CALIFORNIA COLLAGE

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Briefings From California's Ethnic Press

Compiled by Andrea Lewis

Date: 11-15-96

What does the world look like to people whose principal source of news is the ethnic media? To explore this, PNS has asked a round table of ethnic media editors to select leading stories and opinion pieces from publications -- in English and a dozen other languages -- that circulate widely in California's diverse minority communities. Most are produced in the state, but others come from far afield -- Taipei, London, Singapore. Their choices will appear in a special biweekly column entitled "Briefings from California's Ethnic Media." This week, stories touch on the trailblazing role of women in South Asia, the right to buy a live duck, pirate radio stations, U.S. inaction in central Africa, the worries of Vietnamese Americans, Latino attitudes toward welfare recipients, and the likelihood of a U.S.-Iran breakthrough.

WHY SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN EXCEL -- Although traditional cultures like India's are often accused of mistreating women, these countries have accepted women leaders much more readily than many "advanced" societies. Indeed, Sarite Sarvate notes that South Asian women leaders are blazing a trail for their American counterparts -- not just as political leaders but as doctors, engineers, scientists. India, moreover, has practiced abortion for decades without political controversy. Sarvate draws on her own experience in part to describe a culture where women are not sex symbols, and universities are freed from sexual politics so female students can concentrate on their studies and excel. (India Currents, Oct., San Jose, Calif.)

SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN OVER EATING RIGHTS -- A drive by animal rights advocates to outlaw the sale of live chickens, ducks and fish in meat markets in San Francisco Chinatown set off a storm of indignation. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce started a campaign "to preserve Chinese peoples' right to eat fresh killed chickens and fish." Tables set up at four key Chinatown locations netted 10,000 signatures in two days. "Our opponents are playing the public opinion card," a campaign worker said. "We can't remain passive." (Sing Tao, San Francisco)

NEW LATINO PIRATE RADIO -- Radio Zapata of Salinas has joined the growing network of Spanish-language pirate stations serving Latino communities in California (including Radio Libre in San Jose and San Francisco and Que Pasa Radio in San Rafael). "On mainstream radio they glorify drugs, gangs and sex because that's what sells," says Jose Ibarra, founder of the new station. "That culture no longer has dignity ... We don't play pop music. We play traditional indigenous and revolutionary music." (Frontera, Los Angeles)

CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION -- The San Francisco Sun Reporter, the city's oldest black weekly, devoted its post-election editorial not to the defeat of affirmative action but to United States and United Nations inaction in central Africa. "We think that Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi are facing a genocide period that far exceeds the situation that exists in Bosnia, and brought a response from the United Nations that restored peace...We are particularly disturbed that the U.S. has made the largest contribution in money and armed forces to the UN, yet has taken no action in central Africa." (The Sun Reporter, San Francisco)

VIETNAMESE WORRY OVER COLLEGE COSTS -- Some 600 Vietnamese polled by Viet Magazine are not so much concerned with politics -- homeland or otherwise -- as with the prospects of their kids. Most pressing is the crunch of soaring college tuition fees and mounting debts; the magazine urges parents to invest in their children's college tuition -- "the earlier the better ... in fact, right when they are born." (Viet Magazine, San Jose)

MIXED FEELINGS ON WELFARE REFORM -- While Latino leaders by and large denounced welfare cutbacks under the new reform, La Opinion, southern California's largest Spanish language daily, found a widespread tendency among ordinary Latinos -- including relatives or members of families receiving welfare -- to view welfare recipients as the lowest of the low. "The attitude isn't so much focused on other races," noted researcher Gregory Rodriguez "It's a self-denigrating attitude toward Latinos themselves." (La Opinion, Los Angeles)

BREAKTHROUGH TO IRAN? -- Weeks before the New York times columnist Thomas Friedman floated the possibility of a U.S.-Iran diplomatic breakthrough, Arab language readers learned that a prominent U.S. diplomat had announced "the U.S. was willing to hold talks with Iran to discuss real differences..." The London-based daily Sharq-al-Awasat, a "Wall St. Journal" of Arab communities all over the world, noted that Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Robert Pelletreau indicated a similar opening toward Iraq. (Sharq-al-Awsat, London)