Asian American

Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!

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This post comes a bit late, but perhaps better later than never. Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!

You can read the official presidential proclamation here, the kick-off statement from Secretary Locke here and the official Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month website here. The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, co-chaired by Secretaries Locke and Duncan, even has its own website. You can also read the presidential executive order that established this initiative (Executive Order 13515, “Increasing Participation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Federal Programs”).

Of course, every month is APAHM at the Angry Asian Buddhist blog. I wish I had time to write more, but it will have to wait for another day. Still, this is an occasion that the entire Buddhist community can celebrate!

Suksan Wan Songkran!

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Today is the second day of Songkran, the Thai New Year—also a New Year (albeit under slightly different pronunciations and traditions) celebrated by Laos, Khmers, Mons and Burmese. Beyond Southeast Asia, this “Other New Year” is also celebrated in Nepal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, Punjab and Bengal (including Bangladesh). For this holiday, I interviewed a marvelously enthusiastic Buddhist practitioner, whom I met years ago through mutual friends in America’s Midwest.

Who are you?

I’m Dome, an American-born Thai, repatriated in Thailand ☺

What’s the Buddhist significance of this holiday?

Songkran’s history with Buddhism runs deep, though only two things come to my mind that show its ties: as it is considered a New Year, new resolutions or renewing old commitments towards doing good is always a Buddhist practice. As they say, practice makes perfect. So aside from the squirt guns, powered water and the games people play to get each other wet during Songkran, some devote their time off from work to go to temples, uphold precepts, and practice their minds to achieve their New Year goals. Nonetheless, for those less bound to a temple, a Buddha image is always presented in front of offices, in neighborhood communities, or as part of a ceremony for anyone to pour water over as an act of cleansing and cooling both the receiver and giver.

What does this holiday mean to you, and how do you plan to celebrate it?

To me, Songkran is a time for reflection of things gone by and things to come. But more importantly, I reflect on my happiness and my practice. I have to admit though, my reflections in these past few years during Songkran have been short. Even now, I’ll be spending it abroad outside of Thailand! I’ll be missing all of the water fights, and the time to spend at the temples, but I continue to make this holiday a merry one!

It brings me immeasurable joy to be able to share the voices of other Asian American Buddhists with the wider Buddhist blogging community. Especially when it comes to holidays that celebrate our cultural heritage, it’s great to hear our voices speak for themselves. Suksan Wan Songkran!

Thingyan Mingalar

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By word of a friend, I was put in touch with Aung Htin Kyaw, a talented and enthusiastic community organizer in Southern California. I interviewed Aung Kyaw to learn his thoughts on Thingyan, the Burmese New Year, which begins today.

Who are you?

I am a 2nd generation Burmese American of Chinese heritage. I am currently a college student studying in Los Angeles.

What is the Buddhist significance of this holiday?

While there is no overt Buddhist meaning to this holiday (unlike Thadingyut, for example, which marks the end of the Buddhist lent), Thingyan is considered a very good time to practice the Buddhist precepts, perform merit acts and show respect for one’s elders (by practicing gadaw, the custom of kneeling, prostrating to show veneration to parents and grandparents).

What does this holiday mean to you?

To be honest, this holiday does not have much spiritual meaning for me. Considering that I also celebrate New Year and the Chinese New Year, the importance of crossing over to the Burmese New Year loses its significance for me. It’s just a nice time to celebrate my cultural heritage with friends and family.

What do you plan to do on/for Thingyan?

I’m hoping to organize a trip to South El Monte for other Burmese students to celebrate “Maha Thingyan,” an annual Thingyan festivalheld in the San Gabriel Valley by the Southern California Burmese Association.

Aung Kyaw’s blog Fifty Viss has kept me informed on many issues relating to Burmese Americans, be it finding Burmese food in America or the status of “Burmese” in the 2010 United States Census. Although he hasn’t continued updating the blog in recent years, you can still learn lots (not to mention look at beautiful photos) by combing through the archived posts. I’m not going to have time to attend the Southern California Thingyan festival this weekend, but if you live down here, I strongly encourage you to drop by—and afterward, drop me a comment and let me know your thoughts!

(Disclaimer—I’ve never actually heard anyone say thingyan mingalar, but it works better for the post title than hnit thit mingalar…)

Will the Real American Buddhists Please Stand Up?

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One of the frustrations of being an Asian American Buddhist arises when people routinely exclude us from “American Buddhism.” We are American and we are Buddhist. No less, the vast majority of us practice Buddhism differently here than the way it’s practiced in Asia—in ways that are uniquely American. But when it comes to talking about “American Buddhists”—or just simply “Americans”—time and again, we are left out. This attitude was evident in a comment on yesterday’s post, which responded to a question by Barbara O’Brien on the number of Asians at the upcoming Buddhist Geeks conference:

How many Indian’s [sic] were at the monasteries in Tibet at the time of Atisha? Or in Japan at the time of the 3rd Patriarch? This US event is bound to be dominated by American faces…

This sort of slip is not confined to White Buddhists; you’ll frequently hear Asian Buddhists make these same sorts of assumptions too. I’ve even had a commenter use the words of Thay Thich Nhat Hanh to suggest that Asians recognize that “American” excludes the Asian, “Please show me your Buddha, your American Buddha. […] Show me an American bodhisattva. […] Show me an American monk, an American nun, or an American Buddhist Center.”

This exclusion of Asian Americans is often termed “perpetual foreigner syndrome.” Even when we act completely American, our basic “Asianness” casts us as foreign. It’s the sort of attitude that underlies statements by those such as Tricycle founder Helen Tworkov that Asian American Buddhists “have not figured prominently in the development of something called American Buddhism.”

Just for good measure, I’d like to remind you why we are American Buddhists.

Let me reframe the credentials of Asian American Buddhists. We are Buddhist because that’s what we call ourselves, because that’s how we practice, because that’s the religion we choose to follow and identify with. We are American because we were born here, we went to American schools, we salute Old Glory, we pay American taxes, we speak American English, we vote in American elections and because we fought, bled and died for American freedoms. We are as American as chop suey, fortune cookies, competitive team taiko and home-baked apple pie. And our Buddhism is American Buddhism because no matter how superficially similar our local practice may seem to the way that Buddhism is practiced in Asia, we have had to significantly adapt and alter our traditions to fit our American community and context here in North America.

The exclusion of Asians from “American” is an abhorrent trope in American society. When it comes to American Buddhism, this is one piece of American cultural baggage that’s better off checked at the door. Please don’t exclude us from our own community.

April Fools’ Day and Wrong Speech

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This year’s April Fools’ Day hoax was set up to be as believable as possible. I posted at the end of April 1 (11:59pm PDT), I provided an emotional context and I resisted extending the post’s arguments to reveal their flaws. It turned out to be a much more convincing prank than last year’s. In at least one case, it was even more hurtful.

One loyal reader’s feedback was both flattering and intensely humbling. She expressed her appreciation for this blog’s discussion of issues relating to Western Buddhists of Asian heritage. Unlike most Buddhist blogs, this blog does not hesitate to write about instances where these Buddhists are ignored and marginalized in Western Buddhism, particularly in North America. But my April Fools’ Day post celebrated arguments that denounce the discussion of race issues in the Buddhist community—the very sort of argument that this blog normally challenges. As a result, the hoax felt like a betrayal, a sentiment which lingered even after the ruse was unveiled. Repeating this prank another year didn’t help.

There are two main reasons why I regret my April Fools’ Day posts. First, I unintentionally hurt a reader from the very community that this blog aims to speak out for. There are few blogs that discuss the issues that Asian American Buddhists face in Western Buddhism, and I made it seem as though I had withdrawn my support. It’s a cruel game to toy with loyalty and support.

Second, I regret the fact that these posts were stitched together from completely intentional falsehoods. As I’ve discussed before, sarcasm and verbal irony are by definition both deliberate deviations from the truth for the sake of humor. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu writes: “Especially here in America, we’re used to getting laughs with exaggeration, sarcasm, group stereotypes, and pure silliness — all classic examples of wrong speech. If people get used to these sorts of careless humor, they stop listening carefully to what we say. In this way, we cheapen our own discourse.”

To be entirely clear, I have in no way changed my opinion as I otherwise suggested. The prank was to sincerely explore three basic arguments that are repeatedly used to shut down the discussion of race in Western Buddhism. I’ll hopefully find the time over the next few days to write exactly why each of the issues I brought up is a not a good enough reason to avoid this discussion. Hopefully, I’ll also be able to keep my snark on a leash.

Happy Ohigan!

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Today marks the start of Ohigan (or Higan-e), a Japanese Buddhist holiday. To learn more about this holiday, I had the honor of interviewing Rev. Harry Gyokyo Bridge, resident minister at the Buddhist Church of Oakland. On the blogosphere, you may be more familiar with Rev. Harry’s podcast, the DharmaRealm, a Shin Buddhist podcast, which he produces with Dr. Scott Mitchell. Rev. Harry can also occasionally be found teaching at the Institute for Buddhist Studies.

Who are you?

A half-Asian Jodo Shinshu Buddhist minister. Also a musician and cat lover.

What is the Buddhist significance of this holiday?

I think several explanations are possible. “Higan” means “Other Shore” – in other words, the Other Shore of enlightenment. At the spring and autumn equinoxes, when night and day are the same length, the Japanese considered the Other Shore to be at its closest point, and thus an important time to practice, especially the paramitas. In fact, the term “paramita” can be interpreted as “reaching the Other Shore.”

Having lived in Kyoto, which is bone-chillingly cold in winter and unbearably hot and humid in summer, I wonder if monks found the mild weather of spring and fall to be more conducive to extended practice and lectures?

What does this holiday mean to you?

I usually view Ohigan in terms of balance. With night and day of equal length and mild weather neither too hot nor cold, I see the Middle Way in action.

What do you plan to do on/for Ohigan? 

My temple held its Ohigan celebration a week early. Not for any particular reason, things just worked out that way. One interesting result was that our service was on the first day of daylight savings time, so that things were kind of thrown out of balance. This was reflected in the world, since our service was a couple of days after the earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan. But although part of my Dharma Message was about the sadness we feel for those suffering, I also went ahead with my initial plan for a call-and-response funk version of the Golden Chain, calling on everyone to aspire to be the best Buddhists we can be, to try and be kind and gentle to every living thing, with the wish that all beings attain perfect peace. 

You can follow Rev. Harry on his blog, The Nenju, and also on Twitter (@gyokyo). Last year, Rev. Harry participated in an all-Asian American interview about Buddhism in America, which I blogged about. If you can’t tell, I’m a big fan of Rev. Harry and his work in the Buddhist community.

All my best wishes for your practice this Ohigan.

Discrimination Against Buddhists in Kansas

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Fox 4 Kansas City reports on alleged neighborhood discrimination against Buddhists in Kansas.

The Lao-Buddhist Association [Wat Lao Buddhasampham] is trying to move it’s Olathe temple to a location along 119th Street in Olathe. But the Johnson County Board of Commissioners has so far denied the group a conditional use permit. Neighbors say that the area the Buddhists have chosen is zoned residential, but Lama Chuck Stanford of the Rime Buddhist Center says that discrimination is the real reason behind the opposition.

“This is clearly just ugliness of ethnic and religious prejudice,” said Stanford. […] Standord notes that Christian churches are common in residential areas, and that comments made by residents during a January zoning board meeting indicate fear and ignorance. At the meeting, people raised concerns about traffic, water pollution and “animal sacrifices,” along with noise from gongs, which Stanford says are no louder than church bells.

You can watch a video and read the article in full at Fox 4 Kansas City. I’m very grateful that Chuck Stanford has the integrity to go out of his way and stand up for the rights of Lao American Buddhists.

Elsewhere on this blog, I keep track of vandalized Buddhists temples. I’m not including Wat Lao Buddhasampham on this list simply because vandalism (fortunately) doesn’t appear to be one of the issues. Even so, if you have updates or more information on this community situation, I encourage you post in the comments section below!

Our American Contribution

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Following up on Beneath a Single Moon, I thought to commemorate a different exchange that you can find recorded in the archive of the buddha is my dj blog. I haven’t done much research into the full episode, but I felt compelled to republish a letter written by Rev. Ryo Imamura almost twenty years ago. His letter was in rebuttal to an editorial by Tricycle founder and then-editor Helen Tworkov, where she stated, “Asian-American Buddhists number at least one million, but so far they have not figured prominently in the development of something called American Buddhism.”

Tricycle never published his response, so it is with great thanks to Dr. Charles Prebish that it was published in the Buddhist Studies Review, and to Dr. Scott Mitchell that it was shared on his blog.

I would like to point out that it was my grandparents and other immigrants from Asia who brought and implanted Buddhism in American soil over 100 years ago despite white American intolerance and bigotry. It was my American-born parents and their generation who courageously and diligently fostered the growth of American Buddhism despite having to practice discretely in hidden ethnic temples and in concentration camps because of the same white intolerance and bigotry. It was us Asian Buddhists who welcomed countless white Americans into our temples, introduced them to the Dharma, and often assisted them to initiate their own Sanghas when they felt uncomfortable practicing with us…

We Asian Buddhists have hundreds of temples in the United States with active practitioners of all ages, ongoing education programs that are both Buddhist and interfaith in nature, social welfare projects… everything that white Buddhist centers have and perhaps more. It is apparent that Tworkov has restricted “American Buddhism” to mean “white American Buddhism,” and that her statement is even more misleading than one claiming that Americans of color did not figure prominently in the development of American history.

This letter naturally prompted a written response from Helen Tworkov, not to mention a flurry of heated exchanges throughout the community. What saddens me most is that historical revisions similar to Tworkov’s can still find their way into publication today. But as I mentioned in my previous post, I am also comforted when I reflect on the ranks of Asian American Buddhists who came before me and who likewise spoke out when our communities were unfairly slandered.

So who is this Ryo Imamura, and who does he think he is? Find out here, here and here.

Beneath a Single Moon

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Released in 1991, Beneath a Single Moon: Buddhism in Contemporary American Poetry was the first anthology to highlight the poetry of practicing American Buddhists. The reaction of the Asian American writing community was for the most part simple and straightforward. We were less than happy. Of the 45 American poets who appeared in Beneath a Single Moon, some were well-known poets, while others were quite obscure. None were Asian American.

Mushim Ikeda-Nash remembers “dropping the book as though it had burnt me.” In PREMONITIONS: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, editor Walter Lew provided half a dozen examples of accomplished Asian American poets whose work should have qualified. In 1997, Juliana Chang, Walter Lew, Tan Lin, Eileen Tabios, and John Yau together lambasted Beneath a Single Moon editor Kent Johnson in the Boston Review, arguing that his anthology “displaces Asian American poets from the practice of Buddhism.” They reprinted Lew’s most polemical paragraph from PREMONITIONS.

The 45 American poets whose essays and poetry on Buddhist practice comprise the anthology are all Caucasian, and the book only mentions Asians as distal teachers (ranging from Zen patriarchs to D.T. Suzuki), not as fellow members or poets of the sangha . . . When one considers the relative obscurity of some of the poets included in the book, one wonders how it was possible not to have known the Buddhistic poetry of such writers as [Lawson Fusao] Inada, Al Robles, Garrett Kaoru Hongo, Alan Chong Lau, Patricia Ikeda, and Russell Leong. . . . [Gary] Snyder’s introduction deliberates the question—‘Poetry is democratic, Zen is elite. No! Zen is democratic, poetry is elite. Which is it?’ . . . perhaps he should have also asked whether Zen and poetry, as reconfigured in American Orientalism, are racist.

Kent Johnson did little to help the situation when in a 1997 email response, he backhandedly disqualified all the writers Lew had mentioned.

Before reading this quote, I was quite certain that we had probably missed, out of ignorance, Asian-American poets who should have been included in the anthology. But now I am not as sure. If Mr. Lew (and the other co-signers of the BR response) had carefully considered the Shambhala anthology, they would have seen that a fundamental criteria for inclusion was a serious background in Buddhist study and practice. We were not interested, in the least, in poetry exhibiting the vague and stereotypical waft of the “Buddhistic.” If anything, our anthology begins to point to the fact that reductive notions of the “Buddhistic” are one of the by-products of the “Orientalism” that Mr. Lew denounces. There is simply no way of boiling down Buddhist artistic expression to any particular “Buddhistic” characteristics of tone, content, or style.

Now, I still suspect that there are publishing Asian-American poets who would have met the criteria we established for the anthology, but their absence was certainly not due to some underlying racist criteria of selection; we simply (and perhaps to our editorial discredit) were, and are, unaware of Asian-American poets who also happen to be Buddhists. Apparently, and unfortunately, so is Mr. Lew, as I assume he would have mentioned specific names if there were any.

Preoccupied with the word “Buddhistic,” Johnson failed to verify that most of the writers mentioned by Lew were, in fact, practicing Buddhists. One of these writers played a major role in getting me involved in the Buddhist community. Little did I know that, at the very time he advised me on Buddhist engagement, this literary controversy was storming in the background.

It took me some time to piece this history together, emailing friends, hunting down references and reviewing email exchanges from, well, the last century. What you see here is a sample of a much more complex fabric of conversations being woven at the time. On the face of it, the recriminatory exchanges must have seemed futile, either side barely acknowledging the other’s argument. But these conversations were not entirely in vain. As discussed by Jonathan Stalling, subsequent anthologies of Buddhist poetry opened their pages to include Asian American authors, including those mentioned by Lew.

Reflection on this history brings me an even share of bitterness and comfort. The bitterness is in seeing that so little has changed—that two decades after the publication of Beneath a Single Moon, the nature of the controversy and the criticism it engendered could have happened just last month. In fact, it did. On the other hand, the comfort is in knowing that I’m not alone, that I’m following in the footsteps of many others who came before me. There is comfort too in the thought that, if history is any guide, change may indeed come.

Saving the Wat

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The San Francisco Film Society is sponsoring Saving the Wat, a film by Virada Chatikul and Siwaraya Rochanahusdin about a team of young community advocates who banded together to protect their community’s temple. Here’s a film synopsis:

Wat Mongkolratanaram, aka the Berkeley Thai Temple, comes under fire when a request to build a Buddhist shrine on their own property is submitted to the city. The Temple elders must now rely on a group of young and energetic second-generation Thai-Americans to advocate for their constitutional rights protecting religious freedoms. The team navigates through the city’s land use and permit process, represents the Temple in mediation with neighbors, launches an awareness campaign, and ultimately, brings together a community that would otherwise face potential closure of the Temple.

Please support this film project—not to mention Buddhist community organizers—by making a donation. You don’t have to bequeath your estate; if everyone in the community donates a little bit, we’ll be威而鋼 able to get this film off the ground! You may remember this campaign from posts last year by Rev. Danny Fisher and Dharma Folk, also reposted by several others. Now is a great chance to continue that support. (Hat tip to the Angry Asian Man; image credits to Where There Be Dragons and Asian Pacific Americans for Progress.)