California doctor dies of COVID + Man arrested in rock-throwing case: Your AAPI newsletter
It is Thursday, April 8, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter.
Here’s a recap of the stories I’m following:
Linath Lim’s life was shaped by starvation.
She was not yet 13 when the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia and ripped her family apart. The totalitarian regime sent her and four siblings to work camps, where they planted rice and dug irrigation canals from sunrise to sunset — each surviving on two ladles of rice gruel a day.
For Lim, the indelible stamp of childhood anguish drove two of her life’s passions: serving people as a physician and cooking lavish feasts for friends and family — both of which she did until she died of COVID-19 in January.
Within the week before her death at age 58, she treated dozens of patients who flooded the hospital during the deadly winter COVID surge, while bringing home-cooked meals to the hospital for her fellow health care workers to enjoy during breaks.
“These experiences during the war made her humble and empathetic toward the people around her,” said Dr. Vidushi Sharma, who worked with Lim at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. “She always wanted to help them.”
Lim became an internal medicine doctor “because she always wanted to be really involved with a lot of patients,” her brother Rithy Lim said. After her residency, she returned to the Central Valley to practice in hospitals and clinics in underserved communities, including Porterville and Stockton, where some of her patients were farmworkers and Cambodian refugees.
California has the largest Cambodian population in the country, with roughly 89,000 people of Cambodian descent in 2019, according to a Public Policy Institute of California analysis of American Community Survey data.
Most recently, Lim worked the swing shift, 1 p.m. to 1 a.m., at Community Regional Medical Center. She admitted patients through the emergency room, where she was exposed to countless people with COVID-19. She worked extra shifts during the pandemic, volunteering when the hospital was short-staffed, said Dr. Nahlla Dolle, an internist who also worked with Lim.
“She told me there were so many patients every day, and that they didn’t have enough beds and the patients had to wait in the hallway,” Tan said.
Colleagues said she was aware of the risks but loved her job. Lim, who was single and didn’t have kids, drew happiness from celebrating others’ joys.
“She would care about everyone but herself,” Sharma said.
A Southern California man has been charged with throwing rocks at an Asian woman and her 6-year-old son as they drove down the street last month, authorities said Monday.
It comes as violence against Asian Americans across the country has ramped up in the last year, including several high-profile attacks in California.
Roger Janke, 28, of Fullerton, told police that Koreans in the area were trying to control him, the Orange County district attorney’s office said in a news release.
Janke is accused of throwing two rocks at the woman’s vehicle on March 31, damaging her bumper and cracking her windshield in Fullerton, officials said. The 38-year-old woman drove to a park and called 911.
“A woman and her child should be able to drive down the street without worrying about being attacked because of the color of their skin,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in the news release. “Our commitment to continuing to prosecute hate crimes to the fullest extent of the law is sending a strong message to all the haters out there — there is no room for hate here — or anywhere.”
In other news
Atlanta shootings expose outdated Asian American stereotypes — and largest U.S. income gap (Los Angeles Times)
In the pandemic, Asian Americans relish the cozy family ritual of hot pot (Los Angeles Times)
Asian American Olympians share experiences with racism (Los Angeles Times)
Conversations for Change: Nilda Valmores (Fox40 Sacramento)
After Atlanta murders, greater scrutiny of police killing of Asian American man in Poconos (WHYY PBS Radio)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Hollywood Must Do More to Combat Asian Stereotypes (The Hollywood Reporter)
Rihanna attends anti-Asian hate protest in NY; assistant says she ‘felt compelled to take action’ (USA Today)
Andrew Yang’s Asian American Superpower (POLITICO)
Two New York doormen who closed the doors while an Asian woman was attacked have been fired (CNN)
This week in AAPI pop culture
The CW, your favorite TV channel to watch horny, angsty teenagers live impossibly exciting lives with zero parental supervision, premiered the first episode of “Kung Fu” on Wednesday night.
The show is a reboot of the 1970s ABC show by the same name, which was based on an idea pitched by Bruce Lee. The original was marred by racist behind-the-scenes decisions, casting a white actor with no martial arts experience as the main character because studio execs didn’t want an Asian lead.
Now, “Kung Fu” is back on the small screen, but this time it’s being led by Christina M. Kim, a television writer and producer best known for her work on “Lost,” with Asian actors firmly placed front and center for the reboot.
Olivia Liang plays Nicky Shen, a young woman who joins a Shaolin monastery known for training female warriors while on a visit to China. When her mentor is killed, she returns home to San Francisco to find her community disrupted by a local gang. She must use the martial arts skills she learned to protect her neighborhood and family, and soon discovers she’s being targeted by the same assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor.
The show also stars the iconic Tzi Ma, Hollywood’s favorite Asian dad, as Nicky’s father, who is keeping secrets from Nicky about how much debt he owes to the Triad gang controlling the community.
“It was just truly a breath of fresh air to see an email that says: ‘Kung Fu. Nicky Shen. Lead. Chinese-American woman,’” Liang told The New York Times. “I was just like: ‘Whoa, what’s happening right now? Lead?’ ... We were all like, ‘If it’s not me, thank goodness it’s going to be one of us.’
“It’s exciting that we get to reclaim (the show) and to say, ‘Hopefully, we’re doing it justice, the way it should have always been done.’”
Reviews for the pilot episode so far have been mixed; I’m trying to reserve full judgment until I watch it myself. In general, I want to root for Asian Americans leading and creating their own stories.
But I’m tired of Asian stories centered around martial arts or mysticism of any kind, even if it’s been updated for 21st century sensibilities. Give me the Asian American kid who always breaks her glasses during gym class basketball; that’s MY kind of representation.
And for those who might argue that any Asian-led project is a win for representation: I’m not confident that stories that fall back on such tired tropes prove anything other than the fact that Hollywood is only interested in the bankability of Asian stories, not the true range of our experiences.
In any case, nothing will ever unseat the true best martial arts film of all time, Disney Channel original “Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior” starring Carmichael native Brenda Song.
And just a quick shout-out: The Bee’s Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks will be joining a panel hosted by the Sacramento Press Club and the Sacramento chapter of the Asian American Journalists’ Association to talk about the intersection of journalism and supporting AAPI communities. It’s free to stream, and you can tune in Thursday on Facebook Live at 6 p.m.
Got a story suggestion? Please reach out to me at awong@sacbee.com.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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