Bay Area

IN MEMORIAM: Honoring Henry Fuhrmann, Self-described “Hyphen Killer.”

Henry Fuhrmann was an Asian American son of a German Danish Navy corpsman and a Japanese mother, born on a U.S. hospital ship in Japan. He probably saw hyphens all his life and knew why they should be eliminated.

Published

3 years ago

September 26, 2022

Oakland Post

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a talk show on www.amok.com

Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist and commentator. See him at www.amok.com

By Emil Guillermo

Are you African American? Or African-American?

Filipino American? Or a Filipino-American?

Asian American? Or Asian-American?

What’s the difference?

That line between words. You either like it, or you despise it. Henry Fuhrmann despised it.

It might as well have been a royal scepter.

This week, when most of the world was still thinking about Queen Elizabeth II, I was thinking about Henry.

Perhaps you could tell, I wasn’t much for the media’s hagiography. Since her death, I took to criticizing the repressive colonial misdeeds of the British Empire to balance out the steady stream of adulation.

When you hear someone say ‘queen,’ remember Kenya. Or Kowloon. Or Burma.

I wouldn’t have bothered to watch the funeral. But then my friend Henry died last week from esophageal cancer. He was just 65. And that put me in a somber mood.

I mean, what did the queen ever do for us? Compared to her, Henry was a king. Or deserved to be.

Henry Fuhrmann liberated us from our hyphens. I will use none here.

Henry was an Asian American son of a German Danish Navy corpsman and a Japanese mother, born on a U.S. hospital ship in Japan. He probably saw hyphens all his life and knew why they should be eliminated.

But deleting the hyphen would take more than a keystroke.

Henry was a copy editor who retired in 2015 as an assistant managing editor at the Los Angeles Times. An Asian American Journalist Association buddy of mine, we’d see each other at professional events, and re-tweet each other from afar.

Henry’s passion was that demon hyphen. He wanted to expose it for what it was and get rid of its use. In that simple dash, the parallel line that posed as a connector, Henry saw a dividing line, an “othering” tool that did us more harm than good.

“Asian-American?”

Uh, no. Nope, Henry said. Just write Asian American. Or Filipino American. Or Mexican American. Or African American.

The hyphen was a grammatical prosthetic that didn’t help matters. It made us less than.

Henry made his case professionally to journalism’s high court of wordsmithing, the keepers of the Associated Press Style book, known as AP Style.

In an essay Henry wrote in 2018 he cited the Oakland writer Maxine Hong Kingston, who expressed how she felt being called ‘Chinese-American’ in her 1982 piece “Cultural Mis-Readings by American Reviewers.”

“I have been thinking that we ought to leave out the hyphen in ‘Chinese-American,’ because the hyphen gives the word on either side equal weight, as if linking two nouns,” wrote Hong Kingston. “Without the hyphen, ‘Chinese’ is an adjective and ‘American’ a noun; a Chinese American is a type of American.”

Wouldn’t that be better?

From that, Henry attacked the hyphen and pushed for change.

A year later, AP eliminated the hyphen in Asian American, and mentioned Henry’s essay as a driving force. In 2021, the New York Times changed its usage.

Since media organizations can adopt their own style books, you’ll still see the hyphen used. And you’ll still see ‘black’ uncapitalized. But you surely won’t see “oriental.” It’s used to describe rugs. Just not people.

Normally, editors act as conservative gatekeepers of so-called standards. They’re not my favorite people. Unless they’re like Henry. Freedom fighters for a changing language in a changing world.

It’s always a matter of clarity.

Were Japanese Americans placed in internment camps? Was what happened to them “internment” or were they more truthfully incarcerated?

More and more are saying the truth — incarceration. That was Henry’s influence on the AP Stylebook as well.

It shouldn’t be so hard to tell the truth in mainstream journalism. But look at how big-time journalists pull their punches in calling Trump a liar. Or a racist. Or a fascist. Did you see his rally in Ohio? The facts are there.

Or look how cautious people are about calling Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a racist for his inhumane and possibly illegal relocating of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.

That’s why I mourn Henry’s passing. He was against editing the truth.

He’s the reason you are an African American. Not an African-American.

And I am a Filipino American.

We deleted that line, the dash, the minus sign, and became whole. At least in print.

If words matter, if the truth matters, then remember Henry Fuhrmann, the ‘word nerd’ who unchained all people of color from the hyphen and liberated us all.

Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist and commentator. See him at www.amok.com

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Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

Published

8 hours ago

May 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System

While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

Published

6 days ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Image courtesy The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.

The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.

“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”

“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”

The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.

Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.

“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.

Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.

Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.

For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.

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Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

7 days ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.