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"The Cove": In The Tokyo Film Festival?

The Tokyo Film Festival opened Saturday with ecology as its theme.¹ Kudos to the festival organizers for making one last minute addition to the films in their roster, even though international pressure precipitated such a move! “The Cove” exposes the gruesome slaughtering of some 2,000 dolphins each year in an annual hunt conducted in a seaside town in Japan. The documentary already won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Will it win in Tokyo? Regardless, hopefully, it raises global attention to the cruelty of the killings and the rapid depletion of our ocean’s resources.

Now, will we see another season of “Whale Wars”²?

¹The Associated Press, “Tokyo Film Festival Opens With 'Green' Carpet”, The New York Times, Oct. 17, 2009
²discovery.com

With H1N1, Everyday is Global Handwashing Day

Millions of children and adults in over 80 countries are celebrating the second annual Global Handwashing Day. UNICEF Japan has launched a project promoting handwashing among children in Japan and around the world.¹ This video shows a dance choreographed by Kaiji Moriyama, a renowned dancer, as a public service supporting such efforts.  Everybody...Washi, washi, wah...

The Japanese government also launched a "cough etiquette" campaign, which encourages people to cover their mouths, use a tissue and turn away when coughing.²

¹unicef.org
²Catherine Makino, ”Japan takes hand washing to new level”, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 16, 2009

A Call From the Deep: Lower Carbon Emissions

The Maldives government will hold a special cabinet meeting on October 17th to call on world governments to reduce carbon emissions.¹  The ministers will need scuba gear to participate in conjunction with plans to conduct the meeting underwater.  As the lowest-lying nation on earth, the Maldives have much at stake in the threat of global warming, which potentially can bring much of the nation below sea level.

In fact, as precursor to looming future disasters, this tiny nation in the North Indian Ocean, Southwest of Sri Lanka was hit hard by the 2004 tsunami causing 82 lives and significantly damaging its major industries.²  Fortunately, the Maldives have been spared of the catastrophic natural disasters that have recently struck Asia and the Pacific.

Hopefully, their important message does not land on philosophically waterlogged ears.  Regardless whether we caused global warming directly or not, it should not stop the world’s governments from addressing this very real issue.

1Associated Press, "Maldives: Bring the Waterproof Pens", The New York Times, Oct. 8, 2009
2U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Maldives”

Higher Life Expectancy in the US: What about for Asian Americans?

Life expectancy in the country is at its highest level at 77.9 years, according to the CDC’s just-released National Vital Statistics Report.  Broken out by race and gender, as in previous years, life expectancy remains higher among whites compared to blacks, and higher for women than for men. The report does not contain equivalent figures for other racial minorities.

However, accompanied by a caution that mortality for races other than white and black may be seriously understated because of underreporting, the preliminary findings reveal the mortality rates are lowest for those other groups. Also, the death rates reported for the Asian Pacific Islander (API) population is almost half lower the rate of non-Hispanic whites.

“Among the major race and Hispanic origin groups, the lowest mortality was reported for the API, Hispanic, and AIAN populations. Compared with the non-Hispanic white population, preliminary age-adjusted death rates were 46.5 percent lower for the API population, 30.8 percent lower for the Hispanic population, and 18.4 percent lower for the AIAN population. In contrast, the age-adjusted death rate for the non-Hispanic black population was 25.5 percent higher than that for the non-Hispanic white population."

These findings should not feed into the “model minority” myth, specifically the one that suggests we are without problems or needs thus leading us to be underserved in areas of real concern.  According to the CDC profile of Asian Americans:

“Asian Americans represent both extremes of socioeconomic and health indices: while more than a million Asian Americans live at or below the federal poverty level, Asian-American women have the highest life expectancy of any other group. Asian Americans suffer disproportionately from certain types of cancer, tuberculosis, and Hepatitis B.  Factors contributing to poor health outcomes for Asian Americans include language and cultural barriers, stigma associated with certain conditions, and lack of health insurance.”

See related post: “Cancer remains the number one killer among Asian Americans“

Asian American Women: A higher risk for suicide

U.S.-born Asian American women are more likely to be at risk for suicidal behavior, a new University of Washington research reveals.  The study highlights the need for Asian American communities to start talking about mental health issues and not to cast it aside as taboo talk.

See related post, “Asian Americans are more likely to commit suicide”

Cancer remains the number one killer among Asian Americans

Asian Week yesterday released several findings from the American Cancer Society showing that “racial and ethnic minorities and medically underserved groups are more likely to develop cancer and die from it than the general U.S. population”.

For Asian Americans, the pattern of cancer is unique; and, particularly disturbing among several findings is that for this group, the annual number of deaths due to cancer is higher than that for heart disease.  This sets Asian Americans apart from other major ethnic groups where heart disease in the number one killer.  Below are the other findings:

• Cancer affects Asian Americans in very different ways, based on country of origin. According to a study of the five largest Asian American groups – Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese – colorectal cancer rates are highest among Chinese Americans; prostate cancer is more common and more often deadly among Filipino men; and Vietnamese women have the highest incidence and death rates from cervical cancer.
• For Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, the annual number of deaths from cancer exceeds that for heart disease, making them the only major U.S. racial or ethnic group for which this is true.
• Asian Americans have higher rates of cancers related to infectious conditions, particularly tumors of the cervix, stomach, liver and nasopharynx and are at lower risk for cancers of the lung, colon and rectum, breast and prostate.
• Vietnamese men in California have by far the highest incidence and death rates (54.3 and 35.5 per 100,000, respectively) from liver cancer of all the Asian ethnic groups. Their incidence rate is more than seven times higher than the incidence rate among non-Hispanic White men.

Although Asian Americans have “lower incidence and mortality rates from all cancers combined than all other racial/ethnic groups”, it is imperative that cultural and linguistic barriers be overcome to better understand and address the implications of such findings.

In the current health care debate—or rather, the mob-rule opposition to intelligent and pragmatic discussions on improving nationwide health and wellness—statistics such as those revealed in these findings remain but a blip lost in all the noise and shouting.

Gay Asian American Youth: Multiple Oppressions

Reporting findings from a recent study conducted by Hyeouk Chris Hahm, Assistant Professor at the BU School of Social Work, the Science Daily describes the psychological and social stresses that GLBT Asian American youths face in the development of their identity.

“API [Asian and Pacific Islanders] teens and young adults identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender face a different set of challenges than their western or Caucasian peers, which can lead to rejection from their families who emigrated to the U.S. and stigmatization by the larger Asian community.”

Oftentimes, they come to this hard decision on which identity should take precedence, their ethnicity or sexual orientation.

“Over time, many manage the conflicts that arise from choosing one over the other and and enter into a homosexual identity with many negative stereotypes and assumptions related to their ethnic identity.  Still others sublimate their sexual identity and appear asexual until they are able to synthesize an identity that incorporates both ethnicity and sexuality.”

The stresses are more severe for gay Asian American women according to the report.  Faced with “an Asian culture that requires them to stick to family values, marry men and have children or place shame on their families, neighbors and community”, they are less likely to conform to traditional roles and less likely to get support from family members, but more likely to compete for privileges exclusive to men to elude sexist oppression.  As a result gay Asian American women resort to substance abuse more widely than Asian American women who are straight or Asian American men in general, gay or straight.

The pursuit of self-determination is universal.  We are so blessed by what our democracy’s architects have drafted to ensure that this pursuit is available to all.  Every day, we take the oath of allegiance to protect this ideal by simply living the life we’re living, the life we seek to live.  Sadly though, we violate that oath too not in the public forum and not against ourselves.  We do so in the privacy of our homes and in opposition to our children's own path to this pursuit.  We say they cannot be who they can be or who they really are.