Bouncin’ (Non-viable) Blog Baby

Borrowed Notes has now joined with Ethnically Incorrect Daughter to give birth to:

Ethnically Incorrect

What Part of ‘No’ Do You Not Understand?

The headline in the LA Times read, “Children of Vietnam War servicemen seek U.S. citizenship”. A defiant sadness came upon me when I thought about the limbo that these men and women of Vietnamese and American heritage must still be experiencing. In many cases, they were abandoned by their anonymous fathers and rejected by their mothers, extended relatives and neighbors, as well as both the American and Vietnamese governments.

It is safe to say that humanity failed the Vietnamese Amerasians. None of them were asked to be born under inauspicious circumstances and, yet, each of them must answer for society’s general inattention and disregard. “Unwanted” is a term that is commonly used to emphasize the plight of the Amerasians and it is certainly not an exaggeration.

Consider this excerpt from the book Surviving Twice: Amerasian Children of the Vietnam War
by Trin Yarborough:

In 1970, faced with media reports of up to 100,000 Amerasian children (mostly abandoned) in Vietnam, the U.S. Department of Defense issued this statement: “The care and welfare of these unfortunate children…has never and is not now considered an area of government responsibility, nor an appropriate mission for the DOD to assume.”

I consider it a cold injustice to force this vulnerable population to beg for U.S. citizenship after many of them already had to beg in cities across southern Vietnam for a living.

One truly ironic twist in this battle for citizenship is that back in October 2000, the Child Citizenship Act was signed into law by President Clinton and officially took effect in February 2001.  It allows newly adopted children to automatically become U.S. citizens once they enter the United States. Now, think about all those Vietnamese infants who have been adopted by Americans over the past decade and currently enjoy the privileges and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship.

Too bad that famous American generosity isn’t retroactive so that it could finally rectify the sins of its fathers.

Resources:

H.R. 4007, The Amerasian Paternity Recognition Act

Amerasian Fellowship Association

Shores of Tinian

A music video came to my attention that made me laugh and cringe all at once. Just follow the link HERE to view it.

Amerasian
Lyrics by Thermadore [my transcription]

Well, she’s Amerasian and you have few
And the reputation that she’s keepin’, well, it’s following you
And you dream of the Philippines, Tinian shore
And the key that you have in your back pocket leads to her back door

[Chorus]
Tet is swell, but it ain’t Christmas
Fireworks and all
What about the way that she brushes her hair back from her forehead
She walks around the house with no shoes on
Got to tie these blues on

The day shift she goes and the night shift too
She’s makin’ those coffees for all them boys in the Union Blue
And a misunderstanding, sparks they flew
Baby, don’t mean that I don’t love you

[Chorus]
Tet ain’t bad, but it ain’t Christmas
Fireworks and all
But, what about the way that she brushes my hair back from my forehead
She makes me take my shoes off
Gotta shake these blues off
Gotta shake these blues off

Tet is cool, but it ain’t Christmas
What about the way that she brushes her hair back
And she walks around the house with no shoes on
Tie my blues on
She makes me take my shoes off
Gotta shake these blues off

I don’t know which is more insipid, the lyrics or the video. The more interesting question, though, is when was Tet ever a Philippine holiday? Last I knew, it is the Vietnamese New Year. But, I guess the band wanted to cover all Amerasian territory, so they threw the Philippines and Vietnam in together for good measure, no matter how awkward the combination is.

But, hey, why should the rest of us hold White people up as an example that they never intended to follow in the first place? Why ruin their fun, mixing and matching historical, cultural, linguistic and national differences between Asian countries? It’s all the same to them, don’t you know by now?

And, how could I pass up an opportunity to get my history jones on? Because I’ve never heard of “Tinian shore” before, I had to look it up and, you guessed it, the U.S. military’s fingerprints are all over Tinian, an island that is part of the Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean:

The Battle of the Philippine Sea

The Japanese gathered 1,700 planes at their shore bases in Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines and New Guinea. More than 500 planes were based on Tinian, Guam and Saipan in the Marianas. Toyoda planned that the planes would attack whatever fleet America sent and damage it so badly that the second phase, a naval battle, could only result in a Japanese victory.

Tinian

In 1947, the Northern Mariana Islands became part of the post-World War II United Nations’ Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI). The United States became the TTPI’s administering authority under the terms of a trusteeship agreement. In 1976, Congress approved the mutually negotiated Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) in Political Union with the United States. The CNMI Government adopted its own constitution in 1977, and the constitutional government took office in January 1978. The Covenant was fully implemented on November 3, 1986, pursuant to Presidential Proclamation no. 5564, which conferred United States citizenship on legally qualified CNMI residents.

The 1976 Covenant (Public Law 94-241) creating the CNMI established jurisdiction of U.S. laws, agencies, and programs; provided for a CNMI Constitution, an elected government and defined self-rule; and granted U.S. citizenship to CNMI residents. The Covenant also brought to CNMI substantial and extended financial support from the U.S. A major portion of this financial support came in the form of payments made to CNMI for the leasing of about two-thirds of the island of Tinian. In 1983, a lease agreement covering these lands was signed and DoD assumed control and possession over the northern two-thirds of Tinian. The lease agreement is for 50 years, with a renewal option for an additional 50 years.

According to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT), the “long-term and overriding purpose in acquiring the CNMI lease is to ensure there is a capable forward basing optio

n location in the Pacific…, in the event of major hostilities in the Pacific or loss of access to existing forward basing facilities.” Under the terms of the lease agreement, none of leased lands may be privately-owned, nor are any CNMI residents allowed to live or develop there. Essentially, the Navy controls all land uses within the leased area. Any non-military uses within the leased area must by approved by the Navy. Presently, the U.S. military uses major portions of the leased land area for training exercises.

Turn My Stomach

Why would a quote from Adolf Hitler show up in a book about Vietnamese children orphaned by the war? I’m talking about Turn My Eyes Away: Our Children In Vietnam published by Friends For All Children in 1976. I’ve already referred to this book here.

The quote from Adolf Hitler is this:

The day of individual happiness has passed.

Now, you could easily jump to the conclusion that the inclusion of this Hitler quote is clearly in bad taste, considering the subject matter of the book and its supposed purpose, as expressed by Rosemary Taylor herself:

We wanted to prepare a souvenir for those children abroad whose origins will become increasingly obscure, but whose early experiences and memories will be closely connected with our nurseries and the orphanages we assisted.

In the spirit of giving someone a fair shake, I wanted to find out from which source this quote was taken and understand its significance within the context of both Hitler’s thoughts at the time and the Turn My Eyes Away book. A bizarre undertaking, I must admit.

I found that the Hitler quote came from a book (pp. 191-192) by Hermann Rauschning, published in 1939, called Hitler Speaks: A Series of Political Conversations with Adolf Hitler on his Real Aims:

“The day of individual happiness has passed,” Hitler returned. “Instead, we shall feel a collective happiness. Can there be any greater happiness than a National Socialist meeting in which speakers and audience feel as one? It is the happiness of sharing. Only the early Christian communities could have felt it with equal intensity. They, too, sacrificed their personal happiness for the higher happiness of the community.

“If we feel and experience this great era thus,” Hitler concluded, “then we shall not be disturbed by details and individual failures. We shall know then that every road leads us forward, no matter how much it seems to go in another direction. And above all, we shall then maintain our passionate desire to revolutionise the world to an extent unparalleled in history. It gives us also a special, secret pleasure to see how people about us are unaware of what is really happening to them. They gaze fascinated at one or two familiar superficialities, such as possessions and income and rank and other outworn conceptions. As long as these are kept intact, they are quite satisfied. But in the meantime they have entered a new relation; a powerful social force has caught them up. They themselves are changed. What are ownership and income to that? Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings.”

Do you see what I see?

I admit that there is a danger in trying to guess what the editors of Turn My Eyes Away may have been trying to convey with the Hitler quote. There is certainly a desire in me to put words in their mouths and proclaim their deviousness. Can you really blame me, though? The use of such a benign quote from such an inflammatory figure as Adolf Hitler begs the inevitable question, Why? The editors must have known that they were leaving their intentions up to interpretation for future generations to judge.

By reuniting the one-sentence quote from Turn My Eyes Away with the rest of Hitler’s extended quote in Rauschning’s Hitler Speaks, a disturbing comment upon the link between our orphaned existences and transcendent adoptions materializes. I could interpret it as Rosemary Taylor saying to us that what she and her colleagues had done was for the greater good. She’s essentially telling us that their philanthropy is beyond repute. Instead of concentrating on “individual happiness”, they were pursuing a “collective happiness”, and that they had “sacrificed their personal happiness for the higher happiness of the community.” In a sense, Rosemary Taylor and her ilk saw themselves as part of a revolution in child welfare. They were taking foreign children whom they assumed nobody wanted and giving them to complete strangers to raise, the majority of whom were not of the same race or ethnicity as these children. They appear to be informing us that they did the best they could and that under the extreme circumstances of the war extreme measures had to be taken in order to salvage and save the children of Vietnam. Much like Hitler, they viewed themselves as saviors of humanity.

But, I immediately do a double take and say to myself that this has to be a preposterous interpretation.

Once again I’m forced to chide myself and question whether this is really the path that the people who set in motion my adoption wanted me to go down. Not only do I have to question the editors’ intentions again, but I have to question my own intentions for possibly reading into their message something that they may never had intended. This feeling of repeatedly doubling back is exhausting and, might I say, quite unjust. I now find myself caught up in a game of ambiguity whose objective is to show how unavoidably crappy I am for even suggesting bad things about my own benefactors.

I could go on and on, but what’s the use? Really, only Rosemary Taylor and the editors know the reason for including Hitler’s quote in Turn My Eyes Away.

I’m simply left to wonder, “Why?”

FOOTNOTE: After scratching the surface of the Hitler quote, I found an interesting background behind Hermann Rauschning’s book Hitler Speaks: A Series of Political Conversations with Adolf Hitler on his Real Aims. Apparently, some historians of the Nazi era have pegged Rauschning’s book as a fraud and seriously question the authenticity of his meetings and interviews with Hitler. But, even their debunking of the book is suspect because some of the more outspoken historians are “revisionists”, meaning they tend to want to cast Hitler and National Socialism in a more positive light. To make things even more complicated, Rauschning became a Nazi when Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, but then had a falling out with the Party and soon afterward emigrated to the U.S. and settled down near Portland, Oregon. From there, he wrote anti-Nazi texts and made a living out of it.

Two 5-Hour Plane Rides and One Week Later

The Asian Adult Adoptee Gathering & Film Festival was more than I had expected and then some. I came back to my apartment in Seattle feeling both overexposed and overly excited. I didn’t know where to begin, mainly due to the fact that I was a bit discombobulated with the contrast in environment in which I had been transferred. I had just come from a sunny, idyllic land where most of the people had about the same melanin content as I do, i.e., dark tan skin, and where I unabashedly felt “at home”. Then, I found myself back in a cold, overcast land that I have called my “home” for the past 8 years. A place where the mountains coddle a city full of white faces who act like they’ve never met you before.

When I landed in Honolulu, my first thought was that I wanted to see the beach. I like to think that when I was born a tropical hormone was injected into my blood stream, making me pine for salty water and cracked coconuts. When the #19 bus came, I heaved my two full backpacks onto my back and walked into the air conditioned cabin. Luckily, I got a window seat, so I could stare out at the scenery passing by. As the bus wound through its elongated route, I marveled in my head at the various people who boarded and exited the bus. I have a bad habit of staring, but I hope I wasn’t too conspicuous when I saw the many faces of Hawaii. Old and young, men and women, dribbled by and I got the strange feeling that I could very well be looking at one of my own relatives.

As mistaken as I could have been, it’s not a completely irrational suspicion, since my ethnic heritage is not very clear cut, as I had grown up believing. Here’s what I said on the mixed race adoptee panel at the conference regarding my ambiguous racial identity:

However, I’m only recently acknowledging the real difficulty I’m having with accepting the decisive label of “Vietnamese/White”. When I consider that Thai, Chinese, Filipino and Korean men, as well as Mien, Hmong and Montangard men, and even Native American and Latino-American men, participated in combat operations and acted as support personnel during the war, the “White” part of me starts to take a back seat. My naturally dark tan skin and curious mixed Asian features have started to point in many directions other than classically “White”. Who knows? My mother could have been anything other than Vietnamese.

My mother could have been a resident of Hawaii who took a job as an administrative assistant to any one of the numerous American companies that had contracts with the American military or the Republic of South Vietnam. Possessing a sense of adventure or just being plain tired of the monotony of the same-ol’-same-ol’ on the island, she snatched up the opportunity to transfer to an office in Saigon for a year. In contrast to her white co-workers, my mother may have felt very comfortable in the humidity and hustle-and-bustle of brown people, living and dying as they had done for centuries. With respect to American imperialism, she probably saw the depressing parallels between the American invasion and occupation of the Hawaiian islands in the 1800s and then the same game being played by the U.S. on Vietnamese land in the 1970s. My mother very well could have dated a handsome Vietnamese man who had swept her off her feet with his natural cordiality and raucous laughter. Nice thought, huh?

Along with myself on the mixed race adoptee panel were four other people – Mark Diebel, Susan Ito (moderator), Myra Masuda and David Nakase. Only after I came back to Seattle did it strike me that each of these people had been reunited with their first mothers, except for me. I don’t feel any envy about this fact, but rather quite the opposite. Later on at lunch, I was fascinated listening to Susan and Mark tell me about their unique relationships with their first mothers and how these re-connections have developed over the years. I was intrigued, more for the realization that I had resigned myself to the near certainty that I would never come to know who my parents were. For me, it’s not a matter of giving up on some kind of hope of finding them, but rather a re-prioritization of goals that I need to achieve within this relatively short lifespan I’ve been afforded.

This brings me back to another statement I made during the mixed race adoptee panel:

The Vietnam War did strange things to people. In my case, it gave me life while possibly sentencing my parents to death. Its massive carnage and destruction also reduced any possibility of searching for my parents or receiving any kind of credible information on them while at the same time expanding the possibilities of their whereabouts and identities to near endless proportions.

So, I sat on that #19 bus and made believe that a part of my heritage was staring right back at me.

Running Dragon film

Whoa! Adult Vietnamese adoptee writes, directs and acts in his own film?! Yes, it’s true. Kim Noonan wrote and directed the movie Running Dragon.

Synopsis

In 1972 near the end of the Vietnam war, the Vietnamese government were outcasting Ameriasian children while several U.S. families began to adopt them. Running Dragon is an autobiographical story about one of these American orphans, Joe Christmas (a.k.a. Lyn Phi Long or Running Dragon), and his biological Vietnamese sister, Hoa, who was separated from Joe during their adoption. 28 years later Joe discovers that Hoa has tracked him down and arranges for them to meet with her Vietnamese family in Little Saigon.

As the story unfolds we realize that Joe has never successfully fit in his with “All-American” family and community while growing up in America. And as a result of years of separation from his Vietnamese heritage, he also struggles to connect with Hoa’s adopted traditional Vietnamese family, making it all the more difficult for him to find acceptance in either world.

Writer/Director/Actor

Kim Noonan was born in Vietnam and given up for adoption to an American family in Escondido, Calif. shortly after the Vietnam War. Noonan took film courses at Los Angeles Community College to learn about the technical aspects of filmmaking. He also is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and has been in several plays and short films. After several years of struggling to distinguish himself for casting directors, he was encouraged by his friend and mentor, Deb Theaker, to write and produce his own projects regarding his Vietnamese origin and American upbringing. As a result of her positive encouragement, he developed RUNNING DRAGON, a series of stories that deals directly with the impact that his unusual background had on his life. He continues to write and develop projects that empower his voice as a filmmaker with his producing partner, Neal Sickles. RUNNING DRAGON is the third short film Noonan has written and directed.

Armed

In this game the lesson’s in your eyes to see
Though things change, the future’s still inside of me
We must remember that tomorrow comes after the dark
So you will always be in my heart, with unconditional love

- Tupac -

AAAGFF One Week Away

[Nervous, yet reserved and reserved, yet nervous]

The Asian Adult Adoptee Gathering & Film Festival is coming up in one week (October 10-13)!

As already mentioned by Ethnically Incorrect Daughter, I will be one of several participants on a panel about being adopted and identifying as mixed race, hosted by Susan Ito. I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I would like to say on the topic, but still having some difficulty putting together in my brain something that is beyond the commonplace.

Right after the panel discussion, I’ll jump up and start presenting a project that Sumeia Williams and I have been working on for the past several months. It’s certainly been a labor of love and much rumination. With a healthy dose of history, we will be confronting two very big myths that have clouded the discussion of transracial adoption in the Western world since the 1950s.

Much thanks to Ji In and KAHI for including us in this much-anticipated event!

AAAGFF Schedule (May be subject to change)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9

5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
E&O Trading Co., Ward Centre, Honolulu
IKAA NETWORK LEADERSHIP MEETING (by invitation)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10

11:45 a.m. to 4 p.m.
OPTIONAL AFTERNOON TRIPS (Departing from the Hawaii Prince Hotel lobby)
• Catamaran Sail – Departs at 11:45 a.m.
• Hike – Departs at noon
• Windward and East Island Tour – Departs at noon
Due to tour operators’ payment policies and transportation arrangements, pre-registration for these optional trips is required. On-site registration is not possible.

5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Hawaii Prince Hotel – Foyer outside Mauna Kea Ballroom
REGISTRATION

6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Hawaii Prince Hotel – Foyer outside Mauna Kea Ballroom
LATE REGISTRATION

6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Hawaii Prince Hotel – Mauna Kea Ballroom
ALOHA DINNER & PROGRAM – For all AAAGFF registrants
Cash bar will be available. Guests age 21 and older, please bring ID if you wish to purchase alcoholic beverages.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11

6 a.m. to 12 p.m.
OPTIONAL MORNING TRIPS (Departing from the Hawaii Prince Hotel lobby)
• Hanauma Bay Snorkel – Departs at 6 a.m.
• Pearl Harbor Tour – Departs at 6 a.m.
• Surfing Lesson – Departs at 6:30 a.m.
Due to tour operators’ payment policies and transportation arrangements, pre-registration for these optional trips is required. On-site registration is not possible.

2 p.m.
BUSES DEPART from the Hawaii Prince Hotel for the film festival. Please be ready in the main lobby no later than 2 p.m., and bring your name badges, which will serve as your admission to the film screenings and to dinner. Latecomers will be responsible for their own transportation to the Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Academy of Arts
ASIAN ADOPTEE FILM FESTIVAL: Afternoon Session – Short Works
• Searching for Go-hyang by Tammy (Tolle) Chu
• Jagadamba: Mother of the Universe by Amber Field
• My Great Grandfather by Jette Hye Jin Mortensen
• Missing by Kate Hers
• Tracing Trades by Jane Jin Kaisen and Tobias Hübinette

5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Catholic Charities (Makiki campus), 1822 Ke’eaumoku Street
DINNER – For all AAAGFF registrants attending the film festival
Sponsored by Yummy Korean BBQ
Buses will pick us up at the theatre at 5 p.m. to transport us to dinner, and will transport us back around 6:30 p.m. to the theatre for the evening show.

7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Academy of Arts
ASIAN ADOPTEE FILM FESTIVAL: Evening Session – ‘Adopted’ and Other Works
• Preview: Resilience by Tammy Chu
• Preview: Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam by Tammy Nguyen Lee (producer, Jared Rehberg)
• Annie Ong: Lost and Found by Jeannette Loakman
• Adopted by Barb Lee

10:15 p.m.
BUSES DEPART from the Doris Duke Theatre for the hotel.

11:30 p.m.
TBA – Meet in the Hawaii Prince Hotel lobby
NIGHTLIFE – Optional, for all AAAGFF registrants age 21+

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12

7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
Hawaii Prince Hotel – Mauna Kea Ballroom
BREAKFAST – For all AAAGFF registrants

8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Hawaii Prince Hotel
CONFERENCE SESSION I: Choose from two concurrent sessions.
• Mixed-Race Asian Adoptees – Open to all attendees (Facilitator: Susan Ito) – Being adopted presents enough of a challenge to one’s sense of identity. But being mixed race adds an extra layer of complexity to that challenge. A panel of mixed-race Asian adoptees with a range of experiences will discuss what it meant for each of them to grow up as mixed-race Asian adoptees. (Mauna Kea Ballroom)
• An Artist Talk With Tammy Chu – Open to all attendees (Facilitator: Tammy Ko Robinson) – Filmmaker Tammy Chu, whose film “Searching for Go-hyang” is featured in Saturday’s Asian Adoptee Film Festival, will present clips from her work-in-progress, “Resilience,” and discuss her perspective and process as an artist in an interactive Q&A discussion session. (Haleakala/Kilauea)

10:15 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Hawaii Prince Hotel
CONFERENCE SESSION II: Choose from two concurrent sessions.
• International Adoption and the Babylift Legacy – Open to all attendees (Facilitator: Kevin Minh Allen): As adoptees, we are often confronted with hard truths as we search our histories for meaning. Often we learn that things are not always as they seem and come to realize that one of our greatest assets is our ability to question. This presentation takes another look at the historical events that surrounded the “babylifts” of Korea and Vietnam and examines how those events influenced current adoption practices and attitudes. (Mauna Kea Ballroom)
• Racism & Social Justice Issues: What About Asian Adoptees? Open to adoptees only (Facilitators: Kimberly Langrehr and Allen Majors): This discussion invites adoptees to share their thoughts and experiences with the racial and cultural challenges that Asian adoptees often face in the context of a racialized society. We will cover salient topics such as the minimization of racial reality and the distorted messages about adoption presented by the media. Adoptees with backgrounds in social justice are strongly encouraged to attend to discuss their work and advocacy efforts for Asians and adoptees. (Haleakala/Kilauea)

3:55 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Paradise Cove, Ko’olina
LUAU (Optional; Open to pre-registered guests only): Please be ready in the hotel lobby no later than 3:55 p.m., and bring your name tags to check in with a KAHI representative. Adults age 21 and older must bring ID if you wish to drink alcoholic beverages (and money if you plan to purchase additional drinks over your 2 free drinks). Aloha attire (or resort wear) encouraged.

If you miss the Paradise Cove bus, you are responsible for your own transportation to the luau.
Due to Paradise Cove payment policies and transportation arrangements, pre-registration for the luau is required. On-site registration is not possible.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 13

9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
TBA
FAREWELL BRUNCH (Optional)

Ethnically Incorrect Daughter on Sunday Night Safran Radio Show

My ever effervescent fellow Vietnamese American transracial adoptee, Sumeia Williams, was interviewed for the Australian radio show Sunday Night Safran.  Listen to her hold it down and give it up for TRA power this Sunday at 9pm.

This week on Sunday Night Safran : Cult buster Raphael Aron talks SATANISM! Do they live among us? White people with brown babies… Sumeia Williams Vietnamese adoptee and author of the Ethnically Incorrect Daughter blog talks cross cultural adoption. Bahram Soroush from the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain has renounced his religion and thinks others should too he will explain. And the Australian Turkish Arts and Music Community is in for religious song of the week.