I asked my mom what she

remembered eating at Thanks-

giving growing up and she said

she remembered eating turkey with Chinese seasoning. This

is clearly an Asian American

invention. Today, my Thanks-

giving meal includes a mix of Chinese and traditional

Thanksgiving foods. To me,

nothing goes together better

than chow fun and stuffing, duck and turkey. I love how

this authentically American

holiday has been integrated

with Asian culture to create this uniquely Asian-American

eating experience.

We also have some exciting news… AAA is bringing Tak

Toyoshima, creator of ―Secret

Asian Man‖ comic strip, to

Wash U on Dec. 5. You will not want to miss him! Start

listening to ―Secret Agent

Man‖ to get ready.

Hello everyone!

I hope that everyone survived

their midterms and are enjoy-ing a slight break before final

exams. Thanks to all of you

who came out to AAA events

this month! I had a great time beating, I mean playing many of

you at laser tag. I also hope

that everyone was able to kick

back and enjoy the movies we selected for this year’s Asian

American Film Festival. The

annual AAA Week is coming

up so be sure to check out all of the fun events we have

planned!

This is the last time you’ll hear me say it but, GO OUT AND

VOTE! Included in this

month’s newsletter is a special

election insert to get you geared up to vote on Nov. 4.

If you still need some inspira-

tion, check out my favorite YouTube video of the month,

―Black White Whatever‖. It

really speaks to all minorities

that are not being heard dur-

ing the election season. The more presence we have at the

polls, the more attention they

will give APIA’s in the future.

So as Thanksgiving ap-proaches, I try to remember

what Thanksgiving food

memories I had growing up. I

remember sitting around a large table at our family res-

taurant eating a typical Chi-

nese meal, but with turkey included as one of the dishes.

This summer I went with

three friends from high school

as a grad trip to the Olympics

in Beijing. One of the tickets we got was the opening night

of track and field at the famed

Bird’s Nest. That night was

our last night in Beijing before we flew back to Shanghai in

the morning. Track and field

didn’t start till 7:30pm, but we

didn’t get the Olympic Green

until 8:30pm.

The weather was humid as

usual and you could literally feel the excitement surround-

ing the area. The streets were

incredibly crowded with peo-

ple trying to catch a mere glimpse of the stadium lit up at

night. People lined the fences

staring, admiring the stadium

as if it was a flying saucer from

outer space. Children were

climbing on their parents’

shoulders; camera flashes clicked on and off, lighting up

the overflowing sidewalks. As

my friends and I tried to find

the entrance to the Green, we finally realized the worst –

there was only one entrance

into the Green which was on

Greetings From Your AAA Prez Sarah Wong

My Memorable Olympic Experience Brandon Lee

Asian American Association

Newsletter November 2008 Volume 2, Issue 3

AAA Executive Board

2008-2009

President Sarah Wong

External VP Alex Lin

Internal VP Jeff Lin

Treasurer Charles Qiao

Secretary Alice Gu

PR Yena Kwon

PR Marina Cheung

Historian Andrew Shaw

Fresh. Rep Amy Lam

Fresh. Rep Brandon Lee

Fresh. Rep Patrick Ng

Upcoming

Events:

AAA Week! Tues. Nov 4

Go out and VOTE!

Voting Booth

Wed. Nov 5

Movie and Dumplings

Eliot Lounge

6:30pm

Thurs. Nov 6 T-shirt Making

Ursa’s Fireside

6:30pm

Fri. Nov 7

Badminton Tourney Meet at the

Clock tower

6:30pm

Sat. Nov 8

Charity Auction Ursa’s Stageside

5:30pm

Cont. OLYMPICS on pg. 2

Asian American Film Festival “The Motel” & Korean Food

P A G E 2

YouTube Pick of the Month

Spoken Word: "Black White

Whatever" Kelly Tsai (Def

Poetry)

From OLYMPICS pg. 1

the opposite side of the

square.

Dodging in and out of

pictures, side-stepping between people lei-

surely walking, and do-

ing some of our own

bumping, we started jogging to the entrance.

The night setting was

anything but calm. The

humidity made it feel as though it was still as hot

as daytime. Our back-

packs bouncing up and

down, pumping our arms as if we were in

the Olympics ourselves,

we cried mixtures of

―Sorry!‖ and ―Dui bu

chi!‖ as we darted be-

tween families and in front of pictures.

Finally, we reached the

familiar, Olympic-colored

security tent. Bent over at the waist, we all

caught our breath and

got in the short security

line. As my friends filed one-by-one through the

metal detectors, I was

the last one to go; only

to be stopped and held back by security. I was

so close to the colorfully

lit stadium and its

famed aurora of criss-

crossed design of metal

supports, only to be refused entry; because

in my backpack, I held

the emergency epi-

needle for my friend’s nut allergy.

Note: I was later ad-

mitted into the Olym-pic Green and the

Bird’s Nest after a

heated fifteen minute

argument with the head of security.

I discovered

the next

artist,

Meiko, while

surfing the

internet.

Born and

raised in Georgia, Meiko and

her sister adopted the names

Meiko and Keiko in an at-

tempt to get in touch with

their Japanese heritage;

Meiko is one-quarter Japa-

nese, on her maternal grand-

mother's side. She inde-

pendently released her self-

titled album in 2007 and be-

came an iTunes success.

Now her music is featured

on popular shows like Grey’s

Anatomy. My

favorite

tracks on her

album are

―Reasons to

Love You‖

and ―Boys

With Girl-

friends‖.

Yamagata and Meiko are

both touring the country as

part of the Hotel Café Tour

and will be stopping by the

Loop’s Blue-

berry Hill on

Nov. 8 to

perform

(+21 only).

Also per-

forming in St.

Louis will be

Thao Nguyen (Priscilla Ahn

is on the tour but is not

stopping in St. Louis). This is

a great opportunity to sup-

port four Asian American

women who have broken

into the mainstream music

scene and are doing it with

ease.

-Sarah Wong

HOTEL CAFE TOUR 2008 Rachael Yamagata•Meiko Thao Nguyen•Kate Havnevik•Alice

Russell•Jaymay Blueberry Hill Doors 8 pm • Show 9 pm

$17 in Advance / $20 DOS

In an industry that’s hard

enough for female singer-

song writers, four Asian

American

women are

succeeding

and causing

quite a stir in

the music

industry.

I first became a fan of Rachel

Yamagata when I heard the

song ―Be Be Your Love‖ on

FOX’s So You Think You Can

Dance (you discover a lot of

music from that show). Ya-

magata is fourth-generation

Japanese American on her

father's side and of Italian

and German ancestry on her

mother's side. Her first full

length album Happenstance

came out in 2004 to much

acclaim and her songs have

been featured on many TV

shows, including The OC and

One Tree Hill, and the movie,

Sisterhood of the Traveling

Pants. Yamagata released a

new album this past month.

A S I A N A M E R I C A N A S S O C I A T I O N

Join the

“Asian American

Association”

Facebook Group!

Become a AAA

Member Today!

Contact

aaa@sugroups.wustl.edu

Restaurant Review: Bobo Noodle House Yena Kwon

P A G E 3 Volume 2, Issue 3

Bobo is a restaurant that is located

right next to Kayak’s, at the corner of Forest Park Parkway and Skinker.

I recently went to dinner there with a friend, and we instantly got good

vibes as soon as we walked in. It was small and cozy with an artsy

flair. My friend, let’s call her Liz, no-ticed and commented on their

rather extraordinarily-simple-yet-ingeniously-creative chandeliers—

chandeliers that were creations of ordinary things, such as paper, wire, little clips, etc., and yet when they

were put together….a masterpiece.

After we had briefly admired the chic

space, we perused Bobo’s menu. All the dishes listed sounded delicious, and, best

of all, the prices were relatively afford-able. We both decided on a mixed green

salad with mango and salmon (interesting combination, no?), which

cost $9 each. So the prices aren’t too extravagant, though not super cheap, either. We placed our order—Liz or-

dered a glass of wine along with her salad—and we walked to an open table

and sat down. The ordering system re-minded me of restaurants like Panera,

where you place your order at the cash register, pay, and then wait for the food

at your table. We didn’t have to wait too long for our

salads to arrive, and when they did, they didn’t disappoint. The salad portions

were just right, and the taste was su-perb. There was plenty of salmon (no

skimping here!), and the pieces of mango added a unique touch of sweetness to

the dish. Liz and I ate and chatted for a long time, doing much-needed catching up. During

our stay, our waiter frequently came by

to refill our water glasses—sometimes

even when our glasses were still full (one time he tipped a drop more into

my completely full glass as he said, ―Just a tad bit more…‖). He seemed like a

generally good fellow, though, albeit goofy, and we secretly laughed after his

constant visits to our table. Personally, I thought he might have either been bored or just extremely courteous.

Before Liz and I knew it, we had stayed at Bobo’s for over 2 hours, and the res-

taurant seemed like it was slowly closing up for the night. As we gathered our

things to leave, Liz commented that Bobo’s would be a great date place. I

agreed; what with the soft subdued lighting and intimate atmosphere, Bobo’s

would be a terrific place to take a date. It’s a nice and relatively elegant restau-

rant (though not high-class by any means), and it won’t kill your wallet

(which is of the utmost importance to most of us college students). I would

recommend people to try it out, either with friends, family, or a special some-one.

Restaurant Review: Thai Gai Yang Café Amy Lam

Thai Gai Yang Café is part of a Thai

cuisine chain located on the Delmar Loop. It was opened in 1996 to mir-

ror the ―fast, inefficient, outdoor eateries in Thailand‖ and to bring

Gai Yang, Thai for barbequed chicken, to Saint Louis. Since then,

the restaurant has grown very popu-lar with its tasty, ethnic food. It is

open for lunch and dinner everyday from 11:15 am to 10:00 pm.

The café has a diverse menu, includ-ing salads, noodle soups, noodle

plates, rice plates, and fried rice. Its

entrees have cheap prices, ranging

from six to nine dollars, and in my

with people from all walks of life who

come to the restaurant for a taste of Thailand. A visit to Thai Gai Yang Café

is an upbeat experience with excellent food at a great price.

opinion, they have the best Pad Thai

in town. A mere eight dollars will get you a huge plate of authentic Pad

Thai with a peanut sauce that is sec-ond to none. Along with Pad Thai, I

would also recommend a plate of curry. The vegetables in the dish

soak up the curry, making them ex-tremely flavorful. A glass of Thai iced

tea is a great compliment to either dish with its sweet, refreshing flavor.

Service is quick and the atmosphere

is quite appealing. The restaurant is

very colorful with its ethnic paintings

and decorations. It is always crowed

October 10, 2008 There are legions of voters in this country who are completely invisi-ble -- at least to the GOP. Even though McCain can't seem to stop talking about

his war experiences in Asia (specifically 'Nam), what he hasn't been able to do is address the unique issues impacting the millions of Asian American voters in this country. And unlike George W. Bush, he can't play the blame game and cling to ignorance as this pathetic excuse. Since the start of this election, an Asian American Advocacy group known as the 80-20 Initiative has been pressing hard for the presiden-tial candidates to commit to issues disproportionately plaguing Asian America. Obama signed a pledge during the primaries. And McCain? No dice. Like I said, McCain can't see us -- something that might cost him big in November. I get that in the past racial policies have proven divisive and polarizing, but the 80-20 Initiative isn't some radical, left-wing group asking that the presidential candidates commit to extreme racial projects. They're ask-ing for commitments to fight the very real racism that Asian Americans face in the work force, from racial-ized glass ceilings to hiring discrimi-nation practices to being consistently overlooked for federal judge appoint-ments. And given that there's a fairly

wide support for equal protection, signing wouldn't exactly cause the non-Asian American electorate to rush the streets and use it as the one issue to block a McCain administra-tion from seeing the light of day. But has he lost the the Asian Ameri-can swing vote by not signing the pledge? That's a different story. As an Asian American, I can testify firsthand how incredibly frustrating it is when the issues we care about are completely removed from the political discourse. We're often told that we belong to this "model minority" who has already transcended racism and as a result, our experiences with dis-crimination aren't valid. I'm not going to go into all of the rea-sons why the widely over-generalized "model minority" stereo-type is untrue and racist. But I will say this: Telling me that you don't acknowledge my experiences isn't going to convince me that they aren't real. It's going to convince me to not vote for you. What McCain doesn't seem to get is that by not going after voters that happen to look like me, he's going up against a political force that shouldn't be taken lightly. Asian Americans constitute roughly 5 percent of the nation - more than enough to make the difference in a race that has been so up and down. And thanks partially to an ugly history of racial-segregation practices, the power of the Asian American voting bloc is even more powerful than the num-bers suggest. This swing bloc is disproportionately

located where our votes matter even more: swing states. Going by the 2000 census data, there are nine states where the Asian Ameri-can population exceeds the national average. And five have been dubbed possible swing states in the 2008 race by USA Today. These include Califor-nia, Washington and New Jersey - tra-ditionally blue states which have proven receptive to Republican candi-dates at the state-level, two of which Hillary Clinton won in the primaries; Virginia - a traditionally red state that is now up for grabs thanks to Obama's unprecedented popularity among Afri-can American voters; and the more traditional swing state of Nevada, an-other state that Obama couldn't win during the primaries. But it's not too late for McCain to win our votes. I know this is going to sound odd coming from an Asian American, given an ugly stereotype about our physical appearance that I won't di-rectly mention, but Sen. McCain: open your eyes! The key to this election is often said to be in the hands of swing voters and former Clinton supporters, over one fifth of whom have already decided to support you. Asian Americans repre-sent both. Given that we voted Hillary almost 3:1 in the California primary, it's not an incredible jump to think that a renewed effort from the McCain Camp to address issues we care about could mean more defection -- something that could reverse the McCain slide in the polls. Joseph Bui is a writer for The Daily Californian, a student at the University of California-Berkeley and a former associate for the Hillary Clinton cam-paign.

McCain losing his chance to win over the

Asian American vote washingtonpost.com

Comprehensive new survey shows Asian Americans could

play key role in outcome of presidential election http://www.naasurvey.com/

October 6, 2008 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Among Asian American voters, many are supporting presidential candidate Barack Obama, but another sizable portion remains undecided - a development that could set the stage for Asian Americans to play a pivotal role in the outcome of the election, according to a new national survey released today. This groundbreaking study, released at a Washington, D.C., press conference this morning, was conducted by researchers from four leading universities: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley); Uni-versity of California, Riverside (UC River-side); and University of Southern California (USC). The researchers' 2008 National Asian American Survey (NAAS) shows that 41 percent of Asian Americans are likely to favor Obama, while 24 percent support John McCain. In battleground states, where either candidate could win on Election Day, Obama leads with 43 percent of Asian Americans supporting him and 22 percent favoring McCain. Researchers point out that a key finding of the study is the high proportion of unde-cided Asian American likely voters: 34 per-cent. Among the general population, na-tional polls conducted since the major party conventions show that undecided voters are approximately 8 percent of the elector-ate. Karthick Ramakrishnan, an associate pro-fessor of political science at UC Riverside, points out that "with such a high proportion of undecided voters, Asian Americans are a critical source of potential votes for either candidate in the final weeks of the cam-paign." "Even in battleground states and among those Asian Americans who were interviewed in the second half of Septem-ber, more than 30 percent were undecided between Barack Obama and John McCain," he says. The multi-ethnic, multi-lingual survey of more than 4,000 Asian Americans likely to vote in the election was conducted from Aug. 18 to Sept. 26. It is the most compre-hensive survey to date of the political views of Asian Americans, with interviews con-ducted in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and

Vietnamese. Janelle Wong, an associate professor of political science at USC, says that "most national polls cannot report the preferences of these likely voters because they do not interview in multiple languages, and the number of interviews they conduct among Asian Americans is very small." By drawing on the knowledge of political scientists with expertise in survey research and ethnic politics, and with support from several foundations, the NAAS data pro-vide insight about Asian Americans as a whole, the researchers say, as well as about their six largest ethnic subgroups: Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japa-nese, Koreans and Vietnamese. The research shows that support for the candidates does vary by Asian American ethnic groups. Among those who have made up their mind on a candidate, two-thirds of Vietnamese Americans support McCain; Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, and Indian Americans support Obama by more than a three-to-one ratio; and Korean and Filipino Americans who are likely voters also support Obama over McCain, but the gap is much smaller, with ratios less than 1.4 to 1. Many of the differences can be attributed to party affiliation, according to the research-ers. Vietnamese Americans identify with the Republican Party over the Democratic Party by nearly a two-to-one ratio, while the opposite is true for other ethnic groups such as Indian Americans and Chinese Americans. Still, as UC Berkeley associate professor of political science Taeku Lee says, "A very large number of Asian Americans are non-partisan. The Asian American vote is very much up for grabs: Nonpartisans who see either the Democratic or Republi-can party as closer to them on issues that matter to them are much likelier to vote for that party's candidate." Among the survey's other findings: The majority of Asian Americans who voted in the primary supported Hillary Clinton over Obama by nearly 2 to 1; but 59% of Clinton supporters now plan to vote for Obama and 10 percent support McCain. About 80 percent of likely voters who are

Asian American list the economy as one of the most important problems the nation faces, followed by the war in Iraq. On both issues, there are strongly divided opinions between Obama and McCain supporters. "Even as the Iraq war has receded from the headlines as concerns about the economy have become more prominent, the war still plays a powerful role in the Asian American choice for president," says Jane Junn, an associate professor of political science at Rutgers. Overall, 32 percent of all Asian Americans identify themselves as Democrats; 14 per-cent as Republicans; 19 percent as inde-pendents; and 35 percent as nonpartisan, not fitting into any of the major party cate-gories. One third of Asian American citizens get informed about politics from Asian-language television and newspapers, and more than one in four (28%) say they would use Asian-language ballot materials. Next to Latinos, Asian Americans are the fastest growing share of the U.S. popula-tion. Currently, they comprise 5 percent of the population and, according to the re-searchers, will likely play a significant role in battleground states such as Virginia, Nevada and Washington, where they ac-count for 5 percent or more of the popula-tion. Even in states such as Colorado, Ohio and Florida, where they are less numerous, Asian Americans may provide the margin of victory, the researchers said. The full NAAS report, including information on the survey methodology used, will be posted online at: http://www.naasurvey.com/.

Angry Little Girls By Lela Lee

AAA Newsletter Edited By Sarah Wong

Laser Tag Oct. GBM

Moon Festival

Laser Tag

Oct. GBM Film Fest Day 1

Film Fest Day 2

Moon Festival

Film Fest Day 2

AAA in October! Film Fest Day 3

Oct. GBM