balance

[To me, evidently, blogging is all about proscrastination. Over the summer, I had grand plans to re-vamp my website, write lots of illuminating posts about life en genre, and create a name for myself in this great blogosphere. But alas, the only time that I actually want to blog is when I am faced with an impending deadline. It's time to stop fighting the inevitable.]

I have to re-connect with my Asian-American roots. After undergrad, I was burnt out with working on Asian American issues, so I made the leap to public housing work. The different demographic was actually quite refreshing to me. It showed me another part of the world that I had never experienced, and it made me appreciate more fully the complexities of how this country deals with race and class.

I'm afraid, though, my sabbatical from Asian American issues has turned into a self-exile, which reflects badly on me. My Asian friends in school last year were noticeably few, and I feel a little awkward talking to the only other Asian in one of my classes, even though he warmly approached me on the first day. I've been a little better about seeking on my former Asian section-mates who I rarely talked to last year, but, on the whole, I'm not yet comfortable with hanging out with Asian people on campus. All this despite the fact that, as Gary cried out when while looking through my facebook, "there's a lot of Asians at your school!!!"

My evolution, as it were, is now in its third phase. In high school, I felt isolated from the Asian kids. College was all about Asian power. Now I'm experiencing a subtle form of self-hatred which I really have to get over. Amongst these three options, there must be some sort of balance.

I'm thinking about all of this because I have to choose a civil rights organization to work for next semester (the practicum component of a civil rights litigation course I'm taking this year). The first choice that came to mind was the NAACP, mostly because I'm inspired by its great legacy and by that fact that Bill Lann Lee was so successful there. This troubled me because one of the best Asian American civil rights organizations, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, is located here as well, and that option just was not as appetizing. Why do I think like that? I wish I didn't.