Bay Area residents gathered in Oakland’s Chinatown today for the city's first Lunar New Year Parade in decades. January 22 marks the start of the Year of the Rabbit (and the Vietnamese Year of the Cat). Hosted by the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council (OCIC), the parade comes at a time when community members are hoping to augur a fresh and positive start after the COVID pandemic, a rise in anti-Asian rhetoric and violence since the start of the pandemic, and two recent mass shootings that claimed the lives of 18 people in Half Moon Bay and Monterey Park.
“We have had participants drop out of the parade because of [Monterey Park],” said Stewart Chen, board president of the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council, in an interview with Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of KQED's The Bay podcast. “I think this is important for us to show the rest of the Bay Area and the community and the world that we’re not afraid … It’s a new beginning.”
"The community is really hungry for celebration [and] hope, and at the same time, this is a theme the same week with the video that was just released for Mr. Tyre Nichols and his family," said Jennifer Tran, executive director of PIVOT (the national Progressive Vietnamese American Organization) and president of the Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce. "And so our hearts are so heavy and we talk about changing the direction and coming together. But what does justice look like for our communities who experience violence? There's violence in the...
A short video circulating widely on social media claims that US Representative Ilhan Omar referred to World War II as “World War 11” while discussing the Alien Enemies Act. The clip has been share...