For the week of February 26th to March 4th, here is the Good News:
**Best news of the week**
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court chose to send the case of Bethune-Hill v Virginia State Board of Elections back to a lower court for further discussion. Virginia is one of several states that has very strange Voting District borders for several of their voting districts, and the case challenged that 12 of them were constructed purely for the purpose of "gerrymandering", a term that means to manipulate the borders of an electoral constituency so as to favor one group over another. The Justices ruled that since race was the major factor of one district, it would have to be redrawn, but that the other 11 did not meet the burden of proof. This means that they will have to explain to a lower court why those need to be redrawn as well. Let's all wish them luck.
Read the article here at the New York Times.
Read the Justices' Opinion here.
Sunday:
The Oscars were this Sunday. Congratulations to the winners!
Motion Picture: Moonlight
Animated Feature: Zootopia
Actor: Casey Affleck
Actress: Emma Stone
Supporting Actress: Viola Davis for Fences
Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali for Moonlight
Director: Damien Chazelle for La La Land
Original Screenplay: Manchester by the Sea
Adapted Screenplay: Moonlight
Best Song: City of Stars from La La Land
Original Score: La La Land
Here's the full list of winners.
Monday:
The Iranian baby whose parents were attempting to bring to the US for surgery has managed to get to the doctors in Portland and is now doing well, despite the delay caused by Trump's immigration ban.
Read the full story here.
Grace Slick licenses Starship song to Chik-fil-A, then donates the proceeds to Lambda Legal, an GLBT legal fund.
Read her reasoning here at Forbes.
Or, if you don't want to un-adblock Forbes, read it here at the Rolling Stone.
A snow storm caused a tanker truck to overturn on Seattle's main freeway, I-5. Many people were stuck on the freeway for hours, including a Taco truck, who decided to open for business right in middle of traffic to feed the people that were stuck on the freeway.
Read the story here at the Seattle Times.
Tuesday:
Harvard Law Review Elects a Black Woman President.
See the story here at the New York Times.
In Memphis, Tennessee, hundreds of students walked out of high school to protest Trump's Immigration policies.
Read the article here.
Lego announced that due to the interest in Hidden Figures, they would release a series of Female Nasa Lego figures, including Katherine Johnson, the central figure of that movie.
Read about them at the Washington Post.
Wednesday:
It looks as though the male leads of the Big Bang Theory are going to take pay cuts so their female co-stars can get raises for the next two seasons.
See the article here at the Independent.
In Copenhagen, Denmark, the dishwasher at Noma, a world-famous restaurant, has been made partner of the restaurant. Ali Sonko, an immigrant from Gambia, has been working at the restaurant for more than a decade. Read the story here at Fortune.
Thursday:
Tom Hanks gives the White House Press an espresso machine.
Read the story atCNN.com.
New York made plans to open 90 new homeless shelters.
Read the story at Reuters.
Friday:
A patient with Sickle Cell Anemia has been cured by gene therapy. More research and testing will need to be done, but it's a big step forward. Now they know it can be done, they will be able to do it again. And perhaps someday, no one will even remember why it was an issue.
Read the story here at CNN.
Saturday:
Boy trapped in Mosul is reunited with mother after many years apart.
Read the full story at CBS News.
Feel free to link anyone you'd like to this. And if you have any Good News links in the coming week that you'd like to share, feel free to send them my way. I can definitely use more.
American Immigrant Highlights: Japanese
Japanese immigrants have been coming to this country since 1868, during the Meiji Restoration in Japan. Many migrated to Hawaii and the West Coast of the US. In 1907, Japan and the US entered into an agreement ending immigration of unskilled immigrants, and the Immigration act of 1924 banned immigration of nearly all Japanese to the US. It was not until 1965 that the ban against immigration from Japan was ended.
Most Japanese settled in Hawaii or along the West Coast, most especially San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Early immigrants ran farms or owned small businesses. By the War, Japanese Americans had a very strong community up and down the West Coast of the US.
Because of the immigration bans, the Japanese who came to the US, called the Issei, soon became quite separate from their American born-and-raised children, called the Nisei. Because of racism, and also because of the results of the War Time Camps, most Nisei ended up marrying other Nisei, leading to a third fully Japanese American generation, known as the Sansei. Because of the Naturalization act of 1790, US Citizenship was restricted to "Free white persons," so Issei were unable to participate in the civics of the culture that ultimately caged them during World War II.
During the War, approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals were forcibly interned in camps across the US because of Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D Roosevelt. There were ten camps across the US, mostly in the west: Manzanar and Tule Lake in California, Poston and Gila River in Arizona, Granada in Colorado, Heart Mountain in Wyoming, Minidoka in Idaho, Topaz in Utah, and Rohwer and Jerome in Arkansas. They were referred to as Relocation Centers, Internment Camps, or Detention Camps. There were other camps as well, Civilian Assembly Centers that were used as waypoints from the Internees' homes and the camps they would eventually be sent to. They were relocated starting in 1942, and the last camp was finally closed in 1946. Most attempted to return to their old homes along the west coast, but faced a great deal of hostility and prejudice, particularly in rural California. Most had lost their homes and property, and it took a great deal of time to settle in once more.
Japanese food entered our culture not when the Japanese first came to America, but only after the introduction of stories of Japanese culture in the US, such as the Mikado. Before that, Japanese foods stayed within the communities of Japanese Americans in Hawaii and along the West Coast. After, a selection of Japanese restaurants opened in New York, San Francisco, and LA. The food choices at this time were limited generally to tempura and teriyaki. It must be stated that like tempura, teriyaki is more a style of cooking than a specific food, though most American restaurants have reduced it to grilled chicken with sweet sauce. Most of these restaurants closed during wartime because of animosity towards the Japanese, and interest in Japanese cuisine didn't resurface for several decades. In 1957, the first sushi bar in America was opened in New York, and in the 70s, interest in Japanese restaurants rose once more. Sushi, sashimi, and teriyaki are the most popular Japanese dishes in the US today.
Notable Japanese Americans:
- Senator Daniel K Inouye of Hawaii
- Congresswoman Patsy Mink of Hawaii
- George Ariyoshi, Governor of Hawaii
- Charles J Pedersen, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Yoichiro Nambu, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics
- Shuji Nakamura, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics
- Michio Kaku, Theoretical Physicist in String field theory
- Ellison Onizuka, Astronaut, mission specialist aboard the Challenger when it exploded
- Minoru Yamasaki, architect of the original World Trade Center
- Janice Mirikitani, Poet laureate of San Francisco
- Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park
- Hiro Yamamoto of Soundgarden
- James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins
- Apolo Ohno, Olympic medalist in speed skating
- Kristi Yamaguchi, Olympic gold medalist in figure skating
- Pat Morita, actor, and Academy Award Nominee
- George Takei, actor and activist
This is by no means a complete list. For more interesting Japanese Americans, look at this list on Wikipedia.
Sources
Japanese Americans
Internment of Japanese Americans
A History of Japanese Food in America
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