Month: January 2024

Customized cars that ride low and slow have been part of Mexican American culture since the 1940s. But in California, cruising in these modified vehicles was mostly illegal — until the new year. Genia Dulot has our story from Los Angeles.
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FRESNO, Calif. — David Rasavong’s cultural pride is evident all throughout his restaurant.

It’s on the wall of family portraits and where a stunning mural depicts his family’s journey from Laos to California. It’s on the menu filled with Lao and Thai dishes like the crispy coconut rice salad of Nam Khao and the stir-fried rice noodles of Pad See Ew.

And it’s in the fact that Love & Thai in Fresno, California, restaurant is open at all. A baseless accusation grounded in a racist stereotype about Asian food using dog meat brought a six-month barrage of harassment so heated that Rasavong, 41, closed down its previous location over fears for his family’s safety.

His earlier restaurant had itself only been open for seven months when a so-called animal welfare crusader in May implied on social media that a pitbull tied up at an unconnected home next door was going to be served on the menu.

A day after the initial commentary, vitriolic statements, voicemails and calls rained down. Rasavong’s body still tenses up when recounting, in particular, a call from an elderly woman.

“She was so disgusted by me and yelling and screaming, and the only thing I can remember hearing her say at the end was ‘Go back to the country you came from you dog-eating mother-effer,'” Rasavong recently told The Associated Press.

Within days, he closed that restaurant because it no longer felt safe between the harassment and people loitering in the parking lot outside of business hours.

The false accusation tapped into a longstanding slur against Asian cuisines and cultures that has persisted in the U.S. for over 150 years, dating back to the xenophobia that grew in the U.S. after Chinese immigrants started arriving in more visible numbers in the 1800s and other Asian communities followed. It’s also one that Asian American communities are fighting against.

It may be astonishing to some that a claim rooted in a racist stereotype took down a family’s restaurant three years after “Stop Asian Hate” became a rallying cry. But for many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, it’s something they’ve heard before as an insult or under the guise of a “joke,” along with other negative reactions to the actual foods of their cultures. In December, a comedian received some backlash for dressing like a UPS delivery driver and walking into an Asian restaurant with caged puppies for a social media video.

There is hope though that more people will learn to tell truth from trope. Since the pandemic first fueled anti-Asian hostilities, AAPI communities themselves have tried to take control of the narrative that Asian food is “dirty,” “weird” yet “exotic.” Furthermore, the appetite to learn about food from the Asian diaspora has only grown across traditional and new media.

Still, there were moments where Rasavong felt like nobody, even media, was on his side. He said a few reporters approached him assuming the claims were true.

But he soon received tons of community support, and the closure ended up being a new beginning.

A shopping center property manager offered him the chance to take over a suite vacated by another restaurant. Nkundwe P. van Wort-Kasyanju, a graphic designer in the Netherlands, and Los Angeles-based interior designer Danny Gonzales proffered their services for free. Hana Luna Her, a local artist, painted the mural. By the Nov. 3 grand opening of the new space, Love & Thai definitely felt the love. The place was bustling all day, Rasavong said, and the city presented a proclamation.

Rasavong is holding onto the belief that he went through this whole saga for a reason.

“There’s a journey that we’re supposed to go on,” said Rasavong, who declined to say if he’ll pursue legal action. “Don’t get me wrong. People need to realize this business is not easy … But you know, we believe in what we’re doing and so far so good.”

In actuality, consuming dog meat is something that has happened in various parts of the world for centuries, where they weren’t seen as domesticated family pets, said Robert Ku, author of Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA. Greeks and Romans referenced it. The French also ate dog meat during World War II.

But when Chinese immigrants came to the U.S., it was linked to them as part of “the myths that the Chinese were these bizarre people who had bizarre diets,” Ku said. “It was one of the attractions of actually going to Chinese restaurants back in the day because it came with ‘danger.'”

As other Asian immigrant groups came, the stereotype spread to include them.

“This is a real just blurring of the Asian identity where it doesn’t matter if you’re Thai or Korean or Vietnamese or Cambodian. You’re all the same,” Ku said.

Along with the false allegation of eating dog meat, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders over the generations have often faced disgust and worse from others when they’ve brought their cultures’ foods from home to public spaces like school or work.

They’re taking steps to fight back, like in 2021, when San Francisco-Bay Area-based writers Diann Leo-Omine. Anthony Shu and Shirley Huey self-published Lunchbox Moments, a compilation of over two dozen personal essays and illustrations that raised $6,000 for charity.

The project became “a powerful thing for all of us,” Leo-Omine said.

“We tried to show it’s not always about being in relation to being American or being white or assimilated,” she said. “You can have moments of joy, too…I hope that it opened people’s minds a little bit more — or made them want to try new foods.”

It’s actually been a big year in publishing and food media for Asian cuisine. Publishers Weekly dedicated a feature in August entirely to Chinese and Taiwanese food after observing nine new cookbooks on the subjects were coming out this year. Several of the authors grew up outside of Asia. The titles range from Vegan Chinese Food, to Kung Food and A Very Chinese Cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen. Also, children’s book author Grace Lin released Chinese Menu, which relays folklore behind favorite Chinese American dishes. They all share personal anecdotes and readers often seem drawn to “personality-driven” cookbooks, said Carolyn Juris, features editor.

“It’s not just about the recipes. It’s about the stories behind them and I think people respond to that,” Juris said.

Like any other culture, Asian cultures encompass many different regional cuisines and nuances. With the growing Asian diaspora, it’s not strange that so many cookbooks can be mined and “publishers are savvy enough to know that there is a market for these books,” Juris added.

Back at Love & Thai, Rasavong is busy filling online orders for a waiting third-party delivery driver. He is optimistic about keeping up business now that the initial hoopla around his restaurant renaissance has calmed down. Rasavong also hopes his situation will remind others to think before they speak.

“People say these jokes and they think it’s just fun and just light-hearted,” he said. “There are certain things that you shouldn’t say that really do cross a line.”
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VATICAN CITY — Amid resistance to some Vatican policy by more conservative factions of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis on Saturday cautioned the faithful against fracturing into groups “based on our own ideas.”

He issued the call to abandon “ecclesiastical ideologies” in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica during Epiphany Day Mass, the last major Christmas season holiday.

Francis also warned against “basking in some elegant religious theory” instead of finding God in the faces of the poor.

Last month, Francis gave permission for priests to bless couples outside of marriage, including same-sex relationships, if the blessing was pastoral and not liturgical or part of some religious rite.

Some bishops who view Francis as a dangerous progressive immediately rejected such blessings. That prompted the Vatican earlier this week to issue a statement stressing that the blessings don’t constitute heresy and there were no doctrinal grounds to reject the practice.

Francis in his Epiphany homily didn’t cite the pushback against his same-sex blessings policy. But he deviated from the written text of the homily to cite the “need to abandon ecclesiastical ideologies.”

Francis said the church needed to ensure that “our faith will not be reduced to an assemblage of religious devotions or mere outward appearance.”

“We find the God who comes down to visit us, not by basking in some elegant religious theory, but by setting out on a journey, seeking the signs of his presence in everyday life,” especially in the faces of the poor, the pontiff said.

The pontiff, who turned 87 last month and who battled health problems last year, held up well during the Epiphany ceremony, which included singing of Christmas hymns. At the end of the 90-minute service, an aide wheeled Francis down the basilica’s center aisle. The pope has a chronic knee problem and uses a wheelchair to navigate longer distances.

He has dedicated much of his nearly 11-year-old papacy to encouraging attention to marginalized people, including the poor. While the church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful, Francis has made efforts to make LGBTQ+ Catholics feel welcome.
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NEW YORK — Glynis Johns, a Tony Award-winning stage and screen star who played the mother opposite Julie Andrews in the classic movie Mary Poppins and introduced the world to the bittersweet standard-to-be Send in the Clowns by Stephen Sondheim, has died. She was 100.

Mitch Clem, her manager, said she died Thursday at an assisted living home in Los Angeles of natural causes. “Today’s a sad day for Hollywood,” Clem said. “She is the last of the last of old Hollywood.”

Johns was known to be a perfectionist about her profession — precise, analytical and opinionated. The roles she took had to be multifaceted. Anything less was giving less than her all.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in playing the role on only one level,” she told The Associated Press in 1990. “The whole point of first-class acting is to make a reality of it.  To be real. And I have to make sense of it in my own mind in order to be real.”

Johns’ greatest triumph was playing Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, for which she won a Tony in 1973. Sondheim wrote the show’s hit song Send in the Clowns to suit her distinctive husky voice, but she lost the part in the 1977 film version to Elizabeth Taylor.

“I’ve had other songs written for me, but nothing like that,” Johns told the AP in 1990. “It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever been given in the theater.”

Others who followed Johns in singing Sondheim’s most popular song include Frank Sinatra, Judy Collins, Barbra Streisand, Sarah Vaughan and Olivia Newton-John. It also appeared in season two of Yellowjackets in 2023, sung by Elijah Wood. 

Back when it was being conceived, A Little Night Music had gone into rehearsal with some of the book and score unfinished, including a solo song for Johns. Director Hal Prince suggested she and co-star Len Cariou improvise a scene or two to give book writer Hugh Wheeler some ideas. 

“Hal said ‘Why don’t you just say what you feel,'” she recalled to the AP. “When Len and I did that, Hal got on the phone to Steve Sondheim and said, ‘I think you’d better get in a cab and get round here and watch what they’re doing because you are going to get the idea for Glynis’ solo.'”

Johns was the fourth generation of an English theatrical family. Her father, Mervyn Johns, had a long career as a character actor, and her mother was a pianist. She was born in Pretoria, South Africa, because her parents were visiting the area on tour at the time of her birth.

Johns was a dancer at 12 and an actor at 14 in London’s West End. Her breakthrough role was as the amorous mermaid in the title of the 1948 hit comedy Miranda.

“I was quite an athlete, my muscles were strong from dancing, so the tail was just fine; I swam like a porpoise,” she told Newsday in 1998. In 1960’s The Sundowners, with Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum, she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar. (She lost out to Shirley Jones in Elmer Gantry.)

Other highlights include playing the mother in Mary Poppins, the movie that introduced Julie Andrews and where she sang the rousing tune Sister Suffragette. She also starred in the 1989 Broadway revival of The Circle, W. Somerset Maugham’s romantic comedy about love, marriage and fidelity, opposite Rex Harrison and Stewart Granger.

“I’ve retired many times. My personal life has come before my work. The theater is just part of my life. It probably uses my highest sense of intelligence, so therefore I have to come back to it, to realize that I’ve got the talent. I’m not as good doing anything else,” she told the AP.

To prepare for A Coffin in Egypt, Horton Foote’s 1998 play about a grand dame reminiscing about her life on and off a ranch on the Texas prairie, she asked the Texas-born Foote to record a short tape of himself reading some lines and used it as her coach.

In a 1991 revival of A Little Night Music in Los Angeles, she played Madame Armfeldt, the mother of Desiree, the part she had created. In 1963, she starred in her own TV sitcom, Glynis. 

Johns lived all around the world and had four husbands. The first was the father of her only child, the late Gareth Forwood, an actor who died in 2007.
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PRETORIA, South Africa — Officials say South African athlete Oscar Pistorius has been released from prison on parole and is now at home.

The Department of Corrections gave no more details of Pistorius’ release.

The announcement came at around 8:30 a.m., indicating officials released the world-famous double-amputee Olympic runner in the early hours. Pistorius has served nearly nine years for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013. He’d been sentenced to 13 years and five months.

He was approved for parole in November. Serious offenders in South Africa are eligible for parole after serving at least half their sentence.

Steenkamp’s mother, June Steenkamp, said in a statement that she had accepted Pistorius’ parole as part of South African law.

“Has there been justice for Reeva? Has Oscar served enough time? There can never be justice if your loved one is never coming back, and no amount of time served will bring Reeva back,” June Steenkamp said. “We who remain behind are the ones serving a life sentence.”

“With the release of Oscar Pistorius on parole, my only desire is that I will be allowed to live my last years in peace with my focus remaining on the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation, to continue Reeva’s legacy.”

Pistorius will live under strict conditions until the remainder of his sentence expires in December 2029, the Department of Corrections said. It emphasized that the multiple Paralympic champion’s release — like every other offender on parole — does not mean that he has served his time.

Some of Pistorius’ parole conditions include restrictions on when he’s allowed to leave his home, a ban on consuming alcohol, and orders that he must attend programs on anger management and on violence against women. He will have to perform community service.

Pistorius will also have to regularly meet with parole officials at his home and at correctional services offices and will be subjected to unannounced visits by authorities. He is not allowed to leave the Waterkloof district without permission and is banned from speaking to the media until the end of his sentence. He could be sent back to jail if he is in breach of any of his parole conditions.

South Africa does not use tags or bracelets on paroled offenders, so Pistorius will not wear any monitoring device, Department of Corrections officials said. But he will be constantly monitored by a department official and will have to inform the official of any major changes in his life, such as if he wants to get a job or move to another house.

Pistorius has maintained that he shot Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law graduate, by mistake. He testified that he believed Steenkamp was a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom and shot through the door with his licensed 9 mm pistol in self-defense.

Prosecutors said he killed his girlfriend intentionally during a late-night argument.

Steenkamp’s family did not oppose his parole application in November, although June Steenkamp said in a victim statement submitted to the parole board that she didn’t believe Pistorius had been fully rehabilitated and was still lying about the killing.

Before the killing, Pistorius was held up as an inspiring role model after having had both of his legs amputated below the knee as a baby because of a congenital condition. He became a champion sprinter on his carbon-fiber running blades and made history by competing at the 2012 London Olympics.

But his murder trial destroyed his image. He was accused of being prone to angry outbursts and acting recklessly with guns, while witnesses testified about various altercations he had with others, including an argument in which he allegedly threatened to break a man’s legs.

Pistorius was first convicted of culpable homicide — a charge comparable to manslaughter — and sentenced to five years in prison for killing Steenkamp. After appeals by prosecutors, he was ultimately found guilty of murder and had his sentence increased, although that judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal still didn’t definitively rule that he knew it was Steenkamp behind the toilet door.

Pistorius was first sent to prison in 2014, was released on house arrest in 2015 during an appeal and was sent back to prison in 2016. He was initially incarcerated at the maximum security Kgosi Mampuru II Prison in Pretoria but was moved to Atteridgeville early in his sentence because it is better suited to holding disabled prisoners.

Reaction to Pistorius’ parole has been muted in South Africa, a stark contrast to the first days and months after Steenkamp’s killing, which sparked angry protests outside of Pistorius’ court hearings calling for him to receive a long prison sentence. There is no death penalty in South Africa.

“He has ticked all the necessary boxes,” said Themba Masango, secretary general of Not In My Name International, a group that campaigns against violence against women. “And we can only wish and hope Oscar Pistorius will come out a better human being.”

“We tend to forget that there is a possibility where somebody can be rehabilitated.”
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NEW YORK — It’s small in stature, big on activity and known for a “smile,” and it’s ready to compete with 200 other dog breeds.

Say hello to the Lancashire heeler, the latest breed recognized by the American Kennel Club. The organization announced Wednesday that the rare herding breed is now eligible for thousands of U.S. dog shows, including the prominent Westminster Kennel Club show.

With long bodies and short coats that are often black and tan, the solidly built dogs are shaped a bit like a downsized corgi, standing around 30 centimeters at the shoulder and weighing up to about 7.7 kilograms. Historically, they were farm helpers that could both drive cattle and rout rats, and today they participate in an array of canine sports and pursuits.

“They’re gritty little dogs, and they’re very intelligent little dogs,” says Patricia Blankenship of Flora, Mississippi, who has bred them for over a decade. “It’s an enjoyable little breed to be around.”

Their official description — or breed standard, in dog-world parlance — calls for them to be “courageous, happy, affectionate to owner,” and owners say contented heelers sometimes pull back their lips in a “smile.”

They’re “extremely versatile,” participating in everything from scent work to dock diving contests, says United States Lancashire Heeler Club President Sheryl Bradbury. But she advises that a Lancashire heeler “has to have a job,” whether it’s an organized dog sport or simply walks and fetch with its owners.

The dogs benefit from meeting various different people and canines, added Bradbury, who breeds them in Plattsmouth, Nebraska.

Lancashire heelers go back centuries in the United Kingdom, where they’re now deemed a “vulnerable native breed” at risk of dying out in their homeland. Britain’s Kennel Club has added an average of just 121 Lancashire heelers annually to its registry in recent years, and the American Kennel Club says only about 5,000 exist worldwide.

Founded in 1884, the AKC is the United States’ oldest purebred dog registry and functions like a league for many canine competitions, including sports open to mixed-breeds and purebreds. But only the 201 recognized breeds vie for the traditional “best in show” trophies at Westminster and elsewhere.

To get recognized, a breed must count at least 300 pedigreed dogs, distributed through at least 20 states, and fanciers must agree on a breed standard. Recognition is voluntary, and some breeds’ aficionados approach other kennel clubs or none at all.

Adding breeds, or even perpetuating them, bothers animal rights activists. They argue that dog breeding powers puppy mills, reduces pet adoptions and accentuates canine health problems by compressing genetic diversity.

The AKC says it promotes responsibly “breeding for type and function” to produce dogs with special skills, such as tracking lost people, as well as pets with characteristics that owners can somewhat predict and prepare for. The club has given over $32 million since 1995 to a foundation that underwrites canine health research.
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Armenian Americans in Southern California celebrated their culture with a flowered float in the annual Rose Parade, moving on from a turbulent year that included Armenians’ exodus from their former enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan’s borders. Genia Dulot has our story from Pasadena.
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Montreal — Women’s ice hockey kicked off 2024 with the launch of a new professional league that debuted Monday with a match between the Toronto and New York teams.

The Professional Women’s Hockey League “rings in the New Year with the very first regular season game in league history,” the PWHL said in a press release.

Toronto earned the first victory in the new league, beating New York 4-0 in Toronto.

The regular season includes more than 20 games and runs until May, and will be followed by playoffs.

The league has six teams: Boston, Minnesota and New York on the American side, and Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto on the Canadian side.

Ice hockey is Canada’s national winter sport but remains largely dominated by men.

The National Hockey League (NHL), the men’s equivalent, was founded in 1917 in Montreal and has 32 teams spread across the two countries.
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