Earlier
this month the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, a Washington-based
civil rights group, released a study it commissioned about the representation
of Asians on TV. It found very few Asian characters to analyze. The biggest
problem for Asians in pop culture isn’t even misrepresentation. It’s
under-representation.
That’s
not hard to see. Remember All American Girl? The sitcom about a Korean family that starred
comedienne Margaret Cho did not exactly win over
audiences. Ten years later we’re still waiting for another all-Asian cast on
TV.
There
are black and Hispanic families — too few, and a little late, yes. But where
are the Asians?
A couple of
years ago, Rochesterian Vivien Haowas wondering the same thing.
She was waiting for her friend Alice Hsu in the local history section of the
library. To kill time, she started browsing the collection. “She found a lot of
stuff on African Americans and the Women’s Movement, even the Polish Americans
and the Italians,” says Mimi W. Lee. “She went, ‘Where’s the Asians?’ She found
this small little envelope with a few Xerox copies. She said ‘There must be
more than this.’ That started the conversation going.”
In
2002 Hao and Hsu founded the Asian/Pacific
Islander/American History Project (APA-HiP), whose
mission is to document the history of Asian Americans in Greater Rochester.
Lee, a technical support specialist at Kodak, is this year’s public relations
chair and last year’s president.
APA-HiP has two main projects: the Oral History Project, a
collection of videotaped interviews with Asian Americans, and the Document Heritage
Project. The group received a grant from the New York State Documentary
Heritage Program to survey the community’s collection of historic documents —
old menus, meeting minutes, newsletters, photos —
and is discussing housing an eventual collection at the University of Rochester.
And
for the past three years the group has organized local celebrations of
Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month in May.
“We’re
pan-Asian, we cover all the groups,” Lee says. “We’re interested in all Asians.
We’re one united voice. Unfortunately, if we take each one individually we
don’t have much power. But together we are 2.4 percent of the population. That
could make or break an election.”
Asians
make up about four percent of the population nationally, but the local numbers
are growing. There are 20,000 Asian Americans in the six-county area, and in MonroeCounty the number of
Asians jumped 48 percent between the 1990 and 2000 censes. Also, as Lee points
out, a lot of Asians in the area are students, a population that is hard to
measure.
Despite
the growing numbers, Lee has found it difficult to do her public relations job
to promote the Asian Heritage Month events. Getting press last year, she says,
“was like pulling teeth.”
“A
lesson learned is you have to speak up,” she says. “If you don’t speak up,
maybe they don’t know. For example, last Saturday was the 30th anniversary of
the fall of Saigon. The [D&C] wrote an article on Sunday. But they only did that because
I wrote about it in my Speaking Out piece on Friday. And then I called them and
said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if you said something about the Vietnamese
community?’ 2,600 and growing. A lot of them came
because of the refugee camps. Bring it back in and say, ‘Who are the people in Rochester that you need
to really promote?'”
The Chinese
School of
Rochester is one of two
schools in the area teaching Chinese children on Saturday mornings (this one is
geared towards children of immigrants from mainland China; the other is
more for second-generation Taiwanese). The students learn Mandarin and take
electives in dance, art, and sometimes martial arts.
The
school, housed in Brighton’s TwelveCornersMiddle
School, was founded in 1995, when it had
about 50 students. Now there are 200 students, ages 4 to 16, in 19 classes.
“It’s growing year by year,” says principal Xing Li.
The children move through 12 Mandarin books before they graduate, getting them
to a fourth- or fifth-grade reading level. Most of the students are the
children of Chinese immigrants, though there are about two dozen students who
were adopted from China.
“China has a long
history and heritage, cultural heritage,” Li says. “Parents felt obliged to
pass on this cultural heritage to the next generation. And also, of course, in America now we all
have put more emphasis on diversity, which is a very good thing, and we want to
take advantage of that.”
The
school has a class for adults, mainly filled with professionals doing business
with Chinese companies.
Li
moved to Rochester 14 years ago
from Shanghai to attend
Rochester Institute of Technology. He now works for Xerox and thinks more and
more Asians may be moving to Rochester for the same
reason any one else might. “Rochester is a good
place to raise a family,” he says. “We know the schools are good.”
Eleven-year-old
Jessica Zou is in the seventh book in Chinese school,
and in fifth grade at her Fairport elementary school. She likes Chinese school
even though it can get pretty hard memorizing new words on top of her other
homework.
“I
think it’s a good thing to come here,” she says, “because people learn about
their culture and how people make a lifestyle in China.” There are
only about four or five other Asian kids in her Fairport school, but Jessica
says it doesn’t bother her.
Maybe
it’s easier to be part of a minority most of the time if one day of the week
you’re in the majority.
Just
after 9 a.m. on a recent
Saturday, minivans started converging on TwelveCornersMiddle
School’s parking lot. Inside you could hear
kids’ yells, the squeals of sneakers on hallway floors, and parents greeting
each other.
Some
of the parents sat on desks in one of the classrooms, talking or playing cards.
A group of grandparents set up camp in the school foyer and plugged in a radio
to practice tai chi. Later, they set up a mah-jong game at a folding table. In the gym, a group of
men played basketball. The whole school became an impromptu Chinese community
center. After classes, all the tables were put back, the classrooms relocked,
the Mandarin books and mah-jong tiles packed up.
“Identity Through Art” is the theme for this year’s Rochester
Asian Heritage Month. APA-HiP made and screened a
documentary about six Rochester Asian-American artists, they put up a
photography exhibit at St. JohnFisherCollege, they are
sponsoring two short film nights at RochesterMuseum and ScienceCenter, and they
helped organize the Asian Pacific American Heritage Family Day at MemorialArtGallery full of
performing and visual arts. That day drew 1,245 people — an all-time MAG
Family Day record.
“We
are contributing in so many different ways that people don’t necessarily
consider,” says Amy Hsi, current APA-HiP president. “OK, we’re doctors, we’re engineers; we’re
also artists. You can’t put a label on us. There are so many things that we do and
we are.”
For
the Identity Through
Art documentary, Hsi and Lee and film directors RehemaTrimiew and Yoshihiro
Shimizu felt it was important to explore issues of identity. When you ask an
artist who she is, what comes first, ethnic or artistic identity?
“It’s
always a concern that we have,” Lee says. “Everyone’s always concerned about
who they are.”
The
film includes interviews with Pakistani collage artist Mara Ahmed, Indian
classical dancer Parvatha Chidambaram, Korean actor
Hara Kang, Cambodian ceramic artist CheaPeng, Chinese glass artist Nancy Gong, and Japanese
calligraphy and Ikebana artist Yasuko Spence. They all talk about the
intersection of identity and art, tradition and creation. It is Gong who says,
“The Asian-ness of my art is very subtle. It’s like, ‘Who am I?’ I’m half this,
I’m half that. I’m a mix. So I think my artwork is that as well.”
It
was also important to the filmmakers to talk to artists living and working in
the Rochester area. “Local
talent is very important,” Lee says. “I always ask people, ‘Do you know the
Ying Quartet? Do you know Linda Sue Park?’ We have tons of people.”
The
documentary was first screened at the family day at the MemorialArtGallery, May 1. That
day was a kaleidoscope: children and adults in national dress, dancers, yo-yos,
theater, paper lanterns, puppets, storytelling, Mehndi,
pottery, and calligraphy.
There
were representatives from Rochester groups many
people may not know exist: the KoreanEthnicSchool, ChineseDanceAcademy, Filipino
American Association of Rochester, Families with Children from China, Taiwanese
Association of Rochester, Pakistani American Society of Rochester, and GENseng, SUNY Geneseo’s Asian
American theater group.
“Any time we are able to
present parts of our heritage to the community at large, it is a positive
thing,” says Dr. C. PadmanabhKamath,
chairman of the Indian Classical Music and Dance Society at the IndiaCommunity
Center.
For
the past 10 years the ICC has been offering programs of classical Indian music
and dance in the two main styles, North and South Indian. Most of the artists
are visiting from India, on tour
through the United States.
“Rochester is becoming
quite well-known as one of the places where there are high-quality musical
programs,” Kamath says. All the money to pay the
artists — up to $35,000 last year — is raised through the ICC membership.
Families contribute anything from $100 to $6,000. For concerts that draw an
average of 70 people (twice that on average for dance programs), it’s a
significant investment.
“We
love this music,” Kamath says. “There are at least
150 to 160 dedicated people in the community who love this music.” He says
because the ICC is always available as a venue and the artists are already on
tour, the concerts are easy to arrange. “It enriches our lives,” he says. “It’s
a win-win situation.”
The
ICC, located in Penfield, also has built a campsite adjacent to the Center with
enough cabin-room for more than 100 people. Over the summer up to 400 kids will
spend time camping there, most of them at Hindu Heritage Camp.
Kamath likes the
idea of Asian Heritage Month because, very simply, it introduces people. “We
are a part of this community,” he says. “Any time people interact with other
people they begin to feel much more comfortable. This is the only way to do it.
You can’t do it by reading. The best way is to get to know other people.”
Kamath hopes more
people will start attending the concerts at ICC (some local dancers were at the
MAG Family Day, giving people an idea of what to expect). Kamath’s
seen it happen before, with both Indians and non-Indians: People wander in for
one event and become regulars.
Rochester doesn’t have an Asian commercial center like the Chinatowns in cities
like Toronto or New York. We may never
have one; we may not be that kind of place. But there are more and more
Asian-owned businesses cropping up, more and more places for people to visit,
shop, recreate, speak a familiar language, or buy familiar food.
“The
thing I find amazing,” Hsi says, “is I’ll be
somewhere and notice there’s like this tiny little Asian market. And they just
keep sprouting. And people are pretty resourceful. They will start a shop, or
make some sort of community center, so they can help each other out.”
A
stretch along South Clinton Avenue is becoming
something of a social center. For 21 years there has been the India House,
India House Vegetarian Cafe, and India House Store constellation owned by the Sud family. ChanderSud says the location has served them well: It’s close to University
Avenue and the arts district and it’s close
to the University of Rochester. People walk
in from the neighborhood to shop and eat; they also drive in from all over MonroeCounty.
Cuong Luc,
originally from Vietnam, opened the
Little Saigon DVD and CD store just down the street from India House at 976 South
Clinton Avenue six months ago. He chose his
location because it’s across the street from OceanGarden, an Asian
grocery store. Business has been a little slow, but Luc cites the almost 3,000
Vietnamese people living in the area and hopes they might eventually find his
shop.
Lee
sees evidence of a growing community — even if it’s not contained in one
bustling part of the city. There are groups of Asian-American professionals at
Kodak and Xerox; she goes to a Chinese church, where services are in English,
Cantonese, and Mandarin; there are Korean and Japanese schools. “It depends on
where you look,” she says.
The
key to helping others see it, she thinks, is talking about and documenting the
community’s contributions.
“A
lot of the concern was how do we as Asian Americans
assimilate in the society,” she says. “I think there’s also a lot of interest
in keeping and retaining. We’re thinking that with our history, and documenting
our heritage, we can say, ‘Hey, this happened.’ We need to know what happened.
If you don’t know what happened, you’re scratching the ground again.”
Asian
Pacific American Month events
Daily
Lives photo exhibit is on display through May 31 at the Lavery
Library at St. JohnFisherCollege, 3690 East
Avenue. (385-8165)
Nancy Gong will give an
illustrated lecture on Thursday, May 12, at the MemorialArtGallery, 500
University Avenue, at 7:30
p.m. $2
PepsyKettavong will give a
presentation on Sunday, May 22, at the RochesterMuseum and ScienceCenter, 657 East
Avenue, at 2
p.m.
A
short film night on Tuesday, May 17,
will be held at Rochester Museum and Science Center, 657 East Avenue, at 7 p.m.
$5.
Information:
www.rochesterasianhistory.org
This article appears in May 11-17, 2005.
