William Wong is author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America (Temple University Press, 2001), Images of America: Oakland's Chinatown (Arcadia Publishing Co., 2004), and co-author of Images of America: Angel Island (Arcadia Publishing Co., 2007). He was a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and senior editor and op-ed columnist for The Oakland Tribune.
"Barack Obama: Almost Like Us"
[keywords: Chinese and Asian Americans; Barack Obama; racial and ethnic minorities; communities]
I can't stop crying. Tears of joy, tears of history, tears that join a babbling brook that becomes a stream that becomes a river that connects me and other Chinese Americans and Asian Americans to Barack Obama, who will be our 44th president.
Chinese Americans and Asian Americans ought to be rejoicing Obama’s amazing election victory. In many ways, he is like us.
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"The Olympics, China & Me"
[keywords: sports, Chinese diaspora, ethnic Chinese integration, competing identities, Sudan, Western imperialism]
Now that the Beijing Olympics have begun (weren't the opening ceremonies stunningly over-the-top?) who will I, a Chinese American, root for - American or Chinese athletes, and by extension, the United States or China?
Simple question, complicated answer.
I've loved sports most of my life and even wished at one point to play basketball for my (American) high school team. Alas, I am 26 inches shorter than Yao Ming, China's superstar professional basketball player, and not nearly as skilled, so I long ago became an avid sports fan instead. I even started my journalism career as a sportswriter for my high school and college newspapers.