Save the Date: MLK Day of Service
Monday, January 21, 2008
Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, and Clark counties.

Help change lives. Honor the dream. Volunteer.

Prepare supply kits for Oregon soldiers. Cover books at a school library. Create a hand print mural at a housing program. Help with an ESL Program.

On January 21, 2008, we invite you to join us honoring Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision of purposeful community engagement. Join the United Way of the Columbia-Willamette in community service projects throughout the four-county Portland/Vancouver metro area.

With the help of Hands on Greater Portland, the United Way has identified a wide variety of service projects scheduled on MLK Day. Volunteer with your friends, family, children or co-workers by engaging in work focused on effective and lasting changes.

If your workplace celebrates the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, there’s no better way to spend time off from work than serving the community. If your office doesn't observe MLK Day, ask to become a part of our effort by donating employee time.

http://www.unitedway-pdx.org

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Today, I met Nat, one of the loaned executives. She recognized me from the paper, and we clicked almost instantaneously. Warm, approachable older Thai woman, who has been fund-raising to establish a Buddhist (Thai) temple in Salem.

Asked me if I knew P. Apparently, P was instrumental in helping the community advocate for a Thai woman who was badly physically and emotionally abused by her white American husband. He brought her here so she could cook for him, clean his house, wash his underwear, bear his babies. Also had a bad habit of beating her up until she required medical attention. Their child was on the brink of being taken away to be a ward of the state. P stepped in to speak on behalf of the woman and her rights as a mother. Galing talaga ni kuya.

Nat invited me to the annual community celebration on Sunday, Sept. 23. I'm so there!

This weekend's plans are still up in the air. Having a hard time deciding whether a) to drive 3 hours north to Seattle for Tibet Fest; b) 3.5 hours east to see the John Day Fossil Beds; or c) 2.5 hours southwest to finally see the sharks in the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport (one last summer trip to the beach)

ICE AGENTS STRIKE NORTH CAROLINA IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES

Statement by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union

August 23, 2007, Washington, DC - Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are raiding communities today in St. Paul and Lumberton, North Carolina, demonstrating, once again, the abject failure of the U.S. immigration system. Instead of doing the hard work of immigration reform, the federal government is conducting middle-of-the-night raids in North Carolina designed for headlines that fuel discrimination and cast suspicion on anyone who looks different or has a name that's hard to pronounce.
( read words )

( fotos from PDX )

I was but a wee lass in 1984 - 8 years old and in third grade. But that didn't stop Bill and I from celebrating with a few crazy Portland peeps at the DF last night.

Portland bands doing covers of 1984 songs. Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time! Classique. Formerly dedicated to my fourth grade crush Enrico Hernandez. Attending public grade school in Manila, kids were assigned seats based on their last names. So there.

Found Enrico on Friendster a few months ago. He's married and now lives in Dubai with wifey.

I digress. For Bill and I, this is the third weekend in a row of rock shows. Making the most out of summer, is how we rationalize it. Lots of fun, but I think my hearing's taking a blow.

Last Friday, Bill and I went to an all ages show at the Wonder Ballroom in NE. Three Portland bands were featured:

Pseudosix (classic rock);

31 Knots (classic rock/ hint of industrial. the hapa(?) drummer boy is a SIGHT. But then again I like hapa boys, esp. when they have long hair. So yeah, I'm biased.



Viva Voce indie, psychedelic, classic rock. Anita Robinson is so inspiring. Awesome to see a pretty girl rawk out! She wasn't a scary-looking rock chick or anything. Pure talent, no gimmicks.



k, gotta go and get ready for another set.

I write a column for an ethnic newsweekly that appears a couple of times a month, at best. In the past, I have written and shared my views about "serious" topics, like why Asian-Americans have a stake in the immigration debate; the need for mental health awareness among Asian-Americans; reasons for dismantling the Asian model minority stereotype; and other issues.

For my last column, I decided to make it simple, more personal, a little sappy. ( Read more... )

First half-week on the new job went well. Love that my new boss has amazing and varied interests. For one, she is on the board of a nonprofit that works with NGOs and locals in developing countries to create sustainable communities in rural areas. Very important work that have impacted the lives of Filipinos, Nicaraguans, and the like. She and her husband take one big trip outside of the United States each year. Their motive: witnessing a solar eclipse from different parts of the world. How fun is that.

Also poured in much of this week and last weekend getting the new edition of Colors of Influence posted. Whew! The next couple of months will be devoted to getting to know people and doing more interviewing and writing.

New job, new routines. I badly needed to break away from obsessing about my new gig. Bill and I went on a grownup night out on Friday. Had dinner at Fong Chong in OldTown. Great food, very lowkey - our kind of place. Pepper salted squid and shrimp in lobster sauce make the perfect combo. (Other than seafood, we hardly eat any kind of meat.)

Then we decided to take a drive across the bridge to get to the Doug Fir to listen to music. After a depressing opening act and a hilarious replacement second opening act, we finally got to Bishop Allen. Indie pop/rock band from Brooklyn. Very cool.





For Niall's birthday in a couple of weeks, we plan to go back to the Doug Fir to see/hear Cloud Cult and Pela.

NS is visiting in September!! Am so excited! They're coming from Austin, Texas, only the Live Music Capital of the Entire Universe ... and I don't want to disappoint. I'll check out what's happening at the Kennedy School, the Aladdin Theater, Edgefield (if they/I can get past the podunk-town vibe) and make a decision about where to go.

Okey-dokey.

Now, I need to focus on writing about being Asian American (American first and foremost; Asian roots merely a descriptor), Asian-hyphen-American (equal parts Asian and American), Flippin' American (Pinay exiled in the U.S.)

The neverending quest for identity.

peaceout

watch this movie if you haven't already

Benicio del Toro will play Che Guevara in a film to be directed by Steven Soderbergh.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fascinating that Movimiento de 26 de Julio es mañana ... the guerilla movement that placed Fidel Castro in power.

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Only because I have this need to play, pretend the world revolves around me, and celebrate/mourn the fact that I just had another birthday in my dirties...

Here's the flag of the Movimiento 20 de Julio, yet another important revolucion. Of sorts.

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Trip to Cali this past weekend took us to Safeway (they sell liquor at grocery stores and Rite Aids, don'tcha know), where I discovered

Dulseda.

Irresistible Dulce de Leche liquor.

caramel. goes with.

everything, including mango slurpees.

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alrighty then! back to ms transcription.

adieu.

Winter landscape, with rocks

By Sylvia Plath

Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.

The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.

Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye; dry frost
glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart's waste
grow green again? Who'd walk in this bleak place?

Mirror Lake
Mt. Hood National Forest

oh yeah, and this happened too

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Variations on the Word "Sleep"

By Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

Warm Springs Indian Reservation
Parade preceding the pow-wow



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