Links for September 4, 2017
What a Fraternity Hazing Death Revealed About the Painful Search for an Asian-American Identity
Asians are the loneliest Americans. The collective political consciousness of the ’80s has been replaced by the quiet, unaddressed isolation that comes with knowing that you can be born in this country, excel in its schools and find a comfortable place in its economy and still feel no stake in the national conversation… the confusion of never knowing what side to choose because choosing our own side has so rarely been an option.... The Asian-American fraternity is not much more than a clumsy step toward finding an identity in a country where there are no more reference points for how we should act, how we should think about ourselves. But in its honest confrontation with being Asian and its refusal to fall into familiar silence, it can also be seen as a statement of self-worth. These young men, in their doomed way, were trying to amend the American dream that had brought their parents to this country with one caveat: I will succeed, they say. But not without my brothers!
Vidal Sassoon: Hairdresser’s Secret Life as Jewish Anti-Fascist Streetfighter
Other former [43 Group] members remembered Sassoon well. “To think what a big deal hairdresser he would become you would never have guessed to see him there, deep in the fray,” said one. “At that time he was just the sort of guy you wanted by your side when the fighting started. We used the same weapons as the fascists - knuckle-dusters, coshes, and cut-throat razors.”