African American adolescents tend to have more success in school if their parents instill in them a sense of racial pride, reducing their vulnerability to the effects of racial discrimination from teachers and peers.
This is the conclusion of a University of Pittsburgh study published this fall in the journal Child Development. Titled "Parental Racial Socialization as a Moderator of the Effects of Racial Discrimination on Educational Success Among African American Adolescents," the research article shows that when African American parents use racial socialization - talking to their children or engaging in activities that promote feelings of racial knowledge, pride, and connection - it offsets racial discrimination's potentially negative impact on students' academic development.
Preparing the adolescents for possible bias was also a protective factor, though a combination of this preparation and racial socialization was found to be ideal in moderating the possible damaging effects of racial discrimination by teachers or fellow students. The Pitt study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
"Our findings challenge the notion that 'race blindness' is a universally ideal parenting approach, especially since previous research has shown that racially conscious parenting strategies at either extreme - either 'race blindness' or promoting mistrust of other races - are associated with negative outcomes for African American youth," said lead author Ming-Te Wang, Pitt assistant professor of psychology in education, who coauthored the study with Harvard's James P. Huguley.
"When African American parents instill a proud, informed, and sober perspective of race in their sons and daughters, these children are more likely to experience increased academic success," said Wang.
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My kids are remarkably blase about fire drills, tornado drills, lockdown drills. They've been prepped for everything. The coded PA announcement that triggers a lockdown is eerily benign. My daughter explains that they have two different kinds of lockdowns with two different protocols--one when there is an intruder inside the building and another when there is something wierd/dangerous going on in the neighborhood/outside the building. It is how unperturbed they are that strikes me.
Thanks to all our teachers. They don't pay you enough to have to deal with this, let alone to have to shoot back.click on link for whole article: Veto SB 59! No guns in my children's schools! - NAM EthnoBlog
I remember when my children were small and I would not let them have playdates or sleepovers at homes that had guns. It was embarassing to ask, “Do you have guns in the house?” but I did. I made one relative get rid of the gun I knew he kept before we would come for a long visit. Curious small children. Careless adults. Deadly weapons. Not a combination I was interested in seeing together.
Now Michigan Republicans want me to send my children to schools full of concealed weapons?
Governor Rick Snyder: For goodness sake, veto SB 59! No guns in my children’s schools!You can tell Michigan Governor Rick Snyder what you think about the gun bill here.
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Saturday, December 8, 2012, 7:00-10:30pm
Come celebrate the release of the anthology "Miso for Life" & enjoy an evening with friends, foods, drinks, and great entertainment. A limited amount of general entry tickets and books are available.https://www.facebook.com/events/543023432378649/
***Online ticket and book pre-order sales are now closed. Tickets at the door will be $15.***
The evening will include: Two fashion shows (Kimonos) provided by DollDelight and Suehiro Kimono; live performances by Nancy Sanchez, Tj Parker, Phanith Rama Sovann, Sue Jin Kim, Khanh Angela Nguyen, Larissa Lam Chiu; martial arts stunt skit (EMC Monkeys), Hawaiian dance (Crystal Chau); special ping pong demonstration by Soo Yeon Lee, complimentary hor d'oeuvres and cocktails, and more.
Your friendship and supports over the years are the reason why we're still here. Thank you for giving us our voices. Let's celebrate.
A group of Huron High School students have organized a Friday night event that is sure to leave attendees feeling full and satisfied in more ways than one, with all-you-can-eat pizza and supporting a good cause.click on link for whole article: Huron High School student group to host Pizza Showdown to benefit children in Kenya
From 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, more than 100 pizzas will be delivered to the Huron cafeteria for a Pizza Showdown — an event that combines local business promotion, community camaraderie and good food together with helping sick and needy children in Kenya.
A new Huron after-school club called Youth Impact is organizing the showdown. It costs $5 for students and $10 for adults to attend.
The money generated will be given to the Take Heart Association's Hearts for Kids project. The Take Heart Association (THAP) strives to provide life-saving surgeries, support, resources and hope to families of underprivileged children in Kenya and East Africa who suffer from heart defects and disease, THAP's website says.
The annual University of Michigan Natural History Museum Halloween party is packed, the girls all dressed as princesses and fairies, the boys all dressed as autobots and ninjas. My son, eight-year-old Little Brother, is a pirate. I am Hello Kitty Gangnam Style. We come every year for the science and the stories, the dinosaurs and the whales (Yay Professor Gingerich!).
This day, I get such a sense of possibility from this short multiculti crowd. There do not seem to be any limits as boys and girls of so many different races and ethnicities imagine what they could be. Anyone could be a doctor, anyone could be a scientist, as little hands explore the surfaces of mammoth and mastodon teeth.
Imagination has no limits today. I love that about Halloween.
Education has no barriers today either. I love that about the Natural History Museum. (Whenever we talk about Chicago, eight-year-old Little Brother has only one word, “Sue.”)
Even now, three weeks later, the memories of this day and the imagination it inspires insulate me from the hateful racist and sexist rhetoric churning outside my door. I want to believe that this hopeful future is what is real and all that crazy stuff in the news—from the Petraeus et al affairs to talk of secession to the Arizona woman who ran over her husband for not voting—is not. Really, don’t we all just want to educate our kids and share a little bit of candy?
Funny how we sometimes need to step outside of reality a moment in order to see what is real.click on link for whole article: Chicago is the World » Possibility. Imagination. Conversations to remember. A Future for all of us.
UAAO Board would like to invite you and your general members to attend EMPOWERMENT co-hosted by Kappa Phi Lambda. This event has been triggered by many cases of gender/sexuality-based assault. We believe that this needs to be brought to the attention of everyone in the A/PIA community. During this event we will have a presentation by SAPAC (Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center), a facilitated dialogue and discussion. CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) will also be present to provide addiclick on link for more: EMPOWERMENT: Presented by UAAO Board and Kappa Phi Lambda
tional support.
My 16-year-old daughter Hao Hao texts me from school, “We should make teriyaki sauce.”
Students are not supposed to text during school so my stock answer used to be, “Why are you texting me from class?” Instead, I check the clock and smile. It is lunchtime. I have grown used to these delightful lunchtime missives. She often texts me photographs of her friends’ lunches that are so much better than what I packed for her. One friend’s mom writes lovely love notes in an elegant cursive every day…on a banana. You can practically hear her chirpy English accent in her curlicues. I try to copy, but my messy Sharpie printing falling off the mottled banana’s curves simply is not the same. Still, Hao Hao texts me photographs of the two bananas comparing notes. And her friends are amused by the pseudo banana rivalry.
Today’s message, however, is about Thanksgiving Eve. Every year, we celebrate one night early, on Wednesday—hence the name, Thanksgiving Eve—with a big international potluck with about sixty of our closest friends. Our friends bring the most amazing spread, from all corners of the world, and for years we never bothered with a turkey. However, an unexpected gift of a turkey one year challenged me to attempt a teriyaki turkey with sticky rice stuffing (I generally do not cook meat). Last year, I learned how to make teriyaki sauce from scratch.
My mother is one of the world’s greatest cooks. She never reads any cookbooks, and her dishes are never fancy or complicated. Yet every night we sit down to a delicious dinner of soup, greens, tofu or bean sprouts, stir fried chicken or beef, and rice. The sounds of the vegetables hitting the oil and the fragrant smells wafting through the house call us to dinner before my mom can. Every dish complements the others in color, taste, and texture. One will be green, another white; another will have red or orange accents. One dish will be crunchy, one crisp, and one creamy. Meals are perfectly balanced, just as she wishes our lives to be.click on link for whole article: InCultureParent | Creating Our Own Thanksgiving Asian-American Style
Except for Thanksgiving dinner.
When I was growing up, my family always tried to celebrate it like other American families did. It was one of the few days my father got off from work. My mother tried to cook a rare special dinner of “American food” as a treat. And it was the only day of the year my father led us in a prayer of thanks before we ate.
I never understood why other Americans got so excited about Thanksgiving. I understood the giving thanks part. I was thankful, too, for the freedoms and opportunities our family has had in America. But it was also a holiday about food, and the food, as I experienced it, was so bland and unappetizing. How do they eat it, I wondered, let alone celebrate it?
My 16-year-old daughter Hao Hao texts me from school, “We should make teriyaki sauce.”
Students are not supposed to text during school so my stock answer used to be, “Why are you texting me from class?” Instead, I check the clock and smile. It is lunchtime. I have grown used to these delightful lunchtime missives. She often texts me photographs of her friends’ lunches that are so much better than what I packed for her. One friend’s mom writes lovely love notes in an elegant cursive every day…on a banana. You can practically hear her chirpy English accent in her curlicues. I try to copy, but my messy Sharpie printing falling off the mottled banana’s curves simply is not the same. Still, Hao Hao texts me photographs of the two bananas comparing notes. And her friends are amused by the pseudo banana rivalry.
Today’s message, however, is about Thanksgiving Eve. Every year, we celebrate one night early, on Wednesday—hence the name, Thanksgiving Eve—with a big international potluck with about sixty of our closest friends. Our friends bring the most amazing spread, from all corners of the world, and for years we never bothered with a turkey. However, an unexpected gift of a turkey one year challenged me to attempt a teriyaki turkey with sticky rice stuffing (I generally do not cook meat).
Last year, I learned how to make teriyaki sauce from scratch.click here for whole article: Chicago is the World » Making Teriyaki Sauce for Thanksgiving Eve
Learn, share and enjoy treats as we celebrate a jumble of traditions from Asia with music and crafts that the whole family will enjoy! AADL's Family Cultural Celebrations highlight the communities from around the world that live in Ann Arbor. For all ages.
http://www.aadl.org/events/list?id=15797
From AADL:
Asian Fusion Harvest Festival
Join us, along with Frances Kai-Hwa Wang and Katie Mashio, for a celebration of rich Asian tradition through storytelling, dancing, and crafts on Sunday, November 18th at 2:00 pm. Chinese harp, Korean and Indian dancers, Japanese origami, mooncake mazes and little Asian snacks will be on the ticket for the whole family!
This time of year, I spend a lot of time sitting in cafes with my friends’ children, helping them with their college application essays. (The University of Michigan’s early decision deadline is November 1.) Reading their essays is such a privilege, such a window into their worlds (that they often do not even share with their own parents). I learn so much about ethical dilemmas they have faced, challenges they have overcome, their diverse communities, their families, their dreams. Working on successive drafts together, I ask questions and push for clarification, and these teenagers that I have watched grow up and who thought they knew it all realize that there is more to learn, more to write, more that can be done. The difference between first and last drafts is stunning.
Going through this process with them always reminds me of when I applied to college. I applied to nine universities—Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford, Dartmouth, Georgetown, etc. My friends and I were debaters, all so cocky and sure about ourselves. We had serious discussions about whether or not we would turn down Stanford in favor of Berkeley, Harvard in favor of Stanford. When the acceptance and rejection letters began coming in, it was quite humbling that of those nine applications, I was only accepted into my safety school. Of course, my safety school was UC Berkeley, which still says volumes, but I learned a huge lesson in humility that year, and I am better for it.
click on link for whole article: Trying to Understand the Entitlement Ethos in Abigail Fisher v University of Texas and Republican Party Post-Election - NAM EthnoBlog
This time of year, I spend a lot of time sitting in cafes with my friends’ children, helping them with their college application essays. (The University of Michigan’s early decision deadline is November 1.) Reading their essays is such a privilege, such a window into their worlds (that they often do not even share with their own parents). I learn so much about ethical dilemmas they have faced, challenges they have overcome, their diverse communities, their families, their dreams. Working on successive drafts together, I ask questions and push for clarification, and these teenagers that I have watched grow up and who thought they knew it all realize that there is more to learn, more to write, more that can be done. The difference between first and last drafts is stunning.
Going through this process with them always reminds me of when I applied to college. I applied to nine universities—Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford, Dartmouth, Georgetown, etc. My friends and I were debaters, all so cocky and sure about ourselves. We had serious discussions about whether or not we would turn down Stanford in favor of Berkeley, Harvard in favor of Stanford. When the acceptance and rejection letters began coming in, it was quite humbling that of those nine applications, I was only accepted into my safety school. Of course, my safety school was UC Berkeley, which still says volumes, but I learned a huge lesson in humility that year, and I am better for it.
So I am really puzzled by people like Abigail Fisher of the current US Supreme Court case Abigail Fisher v University of Texas. A mediocre student, the University of Texas insists that she simply was not good enough, but she is certain that the reason she was not accepted is because of affirmative action and less-qualified minorities. This case also pulls Asian Americans into the argument.
Lots of folks have already written about the legal dimensions of this case, and it is complex, but I am curious about the sense of entitlement that makes her so certain that it is the fault of others that she did not get in.click link for whole article: Chicago is the World » Trying to Understand the Entitlement Ethos in Abigail Fisher v University of Texas and Republican Party Post-Election
I see in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald newspaper that novelist Lois-Ann Yamanaka is reading at the Kinoole Farmer’s Market. “Jean Yamanaka” is the contact name, so she must be in town visiting her mom or other relatives. I love her work and plan to go, excitedly gathering up all her novels to ask her to sign.
But instead, the books bake in my car as I let myself get caught up with the older Japanese American ladies at the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist temple.click on link for whole article: http://5dn.org/e0ef42c
Happy 5th Anniversary, Kartika Review!
Kicked it off right with the gorgeous artwork ofJooYoung Choi and the ingenious cover design of Ligaya King. The CNF section is rightfully impressive with the essays of Jo Hsu, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, and Jimin Han. There's stunning poetry by Rachelle Cruz and Khaty Xiong. Finally, the fiction is jaw-dropping good with An Tran, Kiki Whang, Naomi Williams (fave short story), and Ramola D.
It's FREE to read online, friends. Sink your teeth, feast your eyes.
As Halloween nears, whenever I teach late, I come home to find a different cast of characters galloping triumphant through my house, including Howl’s Moving Castle, pirate vs. ninja, kung fu masters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Steampunk, Goth Lolis, and more. A raucous combination of cosplay and Halloween, the spirit is festive, the creativity fun, the details impressive. Last week, even my old prom and wedding dresses were both trotted out and Steampunked. “Don’t you kids have homework to do?”
And the background music in our house these past few weeks has been Psy’s “Gangnam Style” with its driving beat and in all its many variations (UC Berkeley Style, Michigan Style, Gundam Style, My Little Pony Style, Umma Style, Lungi Style, Klingon Style, Mitt Romney Style).click on link for whole article at New America Media: This Halloween: Dress classy. Dance cheesy. We're a Culture, not a Costume. - NAM EthnoBlog
