scholarly journals Back to the Source: Lionfish Imported into the United States via the Ornamental Aquarium Trade

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha D. Farquhar

Lionfish (Pterois miles and Pterois volitans) are known for their invasive success in the western Atlantic and Caribbean. With few marine fish invasions of similar magnitude being documented, the introduction of lionfish in this area has been deemed one of the fastest and most ecologically harmful introductions to date. Furthermore, this invasion is thought to be caused by negligent aquarists who released ornamental lionfish off the coast of Florida in 1985. Interestingly, lionfish are rare in abundance throughout their native waters of the Indo-Pacific and factors controlling lionfish’s native populations are little studied and not clearly defined. Through the analysis of the Marine Aquarium Biodiversity and Trade Flow database for the years 2008, 2009, and 2011, it was determined that approximately 137,723 lionfish were exported to the United States with Los Angeles, CA being the most popular point of entry. Of this total, 45.5% originated from the Philippines, 27.7% from Indonesia, and 14.5% from Kenya. Pterois volitans was exported from 15 different countries and on average 19 times more than Pterois miles which was exported only from three countries. This paper questions: 1) if the ornamental aquarium trade is affecting lionfish’s native populations and 2) if the lionfish imports could be leading to more introductions in non-native waters. Ultimately, this paper acts as a short communication identifying a need for further research and attention towards this 

Author(s):  
Mary Talusan

Filipino festivals (also “Philippine festivals”) in southern California are lively, dynamic events that draw multigenerational and multicultural crowds to enjoy food, partake in traditional games and crafts, buy Filipino pride gear, and watch a variety of acts that showcase the talent and creativity of Filipino Americans. Inclusive of those who identify as immigrant, U.S.-born, and transnational, Filipinos from across the region convene to express pride and promote visibility as an overlooked and marginalized ethnic group in the United States. The first public performances by Filipinos in the United States were in exhibits curated by colonial officials at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 to justify colonization of the Philippines. Presented as an uncivilized people in need of American tutelage, this stereotyping of Filipinos as primitives motivated pensionados or students from the Philippines to represent themselves; they organized Rizal Day starting in 1905, which valorized national Philippine hero José Rizal, in order to highlight their identity as modern, educated people. New immigrants, who were mostly rural, single men from the northern Philippines, arrived in the 1930s and frequented taxi dance halls in which Filipino jazz musicians and dancers flourished. Yet the established Filipino community criticized these venues as places of vice that were lacking in family and traditional cultural values. Philippine folk dances were not prevalent among Filipino Americans until after the Philippine Bayanihan Folk Dance Company appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. Due to their influence, Filipino American folk dance troupes were established across the nation, presenting Philippine cultures through stylistically diverse dances such as the Indigenous or Tribal suite, the Muslim or “Moro” suite, and the Maria Clara or Spanish-influenced suite. Folk dance performance became a hallmark of festivals such as the Philippine Folk Festival, which has been held annually in San Diego since 1979 (renamed the Philippine Cultural Arts Festival in 1996). In Los Angeles, the Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture began in 1992, attracting thousands from around the region. These large-scale public Filipino festivals in southern California offer opportunities to gain insight into the variety of ways in which Filipino Americans creatively express a range of experiences, interests, and concerns. While folk dance troupes and traditional music ensembles such as Spanish-influenced rondalla (plucked string instruments) are most visibly tied to representations of Philippine traditions, rappers, DJs, spoken word artists, hip-hop dance crews, R&B singers, and rock bands demonstrate Filipinos’ mastery of American popular forms. With origins in community celebrations since the early 1900s, Filipino festivals of the early 21st century reflect changes and continuities in California’s Filipino communities, which have adapted to internal dynamics, larger societal forces, and engagement with the homeland of the Philippines.


Author(s):  
Paula T. Morelli ◽  
Alma Trinidad ◽  
Richard Alboroto

Filipinos are the second largest group of Asians in the United States; more than 3.4 million Filipino Americans live primarily within the largest U.S. continental cities (including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York) and Hawaii. Annexation of the Philippines, following the Philippine-American War (1899–1902), granted Filipinos unrestricted immigration to the United States as “American nationals” without right to U.S. citizenship. Throughout this more than one-hundred-year relationship, Filipinos in the United States endured discrimination, race-based violence, and a series of restrictive federal legislation impacting civil rights and immigration. Filipinos may present with a distinctly Western orientation in areas such as values and contemporary ideas; however, their traditional social and cultural characteristics contrast considerably with mainstream American culture. This entry provides a brief historic, geopolitical and cultural context to facilitate the work of social work practitioners.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-54
Author(s):  
Samuel H. Yamashita

In the 1970s, Japanese cooks began to appear in the kitchens of nouvelle cuisine chefs in France for further training, with scores more arriving in the next decades. Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Joël Robuchon, and other leading French chefs started visiting Japan to teach, cook, and sample Japanese cuisine, and ten of them eventually opened restaurants there. In the 1980s and 1990s, these chefs' frequent visits to Japan and the steady flow of Japanese stagiaires to French restaurants in Europe and the United States encouraged a series of changes that I am calling the “Japanese turn,” which found chefs at fine-dining establishments in Los Angeles, New York City, and later the San Francisco Bay Area using an ever-widening array of Japanese ingredients, employing Japanese culinary techniques, and adding Japanese dishes to their menus. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the wide acceptance of not only Japanese ingredients and techniques but also concepts like umami (savory tastiness) and shun (seasonality) suggest that Japanese cuisine is now well known to many American chefs.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gremil Alessandro Naz

<p>This paper examines the changes in Filipino immigrants’ perceptions about themselves and of Americans before and after coming to the United States. Filipinos have a general perception of themselves as an ethnic group. They also have perceptions about Americans whose media products regularly reach the Philippines. Eleven Filipinos who have permanently migrated to the US were interviewed about their perceptions of Filipinos and Americans. Before coming to the US, they saw themselves as hardworking, family-oriented, poor, shy, corrupt, proud, adaptable, fatalistic, humble, adventurous, persevering, gossipmonger, and happy. They described Americans as rich, arrogant, educated, workaholic, proud, powerful, spoiled, helpful, boastful, materialistic, individualistic, talented, domineering, friendly, accommodating, helpful, clean, and kind. Most of the respondents changed their perceptions of Filipinos and of Americans after coming to the US. They now view Filipinos as having acquired American values or “Americanized.” On the other hand, they stopped perceiving Americans as a homogenous group possessing the same values after they got into direct contact with them. The findings validate social perception and appraisal theory, and symbolic interaction theory.</p>


Author(s):  
Celine Parreñas Shimizu

Transnational films representing intimacy and inequality disrupt and disgust Western spectators. When wounded bodies within poverty entangle with healthy wealthy bodies in sex, romance and care, fear and hatred combine with desire and fetishism. Works from the Philippines, South Korea, and independents from the United States and France may not be made for the West and may not make use of Hollywood traditions. Rather, they demand recognition for the knowledge they produce beyond our existing frames. They challenge us to go beyond passive consumption, or introspection of ourselves as spectators, for they represent new ways of world-making we cannot unsee, unhear, or unfeel. The spectator is redirected to go beyond the rapture of consuming the other to the rupture that arises from witnessing pain and suffering. Self-displacement is what proximity to intimate inequality in cinema ultimately compels and demands so as to establish an ethical way of relating to others. In undoing the spectator, the voice of the transnational filmmaker emerges. Not only do we need to listen to filmmakers from outside Hollywood who unflinchingly engage the inexpressibility of difference, we need to make room for critics and theorists who prioritize the subjectivities of others. When the demographics of filmmakers and film scholars are not as diverse as its spectators, films narrow our worldviews. To recognize our culpability in the denigration of others unleashes the power of cinema. The unbearability of stories we don’t want to watch and don’t want to feel must be borne.


2020 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
KRISTINA F. NIELSEN

Abstract (Spanish/English)Forjando el Aztecanismo: Nacionalismo Musical Mexicano del Siglo XX en el siglo XXI en Los ÁngelesHoy en día, un creciente número de músicos mexico-americanos en los Estados Unidos tocan instrumentos indígenas mesoamericanos y réplicas arqueológicas, lo que se conoce como “Música Azteca.” En este artículo, doy a conocer cómo los músicos contemporáneos de Los Ángeles, California, recurren a los legados de la investigación musical nacionalista mexicana e integran modelos antropológicos y arqueológicos aplicados. Al combinar el trabajo de campo etnográfico con el análisis histórico, sugiero que los marcos musicales y culturales que alguna vez sirvieron para unir al México pos-revolucionario han adquirido una nuevo significado para contrarrestar la desaparición del legado indígena mexicano en los Estados Unidos.Today a growing number of Mexican-American musicians in the United States perform on Indigenous Mesoamerican instruments and archaeological replicas in what is widely referred to as “Aztec music.” In this article, I explore how contemporary musicians in Los Angeles, California, draw on legacies of Mexican nationalist music research and integrate applied anthropological and archeological models. Pairing ethnographic fieldwork with historical analysis, I suggest that musical and cultural frameworks that once served to unite post-revolutionary Mexico have gained new significance in countering Mexican Indigenous erasure in the United States.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S563-S563
Author(s):  
Kenneth A Valles ◽  
Lewis R Roberts

Abstract Background Infection by hepatitis B and C viruses causes inflammation of the liver and can lead to cirrhosis, liver failure, and hepatocellular carcinoma. The WHO’s ambition to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030 requires strategies specific to the dynamic disease profiles each nation faces. Large-scale human movement from high-prevalence nations to the United States and Canada have altered the disease landscape, likely warranting adjustments to present elimination approaches. However, the nature and magnitude of the new disease burden remains unknown. This study aims to generate a modeled estimate of recent HBV and HCV prevalence changes to the United States and Canada due to migration. Methods Total migrant populations from 2010-2019 were obtained from United Nations Migrant Stock database. Country-of-origin HBV and HCV prevalences were obtained for the select 40 country-of-origin nations from the Polaris Observatory and systematic reviews. A standard pivot table was used to evaluate the disease contribution from and to each nation. Disease progression estimates were generated using the American Association for the Study of the Liver guidelines and outcome data. Results Between 2010 and 2019, 7,676,937 documented migrants arrived in US and Canada from the selected high-volume nations. Primary migrant source regions were East Asia and Latin America. Combined, an estimated 878,995 migrants were HBV positive, and 226,428 HCV positive. The majority of both migrants (6,477,506) and new viral hepatitis cases (HBV=840,315 and HCV=215,359) were found in the United States. The largest source of HBV cases stemmed from the Philippines, and HCV cases from El Salvador. Conclusion Massive human movement has significantly changed HBV and HCV disease burdens in both the US and Canada over the past decade and the long-term outcomes of cirrhosis and HCC are also expected to increase. These increases are likely to disproportionally impact individuals of the migrant and refugee communities and screening and treatment programs must be strategically adjusted in order to reduce morbidity, mortality, and healthcare expenses. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures


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