Don’t Just Take a Seat at the Table: Take a Stand

Michelle Kwan, Hasan Minhaj, and Eugene Lee Yang partnered with esteemed chefs Jet Tila, Alvin Cailan, and Melissa King to host dinners in celebration of global Asian and Pacific Islander (API) culture and to discuss the recent acts of hate and violence against the API community as well as steps needed to create change. 

This video had it all, a set of delicious meals with celebrities, activists, and allies, including are joined by Olivia Munn, Jay Shetty, Margaret Cho, BD Wong, Katelyn Ohashi, Lisa Ling, Auli’i Cravalho, Asia Jackson, Simu Liu, Amanda Nguyen, Tina Tchen, Ross Butler, Jason Y Lee, Brandon Flynn and Sophia Bush.  

Jubilee put it together with so many different AAPI voices, showing that allyship is crucial for progress. “We know how to stand by one another and we know how to eat!"  

Complex messages about problems in our society are hard to convey and much harder to really internalize. 

The conversation is full of insights and packed full of emotion. 

We all need a lot more of this. We are all one RACE. The human race. Asian Americans "haven't been the architects" of their own narrative. 

The conversation is sharp here, and the issues around the stigma and innuendo, that API are non-threatening. . .invisible. . .docile is explained and appropriately taken on. Perhaps most notably in a short, animated shabu-shabu analogy, that was actually beautiful. . . 

"America a melting pot, but," says Sima Liu, a Canadian actor narrating the two-minute segment, "I think America is at its best when it’s like shabu shabu. . .Japanese Hot pot.“ Shabu Shabu is named after the swishing sound of ingredients being swirled in a heated broth to cook. As the different ingredients move about each other they imbue their own unique flavors into a stock.  

Just like food, the best friendships are when people are better together than when they're apart. Like  Yuri Kochiyama and Malcom X. Yuri Kochiyama lived an idyllic life raised in San Pedro California. After the events of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Yuri and her family were forced into the Jerome Relocation Center Built for War Relocation Authority. An internment camp. 

She left with nothing and nowhere to return to, so her family moved to New York public housing where they integrated with black and brown communities. Yuri first met Malcolm X in 1963 at a protest against the arrest of 600 minority construction workers in Brooklyn.  

And that meeting was the start of a brief but tight friendship. It set the blueprint for allyship, coalition building and activism across the marginalized communities that we see today.  Kochiyama was actually present when Malcom X was shot.  She held him and pleaded with him, for him to stay alive.  

After Malcolm X's assassination, Kochiyama committed her life to activism. She fought for reparations for Japanese Americans and then used her power to fight for African American reparations. She later fought against the Viet Nam war and for the voices of Muslim, South Asian and Middle Eastern people following 911.  

In a melting pot, inevitably, the majority flavor takes over. Everything else kind of gets lost in the sauce. But in shabu shabu. . .if you close your eyes, you can taste everything in one perfect swoosh." 

Yuri and Malcolm and the other activists weren't a melting pot, they were ingredients enriching each other creating flavors together. . .that they couldn't on their own. And working together to create a feast. 

The last part of the evening, where they were painting the broken pieces with gold is deeply moving. 

Transparency is the best disinfectant, and the producers are applauded for taking this on. I hope everyone I know sees this hour as it combines awesome food, lovely photography and a lot of what Stephen Colbert would call "Truthiness."  

The painful reality about underreporting of mental health in the API community, where in  the general population 20% of people seeking seek treatment, in the API community, only 8%.  

A mix of gut punching stories like the one told by Michelle Kwan who faced the most horrifying headline after famously coming in second in the Olympics, "American beats Kwan" and the hilarious Margaret Cho's assessment that "queer women succeed in comedy because we don't care what men think" makes for a truly wonderful feast. 

Making a difference 

Austin Beutner the LAUSD topper who will step down soon, has been positioning himself for a possible run for Mayor of Los Angeles.  

Recently, the school district has announced it is teaming up with Amazon to provide jobs to LAUSD graduates as well as plans to open a design, business and technology school with rap mogul Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine and a film and television program with George Clooney and other Hollywood celebrities on its advisory board. 

The concept of giving back is epitomized by will.i.am who touted his FIRST Robotics program, in which "every child can be a winner in school, work and in life. My mission is to put a robotics club in every public school, and we are off to a great start with this new program in Los Angeles," he told the Daily News. 

Mickey Kantor, the former Secretary of Labor told them that Mr. Beutner posseses ". . .a controlled intensity, it’s not someone who is unable to control his emotions. Like everyone else, he gets frustrated, but he’s able to deal with his frustration.” 

Beutner has long believed that we all should fulfill our responsibilities, whatever they may be,” Kantor said. “If someone doesn’t carry out what they agreed to do, I think that would bother him a lot.”  

"I’m fortunate that I can choose how I want to spend my time,” Beutner told the DN, acknowledging his financial comfort. “This is how I want to spend my time. This is a choice. To make life better for someone else, to me, that’s more rewarding than whatever one might do in retirement.” 

Some folks have to go to war in retirement. . . 

Corcoran is not a Mom and Pop 

I've always been suspicious of people who make a lot of noise about how Mom and Pop landlords, who are invariably, the claim goes, seniors being taken advantage of by lunatic tenants.  

Given that there is a very narrow path to home ownership in our communities, Landlords own land, and so they should face east, right?  They must have some resources.  

But recently, an older couple (disclosure: to whom I am related) who have been upended by a medical situation and grounded here in Los Angeles, opted to rent out their 1,200 square foot house near the beach in a very nice neighborhood in the East Fork of Long Island.  

Of course, it's not the way it used to be in that community, known as the Hamptons, and there is a madness to the frenzy, but this couple reached out to me because a broker from Corcoran, who swooped in, and made an aggressive offer to rent Memorial Day to Labor Day, was allegedly causing difficulties.  

The octogenarians refused to rent their place sight unseen, "The contract notes that if the tenant is taking the premises ‘sight unseen,’ Tenant agrees to take the premises ‘as is’ and assumes all responsibility with respect to the premises." There were "no changes made prior to lease signing" at the property. No agreed stipulations. 

Right after Memorial Day. . .the proverbial shit hit the fan. The broker who signed off on the property. After the client took possession of the property, "Although you and I looked at the house we didn't check things closely. I might have rushed through the preview process, and I apologize."   

This Corcoran client sits in the home of our senior citizens' house withholding her rent check while making preposterous and unethical claims through an attorney, who sells condos in Manhattan.    

Ernest Cervi, Regional Senior Vice President, East End took the call and heard the saga and promised to call the manager of the agent, Jennifer Hoopes, who apologizes in writing about her client's actions. . .saying "it's with the lawyers, now." 

Hoopes’ manager is a person named Janifer Jaeger, a Senior Managing Director of the Corcoran Group’s thriving East Hampton office.   

"Jan has all the qualifications necessary to assist the Agents . . .[in East Hampton] but is not a competing Manager; she does not list or sell." This allows her to always be available to her team. "Jan not only provides guidance and hand on advice and assistance but training and coaching as well. Training and Agent development is not restricted to new Agents."  

"The atmosphere in the office is collaborative, positive, fun and productive," under Jan Jaeger, according to the website. 

Cool. When we reported to Jan that our elders were facing breach of contract by their client, despite a signed paper contract and a local agent with an “impeccable reputation," she said, "On it!"  Haven't heard from her since.  

So, we went right back to Mr. Cervi, who claimed he was with his 88-year-old mother. He attempted to link the breach of contract by a Corcoran client as outside of his control and the fault of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which was signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo in June, 2019. 

I thanked him for his analysis, and when we hit an impasse, he refused to identify to whom he reports.  

Everyone works for someone, and Corcoran is not a Mom and Pop, they are in business everywhere, not just in the Hamptons, but out here in Malibu, too.  

Cervi's refusal sent me to the Corcoran website where I found Andrew Levinson among the 4858 agents, who had the term Counsel in his title. Since that time, it appears he has been promoted. 

Kudos, he is in his early thirties. He must be loaded!  

Mr. Levinson, I know it's hard to respond over the weekend, but let me know ASAP as it feels like Corcoran is going to allow a shocking breach of contract in broad daylight over the Fourth of July, while residents of the community for fifty years, who are in their eighties, are left to fend for themselves? 

(Eric Preven is a longtime community activist and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Photo: YouTube.