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About The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current | View Entire Issue (May 6, 2019)
U.S.A. May 6, 2019 Public school changes name from Haight to “Love Elementary” ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) — A public school in the San Francisco Bay Area named after a California governor who espoused racist views and opposed giving minorities the right to vote will change its name to “Love Elementary.” The school in Alameda is named after Henry H. Haight, who in his 1867 gubernatorial inauguration address said he opposed giving Asian Americans and African Americans the right to vote “upon a conviction of the evils which would result to the whole country from corrupting the source of political power with elements so impure.” School officials let the community vote on the change and pick a new name. In November, they voted to name the school “Love Elementary.” The school board voted 5-0 to accept the change. Alameda Unified School District superintendent Sean McPhetridge said Haight’s views and name have no place at an elementary school. “We must remember and learn our his- tory,” McPhetridge told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Everybody understood that the name could not stand. Haight could not stand. Love prevailed.” The name Haight will be removed from signs, stationery, and other materials and the building before the fall start of school. The Alameda school board is the latest Bay Area body to remove, renounce, and revise mascots, building, and street names, and public art and monuments for their ties to historical injustices. Also in April, a school board in the Bay Area city of San Rafael voted to rename the Dixie School District because of its Confederate connotation. Haight Street of San Francisco’s famous Haight-Ashbury district, a landmark of 1960s counterculture, was named after a relative of the governor, not Henry H. Haight, local historians say. q THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7 PBS’ Korea eyes social, political tolls of Korean War By Russell Contreras The Associated Press A LBUQUERQUE, N.M. — To escape the poverty of South Texas migrant camps, Homer Garza joined the U.S. Army. Months later he and his company found themselves surrounded in South Korea by an invading North Korean force. Garza’s story is one of many shared in the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentary Korea: The Never-Ending War. The film, a production of WETA Washington, examines the lasting social and political costs of the Korean War — a conflict largely forgotten in the U.S. It also tells the story of a war that redefined the region from the perspective of families, U.S. veterans, and journalists. Filmmaker John Maggio said he wanted to create something that wasn’t focused solely on the views of ambassadors and historians but real people affected by the war. In addition, he wanted his project to explain why tensions between North and South Korea remain nearly 70 years after a series of diplomatic blunders and violent massacres. “I also was curious. My uncles fought in the Korean War and never talked about it,” Maggio said. “My granduncles were in World War II and always talked about it.” Former CIA analyst Sue Mi Terry is among those interviewed in the film. But instead of merely laying out strategic mistakes made by the U.S., she details how an imaginary border — the 38th parallel — dreamt up by the U.S. eventually divided her family. Such painful family separations, and the legacy of violence, still define tensions that remain today. “North Korea was completely flattened,” Terry said. “China gets involved and (Chinese Chairman) Mao Zedong lost his own son.” The Korean War, which took place from June 1950 to July 1953, claimed millions of Korean lives and more than 50,000 U.S. troops in a conflict between North Korea backed by communist countries and South Korea, a military dictatorship supported by the U.S. The war ended in a stalemate, and tensions would continue through 13 U.S. presidents. There was even a diplomatic meeting in the New Mexico desert in 2003 between North Koreans and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson trying to chill heated rhetoric after North Korea announced it was developing nuclear weapons. Maggio said the Korean War was a precursor to the Vietnam War and defined how the U.S. would participate in its own series of massacres against civilians caught up in the Cold War domino game. For example, an investigation team, led by former Associated Press correspondent Charles Hanley, later uncovered atrocities committed by U.S. troops against helpless South Korean refugees during the early days of the war. The AP spent PROBLEMS ON THE PENINSULA. In this October 17, 1951 file photo, a mother cradles her injured son in her arms while sitting on the ground in Panmunjom, Korea. The new Public Broadcasting Service documentary Korea: The Never-Ending War examines the lasting social and political costs of the Korean War — a conflict largely forgotten in the U.S. (AP Photo, File) months tracing veterans in some 130 interviews by telephone and in person and a dozen former G.I.’s spoke out to document a massacre under a bridge near No Gun Ri that claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Garza, who arrived after the No Gun Ri massacre, confirmed in the documentary that soldiers were given orders to shoot anything that was in front of them. “To understand North and South Korea today, you have to look at the war 70 years ago and the people hurt by it,” Maggio said. That’s why the conflict today can’t be reduced to tweets from U.S. President Donald Trump or rebuttals from current North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, Maggio said. “People living there now still are living this war,” he said. “It remains raw.” Russell Contreras is a member of The Associated Press’ race and ethnicity team. Korea: The Never-Ending War is streaming online at <www.pbs.org/weta/korea-never-ending-war> through May 28. Study: Kids’ suicides spiked after Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why” By Lindsey Tanner AP Medical Writer A new study says suicides among U.S. kids between ages 10 and 17 spiked in the month following the release of a popular TV series that depicted a girl ending her life. The published study cannot prove the Netflix show “13 Reasons Why” was the cause, but the researchers found that there were 195 more youth suicides than would have been expected in the nine months following the show’s March 2017 release, given historical and seasonal trends. During April 2017 alone, 190 U.S. tweens and teens took their own lives. The April rate was nearly 30 percent higher than in the preceding 19 years. A Netflix spokesman says it’s looking into the research. He says it works hard to ensure the issue is handled responsibly. McDaniel Village 11800 N.W. McDaniel Road, Portland, OR 97229 Mixed-use development with 12,000 square feet of commercial space, 15 apartment units & 60 parking spaces For details and information, e-mail jaimelim2010@gmail.com
