This Article examines the criminal law defense of provocation in the U.S., which employs an objective reasonable person standard, as applied to recent Asian immigrants. It discusses approaches taken in other countries and describes the cultural defense. The Article concludes with different possibilities for a hypothetical Asian defendant who was provoked: Improving education about U.S. laws as a preventative measure, using expert cultural witnesses at trial, and taking the defendant’s characteristics into consideration during the sentencing stage.

Despite the existence of a large Indian diaspora, there has been relatively little scholarly attention paid to India's relations with overseas Indians after its independence in 1947. The common narrative is that India abruptly cut ties with overseas Indians at independence, as it adhered to territorially based understandings of sovereignty and citizenship. Re-examining India's relations with Indian communities in Ceylon and Burma between the 1940s and the 1960s, this article demonstrates that, despite its rhetoric, independent India did not renounce responsibility for its diaspora. Instead, because of pre-existing social connections that spanned the former British empire, the Government of India faced regular demands to assist overseas Indians, and it responded on several fronts. To understand this continued engagement with overseas Indians, this article introduces the idea of ‘post-imperial sovereignty'. This type of sovereignty was layered, as imperial sovereignty had been, but was also concerned with advancing norms designed to protect minority communities across the world. India’s strategy to argue for these norms was simultaneously multilateral, regional, and bilateral. It sought to use the United Nations, the Commonwealth, and the 1947 Asian Relations Conference to secure rights for overseas Indians. As those attempts failed, India negotiated claims for citizenship with governments in Burma and Ceylon, and shaped the institutions and language through which Indians voiced demands for their rights in these countries. Indian expressions of sovereignty beyond the space of the nation-state, therefore, impacted on practices of citizenship, even during the process of de-recognition in Asia.

Twin studies of physical exercise for Asian twins are sparse. This study aimed to examine genetic and environmental influences on frequency of vigorous exercise (FVE) in South Korean twins, with a special emphasis on sex effects. Telephone interviews on FVE were administered to 1757 twins (mean age = 19.05 years, SD = 3.01 years). Tetrachoric correlations were significantly different between monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins in males (.40 vs. .12), but they were similar in females (.44 vs. .45), suggesting the importance of genetic factors in FVE in males and that of common environmental factors in females. A scalar sex-limitation model incorporating age as a modifier was applied to data. The results revealed that genetic, common and individual environmental influences did not vary significantly with age, but differed across two sexes, confirming twin correlational analyses. In the best-fitting model, additive genetic and individual environmental influences on FVE were, respectively, .35 (95% CI [.26, .39]) and .65 (95% CI [.61, .74]) in males, and common and individual environmental influences were, respectively, .45 (95% CI [.35, .53]) and .55 (95% CI [.47, .65]) in females. These results contrasted starkly with recent findings from a large sample of Chinese adult twins (age >18 years), in which most variance (≥95%) of vigorous physical activity was attributable to common environmental influences in both sexes. Replications in other Asian samples are clearly needed.

This article posits that the key to understanding the low levels of political involvement within contemporary immigrant communities, such as Asian and Latino communities, requires a closer examination of the partisan socialization process of the native-born children of immigrants. This article finds that many native-born children of immigrants, otherwise known as second-generation Americans, experience what I call a “prolonged partisan socialization process.” In the absence of parental partisan transmission, many second-generation Americans are left to find their own path to partisan attainment. The consequences of this are that many second-generation Americans eventually come to find their partisan identity outside of the home and much later in life. These findings disrupt the traditional partisan attainment story, which assumes that partisanship is the product of a process of socialization led by parents. Accounting for this prolonged socialization process provides significant insight into why partisan identification, and by extension political participation, among many second-generation Americans, such as Latinos and Asians appears muted. Therefore, while it will likely take some time for many within these contemporary immigrant communities to reach “partisan maturity,” we should not mistake the prolonged socialization process to mean that these individuals are destined to be politically disengaged.

Asians exhibit larger glycaemic response (GR) and insulin response (IR) than Caucasians, predisposing to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We aimed to determine the GR and IR as well as the glycaemic index (GI) and insulinaemic index (II) of two rice varieties among three ethnic groups in Singapore. A total of seventy-five healthy males (twenty-five Chinese, twenty-five Malay and twenty-five Asian-Indians) were served the available equivalent carbohydrate amounts (50 g) of test foods (Jasmine rice and Basmati rice) and a reference food (glucose) on separate occasions. Postprandial blood glucose and plasma insulin concentrations were measured at fasting ( − 5 and 0 min) and at 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 and 120 min after food consumption. Using the trapezoidal rule, GR, IR, GI and II values were determined. The GR did not differ between ethnic groups for Jasmine rice and Basmati rice. The IR was consistently higher for Jasmine rice (P= 0·002) and Basmati rice (P= 0·002) among Asian-Indians, probably due to compensatory hyperinsulinaemia to maintain normoglycaemia. The GI and II of both rice varieties did not differ significantly between ethnicities. The overall mean GI for Jasmine rice and Basmati rice were 91 (sd 21) and 59 (sd 15), respectively. The overall mean II for Jasmine rice was 76 (sd 26) and for Basmati rice was 57 (sd 24). We conclude that the GI values presented for Jasmine rice and Basmati rice were applicable to all three ethnic groups in Singapore. Future studies should include deriving the II for greater clinical utility in the prevention and management of T2DM.

Soya isoflavones: genistein and daidzein are increasingly consumed in Western countries. Their beneficial effects are discussed considering nutrition and health in Asia. The present study aimed to check whether chronic ingestions, ethnic origin and dietary context can influence soya phyto-oestrogen bioavailability. Two prospective trials were carried out to blindly assess the pharmacokinetics after acute and chronic intake of soya-based cheese (45·97 (sd1·57) mg isoflavones) taken once a day for 10 d. Twelve healthy young Asians immersed for 2 months in France were randomised in a cross-over design to compare the influence of a Western v. Asian dietary context. The second trial partly nested in the first one, compared Asians under the Western diet to twelve healthy young male Caucasians under the same diet. All volunteers were non-equol producers. After an acute intake of soya in Western diet, Asians exhibited higher maximum concentration measured in plasma (Cmax) and area under the plasma concentration–time curve (AUC) for genistein and daidzein than Caucasians (P = 0·005, 0·006, 0·032 and 0·008, respectively). In Caucasians under Western diet, AUC and Cmax values significantly increased after chronic intake. This was not the case for daidzein in Asians whatever the dietary context. For the first time, it is evidenced that on acute intake of soya cheese, Asians absorb soya phyto-oestrogens better than Caucasians, regardless of whether the background diet is Western or Asian. On chronic ingestions, AUC and Cmax values were increased for daidzein and genistein in Caucasians but not in Asians. There are ethnical differences in isoflavone pharmacokinetic and bioavailability. This may influence health outcomes.

Type 2 diabetes is commoner in Asians than Caucasians. Many nitrosamines are diabetogenic, causing both type 2 and type 1 diabetes. Of CD1 mice fed with betel-nut or associated nitrosamines 8·5 % develop glucose intolerance with marked obesity. Glycaemia and anthropometric risk markers for type 2 diabetes were therefore examined in relation to betel usage in 993 ‘healthy’ Bangladeshis by one bilingual research-worker (N.M.). Of these, 12 % had known diabetes. A further 145 of 187 subjects ‘at-risk’ of diabetes (spot glucose >6·5 mmol/l <2 h after food, or >4·5 mmol/l >2 h after food) had a second blood glucose sample taken; sixty-one were confirmed as ‘at-risk’, and had an oral glucose tolerance test; nine new diabetics were identified. Multiple regression analysis showed that spot blood glucose values decreased with time after eating (P = 0·0005) and increased independently with waist size (P = 0·0005) and age (P = 0·0005) without relationships to other aspects of the diet, season or smoking. Waist size was strongly related to betel usage independent of other factors such as age. Betel use interacted with sex, relating to increasing glycaemia only in females. Since waist and age were the major markers of increasing glycaemia we suggest that betel chewing, a habit common to about 10 % of the world population (more than 200 million people) may contribute to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus.

We report the findings of a survey of 104 Asian older people in Bradford. For a high proportion, their condition was characterised by poverty, limited entitlements, inadequate housing, low levels of knowledge of health and social services, and problems of access to welfare benefits, health and social care. The situation of women was of particular concern. The study also highlights the problems of divided families, caused by restrictive immigration rules, resulting in many elderly people having no family support in this country.