Hardboiled is the hard lefty 'Asian-Pacific Issues' magazine on campus, so it's no surprise they start seeing Asian and Pacific Islanders everywhere, even if this means destroying the ideals of mulitculturalism. The last issue had an Editor's Note calling for Berkeley's rich diversity of Asian cultures-- over 60 groups, apparently-- conglomerate into one faceless 'Asian' mass for purposes of organization.

I'm not sure what they think all these Asian culture groups will get out of this. 'Hello, President of Cal Malaysians? You know that rich culture of yours? C'mon down and we'll lump you in with everyone from India to Korea to the Phillipines so we can advocate Socialist ideals. Vegetarian dinners will be served'

Even supposing there are pan-Asian issues to deal with, isn't this tantamount to letting the racists win? Going to the people who treat all Asians as a giant tan lump and saying 'Well, we're actually a huge amount of cultures and ethnicities that happen to share some physical characteristics, but if you want to deal with us as 'Asian' we can do that. But we're going to be Socialist about it.'

All for the cause, I suppose.



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