Jackson He becomes first Chinese-born player in FBS to score a TD
Congratulations to this young man! Great story...
On a side note, it was good for my soul to watch this game. ASU demolished a not so good Arizona team, but one that would probably be equal to ours right now.
My kid goes to ASU so it has given me a team to root for after this year's debacle; they lost two very close games to USC and UCLA. ASU will be a VERY good team next year and beyond. "Chip" Trayanum turned down Ohio State's scholarship to play there and is a stud. Tons of young talent on this team, and dare I say it, their coaching is much better than ours.
December 12th, 2020 at 3:43 AM ^
So he's just one-named like Madonna?
That espn story was light on info, didn't give his Chinese name or anything, whatever. Good for him though.
December 12th, 2020 at 6:16 AM ^
His last name is He. Also interesting is the fact that he chose Jackson as his American name because of his affinity for Michael Jackson.
December 12th, 2020 at 1:47 PM ^
Hee Hee
December 12th, 2020 at 6:26 AM ^
Not sure if bad pun or reading fail
December 12th, 2020 at 9:32 AM ^
Who is on first. He is the running back.
December 12th, 2020 at 10:39 AM ^
Hu is on first.
December 12th, 2020 at 2:23 PM ^
Definitely a reading fail, I apologize for my stupidity
December 12th, 2020 at 7:20 AM ^
Things that make you go Hermmm!
December 12th, 2020 at 7:21 AM ^
He is Firm for Herm?
In seriousness, great story - yet there have likely been Chinese born players (which can include those born in China but not of Chinese ethnicity) playing at some of the programs currently in the FBS at some point in the past... a lot of history to cover with much of it poorly documented (and sadly, some of those players may have hidden/altered their lineage for fear of discrimination). Some of them might have scored a TD also.
Even so - good for that young man and for ASU... not so much for Arizona, but at least they get to be a part of an historic moment. That counts for something...
December 12th, 2020 at 7:52 AM ^
and sadly, some of those players may have hidden/altered their lineage for fear of discrimination
How exactly does one hide the fact that they are Asian!?
(Never heard of anyone being discriminated against for being specifically Chinese.)
December 12th, 2020 at 8:12 AM ^
As far as "hiding", there are some ways of doing it. They could tell people they were of some other descent that might be considered more "acceptable" at the time in question (assuming that is wasn't immediately obvious that they were East Asian)... maybe Native American, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, etc. If they were a mixed race (yet still Chinese born), they might be able to completely hide that lineage without any suspicion.
It was far more common for Chinese (and other Asians) to experience a bias in the late 19th and early/mid 20th centuries. There were a few "Yellow Scares" in US history. During WWII anyone who even looked Japanese (though was something else) was more likely to encourage problems state-side. There also wasn't much of a sense of cultural/national "pride" about ethnicity origin for most immigrants through US history (not just Asians, but from everywhere). The "melting pot" analogy held: families wanted to be full "Americans" once here and downplayed their origins. It is a more recent trend (last several decades) that people became more "*something*-Americans".
December 12th, 2020 at 9:11 AM ^
One of the common methods was by passing as other nationalities. For example, the actor who played detective Nick Yemana on the TV show Barney Miller, used the stage name Jack Soo (which is a Chinese name) but was actually born Goro Suzuki. He graduated from UC Berkeley after having grown up in Oakland, California and was interred at the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah during WW2. There he was recruited and worked for US military intelligence, interestingly in Cleveland, Ohio, during the war.
He used the name Soo because after the war he was a stand-up comedian working for a time as the straight man in a duo with Joey Bishop. He was noticed by Gene Kelly which lead to a role as the night club announcer in the Broadway production of Flower Drum Song in 1958. After that he appeared steadily in movies and TV shows until his run on Barney Miller where unfortunately he died midway through the 5th season in 1979.
This was true for fictional characters as well. Kato, the chauffeur, and side kick for the Green Hornet was originally Japanese in the comics and radio show but during WW2 the character was reconfigured as being Filipino.
December 12th, 2020 at 10:43 AM ^
In order to date my grandmother my grandfather had to lie about who he was(Italian Catholic) to her dad, who was English Protestant. My grandfather said he was a German from Oklahoma.
Sal, my avatar, had to deal with cross burnings living in West Virginia.
Whiteness is a bizarre, ad hoc thing that needs to be examined more closely by the population at large.
December 12th, 2020 at 4:53 PM ^
The book “Caste”, by Isabel Wilkerson, does an excellent job of noting the ad hoc, shapeshifting nature of “Whiteness.” It’s an excellent read.
December 12th, 2020 at 8:48 AM ^
FYI I am of Chinese descent and was discriminated a ton against while playing hs football despite being the starting runningback. I don't think it was truly malicious in nature (just kids being kids in a not so multicultural place), but I mean it wasn't an enjoyable experience.
December 12th, 2020 at 9:22 AM ^
Uhh, anyone else hear the president of the United States intentionally call Covid-19 the Chinese Virus?
December 12th, 2020 at 9:59 AM ^
In Trevor Noah's book, he talks about how during apartheid, Japanese people were considered white because they created technology and whatnot, and Chinese people were considered "colored." I don't remember all the details, but he goes into some of the weird specifics of apartheid. It's still just racism, but I thought it was interesting to learn it was more complicated than just black and white.
December 12th, 2020 at 10:56 AM ^
Nazism: Jews and Slavs are both white. Nazis saw them as untermensche.
English saw Irish as inferior too.
Skin color is one measure of “race”.
At the end of the day we are all the same. We love. We hate. We bleed. We create. We sing. We laugh. We cry. We do everything that makes up a human regardless physical appearance or social grouping.
Someday we will socialize out of us the idiotic notion of race.
December 12th, 2020 at 10:14 AM ^
Did your high school history class seriously not cover the Chinese exclusion act?
December 12th, 2020 at 4:38 PM ^
In fact, Chinese are the only ethnic/national group to have ever been named specifically in a discriminatory law in the US.
Read up on history son
December 12th, 2020 at 7:25 AM ^
Interesting story—thanks for posting.
And thanks for creating a new tag for the blog. That will come in handy!
December 12th, 2020 at 8:23 AM ^
Yes, that tag is awesome.
December 12th, 2020 at 8:50 AM ^
Michigan is terrible, but actually I'm pretty confident they're better than Arizona. Man, Kevin Sumlin's star has really fallen.
December 12th, 2020 at 11:05 AM ^
Dangerous hires:
- Hot MAC coach of the year
- Houston head coaches
December 12th, 2020 at 2:04 PM ^
Sumlin, Herman, and Applewhite.
December 12th, 2020 at 9:18 AM ^
As a Chinese American who went to UofA, this is such conflictingly great and painful news! Haha
As someone who follows both Arizona and Michigan, can confirm AZ football is much worse. Bottom feeder of the Pac bad. Rich Rod was actually better than Sumlin bad. Pretty sure the team didn’t even have a committed player for 2021 until this year bad.
December 12th, 2020 at 9:41 AM ^
Cool. Thanks for posting.
December 12th, 2020 at 11:04 AM ^
Thats pretty sick that he has the chinese / mandarin script for his name on his jersey
December 12th, 2020 at 11:25 AM ^
Hen Hao
December 12th, 2020 at 12:37 PM ^
His Chinese name from the back of his jersey reads "Peizhang He".
Of course I don't expect many Americans can pronounce it correctly. As a football lover born in China myself, I feel proud that finally a China born football player show up in a game dominated by other races. May he have great success in his football career!!!
December 12th, 2020 at 2:25 PM ^
Actually it says He Peizhang ;) which is even cooler
Seeing the whole team come out onto the field and congratulate him after his TD, even though the score was 63-7 at that point... super wholesome. Sports, man
The article linked in the tweet was a good read, explaining his journey from China to Cali HS sports to an NAIA school in North Dakota, back to China then to walking on for ASU.
Except for this quote from his HS coach: "We told him all the time, ‘You can’t use karate,’” joked Allen
December 12th, 2020 at 1:45 PM ^
He did? Good for him!
December 12th, 2020 at 2:55 PM ^
So that's how coronavirus got here.
/s for the sensitive starbucks drinkers
December 12th, 2020 at 4:44 PM ^
Looks like we found the buckeye mole ?
December 12th, 2020 at 5:19 PM ^
I always wonder why announcers or news anchors never seem to bother asking someone how Chinese names are pronounced, whether people or places. Most of them are pretty easy to say, ignoring tone, the romanization just makes it confusing.
His family name is pronounced "huh" but of course everyone is saying "hee".