Immigrants who come to this country sometimes go through harrowing experiences as in the case with Hiu Lui Ng, an engineer, who died after a year in custody this past August at Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island. He left behind a wife and two young sons. He was repaid with his pursuit of a green card with abuse and suffering from extreme anguish while pleading for help that never came. The confusion and pain he went through was unimaginable. His wife is teaming up with the American Civil Liberties Union in a civil lawsuit. As a result of Mr. Hiu Lui Ng’s death, the Wyatt Detention Facility will no longer be used to hold immigrants. I hope that Ms. Ng gets the justice that is due to her although it cannot bring her dear husband back.

Please read the article about this injustice here: Hui Lui Ng

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President-Elect Barack Obama is staying true to his word and is creating a much diversified cabinet. On December 6 of this year, Obama named General Eric K. Shinseki as his Veterans Affairs Secretary. He is the first Asian-American to hold this post. Obama feels that Gen. Shinseki’s calculations were right during the time he served the Bush administration in regards to the troop size in Iraq at that time. The Bush administration ignored Gen. Shinseki’s concerns and forced him from his post.

Obama has chosen and is choosing cabinet members that are more than competent for the job and with qualifications that are greatly remarkable such as General Eric K. Shinseki that will benefit our country now and in the long run.

Please view the ABC News article on this wonderful news here: Shinseki to Be Named VA Secretary

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1. SM Entertainment audition - 1998 BoA follows one of her older brothers to an SM Entertainment talent search. As fate would have it, BoA ends up auditioning too. BoA is 11 years old. Her older brother is not selected.

2. MTV Asia Awards - 2004 BoA wins big at the 2004 MTV Asia Awards held in Singapore. She is awarded “Most Influential Asian Artist” and “Favorite Artist Korea”. She is 18 years old.

3. Yokohama Arena - 2007 BoA steals the show live on stage with m-flo in front of a massive crowd at Yokohama Arena (pictured). She performs “The Love Bug” with Verbal of m-flo as a special guest for m-flo’s COSMICOLOR TOUR 2007.

4. Top of the ORICON charts - 2008 BoA’s 6th Japanese album “THE FACE” hits #1 on the ORICON charts. Just as importantly, Ayumi Hamasaki’s “GUILTY” only reaches #2 which ends Ayumi’s streak at eight #1 albums. Can BoA take the crown and be the first artist in Japan to chart an incredible nine #1 albums?

5. “Eat You Up” released in USA - 2008 “Eat You Up” is BoA’s first all English single. SM Entertainment USA releases it first as a digital single on iTunes and Amazon.com then on CD. It marks a bold move for BoA into the tough American pop music market. Other Asian artists such as Coco Lee and Utada Hikaru have tried without success. Will BoA be the first to break through? More »

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Several years ago, a video blogger by the name of Josh Wolf was imprisoned for not handing over his video to the federal authorities. The video dealt with the G8 protest in San Francisco, and Wolf wanted to protect the people in the video, so he refused to give the video. He spent seven month in prison before he was released.

His story captured Donna Lee’s attention, and she decided to make a documentary out of it. The documentary is called Adventures of Josh Wolf: Activist Video Blogger. The documentary was shown last month at the Mill Valley Film Festival and received great reviews. This is Lee’s first film project, a project she decided to do for a class.

In the future, she plans to submit this documentary to Korean film festivals next year. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see and hear about this like at Pusan International Film Festival!

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We now have the new President Elect Barack Obama. I believe that with his victory, our victory, we will see a change to come in this country that has been unforeseen. He is already making waves around the world in regards to equal treatment among the races. For example in France crowds of people were yelling at the top of their lungs “OUI NOUS POUVONS!” Which translates as, “YES WE CAN!” France is now looking very closely at their own poor race relations in their country and they want to do something about it more than ever before.

I am looking forward to such changes in our own country, the United States of America. There are still thousands of cases of blatant discrimination that so many minorities experience at their homes, at stores, or in their places of work. Institutionalized racism is very dangerous in that many times it is very hard to prove and that there is also nothing worse than someone keeping you down on the totem pole due to your race, ethnicity, or nationality making you starve economically. I really have great hopes that President Elect Obama and his administration will not only bring about tidal waves of change for race relations, but also economic, education, and many other types of change that we are thirsting for in the America of the 21st century. More »

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I’m impressed. Not only is Obama’s new economic committee head advisor a Korean-American, but the advisor’s a woman. WOO HOO. That just added double kudos in my book. Added to that is the fact that she’s only forty years old. Hah! Sometimes age is nothing but a number. Who says you need to be anciently old to know how to get the job done? Well, providing she does get the job done, I hope she’ll do a fine job with her new position. More »

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This election year was one of the most exciting election years that we have had for more than a decade, some said in history. Many people were busy watching or directly participating in the election by phone banking and canvassing. I had the pleasure of speaking to James Yee about what happened on the night of the election in his neck of the woods. Here follows what he shared with me: More »

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James Yee, the former US Army Guantanamo Chaplain and 2008 National Delegate for Barack Obama was out doing some grassroots campaigning in Ohio from October 23-26 for the Democratic Presidential Nominee. He made stops in Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati.

During the four days, Capt Yee made several Get Out The Vote presentations at major Islamic centers in Columbus and Cincinnati, also focusing on Muslim Participation in the Political Process The American Muslim vote will make a serious impact this year in several key battleground, swing states which have significant Muslim constituencies - Ohio being one of them. More »

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A few months ago, I was shocked by the US dollar to Korean won exchange rate when it was actually less than 900 KRW to $1. After having the exchange rate at a steady 1,000 KRW to $1 for the last decade, that low rate really hit me in the face. It’s kind of ironic that it did, though. I grew up in the mid-90s, where it was 800 KRW to $1. But then the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis aka IMF Crisis occurred, and I remember the won rate going up high as 1,800 KRW to $1. Of course I didn’t really understand the implication of such things. All I know is that it was good for us Americans to exchange USD to KRW. Sadly to say, I still do believe in that since my main source of income are in dollars. However, today proved to be an insane day in the monetary world. At least for me. More »

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http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/governorlocke/bios/bio.htm

http://www.mltsf.com/lawyer-attorney-1067081.html

On Friday October 3, 2008, James Yee and other notables attended an Obama Victory Fund event at the home of Laurie and Scott Oki in Bellevue, WA. The Asian American Finance Committee also headed the event.

Representative Mike Honda was scheduled to attend this event, but he was unable to attend, because he was voting on the Emergency Bill to bail out Wall Street. The first person that spoke at this event was Washington State Senator, Maria Cantwell. She talked about why Obama is good for Washington State and for America. There were several people who were there from the Microsoft community. It was not surprising, because Microsoft is headquartered in Seattle. More »

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This is an archived blog post. Jason Linetsky is no longer a Ningin blogger.

I was reading our forums and the Engrish shirts kicked a thought into my head I just had to post. It’s unusual that I post something I haven’t research or written a journalistic piece for but oh well. Patterns can be broken so here is my thought. More »

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Jerry Yang is co-founder and CEO of Yahoo! Inc. He is worth an estimated US$2.3 billion and ranked 524th among the richest people in the world. Mastering the English language in only three years during his high school years, Jerry was soon placed in an AP English class. He went on to Stanford University where he graduated with a B.S. and M.S. degree in electrical engineering.

Jerry has been a leading force in the Internet media industry for as long as anyone can remember. He has built Yahoo! into a destination network of sites that attracts 3.4 billion views per day. Yahoo! remains the world’s most highly trafficked website–beating Google–and is one of the world’s most recognized brands.

Yahoo was originally started in 1994 when Jerry was a PhD student. He jokes, “Really, we’d do anything to keep from working on our theses.”

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WarholSoup has a sound that is a true infusion of many genres, like pure-rock, reggae, jazz, and more. They formed their band about three years ago and have been playing professionally ever since. You can find their music and performance schedule on myspace. I suggest you all listen to “Catch me if you can”. Their song “Let me love you” and the snippet of “Food for thought” are very jazzclub sexy. The young foursome is doing their best to help shed light on a recent tragedy that was over looked by the mainstream media by performing at a benefit concert tonight. Beethoven once said “Only the pure of heart can make good soup”; Andy Warhol once said “Painting is an excuse to listen to really good music”. Well the maestro and the art genius really must have had these guys in mind when they said those things. I was really lucky to get some time to ask the guys some questions about their most recent gig in NYC. More »

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In eastern New Orleans there is a town called Versailles that was founded by Vietnamese refugees. After Hurricane Katrina blew through their town and they picked up the pieces, they had to fight against the city’s choice of putting a landfill just a few miles from their town that they cultivated with so much love. They stood and fought their ground. Now their struggle and joyous victory will be turned into a full-length feature by filmmaker S. Leo Chiang. Please click on the following links included in this blog to learn more about these courageous residents story.

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Mahvish Rukhsana Khan is an American lawyer, born to immigrant Pashtun parents in Michigan. While persuing a law degree at the University of Miami, she became enraged by the illegal detainment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Having grown up listening to her mother tell her “Now is not the time to be complacent,” Khan felt compelled to help any way she could. With her fluency in Pashto and a familiarity with Afghan cultures and customs that no other “habeas” lawyer with security clearance had, she was quickly taken on as an interpreter for Afghan detainees. Six months later, in January 2006, Khan was on her way to Guantanamo Bay. Her role with the detainees quickly developed. She began providing supervised legal counsel and traveled to Afghanistan to find exonerating evidence for prisoners. More »

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Kal Penn, the Asian American actor who has starred in several movies, including the famous “Harold and Kumar” stoner movie franchise (in which he plays “Kumar”), was spotted in a green neon vest working on the floor of the Democratic National Convention this past week. Being a big supporter of Senator Barack Obama, the 31 year-old actor has been traveling around the country hoping to lend his star power to generate more support for the Presidential nominee.

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Earlier this week I contacted James Yee about him being chosen as a national delegate and what will it will entail at this years Democratic Convention from August 25-28.

James Yee is the “former US Army Chaplain and graduate of West Point who served as the Muslim Chaplain for the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that would become controversial for its treatment of detainees designated as “enemy combatants” by the U.S. government. While ministering to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Captain Yee advised the commanders of the camp on detainee religious practices and objected to the cruel and degrading abuses to which the prisoners were subjected.

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Yes, it’s the Giant White Girl of Ningin, cheesin’ with yet another Asian celebrity. How did I get to meet Kal Penn? At a Democratic voter-registration rally. He, like several other notable Asian-American actors and directors, is putting his clout behind Barack Obama’s campaign. My son, hiding from the camera, was less enthusiastic. Sorry, Kal. He’ll love your movies someday….but he better not repeat the dirty jokes.

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China has certainly had her fair share of natural disasters this year. A 6.1 magnitude struck China’s Sichuan province early this morning (NY time). It killed at least one person and seriously injured five others. The Sichuan region is still recovering from the after-effects of a devastating 7.9-magnitude earthquake in May. The Olympics is only less than a week away so let’s hope there is no more natural disasters for China (or anywhere in the world) for a long long time. It’s time to send Sharon Stone‘s ass over there to do some cleaning up. Brainless big mouth needs to do some good to make it up to the Mainland Chinese.

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