The 49ers "Chinaman" and the Super Bowl, 1990

Trying to be witty on the eve of the 1990 Super Bowl, Pat Bowlen, the owner of the Denver Broncos praised opponent San Francisco 49ers as a team with a "Chinaman who never lands on his feet."

When pressed to explain his puzzling remark, he confessed he was tongue-in-cheek in referring to future Hall of Fame wide receiver (Jerry) Rice, who is African American.  The Chinese Americans for Affirmative Action fired back asking, in vain, for the National Football League Commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, to fine Bowlen for using the racist term, Chinaman, even though he was not referring to any Chinese person.

For what's it worth, the Denver Broncos were "crushed,"55-10, (to use a pun based on their earlier nickname for their defense, Orange Crush).  Whether or not Jerry Rice was fired up by being called a Chinaman, he did contribute significantly by scoring 3 touchdowns for the victorious 49ers.

Yin and Yang Press Gallery of Book Talk Fliers

Sweet and Sour presentation, Bridgewater State University, 2013

Yin & Yang Press 2014 Media Kit

Yin & Yang Press Promotion

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Chinese May All Look The Same to You, But We Chinese Don't See Ourselves As The Same

Michelle Ling asks Bill Moyers:  

"You and George W. Bush are both white, and from Texas, 
Are you guys the same?"

Bill Moyer produced an excellent documentary  in 2003, "Becoming American: The Chinese American Experience-No Turning Back" and portions of it can be viewed online on YouTube.

One part deals with the issue of Chinese, and other Asian Americans, being viewed by non-Asians as 'model minorities,' a view that is a double-edged sword.  But what are the ethnic identities that Chinese themselves hold? 

In a brief interview with Michelle Ling, a Berkeley student, she uses an ingenious approach to convey the idea that we Chinese do not all think alike or see ourselves as homogeneously as non-Asians do.  During her interview, Ling poses a rhetorical question to Moyers about his own identity as a white person that questions facile generalizations of many non Asians about Asians.

In another exchange, Ling poses a zinger to Moyers (which has been edited out of the revised posted segments) in which she points ou to  Moyers:  
       "You and George W. Bush are both white, and from Texas, Are you guys the same?"

The edited version omitted that exchange but did include a brief few seconds (3;47-3:57 )in which Ling states :

        "I AM an American but  I have to... become an American to everybody else....all the time" 

           Somewhat puzzled, Moyers responds, "Why,...Why?"

Ling adroitly tosses the ball back to Moyers with her reply:

  "I don't know why....You tell me, you're the white guy"

Curated Collections of Websites on Chinese American History, Past and Present

SCOOP.IT allows creation of collections of websites on specific topics.  

I created one collection “Chinese American History” of sites on historical topics and events and a second collection, “Chinese American Now” of sites that focus on current news and issues.

I continually add links to more websites as I discover them. The most recent addition is shown at the top of each collection. But as a collection grows, older sites disappear from view and are likely to be overlooked.  

Fortunately, you can search a collection using the FIND tab in the menu at the top of the page, as shown in the above example where I searched for curated sites related to a specific topic, "laundry".