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U.S.A. Page 10 n THE ASIAN REPORTER U.S. restaurants host refugee chefs who offer a taste of home By Lorin Eleni Gill The Associated Press S AN FRANCISCO — At San Francisco’s Tawla restaurant, Muna Anaee powdered her hands with flour and gently broke off a piece of golden dough to prepare bread eaten in Iraq, the country she fled with her family. Anaee was preparing more than 100 loaves for diners that night as part of a program that allows refugees aspiring to be chefs and work in professional kitchens. The Refugee Food Festival — a joint initiative of the United Nations Refugee Agency and a French non- profit, Food Sweet Food — started in Paris in 2016 and came to the U.S. for the first time this year, with restaurants in New York partici- pating as well. The establishments’ owners turn over their kitchens to refugee chefs for an evening, allowing them to prepare sampling platters of their country’s cuisine and share a taste of their home. Restaurants in 12 cities outside the U.S. took part in the program in June. “It’s been a big dream to open a restaurant,” said Anaee, 45, who now has a green card. Anaee was among five refugees chosen to showcase their food in San Francisco — each at a different restaurant and on a different night, from Tuesday through Saturday. Organizers say the goal was to help the refugees succeed as chefs and raise awareness about the plight of refugees worldwide. It’s important to “really get to know these refugees and their personal stories,” said Sara Shah, who brought the event to California after seeing it in Belgium. Anaee and her husband and two children left Baghdad in 2013 over concerns about terrorism and vio- lence. She worked as a kindergarten teacher in Iraq, not a chef, but was urged to pursue cooking as a career by Yayoi Kusama installation on view at NYC beach NEW YORK (AP) — A touring work by famed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is on view in the Rockaways in New York City this summer. Kusama’s “Narcissus Garden” — made of 1,500 mirrored stainless steel spheres — is now open in the imposing confines of a former U.S. Army base in Queens. The New York Times reports Kusama first presented the piece in 1966 at the Venice Biennale, where she stood with a sign that read “Your Narcissism for Sale” and offered to sell the spheres to passersby. The work has since been installed around the world in multiple shows, including at a 2016 show in Connecticut. MoMA PS1 is working with Kusama to create the new site-specific version of “Narcissus Garden.” “Narcissus Garden” is on view through Septem- ber 3. 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(AP Photo/ Lorin Eleni Gill) peers in an English class she took in California after they tasted some of her food. Azhar Hashem, owner of Tawla, said hosting Anaee was part of the restaurant’s mission to broaden diners’ understanding of the Middle East — a region that inspires some of its dishes. “Food is the best — and most humanizing — catalyst for having harder conversations,” she said. The four other aspiring chefs serving food in San Francisco were from Myanmar, Bhutan, Syria, and Senegal. Karen Ferguson, executive director of the Northern California offices of the International Rescue Committee, said San Francisco was a good city for the food festival. “We have so much diversity, and we see the evidence of that in the culi- nary expertise in the area,” she said. The Bay Area has a high concentra- tion of refugees from Burma, Afghanistan, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Eritrea, though exact numbers are unclear, according to the rescue committee. Its Oakland office settled more than 400 refugees in the Bay Area last year, but the number of refugees settling in the region has fallen dramatically since the Trump administration this year placed a cap on arrivals, Ferguson said. Pa Wah, a 41-year-old refugee from Myanmar, presented dishes at San Francisco’s Hog Island Oyster Co. She said she didn’t consider a career in cooking until she moved to California in 2011 and got her green card. Cooking was a means of survival at the Thailand refugee camp where she lived after escaping civil conflict in Myanmar as a child. Participating in the food festival showed her the challenges of running a restaurant, but also helped her realize she was capable of opening her own, she said. Harvard, Asian-Americans group spar over data in bias case By Collin Binkley The Associated Press B July 2, 2018 OSTON — Even though they bring stronger academic records than any other racial group, Asian Americans who apply to Harvard University face the lowest acceptance rates, according to a study of admissions records filed by a group that’s suing the school over alleged discrimination. The group, Students for Fair Admis- sions, says Harvard routinely assigns lower scores to Asian-American students in subjective rating categories meant to measure attributes such as likeability, courage, and kindness, putting them at a major disadvantage compared to white students. Edward Blum, a legal strategist who founded Students for Fair Admissions, issued a statement saying his group’s filing “exposes the startling magnitude of Harvard’s discrimination.” Harvard blasted the study in an opposing court filing and submitted a countering study that found no evidence of bias. In a statement, the school called the lawsuit an attack on its ability to consider race in admissions, which it says is necessary to gather a racially diverse mix of students. “Harvard will continue to vigorously defend our right, and that of other colleges and universities nationwide, to seek the educational benefits that come from a class that is diverse on multiple dimensions,” the school said. The studies were filed in Boston’s federal court as both sides attempted to persuade a judge to end the suit before it reaches trial, which has been scheduled to start in October. It marked a step forward in a lawsuit that has lasted nearly four years and has drawn the attention of the U.S. Education Department, which is also looking into Harvard’s use of race in admissions. Both sides built their cases on six years of admissions decisions at Harvard. The records, for students who applied from 2010 through 2015, are barred from the public, but the duelling analyses offered a rare glimpse into the secretive inner workings of the Ivy League school’s admission office. According to the filings, each applicant is assigned a numerical value in four cate- gories — academic, extracurricular, athle- tic, and personal — along with an overall score that’s meant to be comprehensive but isn’t based on any particular formula. Ultimately the decision comes down to a committee of 40 people who review each applicant. For students who choose to submit their race, Harvard says it’s considered as one factor among many that may “inform an applicant’s life experience” and the contributions they will offer. 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