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National Service: A New Civic Contract

10.16.18

BY KEVIN FRAZIER AND MASON JI To paraphrase the late Senator John McCain, “Civic participation over a lifetime will strengthen America’s civic purpose.” Now more than ever, we need civic purpose. A compulsory national service requirement can help us find it. The state of our civic well-being has been trending downwards: voter turnout is consistently […]

Model Minority Mutiny: Whiteness is a Plague

10.11.18

This piece was published in the 28th print volume of the Asian American Policy Review. Asian American identity has historically been one of resistance, subversion, and protest. In both courts and communities, Asian Americans have fought for the right to citizenship[1], educational access[2], fair treatment[3], and working conditions[4] since the late 1800s. On U.S. plantations, […]

Sustainable Communities for Whom: Cultural Tactics in the Pursuit of Ecological Sustainability

10.3.18

This piece was published in the 28th print volume of the Asian American Policy Review. “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”– Brundtland Report (1987), United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development “Social sustainability concerns how individuals, communities […]

Opposition to GMOs is Making the World Hotter and Hungrier

10.1.18

BY GRIFFIN SMITH The world in 2100 will look and feel like a different place than the one we know today. The global population is projected to rise by three billion people—the population of more than two new Chinas. At the same time, extreme global weather events, precipitation variability, and mean temperatures will also increase. […]

The mass killing of women activists in Latin America: making political violence visible

09.18.18

In 2017, Latin America was described by the UN as the world’s most violent continent for women. The assassinations of women activists and community leaders have continued across the region in 2018. While the killing of Marielle Franco, a favela community leader, and the unraveling of government-private enterprise collusion in the 2016 killing of Berta […]

Gender, Race and Identity

Mexico Achieved Gender Parity: Does it Matter?

09.17.18

BY DANIELA PHILIPSON In 2017, the average proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments was barely above 23% (World Bank). In Latin America this proportion is a little higher at 29%. While the representation of women in legislative bodies around the world is not predicted by GDP per capita or any other economic […]

Marijuana Justice Requires Expanding Access to Record Expungements

09.13.18

BY BEN MCGUIRE After Vikash Singh was prosecuted in Los Angeles for growing medical marijuana in 2014, he found that life with a conviction on his record was a “minefield” of legal hoops. He was a college-educated former teacher from a middle-class background who had served his community service sentence, but relevant experience was no […]

Crazy Rich Asians: Why Diversity Really Matters

09.4.18

Crazy Rich Asians has shattered recent box office records. The film grossed an estimated $117 million in its first three weeks and features an all Asian cast — something that hasn’t happened since The Joy Luck Club debuted in 1993. It has also ignited a firestorm of Asian American pride and public discourse. The story […]

Gender, Race and Identity

The Tiny House Solution: Accessory Dwelling Units as a Housing Market Fix

09.4.18

BY ALYSSA DAVIS THE additional unit in Raneta Pomeroy’s backyard had always been a problem. When the Santa Cruz, California, resident bought her house in 1993, she knew that its converted garage apartment—or “flat,” as she calls it—was technically illegal. But it was also typical for this growing coastal community. For several years, her teenagers […]

The Institutionalized Abuse of Incarcerated Girls

08.13.18

BY SIBELLA MATTHEWS In 2014, the Connecticut Department of Children and Families transferred a 16-year-old girl of color known as Angel to a maximum-security adult prison.[1] Guards supervised Angel as she showered and isolated her in solitary confinement for 22 hours per day. Her offense was “delinquency,” a crime that is not serious or violent […]

The “Digital Divide” –and How to Bridge It

08.7.18

BY JEAN GUO AND RACHEL PEARL O’SHEA Digital transformation and its implications for the future of work have become the topic du jour among public policy officials, scholars, and commentators all over the world. With predictions that new technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning will threaten as many as 800 million jobs over the […]

Karoshi and Japan’s Work Style Reform

08.2.18

BY YUSAKU KAWASHIMA Working conditions in Japan are widely regarded as severely demanding. In fact, there is even a Japanese word, karoshi, that means “death from overwork,” with its own Wikipedia entry.[1] However, as someone who has worked in Japan for more than ten years, I wonder how much of the country’s actual working situation […]

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