Hello everyone on ningin! I recently talked to a trailblazer by the name of Laurence Louie who is the editor-in-chief of the hot new Asian American newspaper, Native Tongue. I was first introduced to him through another friend of mine. I began viewing his website and his newspaper online. I noticed how he and his staff desperately wanting to make a change in the Asian American community on campus, locally, and nationally. The interview that I have had with this wonderful man Laurence follows.

Please tell me about yourself. Where do you go to school, your major, your occupation. What are some of your hobbies? Who is your hero (s)?
My name is Laurence Louie and I am 21 years old. I was born and raised in Boston. I am a senior at Rutgers University. My major is History with a minor in Sociology. I am due for graduation in May 2009. I also work part-time on the weekends at a convenient store with a friend of mine. I plan to go to graduate school in Boston to receive my master’s degree in Education. I also plan to go for my teacher’s certificate and I plan to teach in an inner city high school. I chose to go to Rutgers University, because I believe it is a good school, it’s diverse, and it has a substantial Asian population.

I was raised by both of my parents. My father’s name is Pong Louie and my mother’s name is Joyce Chen (Sau Chen). My mother taught music and bi-lingual history at Charlestown High School in Boston. My father was a member of the group I Wor Kune in the 70’s. I Wor Kune was an Asian American radical group. My aunt and uncle were also a part of it as well. My father, aunt, and uncle were involved in community grass root organizations in Boston, Chinatown. I also was a member of a Lion Dance troupe in Boston’s Chinatown. I did not start becoming an active participant in Asian American issues until my junior year in college.

My hobbies include: volleyball with the Rutgers Association of Filipino students, basketball, I play the guitar and drums; my mom sent me to different people to learn how to play them, I like paint balling, white water rafting, and reading novels.

My number one hero would be my mom. She was born in Canton, China and she later migrated to Hong Kong. She came over to America with a wave of other Chinese immigrants in the 70’s. She was a teacher, baker, she had a band, and she taught music. My mother knew Donnie Yen’s mother, Cheng Pei-Pei, when Donnie Yen was in his youth. My next hero would be my grandfather, my father’s father. He went by the name Louis Chu and he received a master’s in Sociology back in the 40’s-50’s. He wrote the book Eat A Bowl of Tea. It was the first book written about Asian Americans. He was considered before his time and he started the first radio station in New York, Chinatown.

What are some of the struggles that you have faced or experienced growing up as an Asian male in America? Tell me about a time you were discriminated against and what did you do in this situation?
There are a lot of general struggles, including stereotypes that are put upon you. It is very hard going through these struggles as a youth. The Asian American identity is not as developed as other ethnic identities. It’s sort of a culture shock with what you do at home not being accepted at school and vice versa. There are also masculinity issues combined with stereotypes about the Asian male physique: you being so called feminine looking, weak, less than other non-Asian males, too soft, too compassionate, and smaller in certain areas. There are times that your social life suffers and not being accepted by your peers growing up, because people cannot get pass your looks. I was picked on a lot and at times and it made me not to want to identify with being Asian. In elementary I grew up with mostly non-Asians until high school. I was always “just that Asian kid, not just Laurence”.

I will give you two times in particular in which I was discriminated against for being Asian. One time I was working in my mother’s bakery. An old White couple came in and wanted to order a cake. I talked to them for a bit and the wife turns to her husband and says, “look honey, he can write in English.” I was in high school at the time. The wife just smiled at me like she did not say anything wrong. She made me feel like a foreign object. Another time that I recall I was discriminated against was when I was at my RA-Resident Advisory training and I was eating lunch with the other RA’s. Some of the students ordered Chinese food and they began cracking some fortune cookies open. Two of the Black girls began reading what was said on the paper of the fortune cookies with an exaggerated Chinese accent. I felt bad about myself, because I did not say anything about it. Now I know better. I feel that American and western society at large accept Asian females over Asian males. They do not necessarily see the Asian female as an equal, but as a sexual object. It makes me very concerned as to why an Asian female is not accepted solely as a human being. It makes me angry for them.

What are some of your ideas for solutions to combat the stereotypes that the Asian male and Asians in general face in America?
We need systematic change of how our government system runs. We need to change the “big picture”, rather than fixing what we have now; for instance controlling who runs the media.

Where does the name Native Tongue originate from? What made you decide to launch your newspaper Native Tongue?
The name originates from the idea that a native tongue is your first language, your true language, and it can be interpreted in a number of different ways.

In my sophomore year in college I complained that there was no student activism in the community at Rutgers and I wanted to get involved with the Asian American community. I wanted to make some change. There was also an incident that happened with my cousin, Mark Liu, at Stanford University. He was involved in the “Sweat Free Campaign” at Stanford. He wanted them to make their apparel sweat shop free. He organized it in a year. He did a sit in at the president’s office. He was later arrested. That made me believe that “we students can do anything we want to make that change.”

I tried to figure out what to get involved with and to expose people to a world they were not familiar with. I saw the Rutgers’ statistics on minority newspapers and they were very low. The Blacks and Hispanics had a newspaper, but the Asians did not. I had no journalism experience. The first meeting we had included only three people. I wanted them to begin writing an issue November 2007 and get out the first one in April 2008. They thought that was pushing it. We lacked resources in the Asian American community and we needed to be represented well. After all, Rutgers has a 24% Asian population. I was thinking making a newspaper by and for the Asian American community was a good start. We did launch our first issue April of 2008.

What is Native Tongue all about?

We find articles to write about through personal experiences as Asian American Rutgers students, through internet, and the television. We have a balance of issues in the Asian American community as a whole. We want people to write about what we as individuals go through.

What do you do to promote your newspaper?

The Asian American cultural center on campus has supported us 100%. We attend any events other Asian groups have and anyone who is interested in helping promote social change, even if it’s not about our newspaper. The “bigger picture” is extremely important. We have a Native Tongue Facebook group: http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=10293291565 we have a website: http://nativetonguespeaks.webs.com/ and here is a link to our first newspaper: http://aacc.rutgers.edu/native_tongue.pdf

Do you have any notable sponsors or volunteers that help you with the newspaper?

We receive most of our funding from Rutgers and since we are more established we will receive more funding from Rutgers. We also won a grant from MTV U last year to help launch the paper. We have a ten person staff and contributing writers from various places.

What kind of events do you hold that are related to or not related to Native Tongue?

We have general interest meetings. We try to release our paper twice a semester. At our meeting we get the word out to freshmen. We will start a film series entitled “Media Campaign” that relates to the Asian American experience, to raise money to buy books, cds of Asian American artists, documentaries, etc. to make a library for students about the Asian American experience.

Please tell me about the other people that are a part of Native Tongue.

Native Tongue Staff

I am Laurence Louie, Editor-In-Chief, Rutgers University (2nd from left in photo)

Han Fang, Managing Editor, 2^nd in Command, she is very reliable and dedicated, she and I graduated from the same high school, Brookline High School, in Brookline, Massachusetts. She too attends Rutgers University (3rd from left in photo)

Mi. Hyun Yoon, News Editor (3rd from bottom left in photo)

Aalita Fang, Treasurer (2nd from bottom left in photo)

Jodie Shin, Layout Editor

Yongjie Chen, Secretary

Tim M. Chen, Assistant News Editor (1st from top left in photo)

Albert Lin, Assistant Managing Editor (4th from top left in photo)

Michelle Lam, Public Relations

Pamela Ren, Photo/Art Editor

Ji Lee, Advisor

Robyn Rodriguez, Advisor

Fawn Stephens, Alumni Advisor (1st from bottom left in photo)

They all attend Rutgers University.

Do you sell any merchandise in relation to Native Tongue? If I wanted to buy some, how do I go about doing that?

Pam,Michelle,Julie

We have t-shirts that we design. We have an F-t-shirt that loudly claims “F” classism/racism/sexism and and a lot of other things. The shirt is designed so that “Injustice” “Oppression” and “discrimination” box in things like Classism, Racism and Hate. The surrounding words are the results of the oppressive words that are within it. We also have Native Tongue t-shirts with a megaphone on it. Our t-shirts are sweat free from American Apparel so that we practice what we preach.

You can attain a t-shirt and ask for more information about Native Tongue by emailing us on our facebook group: http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10293291565 at speak.nativetongue@gmail .com

What are your future plans and projects for Native Tongue?

We want to keep it going, expand the newspaper, make it monthly, we want a bigger issue: increase it from eight pages to twelve pages, develop more activists on campus to make change at Rutgers and outside of it, and the film series will be the main focus for the project in the future.

NATIVE TONGUE LINKS:

http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10293291565

http://nativetonguespeaks.webs.com/

http://aacc.rutgers.edu/native_tongue.pdf

NATIVE TONGUE CONTACT:

speak.nativetongue@gmail .com