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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REFUGEE FOOD FESTIVAL. Pa Wah, a refugee from Myanmar, mixes shrimp in a
turmeric tempura batter at San Francisco’s Hog Island Oyster Co. during the inaugural Refugee
Food Festival. Restaurants in San Francisco opened their kitchens for the first time to refugees
who showcased their culinary skills and native cuisines while raising their profiles as aspiring chefs
as part of a program that increases awareness about the plight of refugees worldwide. (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.
But the study shared by Students for
Fair Admissions, which was conducted by
Continued on page 13
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