The Pacific Grove Feast of Lanterns Board misses the mark with an apology statement.

What makes a good apology? Pam Marino here, pondering that question after the Pacific Grove Feast of Lanterns Board released a statement on Sunday apologizing to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community for any harm done by the feast. Members of the AAPI community are already calling it a “non-apology apology.”

One would think that by now, after we’ve seen so many examples of bad public apologies made by politicians and celebrities for racist remarks, #MeToo statements and tone-deaf Covid comments, that we’d all know better. But apparently the Feast board didn’t get the memo.

“It was never our intent to harm anyone however we recognize there was harm caused year after year by the pageant and the use of Chinese costumes and lanterns,” as stated in the document’s third paragraph, directly beneath one touting the positive goals of the Feast. “We sincerely apologize for the harm caused to the AAPI community and any others impacted.” 

The pageant, costumes and lanterns. That’s it. Nothing about the pageant’s birth in 1905, just a year before the Point Alones Chinese fishing village burned to the ground, its residents driven out and not allowed to return amid anti-Chinese sentiments. Nothing about the practice many years ago during the Feast’s pageant of white teen girls wearing yellow face and taping their eyes back to portray Chinese characters. 

No words about how the pageant, based on a faux-Chinese legend, was a damaging, divisive and racist cultural appropriation of Chinese culture. Nothing about how the pageant once encouraged people to laugh and jeer at a Chinese villain in the pageant, until Gerry Low-Sabado, a descendant of those who lived in the Point Alones Chinese village, convinced the board to take that part out. (You can see a collection of Weekly stories and opinion pieces detailing more history here.)

Finally, nothing to acknowledge the collection of AAPI voices currently rising to a crescendo at recent P.G. public meetings, detailing the hurt that people have experienced for decades. The people using their voices are now weighing in on the board’s statement, issued just three days before the Pacific Grove City Council will discuss whether to continue to categorize Feast events as city-sponsored. 

“An authentic apology starts with reaching out to the victims and listening to their issues. There is no indication that the Feast Board has made any attempt to do so,” a letter from The Coalition for Asian Justice to the council reads. The letter is co-signed with six members of the coalition plus Klarity Coleman, a former Feast queen, and former P.G. mayor Carmelita Garcia. 

“All of this smacks of a public relations maneuver to offset the growing awareness of the fundamental cruelty of the Feast, the realization that the Feast’s legacy will always be one of exclusion, unresponsiveness to community input, and insensitivity to the harm that it has caused,” it continues. 

“This insincere apology does nothing to heal the wounds; the lateness in which it was offered and the complete absence of reaching out to those most impacted show a lack of empathy and compassion.”

The letter ends by arguing that the “title Feast of Lanterns is tainted and carries historical baggage that can never be erased. It can never express a spirit of diversity, equity or inclusion and the event needs to end.”

That’s the message the Coalition is taking to the P.G. City Council tomorrow, Feb. 16 at 6pm on Zoom. Defenders of the Feast are organizing to show up as well to argue for keeping the Feast as a city-sponsored event. For an agenda and instructions on how to participate, click here. As always, I welcome hearing your thoughts. 

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