University Communications, as
part of our ten-year celebration.
Our impressive and solid achievements will also be celebrated in a
series of events planned for the
coming academic year. They include
a Korean American Symposium on
27 September and a major address
by Professor Ron Takaki on 22
October. I invite you to attend as
many of these activities as you can.
The Institute is firmly rooted in its
faculty and this year the faculty has
been extraordinarily productive,
particularly in terms of fully completed and published book manuscripts and major grant awards.
In June 2003 Dr. Margo Machida
was the recipient of a major award
by The Rockefeller Foundation for a
symposium on contemporary Asian
American visual art, to be held in
New York City in 2004. She also
co-edited Fresh Talk / Daring
Gazes: Conversations on Asian
American Art, which will be published this fall with the University
of California Press. A second work,
The Poetics of Positionality: Art,
Identities, and Communities of
Imagination in Asian America will
be published with Duke
University Press.
Dr. Usha Palaniswamy published
Medicinal Plants of Asian Origin and
Culture with CPL Press, UK.
Statistics for Teaching and
Research, which she co-authored,
is currently under review. Dr.
Palaniswamy also received a grant
from the Multi-cultural Leadership
Institute to study substance abuse
prevention in minority communities.
Dr. Bandana Purkayastha's
Negotiating Ethnicity: South Asian
Youth and Transnational Processes
is under review. And her Power of
Women's Informal Networks:
Lessons in Social Change for South
Asia and West Africa, co-authored
with Dr. Mangala Subramaniam, will
be published with Lexington Press.
Finally, I found the time to complete
the second and third works of a
trilogy that explores the question of
race and national identity through
the medium of serious historical
fiction. I, Hanuman was published
by Writers Workshop in Calcutta,
West Bengal, and Sepoy O'Connor
is being considered for publication.
A final kudos – congratulations to
Drs. Patrick Hogan of the English
Department, University of
Connecticut, and Lalita Pandit,
University of Wisconsin, for their
hard work over the years in getting
select papers from our 1998 Tagore
Conference into press as
Rabindranath Tagore: Universality
and Tradition with Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press, 2003.
Thank you all for your generous
support over the years. We
welcome you to be a part of
our future success.
Fall 2003................................................................................................................................................................................................................................3
Human Rights
Trafficking in Women & Girls
Considered a contemporary manifestation of slavery and a grave violation
of human rights, trafficking in human
beings for prostitution and forced
labor is the third largest source of
profits for organized crime, behind
only drugs and guns, generating billions of dollars every year. Although
men are also victimized, the overwhelming majority of those trafficked
are women and children, between 1
and 2 million each year worldwide. An
estimated 50,000 people are trafficked
each year to the United States.
Ninotchka Rosca addressed trafficking in women and girls on November
13, 2002 in the Culpeper Theater 2 of
the Homer Babbidge Library, as the
Asian American Studies
Institute’s Fall Guest
Lecture Series Speaker.
Co-sponsored by the
Women’s Center, Asian
American Cultural
Center, Women’s Studies
and the School of Family
Studies, Rosca’s visit to
UConn was also made
possible by a grant from
the Human Rights Year
Faculty Committee.
Targeting the global sex trade in
women and girls and the mail order
bride industry as the most exploitative
forms of human trafficking, Rosca
emphasized the critical link between
the erosion of women’s rights and
globalization, and the role of
International Monetary Fund and
World Bank policies, which entrench
and intensify artificial poverty in
Third World countries such as
the Philippines.
“In a world dominated by some
40,000 transnational corporations
owning 250,000 foreign affiliates
employing some 36 million people,
and where the top 10 transnational
corporations now account for 28%
Ninotchka Rosca
“When survival becomes critical,
women accept even the most
heinous proposition to ensure their
family’s well being. The selling of
women's bodies is the nexus of
class, gender and race oppression.”
Ninotchka Rosca is the international
spokesperson for GABRIELA’s Purple
Rose Campaign, which has grown to
include chapters in Australia, Hong
Kong, South Korea, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Norway
and Canada. Rosca founded
GABRIELA Network, a U.S. based
women’s solidarity organization working with GABRIELA Philippines to fight
against the trafficking of women and
children. A recipient of the 1993
American Book Award for excellence
in literature for Twice Blessed, Rosca
is also the author of Bitter Country,
Monsoon Country, State of War, and
The Fall of Marcos. A political prisoner
under the Marcos regime, Rosca is a
member of the Survivors Committee,
a network of former political prisoners
and human rights activists.
of global economic activity, with
revenues equal to the combined
economies of 180 countries, the
exploitation of women, especially poor
women of color, as labor, as commodity and as market is nearly absolute
and intractable. Women are impacted
most grievously by ‘structural adjustment programs’ – compromising their
food self-sufficiency.
Globalization establishes for the sex
trade a daisy chain of economic
operations, reaping lucrative profits
at every step of the process. At one
end, it ensures an endless supply of
poor women with no alternative
except to sell their bodies; in the
middle, it creates the sex market
through tourism spots; and at the
other end, it constructs the elaborate
pimping system which pumps up
demand for commercial sex.
The Mail Order Bride
system is a special case
of trafficking which overlaps
sex tourism. Women – 16
years old and above – are
recruited by word of mouth
for listing in catalogs and
web sites. The average age
for the woman is 22 years
old, while male clients
average 45 years old.
Although agencies offer
women from Latin America, the former
Soviet Union and other Asian countries, the majority of women in the catalogs remain Filipinas. To hide their
true nature as modern day slavers,
Mail Order Bride agencies call themselves international matchmaking
services and other such euphemisms.
MOB agencies are legal businesses
with few regulatory measures, and
scores of women who are battered,
abused and murdered by the agencies’ clientele have little recourse.
In the United States, 5000 mail order
brides arrive annually. A partial list of
those murdered by their husbands
include Helen Mendoza Krug
(Hawaii), Erlinda Anderson (Florida),
Susanah Blackwell (Seattle, WA) and
Estelita Reeves (Austin, TX).”
4..............................................................................................................................................................................................................The Asian American
(Re) Presenting Filipino Americans
Featured Speakers
On September 20,
independent journalist
Emil Guillermo gave
the Welcome Address.
On September 21 political activist and
women’s advocate, Irene Natividad,
delivered the Keynote Address.
As a recognized leader in the
Asian American community, she
has focused her energies on
political empowerment.
“What we really need to
do is be a little more
amok! When emotions
have been held in check
to such a degree that
docility is no longer the
answer. Is this not the
state of contemporary
Filipino America ready
to break the silence?
Emil Guillermo and Irene Natividad
In 2002, the dominant
Filipino American experience is more akin to my father’s life than it is to my life. Is that progress? The
immigrant nature of the Filipino American experience also does its part to create an alienation between the two groups that remains a ‘dirty secret’ of our
community. The immigrant is too Filipino and the American-born is not Filipino
enough. We may as
well be strangers. What
we have is an American
community that
continues to recycle my
father’s life, a community alienated from the
mainstream, and
estranged from itself …
Noting that the majority of Filipino
Americans and Asian Americans do
not vote, she emphasized the need
for tangible involvement in the
democratic process and to band
together with other Filipino Americans
and other Asian Americans to effect
a meaningful outcome. She closed
with a strong message for young
Filipino Americans to think of politics
as a career, especially at a time
when mean spiritedness and conservative elements in policy making are
rolling back many civil
rights gains.
“To be truly American is to be engaged
… continue to fight invisibility and
backlash and stereotyping through
politics at all levels, as voters, as
office holders, as contributors
and as advocates.” Irene Natividad
So take the name
Filipino American, and flip it. It’s not Filipino American. It’s American Filipino.
More than just a name change, it’s an attitude – Amok!
When you say American Filipino it forces our community to stop looking to the
Philippines to define that sense of our selves. And it makes us look to our
selves and each other here. You don’t need citizenship or a green card to
change a perspective.
In fact, this simple change announces, whether you’re immigrant or 2nd generation, the soul can remain Filipino, but the emphasis proposed is American.”
Emil Guillermo received the Inclusiveness in Media Award from the National
Conference for Community and Justice. His satirical column in Filipinas magazine on the ethnic experience led to the publication of AMOK - Essays from an
Asian American Perspective (Monkey Tales Press, 1999), which won an
American Book Award. He has served as press secretary and speechwriter for
Norman Mineta. He was the first non-white host of “All Things Considered” on
NPR. His columns appear on Sfgate.com on the Internet, and in AsianWeek.
Irene Natividad was the
first Asian American to
lead the National
Women’s Political
Caucus – a bipartisan
group working to elect
and increase the
appointment of women
to public office. She is currently director of Global Summit of Women – an
international gathering of businesswomen and political leaders. As a
firm believer in coalition work, she
serves on several boards, from the
Center for Women Policy Studies to
the National Museum of Women in
the Arts. Born in the Philippines,
Natividad has been recognized as
one of America’s 100 Most Powerful
Women and one of the 25 Most
Influential Asian Americans.
Fall 2003................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5
(Re) Presenting Filipino
Americans
Conference Highlights
Prof. Lane Hirabayashi and Marilyn
Alquizola, both of Univ. of Colorado at
Boulder, trained their seasoned lenses
on the secret files kept by the FBI on
America is in the Heart author Carlos
Bulosan. Bookcover art is shown on
the front page.
Nikki Coseteng
Former Philippine Senator Nikki
Coseteng spoke at the Banquet
Dinner on September 21. Her talk
urged Filipino Americans to support
the traditional cultural arts and its
continued production in the Philippines by native artisans. She counseled against the erasure of a rich
and vibrant Filipino past and heritage.
Coseteng is a passionate supporter of
the arts, and has worked to draw
attention to the value of culture in
enhancing the participation of women
in national development. She was
elected twice to the Senate of the
Philippines and served from 1992 to
2001. She is well known for her vigilance against graft and corruption,
and for her advocacy of women’s
rights and environmental protection.
She published Sinaunang Habi –
Philippine Ancestral Weave
(Filipiniana Series 1, 2nd printing 2000)
and select textile details are featured
throughout this edition of The Asian
American newsletter.
A Feast of Miracles, Mysteries and
Inspirations from the Archipelago of 7,100
Isles. Photograph detail of a multi-media
installation by Genara Banzon of Boston,
MA; Susan De La Rosa of Amsterdam,
the Netherlands; and Ileana C. Lee of
Berkeley, CA was exhibited in conjunction
with the conference.
Hirabayashi and Alquizola analyzed documents detailing how the U.S. government in the 1950s tracked Bulosan's
activities, sometimes using fellow
Filipinos as informants, and negatively
influenced Bulosan's ability to secure
steady employment which kept him
impoverished and led to an early death.
“Even as his life was near its end and he
suffered blacklisting and subjected to
intense scrutiny, he never backed down
from his progressive stance,” said
Hirabayashi. Hirabayashi and Alquizola's
aim is to expose this injustice to one of
the bright lights among Filipinos in
America, and to redeem Bulosan's true
contributions as an unfailing voice for
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
the exploited and the oppressed,
a true artist of resistance. Their
findings will form the basis for an
upcoming book.
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard,
in reviewing the state of Filipino
American literature, noted that the
number of Filipino American
authors has markedly increased.
Yet she also noted that Filipino
Americans are not regarded as a
“reading” community and the result
is that fewer Filipino American
works are considered for publication. She encouraged the audience
to make an effort to be a buying
market that mainstream publishers
will have to reckon with, and to
support whenever possible,
Filipino American independent
publishing houses.
Manguerra Brainard is the awardwinning author and editor of nine
books, including When the
Rainbow Goddess Wept and
Magdalena. These books and the
most recently released Growing Up
Filipino - Stories for Young Adults,
are available through the Philippine
American Literary House.
6..............................................................................................................................................................................................................The Asian American
Asian American Heritage
example who were interned
during WWII … Now, the
parallels aren't exact, and it
would be wrong to overstate them. But there are
some parallels here … and
some of the lessons
learned from the internment
have moderated much of
the way we have
discussed these issues.
Frank H. Wu
The author of Yellow: Race in
America Beyond Black and White
(Basic Books, 2002) opened Asian
American Heritage Observance on
October 1, 2002 at the Thomas J.
Dodd Center, sponsored by the
Asian American Cultural Center
and the Asian American
Studies Institute.
And it's important especialFrank Wu joined the faculty of the
ly for Asian Americans
Howard University School of Law,
[whose] patriotism is often
in Washington, D.C. in 1995.
challenged or questioned.
Currently tenured as Associate
And not just patriotism, but
Professor and serving as Clinic
our very right to be in this
Director, he teaches traditional
country, or our very status
courses such as civil procedure
of citizenship … So I'm
Frank H. Wu with Asian American Cultural Center students
and supervised students working
particularly sensitive to this
on actual cases before the D.C.
and want to
Superior Court. He has written for
make it
The Washington Post, The L.A.
clear that it
Times, The Chicago Tribune, and
is patriotic
The Nation, and writes a regular
to stand up
column for AsianWeek. Wu is an
for civil
eloquent and outspoken
rights. That
supporter of immigration rights and
is to say,
affirmative action. He participated in
someone
a major debate against Dinesh
can be both
D'Souza on affirmative action that
in favor of
was televised on C-Span, and he was the host of the syndicated talk show
finding terrorists and bringing them to
Asian America on PBS. Professor Wu received his undergraduate degree in
justice and of doing so swiftly, even
writing from Johns Hopkins Univ. and his law degree from the Univ. of Michigan severely, and yet, also insist that as
at Ann Arbor.
we do that we must not confuse
“I would suggest humbly that diversity
is just like democracy, in this sense.
When you look at democracy,
you never ask the question,
when does it end – are we there yet?”
Prior to his lecture entitled “Asian Americans: Rights and Responsibilities
in a Diverse Democracy” he talked with AASI's Fe Delos Santos about the
state of American civic values and civil rights in a post 9/11 world.
“Some people said right after the tragic terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, that the world had changed profoundly.
Yet two aspects of our nation have not changed. First, we are now as we were
before 9/11 still diverse. And we are now as we were before 9/11 still a democracy. The question is how those work together – to be diverse, to be democratic
– and how they can be mutually reinforcing.
September 11th also made us realize that diversity is complicated. Diversity is
global. Suddenly, people recognized what many of us had been saying for
years. When we talk about race we have to talk in terms that are literally more
than black and white … [9/11] also made us realize that religious faith, that
diversity of faith is very much the fabric of our national life.
September 11th raises important issues of national security and civil rights,
which resonate with a lot of Asian Americans. With Japanese Americans for
terrorists with law-abiding
U.S. citizens.
I would suggest humbly that diversity
is just like democracy, in this sense.
When you look at democracy, you
never ask the question, when does
it end – are we there yet?
I would suggest the goal of democracy is to participate, and to increase
the number of people who can participate as equals. And that the goal of
diversity is the same. And it's a
never-ending process. We will always
have this challenge ahead of us. We
will make progress, but we can
always set the standard higher.”
Fall 2003................................................................................................................................................................................................................................7
Asian American Political Participation
Sheenu Srinivasan
“Asian Americans in public service is
less than satisfactory. Perhaps within
this context, we can appreciate the
candidacy of Dr. Sheenu Srinivasan,”
Asian American Studies Director and
Prof. of History, Roger N. Buckley
remarked on October 29, 2002.
Sponsored by UConn’s Asian
American Faculty and Staff
Association, Srinivasan talked about
his campaign for the CT State
Assembly, representing the 31st
District, citing his many years of
service to the Asian Indian community and on the Glastonbury Town
Council, as well as a 25-year career
in research and development with
United Technologies. He earned M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees from the Univ. of
Iowa. He was research professor for
the College of Engineering, 1992-95,
adjunct prof. for AASI, and the author
of Yaksha Prashna: A Hindu Primer,
based on his lectures on the
Mahabharata. When asked by
AAFSA President Jeet Joshi to
comment on running for office as
an Asian American, Srinivasan had
this to say,
“When I was elected for the first time,
I also went door to door and some
people were afraid that I could be
beaten up. There are fears, so
we have to overcome fear. This
is our home.
I’ve lived in Glastonbury for 32 years.
I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived
in India. The fact that I’m emotionally
connected to India is there, just the
way someone who is Irish American
who feels a similar connection
with Ireland.
The fact of the matter is that we have
an obligation to society. For 40 years,
this country has been great to me.
Last Chance for Eden
Lee Mun Wah
Talking about race relations in the
U.S. often yields a vexing blend of
silence, confusion, sadness, denial,
impatience and anger. In a recent
survey, 70% of European Americans
thought that race relations had
improved, while 68% of people of
color thought that it had gotten worse.
Many people want to talk meaningfully
about race but don't know how
to begin.
On October 17, 2002 the grassroots
filmmaker and community therapist
screened his latest documentary on
racism and sexism, Last Chance for
Eden, at the von der Mehden recital
hall. Last Chance for Eden is "about
all of us. It will bring you to tears, and
it will outrage you," according to Lee
Mun Wah. Sponsored by UConn's
Cultural Centers and Studies
Institutes, First Year Experience
Program, Office of Multicultural &
Lee Mun Wah
Sheenu Srinivasan
And if I can’t give something back to
this country, how can I feel peaceful
and contented? So, that’s the driver.”
“The real question about
diversity is not about
whether someone will be
hurt or upset, but rather if
they are willing to stay in
the room and resolve
their differences.”
International Affairs, Dean of Students
Office, Center for Academic Programs
and Office of Diversity and Equity,
Lee also facilitated an interactive
workshop on themes explored in the
film for the 400 or so in attendance.
In the course of the program, he
revealed that while teaching for the
San Francisco School District, his
mother was senselessly murdered,
and this singular event catalyzed his
work with films to improve multicultural understanding. Lee Mun Wah
is the producer and director of the
award-winning films Stolen Ground
(1993) and The Color of Fear (1994).
The latter film serves as the centerpiece of his diversity training program
for the Dept. of Defense and NASA.
“The real question about diversity is
not about whether someone will be
hurt or upset, but rather if they are
willing to stay in the room and resolve
their differences. For that is where the
real work of any healthy relationship
inevitably comes to if it is to grow
and to heal.”
8..............................................................................................................................................................................................................The Asian American
Day of Remembrance
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Executive Order 9066
On February 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order
9066, following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. In the name of national
security, he authorized the summary removal of all people of Japanese ancestry
from their West Coast homes. 70% of them were American-born U.S. citizens of
an average of 17-18 years of age. They were then confined under armed guard
in crudely built, barracks-style camps located in remote areas of the United
States. Day of Remembrance at UConn is an annual event to mark the internment as a notable moment in American History.
On February 19, 2003 Greg Robinson gave a public lecture at the Thomas J.
Dodd Center based on his book By Order of the President: FDR and the
Internment of Japanese Americans (Harvard Univ. Press, 2001). Robinson’s
visit was supported by the Asian American Studies Institute’s Japanese American
Internment Resource Library Fund, and co-sponsored by the Asian American
Cultural Center. His talk was attended by a wide cross-section of the UConn
community and the general public, including students from Windham High
School, Mansfield Middle School and
Hall Memorial School in Willington.
Greg Robinson is a native of New York
City. He is currently Asst. Professor of
History at the Universite du Quebec a
Montreal. He received his Ph.D. in
American History from NYU. His book
was voted “Recommended Book for
Understanding Civil Liberties” by the
American Assn. of Univ. Presses, after
spending 4 months on Academia
Magazine’s Univ. Press Bestseller List,
and it examines in detail how a great
humanitarian leader and his advisors,
who were fighting a war to preserve
democracy, could have implemented
such a profoundly unjust and undemocratic policy toward productive, long-time
residents and American citizens.
Robinson is also Assoc. Editor of the Encyclopedia of African American
Culture and History. His next project is a study of alliances between
Japanese Americans and Black Americans during the years after WWII. When
asked to elaborate on the genesis of his interest in this topic, Robinson replied,
“I’ve always been interested in the relationship between liberalism and race
relations. What interests me is to try to figure out where racial instincts, racial
feelings seep through the cracks and where they affect policy even with people
who are good liberal people, who are not fire-eating, breathing racists.
I first became interested in this issue because of FDR whom I had regarded as
a hero. And as I discovered more about what Roosevelt had written and thought
about the Japanese Americans, I became more and more angry, and more
and more curious.”
Greg Robinson at UConn
After Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans
signify their rightful place.
What Led FDR To Sign 9066?
In his talk, Robinson focused on
Roosevelt’s training, background
and personality in presenting his
case for the president’s central role
in the internment.
“It’s difficult for a historian to piece
together the reason for his conduct.
First, FDR approved the Army’s
order without giving an explicit
description of his reasons. Also,
FDR was an extraordinarily cautious
Fall 2003................................................................................................................................................................................................................................9
man, even an evasive man, who forbade the
making of records or transcripts of his conversations, and he never kept written notes. As a result,
any historian who wants to study Roosevelt is
forced to turn detective and to use indirect and
circumstantial evidence.
Roosevelt’s past feelings toward Japanese
Americans must be considered to have significantly shaped his decision to sign 9066. FDR had
a long history of viewing Japanese Americans in
racialized terms, and of expressing hostility toward
them on that basis… We have to ask whether his
views remained consistent in later years… Well,
we know that FDR never repudiated his [1920s]
remarks. In fact, he allowed “Shall We Trust
Japan?” to be reprinted in the 1930s.
Indeed throughout the period of FDR’s decision on 9066 he intensified
his interest in the question of a racially based character. For example,
during 1942, FDR became interested in
exploring the relationship between race and
policy. He opened an extended correspondence with Dr. Ales Hrdlicka [who] proposed
the reason that the Japanese were so
innately aggressive and warlike was that
their skulls were extremely underdeveloped
in comparison with the European or
American skull. FDR agreed… His attitude
toward the Japanese as a savage race was also reflected in his private
conversations, [according to] FDR’s assistant, William Haas.
American citizens or long time resident aliens were in reality innately
Japanese, even though such social
Darwinist ideas had begun to be
discredited, and that people with
Japanese ancestry were incapable
of becoming true Americans in
some unidentifiable but nonetheless
essential way.
In his 1920s articles after all, FDR
justified discriminatory legislation
toward Japanese Americans, a group
he gratuitously referred to as ‘unassimilable aliens.’ His willingness to
pander to popular prejudice against
Japanese Americans in a time of
peace logically anticipates his failure
to defend the constitutional citizenship
rights of a despised minority in the
In his 1920s articles after all, FDR
justified discriminatory legislation
toward Japanese Americans, a
group he gratuitously referred to
as ‘unassimilable aliens.’
These words and actions all point to Roosevelt’s continuing insistence
after Pearl Harbor that Japanese Americans whether they were
Japanese American soldiers in the U.S. Army in World War II
cover photo from Democracy & Race, by Ronald Takaki
face of popular wartime hysteria
through their incarceration.
In the end perhaps the most decisive
part that Roosevelt’s anti-Japanese
prejudice played in his decision to
approve Executive Order 9066 was in
fostering a feeling of indifference
toward Japanese Americans. It may
seem extraordinary, but FDR seems
to have given very little attention to
the question involved in interning
Japanese Americans. He approved
the evacuation without visible thought
or hesitation when it was presented to
him, largely because it was unimportant to him. He had genuine humanitarian instincts but winning the war
was his paramount objective. And the
rights of a group of Japanese
Americans whom he didn’t even
consider as citizens or proper
Americans paled in comparison.”
10.............................................................................................................................................................................................................The Asian American
The Philippine-American War
Linda Ty-Casper
On April 9, 2003 Linda Ty-Casper
read from The Stranded Whale
(Giraffe Books, 2002) which was the
Asian American Cultural Center’s
slAAm! Book Club’s spring semester
selection, co-sponsored by the Asian
American Studies Institute and the
UConn Co-Op. The Stranded Whale
is the complex story of the PhilippineAmerican War of 1899. Linda TyCasper writes novels set in periods
critical to Philippine history. Author of
11 historical novels, she also wrote 3
collections of short stories which critics have described as presenting “a
cross-section of contemporary Filipino
society” and “defining the collective
personality of our people.” She has
been a fellow at Harvard, Radcliffe,
Djerrasi, and the Massachusetts
Artists Foundation. In 1993 she
received the Southeast Asia WRITE
Award, and in 1994 started revising
The Stranded Whale at
the Rockefeller Writing
Center in Bellagio.
AASI’s Fe Delos-Santos
interviewed Linda TyCasper following a West
Coast reading tour of
The Stranded Whale.
remembering ourselves. Also the
memory of ourselves in literature is
a way of preventing our history from
being rewritten for political expediency, for private interests that often run
counter to truth. Here in America,
whatever our ethnic or ethic background we need to know about each
other’s past because we are part
of each other’s dream, each
other’s presence.
If we do not write our collective/personal stories, who will? And how can
we become part of the world’s story
without our literature? I have said
elsewhere that if history is our biography, literature is our autobiography.
Impulses and attitudes, virtues and
values are the individual’s first, before
they become the country’s; are part
of our contemporary life force.
We are what we remember, since
“I believe literature, being
about lives, is a sacred text.
Even fiction that entertains
primarily is historical in a
sense that it implicates lives,
and records preoccupations
and dreams.”
FDS: You have said,
“I think there are lives
that should not be
allowed to die, impulses and attitudes
... virtues, values....” Is writing historical fiction a way of memorializing a
past too soon forgotten or easily
manipulated by expediency, contempt
or complacency? Or do these impulses and attitudes, virtues and values,
have a life force/cycle of their own?
LTC: Yes, I believe writing historical
novels (based on research and not
primarily romance) is a way of
memory is part of our true identity. In
literature we read how bullets felt in
the victim’s flesh, not dates of events.
Our stories enable us to remember
how it is to be us in the past.
In one chapter of The Stranded
Whale, about a young boy attempting
to hold back the American advance,
and in retreat, is faced with the
Americans waiting to shell the shores
Linda Ty-Casper
north of Manila – Vitas Pass,
Navotas, Malabon – the only way I
could think of making that experience
part of our own, was by describing it
in terms of an image difficult to wipe
from our eyes. When he saw gunfire
starting to rake the shore, the young
boy thought of squash flowers opening in the morning. Perhaps, seeing
squash flowers opening, will bring
us back to that young boy
attempting courage.
FDS: What story sustains you?
LTC: The stories my grandmother told
us when we were children sustain
me, because they are true stories
from before I was born. Nanay said
a star is born when a child is born.
Science now tells us that the dust
of dead stars might be part of our
bodies. Nothing dies completely.
There is time that does not pass …
That idea sustains me/us. We feel –
we do not disappear.
We are forever … Some of the
incidents in The Stranded Whale are
from her stories of the Revolution
and the War.
continued on page 15
Fall 2003...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................11
Nonviolence in Principle and Practice
Michael Tobias
“Do we as a species have what it
would take, even in a microcosm,
to favor a new paradigm of social
responsibility toward our selves and
the environment?” asked the writer
and filmmaker in his Keynote Address
for the Nonviolence Colloquium –
Mahavir Ahimsa Seminar on April 12,
2003. Co-sponsored by the Jain
community of Connecticut, the
annual seminar follows up on the
2001 symposium celebrating the
2600th birth anniversary of Tirthankar
Mahavir Bhagwan whose teachings
of mutual dependence and Ahimsa,
Sanskrit for nonviolence, form
the cornerstone of Jain principles
and practices.
Dr. Michael Tobias thoroughly chronicled the alarming record of violent
human behavior. But he also gave
hopeful examples of moderation and
restraint, and relative gentleness and
peaceful co-existence, from the early
17th century Tokugawa Shogunate in
Japan, to the Tasaday of the Southern
Philippines, to the Toda still living in a
few dozen villages in the hills of Tamil
Nadu in India.
“Out on the Serengeti there are something like 4000 herbivores for every
one carnivore – a lesson worthy of
extrapolation. Let us be generous in
our biological convictions, and assert
that humanity is capable of a new
nature – a reformed attire, sparkling
with goodwill and affection.
Let us insist that evolution and the
myriad struggles for survival do not
condemn us, and that only our individual choices can do that.
Perhaps the oldest example anywhere
in the world, of animal sanctuaries,
vegetarianism and ecological ethics
that have become a science, a way of
life, a spiritual tradition, a whole nation
unto itself, are to be found among the
millions of Jains.”
Michael Tobias is the author of 30
books, and the writer, director and
producer of over 100 films, as well as
the president of the Dancing Star
Foundation. His books include A Day
in the Life of India, A Vision of Nature,
Deep Ecology, Life Force, and
Nature’s Keepers – On the Front
Lines of the Fight to Save Wildlife in
America. His films include the 10-hour
Turner Broadcasting miniseries “Voice
of the Planet,’’ which he adapted from
his own book and which was narrated
by William Shatner and Faye
Dunaway, “Black Tide’’ on the
Discovery Channel, “The Sky’s on
Fire’’ on ABC and “AhimsaNonviolence’’ for PBS. Tobias is a
former professor of Environmental
Affairs and the Humanities at
Dartmouth College. He earned his
Ph.D. in History of Consciousness
Michael Tobias
They did so out of an urgent sense
which they articulated to me and my
crew that nonviolence is so critical,
needed and so vital and urgently
required that they would forego their
normal edicts … in order to convey to
the rest of
the world
their message of
“Ahimsa.”
“Let us insist that evolution and the
myriad struggles for survival do
not condemn us, and that only
our individual choices can do that.”
from the Univ. of California at Santa
Cruz. He has lived in India on and off
for 25 years, and helped to co-found
a major film studio in Mumbai devoted to socially conscious programming
and film production.
As part of his keynote presentation,
Tobias screened “Ahimsa Nonviolence” (1987), the first documentary to examine Jainism, and introduced it as follows. “I would like to
hope that it has some lasting value as
an archival reminder of our capacity
for unconditional love, in spite of the
many difficulties that assail us daily.
This was the first time most of the
monks you’ll see in this film ever
allowed themselves to be captured
on celluloid.
Tobias also
screened a
rough-cut
version of “Mad Cowboy” based on
Howard Lyman's book of the same
name, which is a persuasive if graphic
argument for vegetarianism.
The colloquium closed with an
Interfaith Discussion on nonviolence,
moderated by UConn Prof. Faquir
Jain. The panelists were Vernon
Phelps, an ordained minister in the
United Methodist Church and an
educational missionary in Sierra
Leone; Dr. Prasad Srinivasan, Chair
of the Board of Trustees of CT Valley
Hindu Society; Robert Pelotti of
Archdiocese of Hartford and a member of the CT Council on Interreligious
Understanding; and Dr. Padam Jain of
Greater Hartford Jain Center, joined
by Michael Tobias.
12.............................................................................................................................................................................................................The Asian American
Fred Ho Fellowship in Asian American Politics and Culture
Bill V. Mullen
On May 22, 2003, the Professor of
English at the Univ. of Texas at San
Antonio gave a public talk based on
his book, Afro-Orientalism, forthcoming, Univ. of Minnesota Press, as the
first Fred Ho Fellow in Asian American
Politics and Culture. Mullen’s project
examines the cultural and political
affiliations forged between African
Americans and Asian Americans. It
proposes that Afro-Orientalism is a
“counterdiscourse to dominant, hegemonic narratives of race, colonialism
and empire, and an epistemic critique
of the construction of white western
capitalism and white supremacy.”
One chapter of the book explicates
the pioneering work of bandleader and
composer Fred Ho, his complex, wide
ranging body of Afro Asian collaborative music and political activism.
Mullen situates Ho in the tradition of
Afro Asian affiliation that includes
W.E.B. Dubois, Richard Wright,
NAACP organizer Robert F. Williams,
James and Grace Lee Boggs, the
Black Power Movement and the Asian
Pacific American Movements of the
late 1960s and early 1970s. In the
work of each, Mullen posits AfroOrientalism as a “speculative or utopian thread of interracial, internationalist
cooperation rooted in the mutual
sufferings, strivings and aspirations of
peoples of African and Asian descent.”
value of the proposed research,
and the appropriateness of the
Fred Ho Collection to the research.
In his presentation, Mullen referenced
the collection and its influence
on the research for his book. He
detailed Fred Ho’s evolutionary view
on race, gender and politics, using
Ho’s biography as a key text.
“Ho frequently tells his own life story
in distinctive dialectical stages
indicating transitions, from patriarchal,
petit bourgeois to feminist
revolutionary consciousness.
Bill V. Mullen with Fred Ho Collection
He talks about the 1955 Bandung
Conference in Indonesia as having a
seminal impact on his aesthetic
sensibility … what he calls kind of
an anti-imperialist jazz.
He even sees Bandung as the moment
in which the possibility of something
like an Afro Asian identification, if not
identity – begins to really become a
political reality. If you remember,
Bandung was primarily African and
Asian countries negotiating their own
response to the colonial problem.
Ho acquired a second hand baritone
saxophone, which is his instrument to
this day, from his public school band.
He characterizes the horn as a tool to
‘give voice to [his] exploring radicalism,
[his] hatred of oppression and [his]
burning commitment to revolutionary
The Fred Ho Fellowship is awarded
annually to a faculty member who has struggle.’ Black music, especially free
jazz, provided first entrée into expresa demonstrated research interest in
the Fred Ho Collection, housed in the sion of these themes. He cites Calvin
Massey’s extended suites, such as the
Dodd Research Center at UConn. In
addition to the public lecture, the Fred Black Liberation Movement Suite written for a fundraiser for the Black
Ho Fellow is also required to referPanther Party as an early influence….
ence the collection in his or her
Ho also credits other Black Arts
published works. Applicants for the
fellowship are eligible for an award of Movement figures as early sources of
up to $1000 to be used for travel and musical inspiration, particularly Archie
Shepp. It was however, the Black
accommodations. Applications are
Panther’s example as a model for APA
judged on the significance and
cogency of the proposed research, the radical politics that initially drew Ho in
applicant’s scholarly research creden- the direction of both, and was a crucial
tials, letters of support attesting to the moment in the formation of his Afro
Asian cultural politics.”
Bill V. Mullen discussing Sheroes
Womyn Warriors
Bill V. Mullen, photos courtesy of Dodd
Research Center
Mullen concluded, “Ho’s purpose of
writings, compositions, performances
and public activisms offer a characteristically genre and gender bending
analog to Afro-Orientalism’s own
vision quest for third ways, spirit
spaces and new journeys beyond
the West.”
Fall 2003...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................13
Fred Ho Prize
Toward Liberation
Awarded biennially and open to all
UConn undergraduate students
regardless of major or semester
standing, the Fred Ho Prize in
Asian American History and
Culture recognizes the best
original project that is the product
of research in the Fred Ho Special
Collection. Housed in the Dodd
Research Center, the Fred Ho
Special Collection contains both
primary and secondary sources
that offer insight into the development of an Asian American artist
and activist, and the historical
and cultural moments that have
shaped contemporary
Asian America.
The 2003 Fred Ho Prize in Asian
American History and Culture was
awarded on May 1 to UConn senior and student of Fine Arts, Amy
Mortensen. Her linoleum block
print was chosen among 18
entries. The distinction earned
Amy $250 and a chance to talk
with Fred Ho during the Awards
Banquet. With her submission,
Mortensen wrote, “A common
theme in the Fred Ho Collection
deals with the dual sense of
identity of the Asian American …
Discrimination serves as the
catalyst to hide or abandon
one’s identity.”
Bill V. Mullen also co-coordinates the
American Studies Program at UTSA.
He is formerly Assoc. Prof. of English
and Africana Studies at Youngstown
State University. He has also served
as Fulbright lecturer to Wuhan Univ. in
the People’s Republic of China.
His books include Popular Fronts:
Amy Mortensen and Fred Ho at the
Awards Banquet
Linoleum Block Print, winning entry by
Fine Arts Senior Amy Mortensen
The face that appears to emerge from a mask in her work was modeled
after her friend Charles who happens to be Chinese American.
When Fred Ho was asked about the specific event or experience that
drove him toward a progressive and activist path he replied,
“There’s not one singular event. It was the whole experience of trying to
fit in and to pretend or deny that racism and injustice didn’t exist, by
trying to change myself, to make myself somehow accommodate the
social reality, even to the point of changing the way I looked.
I realized that the first step toward liberation is to recognize your own
oppression, how that is internalized from society, but not to dwell on
being a victim, but to seek to transform yourself and to transform
society that engenders these contradictions within you.”
An outspoken critic of some of the trends in Asian American Studies,
Ho reminds us not to “take the easy way out. Not be what I would call
opportunists, and forsake the long-term interests of society for the
immediate gains … to construct a view of [our] role as outsiders.”
Chicago and African American
Cultural Politics, 1935-1946 (Univ. of
Illinois Press) and most recently, Left
of the Color Line: Race, Radicalism
and Modern Literatures of the
United States, co-edited with James
Smethurst (Univ. of North Carolina
Press). His articles have appeared
in African-American Review, Modern
Fiction Studies, Critique, positions,
Radical Teacher and Against
the Current.
14.............................................................................................................................................................................................................The Asian American
Course Offerings 2003 – 2004
Fall Semester 2003
Spring Semester 2004
AASI 201 - Introduction to Asian American Studies is an interdisciplinary
course that provides a general introduction to major themes in Asian Pacific
American Studies through readings and class discussions, guest speakers,
group projects, visits to community organizations and video screenings. This
course explores issues of identity, history and community, as well as aspects of
what constitutes Asian American art and culture. Instructor: Margo Machida,
Assistant Professor of Art & Art History and Asian American Studies
AASI 268 - Japanese Americans in
World War II examines the events
that led to martial law in Hawaii after
the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the
forced removal and confinement of
over 100,000 Americans and resident
aliens of Japanese ancestry on the
U.S. mainland after Franklin D.
Roosevelt signed Executive Order
9066. This course illuminates the
wartime experiences of Japanese
Americans and assesses some of the
consequences of those events for all
Americans. Instructor: Roger N.
Buckley, Professor of History
Also Offered Spring Semester 2004.
AASI 215 - Critical Health Issues of Asian Americans addresses health issues
affecting Asian American populations; examines gender specific health problems in Asian American populations; reviews the cultural issues in health and
healthcare of Asian Americans; and discusses current trends in medical practices in Asian American populations. Instructor: Usha Palaniswamy, Assistant
Professor of Allied Health and Asian American Studies
AASI 220 - Asian American Art and Visual Culture explores issues of contemporary Asian American identity in art and visual culture, with emphasis on the
need for greater transcultural awareness and understanding in the fluid environment of the post-Cold War world where people, ideas and images swiftly
traverse ever more porous national boundaries. Instructor: Margo Machida,
Assistant Professor of Art and Art History and Asian American Studies
AASI 222 - Asian Indian Women focuses on women in the world’s largest
democracies, India and the United States. This course examines how gender,
class and race and ethnicity structure the everyday lives of Asian Indian
women in both societies. It also examines how Indian women have mobilized
to change the social context of their lives. This course includes e-mail and person to person discussions with activists in India and the United States.
Instructor: Bandana Purkayastha, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Asian
American Studies
AASI 277 - Modern India 1500 to the Present examines the development of
India from the Mughal and European invasions of the Sixteenth Century to the
present. India’s remarkable synthesis of East and West, traditional and new, is
the focus. This course comprises a series of lectures drawn from six main sections: India Today; Traditional India; India in the Muslim Period; The Music and
Art of India; India in the European Period; and National and Independent India.
Instructor: Roger N. Buckley, Professor of History
NEW Asian American Studies Minor has been recently
approved.Students are required to take the Introduction to
Asian American Studies course and must complete 18 credits
to qualify.
All courses listed are at the 200-level and are 3 credits each.
An independent study course with substantial Asian American
or Asian content may also be considered toward the minor.
For the complete list of approved courses and to obtain the
Plan of Study, contact the Asian American Studies Institute
or visit AsianAmerican.uconn.edu.
AASI 221W - Sociological
Perspectives on Asian American
Women focuses on the social structures affecting the lives of different
groups of Asian American women in
the US. Current experiences of different groups will be related to the
socio-historical processes of the 20th
century. This course also examines
questions of the differences of Asian
American women’s relationship to the
market economy, the organization
and effects of non-paid versus paid
labor force participation, the emphasis
on women as the upholders of tradition and community identity, and
explores organized movements
for social change. Instructor:
Bandana Purkayastha, Assistant
Professor of Sociology and Asian
American Studies
AASI 216 - Asian Medical Systems
examines traditional medical systems
of Asian origin and their prevalence in
the US. This course discusses the
most popular Asian medical systems:
Ayurveda; traditional Chinese medicine; Chinese, Indian and Japanese
herbal medicine; and the values and
beliefs of the different models.
Instructor: Usha Palaniswamy,
Assistant Professor of Allied Health
and Asian American Studies
Fall 2003...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................15
In Memoriam
Helen Ely Brill
September 24, 1914 – April 14, 2003
Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and a firm believer of the Quaker faith, Helen Ely
Brill was a newly tenured teacher when she chose, amid the racial hysteria
sweeping the U.S. after Pearl Harbor, to teach Japanese American high school
students behind barbed wire at Manzanar Internment Camp in the windswept
Sierra mountains of California.
For Day of Remembrance 1999, Helen talked about what it was like to live at
Manzanar from August 1942 to Spring of 1944, and the pivotal impact that
experience had on her lifelong commitment to work for social justice.
Helen Ely Brill
continued from cover
(Re) Presenting Filipino
Americans
Helen’s generous support of the Institute’s JA Internment Resource Library has
helped us to continue to educate students about this important moment in U.S.
history. We are deeply grateful for Helen’s friendship and the enduring lessons
of her life of moral courage and integrity.
A National Conference
The (Re) Presenting Filipino
Americans Conference was made
possible by the generous support
of the Federation of Filipino
Associations in Connecticut, the
Connecticut Association of
Philippine Physicians, the New
England Filipino American, Inc.,
the William Benton Museum of
Art, and the creative energies of
its devoted community committee
members, Maria Acayan, Jeffrey
Alton, Steve Bustamante, Loreto
Elgo, Eufronio & Norma
Maderazo, Richard Patrick, Sal
Scalora, Vikram Shenoy, Nita &
Tony Toledo and Patricia Weibust.
Conference participants: Vicki Olayon, Nilda Elgo and Norma Maderazo
continued from page 10
The PhilippineAmerican War
Linda Ty-Casper
FDS: What story do you think
young Filipino Americans need to
hear today?
LTC: The stories about our better
selves … We read about the
baser instincts to which it is no
longer shameful to succumb.
“Guilt” is a dead word.
Everything is relative now. We make
our own Commandments.
My generation was steeped in stories
of the Revolution, of the generation of
1898, of men and women putting the
country ahead of themselves. The
young need to know about those
people, not just those who corrupt the
country with their greed, those who
live for the moment, trashing lives.
I believe literature, being about lives,
is a sacred text. Even fiction that
entertains primarily is historical
in a sense that it implicates lives, and
records preoccupations and dreams.
Perhaps, literature can be described
as the central pivot point from which
we inscribe a circle, from which we go
out in search of paths to follow. It
holds us to the center, anchors us so
we can reach out. It calls us back to
our center … Literature is probably
that act of calling us back, getting
ourselves together, whole.
16.............................................................................................................................................................................................................The Asian American
Asian American Studies Institute
2002 – 2003
Beach Hall, Room 416
Phone: 860. 486.4751
asiadm01@uconnvm.uconn.edu
http://asianamerican.uconn.edu
Faculty & Staff
Director and Professor of History
Roger N. Buckley
Assistant Professor of Art and
Art History
Margo Machida
Assistant Professor of Allied Health
Usha Palaniswamy
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Bandana Purkayastha
Program Specialist
Fe Delos-Santos
Administrative Assistant
Maxine Smestad-Haines
Ron Takaki public lecture and book signing on October 22, 2003 at
4 p.m. University of Connecticut, Von Der Mehden recital hall
The Asian American Studies Institute’s impressive
and solid achievements will be celebrated in a series of
events planned for the coming academic year. They
include a Korean American Symposium on September
27th, 2003 and a major address by Professor Ron Takaki
on October 22nd 2003. Please join us in Celebration of
our 10th year anniversary.
255600
University of Connecticut
Asian American Studies Institute
354 Mansfield Road, Unit-2091
Storrs, CT 06269-2091