i'm not sure why everyone is taking offence to one of the women being differentiated as being "asian". speaking as an asian (chinese-burmese-born-and-raised-in-canada-medley) woman myself i can say that it's a part of who i am--not an integral part mind you, but a part nonetheless. it's one that everyone notices; i'm not going to shirk out of being called asian and spit-shine my boots for a good ass kicking when someone refers to me as that instead of say, "canadian". c'mon people.

i find it very odd when some people feel sheepish about asking about my ethnicity--maybe they're half-expecting me to scream out "WHY DOES IT MATTER?" but i'm curious about background as well. i don't think this is circumstance is limited to visible minorities, meaning non-white because i have mistaken non-white persons for being white and vice versa plenty of times and i don't feel as if i'm disregarding their individuality or anything stupid like that when asking them to elaborate on their familial roots.

i agree that had both of them been white there never would have been any mention of 'race' in the story submission..but to be quite frank i'd have assumed they both would have been white--yes, even despite the hispanic connection of los angeles. maybe that's because morrissey himself is a white mancunian. *shrug* it's curious how no one takes offense when various european groups are distinguished from being "american". (ie--if someone wrote, "say, i saw morrissey with an italian guy and a white american girl" i'm sure no one would be raging on about the racist presumption involved in not considering if the guy might've been an italian-american, or just plain american).

in any case, unlike a lot of people i don't see anything dangerous or unjust about distinguishing race unless there's some explicit negative connotations attached to the race itself in a person's mind--but then if that's the scenario that mind is likely a misguided wasteland anyway. mind you, this does not mean race should be the end-all and be-all of our judgements about people. and i think it should be clear to anyone that there's a big difference between someone who does that and someone who merely notices race. if you as a reader associate negative connotations with the word "asian" (is this inferior to the word "american"?), that is your own problem.

p.s.-i understand that the idea behind a lot of these complaints is that taking notice of the "asian" being "asian" (is that not what they are, race-wise?) was like measuring against some white majority, but is that not what america is comprised of? a white majority? let's see some statistics here. regarding the complaint about reducing the woman to being merely "asian" and condensing her into only a race-issue, disregarding her value as an "american" individual see the long winded paragraphs above.

well, that's enough of me being a blowhard for now.