Neighborhood Friends Get Together

Melody Li, Age 5
Oakland
Fruitvale School

My Asian Muse

Michelle Huynh, Age 16
Oakland
The College Preparatory School

"I'm in love with a stripper… Out of all the girls she be the hottest…"

The rich vocals of T-Pain filled the quiet, late afternoon winter air when a Mustang 70' with pealing ruby-colored paint parked at the liquor store across the street from my home. I cannot help but shake my head softly to the music as I walked up my three stories, one century old apartment building after karate practice. Yeah. She know what she doin'.. do the right thing… As I stepped through the lobby door, I was greeted with a strong stench consisting of Chinese herbal medicine, tobacco, and mold. The three flights up the stairs proved to be strenuous to my already tired feet. After a seemingly endless two minutes of dragging my uncooperative legs up the stairs, I arrived at my destination. The chipping gold paint on the metal three that was attached to my door had never looked so welcoming. I ran into the kitchen after opening the door, filled the red kettle that my grandmother bought for me from Vietnam with cold water from facet, and placed it on the stove. Several minutes later, I had a cup of hot Jasmine tea in my hand. I placed my favorite Hiromi CD in my Sony CD player and sat down at the dinner table. As Hiromi's jazzy, soft piano melodies filled the dining area, I gazed out the window while sipping my delicious trà, wondering just how to characterize my dirty, chaotic, but wonderfully diverse and lively neighborhood…

Unique. Many people surely cannot brag about having neighbors who sing opera, living in the next building. Countless Saturday afternoons, I have had to endure the great lung capacity of Tina and José. Several buildings on my block could hear the voluminous and high-pitched laaalalalallaaa. My neighborhood is an amalgamation of all the strange and interesting people one could hope to meet in a lifetime.

The apartment owner lives on the first floor of my apartment building. He is a self-designated "Mr. Handy Man." He fixes porches, roofs, electrical problems, sinks, … any services you need, and he is there to help you. Senor Ramirez, who lives several blocks down my street, is infamous for his profuse knowledge of Mexican spices. My neighbors across the street are notorious for their Sunday night Vietnamese shout-a-thons where they sit in their porches and speak Vietnamese in extremely loud voices. Diagonal from us lives a kind middle-aged woman who loves reading and writing romantic novels. We have a resident hobo who wanders from porch to porch. One could tell if he has been on one's porch because he either leaves: 1. a Budweiser, 2. cigarette butts, or 3. a cup noodles and two egg shells. He is a friendly person. He greets strangers and likes to make small talk with my father.

Isolated.Because my neighborhood consists of many building complexes, it is difficult to have close-knit community. Everyone is enclosed in his or her own bubble. There is a detachment from the community because frankly, no one really has the time to chat with the plethora of individuals present in our neighborhood. My neighborhood is right by a freeway pass. With the constant flow of traffic down our streets, it makes it difficult for one to walk across the streets to visit with friends in the late afternoon. The speeding cars and incessant honking are enough to discourage one from even trying.

Diverse. Mexicans, Russians, Caucasians, Latinos, Asians, and many others make up the racial diversity of my community. And each different racial group that I have encountered have had some affect on my persona.

I am Asian. I am a Vietnamese teenager. Yet, I am not authentically Asian. I am different from my cousins in Vietnam. I was born in America. But I do not feel like a real American since my family had no ancestral ties to the land. I see myself as person struggling to find her place in this land that she call home. My neighborhood taught me that the identity crisis is exactly what makes me 'American'. My Popo once told me that the 'Asian' part of me ties me to my ancestors. And, the 'American' part of me is what ties me to this country. And what is special about the label 'American' is that it means citizen of a multi-everything nation. What is special about America is that we all the ability to meet and encounter new and interesting people and cultures. We are not limited to just speaking one or two languages. We have the ability to experience as many cultures as we possibly can. It, ultimately, is up to us to define our range of 'Americanism'.

My community helped me expand my understanding of myself. I am proud to be Asian American. I love the Asian culture. But, I am not restricted to just that. Senor Ramirez introduced me to the wonders of the Mexican culture. Spanish music has become my latest interest. Our resident vocalists expanded my knowledge of Opera. I have great appreciation for black culture. My best friend Robin taught me how to cornrow another person's hair. All the cultures that I have been exposed to made me the person that I am now- the jazz loving, R&B crooning, chopsticks using, pickled radish-eating teenager. I am an Asian (Bla-Spa-Rus-Mexi-Fin-can) American.

Dirty-Dilapidated, paint-pealing buildings, and dirty streets greet the eyes of strangers when they drive down my block. One could not help but categorize this neighborhood as one of the many poor and crime driven communities. The 24 hour liquor store at the corner of Park Blvd does little to help reverse the negative impression. My neighborhood is certainly not the best in the world. Traffic accidents are common occurrences. Homeless people sometimes wander around our streets. A group of youngsters in the next street enjoys playing loud rap music late at night. My fourth floor neighbor decides to vacuum her living room at 11pm. It is a chaotic and yet orderly place. My neighborhood is full of fanciful contradictions. It is welcoming. It is cold. It is a safe haven from a busy day. It is a dangerous traffic zone. Many streets like mine have negative connotations simply because people often associate "poor" with "the slum of the slums." If we look past the initial impression or the initial stereotypical reactions, we find a whole new world unbeknownst to the average man. Yes, my neighborhood could use many improvements. Our neighborhood schools should receive more funds, we should relocate the homeless into a shelter, etc. There are countless improvements that could, but probably would not be applied. My neighborhood is my home, mi hogar, my nhà. It has a dynamic persona that is just yearning for a bit of TLC and development.

***

After finishing my trà(and my long contemplation), I have concluded that there is no one way to characterize my neighborhood. There are so many different ways to describe my neighborhood that to restrict it to just one description do it injustice. It is truly a robust and dynamic neighborhood. I sighed contentedly and began to clean up the cookies crumbles on the table. Yes, my neighborhood is not without problems like other neighborhoods. But it is my home. It is my nhà, mi hogar, my 'crib'. As I prepared a cup of hot chocolate with extra whipping and caramel syrup on top to go with my favorite Jane Austen novel- Pride and Prejudice, I decided to conclude my thoughts on this elaborate topic with this: It is hard to neatly classify my neighborhood. It fixes no one standard of classification. It is a delicate blend of all the fine, poor, and mediocre things found in our society. My neighborhood is very much like a buffet table. A bit of chow mein, a bit of BBQ ribs, a large helping of mash potatoes. Some food might be disgusting, some might be bland, but many are a mixture of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy.

Chinese New Year in the Community

Deborah Liao, Age 12
Campbell
Challenger School (Harwood Campus)

Echoes from the Past

Michelle Wilens, Age 17
San Francisco CA
Lowell High School

Not all superheroes have powers

Julien Hannah B. Bea, Age 13
Alameda CA
Will C. Wood Middle School

Colors

Jamie Kim, Age 19
Cupertino CA
San Jose State University

It called to my grandmother quietly at first. She was only a child then, but me feeling was so intense that it could not be denied. It was a red and real as the blood running through her body. She asked her father if she could have a pad of paper and some pencils for drawing pictures. Her father laughed out loud, "Mee Chu Su?" "Are you crazy?" He blurted out in harsh Korean. He went on to say that girls were not to waste their time on such frivolous activities. There was much work to do and she was now old enough to help out in the kitchen. She should start thinking about her duties as a filial daughter and then her duties as a wife to her husband. That was it and nothing else would be said. He spoke so diplomatically the she almost believed him. All she wanted was to feel smooth charcoal in her fingers and to press them onto paper, so that the vivid images in her head could be recorded and soothed.

Her mother thought differently. She was very fond of her child and desired to give her all that she could to make her happy. She disobeyed the orders of her husband and bought the shiniest wax crayons and a pad of thin rice paper from the street peddler. Her daughter would be so pleased and she was. She spent many hours training her hand to follow the details that her eyes saw. She drew red strawberries, green leaves and white clouds.

Her father was not at all pleased when he found one of the drawing. She had run out of paper and had drawn on a piece of butcher paper that she asked from the man at the market. He dragged my grandmother and pulled her hair and loudly ripped the delicate paper into the angriest pieces. The echo of the ripping stayed inside of her and silenced the desire.

It called to her again later. This time more loudly. She had to wait until her father and the others were asleep, then she would steal into the kitchen and take small pieces of burnt firewood from the stove and hide them in her dress. She drew, with those sticks, on the walls of the barn. The deep, ashy remains of the wood rubbed smooth and velvety across the barren, clay walls of the barn. She was free to greet the calling inside of her now and she felt furious, as the fervor of bottled passion came out in waves across her fingertips and onto the walls. Her strong arm pushed hard with the sticks to deepen the darkest color and then varied the color into a lighter shade with gentle brushes. When she heard noises from the house, she quickly rubbed the images away with a rag, and they were gone as quickly as the came.

My grandmother got married later and had four daughters, but it was the third one born in January, that heard the calling. The genius that my grandmother held was not released completely since it was not allowed to breathe the air or to feel the orange sun. The calling was still strong and had been passed on to my mother.

It was obvious in my mother. My grandmother saw that her child had taken a small twig and carved out the shape of a beautit6i house in the soft earth. Despite what her husband said, my grandmother bought countless oil pastels and helped her daughter focus her energy on paper. My mother took the pastels like they were candy, and drew endless rainbows, clouds, and familiar faces that my grandmother knew too well. At every opportunity, my mother was given sticks of graphite, colored pencils, watercolor squares. Anything was given to her to satiate the calling that consumed her body.

The death of my grandfather shocked everything. It created a certain disaster inside my grandmother. She became very poor, very fast. There were far greater things to worry about since she could hardly sustain her family, as a widow without education and without money. Money for my mother's art supplies could not be made and the calling had to be silenced. My mother was grown by then, and she had wanted to go to college. It was a rare thing in Korea. Korean women were hardly found on university campuses, and never found there if they were poor. My mother wanted to pursue a career in art and to become a fashion designer. It was a silly dream for a poor girl and it broke my grandmother's heart when my mother got married instead. The calling slept and my grandmother died a few years after I was born.

We immigrated into America when I was five. My mother worked hard so that I would not be limited in opportunities. She wanted my life to be better than her life in Korea. America offered chances for things that were not be made available to her. She wanted me to become independent and to pursue my dreams in every way possible. The calling awoke from its hibernation sharply after we found ourselves in foreign land.

My mother tells me that it was evident that I had the calling when she saw the way I furiously held on to a pencil until my knuckles were white. The tight little fist scribbled on chairs and walls religiously, all over their new apartment. The calling wanted out, since it was tired of hiding. She had passed it down to me with such potency that my whole body shook as I pushed out the energy from my hands. My mother put me in art classes at an early age and was assured that my life would be different. This passion, as strong as opaque colors blended, would no longer be suppressed.

I am nineteen years old now and my mother still tells me the story of her mother. I am given opportunities that my grandmother desired so much for her daughter. I have made the most important choice by going to college to institutionalize my calling and to paint in classrooms, with the full support of both my mother and my father. This choice was important in determining not only my future, but in settling the anxieties of the Korean women of my previous generations who desired more.

Being Asian-American is an honor in which I receive cultivated passion from the struggles of my ancestors. My mother tells me the stories in soft Korean and they paint glorious murals that leave me inspired. Being an Asian- American, I am benefited with unlimited opportunities that I am lucky enough to encounter. I am able to hear the voices of my grandmother and the struggles of my mother in a language that is reminiscent of not only a distant land, but of experiences that mold the human spirit and my own personal history. It calls to me and I choose to answer proudly in school. My art speaks to me in the tongue that beckoned my grandmother years ago, to those barren, clay walls.

Growing Up With Grandpa

Christina Go, Age 15
San Jose CA
Lynbrook High School

How it is to be Asian - All Alone

Jolene Won, Age 10
Oakland CA
Crocker Highlands Elementary School

My family is the only completely Asian family in the neighborhood. There is a girl named Jessica, who is my age, and her family, who live about two blocks down from our house, but Jessica is half Caucasian. She can speak fluent Thai, but that does not make her completely Thai. My family would like for more Asian families to move in, so we would not be alone in being Asian, as we are now.

I am proud to be Asian, as I should, but it is hard to sell armbands printed with the words Asian Pride, or put up Chinese New Year flyers around the school when there is no one to buy the bands; no Asians to help put up the flyers, or to even read them and actually care. There are no other Asians to stand tall and proud with (well, sorry to say, most of us Asians aren't actually very tall) and that is a very, very difficult prospect to have to live with.

Some people think there is not a thought about racism in the younger generation such as my friends, schoolmates, and I, but those people are very foolish, very confused, or simply wrong. Kids at my school expect me to speak fluent Chinese, and for me to speak it in front of them. Why should I be obligated to, especially when I know that they will mock it until the end of time? (I, unfortunately, know this from experience)They do not speak Swahili, or Irish, or whatever the language of their culture happens to be. Not all the kids do this, thank goodness, but the kids who are racist are intolerably so. It is very common for a kid in my grade to come up to me and say, "Hey, I can speak Chinese," and let out a stream of solid gibberish. I have learned to say, "Yeah. Right. Whatever," and walk away, but it is infuriating, and painful to hear.

I do not have any different ideas about my neighborhood just because I am Chinese. Maybe my neighbors do -mind you, they are either African-American or Caucasian- but they have shown no sign of it.

It is possible that some unusual occurrences around our house have been linked to racism. My mom has gone outside to get the newspaper, only to find that it is gone, or that someone has stolen the newspaper and used the bag to scoop their dog's poop, and have left the bag on the lawn. Dog-walkers never seem to pick up their dogs' poop from our lawn, as they do everyone else's. This could just be my imagination, though.

People have also broken eggs on the sidewalk, thrown trash on our lawn, and stolen or cracked the decorative stepping-stones in front of the house.

I have no way to prove that these are hate crimes, and I actually do not think they are. I really hope there will be no more discrimination than there already is around the neighborhood, possibly none at all . . . but it is not like that, not yet.

It hasIt been a long time since this "racism" issue started up, just because some silly man or woman thought that if you were different, it made you awful, impure, or unclean in some way. Then people acted out of ignorance. Now it has created a mass of crevasses like dried desert soil, separating us all from what we could do, could be. Now man acts out of spite and envy and still ignorance, and a born-in comfort with people like us, with yellow, white or black skin; brown or blue, big or small eyes; black or blond, wavy or straight hair. That comfort, in some, makes other people, people who simply aren't like them, seem, "bad."

It has been so long since racism was born, that it would be all but impossible to destroy or wipe it out. We can still fight, though. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and many of the other fighters who might help are gone. But, this very moment, the next great Asian leader might be being born, or playing with Legos, or studying for a math test. Our equality is in the small hands of the younger generations.

Superheroes: "Happy Girl" (She has the magical power to spread happiness to others)

Su Jin Lee, Age 5
Stanford CA
Escondido Elementary School

Count to Three

Feliz Z. Esguerra
Vallejo CA
Jesse Bethel High School

1. isa (ee-sah)

Friending is a fun activity. If you have a Livejoumal, you know what I mean. You log on your username for your online journal, click on Manage, and then click on Friends. Follow the Edit Friends link, and type in another person's username to add them to your Friends list. You could even choose a combination of two colors to represent their user icon on your Friends page. From there, every time you read your own journal, all you have to do is switch to the Friends view to read your Friend's latest journal entries.

Friending is fun. You get to see your own list of Friends in your public user info page, and watch it grow as you make more Friends. What's even better is when you see the list of people who have Friended you; the people who have listed you as their Friend.

Friending and being Friended is fun. I watch my friend doing this on the computer all the time. She has many Friends. She is also a Friend to many people. It's fun to watch. She tells me it's even more fun to do it. I wouldn't know. I don't have an online journal. "That must mean I have no Friends," I tell her all the time. Usually, she laughs it off and tells me I'm stupid. Lovingly, of course, because she is my friend. But lately, I'm not even sure she hears me when I say that. "That must mean I have no Friends," I repeat, with a shaky laugh; hopefully a laugh jovial enough to coax another laugh from her.

The silence that followed the last time I said it repeats itself.

But that is okay.

I know she is my friend, without having to be my Friend.

I tell myself that amidst the clacking of the keyboard as she adds another Friend to her list.

2. dalawa (dah-lah-wah)

I'm sick. I have the flu. It is very bad. I have been coughing, spitting, and regurgitating all my food. Very disgusting. I haven't been able to talk on the phone or go online to talk to my friend lately. The last time I contacted her was yesterday. I called her cell phone and left a voicemail warning her that I might be absent from school for a few days. She must have understood, because she didn't return my call. It was a self-explanatory message anyway. One that didn't need to be returned. Well, I'm sure she acknowledged it. I'm sure she's sitting in class right now hoping I'll get better.

I'm sure of it. Especially since we have a presentation due in our Biology class next week. She'll want me to be there, to explain to her before class starts what it is I did for the presentation. She's been very busy with other schoolwork, and I happen to be very quick when doing my homework. Of course I could help her with her part of the presentation. Of course I can shoulder the cost of materials. After all, she assures me for the umpteenth time, I am the Chinese half of our friendship, and therefore automatically received more brain cells than she did. I don't have the heart to tell her, again for the umpteenth time, that I am Filipino, and not Chinese.

She just forgets who I am sometimes.

3. tatlo (tat-loh)

It's a scare tactic, you see. When I was little, my mother would always say, "Isa. (One.) Dalawa. (Two.) Tatlo. (Three.)" If I didn't do what she wanted me to do by the time she reached the count of three, she would spank me. I knew whenever she would begin counting, she was fed up with my disobedience. I love my mother very much. I love her for teaching me these things. She always said that my early training in practical wisdom would accompany me wherever I would go.

I wish I had listened.

Here I am, waiting for my friend to pick me up so we can go to school together.

Wait, I can rephrase that:

Isa: Here I am waiting for a girl I've talked to for several years now, to pick me up so we can go to school.

Dalawa: Here I am waiting for her to drive by in her car so I can get in and get a ride to the school we go to.

Tatlo: Here I am, waiting. For my friend.

Super Mom

Johanna F. Au, Age 11
San Jose
Toyon Elementary School

Hero--Superb

Martina Lo, Age 17
La Honda
Summit Preparatory Charter High School

Teamwork--Everyone Counts

Teamwork--Everyone Counts
Teresa Elena Dayrit, Age 10
Berkeley CA
Le Conte Elementary School

Happy Togwether

Grace Choi, Age 14
Palo Alto CA
J.L. Stanford Middle School

Out My Door

Manasa Venkatesan, Age 7
San Jose CA
Carden El Encanto Day School

In my neighborhood

In My Neigborhood: History Comes Alive

At first sight, there is nothing special about my hometown Rohnert Park, some 40 miles north of San Francisco. Like many others, it is nestled in suburbia, where houses are neat, lawns green, and life is somewhat boring. In my mind, my neighborhood includes the entire Sonoma County with its gently rolling vineyards, quaint little towns and majestic redwood forests. But besides its undeniable natural beauty, what sets my neighborhood apart from the dozens of others surrounding San Francisco Bay is its history, which is intertwined with that of the Chinese Americans.

Today, you will see Asians, African Americans, Latinos and Caucasians alike, strolling the streets of Petaluma, Rohnert Park, and Santa Rosa. There are few signs of racial tension, but that was not the case 120 years ago. During and after the Gold Rush, flocks of Chinese came to America, with hopes of relief from poverty in the legendary "Gold Mountain." They were the miners in gold mines, farm hands in California's vineyards and farms, railroad builders of the trans-continental railway. In the 1880s, Sonoma County had about 900 Chinese; many lived in Santa Rosa. Most were hired as domestic helpers like cooks or servants or worked in home-owned laundries. However, the good time did not last and the economy started to turn sour. Many Caucasians thought that the "Chinamen" were taking away jobs, endangering the opportunities of white Americans. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. The act singled out the Chinese for discrimination, prohibiting them from immigrating to America or becoming US citizens.

Anti-Chinese sentiments were also very strong in Sonoma County. In 1886, the Anti-Chinese League was formed with the goal of eradicating the Chinese from Santa Rosa. The League did everything it could to make the Chinese people's lives miserable. They tore down Chinese homes, forced them out of business, and raided their opium dens. The league even put a banner over Mendocino Avenue declaring, ''The Chinese Must Go.'' In a few months the Chinese population had dropped dramatically.

But still, their tactics were not entirely successful. First, Chinese people have time again shown that they are a hardy and tough bunch. They were pushed around and beaten up, but some still refused to leave. And second, farmers near Santa Rosa needed the cheap Chinese labor to get through the winter. The Chinese who stayed in Sonoma County laid low and waited for the storm to pass. They waited and waited… To their dismay, in 1892 the Santa Rosa Congressman Thomas J. Geary introduced a legislation (the Geary Act) to extend the Chinese Exclusion Act for ten more years. Understanding little about politics, they thought that Mr. Geary was a friend. He hired Chinese as servants himself and frequently visited a local Chinese restaurant called Jam Kee.

By 1920, the number of Chinese in Sonoma County had dwindled to a mere 143. The once vibrant Chinatown near Santa Rosa Avenue and Second Street largely disappeared. The wait of the Chinese people was not over until 1943 when the Chinese Exclusion Act was finally repealed. During more than half century of dark times, many Asians had to go through the dreaded immigration center at Angel Island where they were detained and interrogated for weeks and months. Some were deported back home. Many left marks, literally, on the wall of the detention center to express their frustration, sadness and anger.

Thankfully, the days of Chinese Exclusion Act are long gone. Today in liberal California, Asian people are treated just like everyone else. But beneath the surface of harmony, have things really changed? It is true that Asians are no longer the primary scapegoat for problems that our neighbors might have, exception of intermittent outbursts of anti-Chinese sentiments. These roles have been passed on to other nationalities. However, immigration is still a very controversial topic as it was150 years ago. The same rhetoric that sparked the Chinese Exclusion Act still pops up from time to time.

Here in Sonoma County, Asians have thrived since 1990s. Along highway 101 is the telecom valley where many high-tech companies are located. Many engineers in those companies are Chinese or Indians. The tech boom has created quite a few Asian millionaires. Intermarriage between Asians and Caucasians is also quite common. While there are occasional talks of "Asian cliques" at school, there are not enough Asians to actually form an exclusive group. So we get alone with others fairly well. Many of us Asian kids see ourselves more as "American" than Asian. And while our looks are oriental, we are as patriotic as everyone else.

On September 23, 2005, a new exhibit celebrating Chinese-Americans' heritage opened in the Petaluma Historical Library. Lucky dragons winded their way through the streets in front of the library and the sweet music of an erhu, a traditional Chinese instrument, punctuated the first day of the celebration. As I strolled through the exhibit looking at those old pictures and artifacts including clothing and household items, I realized that the history is not an abstract and boring subject that is learned through books. It is alive and so much a part of our life. Today Asian immigrants have a much easier time integrating into American society. We sometimes take our good fortune for granted. The times have indeed changed, but the hard lesson of the Chinese Exclusion Act should not be forgotten because the history tends to repeat itself.

America has long been seen as a land of opportunities. On the Statue of Liberty, a Sonnet by poet Emma Lazarus is engraved. It says "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …" The Chinese were people just like that: hungry and yearning for freedom. For 150 years, the Chinese kept coming despite the hardship, discrimination, tears and occasional blood. Their journeys from immigrants to citizens were long and torturous, yet they pushed on. The Chinese Americans are the ultimate survivors and the true believers of the American Dream.

In my neighborhood

In My Neigborhood: History Comes Alive

Yanran Lu, Age 12
Rohnert Park CA
Creekside Middle School

At first sight, there is nothing special about my hometown Rohnert Park, some 40 miles north of San Francisco. Like many others, it is nestled in suburbia, where houses are neat, lawns green, and life is somewhat boring. In my mind, my neighborhood includes the entire Sonoma County with its gently rolling vineyards, quaint little towns and majestic redwood forests. But besides its undeniable natural beauty, what sets my neighborhood apart from the dozens of others surrounding San Francisco Bay is its history, which is intertwined with that of the Chinese Americans.

Today, you will see Asians, African Americans, Latinos and Caucasians alike, strolling the streets of Petaluma, Rohnert Park, and Santa Rosa. There are few signs of racial tension, but that was not the case 120 years ago. During and after the Gold Rush, flocks of Chinese came to America, with hopes of relief from poverty in the legendary "Gold Mountain." They were the miners in gold mines, farm hands in California's vineyards and farms, railroad builders of the trans-continental railway. In the 1880s, Sonoma County had about 900 Chinese; many lived in Santa Rosa. Most were hired as domestic helpers like cooks or servants or worked in home-owned laundries. However, the good time did not last and the economy started to turn sour. Many Caucasians thought that the "Chinamen" were taking away jobs, endangering the opportunities of white Americans. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. The act singled out the Chinese for discrimination, prohibiting them from immigrating to America or becoming US citizens.

Anti-Chinese sentiments were also very strong in Sonoma County. In 1886, the Anti-Chinese League was formed with the goal of eradicating the Chinese from Santa Rosa. The League did everything it could to make the Chinese people's lives miserable. They tore down Chinese homes, forced them out of business, and raided their opium dens. The league even put a banner over Mendocino Avenue declaring, ''The Chinese Must Go.'' In a few months the Chinese population had dropped dramatically.

But still, their tactics were not entirely successful. First, Chinese people have time again shown that they are a hardy and tough bunch. They were pushed around and beaten up, but some still refused to leave. And second, farmers near Santa Rosa needed the cheap Chinese labor to get through the winter. The Chinese who stayed in Sonoma County laid low and waited for the storm to pass. They waited and waited… To their dismay, in 1892 the Santa Rosa Congressman Thomas J. Geary introduced a legislation (the Geary Act) to extend the Chinese Exclusion Act for ten more years. Understanding little about politics, they thought that Mr. Geary was a friend. He hired Chinese as servants himself and frequently visited a local Chinese restaurant called Jam Kee.

By 1920, the number of Chinese in Sonoma County had dwindled to a mere 143. The once vibrant Chinatown near Santa Rosa Avenue and Second Street largely disappeared. The wait of the Chinese people was not over until 1943 when the Chinese Exclusion Act was finally repealed. During more than half century of dark times, many Asians had to go through the dreaded immigration center at Angel Island where they were detained and interrogated for weeks and months. Some were deported back home. Many left marks, literally, on the wall of the detention center to express their frustration, sadness and anger.

Thankfully, the days of Chinese Exclusion Act are long gone. Today in liberal California, Asian people are treated just like everyone else. But beneath the surface of harmony, have things really changed? It is true that Asians are no longer the primary scapegoat for problems that our neighbors might have, exception of intermittent outbursts of anti-Chinese sentiments. These roles have been passed on to other nationalities. However, immigration is still a very controversial topic as it was150 years ago. The same rhetoric that sparked the Chinese Exclusion Act still pops up from time to time.

Here in Sonoma County, Asians have thrived since 1990s. Along highway 101 is the telecom valley where many high-tech companies are located. Many engineers in those companies are Chinese or Indians. The tech boom has created quite a few Asian millionaires. Intermarriage between Asians and Caucasians is also quite common. While there are occasional talks of "Asian cliques" at school, there are not enough Asians to actually form an exclusive group. So we get alone with others fairly well. Many of us Asian kids see ourselves more as "American" than Asian. And while our looks are oriental, we are as patriotic as everyone else.

On September 23, 2005, a new exhibit celebrating Chinese-Americans' heritage opened in the Petaluma Historical Library. Lucky dragons winded their way through the streets in front of the library and the sweet music of an erhu, a traditional Chinese instrument, punctuated the first day of the celebration. As I strolled through the exhibit looking at those old pictures and artifacts including clothing and household items, I realized that the history is not an abstract and boring subject that is learned through books. It is alive and so much a part of our life. Today Asian immigrants have a much easier time integrating into American society. We sometimes take our good fortune for granted. The times have indeed changed, but the hard lesson of the Chinese Exclusion Act should not be forgotten because the history tends to repeat itself.

America has long been seen as a land of opportunities. On the Statue of Liberty, a Sonnet by poet Emma Lazarus is engraved. It says "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …" The Chinese were people just like that: hungry and yearning for freedom. For 150 years, the Chinese kept coming despite the hardship, discrimination, tears and occasional blood. Their journeys from immigrants to citizens were long and torturous, yet they pushed on. The Chinese Americans are the ultimate survivors and the true believers of the American Dream.

Dance of the Sports Dragon

Avon Kuo, Age 15
San Jose CA
Lynbrook High School

Teamwork equals winning

Rachel Wu, Age 11
Saratoga CA
Amy Liu's Studio

How it is to be Asian - All Alone

Jolene Won, Age 10
Oakland CA
Crocker Highlands Elementary School

My family is the only completely Asian family in the neighborhood. There is a girl named Jessica, who is my age, and her family, who live about two blocks down from our house, but Jessica is half Caucasian. She can speak fluent Thai, but that does not make her completely Thai. My family would like for more Asian families to move in, so we would not be alone in being Asian, as we are now.

I am proud to be Asian, as I should, but it is hard to sell armbands printed with the words Asian Pride, or put up Chinese New Year flyers around the school when there is no one to buy the bands; no Asians to help put up the flyers, or to even read them and actually care. There are no other Asians to stand tall and proud with (well, sorry to say, most of us Asians aren't actually very tall) and that is a very, very difficult prospect to have to live with.

Some people think there is not a thought about racism in the younger generation such as my friends, schoolmates, and I, but those people are very foolish, very confused, or simply wrong. Kids at my school expect me to speak fluent Chinese, and for me to speak it in front of them. Why should I be obligated to, especially when I know that they will mock it until the end of time? (I, unfortunately, know this from experience)They do not speak Swahili, or Irish, or whatever the language of their culture happens to be. Not all the kids do this, thank goodness, but the kids who are racist are intolerably so. It is very common for a kid in my grade to come up to me and say, "Hey, I can speak Chinese," and let out a stream of solid gibberish. I have learned to say, "Yeah. Right. Whatever," and walk away, but it is infuriating, and painful to hear.

I do not have any different ideas about my neighborhood just because I am Chinese. Maybe my neighbors do -mind you, they are either African-American or Caucasian- but they have shown no sign of it.

It is possible that some unusual occurrences around our house have been linked to racism. My mom has gone outside to get the newspaper, only to find that it is gone, or that someone has stolen the newspaper and used the bag to scoop their dog's poop, and have left the bag on the lawn. Dog-walkers never seem to pick up their dogs' poop from our lawn, as they do everyone else's. This could just be my imagination, though.

People have also broken eggs on the sidewalk, thrown trash on our lawn, and stolen or cracked the decorative stepping-stones in front of the house.

I have no way to prove that these are hate crimes, and I actually do not think they are. I really hope there will be no more discrimination than there already is around the neighborhood, possibly none at all . . . but it is not like that, not yet.

It hasIt been a long time since this "racism" issue started up, just because some silly man or woman thought that if you were different, it made you awful, impure, or unclean in some way. Then people acted out of ignorance. Now it has created a mass of crevasses like dried desert soil, separating us all from what we could do, could be. Now man acts out of spite and envy and still ignorance, and a born-in comfort with people like us, with yellow, white or black skin; brown or blue, big or small eyes; black or blond, wavy or straight hair. That comfort, in some, makes other people, people who simply aren't like them, seem, "bad."

It has been so long since racism was born, that it would be all but impossible to destroy or wipe it out. We can still fight, though. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and many of the other fighters who might help are gone. But, this very moment, the next great Asian leader might be being born, or playing with Legos, or studying for a math test. Our equality is in the small hands of the younger generations.

Mystic Woman

Anwika Bhandary, Age 9
Cupertino CA
Collins Elementary School

Peace on Earth

Lingxuan Li, Age 9
Albany CA
Ocean View Elementary School

Sunshine Breaks Through The Rain

Rena Lea Wang, Age 14
Santa Rosa CA
Montgomery High School

About one year ago, the muddled gray sky poured forth tears as I trudged across a grassy pathway towards my father's burial site. My black boots became instantly soaked with the raging and emotional cry that had let loose in the heavens above that fated spring morning.

The rain had chronicled the last days of his life, as well as the hurting and anguish that resulted from that final day. The celestial showers eased its presence into the day of his diagnosis four months before his passing, as well as during his memorial service and his funeral.

In fact, it rained relentlessly for fifty straight days after my father's death.

Every morning I would awake to the pitter-pattering of a drizzle and every evening, I would fall asleep to the throbbing of an insatiable tempest. It wasn't until one particular evening, not quite unlike the rest, that I had the sudden vision of a shadow of a man with heavy eyelids, waiting to be spoon-fed by me at the kitchen table. This withering, terminally-ill person was my father, a soul who undeniably suffered more pain and endured more sacrifices than a human lifetime should know, yet possessed the courage to smile on his dying day. It was then that I finally realized that my father, Sean Shu Ren Wang, embodied the very essences of a true champion; my father will always be a superhero.

My dad was not a tall man, nor was he a particularly strong one. He could not fly or read minds, nor could he become invisible and hide a secret identity under a stretchy costume. My father was simply a short, lean, and dark-skinned fellow with an exceptionally cheery disposition that had a tendency to, instead of slip through the cracks, ooze out with renewed vigor. He grew up in a rural town in mainland China, and was the oldest son in his family. He worked very hard for all of his siblings, at anywhere from a busy restaurant kitchen to the crowded classroom at his small college, where he planned and began to pursue his dreams.

To my father, America had always been his promised land. He never hesitated after he made his decision all those years ago to transform his children's destiny and find a way to come to this country.

Once he arrived, you could not ever hear a complaint escape his lips. My dad never complained of his 13-hour work days, or of his 7-day work weeks. He never complained of a bad cold, a lost car key, or of anything malicious that came his way. At the restaurant we had owned for the decade up to his death, he never ceased to brighten the day of each and every person who walked through our double-doors, customer or not. His vibrant eyes would crinkle into an unmistakable grin as he would jump down from behind the counter and give a hearty shout, while placing his hand on their shoulder: "Heeey! Boss! Wow, it's great to see you again!"

In effect, my father was known by all of our customers and many throughout the community as "The Happy Guy." He wasn't about doing business, but about making friends, anybody age 2 to age 90. He was about making happiness.

When he was diagnosed with end stage pancreatic cancer in October of 2005, the day before my mother's birthday, he had already lost fifty pounds off his small, 160-pound frame. The morning after his diagnosis, however, he woke up early, right as the powerful rays of sunlight shot through the horizon. He declared in a shout that was nearly superhuman: "I am not that easy to push over! I will fight until I win!"

In the weeks preceding his death, he got paler and paler, with his sunken eyes yellowing by the minute. The shots of morphine and procaine rained into his blood like the sprays outside the murky hospital-room window, but when asked if he felt pain, he would muster up a strained smile and whisper, "No, no." Every day he would declare that "Today is going to be a new day!"

Among his many influences in his perpetually optimistic outlook on life, one of his greatest was always his pride in being Chinese and all its traditions. My father never forgot his roots in China, and he never let us forget our ethnic culture either. He would roam the restaurant kitchen, happily whistling Chinese Opera tunes in a bold, unabashed manner and explained situations to me in simple Chinese proverbs. He never wanted to hear one inauspicious word, nothing of "death," or "pain," or of anything unhappy and foreboding. My dad was always searching for that sunny day, and if he couldn't find it himself, he would, instead, create it for someone nearby.

In fact, at his very last visit for treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center, he shocked his doctor to such an extent that changed both his doctor's opinion of a mortal forever. As he stumbled little by little into Dr. Wolff's office, his doctor's eyes widened as he grabbed his desk, utterly speechless.

"Sean! Wow, this is such a surprise! How in heavens name did you make it in here?"

"I walked."

"I can't believe this! I have never had a patient in your condition who could even stand! And you? Walk into my office? Sean, you really are a man. No, listen and remember this: You are my hero."

My father was a true superhero in that he believed in living for life itself. If he cheered up one person, he would immediately set off for another. He endured, without complaint, many great pains and torments in his short life because, as he always told me, whining won't cure any disease. Instead, he would walk to the front door and spread his arms wide like a soaring eagle and say: "This is America! You see this sunshine? You see the green hills? Do you see any clouds or rain? This is what it means to be alive!"

Looking outside now, I can see the rolling green hills of America, bursting with new life. I can see damp streets and dewy foliage. I can even see the light breaking through rainy clouds. But most importantly, I can see the silhouette of an immortal superhero, walking off into the sunny horizon.

Super Heroes Helping Others

Cathy Phun, Age 9
El Cerrito CA
Castro Elementary School

For Finding Better Lives

Eunbee Jang, Age 13
San Jose CA
Bret Harte Middle School

Heaven's Justice Splitting Earth's Good and Evil

Kevan Nicholas Hom, Age 17
San Francisco CA
School of the Arts

Out My Door

Manasa Venkatesan, Age 7
San Jose CA
Carden El Encanto Day School

The Faces of Winning

Anh Cao, Age 11
San Rafael CA
Coleman Elementary School

There are many faces of winning. We usually think of winners being rich and famous or having a ton of trophies or medals. We usually imagine winners as athletes or celebrities. But there is also a private kind of winner. For example, being a good citizen or doing a good deed. You can also be winner by practicing and trying your best at something you love, like sports or video games. For me, winning is endurance and always having a sense of an accomplishment. It's achieving a goal. Winning has had a big influence on my life.

When I was born in Viet Nam, my parents were amazed by my appearance. I had blond hair and fair skin. Nobody knew what was wrong with me. My mom and dad did extensive research and found out that I have a rare condition called albinism. I would grow up visually impaired, light pigmented and sensitive to sunlight. They did everything so I could have a better life and proper care. They decided it would be best for me to come to the US of A. I moved to America when I was 3 years old.

It wasn't easy for me when I started school here. First of all, it's pretty hard imagining a white Asian. Secondly, I didn't know any English. I had to work harder than everyone else just to become equal. Making friends and socializing were extremely difficult. Playing sports was also a challenge because it was hard for me to focus on fast moving objects. Despite all these social and academic obstacles, I was officially designated Fully English Proficient by second grade. I also had lots of buddies.

When I moved to Marin, school became easier because I was given a lot of visual aides, but it was also difficult and challenging because it was embarrassing to use them. I didn't want people to think I was different and couldn't do everything they do. Today I write, draw, play piano, and read, read, read. In fact, I am a book-a-holic. I have many friends who are all different and who come from all over the world. They don't see me as being different. So I have already won a lot in life.

Fortunately, I didn't have to do it all by myself. I had a team of relatives in Viet Nam and America who always helped and supported me. My parents are the most important part of my team, but I have also had great teachers, and friends. I had to do the work, but they taught me responsibility and gave me advice and support.

Today I am proud to be of the Vietnamese and the American culture. But I am not done yet. I really want to go to Princeton University, make honor roll, and work hard to become an author or a geneticist, so I can help other people who have my condition. Besides, DNA is cool.

So, as you can see, there are many kinds of winning, both public and private kinds. Who knows what you can do if you work to follow your dreams. Why not shoot for the stars?!

My Big Brother

Elizabeth Lee, Age 14
San Jose CA
California School of Art & Design

Winner-- A Complete Person

Eleanor Chen, Age 12
San Francisco CA
A.P. Giannini Middle School

Swoosh! The badminton birdie soared up in the air and suddenly, it swooped down even faster. I was still standing at the back of the court shocked that my opponent would be able to return my previous signature slam of the birdie. Suddenly, I came back to my senses and dashed as fast as my legs could take me towards the birdie. I knew it was going to land right in front of the net on my side and that thought made me run even faster. Beads of sweat trickled down my burning cheeks but I kept on running. Just as I reached the birdie, it dropped to the ground. It was too late. Thump. My heart skipped a beat and it felt very heavy. Silence filled the bleachers and I swelled up with anger. I couldn't believe I had just lost. My opponent, Melissa, skipped over to me and extended her hand to shake mine. I was so outraged that I just turned my back on her and left without saying a word.

After the competition, I focused only on how I could beat Melissa at the rematch. When my friends called, I ignored them. I had dinner away from my family and avoided everyone for the rest of the week. The memory of that last shot was imprinted in my memory. The image frightened me every time it played over and over again in my mind. Melissa was such a good player that I thought my only hope of winning the rematch was to slam the birdie directly on her forehead. I was so convinced to actually do it until two days before the rematch. It was at that time that I had a talk with my mom. My mom is a typical Chinese mom - one who loves to share her wisdom and experiences with me. She took out a piece of paper and wrote down two Chinese characters. She told me that the two Chinese characters were qiân xû. My mom further explained to me "in Chinese the first character means "modest". The second means "empty". Together these characters reinforce the ideas of modesty and being empty of ego. This can also be translated as humbleness. Winning is not everything," she told me, "How you win and how you develop into a person is just as important." At first, I thought that wasn't true. I took a moment to take it all in. After a while, I realized my mom was right. I thought about how I had been acting these past few days and instantly regretted it. It was then that I learned sportsmanship. I had been so unfair to Melissa and I had to make it up to her somehow. First, I decided that I would have to get to know her better. I knew that Melissa always practiced badminton at the community recreation center. So, I walked there and there she was. It seemed like she was practicing hard but when she saw me approaching her, she stopped what she was doing and smiled. I was relieved that she didn't take in any offense from our last match. I told Melissa how I felt and she understood and forgave me. For the next two days, we played badminton together and both did our best. I couldn't believe how much we had in common. We learned from each other and within those two days, we were both a lot better than when we started. We had united both our skills and become a complete player. We learned from each other's mistakes and just had a really fun time playing. Winning wasn't all that important anymore. Rivalry has a good side and a bad side. The good side is that it gives you a challenge to go out and accomplish. This can help you make new friends. The bad thing about rivalry is that feelings could get hurt and you may lose a friend. This experience definitely allowed me to gain a new friend. By this time, I knew that her weakness was running from one end the court all the way to the other end. She could never make it in time. I took this to my advantage during the rematch.

Swoosh! I hit the birdie to the right of the court. It was the day of the rematch and the score was tied. The game was intense and the crowd was always shrieking with pleasure every now and then at the close calls. Melissa barely returned my hits. I raced over to return her hits with sweat dripping off my forehead. Then, I hit the birdie to the very far left. I was using my strategy. Melissa lunged toward the birdie and almost missed it. But, she returned my hit and she swung swiftly sending the birdie high into the sky. I was prepared for this, a strategy that I had learned from Melissa. I got ready and swung just as the birdie came in front of me. Tension was rising in the crowd and both Melissa and I wore wide grins on our faces. This win wouldn't be easy for either of us. When the birdie came back to my side, I angled my racket to the left and when I hit, the birdie was sent flying towards the left of the court. Melissa was standing by the far right side of the court. She struggled to get to the birdie in time. All eyes were on her. But, it was too late. The birdie plopped to the ground and the game was over. I smiled. I had just won. The lessons we had taught each other made us into a complete person, which was more than being just a winner. I ran over to Melissa. She looked happy and I embraced her gratefully. She congratulated me and we shook hands. I was so glad that this rivalry did not make us lose our friendship, but rather had formed a strong friendship bond between Melissa and me.

Being Asian makes me look at competition in a different perspective than those who are not Asian. I have typical Asian parents who always "push" me on. Most of the time the "push" is by encouragement, but there are times that the "push" are actually expectations. I always aim for the best and have high expectations for myself. In a competition, I'm determined to win. Now I have learned that not only are there the typical Asian expectation and pressure to win, I am also expected to win with grace and be a humble person. I also must accept losing with grace too. Only after I realized that did I become a complete person. After my badminton competition, I have learned sportsmanship and the skills it takes to win. This experience has made me into a complete person - a victorious, proud, graceful and humble Asian American winner.

My Special World

Lexi Yan Wong, Age 6
San Francisco CA
Cornerstone Academy

Learn from Each Other

Serena Ying , 2nd Grade
Saratoga CA
Argonaut Elementary SchoolSerena Ying , 2nd Grade
Saratoga
Argonaut Elementary School

Change

Katie Jun-eun Kim , 11th Grade
Cupertino CA
Cupertino High School

Making Educational Changes for a More Perfect World

Mary Xu, 12th Grade
San Francisco CA
Balboa High School

The world is a place filled with amazing people, places, and things. Yet it is also growing with social, economic, and political problems. Growing up Asian American, I feel like my experience in this world is different from other Asians around the world and even within the nation. I am a first generation Chinese living in America, with immigrant parents struggling to keep up a small business in the economic recession. There are many other Asian Americans like me who have immigrant parents, but the difference is that I grew up with different elements in my life which have influenced my individual thoughts about the larger world. If I were able to make the world a better place, I would make education (especially higher education) available to all people—not just children, but even adults who were never given the opportunity to read or write.

I grew up in a household where education is highly valued, as both of my grandparents were educators in China. They taught during the Cultural Revolution and were imprisoned for being “threats” to the government due to being capable in influencing students’ beliefs. For a year, my father and his three siblings had to take care of themselves while their education was also interrupted. The education in China during that time was rather limited. My father consistently placed at the top of his class every year in high school, but suddenly the Communist regime cut his path towards higher academic success short. He could not pursue his dream to major in Business in college because the Communist government mandated that a high school education was enough for him. It is because of these kinds of injustices that my parents decided to come to America and start a small restaurant which they have owned for over twenty years now. These injustices drive me to make education more available to everyone. It is upsetting and unbelievable that anyone would say that it is fair to confine an aspiring student to a limited education. Understanding the background my parents and grandparents come from is the greatest influence on my goal of implementing equal and functional educational systems worldwide.

Education is the foundation which propels an individual towards success. The definition of success is different for everyone, but I believe that learning in general is essential in helping one define success for oneself. There are countless areas in the world where literacy levels are very low—especially West African countries—and it hurts women the most due to gender disparities. As a woman myself, I do not think it is just to limit women from their own dreams, but cultural upbringing has a huge influence on gender roles. Even though my culture also reserves more rights to males, that only furthers my interest in advocating women’s educational rights. As I stated before, it is upsetting that some people believe that certain individuals deserve an education more than others. I believe it is my responsibility as a student to spread knowledge to other parts of the world with people who need it most.

Low literacy levels are associated with poverty and numerous social, economic, and political problems. Fixing this serious problem will open up many more options for children and adults who want to pursue their dreams. The most important thing in making the world a better place is making sure there is a unified happiness, which may seem unattainable, but it is not impossible. Even making a small change would be a step closer to achieving worldwide change. Change is an act that develops—it does not happen instantly. By being a part of buildOn, a non-profit organization with students dedicated to volunteering in the community, educating others about global issues, and sponsoring the construction of schools in developing countries, I am empowered to make changes in my community that affect the world as a whole. I have committed a lot of my time to cleaning up parks, sorting packages at food pantries, and serving those in need within San Francisco. In buildOn, I have helped raise money to build a school in Mali, West Africa. Slowly, but surely, I wish to instill hope in potential students that it is still possible for them to achieve their personal dreams.
As an Asian American woman, my experiences are important because they are the mechanisms that power my heart, mind and soul to bring educational justice in developing countries. Knowledge of my family’s educational background produced questioning about the accessibility of education in our world today. Being a part of an organization that provides insightful information about literacy levels in the world draws my attention to developing countries. I do not plan to fix unjust educational systems alone; successful change is developed by a collective community. The future ahead will be a bright one for everyone if we all work together to make the privilege of an education a universal human right.

The World Chants: 'Yes We Can'

Arifeen Rahman , 9th Grade
San Jose CA
Saint Francis High School

Change has never been a foreign concept to me. Since I was little, languages would swerve in an out of my tongue, combining, intertwining, and creating words and phrases even my parents had never heard of. Traditions would meld into a delightful potpourri. Eid was celebrated alongside Thanksgiving at my home; the turkey held it place of honor right next to haphazardly stacked boxes of prized sweets. Change has always been fluid to me, an evolving force of silent renewal and growth. But now, change is different. It is revolutionary, quick, abrupt, empowering - shattering. I watched President Obama’s election with fervor and the economy’s death sentence with horror. The world is now amplified - each word ricocheting of walls of steel, each action spreading ripples across vast lakes of still water.

We live in a rare world today, tangled in a web of connections where information can travel from one end of the earth to another in a second. Yet, in many ways we are still so disconnected from one another. In today’s world we seem to have forgotten our rare gift of empathy, instead lapsing into an apathetic state of thoughtless indifference. If I could change but one thing in this world, I would remove apathy from the human mindset.

The human ability to so strongly empathize with one another is distinctly ours – it is a gift to be treasured, and used to the utmost of our ability. Reverting to apathy means losing our humanity in the process. Our apathetic mindset is the largest barrier to solving the world’s problems. Poverty and the environment are two issues that apathy has caused to spiral deeper into ruin.

The images of Dhaka, Bangladesh are vividly pressed into my mind from my visits as a child. The blaring of car horns mesh with the steady of rise of exhaust from cars. Little scooters running on natural gas zip past tiny cars running on mixed gasoline and diesel. Ragged faces of young children peer in through car windows, begging for money. Not a single face turns to acknowledge them as they pass by.

The people are sedated, numbed by the everyday occurrence of such pain and suffering, that it no longer means anything to them. They are numbed by apathy. It is firmly in my belief that such horrors should no longer be mindlessly accepted. Every child deserves a home and an education. The upper and middle class must empathize with the less fortunate.

At the same time, apathy plagues the western world just as equally, if not more than the developing world. Landfills store plastic, waste, and garbage in pits of land. Excess almost literally defines our culture. Nothing can be reused more than once before being thrown away. Consumed with greed, companies obsess about short-term profit, forsaking the environment in the process.

In contrast, necessity has forced the developing world to reach environmental sustainability. Poverty has driven the poorest of these nations to become the greatest recyclers. In Dhaka, nothing is wasted. Plastic is a rare substance. Bottles are collected. Tin cans are crushed and reused. Piles of newspaper constantly renew themselves new copies. Plastic bags have been banned to protect sewage pipes from clogging during flood season. Their empathy and depth of connection with the earth’s resources has created a practical method of preserving the environment.

Many deny me my dream. They proclaim that changing an idea so abstract is impossible. This unknown substance, apathy, cannot be engineered and exchanged with a shiny replacement hot from the factory. However, the war on apathy can be fought on several levels, from local to global. I fight in the war against apathy every shift I volunteer at Agnews Developmental Center and El Camino Hospital. Every shift I complete brings me one step closer to understanding these new worlds.

As an Asian-American, change has always been fluid for me. I have never lived in one world, but a mixture of two seamlessly spun together. This is the world that I wish to show people. The true method to combating apathy is to open our eyes and to embrace a true connection of East and West, rich and poor, realizing the breadth of diversity that surrounds us. The true method is forming an interconnected realm, open to learning from one another.

In the future I see myself as a writer, a novelist, or a playwright. I believe that the power of the pen can completely transform the world. Real change is brought through words, pen on paper, that affect people so much more deeply – a connection on a deeper level than thoughts or looks.

The secret to defeating apathy is embracing change itself as a progressive force to better humanity. In hope, I move forward.

Utopia

Chelsey Chen, 7th Grade
Albany CA
Albany Middle School

ESCALATION

Minkee Sohn, 8th Grade
San Francisco CA
The Nueva School

Do things faster. Everything’s going fast; if you slip, you’ll fall behind forever. You have to do more after-school activities, too. If you don’t get enough skills in multiple areas, you’re not going to succeed, you know. And if you don’t succeed, it’s the end of your world. A good high school leads to a good college, which leads to a good job, which leads to success, which leads to happiness. Doing homework is never enough to get to the top. You’ve got to do more, work harder. You’re just not good enough.

Sadly enough, these messages have been drilled into me and legions of other teenagers many times, embedded in our minds. Before I go on, I’d just like to say that I’m not targeting my parents when I say this. I’m referring to what society is putting upon us. Aided by globalization and breakthroughs in technology, the world is advancing at a fast pace. And it’s hard to keep up.

Well, to keep up with it and be a healthy teenager, that is.

And that leads to the thing that I would change about this world: If I could change something in this world to make it a better place, I would make it lighten up. As a society, we are growing much too competitive. I see examples all around me, and I’ll write just one of them here. My school hosted a student overnight last year for a novel-writing unit, and it just so happened that that was the day our parents received our SSAT scores. I had no idea that this even happened, so I was surprised when I heard some of my classmates discussing how well they did while we were eating pizza. I remember that one of my friends went outside to call his parents to find out what he got. When he came back, he was distracted and upset for the majority of the time we were given to work. Knowing how hard-working he usually is, he accomplished much less work than I know he easily and definitely could have.

And so questions arise. I can see SSAT scores are significant towards high school. But should going to high school, a continuation of our learning, really be such a stressful process? Are we going to succeed in learning if we’re tense and tired all the time from trying to stay on top? And what about socializing? Students are also supposed to make friends. But if we’re so busy working and don’t have the energy or drive required to build up good ties, isn’t that going to leave us missing something emotionally at graduation?

I’m not trying to dismiss competition as a horrible thing that is eating up students’ lives. Competition is healthy and we all need it. It’s the element that pushes us forward. Actually, competition can be thought of as a way we motivate each other. But at the same time, too much competition can be that “horrible thing.” Too much competition makes us lose self-confidence, feel inadequate, and slowly grow to resent ourselves for not “being good enough.”

While this kind of harsh environment and mindset springs up across most urbanized communities like the Bay Area, I have seen it especially prevalent in Asian and Asian-American families. Being Korean-American, I am familiar with the Asian cultural traits around me. I believe that we Asians are usually unified in sharing some traits, and one that we should be particularly proud of is diligence. I have seen many hard-working Asian-American families, and diligence should be valued. But another very important thing that we should be taking into consideration is balance. Most people are healthiest and happiest under a good balance of work and play, and we should accept it. The amounts needed of these elements changes from person to person, but we all need both in our lives.

A fast-paced, unbending society is something that forms through people’s wants, making it difficult, even for a community working together, to make a significant change. So my idea isn’t really one that can be realistically put in place. But a teenager can dream, can’t he? Societies usually change over time, and I believe that it’ll be when society grows too fast for comfort that we’ll start to slow down to a healthy pace of progress. But for now, in the real world, I think that it’s very plausible and beneficial to relax and slow down just a bit. Deep breaths, enjoying a fruit, saying hello to classmates, sharing things, sleeping a little more... things like that can really make a day, ease stress, and make people happier in general. And if even one person is happier than usual, things are more likely to go right in our world.

Learn from Each Other

Serena Ying , 2nd Grade
Saratoga CA
Argonaut Elementary School

Children Rock Band

An Asian children rock band electrify their audience with their guitar-playing skills and superb musical talents.

High Tech High

School: High Tech MiddleAuthor: Shani Higgins Subjects: ArtGrade Levels: 8th

How do we create values using only one color and black and white?
For their first project this semester, Shani Higgins’s eighth grade art students at High Tech Middle created “Larger than Life” Monochromatic Self-Portraits. They practiced by painting smaller monochromatic pieces inspired by Vassily Kandinsky’s abstract paintings. To start the process, Ms. Higgins took pictures of each student in the class. Students then used PhotoShop to alter images of their faces and used the altered images to create large drawings. Students projected their faces and traced the altered images from the wall. Working with acrylics, students chose their favorite color for the monochromatic study. Each face is at least 18 x 24”. They worked from light to dark, first painting the light areas and gradually adding small amounts of color and black. It was important that students paid close attention to line, value, and detail.In addition to the extenuated size, another unique aspect of this project is that the Art classes worked with the technology classes to make audio recordings of the artists talking about their work. We will have all of the work on display during Exhibition Night on March 23rd, 2006. Visitors will be able to sit down at computer stations, put headphones on, click on a web image of each student and listen to them talking about their work. As an audience, you be amazed at the kind of artwork these middle school students are capable of. Also on display during Exhibition Night will be sample work by every sixth and eighth grade student at HTM.

What Will Students Be Able To Do:

Alter images on PhotoShop. Paint image using acrylic paints and use a monochromatic color scheme for self-portrait.Recognize and create different values using one color and black and white. Talk about the process and reflect on their work.
What Will Students Know (content covered):

A Common Story

Albert Ai , 12th Grade
Santa Clara CA
Adrian C. Wilcox High School

In attempting to pinpoint the unifying source of poetry’s value, Perrine found that worth stemmed not from an imposition of the beautiful or distasteful, strange or common, joyful or poignant, but from the simple communication of human experience. Perhaps that is why my Asian American heritage can so powerfully color my outlook on life, but through no single identifiable path. Thinking about what my culture means to me conjures both the thrill of cultural celebration and the gravity of filial piety, both the bitterness of competition and the camaraderie of social harmony. Being a first generation Asian American raised at the center of Silicon Valley bridges me between the plenty of America’s most prosperous and the poverty of my parents’ rural origins.

But thinking about my heritage also brings forward the realization that my understanding of our family’s past is meager at best, simply because it was decided at some point that this story was too commonplace to be heard. I unavoidably pieced together a few details over the years: that my father had come to the United States without any assets or family to turn to, or even a strong grasp of English; that after earning two graduate degrees, he had first worked as a door to door salesman, selling copies of the Bible; that after his troupe had run out of gas, funds, and places to solicit, he had found work as an assistant chef making a dish called “cashew chicken” at a small restaurant in Missouri. How he had gotten there from Ohio, where he had earned his second degree, he never bothered to say. Only after moderate success at the restaurant was he able to save enough to come to California, buying an economical watch as a souvenir before he left.

After it was decided that this story, in completion, was too commonplace to be heard, I made the critical mistake of never protesting the decision until silence had become so firmly established that it became unlikely the complete story would ever be told. When I finally grew mature enough to understand why this was regrettable, I began to ask around, to hear the stories of others. To my surprise, their grasp of their own stories was as fragmented as mine: broken, vague, and distant. I listened as their voices dropped and they too admitted their meager knowledge about who and what preceded them. I then realized that my story, about the story that had never been told, was in fact an ordinary one. It was just one of thousands, belonging to thousands of other families respectively, whose unique stories had also been decided too commonplace to tell.

If I could change one thing to make the world a better place, I would have it that the stories of our past be heard. My father’s reticence has implicitly shown me that the wealth of unspoken meaning can only be discovered on our own, by our own desire. The necessity of such self-discovery may temporarily delay progress, but it is also by such discovery that whatever meaning we find becomes most deeply engrained into how we view the past, present, and future.

A few years ago, digging through an old drawer of odds and ends, I found that watch – the one my father had bought before leaving Missouri. It was missing its band, and had a crack over the third hour. Seeing this, he urged me to throw it away, but I didn’t. As a watch, I realized that it was worthless, and at best sentimental. But as a remnant of the past, it serves as a reminder of one struggle to overcome barriers of language and isolation, of poverty and opportunity; a relic of human experience, too valuable to be forgotten.

Save the Tamil (Children in Sri Lanka)

Omaelan Hariharan
Cupertino CA
Eaton Elementary School

My Pet

Darlene, portrayed by Bethel High School Senior Arielle Galleon, is bemoaning the loss of her beloved. A monologue from Roger Krashner performed in Vallejo CA.

Changing the Way We Think

Olivia Zhu, 10th Grade
Saratoga CA
The Harker School

There are so many aspects of the world that I wish were different, but I have the strongest personal interest in and connection to fixing the role of education in California and in other parts of the world. Improving the status quo will result in further gains, according to historian Henry Commager’s belief that “Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them.” Unfortunately, scholastic spending is likely to continue decreasing due to the current financial crisis, and the Millennium Development Goals regarding worldwide schooling for the underprivileged will not be fulfilled. At a time where some students are denied classrooms, textbooks, and supplies, I feel lucky that my family prioritizes the benefits of education and that I live in a community where the Asian drive for knowledge meshes perfectly with the American appreciation of creativity. Ideally, I would change the mindset of the world to reflect these dual values, hopefully leading to greater rights and respect for everyone.

I first realized the importance of changing current education standards and spending when I began tutoring students from underperforming districts. As smart and as driven as they are, they are sometimes at a disadvantage. A boy named Gustavo told me that he stays at school until late at night to relearn material from his teacher simply because there are too many people in his class for him to receive individual attention. However, after only one hour of tutoring, he understood his lessons perfectly. Though teachers are working overtime without pay and students are doing as best they can, situations such as Gustavo’s persist. Against obstacles such as budget shortfalls, my tutoring does little to mitigate the problem, yet I am grateful for the few hours a week that allow me to help the middle school students and learn about society from them. They make much of their temporary classrooms, separated only by thin corkboard partitions, by covering those walls with cheerful art projects and eloquent essays about their dreams and desires. Gustavo, for example, wants to be a soccer player—but a smart one.

Tutoring is so different from what I experience at my own school, where parents urge their children to study harder, take advantage of all the extracurricular options, and prioritize academics. There, the dreaded Asian grading scale is well known and often cited: an A is just average and a D means disowned. Myths circulate in other schools that we swap “strict parent” stories among ourselves after classes and all of us are mindless, knowledge-absorbing robots. Such stereotypes are, of course, incorrect and exaggerated, but the importance of learning has always been stressed in Asian culture. While academic pressure might be present in some situations, I feel that respect and appreciation of education are what tie all the students of my school together, not whatever bonding we might achieve by telling fictional scary Asian parent stories.

Being Asian-American means I settle contentedly in the middle of two cultures; I am fortunate to experience the individuality and academic freedom that is a cornerstone of American liberty as well as the motivation to learn, understand, and analyze that my parents instilled in me. Having the best aspects of both worlds allowed me to comprehend exactly why education is and will be such a key topic in American and global affairs. The Chinese proverb that states “shí nián shù mù, bâi nián shù rén,” or, just as cryptically, “grow a tree for a ten years, but grow men for a hundred,” truly emphasizes the importance of education—if people are nurtured and taught when young, they will be content and prosperous always. It has been proven that countries with higher standards in schooling will be able to develop a stronger workforce, keep those trained individuals from leaving for other nations, and fortify their economies. There is nothing more worth investment than this cause.

Granted, it may be difficult to begin this switch in attitude toward education, but change has already begun. Officials like Margaret Rhee have reformed Washington D.C. schools, Japanese pediatricians have later office hours based on the schedules of students, and greater attention is being paid to the plight of the California scholastic spending in general. As Commager noted, such transformations of the status quo will only beget more change as individuals are inspired by education to do more. Furthermore, if we nurture these people and communities, they will become self-sufficient. Hopefully they will even grow for more than a hundred years! If everyone embraced the parallel ideals of dedication and distinctiveness, then this ideal future could occur. As a young generation of Asian-Americans who have benefitted from both Western and Eastern traditions, it is our duty to ensure that these very achievable goals are fulfilled.

Striving for a Greener Tomorrow

Catherine Chen, 10th Grade
San Jose CA
Notre Dame High School

Pieces of Hope

Minjie Yoo, 12th Grade
Palo Alto CA
Henry M. Gunn High School

Let The Child Learn

Naren S. Vutukuru , 8th Grade
San Jose CA
Miller Middle School

I am growing up Asian in America and I am very grateful to be a part of this great country, the land of abundant resources. In this country there are so many opportunities for everyone, starting with an education. Here, every child is allowed an education with no regard to status or heritage. However, being Asian, I do know that this is not true in some countries in Asia. Instead of being educated, children are put to work. Child labor is one of the main causes of illiteracy in Asian countries, and poverty causes child labor. Some people from these countries have not received any education since childhood and may not have even laid eyes on the pages of a book. This is illiteracy. The fact of anyone being illiterate in the United States is thought quite unusual for children are legally bound to attend school here; however, it’s nonconformity to think these things in some parts of Asia especially in countries like India. Based on my frequent visits to the country, I found out that, children whose parents live in poverty and cannot support their family alone are forced into labor to set food on the table thus living without an education. I strongly feel that this is unfair. My recent viewing of the Oscar winning movie” The Slum dog Millionaire” which depicted the reality in some parts of the country, also made me think about the children in poverty. I can proudly say that, if there was one thing I would change in the world, it’d be elimination of child labor and enforcement of child education.

Education, essentially, is the ticket to a successful life. However, it is not a privilege that only a gifted and lucky few may obtain. I believe every child has the born right to an adequate education. However, if a child is strenuously working for a coldhearted man in a sweatshop somewhere fifteen hours a day everyday, where is this child’s education? The parents of this child may not be able to afford it, but there are thousands of people in similar circumstances. As more families are thrown into poverty, more people are born into poverty, resulting in an endless chain. The government should not let this slip by. It should be funding organizations, it should be initiating relief funds, and it should be making great efforts to help educate children in their countries. The government should provide free schools with adequate facilities so that the children whose parents cannot pay for school can receive an education. This way, child labor won’t be present. True, there are laws against child labor, but they do not necessarily prevent it. I believe laws against child labor should be strongly enforced, more than it is right now.

So, the government has a part to play by strongly enforcing child labor laws, even if it is , sometimes it is very difficult for government to keep track of every nook and corner, especially in rural areas. So, citizens themselves have some responsibilities too. Whenever a person sees or witnesses an act of child labor which is blatantly illegal, it is that person’s duty to report it to the government so that the employer responsible is punished. You see, many people employ children because they work cheap and don’t have much of a sense of independence—meaning they can be censured and castigated. This is also wrong. You must not employ children or even force them into labor because of these reasons. Also, people should not purchase items manufactured through child labor just because they are cheap. Therefore, all of us must make our strongest efforts to discourage child labor and even end it.

I think the message that I am trying to convey is that we all should realize that child labor and illiteracy in any country can damage that country’s prosperity. The people of the government should believe in the importance of an education and make their best efforts to make it so that kids don’t have to work and can receive an education. Also, the people of the country, as in citizens, also have a responsibility to prevent child labor in the country by reporting it to the government, by not hiring children, and by not purchasing products made through child labor. We all need to be aware that children are backbone to a stronger world, no matter in which part of the world they are in. Need less to say that the success and prosperity of any country relies mainly up on the literacy rate in that country. If children are properly enlightened through education in their prime years of their life, without wasting them in work, they will, indeed be the most valuable asset to their countries. So we all have to keep this in our minds and try to do as much as we can to eliminate child labor completely and facilitate child literacy. What more do we need to make the world a better place? I strongly wish to see this awareness develop in people’s minds and everyone to make sincere efforts for this good cause and finally one day, we could be proud of what we did to make the world a better place.