Steve Okino - Honolulu, Hawaii » Issues

The First Asian American President !!??!!

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:50:17 +0000

Like so many in Hawai‘i, Senator Barack Obama is hapa. But that’s not the reason writer Jeff Yang thinks he could be the first Asian American to be President. Like Toni Morrison anointed Bill Clinton the nation’s first Black President on the basis of his early life circumstances and experiences, Yang argues that growing up in Hawai‘i (and Indonesia) gives Senator Obama a uniquely Asian American perspective:

Evidence for Obama’s affinity with the Asian American experience runs true even as one delves deeper into his history. “A lot of aspects of the senator’s story will be recognizable to many Asian Americans,” says Lu, a Harvard Law School classmate of the senator’s who joined the team in 2005. “He talks about feeling like somewhat of an outsider; about coming to terms with his self-identity; about figuring out how to reconcile the values from his unique heritage with those of larger U.S. society. These are tensions and conflicts that play out in the lives of all children of immigrants.”

Read Jeff’s full column at SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website).

Barack Obama’s Mother

admin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:06:13 +0000

On his blog earlier this week, Ian Lind offered interesting background on the mother of presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama:

I have been wondering about Barack Obama’s mother ever since I heard that she graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a Ph.D. in anthropology…Contrary to the rightwing screeds on the internet, nothing about Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro is text book…

The post is written by Dr. Meda Chesney-Lind, and is worth reading. Note, too, the upcoming seminar in September, part of the Women’s Studies Colloquium Series at the University.

The “Dog” and the doc

admin — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:45:29 +0000

The controversy over “Dog, the Bounty Hunter” and his racist remarks provides an appropriate hook for a broader conversation about race and racism in the multi-ethnic society that is Hawai‘i.

That’s of course a major theme in Holding Fast The Dream, now in production (and for which support is still critically needed). We firmly believe that the more each of us knows about the rainbow of races and ethnicities that populate our islands and our planet, the greater the potential to grow past the limits that racism imposes.

It also prompted Hawai‘i’s NAACP to move the bigger issue forward via a public forum on November 4, which hopefully shines some light on our islands’ little secrets involving race, understanding, and acceptance.

We’ll be shooting that forum in hopes that what comes out of it advances the theme of our film…and our ability to fully appreciate the diversity that Hawai‘i offers.