Introduction to Women's History Month @ Asian American Village 2006

2006 edition theme: "Banner Year...or Bummer?"

By Stewart David Ikeda, Editor

March 1, 2006 - Okay, so I'll break with tradition and just come out and say it: It's sort of been a crap year for APA women, hasn't it?

That is, every year around this time, AAV's editors sift through the previous year's editorial notebooks, news headlines, Google, Amazon, zines and blogs and other resources to prepare updates and a theme for our ever-growing Women's History Month special archive.  We look forward to the annual ritual: always energizing, empowering, and educational.  However, after a few years of seeing successive gains by APA women in all quarters, from politics to arts to business, our review for 2006 left us feeling frankly gloomier than usual.

Where we had heralded 2002-2003 to be a banner year for APA women in politics and law, and 2004-2005 reaped a bumper crop of creative work by our women of letters across the country, the past year has added up in many ways to be a bummer year -- marked by setbacks to representation by and of Asian women, at least in mainstream culture.

Losing Political Ground

It's certainly been a rough year for APA women in politics. Despite running a strong race in a heavily Republican district, Indian American Democrat Supriya Christopher fell short in her bid to become Virginia's first Asian American Delegate in November.  Last spring, two of San Francisco's most influential Chinese leaders were compelled to resign from their posts within days of one another under a "shadow of scandal," as Puengs Vongs related in her piece What Is the Future for San Francisco's Chinese Matriarchs?  Meanwhile, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has incurred the wrath of the 80-20 Initiative after apparently being unresponsive to its charges that an Executive Order barring glass ceiling discrimination has not been enforced on behalf of Asian Americans.

One shining exception this year iswas the huge buzz surrounding Tammy Duckworth's campaign. As a war hero with major media attention, cross-over appeal, and support from the Party's leading figures, she stands a good chance of moving past the Illinois Democratic primary this month to vie for outgoing Rep. Henry Hyde's seat in the 11th District.

Another notable but nasty highlight was the Nguyen vs. Nguyen run-off battle for San Jose's city council in 2005.  Madison Nguyen, who had previously made her mark as the first Vietnamese American woman elected to California state office in 2002, took a step up from her post as a school district board president to win the council seat over opponent Linda Nguyen.  (The fight reportedly turned nasty with rumor-mongering, aspersions cast on Madison because she was unmarried.)  Although a local post, the council position could well be launching pad to larger horizons.  After all, as Jami Farkas of Nguoi Viet observed, the most recent Census estimates ranked San Jose, with nearly 905,000 residents, as the nation’s 10th-largest city, surpassing Detroit.

Perhaps it is simply the international context. While the UN last month reported "record political gains for women" worldwide, status quo here feels, comparatively, like malaise.  Finding "a record number of women serving in world's parliaments," the UN listed advancements in several countries, on virtually all continents.  Major political breakthroughs swept the globe this year, from historic voting in Kuwait to Presidential victories in Africa, Europe, Oceania, and South America. Meanwhile, women's voting has relatively soared in countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and Venezuela, longstanding barriers have fallen in some Middle East countries, and international pressure to free Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi is mounting.  Further, the UN announced, a new record had been set: 20 countries had parliaments consisting of 30 percent women -- meeting the goals set at the historic 1995 Beijing U.N. women's conference.  Alas, the United States is not  among these; we rank in fact "below the average" for parliamentary representation, at just over 15 percent.  According to a factsheet based on Census data by the Center for American Women in Politics, the percentage of women in statewide elections has actually declined over the past 5 years.  Condi says she's not running, and most Americans don't believe Hillary will win.  And, of course, a woman has not replaced Sandra Day O'Connor.

So, if it feels a little like women in the U.S. have been treading water in the past year or so, International Women's Day 2006 reminded us that, relative to the rest of the world, it's true.

"Year of the Geisha"

And then there's the world of sports, where, yes, teenage phenom Michelle Wie reached rank 3, but not without some forceful criticism from doubters, including some vocal sports writers.  Then, of course, the abrupt end of Michelle Kwan's decades-old quest for Olympic gold.  After the champion's name has been virtually synonymous with her sport for so long, her sad withdrawal from the Olympics gives new meaning to phrase, "the agony of defeat".

Despite a few bright lights in Arts and Entertainment, the hype-filled "Year of the Geisha" felt dishearteningly like a year of "one step forward, two steps back".  Rob Marshall's adaptation of Arthur Golden's novel left much of the Asian world with a great, open-jawed "Huh?": head-scratching Japanese, bans in China, and a bunch of really, really irate, underemployed Asian-American actors here at home.  It also brought Geisha-chic back to the mainstream, with Orientalist cosmetics and fashions "inspired by" exotic (and blue-eyed ???) Japanese Chinese lotus blossoms.

Perhaps in reaction to one stereotype -- the demure "butterfly" -- Asian-American cultural scholars are revisiting and contextualizing another: "the dragon lady" exemplified by Golden Age film vamp Anna May Wong.  A retrospective of restored films starring Wong is taking place at NYC's Museum of the Moving Image March 4 through April 16, with introductions by scholars such as Shirley Lim, Judy Wu and others.

Arguably, the biggest international movie splash by any Asian woman this year wasn't made by a woman at all -- but by a teenager, the charming Katie Leung, who took heat from millions of jealous adolescents across the globe for getting to kiss the wizard in her portrayal of Harry Potter’s Cho Chang.

In last year's updates, we mourned the untimely loss of Iris Chang, to whom the WHM edition was dedicated.  This year, we were saddened again to lose an exceptional talent in a tragic, untimely death.  On the eve of opening her new film Fishbowl, an adaptation of Lois-Ann Yamanaka's Wild Meat and Bully Burgers, director Kayo Hatta died in a drowning accident at a friend’s home July 20. Her film Picture Bride, vividly portraying the lot of Japanese immigrant women on Hawai'i plantations, won the 1995 Sundance Audience Award.

A Rocky Year for Businesswomen

In 2005, three APA women were named to Forbes' List of Most Powerful Women, and 2 Asian-Pacific women leaders made the top 10.  But as they say, it's lonely at the top, and the year had not been good even to these power-brokers.  The most highly ranked APA woman, at #28, was Indra Nooyi, the President and CFO of Pepsico who caused an international furor following a perceived criticism of the U.S. (likening its foreign policy approach to "giving the world the middle finger") in a speech at Columbia.  Whether moronically superficial or righteously indignant (depending on your perspective), the "controversy" over Nooyi's supposed "disloyalty" inspired such a hub-bub in both mainstream conservative and NRI media that the company was embroiled in boycotts until it apologized.  Also on the list were Christine Poon, rank #43, named a Vice Chairman of J&J, and a perennial, Avon's Andrea Jung at #35.

Two Asian-Pacific women leaders made the top 10: the embattled Philippines' president Gloria Arroyo and (also internally-pressured) Chinese Vice Premier, minister of health Wu Yi.  However, Asian women posted a net loss for 2005, as Megawati Sukarnoputri had been dropped after her ousting.

Bright Lights

Lest we grow too maudlin, though, we can appreciate a few cultural milestones.

Riding high on her cross-over turn in Sideways, Sandra Oh not only landed a primo role on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy, but took home top TV drama acting honors from the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globes.  (Honorable mention must also go to Yunjin Kim, sharing [along with Daniel Dae Kim] in the Lost cast's collective SAG award for "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series".)

Alice Wu's popular romantic comedy Saving Face was a definite leap forward for APA lesbians, and for pretty much any Asian who's ever had to navigate treacherous family waters in order to have a romantic relationship (yeah, pretty much of all us).  (And while we're at it: it's a big deal for us L Word-watchers fed up with yet another SoCal setting that is at once hyper-self-consciously multiculti "We are the World" and yet somehow bizarrely devoid of Asians.  Maybe an outbreak of biological warfare, a genetically engineered Avian SARS that wiped us all out?  Lesbians of the world [except for Asia] unite!)

A small, obsessive project that swelled into a huge transpacific journey, The Grace Lee Project (by the director of Barrier Device) provided an engaging exploration of "typical Asian American women" (all of whom are 5'3" good girls named "Grace Lee," according to the film's humorous conceit).  Beyond the somewhat familiar explorations of identity and parental pressure, the film was a particular treat for its prolonged profile of legendary Michigan civil rights activist, 88-year-old Grace Lee Boggs.

Not incidentally, another equally legendary activist associated with Black Power, Yuri Kochiyama, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her lifetime dedication to civil rights and racial justice.  And, this is definitely one of those recognitions where it really is "an incredible honor just to be nominated".

Last year's WHM theme was "Year of the APA Women of Letters," and while some engaging titles appeared, this year's publishing activity was relatively subdued.  Perhaps the biggest literary news was Samantha Chang's selection to take over the famed Iowa Writers Workshop, surpassing some major heavyweights to replace the retiring Frank Conroy. 

Texas-based Pakistani-American author Shaila Abdullah made a meaningful entry into the education of American audiences about social conditions for Pakistani and Islamic women in her October released book, Beyond the Cayenne Wall.  Certainly in the mold of "a little book that could," the collection released by iUniverse got an "indie" stamp of approval by winning a Norumbega Fiction Award, offered by the group "Media Darlings" (www.mediadarlings.org) annually to recognize new American and Canadian literary writers.

We've been hearing of some interesting theater projects, as well. Washington's SIS Productions presents the next "episode" of the serial theatrical production, Sex in Seattle, exploring the lives and loves of four contemporary Asian-American women.  Also intriguing is an all-Filipina, Tagalog/English production of The Vagina Monologues, part of the programming for "V-Day San Francisco 2006: Filipina Women Against Violence" (by the provocatively-dubbed "Vagina Warriors" of the Filipina Women's Network).

In media, we saw the launch of a new publication, 13 Minutes, which we think is to be an Asian-American women's magazine, although the editors don't specify it as such.  From a review of its web site, covers, and apparent content foci, the artfully crafted, design-rich glossy looks to be primarily a competitor to pubs such as Audrey, Jade, and Woman International.  We'll just have to stay tuned...

Too Humbug?

Obviously, these notes are not exhaustive.  Asian American and Pacific Islander women continue making important, unsung contributions to our lives all around us -- including many of our heroines who have been featured on and contributed to this site in years past.  We've been inspired by stories large -- like the wave of attention on Tammy Duckworth -- to the small, such as the 50 heroic Vietnamese nuns in Houston who received over a 100 refugees fleeing the Hurricane that devastated the Gulf, including this company's home city of New Orleans.

Nonetheless, we definitely look forward to seeing these accomplishments and contributions greeted by a brighter spotlight this time next year.  And meanwhile, we'll leave it you, the Villagers, to let us know if you think we've got it all wrong, which APA women have inspired you, and what topics you'd like to see us tackle in March 2007.

Continue to: Women's History Month @ IMDiversity Asian American Village