Tag: Race

  • 'Chinese' proves U.S. citizenship by speaking Chinook

    Sometime in the 1870s, a Chinese man named Ling Fu was brought before Judge Cornelius Hanford in Seattle’s courthouse, accused of not having the proper citizenship papers. Facing deportation, Ling Fu argued that he did not need to carry papers: he had been born on Puget Sound. To test him, Judge Hanford quickly shifted his…

  • On the multiplicity of individuals in China

    James Fallows got worked up over David Brooks’ ignorant musing about Chinese and Asian collectivity. The product was this excellent paragraph, which follows part of Brooks’ words. If you show an American an image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in the tank and what it is doing. If…

  • Fukuyama Takes on Japanese Nationalism, His Translator, and the U.S.–Japan Alliance

    Francis Fukuyama, the U.S.-born political scientist who made his name by declaring another discipline, history, to be so over in End of History and the Last Man, does not work much with Japanese issues, despite what some people assume based on his name. But he learned something about establishment Japanese nationalism when he had The…

  • Aso Knocks Blonds, CNN Runs Un-Flattering Photo of 'Asa'

    Japanese Foreign Minister Aso Taro is in rare form, even for his inflammatory self. Making a case for the potential for Japanese diplomacy in the Middle East, he asserted that skin color would be a major advantage: “Japan is doing what Americans can’t do,” the Nikkei business daily quoted the gaffe-prone Aso as saying in…