LOVING STORY TO AIR ON HBO

In what became a landmark case because of  an interracial couple with the last name of Loving, in June 1967, the courts unanimously declared Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 unconstitutional and ended all race-based marriage bans in the U.S. A film about the case will be on HBO on February 14. Watch for it!

Respectful Terms

"Some other race" and "Two or More Races" are government terms for Multiracial. Why is respectful terminology so hard to use by the government? Did you remember when "Asian" was "Oriental"? When "Black" was "Colored"? How about when "Alaskan" Native was "Alaska Native." Huh? That's right. The congressional representatives from Alaska asked the Office of Management and Budget to drop the "n," on Alaskan so they did. It would be just as easy to use respectful terminology to identify as multiracial. What do you think?

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN STORY

Census: Few among Arizona’s tribes claimed to be multiracial

WASHINGTON – The number of American Indians who claimed to be multiracial jumped sharply over the last decade, but not so much in Arizona, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday.
The bureau said the total number of American Indian or Alaska Natives grew from 4.1 million in 2000 to 5.2 million in 2010, a 27 percent increase. Of those, 2.3 million people, or 44 percent of the total, claimed to be Indian and at least one other race, the report said.

But Arizona saw relatively higher numbers of people claiming to be Indian only.
“There’s a common trend in the state of Arizona that is different from other states,” said Mellor Willie, executive director of the National American Indian Housing Council.

“That will definitely have an effect when you’re working with raw federal policy that has to meet the needs of all Indian people,” Willie said. “Tribes have to take that into consideration, especially the tribes in Arizona.”
The Census Bureau said the Navajo Nation, which has a significant presence in Arizona, had the largest number of single-race members of any tribal group in the country, with 287,000 of the tribe’s 332,129 people claiming to be single-race. That means just 13 percent of Navajo claim to be multiracial.
Nationally, four of the five reservations reporting the highest numbers of single-race members were in Arizona: the Navajo were followed by Fort Apache, San Carlos and Gila River tribes.
The Census also reported that 78 percent of all
American Indians lived outside of tribal lands in 2010.

Simon Boyce, deputy director of the Navajo Nation Washington Office, said the tribe has seen a widespread move off the reservation. The tribal administration is trying to create more opportunities to keep people on the land.

That shift away from tribal lands is frightening for the Navajo, he said, which is why news of an overall population increase is welcome.

“I think you really need to be concerned about how many people are leaving the reservation and what that means not only for the Navajo – Navajo culture and Navajo identity – but also what it means for the surrounding areas,” Boyce said. “They’re becoming separated from their land, separated from their identity, and separated from their Navajo culture.”

Panelists who spoke Wednesday on the release of the data at the National Museum of the American Indian said the shifting number can have real impact.

Malia Vilegas, director of the Policy Resource Center for the National Congress of American Indians, said it could affect federal and state funding, which is based on population counts, as well as community planning and education.

“Small differences in counts can make large differences,” she said.

Willie said later that because so much of Arizona is tribal land, the Census data could shape federal and state funding and policy decisions, as well as policies of counties and municipalities on the border of tribal lands.
Colin Kippen, executive director of the National Indian Education Association, expressed concern about federal money that is distributed to states for Native American education. He said the money “gets washed” and does not reach the people it is intended for.

“Better data would really help us to highlight the fact that this … is occurring,” Kippen said.
The panel of advocates cautioned that the Census numbers should not be considered alone, but should be looked at along with censuses being developed by tribes and other information.
“This is only a snapshot,” Willie said of the Census figures.

Kippen said the numbers can continue to tell the “absolutely crucial … story of the Indian population, but tribes need to be careful with how they move forward from there.
“They have provided us with the tip of the iceberg,” Kippen said of the federal data
 Wednesday, Jan. 25By Victoria Pelham
Cronkite News

Census Releases Data on Multiracial American Indian Population

Almost half of American Indians and Alaska Natives identify with multiple races, representing a group that grew by 39 percent over a decade, according to U.S. Census data released Wednesday.

Of the 5.2 million people counted as Natives in 2010, nearly 2.3 million reported being Native in combination with one or more of six other race categories, showcasing a growing diversity among Natives. Those who added black, white or both as a personal identifier made up 84 percent of the multiracial group.

Tribal officials and organizations look to Census data for funding, to plan communities, to foster solidarity among tribes and for accountability from federal agencies that have a trust responsibility with tribal members.
The bump in the multiracial group from 1.6 million in 2000 to nearly 2.3 million in 2010 was higher than that of those who reported being solely of Native descent.

"When information comes out and is available for our tribes and tribal communities, we have a lot of issues going back to identity," said Mellor Willie, executive director of the National American Indian Housing Council. "Who is Indian?"

The Census figures, released during a presentation at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., also include people living in the United States who consider themselves indigenous to Central and South America. Tribal officials say it's the best snapshot of Native people available, but the data National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Director Malia Villegas presents statistics of Native American and Alaska native population, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.

Amber Ebarb, with the National Congress of American Indians' Policy Research Center, said the data also is used to track trends among states and regions, determine the mobility patterns of Natives and figure out how best to deliver services to Natives or conduct outreach.

"It's kind of a function of geography," she said. "There's this trend where single-race American Indians live in tribal communities and multi-race Natives live farther."

The Blackfeet Nation in Montana had the highest proportion of people who reported being part of more than one racial group or tribe at 74 percent. Among Alaska Native groups, the Tlingit-Haida had the highest proportion of mixed-race Natives at 42 percent.

The number of Natives identifying with at least one other race increased in all but three states from 2000 to 2010, according to the Census.

Some tribes were less diverse. Of the 34,000 people who identify as Yup'ik, an Alaska Native tribe, 29,000 said they were affiliated with no other race. The Navajo Nation, whose reservation stretches into New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, had the highest proportion of people who identified as Native and nothing else at 86 percent of its 332,000 population, Census officials said.

The Navajo Nation comes in second in population behind the Cherokee's 819,000 population, 65 percent of whom identify with another race.

Census Director Robert Groves said the bureau has projected that the overall Native population will increase to 6.8 million in 2030 and about 8.6 million in 2050. Both multiracial Natives and Natives alone grew at a rate higher from 2000 to 2010 than the U.S. population at large.

By FELICIA FONSECA Associated Press

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. January 25, 2012 (AP)

Is Hollywood 'whitewashing' Asian roles?

By Stephanie Siek, CNN

(CNN) - America’s embrace of Japanese pop culture, particularly manga and anime, hasn’t resulted in an embrace of Asian and Asian-American actors when those storylines go to Hollywood.

Two upcoming feature films based on Japanese material are already stirring controversy after rumors that white American actors will be cast as characters originally written as Japanese.

Tom Cruise is rumored to be in talks to play the lead role in the Warner Bros. adaptation of Japanese novel “All You Need is Kill,” replacing a Japanese main character. Warner Bros., which is owned by the same parent company as CNN, is also in the pre-production stages of making a live-action version of “Akira,” a graphic novel that was made into a landmark 1988 animated feature film in Japan. All of the actors rumored to be in consideration for the upcoming film’s main characters are white Americans, although casting calls invited actors of “any race” to audition.

That’s troubling to both the series’ devoted fans and advocates of diversity in casting.

Kent A. Ono, a professor of Asian-American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said the practice of casting white actors to play Asians and Asian-American characters has a long history in Hollywood. Until recent decades, this mostly took the form of white actors playing stereotypical representations of Asian characters, such as Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of I.Y. Yunioshi in 1961's “Breakfast at Tiffany’s," Rita Moreno as Tuptim and Yul Brynner as King Mongkut in the 1956 film "The King and I," and Katharine Hepburn as Jade Tan in 1944's "Dragon Seed."

In recent years, Ono said, Asian characters have been replaced with white American versions played by big-name Hollywood stars. It happened with films like the 1960 western, "The Magnificent Seven," which starred Brynner, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson, and was based on the influential 1954 Japanese film by Akira Kurosawa, "Seven Samurai." As Japanese manga and anime have grown more popular, it has happened in films like "Dragonball: Evolution" and "Speed Racer."

“Animation and anime are these interesting contexts, because casting directors, producers and directors can say, ‘Well, the anime character is fictional and not a real live body … and to cast them as another race is OK,’” Ono said.

The result is fewer opportunities for Asian and Asian-American actors who want a shot at a powerful role.
“Not only do Asian-American actors find this a displacement of their ability to work as laborers, as performers in these sort of roles – they also find this an affront to their identity, to their work to overcome racism and be seen as legitimate actors,” Ono said.

Racebending.com, an international grassroots organization founded in 2009, protests what it sees as the “whitewashing” of film roles and pushes for the fair representation of minorities in media. Spokesman Michael Le said that the increasing popularity of manga and anime titles means that movie producers are keen to cash in, but many don't see value in keeping the original Asian characters that made them popular.


“I remember 10 years ago, I could walk into [the comics aisle of] a Barnes and Noble and it would be all western comics, all DC and Marvel. Now I walk in and the Asian section is bigger than the western comics section,” Le said. “Asian culture is enormously popular and acceptable, but the people are not. The people are inconveniently the wrong race, and so whitewashing is a result.”

Le and other fans want the studios to avoid the debacle associated with the 2010 live-action film “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” The M. Night Shamalyan production tanked with critics and fans after being dogged by controversy surrounding its casting. The "Avatar" animated television series, on which the movie was based, takes place in a fantasy world populated by four Asian- and Inuit-based cultures. But the actors for each of the lead roles were white, except one - the villain, played by “Slumdog Millionaire” star Dev Patel.

Racebending.com was formed to protest the production’s decision to “racebend” the characters – wordplay that alludes to the element “benders” from the "Avatar" series.

The Warner Bros.' planned live-action adaptation of “Akira” has fans watching closely. According to articles in The Hollywood Reporter and sci-fi blog i09.com, Garret Hedlund was being tapped to play the lead role of Shotaro Kaneda, with Kristen Stewart, Helena Bonham Carter and Ken Watanabe in talks to play other main roles. Except for Watanabe, who is Japanese, all are white.

An unnamed studio insider told the Hollywood Reporter for a January 5 story that preproduction had stopped due to issues related to script, budget and casting. Warner Bros. spokeswoman Jessica Zacholl said the studio had no comment regarding the holdup in production for “Akira” or any rumored casting decisions.
The original Japanese anime version of "Akira," made in 1988, is considered a pinnacle of Japanese animated film. The story revolves around a catastrophic explosion that destroys the city of Tokyo - an explosion which is first implied to be nuclear in origin, a reminder of fears about atomic destruction in Japan since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Fans of the manga and original movie question whether the nuances of a plot so deeply intertwined with Japanese history can survive a setting change to Manhattan.

CNN Red Chair Interview: Why Yul Kwon ditched law for TV
Jerry Beck is an animation historian and co-founder of Streamline Pictures, which brought the first screenings of the 1988 production to America. He said studios are underestimating their target market’s attachment to and understanding of Japanese connections to "Akira."

“It’s not just the story of what goes on there, but the story of culture,” Beck said. “I wish them luck, but it sort of cheapens the material. In a way it’s a universal story, but it’s also a very Asian or Japanese story.”
Joe Peacock, a writer and web designer who owns the worlds’ largest private collection of animation cels from the original “Akira” film, said shift anime characters into white characters “is annoying to the point of disrespect.” In disrespecting the source material, he said, the studios are alienating the fan base which could make the movie a success – including Peacock, whose devotion to the movie includes an award-winning "Akira" tattoo that covers his left arm.

“When your billboards are saying bad things about the project, you’ve done something wrong – and that’s all fans really are, is billboards or megaphones for the project,” Peacock said.

Fans are watching what happens with “All You Need is Kill,” too. The original novel focuses on the "Groundhog Day"-like travails of Keiji Kijira, a Japanese soldier in an international army fighting a war against aliens. The character dies, but always awakens to find it's the day before his death. He relives that day until he has amassed the skills and experience to prevent his own death.

In the movie version to be produced by Warner Bros., the character has a new identity – American Billy Cage – and the movie has a new title: “We Mortals Are.” Three of the four actors rumored to be under consideration for the role are white, with Tom Cruise as the speculative front-runner. Also rumored to be in talks were Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and Keanu Reeves.
Zacholl said Warner Bros. had no comment about the castings and would not confirm or deny rumors of any decisions related to them.

But in a November 2010 interview with Comingsoon.net, director Doug Liman said the lead actors would be “totally American” instead of Japanese.

But a Racebending.com’s statement on the film points out that even in an American film, a “totally American” cast shouldn't necessarily be entirely white.

“Certainly changes will be made to the story in adaptations, such as setting a story in the United States instead of Japan," Racebending.com states. "What disappoints us is that when these adaptations are reset to America, they do not reflect the diversity of  the United States. Many people are of Asian descent but are also ‘totally American.’”

This article can also be found at:

http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/13/is-hollywood-whitewashing-asian-roles/

MLK Day

A right delayed is a right denied.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Important Education Data!

Below are statistics from a Maryland newspaper in a story about state funding for schools. This reflects exactly what we have been working toward! 

     While enrollment numbers are down, school staff did report an increase in African-American and multiracial students.
     African-American students currently account for 52 percent of the school population, up from 51.5 last year.
    A new demographic, multiracial, also has had an increase in the school system making up for 5.3 percent of the schools’ population.

News Editors add Multiracial Category!

The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) is adding a multiracial category to its annual newsroom diversity survey. One of the goals of Project RACE has been to ensure that news coverage reflects the correct terminology, which would be "MULTIRACIAL"! 

Past Teen Project RACE president wins contest!

Allure Bridals

Looks like we have a clear winner! Congrats to Kayci + Josue who have taken the grand prize of our 'How Did He Propose' Sweepstakes!

Judge says Ethnic-Studies Program Violates Arizona Law

The Tucson school district’s Mexican American studies program violates state law, an Arizona administrative law judge ruled. The judge affirmed a prior decision by the state’s schools chief that the Tucson Unified School District’s program violates a law that aims to outlaw divisive ethnic studies classes.

In June, John Huppenthal, the state superintendent of public instruction, had deemed the program to be in violation of the law. That law, among other things, bans classes primarily designed for a particular ethnic group or that “promote resentment toward a race or class of people.” The judge's ruling could mean the demise of the program and those similar to it.