As per the assignment I investigated these four topics: Challenger, Paull [sic] Shin, WWII Straglers, and the letest episode of “How I met Your Mother (HIMYM)” (Season 9, Episode 14) and related them back to the program.

At a club meeting early in the day I remembered that I had to complete this assignment. In a boring fashion I started at the beigning of the list and worked my way down. After researching “Challenger” the connection I came up with was that Ellison Shoji Onizuka was aboard that space shuttle and it’s explosion had a tone of media coverage. Onizuka was the first Asian/American in space, reaching the destination in 1985 and was one of the seven people that about a year later on the Challenger mission.

After reading the above topic and feeling a little down I moved on to read about Paull Shin. Born in South Korea in 1935 and adopted to Ray Paull, a U.S. Army officer who was in South Korea for the war, Paull Shin became the first Korean/American elected to the Washington State Legislation.

I found the World War II Stragglers to be quite interesting in two respects. According to Wikipedia’s Japanese Holdout, Japanese soldiers located throughout the Pacific kept on fighting the War till the 1980s. Wikipedia suggests the reasoning behind these stragglers was either due to the loss of communication during the end of the war so they did not get the message or because of the Japanese “strong dogmatic or militaristic principles”, which I’m assuming the writer on the post was referring to bushido , as this article points out is a code that “demands bravery and unflinching self-sacrifice. Honor comes from death, disgrace from surrender.” All of that I found interesting because it was not something I had heard of before and that time wise WWII was not over till the 1980s. Which got me thinking of our programs theme with time and how despite the reasoning behind the Japanese soldiers continuing to fight for them a war that for others was in the past and over was still a present aspect in their lives. And I was feeling pretty good about how nice these connections were seeming to come along, till I moved on to the last topic.

Before searching the news for Episode 14 of “How I Met Your Mother” I decided to watch it. Now I use to watch this show all the time and like it. I had a bit of info on the episode from a friend who pointed out from her musing online, the main racist themes of yellowface, and usual mockery of culture but also that this show doesn’t have a ton of non-white actors in it which adds to the impact this had. So I was on the watch for this as I started the episode, but there was no missing any of it.  My first notes on the episode start as Marshall goes to learn a mighty slap at a Kung Fu school. In this scene when he asks the instructor if he can learn a slap and the instructor says no because he teaches Kung Fu that is a sacred art (which they make fun of the whole episode) and not slapping, Marshall acts out his words like the instructor doesn’t know what he is talking about. To make this scene even better in the background there are Katanas along the walls. After learning that there is a special slap that he can learn from masters Marshall embarks on his journey. We have Robin and Lilli, dressed in Chinese attire and both are made fun of their age by looking younger than they are. And while their make-up is done in a “China Doll” fashion they weren’t as bad a Ted. With Ted waring a wig of long braided hair to simulate Chinese historical hair customs,  he is mistaken as a women and then turns to show the audience his face with the long eyebrows and long goatee that wise masters have in Kung Fu movies.

After being enraged over what I saw I looked up news articles for the episode and what I found frustrated me even more. All the articles that popped up on the first page were on the creators apology for their unintentional racism with the exception of Kai Ma’s Article Dear How I Met Your Mother: ‘Asian’ Is Not a Costume. All the articles had the statement from the creators that said while they were trying to have a laugh at Kung Fu movies, which they hold dear (Obviously because Katana’s are a part of Kung Fu), they did not mean to offend anyone. And while some also included some of the tweets that went out like “#YellowFace” and “#HowIMetYourRacisim” they did not go into the real issues like Ma’s article. The big reason the focus on the apology and the apology itself frustrates me is this intention vs. impact concept (if you want to know more or don’t know what I’m talking about check this out). Yes the creators just wanted to make fun of Kung Fu movies and didn’t want to hurt or upset anyone but they did and instead of trying to understand how they did offend people their apology only defends what they did.

Paull Shin 

Paull Shin was an orphan  and homeless  in south Korea. He was adopted by an American solider. Paull Shin earned his PhD at University of Washington. After Shin graduated from University of Washington he became  a teacher at Shoreline Community College. He was elected into the legislature in 1992. He  than ran for congress in 1994. Shin is retiring  from government because of the awful disease, Alzheimer’s. He has been a huge part of Washington states education system mainly apart of developmentally disabled children. Paull Shin seems like a remarkable man. As I read articles about his retirement I can’t help to read about all the great praises that people have given him. He has helped people coming to America find a home. I’m glad that I got to read about Paull for not having an assignment on him would have been a missed learning experience to see who we once had in office in Washington State. Its nice to hear about people that have had hard times but being able to have a voice and speak on issues that they believe is important.

1986 Challenger Explosion 

OnJanuary 28th, 1986 a space ship the Challenger took flight but exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. The space shuttle left seven deaths including the first Asian American to reach space, his name was Ellison Onizuka. He was born in 1946 and had two children. Apart of Pop culture I believe that our assignment is not only to realize what happened to this spaceship but to know what is happening in the news of Pop culture right now. Beyonce, one of the most popular dancers, and singers of this generation has made news with the title of one of her song XO which is featured on her newest album. This song has made the news by the unfortunate event of the 1986 Challenger Explosion.  In this song she puts a clip of the disaster in her video. In the first seconds of the song you can hear a clip of someone saying “Obviously a major malfunction.”  Nasa employees are asking Beyonce to take down the clip and make apologies to those families. She told ABC that she didn’t mean to hurt anyone but to help heal those families that lost someone. I don’t really know about this situation but my first thoughts of her healing the families is why would she release a music video 20+ years thinking that it would heal when families at this point probably just want to put that day behind them. I don’ think Beyonce wanted to hurt anyone when she did released this video/song but I also don’t think that a healing process for the families was a huge thought either.

WWII Stragglers

The last of Japanese soldier died on Thursday. He was 91. Hiroo Onoda was hiding in a jungle in the Philippines. Some would say that Hiroo wasted 30 years of his life fighting a war that was already over but he didn’t. He was taught that he was to remain absolutely loyal to his country and to fight against America.

How I Met Your Mother

Well I guess its about time that they end there run on Television after eight short seasons. How I Met Your Mother was a funny t.v series that I guess just became serious. Although I never really got into this show I was always rooting for Barney and Robbin but as I read I can’t help to notice that the attention isn’t focused on Barney or Robbin but the fact the viewers saw some racist acts portraying Asians. I can’t understand why the show didn’t hire Asian actors to play parts that were needed to fill the “funny” acts. Hollywood once again made it seem as if Asians only eat noodles,  and do kung-fu. I agree that Hollywood has failed to hire many minority actors to play parts on television. Its sad to see that though all the highs of overcoming race we still haven’t overcome racism. Oliva Pope played by Kerry Washington on Scandal is only the second African American to be played in a major television series on basic cable. We continue to see very little actors that are minorities have larger parts in television. I believe that people are now making a point that stereotypical jokes on television starts to get played out. We have seen the same story line over and over again but now people are ready to voice their opinion. Sorry but not sorry for How I Met Your Mother writers and producers but it happened to be the night that your show aired. I am happy that people are starting to voice their opinions and that Twitter can actually be useful by showing Hollywood that the viewers aren’t happy. 

Chapter 13
“One-Tenth of the Nation”

As time moves forward, the amount of Asian Americans continue to increase. The chapter mentions that if things continue the way it is, then 10% of the United States’ population will be Asian American by 2050. Other things talked about in the chapter include the misunderstandings between African Americans and Korean Americans after the 1992 Los Angeles riot. It came down to the Korean Americans not being very social with those outside of their family or friends and difficulty with the English language, while African Americans were poor and on the lower-class of America’s society. These differences caused tensions between Korean Americans and African Americans for quite some time. There was also the removal of affirmative action by Proposition 209, which hampered society’s journey to a society that did not just view things in black and white. Aside from that, the chapter went on to explain how Asian Americans are now mixing with other Asian Americans. For example, Hoyt Zia and Leigh-Ann Miyasato represent interethnic marriage, a Chinese American and a Japanese American respectively who married. Asian Americans have also begun marrying those outside the Asian ethnicities, resulting in a continuously growing amount of mixed-race children in the United States. Not only are the people mixing races, but traditions and music as well, creating something totally new in the process. The chapter reminds us that Asian Americans shouldn’t be treated as strangers, but instead as “Americans ‘from a different shore.’”

Chapter 12
“Breaking Silences”

In this chapter, the Asian American as the “model minority” is explored. It became a stereotype among Asian American students that it later affected their acceptance rates to colleges and universities through “reverse racism”. It also generated more racism, such as colleges having non-official names like U.C.L.A. being called “University of Caucasians living under Asians”. Asian American students who graduated and entered the work field faced the concept of the “glass ceiling”, which prevented Asian Americans from moving up further in their career fields and put a limit on how far they can climb up the work ladder. Despite this, the success Asian Americans were enjoying turned sour when it made them targets to harassment, beatings, and even murders. These anti-Asian sentiments and misunderstandings resulted to the infamous case of Vincent Chin, which is the second time I’ve heard about this, the first being in Japanese American History in the Pacific Northwest. The impact of Chin’s murder got plenty of the Asian American communities to stop being passive about the misdeeds against them and to voice their opinions on the matter.  This also caused many of the younger generations of Asian Americans to pursue knowledge of  their origins to better understand why they’re being treated differently.

A true tragedy but valuable lesson for NASA.

The Challenger was the second shuttle to make it to space and had completed nine successful missions. However, because of two rubber O-rings failing; the Challenger exploded 73 seconds after lift-off. The explosion claimed the lives of seven astronauts including Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American to go into space.

Sources:

http://www.history.com/topics/challenger-disaster

http://www.space.com/18084-space-shuttle-challenger.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellison_Onizuka

(More will be added to this post at a later date/time)

1986 Challenger Explosion- Ellison Onizuka was the first Asian American to reach space.  However there was little time to celebrate but rather tears of sadness as he was one of seven to perish during the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

Paull Shin- He was a Korean American and was a state senator. Notable achievements including fighting to end the use of the derogatory term “Oriental” in state code among others. In 1992, he was the first Korean American elected to the Washington state Legislature.

World War II Stragglers-  Soldiers serving in the Imperial Japanese Army who refused to surrender on account of upholding bushido or potentially not believing the war was over. After the war was really over they refused to surrender and continued their holdout for another 30 years in some cases.

How I Met Your Mother- During the Season 9 episode called Slapsgiving 3: Slappapointment in Slapmarra, there was a host of white actors portraying a variety of Asian stereotypes. This sparked an outcry from social media calling the episode How I Met Your Racism.

I remember the Challenger accident very well as I was a 16 year old high school student on the day of the accident.

The day was like in other in school except we had the telly turned in all over the school not because of Mr. Onizuka,but, because of Christa McAuliffe who was going to be the first school teacher in space. It was a big event to have a teacher go into space and teach her classes while on the mission.  We were excited to have such chance to see science in action! It was heady stuff. So, on the cold day in January we huddled around the tv’s that had been set up to watch the launch. The countdown begun,liftoff and then the unthinkable happened approx 73 seconds later the space shuttle with her crew exploded on live national TV. It became our generations “Where were you when JFK was shot?” except in this case the question was different. Because of Mrs. McAuliffe we knew next to nothing about about the crew members who had perished. Most of us wouldn’t know the other names until sometime later either.

Who was Ellison Onizuka?

Outside of the having the misfortune to be on the Challenger he was the very first Asian-American in space and overshadowed by another in the crew. He was from Hawaii from an average family.But, he did get a degree in aerospace engineering and later a Master’s degree in the same subject. He would go one to become a Lt Colonel in the Air Force and serve in other missions before Challenger. He had a wife and children. He had dreams to see the stars.He was mostly likely still alive after the explosion because the survival packs had been deployed along with two others,we will never know what his last moments on this earth were like and we can only hope that it was painless for him.

His legacy as being the first Asian-American in space  was followed by 11 ,including the first Iranian-American woman in 2006, others as most recently as 2009.However, in his home state of Hawaii he lives on,yearly with Astronaut Ellison Onizuka Science Day promoted the University of Hawaii-Hilo for budding little astronauts,teachers and parents to foster the love of science and space.

He paved the way for others to live his ill-fated dream that a Asian-American can go to space,can be successful and have  a lasting legacy for others to follow him.

It is always tough to be first and even tougher for those that have followed to live up to the legacy of a man that gave his life so tragically doing the thing he loved the most.

I,frankly,had to Google the news articles and then watch the episode in question to see what all the fuss was about. Honestly, while I do see what the Asian American community found offensive,I have frankly seen and heard worse.

When not at school I live overseas in a little country called Belgium with a rather large Asian population,Antwerp even has a tiny Chinatown that is all of a city block long give or take a bit. When I first got to Belgium the very first people I interacted with was a lovely Asian couple from Shanghai who happened to run the local fry shop. Met some other fine folks along the way that were,also, of Asian descent. However, all this being said there is another group in Belgium that would simply “love” if all of us immigrants would hit the bricks and go somewhere else. They aren’t nice about either in fact they are downright evil. This group has always reminded me of the Nazi’s of the 1930′s variety where the caberets were for the tourists and not the locals.And about as pleasant too.

They have billboards all over that state in many languages that you are not welcome here unless you learn the language,adopt the culture of the host country and dress Western. This group is vicious in the fact that there have beatings in the past to the point people have been in hospital because of some groups small minded notions about nationalism. Where is the local government you may ask when this group so obviously anti-immigration? Well, Belgium allows it because of some very complicated laws that would take too long to explain here. The point that I making is this…a television show may have acted in poor taste,however, that is nothing in compared to what I have seen first hand in a country that is home heaped towards immigrants. What it boils down to is this,if you don’t like what is on the telly no one is making you watch it so turn the channel,don’t watch it or don’t support because in the grand scheme of things there are worst things out there.

I know because I have seen it.