DISGRASIAN™

DISGRASIAN OF THE WEAK! Yeh Ling-Ling, Immigrant-Hater

Last week, during his kickoff speech at the first National Teabagger Tea Party Convention, former congressman Tom Tancredo called for voters to take civics literacy tests and suggested President Obama only got elected because the U.S. doesn’t require them.

“People who could not even spell the word ‘vote,’ or say it in English, put a committed socialist idealogue in the White House, name is Barack Hussein Obama,” Tancredo said.

Tancredo, a one-note anti-immigration advocate, got a partner-in-hysteria this week when Yeh Ling-Ling, executive director of the creepy-sounding Alliance for a Sustainable USA–a non-profit that champions an outright immigration moratorium and couches its anti-immigration agenda in more palatable terms such as “environmentalism” and being for “social coherence”–came out in support of the idea.

Ms. Yeh, wouldn’t you know, is herself an immigrant several times over. From a 2004 Sierra magazine–as in The Sierra Club–profile:

Continue reading DISGRASIAN OF THE WEAK! Yeh Ling-Ling, Immigrant-Hater

Filed under: Anti-Immigration, Beans and Ricism, Civics Literacy Test, Conservatards, Haters, Immigrant Haters, Immigrants, Immigration Reform, National Tea Party Convention, Ricism, Tea Party Conventions, Tom Tancredo

Is There Anything Sadder Than A Sad Panda? [VIDEO]

Meet Jialing Chen. He’s 62 years old and works on Wall Street. He’s not an investment banker, however; he’s Sad Panda (and SpongeBob SquarePants some days). The Guangzhou-native-turned-permanent-U.S.-resident–who lost his Chinese restaurant waiter job in 2007 because his mother died and, as the eldest son, had to return to China to make funeral arrangements–makes $30 on a good day as Sad Panda. His wife works 7 days a week as a private nurse so that they can afford health care. Nevertheless, at the end of this month, Chen will lose his health insurance.



(interview/video by Columbia J-School student Michelle Tay)

When people talk about the recession being over, think of Sad Panda (and the other 15 million unemployed Americans). When people drag their feet on health care reform, think of Sad Panda. Shoot, when you think your life sucks or your job blows, think of Sad Panda.

[via Gothamist]

[Michelle Tay's Blog: always one foot on the ground]

Thanks, Jong!

Filed under: Forgotten People, Health Care, Health Care Bill, Health Care Reform, Immigrants, Jialing Chen, Michelle Tay, Pandas, Sad Panda, The Recession, The Recession Over, The Working Poor, Unemployment

Racist Halloween Costumes…For Pets

With Halloween right around the corner, a lot has been said already about the latest crop of costumes–from the good to the bad to the offensive. An Illegal Alien costume, which was pulled from the shelves of Target and Walgreens this week after complaints from immigrant rights groups, seems to be this year’s undisputed winner in the last category.

But didja know that offensive Halloween costumes even extend to pets? Here are some of the worst:

1) “The Geisha Dog Costume”

Description: Your cutie will look vibrant and colorful in this Chinese themed dog dress! Features an adorable Asian floral print on magenta with faux thread Chinese toggles on the back and white satin trim.

Okay, who’s going to break it to the costume makers that geishas aren’t Chinese?

Continue reading Racist Halloween Costumes…For Pets

Filed under: Costumes, Geishas, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Illegal Immigrasian, Immigrant Rights, Immigrants, People as Accessories, Pet Costumes, Pimps, Racial Drag, Racist Gear, Racist Halloween Pet Costumes

DISGRASIAN OF THE WEAK! The Binghamton Gunman

Our heads have been swimming with emotions today as we wait anxiously for news developments, regarding today’s shooting at The American Civic Association building in Binghamton, to trickle out of New York.

Personally, I’m collecting all of the details, trying to process them methodically. But my mind inevitably strays from the facts of today’s tragedy–wandering off to think obliquely about the people I don’t really know anything about: the yet-to-be-identified victims and hostages. I picture small, simple rooms filled with immigrants–like my parents and grandparents were three decades ago– so committed to making their family’s lives better and doing so by the book, the old-fashioned way. I think about how they couldn’t possibly have known what was going to happen to them today and how they absolutely didn’t deserve it. How they probably didn’t understand what was happening, except that they were probably going to be killed.

What are their parents thinking? What are their children feeling?

I wonder what it felt like for the survivors, in the hours they spent thinking that they were probably going to die in America without being an American.

Mostly, I feel confused. And deeply sad. In a way that I can’t really articulate, I just feel sorry that this is what happens sometimes in this country.

Source

Filed under: America, Asian Shooter, Binghamton, Binghamton Shooting, Death, Hostages, Immigrants, Sad, Shootings, Surviving, Tragedy, Unfunny Stuff, We Are Not All Gunmen

Binghamton, NY: Don’t Shoot

HAPPENING RIGHT NOW: at least four people have been killed, dozens shot, and more taken hostage at a Binghamton, NY American Civic Association, which offers services to immigrants.

When we woke up to this news, we dreaded hearing eyewitness accounts that the gunman (who is still in the building) was Asian. But those accounts keep coming.

Watch the story unfold at CNN.com.

*Update: Local News 10 (aired on televised CNN) just reported that two men of Asian descent have been removed from the building in handcuffs by officers in regular police uniforms.

[CNN: 12 die, up to 40 held hostage in Binghamton shootings]

Thanks, Chris

Filed under: American Civic Association, Asian Shooter, Binghamton, Breaking News, Guns, Immigrants, New York, Sadness, Shootings, Unfunny Stuff, We Are Not All Gunmen

Beware the Jindal

Oh, Bobby Jindal. You are so smooth. So eloquent. So Rhodes Scholarly. So American Dream-y. And that accent!

I want. To hump. That accent.

Which is why we should be afraid of the Jindal (aka “Their Obama”). Be very afraid.

Thanks, Jasmine!

Filed under: 2012, Bobby Jindal, GOP, Governor Jindal, Immigrants, Indian-Americans, Louasiana, Louisiana, People to Watch, Republican Party, Rhodes Scholars, Southern Accents, The Republican Obama

Separasian Anxiety

Jen just introduced me to the evolving drama surrounding South Korean women currently rocking the L.P.G.A. circuit: It began when Tour Commissioner Carolyn Bivens proposed that foreign-born players with two years completed on the Tour show a proficiency in English or face suspension (apparently for schmoozing purposes). The mandate proposal didn’t last long, but the emphasize on learning English is still strongly emphasized.

It appears that Biven also wants to liberate those women whose fathers (most of whom quit their jobs in South Korea to help their children) accompany them throughout the competition:

In a recent interview, [Bivens] said her goal was to help assimilate the South Korean players into a culture starkly different from their own and to emancipate them from what she characterized as overbearing fathers. Forcing the players to learn English and threatening their livelihoods was the best way she saw to accomplish that.

Hrmm. Learning English, sure, that’s definitely something these athletes can manage, no sweat.

But, uh, separating Asian girls from their overbearing Hardass Asian Dads?

Yeah. Good luck with that.

Source

Filed under: Assimilasian, Bad ideas, Carolyn Bivens, Emancipasian, Hardass Asian Parents, Immigrants, Lofty Goals, Mandates, The LPGA Tour, Things That Will Never Ever Ever Happen, This is Bullshit

Fu-Gee-Lame

It was the early eighties, nearly a decade after my family’s May 1975 entry into America.

Back in ‘75, my family was composed of about thirty Vietnamese war refugees that piled on a commercial freight ship with less than a thousand others. After crossing the Pacific, my grandparents/aunts and uncles/parents/three sisters/skinny-legged cousins spilled out into the Southern California desert haven Camp Pendleton, where their bell bottoms clashed with the troops’ fatigues, there was more donated Fanta than clean water, and my siblings spent their days playing hide-and-seek in dirty brown tents. At that point affianced, my aunt and uncle married in a small, family/friends/fugee-only ceremony in the dirt, to avoid being split up when they were shipped out to live with sponsors.

But it was Reagan time now, and my family had just moved into a three-story house on unused farmland in rural Missouri, about ten minutes away from a country hospital where my father took over as chief of surgery. This felt like the beginning of “the good life” that everyone dreamed of: being Americans–not just refugees or even immigrants, but bona fide Americans. It wasn’t about surviving anymore, or fleeing the war, but taking root on the corn-loaded land, bolting a bronze eagle statue and American flag on the front of the house, working hard, and living large.

I am convinced that my middle sister was filled up with this feeling of arrival, and of American-ness, as she walked out of her sixth grade class at 3pm, her prized first pair of Jordache jeans giving her the semblance of a rump, and an in-hand, heavy trumpet case weighing her 80-lb. frame to the right so much that she walked lopsided. Until, of course, the quiet sound of success was interrupted by a cacaphony of yelling from a school bus on her left.

“Re-foo-gee! Re-foo-gee! Get out of here! Re-foo-gee!”

A boy with freckles and hair like hay had shoved half of his body out of the rectangular school-bus window. He was screaming, loudly, at her.

“Your dad is a re-foo-gee and he charges too much for hospital bills. You re-foo-gees should go back to China!”

My sister, totally confused because she had no idea what a rafoojee was and had never even been to China, made an immediate U-turn and walked back into the school building. She missed her only ride home and had to call my parents to pick her up that evening. That night, she realized that Roger, the boy from the bus, didn’t know how to pronounce “refugee.” She also realized that even if the family had arrived, not everybody liked it.

Every time I hear or tell that story, my heart hurts a little. Worse things have surely happened, but I always think about how sad it means to have the word “refugee” turned against you. As a refugee, you are simply a human seeking refuge, safety, protection. To mock that action that seems so…inhumane. And then my mind wanders… how many of my people suffered for being refugees? Why would anyone be so mean to us?

Today, Jen informed me that five Asian countries–China, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Bangladesh–have been identified as among the worst violators of refugees’ rights in a global survey released ahead of Friday’s World Refugees Day.

“We’ve tried to call attention to these countries because they have been particularly egregious in their treatment of refugees,” USCRI [US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants] president Lavinia Limon said.

“Some of them have forced refugees back into dangerous situations, some of them have warehoused refugees in camps for decades, and some of them have done their best to make sure refugees never enter their territory. Some of them have done all of the above,” she said.

Shit, man. I think I’d rather have “re-foo-gee” screamed at me from a school bus.

Source

Filed under: Arriving, Bad Lists to Be On, Be Nice, Botching the English Language, Bummer Behavior, Camp Pendleton, Human Rights, Immigrants, Refugees, This is Bullshit

Surf or Turf?

Which one did they come for?

A group of Canadian researchers are conducting an underwater excavasian off the Queen Charlotte islands in British Columbia to find evidence of the first North American settlers. These scientists believe that the first people to touch down in these here parts weren’t Siberian big-game hunters but Asian seafarers.

(Their theory) holds that ancient Asian seafarers, drawn on by food-rich kelp beds ringing the Pacific coasts of present-day Russia, Alaska and British Columbia, began populating this hemisphere thousands of years before the migration of Siberian big-game hunters – who are known to have travelled across the dried up Bering Strait and down an ice-free corridor east of the Rockies as the last glaciers began retreating about 13,000 years ago.

That’s, like, totally cool, because either way is a win for us. Yaysian!

Click here for full story.

Source

Filed under: Boat People, Excavasians, firsts, Immigrants, Surf and Turf, Thanks Canada, The Siberian Land Bridge