Hands down, the award for Halloween costume of the year goes to MetroDad's daughter who is roaming the neighborhood as Underage Chinese Gymnast. I've been laughing my ass off looking at the photo all week. Absolutely freaking brilliant. Peanut, you get the gold medal.
We get news of a vicious hate crime in Colorado... Police in Boulder are investigating a case of bias-motivated assault and felony menacing involving a suspect who held a knife to the throat of an Asian American man and forced him to say "I love America" early Friday morning: Asian-American Assaulted, Forced to Say 'I Love America'
The 22-year-old victim was apparently walking down the street with friends, singing a song from the movie Team America(?), when they were confronted by four men. One of the suspects came up to the victim and began challenging him, asking "Do you think you are an American?" and calling the victim a "Chinaman."
According to the police press release, the main suspect punched the victim in the face. Then while holding a knife to the victim's throat, he punched him again and forced him to say "I love America." Then the suspect and his friends ran away. More here: Asian-American Assaulted, Forced to Say 'I Love America'
What the hell? This Asian guy can't just walk the street like everyone else without getting harassed, assaulted and humiliated in a completely unprovoked hate attack. Make no mistake—this guy was singled out and attacked for just being himself. An Asian man. That's racist!
The suspect was described as a 5-10 white male, about 19 or 20, with short blond hair. He was wearing a white tank-top T-shirt and black pants. Another assailant was described as a white male with a "very long goatee," wearing a long-sleeved gray sweatshirt. Anonymous tipsters can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or 1-800-444-3776.
This is freaking awesome. This week at the University of Georgia, ninjas snuck their way into a campus area with a swift and stealthy mission to pass out voting flyers to students—ninja style: Ninjas urge to vote, cover key issues.
The "covert" operation was carried out by members of various Asian-oriented organizations on campus to promote an upcoming seminar, "Don't Vote - You Don't Matter." Because Asian American voters are often perceived as unseen and unheard... just like ninjas! Get it?
Clever. And it's a funny way to illustrate an important point. My fellow Asian Americans, I love ninjas. Ninjas are awesome. But let us not be ninjas on Election Day. Let us be seen and heard. And counted. That's power.
Earlier this year, SFGate "Asian Pop" columnist Jeff Yang made the compelling case that, in many ways, Barack Obama could be the the first Asian American president. Yeah, I know, not really. Not literally. But in spirit, culture and experience... yeah, kind of. I can believe it.
This week, Jeff appeared on NPR's Tell Me More as part of the show's ongoing "What If" series to talk about his column and this interesting possibility: Asian Writer Ponders First Asian President Too. It's a really good, lengthy interview that actually covers a lot of ground, so check it out. Props, Jeff.
In my book, this is perhaps the greatest endorsement a presidential candidate could ask for. If only. Check it out: Lee votes Obama. I'm ordering my t-shirt right now. (Thanks, Simon.)
You might have missed Ryuhei Kitamura's Midnight Meat Train when it was in theaters a few months back. It's horror flick from a story by Clive Barker, starring Vinnie Jones, about a dude who kills people on the train. At midnight.
Lionsgate kind of gave it a crappy limited release, so barely anyone really saw it. Also, it has a really awful title. To be honest, I don't know if it's any good. But guess what? You can watch it online now over FEARnet. For free! Something scary for your Halloween.
The 19 month-long, multi-agency investigation, dubbed "Operation Direct Hit," charged 61 people and two businesses with orchestrating fender benders in Flushing to swindle insurance companies out of more than $1.6 million dollars since 2005.
The scammers apparently targeted Asian drivers because they thought they were "bad drivers who would be blamed for the accidents." I'm not kidding. That's racist! And because of that, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown charged at least one defendant with a hate crime. Damn right.
According to authorities, ringleaders paid their henchmen to wait for unsuspecting drivers to back out of parking lots or driveways along Northern Blvd. from Parsons Blvd. to 105th St. and then crash into them with a car full of passengers.
The bogus "victims" would then rack up huge fake medical bills at the Bronx Park Medical clinic in Manhattan, where the ringleaders operated the scheme. The plot unraveled when claims investigators at Nationwide found three suspiciously similar "accidents" in Queens and reported them to the NYPD.
I swear, there was a Law and Order episode with this exact same plot. The defendants—seven of whom are still on the lam—face up to 25 years, if convicted of enterprise corruption, insurance fraud, grand larceny and fraud charges.
A movie I've really been looking forward to seeing this fall is Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. I'm a huge fan of Boyle's work, and the premise is really intriguing. The film tells the story of an illiterate street kid from Mumbai who makes it onto India's version of Who Whats to Be a Millionaire? in order to reconnect with his lost love, who he knows watches the show religiously.
The movie's been getting some great, rave reviews and has been a big hit at a number of film festivals, including Telluride and Toronto (it was awarded the People's Choice Award at TIFF). Watch the trailer here. You can also view a clip from the film here. It looks fantastic, and I can't wait to see it. The movie opens in theaters on November 12.
Academic competition in Korea is crazy fierce, and many parents feel their kids can get an edge in places like the United States, where they can become fluent in English—an extremely valuable factor for success in today's globalized economy.
I have witnessed this phenomenon myself. I come from an extremely large extended family, with many relatives coming from Korea over the years to study here and learn English. I have many memories of cousins struggling over their new American homework. I'm talking about you, Jejong and Hyunhee!
This is a really awful, horrifying story out of Australia... A Chinese student died and her boyfriend suffered serious injuries when they fell naked from their third-floor balcony in a desperate attempt to escape a knife-wielding rapist: Young Liao Wei killed for $200 after hour-long rape ordeal.
After following a female visitor into the building, the man forced four terrified apartment occupants to strip at knifepoint in their living room before holding them for an hour, repeatedly sexually assaulting two of them as the others were forced to watch. He then stole their money.
Then 18-year-old Liao "Elva" Wei and her boyfriend Tae Wook "Chris" Han made their decision to flee their captor by jumping off the balcony, falling 25m on to concrete. Liao died. Han landed feet first, shattering his legs, pelvis and suffering spinal injuries. What a nightmare. Sickening, humiliating and tragic. . All that, and the attacker apparently made off with less than $200. Police have described the attacker as 175cm tall, of solid build, with dark complexion. He was casually dressed, had short dark hair and aged in his 30s. This man needs to be caught and punished.
This is really last minute, but every little bit helps... I've partnered up with Blacklava again to produce a new t-shirt in support of Barack Obama. I threw the design together pretty quickly, but it's available for order now. Check it out: angry asians for obama.
Are you Angry? Are you Asian? Are you for Obama? Then this shirt is for you! Wear it with pride. There's also women's size shirt (note: the photo is temporary and doesn't exactly reflect what the shirt looks like, but you get the general idea). Rush order yours now to wear on Election Day.
If you're at UC Berkeley next week, be sure to check out the Asian Political Association's Rock the Vote!, a concert to encourage political activity amongst young Asian Americans. The event will feature performances from Julie Chow, Valerie Mih, Song of the Siren, Bento and Mud, as well as words from student leader, professors and political leaders. It's a rally, my friends.
It's all going down on the eve before Election Day, on Monday, November 3, 7:00pm at Heller Lounge, UC Berkeley's Multicultural Center. They'll be giving out free stuff. Like t-shirts. And everybody loves a free t-shirt. Come on out and show everybody that young Asian Americans can and will indeed rock the vote this Tuesday. For more information about the event, go here.
The New York Times recently ran an interview, conducted over email, with prolific entrepreneurial guru Guy Kawasaki, the bestselling author of seven books, a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures, the co-founder of Alltop.com, and a popular public speaker and blogger: The Care and Feeding of Entrepreneurs.
He's a really interesting guy with some pretty sound advice. I follow his blog from time to time. I'll always remember this post from a few years back outlining twelve tips on being an Effective Emailer. I receive a lot of email, and there are a lot of people out there who could benefit from reading that post. I'm just saying.
Maybe you've heard, but there's an election going on. Yeah, it's on the news and stuff. I'm asking you all, as friends and readers of this website, to vote. Vote your ass off. Need more convincing? My friends at Projekt NewSpeak have created this entertaining and informative short documentary on the importance of the Asian American vote: Power of the Swing Vote.
The piece features folks like Bobby Lee, Tia Carrere, Russell Peters, Jabbawockeez, Kaba Modern, Carrie Ann Inaba, Cheryl Burke, B.D. Wong, Rex Lee, Michelle Krusiec, Congressman Mike Honda, and more.
We've all heard that Asian Americans are among the least likely to vote. That sucks. That sucks. But as this video illustrates, Asian Americans can make a significant impact on a political race... just look at the now-infamous "macaca" incident. We helped take that racist fool George Allen down! And baby, we can do it again.
I recently heard from filmmaker/comic books scribe Greg Pak, a guy who I respect immensely as an artist, a thinker, and a generally cool guy. He's posted a few words on his site explaining why he's supporting Barack Obama for President: Why I'm voting for Barack Obama. Here's an excerpt:
In February 2008, Koream Magazine asked me for a statement about whom I supported for President. Here's what I submitted:
"Call me old fashioned, but I want a president who believes in the rule of law and Constitution of the United States. That means defending the Bill of Rights, restoring habeas corpus, rejecting the use of presidential signing statements as an unconstitutional line item veto, and repudiating torture, warrantless wiretaps, and wars of aggression. I give bonus points for rejecting anti-immigrant rhetoric and for confronting the challenges of poverty, global warming, the health care crisis, and the coming recession."
For all of the above reasons, I'm voting for Senator Barack Obama on November 4. But since I wrote those words, Senator Obama has further sealed the deal by...
... writing and delivering the most intelligent, honest, and moving speech about race in America that I've ever heard...
... running his campaign with a steady hand and inclusive vision that demonstrates a commitment to reaching out to Americans in every part of the country...
... winning all three Presidential debates by demonstrating a total command of the issues of the day and an abiding empathy for the struggles of the American people...
... presenting solutions for the financial crisis that include tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans and a common-sense health care plan that reaches out to those who desperately need help while leaving alone those whose current arrangements are already working...
... and dealing with outrageous and childish misrepresentations of his religion and political philosophy with good humor and measured firmness.
In short, Barack Obama has the temperament, strength, and vision to lead this diverse nation back towards prosperity while reaffirming our core values as embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
If you share our support for Obama and the future of this nation, please be sure to vote this Tuesday, November 4. And encourage all your friends and family to do the same. I've actually voted already. I sent my ballot in the mail yesterday. It felt good.
Asians Behaving Badly... knockoff Nike edition! This week in New Jersey, police busted four guys who were apparently trying to move 15,000 pairs of counterfeit Nike sneakers into a storage facility: 15,000 pairs of Nikes were counterfeit, cops say. That's a lot of fake shoes.
A police patrol came across Xian Liu, Hai Zhou, Xiao Chen and Quian Geng unloading a cargo container into a storage unit. Upon investigation, they discover lots and lots and lots of fake Nike brand sneakers in large boxes shipped from China. Police also seized $13,000 from Chen.
The estimated street value of the sneakers is about $1.4 million. My question is, what are they going to do with all the shoes after they no longer need them for evidence? Don't be surprised if a few pairs go missing from evidence room. After all, Christmas is just around the corner.
Did you see Wayne Wang's The Princess of Nebraska? It online, streaming free at YouTube's Screening Room. That's right. Free! A full feature length from a legitimate veteran director. Free: A YouTube Opening for Wayne Wang's New Film. You can also probably catch its companion film A Thousand Years of Good Prayers playing in limited release... um, somewhere in America.
TIME's Ling Liu has 10 Questions for Wayne Wang. The questions were all submitted by online users. It's short, but there are some really interesting tidbits of insight in there about his background, his career and his intentions as a filmmaker. You can also download and listen to Ling's more in-depth podcast interview with Wayne here.
Who is this woman? Does anyone out there know her or recognize her? Who is this random Asian woman supporter who popped up in tonight's prime time Barack Obama infomercial? Oh, it may have been just a split second, but I saw her. It's what I do. Watch it here, at the 25:44 mark: American Stories, American Solutions.
Alas. It would have been nice if the Obama campaign, in its portrait of regular, everyday America, had chosen to include more Asian Americans somewhere in there. The commercial was just under half an hour long, and while inspirational, was almost devoid of Asian faces... except this woman. Who are you? Step forward and be recognized!
Attention, Asian American filmmakers. The Northwest Asian American Film Festival in Seattle is now accepting entries for next year's festival, happening February 26-March 1, 2009. Mark your calendars. Short, experimental, documentary, narrative—they want it all. Details below:
Call for Entries
Northwest Asian American Film Festival is now accepting entries for films on subjects related to the Asian Pacific American experience. Along with screenings of curated and selected works from the Pacific Northwest and North America, the four-day film festival will offer a variety of social events and programs relating to Asian American media.
Submission Format: DVD or URL link (to YouTube, Google Video etc.) Genres: Short; Experimental; Documentary; Narrative Screening Format: 35mm; 16mm; mini DV; DVD Deadline: December 5, 2008
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMISSION:
1) Complete and send the entry form to NWAAFF 2009 (form is available on our web site www.nwaaff.org)
By email to info@nwaaff.org
By mail to 1463 E. Republican St. #106, Seattle, WA 98112
2) Send your film to NWAAFF 2009:
DVD sent by mail to NWAAFF, 1463 E. Republican St. #106, Seattle, WA 98112. Please indicate the film's title and contact information on the tape/disc. OR
As a URL where your film can be viewed online (e.g. YouTube, Google Video, etc.).
Please do not include additional promotional materials.
DEADLINES: Mailed entries must be postmarked and electronic entries must be sent no later than December 5, 2008. Receipt of entries will be confirmed via email. Final selections will be announced in late December/early January.
ENTRY FEE: There is no entry fee for this year's festival.
Questions? Email info@nwaaff.org
For more information about the festival and how to submit your film, visit the NWAAFF website here. You can also check out the festival's MySpace page here and Facebook page here. The submission deadline is December 5.
The New York Times has an interesting story on Johnny Chung Lee, who became the web's most famous innovator when his instructional Wiimote/Desktop VR Display YouTube video became an online sensation: If No One Sees It, Is It an Invention?
Posted last September, the five-minute video showed how, in a few easy steps, the Nintendo Wii remote controller could transform a normal video screen into an eye-popping virtual reality display. So far, the video has been viewed more than six million times.
The video turned him into something of a geek celebrity. Video game companies have contacted him, and in September, M.I.T.'s Technology Review named him as one of its top innovators under 35. He was eventually recruited to work in the applied sciences group of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division.
That's the power of YouTube, baby. He could've kept the idea to himself. Or maybe posted instructions for his invention on a Wii mod or hobby site. Instead, he posts it on YouTube and the whole world gets a share of his idea, as well as all his other do-it-yourself innovations. That's awesome.
You can view the video that started it all here: Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote. And watch the rest of Johnny Chung Lee's instructional videos here. Watch the video, and it immediately becomes clear that this guy is a badass.
This is an actual fast food chain restaurant spotted by a sharp-eyed reader during a recent trip to Mexico. Come on down to Ensenada and eat at La Cochinita Japanese Food Factory, where their logo is a slant-eyed, spectacled, buck-toothed, um, red sun... or something. I think somebody has seen Breakfast at Tiffany's a few too many times. That's racist! (Thanks, Darius.)
Here's one fellow Asian American, Dr. Samuel Lin—a longtime Republican who served as Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush—on why he is voting in this election for Barack Obama for President:
Samuel Lin, MD, PhD, MBA, MPA, MS Rear Admiral and Assistant Surgeon General (Retired), USPHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (Retired), USDHHS
As a longtime Asian American Republican, it is after careful deliberation that I have made my decision to support Senator Barack Obama for President.
It was not easy to separate from my party's nominee for president. Nor is it an easy decision for me, as I have had the great honor of serving in appointed senior positions under two Republican presidents: Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. But I have concluded that it is necessary for me to openly state my support for the Presidential candidate of the opposing party.
I have become very dissatisfied and distrustful of our reigning national Republican leadership these past eight years because of its continued missteps. Having retired from Federal service after twenty years, I have some idea of what makes a good leader of the Federal Executive Branch. And for a time, beginning at the age of 36, I was the most senior-ranked Asian Pacific American career official in the Executive Branch. But today, my hope for a better America cannot be predicated simply on blind party loyalty to support either a status quo or a very bad parody.
Over the past eight years, very experienced senior persons in this administration have allowed us to fall into an economic morass, partly due to the home mortgage debacle and partly due to the incredulous expenditures for a mistaken war in Iraq. This war, as we finally learned, was declared for causes misled, misdirected and misguided by my Republican leadership who misread Iraq's people and politics and who now have misshackled America with an unnecessary legacy of nearly 5000 lost lives of her next greatest generation. And let's not forget the thousands of young Americans who will now live permanently disabled because of these needless battlefields. So, missteps and mistakes have lead me to conclude, "Enough, I want real change."
I want a president who is truly committed to the good of this country. And that is one who shows this commitment through the selection of his best qualified successor in the event of his demise or incapacitation. I cannot believe one has the welfare of the country in mind by selecting anyone less than this highest standard. Of the two potential successor nominees, "best qualified" goes hands down to Senator Joe Biden.
I want a president who seeks my vote by telling how he will equitably approach and creatively solve domestic and international problems and how America will regain her esteem in the world. On the other hand, I abhor a candidate who tries to gain my vote by constantly bashing the other candidate and perhaps even unconsciously plies subliminal denigrations of race or persona. Senator Obama is the epitome of the smart thinker and the diplomatic gentleman.
I want someone who looks presidential, acts presidential, thinks presidentially, speaks presidentially and leads presidentially. The rest of THE job will follow through because of this kind of a person and the quality of the people he draws upon as his counsel. Senator Obama again wins all around here.
I want a president who believes primary healthcare is a fundamental right for all persons and seeks to meet the healthcare needs of all Americans, including the 47 million uninsured persons. I want a president who believes those with pre-existing health conditions should be treated equitably in their health coverage and not penalized for their God-given challenges. I want a president who understands that employees are the lifeblood of small businesses and will ensure their health-based tax benefits, including catastrophic coverage.
I want a president who is committed to public and preventive health services, to improving access and quality care and to promoting electronic medical records and electronic prescribing as means to saving lives early, to reducing healthcare costs, to reducing medical errors and to raising the quality of life and well-being for all Americans. I want a president who believes that comprehensive family planning programs reduce unwanted pregnancies and controversial sequelae. Senator Obama believes these matters are at the heart of advancing healthcare for all and has committed to transforming these ideas into realities for all Americans.
Lastly, I want a president whose accomplishments and the respect of colleagues are premised upon a consistency of person and temper, a consideration of community totality, a cooperative reflex to negotiate first, a compromise in procedure but not principle and, always, a clarity of mind, vision and speech. Senator Obama has all these attributes.
I say, give America a President who unequivocally emulates these qualities and this country will come together and will work together with him. I challenge you – Republican, Democrat or Independent - to quietly search your heart and see to whom you would entrust the lifeblood of this country. I have searched my heart and find it more trusting of Senator Barack Obama.
God Bless America.
Samuel Lin Washington, D.C. October 2008
Wise words from an individual who was once, at a time, the most senior-ranked Asian Pacific American career official in the Executive Branch of the United States. Now here he is, coming over to the other side, as is well-known conservative Francis Fukuyama. Join us. This Tuesday, November 4, vote for change that's not just a slogan.
We recently learned that the Republican National Committee spent a ridiculous $150,000 on clothes for Sarah Palin. Whoa. That's a six-figure budget—from public campaign money—to clothe and accessorize the Republican vice presidential nominee and her family. But hey, whatever. The woman's got to look good, even if it costs the RNC the price of a Porsche. Just don't tell that to her pal Joe Sixpack as the bank forecloses on his house.
By the way, how much is that red leather jacket she's been recently rocking? That's straight-up Michael Jackson Thriller-era, and I love it.
Honestly though, how much clothing and accessories does $150,000 actually get you? What does it take to be a fashionable vice presidential candidate? To find out, Slate writer Nina Shen Rastogi (who happens to be an old friend from my high school days), took a virtual shopping trip to Saks Fifth Avenue to put together a $150,000 Palin-esque fantasy wardrobe: My Saks Shopping Spree.
Nina's shopping trip got her featured last week on NPR's Day to Day: Who Requested Sarah Palin's $150,000 Makeover? The verdict? $150,000 buys you a lot of nice shit, but it's apparently much harder to spend than you think. That money buys you a lot of blazers. Of course, I doubt it was Governor Palin doing any of the actual shopping. At least, I really hope it wasn't...
Thought this was pretty amusing... You say you've never dated an Asian guy before? Well here's one Asian guy, Timothy DeLaGhetto, telling you about all the fine things you're missing out on: "First Asian Boy". To the tune of that Estelle/ Kanye track. Sure, it's a little silly, and it looks like they shot it in somebody's garage, but I've got to admit, it made me smile. I like the verse about pho. (Thanks, Taz.)
Several friends sent me this link to yellow apparel: when the coolie becomes cool, a student documentary project by Anmol Chaddha, Naomi Iwasaki, Sonya Zehra Mehta, Muang Saechao and Sheng Wang examining the cultural commodification/ appropriation of Asian items in the context of social position and historical experiences of Asian Americans. Think Madonna's "Nothing Really Matters" video and Gwen Stefani's whole Harajuku obsession.
This film was actually put together way back in 2001, but was only recently digitized and uploaded to YouTube. It was originally created for a class project, shot on Hi-8, and was never really intended to be shown elsewhere, but ended up screening at a handful of film festivals. Here's the synopsis:
In examining the recent trendiness of Asian cultural elements, such as bindis, Buddhist beads, and Chinese character tattoos, 'yellow apparel: when the coolie becomes cool' (2000) asks whether this commodification of Asian culture signals the acceptance of Asian Americans into the cultural fabric of America.
Produced by a group of undergraduates at UC-Berkeley, the video forces the viewer to consider the contradictions between the current fashionability of Asian symbols and the history of oppression suffered by Asian Americans. For example, what does it mean that many white folks like to dress up as Asians while, at the same time, scientist Wen Ho Lee is systematically mistreated because of his Asian appearance?
Combining commentary and spoken word poetry, 'yellow apparel' presents the material with humor, pride, and passion.
The documentary also draws connections between these issues as they concern Asian Americans and the ways in which Black culture is appropriated while Black communities are marginalized throughout society. While explaining the appropriation of an exotic Asia as an attempt to fill the void created by a bureaucratized suburban lifestyle in America, 'yellow apparel' does not attempt to provide a clear-cut solution but rather a critical and informed examination of the commodification of Asian culture.
I've never seen this before. I'd never heard of it. It's kind of rough, and drags in a lot of spots. But it's a pretty interesting look at a lot of different issues that have never really gone away, and are still really relevant today. In fact, there have been quite a few incidents and flare-ups (as well as victories) that have happened in the last seven years that easily could've been included in this documentary. (The Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt debacle immediately comes to mind.) Take a look, and learn a thing or two.
I just heard from Sonny Lee, a writer on the FX sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which, by the way, is freaking hilarious), who tells me that he and his writing partner Patrick Walsh just sold their sitcom pilot Broke Friends to Fox.
According to Variety, the project came to the network after a competitive bidding situation with NBC. The show centers on an innocent Midwestern kid who relocates to New York, where he moves in with two scam artists. The show will be directed and executive produced by Luke Greenfield, whose credits include directing the critically acclaimed pilot Aliens in America.
I was happy to hear about Sonny getting the It's Always Sunny gig, and even happier now to hear about this. Very cool to see Asian Americans making strides both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. Check out Sonny's blog here.
This is a brief, but really moving video of John Cho voicing his concern and speaking out against Proposition 8 during a press conference last week at the Democracy Forum in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles: No on Proposition 8 John Cho - Actor, Young Father. More videos of others speaking out on the issue, including George Takei and other California state politicians, here.
I'm a little late posting about this, because I actually didn't hear about it until recently... I read over on the Asian Americans for Obama blog that last week, a Barack Obama volunteer, 58-year-old Nancy Takehara of Chicago, was physically assaulted by a homeowner while canvassing in Caledonia, Wisconsin: Obama campaign worker allegedly assaulted at Caledonia home.
According the Takehara, the man grabbed her by the back of her neck, pounded on her head and screamed at her, yelling things about ACORN and not being "his people." What the hell? We're talking about a 58-year-old woman! Fortunately, she wasn't seriously injured: Obama Campaign Worker Allegedly Attacked.
The attacker has been identified as 71-year-old Ronald Goetsch, a McCain supporter and Marine veteran who has donated to the McCain campaign. He admits that he did in fact attack Takehara: Caledonia man says he regrets his actions with Obama canvasser.
Why is this man not in jail? As of last week, police were saying their report on the incident would be forwarded to the Racine County District Attorney's office when it was complete. It's getting ugly. It's gotten ugly. It's been a long road, and man, I cannot wait for next Tuesday to finally get here.
UPDATE: It should be noted that the woman who was attacked, Nancy Takehara, is actually not Asian American herself—she's a Caucasian, and married to a Japanese American man. This, of course, does not make Goetsch's actions any more or less despicable.
As someone who watches a fair amount of the Food Network, I found this video kind of amusing, though also kind of annoying. It does ask a rather interesting question: Where are Food Network's Asian Girls and Boys?
Seriously, what gives? There's an awful lot programming about different Asian dishes and cuisines... and yet there's rarely an Asian face on the actual programming. They seem to love Asian cooking... as long as it's prepared by Caucasians. Come on! At least give us some Ming Tsai!
This is an amazing, powerful piece by Jeannie Choi on the Sojourners blog, about a brief but shocking, racist encounter she recently had with a stranger on the street: Letter to the Man Who Yelled at Me. I just think it's really well-written, so I'm reprinting it here:
Letter to the Man Who Yelled at Me by Jeannie Choi
Dear Sir,
I am writing you this letter after much internal debate to inform you of the many realizations that erupted within me after our very brief encounter yesterday. I am writing you this letter because there is a lot I have to say to you. I am writing you this letter because after a great deal of thought, I've decided that you might like to know what you did, what I should have done, and what I hope can happen between you and me in the future.
First, what you did. Yesterday, as I was walking down Columbia Road, you saw me from a distance. I did not see you, because I was on the phone. But you certainly saw me. You saw me in my summer dress, walking quickly because I was late for dinner with my cousins, chattering away on my cell phone, laughing at something my friend said. You saw me. You saw my black hair, my sloped forehead, brown eyes, and undoubtedly in your mind you thought something along the lines of chink, gook, oriental, Chinese chick who doesn't speak English. And for some reason, for a reason that I can't understand, you proceeded to get right in my face and yell at me. And if you can't remember what it is you yelled—Well, I do and I probably will forever:"Ching chong ching chong f***ing CHINK!"
Maybe I should introduce myself. I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1982. I have since lived in Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, and now Washington DC, where you also live. I studied English literature and professional writing in college. I have a graduate degree in church history. I am an editor at a magazine. I am not a good drinker and have been known to pass out after one midori sour. I like to play racquet sports. I have a younger sister. My grandfather died of pancreatic cancer when I was a freshman in college. My dad and I cried on the phone together for the first time when he told me granddad was gone, and I cry every time I think of him to this day, seven years later. I like to listen to Talib Kweli, Bon Iver, and Ella Fitzgerald. I love love love steak. I am miserable at mental math. I'm a dog person, though I live with seven cats. I believe there's nothing more comforting than nestling a steaming cup of hazelnut dark roast between your clasped hands.
All of these things, I wish you knew. I wish you knew me. I wish we were friends. I wish I had turned around, instead of walking away, walking faster, tears of fury streaming down my face. I wish I had run and caught up with you so I could have introduced myself in person and told you my story, and heard your own. I wish we could have apologized to each other. For one, I am sorry that my people have cordoned ourselves off into a cushy upper-middle class existence. I am sorry not enough of us, my Asian brothers and sisters and me, care to interact with people from other backgrounds. I'm sorry that we stay in our safe, Asian American Christian fellowship groups on campuses. I'm sorry that we carry generations of racism in our bones. I'm sorry that once we enter professional life, we ignore the travails of those minorities not as fortunate as ourselves. I'm sorry that sometimes I forget that I am a minority. I'm sorry that our people have never really met or fellowshipped together. It's a damn shame too, because I'm sure we could get along if we just stopped to say hello.
I'm sorry that in the year 2008, you still haven't met me, and by me, I mean, the archetypal me. You have never met me, an Asian American who speaks English as her first language. As a result, you felt as though you could mock me and get away with it. And to a certain extent you did. But the truth is, I realized that it's partly my fault that you had never met me because I kept myself in a safe bubble and stayed comfortable in my element. I am sorry for that. I'm so sorry.
Finally, I write to make you a pledge. I pledge to introduce myself to you. I pledge to immerse myself in my community … in this neighborhood of Columbia Heights, where blacks, latinos, whites, and Asians run into one another on the streets, at the grocery store, in restaurants. What you did yesterday made me realize that the only way for you to know better is for you to know me. So I hope we meet. I hope we become friends. I look forward to it.
Sincerely yours,
Jeannie
I think she speaks for a lot of us who have been through similar situations—"Ching chong ching chong f***ing CHINK!"—and have had it haunt us, without ever having the chance to confront the haters. I can count off a number of racist encounters in my life when I've felt helpless, and wished I could go back and tell off and/or inflict violence on the perpetrators. But what Jeannie has written here is done with such grace and eloquence, it's truly inspiring.
After four years in the making, Bay Area singer/songwriter Goh Nakamura recently released his second album Ulysses. I've listened to it, and you should too. It's great stuff. Goh's trying to get the word out about the album, and has issued this call to arms:
Ulysses: A Call To Arms
Dear Friends,
After four years in the making, my second album, Ulysses, has officially launched!
Whereas Daylight Savings, my first album, was written and recorded in solitude, Ulysses is a reaction to that; a celebration and collaboration with artists and people whom I've had the good fortune to meet through the first album.
The call to arms here is helping me cross the toughest threshold; getting my music out to the masses. As an independent musician, this is the bafflingly difficult part, and it's nearly impossible to do alone. For that reason, I'm writing today to ask for your help. After much deliberation, I've decided to release this album as a free download.
p.s. As a companion piece to my album, I've curated a mix of songs from some of my favorite musicians that you'll get with every download. In addition to wishing that the songs on Ulysses find a welcoming home, my hope is that you discover something new along with the new album that you might enjoy equally well.
Did you read that? Free. The entire album is available as a free download. The idea is, you'll like it so much, you'll be compelled to purchase the full package (which, b the way, is really nice), but more importantly, tell everybody about it.
What's also cool is that Goh is partnering with sixteen of his favorite bands, who are also helping to promote the release. With every download of Ulysses, you'll receive a bonus track from each of these artists, including Odessa Chen, The Invisible Cities, Scrabble, Michelle Amador and more. That's a lot of freaking good music. Get started by downloading Ulysseshere.
For those of you in Southern California, here's information about a special screening happening this week at the University of Southern California. My pal Sumi informs me that they'll be screening and discussing Valarie Kaur's Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath this Tuesday, October 28, 6:00pm in Taper Hall 101 at USC.
The documentary follows Kaur's journey across America to tell the stories of hate violence against Sikhs and Muslims in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, confronting the forces unleashed in a time of national crisis and examining the larger question of "who counts" as American.
Valarie Kaur will be present for a Q&A after the screening. The event is free and open to the public. For more information about the screening, refer to the flyer above, or go here. For more information about the Divided We Fall, including upcoming screenings, visit the film's website here.
On Friday, I posted about the strong support for John McCain in the Vietnamese American community. That's not to suggest that there aren't also vocal Vietnamese American voters out there for Barack Obama. In fact, many young Vietnamese Americans are apparently abandoning the Republican Party in droves: Young Vietnamese-Americans turn away from GOP.
According to a San Jose Mercury News computer analysis of nearly 30,000 new Santa Clara County voters, Vietnamese Americans age 30 and under are registering Democratic over Republican nearly 4 to 1. (The analysis was done by plugging Vietnamese surnames into a database.) And they're voting for Obama.
Unlike many in the previous generation—emigres from war-torn Vietnam—who believe Democrats are too soft on communism and weak on defense, this new generation of young Vietnamese American voters aren't quite as quick to be buddies with John McCain. Yes, my friends. Come over to our side.
While I'm at it, here's yet another article on the impact of changing Asian American voting patterns in this election: Growing Asian-American vote sheds passive past. It's time to stand up and be counted, Asian America. Power in numbers.
Iwamura was a power-hitting third baseman in Japan, but he has adjusted his game and become a slap-hitting second baseman for the Rays. This season, he hit .274 and led the team with 172 hits and 91 runs.
His post-season performance has been decent... except for Game 3 on Saturday, with no hits and no runs scored and strikeouts in several critical at-bats . The Phillies won, 5-4, grabbing a 2-1 lead in the series.
On a side note, Iwamura is apparently obsessed with the number 1. In addition to wearing the number on his jersey, he has a silver chain with a one around his neck. And when he started training for the 2007 season, he began in Japan on January 11 at precisely 11:11:11 am. Weird.
This is for my people in Chicago... Heads up. The 5th annual Chicago Filipino American Film Festival is happening next week, November 7-9 at the Portage Theater. It's a celebration of Filipinos in film and media! Good times. Here are some details:
The Chicago Filipino American Film Festival's 5th Annual event is around the corner!
WHEN: November 7th to 9th, 2008 WHERE: Portage Theater - 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60641
Please mark your calendars and continue to check the website for further information - www.cfaff.org.
This year's Film Festival line-up is as follows:
Friday 6:30 pm - CFAFF 5th Anniversary Reception (Open to Public) 8:00 pm - Opening Night Presentation SANTA MESA 10:30 pm - Music video awards, with performances by BAGWIS and Paolo Escobar & the Prescription
Saturday 1:00 pm - THAT ASIAN THING (documentary, with panel discussion) 3:30 pm - SANTA MESA 6:00 pm - FLOAT 8:30 pm - BROWN SOUP THING
Sunday 1:00 pm - JACK en JILL (Dolphy's 1954 classic) 4:00 pm - Short film program 7:00 pm - NEO LOUNGE (2008 CineManila award-winning documentary)
Here's the cool part.. thanks to the festival's generous sponsors, the festival is providing free day passes to students and seniors. But advanced registration is required. For more information about the festival, go here.
Saw this over at the Asian American for Obama website... Check out this cool video by Brian Redondo and Corinne Manabat: The Reminder. It's a call out to the hip hop generation, young people of color and the Filipino American community to stand up and take part in one of the most important moments of our generation. Cool video, hot track, important message. Recognize your right to push back. Vote!
The New York Times has a cool feature on author Henry Chang and his new novel Year of the Dog, the second book in his Detective Jack Yu series (the follow-up to 2006's Chinatown Beat) set in NYC's Chinatown: Murder on Mott Street. The book will be out in stores on November 1.
Chang has apparently been called "the Dashiell Hammett of Chinatown," which is a pretty cool comparison, though the author says his books are less conventional mysteries than studies in Chinese American culture. I'm a fan of both crime fiction and Asian American literature, so I'm looking forward to reading this either way.
I'd love to see more Asian American detective novels out there (Leonard Chang's Over the Shoulder and Naomi Hirahara's Summer of the Big Bachi come to mind) and a story set in New York's Chinatown sounds rife with possibilities. Certainly beats the hell out of Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto, right?
Entertainment Weekly's review of Year of the Dog describes it as "a richly atmospheric panorama of New York's immigrant demimonde" and "an Asian-flavored The Wire"—a huge compliment, in my book. For more information, visit the publishers website here.
The Korean American Film Festival New York, back for its third year, is currently accepting entries for its 2009 festival. The festival is a one-day New York showcase of works by emerging and established Korean filmmakers and performers. In previous years, they've screen films like Benson Lee's Planet B-Boy and Juwan Chung's Baby. Interested in submitting your film? Read on:
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
We are now accepting short film submissions from filmmakers / performers of ethnic Korean descent, of any nationality. We welcome all genres: narrative, animation, music video, documentary, experimental etc.
There is no entry fee. The submission deadline is November 30. Please send DVD submissions, NTSC Region 0 or 1, to the address below:
KAFFNY c/o Barrel 23 W 36th Street, Suite 401 New York, NY 10018
For other inquires, email kaffny@gmail.com. Also, visit us at www.kaffny.com.
KAFFNY is co-sponsored by New York University Tisch School of the Arts and The Korea Times.
The festival is scheduled for February 2009. It looks like they're really emphasizing a desire for works from across the Korean diaspora, throughout all parts of the world. For more information, I'd point you to the KAFFNY website, but there doesn't appear to be anything there at the moment. So... um, keeping checking back. And submit your film!
Thought this was kind of weird... Earlier this week, authorities arrested 61 members of the Mongols biker gang on federal racketeering charges. The crackdown was part of a multi-agency investigation involving more than a thousand federal agents and police in Southern California, Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Washington and Ohio: Raid targets Mongols motorcycle gang.
In addition to racketeering, the Mongols are charged with committing violent crimes—including murder—drug trafficking, weapons offenses and money laundering. They used guns, knives, brass knuckles, lead pipes and steel-toed boots to impose their will, often on such rivals as the Hells Angels, but also on unsuspecting members of the public who happened to cross their paths.
The interesting part is that the U.S. Attorney is seeking to take control of the Mongols' name, which the gang has apparently trademarked, through a restraining order barring them from wearing it. Essentially, the move is meant to be a blow to the organization's identity, and thus, its criminal power.
Oddly enough, this bust actually has little to do with Asians... I mention it here mainly because of the organization's name. Dude, they're called the Mongols. And they rock a rather racist caricature ("a pony-tailed, Genghis Khan-like figure riding a chopper") as their logo. However, according to the story, the gang is mostly made up of Latinos. I just found that kind of interesting.
The trailer for Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino hit the web today. We first heard about this project earlier in the year when they were casting for the movie, and it looks like it's actually shaped up to be a halfway decent movie. Here's a recent USA Today article previewing the movie: First look: Eastwood puts his scowl in high gear for 'Gran Torino'.
Eastwood stars as a grouchy, racist Korean War vet who reluctantly befriends the Hmong family next door, and ends up in a fight to protect the neighborhood from a vicious street gang. Here's the official synopsis:
Walt Kowalski is a widower, grumpy, tough-minded, borderline-hateful, unhappy old man who can't get along with either his kids or his neighbors, a Korean War veteran whose prize possession is a 1973 Gran Torino he keeps in cherry condition. When his neighbor Tao, a young Hmong teenager, tries to steal his Gran Torino, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth. Drawn against his will into the life of Tao's family, Kowalski is soon taking steps to protect them from the gangs that foul their neighborhood.
Watch the trailer here. Like I said before, I'm generally a fan of Clint Eastwood's movies, but I'm just a little wary of the whole white-dude-saving-the-Asians thing. And based on the trailer, there seems to be a lot of that. But I'm all for interesting, three-dimensional Hmong American characters—something you rarely see in Hollywood movies.
I'll admit I'm intrigued, and I'm willing to give Eastwood, both as a director and an actor, the benefit of the doubt. He is, after all, the guy had the guts to make a really interesting, complex and sympathetic movies about the Battle for Iwo Jima... from both the American and Japanese perspectives. And dude, is it just me, or does Clint Eastwood look more badass than ever at age 78?
My personal disdain for John McCain is no secret. I cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone who would deem it appropriate to refer to someone as a "gook," in any context —especially as a candidate running for President of the United States. But the article does illuminate some of reasons why the Senator is such a compelling choice for so many Vietnamese voters.
For one thing, many Vietnamese Americans are drawn to McCain's support of Vietnamese refugees. As a senator, McCain led efforts to pass legislation in 1996 that would allow the children of Vietnamese political prisoners to reunite with parents who'd already been allowed to immigrate to the U.S. That's a big one.
And of course, there's McCain's harrowing experience as a P.O.W. and the torture he endured as a captive Navy pilot during the Vietnam War. Many of his supporters served in the South Vietnamese military and went through similar suffering at the hands of the North Vietnamese. A staunch anti-communist sentiment still runs deep in the Vietnamese community, and McCain's war record is a stamp of credibility.
Like I said, I can't agree with this, but then again, I'm coming from a completely different perspective. There are obviously Asian Americans who are extremely passionate about John McCain for President, and this is where we'll have to agree to disagree. At this point, we have to show that the Asian American community will come out in full force to vote on November 4. Vote!
For those of you in Los Angeles, check out this interesting event happening this weekend at the Japanese American National Museum. JANM presents a public program on Japanese Latin Americans who were kidnapped from Peru and held by the United States in Texas during World War II. Here are the event details:
Redress Remembered: WWII Rendition of Japanese Latin Americans
*Saturday, October 25, 2008 2-4pm followed by a light reception*
During WWII, over 2200 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were kidnapped from 13 Latin American countries and interned in Department of Justice camps and Army facilities in the U.S. for the purpose of hostage exchange. Learn more about what they endured during WWII, their ongoing redress struggle to hold the U.S. government accountable for war crimes, and lessons for present day challenges.
*FREE! RSVP required to 213.625.0414 ext. 2222, or rsvp@janm.org (subject: JLA Redress).*
Japanese American National Museum 369 East First Street Los Angeles, CA 90012
We all know about the Japanese American internment. But not too many are aware of what happened to Japanese Latin Americans during World War II... and what happened to them was ridiculous. Learn more at the event this Saturday in Little Tokyo. (There will be free food provided by local Peruvian restaurants!) For more information, follow the link here.
Citing the constitutional protections against being tried twice for the same crime, a federal judge ruled this week that 1st Lt. Ehren Watada cannot face a second court martial on three of five counts resulting from his refusal to deploy to Iraq in 2006: Watada won't be retried on 3 of 5 counts.
However, the ruling does leave open the possibility of a second prosecution on two other counts involving conduct unbecoming an officer. The judge abstained from ruling on the constitutionality of these charges, saying it was up to a military court to consider the possible "constitutional defects" of a second court-martial.
The Army had sought a second court-martial trial on the five counts against Watada, which could have carried a sentence of up to six years in prison. We'll have to see if the Army chooses to dismiss the remaining two charges.
Unfortunately, the ruling keeps Watada, who has been assigned to a desk job since his refusal to deploy, in kind of legal limbo. He's still not going anywhere. More on the ruling here: Judge rules for officer who refused Iraq duty.
Ohhhhh man. This promo for the fifth season of Lost just popped up on the web. Gaaaaah. After that last crazy season-ender, the wait is killing me. Will we see a more badass Sun? Will we ever see Jin again? (Yes.) And where the hell did the island go? Man, 2009 can't come fast enough. We want answers!
This week in New York, eleven members of the Banya Organization, a powerful Asian organized crime gang, were arrested by a task force of FBI, NYPD, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators on federal racketeering charges: Feds Bust Alleged Asian Organized Crime Ring.
According to prosecutors, the ten-count indictment charged 13 members of the gang with extortion, kidnaping, running an illegal gambling business and narcotic distribution. The gang is also accused of trafficking in ketamine, a horse tranquilizer and hallucinogen known as the club drug "Special K."
The Banya Organization, which apparently raked in at least $10 million in illegal profits, is based in Chinatown in Manhattan and Flushing, but operates throughout the city. Members of the organization originally came from the Banya Village in the Fuchow region of China. More on the bust here: FEDS' KUNG POW!
I heard from Grace Chu today, who points to this very interesting piece of news over at 8Asians... A couple of days ago, Grace and seven of her lesbian blogger friends launched the 8 Against 8 campaign, with the goal to raise $8,000 in eight days to help defeat Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that seeks to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.
So what happened? Some crazy-ass donating, baby. Donations started rolling in by the thousands of dollars per day. Within 8 hours, they had raised $2,000. In 2 days, $4,000. And less than three full days into the campaign, the eight bloggers against Prop 8 reached their initial goal of $8,000.
Read all about it here, and on Grace's blog here. They've reached their goal, but they're not stopping there. They're going for the full eight days, raising money through Monday, October 27. Donations can be made at 8against8.com. All donations made through "8 Against 8" go directly to Equality California's No on Prop 8 campaign.
Bay Area, represent! For my people in the South Bay, check out CATS - Contemporary Asian Theater Scene's 8th Annual Asian Comedy Night this Saturday, October 25 for two shows—at 7:00pm and 9:00pm—at Le Petit Trianon Theater in San Jose. Yes, friends. Asian Americans can be quite funny.
Headlining the show is Kevin Shea of the Kims of Comedy tour, who is freaking hilarious; the evening also features up-and-coming comics Hasan Minhaj, a former Mr. India California who won Wild 94.9 FM Comedy Jam's Best New Comic Competition, and Joe Nguyen, making a local mark with his unique blend of "Jewish-Vietnamese" humor.
Tickets are $20: general, $30: VIP seating, $40: on-stage seating. To purchase tickets, go to brownpapertickets.com or call 1-800-838-3006. You can also get a discount on groups of 10 or more. For more information about the event, go here.
It's one crazy man's battle for his pants. The infamous Roy Pearson was back in court this week, trying to revive his ridiculous $54 million lawsuit against the Chungs, the owners of Custom Cleaners, over an allegedly lost pair of pants: Ex-Judge Back in Court Over His Truant Trousers.
This guy just won't quit. He continues to make a fool out of himself and the legal system, and torment this hard-working family that has had to deal with the nonsense for the last three years. Recycling the same legal arguments he's presented before, Pearson appeared before a packed courtroom of curious onlookers.
The entire case mainly hinges on Pearson's interpretation that a "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign hanging inside the cleaners meant that he was entitled to the money. Pearson, you're not entitled to shit. And even if that were true, can anyone honestly justify $54 million for your Hickey Freeman brand trousers?
Christopher Manning, the attorney for the Chungs, again challenged the notion that Custom Cleaners ever even lost Pearson's pants, saying the store has offered him the pants time and again. But Pearson says the pants aren't his. Pearson is also a loser. More here: The Pants Watch Never Stops.
The appeals court, the District's highest, must consider all appeals of D.C. Superior Court decisions. The judges are expected to return a decision in two to four months. Depending on the outcome, either side could ask the entire nine-judge appellate court to review the case. And then, the parties could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in. Good Lord, let's hope it doesn't go that far.
My man Jerry Chan's kickass short film DJ:LA is trying to get into Slamdance (the other Park City, Utah film festival), and needs your online votes. You can view and vote for the film here. You can vote until the end of this month.
The film with the most votes at the end of the month will move on to compete at the end of the year against all other monthly winners. If he wins, he'll get to screen the film at Slamdance. And that would be very cool. Vote for DJ:LA!
Aw man. Man! After all the hope and hype, it looks like Kim Ng will not be the Seattle Mariners' new general manager. On Wednesday, Jack Zduriencik was named the team's new GM: M's hire Brewers' Jack Zduriencik as GM.
Who the heck is Jack Zduriencik? And how the hell do you pronounce his name? Zduriencik has been with the Milwaukee Brewers organization for nine years, most recently serving as their vice president and spec.... zzzzzz.
Sorry. I've lost interest. My level of curiosity concerning upper management hiring in Major League Baseball just took a massive nosedive. I guess we'll have to wait a little longer to see baseball's first female, Asian American general manager.
Here's another article, from Salon.com, on Maya Soetoro-Ng—Senator Barack Obama's sister, who happens to be Asian American: Tea with Barack Obama's sister. It's a pretty good interview. Maya, as you probably know by now, is half-Indonesian. She and Barack were both raised by the same mother and grandparents.
It's funny. Maya admits that, like so many of us, the first time she began to seriously consider the possibly of her brother becoming President of the United States was after he made that now-famous speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. That was definitely a huge turning point in his career.
I don't know about you, but from day one I've been excited about the prospect of a President who has Asian Americans so prominently part of his background and heritage (among many other qualifications, of course). Let's keep fighting the good fight towards November 4th and beyond...
This Japanese poster for the upcoming Street Fighter movie recently popped on the web. We get a soft-focus glimpse of Kristin Kreuk donning the signature blue high-collar outfit. Based on the popular video game with about a zillion characters, this movie is obviously focusing on Chun-Li. When in doubt, Hollywood always goes with the hot Asian girl, I guess.
While I'm mildly curious about it, I have a pretty strong feeling that this is movie, directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, is going to be fairly disastrous. View the Japanese website (with nothing currently on it) here. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li is scheduled to open in theaters in February 2009.
Whoa. Looks like it's time for Saigon Grill to pay up. A federal judge has awarded $4.6 million in back pay and damages to 36 delivery workers at two Saigon Grill restaurants in Manhattan, finding blatant and systematic violations of minimum wage and overtime laws: For $2-an-Hour Restaurant Deliverymen, a $4.6 Million Judgment.
In a decision dated Monday and released on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Michael H. Dolinger of United States District Court in Manhattan found violations of federal and state wage laws in awarding up to $328,000 to some of the deliverymen. On issue after issue, Judge Dolinger ruled against Saigon Grill and its owners, Simon and Michelle Nget, saying they paid $520 a month to many deliverymen who worked more than 260 hours each month. This meant their pay came to less than $2 an hour, far less than the federal and state minimum wage.
Two bucks an hour! That's downright criminal. The deliverymen, all immigrants from Fujian Province in China, testified that they were required to work 11 to 13 hours a day, usually six days a week. But their employers testified that the deliverymen had to work only at peak delivery times: 11:30am to 2:30pm, and 5:30 to 9:30pm. They lied.
The judge found that the company had often illegally deducted pay—from $20 to $200—when deliverymen committed infractions like letting the restaurant door slam on their way out (wtf?) or failing to log in a delivery. The judge also ruled that the company had improperly made the deliverymen buy and maintain the bicycles and motorbikes they used to make deliveries, concluding that Saigon Grill should've paid for those as required tools of the trade.
Justice. This has to be pretty awesome news for these workers, who have been fighting this for a really long time. It could have been time and money that they might never have gotten back. And it's not like they were asking for a lot. They just wanted what they were owed. Now Saigon Grill has to fork over the money and deal with the bad press. Big victory props to the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who represented the deliverymen.
UPDATE: Here's a good follow-up op-ed piece in New York Times on this week's ruling for the Saigon Grill workers: Pork Fried Abuse. Awful headline though.
17-year-od Courtney Chou Lee has been named queen of the 2009 Tournament of Roses: Arcadia teen is queen of 120th Rose Parade. The Arcadia High School teen will reign over activities culminating in the historic, world-famous Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game on New Year's Day. Basically, it will be her duty to look pretty, ride the float, and wave.
Courtney was chosen queen from among seven Tournament of Roses princesses who were chosen last week. More than 1,100 young Pasadena-area women and teens applied for a spot on the Royal Court. But there can be only one Queen, suckas! More here: Tournament of Roses names queen.
In New York, the owner of the East Village's famed Kim's Video store is putting his vast movie collection up for sale: VID KING READY TO UNWIND. Facing declining revenues, Yongman Kim is making all his 55,000 films available to a worthy buyer... but there are some strict conditions.
The buyer has to purchase the collection in its entirety, house it in 3,000 square feet of space and allow access to those who used to rent films at the store, "charging a minimum membership fee." Kim has spent over 20 years amassing the 55,000 films, so it's no wonder he's got a bit of an attachment to this collection.
Kim's situation actually strikes me with a little nostalgia. Once upon a time, during the better of the 1980s, my parents owned a video store. It was a small, modest operation, and we had nowhere near as many titles as this guy, but it had a huge role developing my love of cinema. I was kind of sad when we sold it off, so in a way, I understand where this guy is coming from.
Asian Americans, are you feeling the power? Are you feeling it?! According to this Washington Post article, Asian Americans voters in Virginia, highly organized and registered in record numbers, see themselves poised to play a pivotal role in the outcome of the presidential race in this highly contested state: Asian Americans Feeling the Power.
According to leaders of the large, affluent communities of Korean Americans, Vietnamese Americans and Indian Americans in Northern Virginia, sentiment among those groups favors Barack Obama, although John McCain enjoys a core of loyal support among older Asian refugees who suffered at the hands of communist regimes.
Remember, these are the voters who played a huge role in the 2006 Senate race in Virginia, helping Democrat Jim Webb edge out and defeat incumbent George "Macaca" Allen... and effectively shifting the balance of power in Congress. It seems they could do it again. Anyway, read the article. It's pretty interesting.
Checking out this funny/creepy Halloween short, The Tivo, starring Parry Shen. It's directed by Adam Green, who did the acclaimed indie horror film Hatchet. He's apparently shot a film like this for his fans/family/friends for the past 10 years, every Halloween. Parry's pretty funny in it. Watch the short here. You'll never look at your Tivo the same way again.
But what I really want to share is this kickass blog entry by Michelle Myers of spoken word duo Yellow Rage, which revisits Bao Phi's poem "Dear Senator McCain," and so eloquently express the anger that I feel over this issue, and this man who could be President. I'm reprinting it here, with Michelle's permission:
"I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." -John McCain, February 17, 2000
"I will call any interrogator that tortured me, a gook. I can't believe that anybody doesn't believe these interrogators and prison guards were cruel and sadistic people who deserve the worst appellations possible. Gook is the kindest appellation I can give." -John McCain, February 17, 2000
'Cause we soft spoken, doesn't mean that we've forgotten Your bootie smells rotten and one day you will be gotten -Lauryn Hill, "Family Business," The Fugees' The Score
John McCain's people have deftly flippt the script on Barack Obama over the last 2 weeks. They've told us that The Maverick is back in full effect--the original straight talker. Behold our very own Greatest American Hero--the true agent of change for the American people. After all, they reminded us as McCain was introduced at the RNC before giving his acceptance speech, "When you've lived in a box, you put your people first."
And so it began: the narrative being sold to us about McCain--a narrative dominated almost exclusively by his time as a POW during the Vietnam War. It's been shoved in our faces so much we can recite the story by heart: McCain shot down on a bombing mission over North Vietnam. McCain pulled from his wrecked plane by North Vietnamese soldiers, both arms broken. McCain taken to "Hanoi Hilton" where he and other POWs were interrogated and tortured. Etc. Etc. Etc.
I read somewhere on the internet that McCain's acceptance speech contained 43 sentences about his POW experience while only 8 recounted his 25 years on Capitol Hill. And so, for me, if McCain wants us to swallow this War Hero narrative as the fodder for his character and his qualification for the Presidency, then let us really open it up to scrutiny. And that means us gooks are coming back to haunt him.
I don't care that he made his gook reference 8 years ago and that he claimed he meant it specifically for his interrogators. I don't care that he apologized for it under political pressure and a concern for a potential APIA swing vote in the CA primary while running for President in 2000. If currently he is continuously going to invoke his POW years and thrust before us images of his and America's enemy, and in doing so transplant Vietnamese faces to embody the word "enemy," then he is opening himself up to a resuscitated examination of his use of the word gook in referring to this enemy. Because what we should care about in helping us decide if this experience indeed makes him fit to be President is his initial, honest, straight-talker response when reporters first called him on it back in 2000: "I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live."
I could rehash the criticisms from the APIA community at the time about McCain's blatant insensitivity and ignorance in his use/defense of a broadly racist term for Asian Americans; I could compare it to the word "nigger" and other racial epithets and complain that he wouldn't have been let off so easy if he had offended black people or other racial minority groups--all of these points are still valid (and can be readily found on the internet), and the whole incident still pisses me off. But in revisiting this word gook, what I really want to do is put McCain's statements in a context with current political issues and consider what it may reveal about how he would handle foreign affairs, military operations, and the war in Iraq.
It bothers me that McCain's POW years have become so commodified by his campaign. If you visit his website, the homepage opens up with 2 back-to-back videos chronicling his POW experience and lauding his heroism. The narrative highlights his sacrifices and dedication to his country, fighting for American freedom, and having a brave heart "to never surrender." Military images abound. Pictures of Vietnamese people situate them in no uncertain terms as the enemy--both John McCain's enemy and America's enemy.
The forgotten narrative of the Vietnam War is that of innocent Vietnamese civilians--their suffering, their loss. It is convenient that America's nostalgia for war, especially those that involve Asian people and countries, becomes one that forgets the desperate, pained Asian faces that the U.S. military/government purported to protect and save but actually ended up being complicitous in harming whether, in Vietnam specifically, through directly executed or coordinated napalm attacks, mass murders of civilians (My Lai), gang rapes of young Vietnamese girls, or the abandonment of thousands of babies fathered by U.S. military personnel. And as U.S. soldiers torture and humiliate prisoners at Abu Ghraib, kill innocent Iraqi civilians including women and children, bomb civilians in Afghanistan, fail to locate and catch Osama bin Laden, and become exhausted and bitter through several tours of duty away from family and friends, I am not reassured that these neglected narratives can be revised under John McCain. who finds such personal/political meaning and comfort in his "Look-at-Me-the Tortured-War-Hero" story.
I cannot trust a man who has proudly insisted "I hate the gooks" to lead us out of Iraq to peace when he's ready to stay there for 100 years or however long it takes to "win." I cannot trust this man, John McCain, to responsibly address the U.S. government's oversight of CIA interrogation techniques, i.e. torture, or prevent another Abu Ghraib when in February 2008 he voted against an anti-torture bill and supported Bush's veto of the bill after it was passed by the Senate. I cannot trust John McCain not to take Western/American, fundamentalist Christian-Judeo war-mongering to Iran, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, or North Korea. Precisely because of his personal Tortured-War-Hero-POW narrative, I do not trust John McCain.
Most troubling to me about McCain's declaration and defense of his using the word gook is his unapologetic insensitivity to how it both completely conflates and demonizes all Vietnamese people--which can very easily be extended to all people of Asian descent. His vehement hatred towards "the gooks" bothers me too. In using such a hatefully racist term to talk about his North Vietnamese captors, I cannot believe this is a man who would work successfully with the diverse peoples and cultures of the Middle East or will make the effort to bridge the divide between Christianity, Islam, and other religious beliefs practiced around the world. War and hatred; fear and loathing; fighting and survival; Gook and Terrorist/Muslim/Other; America vs. Vietnam/Iraq; Hero vs. Enemy--how can the dominant personal/political narrative of such a man give us confidence that he can take us in a direction of progress and change and, ultimately, peace both at home and abroad as President of the United States? But then again, isn't that the point--to keep us at war indefinitely until all America's real and imagined enemies are crushed?
In his poem "Dear Senator McCain," Bao Phi seizes McCain's POW/gook narrative and spits it back in his face, holding him accountable for his hypocrisy and insensitivity. Bao is a Vietnamese American spoken word poet from Minneapolis, and he wrote this poem after the gook-word incident 8 years ago, but it is relevant to our present political discussion for all the ways that I have already outlined. Full of irony and sarcasm, "Dear Senator McCain" exposes the inherent racism of McCain's statement, situates McCain's comments in the contentious American militarist discourse that surrounds the Vietnam War and all of America's war narratives from Asia, and demands that he take responsibility for his wholesale demonization of a group of people that crosses generations, continents, soldiers, civilians, refugees, immigrants, citizens. What hope are we to have with such a man representing the American people to the rest of the world? How can we read Bao's poem and not think about the current war narrative being constructed of Muslims--the conflation of "Muslim" and "Arab" and "Middle Eastern" with "enemy" and "terrorist" and "evil"?
We cannot let such narratives dictate history and determine our lives. We must reclaim our narratives, humanizing them so that the fuller story is told and calling out those which demonize. And we can set off this corrected retelling with Bao Phi's scathing "Dear Senator McCain."
Many thanks to Bao Phi for giving me permission to reprint his poem on our blog. Thanks to all of you who have read my long-winded set up of Bao's poem.
I write this letter on jungle leaves and the skin of a white man.
I am a gook, a jungle spook, a steamed apparition of piss and foot rot building torture devices from old rotary phones and the rusted hulks of American cars
I am that gook, when you turn on the light I scramble away and if you see me you know there's ten more where I came from catching tracer bullets like fireflies in my teeth my language like malaria sweating itself into your brain
I am a gook, riding on top of water buffaloes, waving welfare checks like a white flag of surrender but shot in the back by your finest when they thought I was standing in a martial arts stance
I am a gook, miscellaneous bomb bait, agent orange evolved primate creeping thru cashmoney colored jungles and masturbating neon onto Wall Street slit eyes fixed on white women fingers like 10 long drips of grease
I am that villain in a white lab coat trading bomb secrets for red cash stashing code in surgery folded eyelids
I am gook, no speak no Engleesh too much headache, tell me go back to my country, motherfuck you eh?
I am indeed a gook, polished gold yellow at Yale, driving my Ferrari horse-powered dick deep into your spread-legged streets while Miss America screams out an orgasmic "There goes the neighborhood!"
I am gook that gook waiting in that nightmare jungle that gook in front of you with 17 items in the 10 items or less lane at the supermarket that gook born with a grenade in his head that gook that got a better grade in your shop class that gook uppity enuf to stand with his brothers and sisters and demand an apology that gook who patted you on the back and said "That's okay--I hate gooks too."
I am that gook who stole your bomb secrets, that gook that held you hostage,
that gook whose culture your daughter robbed for her tattoos, trinkets and t-shirts that gook whose language your son attempts to speak so he can crack some nookie from the fortune cookie
I am the gook who blazed you the gook who saved you
I am gook, chink, slope, slanteye, victor, charlie, chan, suzie wong, dickless rice picker, model minority, binder of feet, your favorite sushi waitress, piss colored devil, nip, jap, snow falling on cedars, miss saigon, memoir of a geisha, joy luck club, ally mcbeal,
I am gook, I ate your motherfuckin cat
I am that gook who will hang himself on Nike shoelaces so your sons and daughters can play pickup or NCdoubleA final four, I am that 14 cents an hour gook whose ghosts paint those Gap commercials white, I am that gook that took over your pool hall and your roller skating rink, I am this gook, I am that gook, I am your gook, I am my gook I am that gook, popping out of a motherfuckin bowl of rice to ask: senator what's the difference between an Asian and a gook to you?
Spoken word artist Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai tells me she just launched this cool new video, "Black White Whatever," directed by Jazzmen Lee-Johnson. It's good stuff, so spread the word.
It's a call out to our politicians to dig deeper past the black/white binary when discussing race in America. You know, because there are a lot of us out here who are neither black nor white... but we're sure as hell American. The message seems more relevant than ever as we quickly approach one of the most important elections in our lifetime.
I've linked Kelly's stuff before, about a year back, when she did this kickass video for "By-standing: The Begining of an American Lifetime," with director Karen Lin. To learn more about Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and her work, visit her website here.
It was reported last week that Kazuyoshi Miura had apparently committed suicide. The Japanese businessman had been extradited back to United States for conspiring to have his wife murdered 27 years ago. Just hours after returning in Los Angeles, he was found dead in his cell. But now, Miura's attorney says his wounds were consistent with a choking and beating: Attorney says Kazuyoshi Miura was killed in L.A. jail.
Celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos hired an independent pathologist to examine the body of his client after the L.A. County coroner's office released it. Geragos said the pathologist found injuries to the middle and lower parts of the back as well as to the larynx. These apparently are not the kind of injuries you get from hanging yourself.
Just when you thought this crazy case had finally come to an end. Of course, you couldn't expect a guy like Geragos to go down that quietly, even after his client dies. After all, this is the defense attorney who represented Michael Jackson, and Scott Peterson. He's in it for the headlines. And he just got another one.
Simon Tran, a fellow Angry Asian holdin' it down in France, created this cool project to spread the word about Barack Obama'a simple, inspirational message, translated into different languages: "Yes we can" around the world. I just bought myself the Chinese shirt. Now, if only the rest of the world were actually eligible to vote for the President of the United States...
And for those of you who really dug Cho the Plumber from last week, he's now made it on to some t-shirts. No plumber photo though. Copyright infringement issues, you know. Esther Park, the quick-witted artist who created the image, was inspired after watching the presidential debate and got her Photoshop on. The image is a stock photo found literally by Googling "Asian plumber." Anyway, if you've got Cho the Plumber Mania, get your t-shirt here.
Hey Toronto! Your film festival is coming. The Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival runs next month, November 12-16. Mark your calendars, film fans. If you're planning on going, you can buy your passes early and save a little cash. But you have to act fast!
Right now, a Festival Pass is just $100. It gives you access to all festival screenings (including the galas), all Industry Series sessions, and all public parties and special events. Or you can get a Screening Pass for $65, or an Industry Pass for $45, or a 4-Pak for $25.
All great ways to enjoy the festival, but the prices go up tomorrow, October 21. (Yeah, I probably should have posted this a while ago. Sorry.) To buy your festival passes, go to the Reel Asian website here.
I've already mentioned Gook: John McCain's Racism and Why It Matters here before. The book is writer Irwin Tang's examination of Senator McCain's history of racism, and not just the "I hate gooks" remark, but throughout his career and associations. The book is described as "a political expose, a real-life mystery, and a manifesto on race and war, all in one volume."
The book was published back in July, but Irwin is now offering the book as a free PDF to anyone who asks, no charge. You just have to email him at irwinbooks@gmail.com, and he'll send you a copy. Check out this video, which briefly explains his perspective on McCain. At this point, he just wants to get the word out.
I've got a hard copy of the book, and I've read through part of it. Personally, while the book has an important message that needs to disseminated, I don't think Gook is particularly well written. People should indeed know about McCain's racism... I just don't think you needed this entire book to do it. Perhaps a solid, extended essay would've been just as effective.
But a book gets people talking, and helps draw attention to the issue. It's certainly intriguing, and there's definitely a lot of information in there that'll make you think twice—as an Asian American, a person of color, or any kind of minority—about wanting John McCain as President of the United States.
I have to admit, I laughed my ass off when I checked out my mom is a fob, a blog by Serena and Teresa, chronicling the very Asian Mom things that Asian Moms do. It's equal parts silly, cute, horrifying... and totally true.
It's for everybody who's mom sports a giant-ass welder mask visor when she goes out in the sun, or writes you funny emails telling you to eat right and not be gay. Maybe this is your mom too—if so, you'll totally get it. They're looking for contributions. I could probably forward a funny email or two myself. Take a look here. They've also got a Facebook page here.
Some racist news from abroad, spotted over at the Resist racism blog... In Wales, an Asian woman has accused a university of racism after she was apparently told that an accountancy course might not be suitable for "Oriental people": University in 'Oriental' race row.
Odgerel Hatenboer, who is originally from Mongolia, attended an open day at Glyndwr University in Wrexham, with the hope of enrolling for an accountancy course. However, she was told my a staff member that the course might not be suitable for "people like you, Oriental people":
She said: "The man said something like 'I'm not saying you're Chinese but people like you, Oriental people, tend to accept what is written in the books and what the lecturer says, whereas this kind of course is nothing like you have studied in the past, it requires more analytical skills, you will have to do more yourself."
Right. Whatever the hell that means. The guy apparently didn't even ask about her background or qualifications. Just one look at this Oriental lady and a quick judgment. Thanks for the advice, now kindly shut the hell up. By the way, she happens to have a masters in development economics from the University of Manchester and holds a diploma from the Association of Accounting Technicians. Oh snap!
Ms. Hatenboer completed the application form anyway. She was told it would be passed on to the relevant department and she'd hear from the university within a week... However, when she later checked on the status of her application, she found out it had never been received. Where did it go? It's a mystery! That's racist!
The main leg of the 9th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival closed down with a bang last Thursday, with the Closing Night screening of Always 2: Sunset on Third Street. Here's the list of this year's winners, presented last weekend at the festival's Awards Gala:
Best Animation Meat Days directed by Joe Hsieh
Special Jury Honor Damn the Past! directed by Julie Kang
Best Dramatic Narrative Short Moon Lady directed by Wendy Cheng
Best Feature Documentary Shame directed by Mohammed Naqvi
Best Narrative Feature Santa Mesa directed by Ron Morales
Grand Jury Award Dirty Hands: The Art and Crimes of David Choe directed by Harry Kim
Lifetime Achievement Award Soon-Tek Oh
Congratulations to all the winners. I actually had the chance to see Harry Kim's Dirty Hands during the festival. It defies description. It's an incredible, challenging, fascinating documentary portrait artist David Choe, who has created quite a reputation for himself over the last couple of years as an artistic genius, a criminal, a rebel. I loved it, and highly recommend it.
But wait! The festival ain't over quite just yet. For those of you in Riverside County, you actually have the chance to see the film, along with a bunch of other cool workds, when SDAFF moves north this week for its Riverside expansion, October 21-23 at the Ultrastar Cinemas (formerly University Village Cinemas).
Films screening in Riverside include Dirty Hands, Benson Lee's Planet B-Boy, Amyn Kaderali's Kissing Cousins, and Jessica Yu's Ping Pong Playa, among others. And select screenings are actually free to UCR students! Very cool. Spread the word, and check it out. For the full schedule of Riverside screenings, go here.
This is crazy. In one of the largest wrongful-conviction payouts in state history, New York City has agreed to pay $3.5 million to Shih-Wei Su of Queens, who was imprisoned for 12 years after being found guilty of attempted murder: City to Pay $3.5 Million to Wrongfully Imprisoned Queens Man.
Su was convicted by a jury in 1992 after Queens prosecutors knowingly presented false testimony from the star witness, according to a ruling in 2003 by the United States Court of Appeals, which overturned the conviction and condemned the Queens district attorney's office.
Prosecutors had argued at trial that Su ordered fellow members of a youth gang, the White Tigers, to shoot a member of a rival gang, the Green Dragons, in a Bayside pool hall in 1991. He was convicted with the help of testimony from a key witness who agreed to testify against him after being promised by prosecutors leniency regarding his own crimes. On the stand, the witness denied having made such a deal.
Su was sentenced to 16 to 50 years in prison. He was released in 2003 after a federal appeals court ruled that the lead prosecutor in the case, Linda Rosero, elicited false testimony from the witness and misled jury members, telling them there was "technically no agreement" regarding the witness's testimony.
So now the city's paying out. I can think of few things worse than being wrongfully convicted for murder, then spending twelve years in prison for it. What a nightmare. I know you can't really put a dollar amount on that kind of suffering... but $3.5 million doesn't hurt.
For those of you in Southern California, my boys in the Far East Movement inform me that they'll be performing a huge show this Wednesday, October 22 at the Viper Room in Hollywood as part of a Rock the Vote showcase, along with Mateo, Pacific Division and New Kingdom. Doors open at 8:30pm, 21 and over. For more information about the show, go the FM website here.
As of last week, Kim Ng, assistant general manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers, is still reportedly in the running for the Seattle Mariners GM job. One of the top four candidates, to be exact: Mariners GM search down to 4. If hired, she would become baseball's very first female general manager.
According to an anonymous baseball official, Ng is getting a second interview along with Milwaukee Brewers executive Jack Zduriencik, Arizona Diamondbacks executive Jerry DiPoto and Toronto Blue Jays assistant GM Tony LaCava.
How cool is it to see an Asian American woman's name amongst all these dudes? Word has it, the Mariners are looking for some fresh thinking, and Ng's experience with the Dodgers and Yankees makes her just as qualified as any of these guys.
Here's one Seattle Times columnist on why Kim Ng is exactly what Seattle—and major league baseball—needs right now: Baseball needs someone like Kim Ng.
I receive a lot of email. It can get a little overwhelming sometimes, but I try to give each one its due consideration. That said, this has to be one of the weirdest emails I've ever received. I know it reads like spam... but I think this guy is actually serious:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I want to be a guest in your shows/articles to dispell the notion that all Chinese look sleepy. Born epicanthic, I am the world's only person who can crease my eyelids without surgery, stitches, tapes or glue. Do you want a demonstration? It will attract millions of viewers/readers to your station/magazine/newspaper.
In school I was taunted with gestures of the other students who pulled their upper eyelid down.
"If you stay here much longer, you'll all be slitty-eyed," said Prince Charles to a group of British students during a state visit to China in 1986.
I have written a manuscript on my home-made technique which is easy to follow. It is a regimen that requires some discipline. After all, what worthwhile human endeavour can be accomplished without discipline? Once you have acquired it, you will have it forever and can say sayonara to the nicknames such as Chinaman, Chino, Chinx, Chinky, Tokyo Joe, Button Hole. How can I get a publisher?
A survey of Xiamen University graduates in 2002 found that 54.3 per cent of new job seekers identified physical appearance as the defining factor in securing a position. The Chinese are born without segmented upper eyelids and hate the sleepy look. Beauty is the most important thing for a woman, readily exchangeable for love, prestige or money. More so than education, aristocracy or fame.
The whole world wants to imitate the Americans. When Pepsi went to Nigeria, the natives abandoned their oranges for soda. They used a hot iron to press their hair and bleached their skin. When New Yorkers went to model clothes in Hong Kong, the Chinese drew lines in their slant eyes to fake creases. In the Philippines, they are crazy about all things American. The Fijians used to focus on food and they became obese. The advent of TV caused them to diet and look them like the Americans. Now the Chinese want to buy the gadgets that the Americans take for granted such as electric fans, telephones, washing machines, TVs, computers, motorcars and all the things that evoke status symbols.
Also I can demonstrate desktop cooking. With a mini-oven, I can show you how to cook a feast. No litchen required. This system suits the busy couples who both work, the executives who work overtime, the single persons who hang out a lot, the small rooms and apartments.
Wait a moment! There is more. I can show you how to use herbs to dilate the blood vessels, to increase the libido, to remove free radicals, to strengthen the immune system, to lengthen the 120 year lifespan, to stimulate the body to produce an enzyme that kills cancer cells.
This article is not a prescription and I urge you to seek medical advice concerning these things.
Kenneth Chong
This might be fake. But I so want it to be real, because it's just freakin' weird. Kenneth here appears to be quite a hustler. He not only claims to be the only person who can crease his eyelids "without surgery, stitches, tapes or glue" (and is willing to show you how), he is apparently a badass cook with a mini-oven (no litchen required!) and a master of cancer-killing herbs. Ladies and gentlemen, he's got the skillz to pay the bills. Somebody hire this guy.
More on George Lin, Program Director for the San Diego Asian Film Festival, who passed away last week. A memorial service for George will be held next Saturday, October 25 in San Diego. Celebrate George's amazing life with his family and friends, favorite foods, funny memories, inspirational music, and prayer. Starts at 2:00pm and ends whenever. For more information, go here.
The family asks in lieu of flowers and gifts, that charitable donations be made to the George C. Lin Memorial Fund, which will provide grants to institutions that provide scholarships to students studying film, and for pheochromocytoma research and education. Please send checks to:
The San Diego Foundation 2508 Historic Decatur Road, Suite 200 San Diego, CA 92106
Please write the name of the fund, George C. Lin Memorial Fund, on the memo line of your check. A memorial Facebook group was started last week, where friends can share their fond memories and photos of George with one another: George Lin, friend, brother, son, beautiful human being.
UPDATE: Here's the San Diego Union-Tribune's obituary for George Lin: George Lin; scientist's passion led him to work on Asian film festival. It's amazing. Even while struggling with his disease, which left him paralyzed and barely able to speak, he was urging the Filipino nurses around him to check out the San Diego Asian Film Festival. That's true dedication.
Wayne Wang's feature film The Princess of Nebraska premieres tonight, Friday, October 17 at 9:00pm PST. But you won't have to head out to the theater, nor will you have to pay to see it. The movie is premiering exclusively on YouTube's Screening Room, a channel dedicated to premium film content. For free!
Adapted from a collection of short stories by award-winning author Yiyun Li, The Princess of Nebraska tells the story of Sasha, a foreign exchange student who finds herself pregnant. She's part of the new generation of China, unmoored to traditions and history. She travels from Nebraska to San Francisco to get an abortion, but in her exploration of the city in the next 24 hours she learns that turning a new page doesn't necessarily mean turning your back on the past.
Princess is sort of a companion feature to Wang's A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, which started showing in select theaters last month. The decision to release Princess online was part of an overall distribution strategy developed by Magnolia Pictures, Cinetic Rights Management and YouTube. Watch the trailer for the film here. Learn more about the film here. And catch tonight on YouTube here.
Maybe you've heard. John McCain hates the gooks. He will hate them as long as he lives. He said so himself back in 2000, to a busload of reporters on the campaign trail: "I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live."
I don't know about you, but it sickens me that a man who would use this kind of hate language could become President of the United States. I don't care what context he was saying it in (he was referring to his captors during the Vietnam War). It's unforgivable... yet somehow this man is the Republican nominee for President.
That said, a recently launched website is calling attention to McCain's use of the slur, and his history of overt racism, because mainstream media certainly hasn't: McCainHatesGooks.com. There isn't a lot on the site, but you can download a hi-res version of the logo image above and create your own content to spread the word.
To celebrate the launch of the website, they're throwing launch party in San Francisco: "McCain Hates Gooks" Campaign Kick-Off Party. Friday, October 17 at the Ez5 Bar. McCain hates gooks. Get together with some folks who hate him back. "McCain Hates Gooks" propaganda merchandise will be available at the event. For more information about the event, go here.
October 20 is the last day for Californians to send in their voter registration cards, and the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE) is doing its part to help ensure that the Asian Pacific Islander American community has a voice in the November 4th election... by throwing a big fat fundraiser/voter registration party: Your Party. Your Voice. Your CAUSE. Oh snap! It's this Friday night, October 17 at Wokcano in Santa Monica. Some details:
CAUSE invites you to attend "Your Party. Your Voice. Your CAUSE." a voter registration drive and fundraiser on Friday, October 17. October 20th is the last day for Californians’ to send in their voter registration cards and this event will help ensure that the Asian Pacific Islander American community has a voice in the November 4th General Election.
Cover is $15 OR FREE for people who register to vote with CAUSE that night
8:30 pm Program featuring elected officials, celebrity guests, and performances by Beau Sia, Projekt NewSpeak, Alex Huang, Sam Guenjin Kang, and Jason Arimoto.
10 pm DJ Ultraman
11:30 pm Guest DJ Nemesis Jaxson a.k.a. Macy Gray
All proceeds raised will go to the cost of the event and CAUSE, a 501c3 non-partisan nonprofit organization. More details for the event are included on the flyer below. Please come out to support our community and spread the word about this event!
For questions, please email tracey@causeusa.org or call 626.356.9838
Fun party, cool performances, good cause. With appearances by Nicole Bilderback, John Cho, Sung Kang, Archie Kao, Michelle Krusiec, James Kyson Lee, Olivia Munn, and Aaron Yoo. For more information, visit the CAUSE website here, or the Facebook event page here.
Asian American culture magazine Thirteen Minutes is hosting its third annual fashion show and party, Runway Hits, this Friday, October 17 at Club 740 in Los Angeles. The evening will feature a fashion show (obviously) from such designers as Stella McCartney, Derek Lam, Maxmara, Tadashi, L Space, Ashley Paige, English Clientele, and Mike Sam. Here are the basic details:
Runway Hits - brought to you by Thirteen Minutes Magazine
When: Friday, October 17, 2008 Celebrity Red Carpet: 8:30 p.m. Runway Show/Musical Performances: 10 p.m.
Where: Club 740 740 S. Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.
General Audiences: Must purchase tickets $25 General pre-sale $40 at the door $60 VIP (100 available)
The red carpet event will also feature performances from hip hop artist Roscoe Umali and Kaba Modern, fan favorites from America's Best Dance Crew. A portion of night's proceeds will be donated to Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches. For more information about the event, and to purchase tickets, go to the Thirteen Minutes website here.
My man Woody Pak informs me that his band, The Cool Table, is throwing a MASH UP PARTY this Friday, October 17 at Tangier in Los Angeles. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what a "mash up party" is, but it sounds like fun. The band's sound is described as "the songs you love, dropped in an acoustic food processor and blended into brand new treats."
This Friday, Jensen Reed will kick things off with his hip-hop stylings, followed by the exciting debut of "DJ Mediocre" Jason Reitman. Then The Cool Table will headline, and fun times will follow. For more information, go to the band's website here, and their MySpace page here.
This is a fascinating article on subconscious racism, and how it may or may not effect who we perceive as foreign—including presidential candidate Barack Obama: Does Your Subconscious Think Obama Is Foreign?
It starts off talking about a study conducted a few years ago, where subjects were essentially asked to associate Asian American (i.e. TV personality Connie Chung, tennis star Michael Chang) and British names (i.e. Hugh Grant, Elizabeth Hurley) with American or foreign symbols:
A few years ago, psychologists Mahzarin Banaji and Thierry Devos showed the names of a number of celebrities to a group of volunteers and asked them to classify the well-known personalities as American or non-American. The list included television personality Connie Chung and tennis star Michael Chang, both Asian Americans, as well as British actors Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley. The volunteers had no trouble identifying Chung and Chang as American and Grant and Hurley as foreigners.
The psychologists then asked the group which names they associated with iconic American symbols such as the U.S. flag, the Capitol building and Mount Rushmore, and which ones they associated with generically foreign symbols such as the United Nations building in Geneva, a Ukrainian 100-hryven bill and a map of Luxembourg.
The psychologists found that the participants, who were asked to answer quickly, were dramatically quicker to associate the American symbols with the British actors, and the foreign symbols with the Asian Americans. The results suggest that on a subconscious level people were using ethnicity as a proxy for American identity and equating whites -- even white foreigners -- with things American.
I don't think those results surprised anyone. Asian Americans still constantly have to deal with the erroneous, xenophobic perception that we're inherently "foreign" and couldn't possibly be American. Yes, you idiot. I was born here, this is where I'm really from, and I speak English. Surprise.
But it doesn't end there. We as Asian Americans might be the "perpetual foreigners," but the bias apparently extends to other (non-white) ethnic groups, including African Americans:
The psychologists initially assumed that this bias began and ended with Asian Americans and would not apply to other ethnic groups. But in another experiment involving famous black athletes around the time of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, they found that the same pattern applied to African Americans. Although white volunteers agreed explicitly that hurdlers Allen Johnson and Angelo Taylor, who won two golds at Sydney, "contributed to the glory of America" and "represent what America is all about," they were slower to associate photos of black athletes than white athletes with American symbols. Black participants, on the other hand, were as quick to associate black athletes as white athletes with being American.
It makes sense then that the "white equals American" bias could play a powerful role in the presidential election. During the primary season, researchers found that on a subconscious level, people more easily associated Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton with being American than Senator Barack Obama. Even more remarkably, they found that subjects were quicker to associate former British prime minister Tony Blair with being American than Obama. The same goes, of course, when Obama is compared to John McCain:
On a conscious level, the participants had no trouble identifying Obama and Clinton as American, and Blair as a foreigner. But Devos and Ma found that the subconscious associations mattered: People who were slower to see Obama as American on a subconscious level were less likely to be willing to vote for the senator from Illinois than people who more easily associated him with American symbols. This was true of both Republicans and Democrats.
In a final set of experiments completed just last week, Thierry said the researchers had found an identical pattern when they compared people's subconscious associations with Obama and his Republican presidential opponent, Sen. John McCain. On a conscious level, volunteers said that both Obama and McCain were American, but on a subconscious level, volunteers were quicker to associate McCain with being American than Obama -- and the strength of these subconscious associations predicted people's voting intentions.
It's important to emphasize that the bias uncovered by the studies was subtle, and only one of many factors that go into people's voting choices. Lots of folks will indeed pick their candidate based on policy positions, partisan identification and personal circumstances. But you can't deny that this subconscious bias exists. We all have a subconscious bias of some sort.
Hell, for some people, it's not even subconscious bias. It's full-on, out-in-the-open bias. And ignorance. When you have people at a McCain rally saying things like, "I don't trust Obama... he's an Arab," you can't deny that bias and ignorance are informing some decisions at the polls. No lady, he's not "an Arab," and even if he was, there ain't a damn thing wrong with that.
This Friday in Los Angeles... Jin the MC! Live at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. The event is part of JANM's ongoing public program series that promotes Asian Pacific Islander artists and youth culture. Eyes & Ears is for all audiences who are interested in great live music performances, art, and dance: A Night of Asian American Hip-Hop. Read on for event details:
Japanese American National Museum Presents!
Eyes & Ears: A Night of Asian American Hip Hop Friday, Oct 17, 2008 9 pm to 1 am Performances start at 10 pm
A live show featuring the best of Asian American/Pacific Islander hip-hop music and culture.
This concert features internationally known hip-hop legend Jin the MC from 106 & Park fame, as well as up-and-coming rapper Camino and R&B sensation Sheri. Clothing and lifestyle giants, Teruo Artistry and E.G.R. - EngineeRED by REMY, will also be there for a special once-in-a-life-time hip-hop fashion show! A team of talented DJs (Jekai Soulspeak, DJ Linotype, DJ Spingineer) will help keep the night popping.
$5.00 for Japanese American National Museum members; $10 for non-members. We recommend purchasing tickets in advance by calling 213-625-0414 or visiting the visitor center at the National Museum. Please note, on the day of the program tickets can be purchased with cash only.
Japanese American National Museum 369 East First Street Los Angeles, CA 90012 www.janm.org
You've got music from Jin, Jekai Soulspeak, Camino, Sheri, DJ Linotype, and DJ Springineer, and fashion from Teruo Artistry and E.G.R. - EngineeRED by REMY, all under one roof this Friday, October 17 at JANM, 9:00pm to 1:00am. Performances start at 10:00pm. For more information about the event and the participating artists, go here (or here for the MySpace inclined).
For folks in New York... Elijah informs me that he's curating and hosting a new reading and opic mic series geared towards APIA youth, called Witchdoctors and Assassins, at the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Each month, an eclectic group of Asian American artists present poetry, prose, film, theatre, and multimedia in a safe space and nurturing environment. Intrigued? Read on:
A new reading series and open mic for Asian/Pacific Islander-American youth at The Asian American Writers' Workshop.
***PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE ARE TWO SHOWS: October 10th AND 24th, 2008***
Who are the Witchdoctors and Assassins?
As bodies that have witnessed onslaughts of violence and trauma from supremacist regimes, we are sounding out for decolonization. We refuse to play the "victim" in the countless oppressions against us. If you ask us who we are, we say we are "witchdoctors and assassins"*. By assuming these roles, we are demonstrating our creative resistance against the traditional act of "performing" our race, gender, class, sexual identity, and beyond on the world stage.
We are Axis of Praxis, your resident arts collective, coming to you with our interpretation of the revolutionary theater. As witchdoctors and assassins, we will be actors in the conjuring and dispelling of the violence and trauma that we have witnessed in its most personal and destructive forms. We invite you not to become only spectators in this process, but participants with your own stories and revolutionary fervor. Join us as we don our masks in performance, become puppets, and transcend the stage with an impromptu dance party. See that the instances of oppression you have witnessed in your lives on a daily basis is no less or disconnected from the headlines of Asian America--whatever and however that body means to us and to you.
* Leroi Jones/ Amiri Baraka. The Revolutionary Theatre. Liberator, 1965
Take the N, R, Q, W, F, B, D, V trains to 34th Street/Herald Square
Axis of Praxis are: -Krystle Cheirs -Nafisa Ferdous -Emmelle Israel -Muriel Leung -Jackie Mariano -Elijah Kuan Wong -Derek Yung
The first one was last Friday, but if you missed it, make sure to mark your calendar for the next one on October 24, 6:30-8:30pm at The Workshop in New York. For more information, take a look at the AAWW event schedule here.
Excuse me as a I geek out for a second. Some brand spankin' new photos from the upcoming Star Trek movie just hit the web, and they look pretty freaking sweet. The image above is your first official look at John Cho as Sulu, rocking the yellow Starfleet uniform. (Okay, the first one was actually 3/4 of his face on a teaser poster, but this is much cooler.)
Yahoo! Movies has gallery of the new photos, which include more first glimpses of the younger, updated Star Trek cast, including Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty and the rest. Equally freaking sweet. I like this one of Zachary Quinto as Spock rockin' a badass choke hold (on Kirk?).
Also, this cover story from Entertainment Weekly reveals a bunch of interesting details about the movie, which has thus far been shrouded in secrecy. Among other things, the article alludes to "Sulu's sworsmanship." I like it.
Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until the movie comes out next summer to see said swordsmanship. In the meantime, the first full trailer is expected to run in front of the new James Bond flick next month. Can't wait. Okay, geek out over.
As you might know, California is currently in the middle of a heated battle over Proposition 8, which would reverse May's California Supreme Court ruling that gave gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. Regarding this issue, I must defer to the opinions of Diana over at Disgrasian, who recounts a freaking awesome phone conversation she had the other day with a Prop 8 supporter.
The poll found that 57 percent of Asian Americans likely to vote in the November 4 election oppose Prop 8, while only 32 percent planned to vote yes. Eleven percent were undecided. This news is a little surprising, given the general perception that Asian Americans have traditionally been less tolerant of homosexuality. I guess folks will have to rethink that one.
According to the article, experts in Asian American voting trends attribute the unfavorable opinion of Proposition 8 to the ability of gay-marriage proponents to frame it as a major civil rights issue. Remember the internment? Exclusion Acts? Anti-miscegenation laws? More relevant here than you think.
I like this quote from Steve Smith, manager of the statewide campaign opposing Prop 8: "If there is one community that is extraordinarily sensitive to the dangers of the government treating one group differently than another, it would be the Asian-American community." Indeed.
I just heard that the third annual Taiwan Film Festival is returning to Bay Area theaters this weekend, showcasing a carefully programmed selection of the Republic of China's best contemporary films. With a focus on "Youth and Redemption," the festival is hosted by the University of San Francisco on October 16-17, then at Stanford University on October 17-18, then moves on to Seattle, Eugene and Las Vegas. Here's some details about the film programs:
*TFF at University of San Francisco October 16-17*
On Thursday, October 16, the festival opens at University of San Francisco's Fromm Hall (corner of Parker and Golden Gate Ave.) with director Cheng Wen-Tang's SUMMER'S TALE. A selection of the 2007 Pusan Film Festival, SUMMER'S TALE begins as a story of youthful passions, and evolves to focus on the transformative power of friendship. Enno Cheng, the director's daughter, provides a stunning performance as a teen songwriter who finds herself pulled into the romantic orbits of a classmate and teacher, all the while fighting a hearted condition.
Following the screening and Q&A with Director Cheng, Enno, who is also a celebrated pop star in Taiwan, will perform along with musician KK who composed the soundtrack to SUMMER'S TALE.
On Friday, October 17, Ho Chao-Ti's fascinating documentary THE GANGSTER'S GOD will make its US premiere. At every Lantern Festival in Taidong, a group of men strip bare above the waist, and wearing nothing but red shorts, stands on a sacred palanquin, allowing people to pound their bodies with bottle rockets, singeing their skin. They are believed to be human incarnations of the god Handan. The "Scorching of Handan" has in recent years become a major event in eastern Taiwan. Those who take part in the ritual have always been shrouded in mystery, and rumored to be members of the gangster underworld. This stunning documentary enters the heart of these men's universe, recording their dramatic lives.
A Q&A with director Ho Chao-Ti will follow.
*TFF at Stanford University October 17-18, 2008*
Stanford University will host four films from the Taiwan Film Festival on October 17-18. All screenings will take place at Stanford's Cubberly Auditorium (485 Lasuen Hall).
The Stanford selections will open with SECRET, the directing debut from actor Jay Chou (CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER). A charming romance also starring Chou, SECRET was an official selection of the 2008 San Francisco International Film Festival.
Two documentaries will follow. In Lin Yu-Hsien's ELEPHANT BOY AND ROBOGIRL, two young children, though suffering from tremendous physical handicaps, fight to live life to the fullest. Lee Jong-Wang's FOR MORE SUN chronicles the efforts of a group of young Taiwanese engineers as they build a hand-made solar car to complete in the World Solar Challenge in Australia.
The festival at Stanford concludes with Lin Jing-Jie's THE MOST DISTANT COURSE, winner of the International Critic's Week Award at the 2007 Venice Film Festival. The movie interweaves the stories of three lost souls as they travel through Taiwan's beautiful Eastern shore in search of solace, while reminding the viewer of the elevating power of sound and music. Lin Yu-Hsien, Lee Jong-Wong and Lin Jing-Jie will be in attendance.
With its unique and rich cultural heritage, Taiwan has produced such internationally recognized directors as, Ang Lee, Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Edward Yang. During TFF 2008, viewers will be treated to the next generation of great directors from Taiwan and have a chance to ask about their creative process.
The festival is presented by The Chuan Lyu Foundation, Asia Society, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in San Francisco. Admission is free and screenings are open to the public. For more information about the Taiwan Film Festival, including the full schedule of films, go to the website here.
I've been meaning to write a little round-up from my weekend at the San Diego Asian Film Festival, but I just haven't been able to gather it up in head up. On Tuesday evening, I received the shocking news that George Lin, Programming Director of the festival, had passed away.
He had been sick for a while, and wasn't able to make it to this year's festivities. To be honest, I didn't know him that well, and I don't know a lot of the details. But I know a lot of people who were close to him, and he was well-loved and respected as a dear friend. He was a good guy.
George played an instrumental role in building the the San Diego Asian Film Foundation into what it is today. Now in its ninth year, it's grown to become a thriving community showcase for Asian and Asian American cinema. He was also responsible for starting the DC APA Film Festival.
He was an important, influential contributor to the Asian American film community. But more importantly, he was dedicated and passionate about his work and his friends. George will be missed. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family, and his friends at the San Diego Asian Film Foundation.
Watched the presidential debate this evening. Is it just me, or is McCain losing it? Not just the election, I mean. It. He's losing it. He came off way more angry, aggressive, and just more of a general asshole for this third and final debate.
Anyway, during the debate, McCain kept referring to some dude named Joe the Plumber. Who is he? I do not know. And I don't care. But Cho the Plumber, I know. And as you can see, the man is voting for Barack Obama. (Thanks, Esther.)
With recent roles in high profile movies like Mission: Impossible III, Live Free or Die Hard, there's no doubt that Maggie Q's star is on the rise. However, the quality of those roles, of course, are extremely questionable. So in a recent interview with the Associated Press, the actress let everybody in on a little secret: Maggie Q: Good Hollywood roles rare for Asians.
Tell us something we don't know, Ms. Quigley. She says that 90 percent of the scripts she receives are written for Caucasian female characters... and the ones for Asians, not so great:
"The first part of it is going into a room (for an audition) and trying to quell this stigma that people have about Asians only doing certain kinds of roles and Asians only being looked at a certain way," Quigley said. "You run into these stereotypes a lot."
Before she came to Hollywood, she made a name for herself with a bunch of sexy roles in the Hong Kong film industry. Part of me wonders if she came to this realization before or after she took the role as "Maggie" in that godawful Balls of Fury movie. Surprise! It sucks to be Asian in Hollywood.
In China, TV audiences are getting a big dose of Bruce. China Central Television, the country's state broadcaster, just started airing The Legend of Bruce Lee, a big-budget, 50-part prime-time dramatic series on the life and career of Bruce Lee: China state TV to air 50-part Bruce Lee biography.
Shot in China, Hong Kong, Macau, the United States, Italy and Thailand over nine months, the series, which started Sunday, will air daily on the CCTV's flagship channel, with two episodes airing consecutively every night in a two-hour slot. That's twenty-five straight nights of Bruce! Awesome.
The series is touted as a detailed retelling of Bruce Lee's life, from his teenage years in Hong Kong to his move to the U.S., to his movie career and early death at age 32. Though, judging from the lengthy trailer that popped up earlier this year, I imagine they'll be taking more than a few dramatic liberties with the story.
Bruce Lee is played by Danny Chan, the guy who played the goalie with a striking resemblance to Bruce in Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer. He's definitely got the look, and appears to do a pretty mean impression. The series also stars Michelle Lang, Mark Dacascos, Ray Park, and Michael Jai White, among others.
If you've been reading the site for a while, you know they actually announced this series a while back, and started filming nearly a year and a half ago. This is actually China's first movie or TV series on Bruce Lee. You could say they came kind of late to the Bruce Lee party. You know, with that communism thing and all. (I like the part in the trailer where Bruce screams, "I am Chinese!")
As a huge Bruce fan, you know I've been looking forward to seeing it. Yes, the cheese factor is high. Like I care. The only question is if and when this series will ever make it over to our shores, on DVD or in some other form, preferably with some English subtitles. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
UPDATE: Looks like the series is already available on DVD in all-region, PAL format, but without any English subtitles: The Legend Of Bruce Lee (H-DVD) (End) (China Version). You can also watch the series online here, but again, no English subtitles (except for the cheesy, ridiculously long opening song). I can wait.
Some disturbing news out of Columbia University... Seven students were assaulted in a series of five incidents near the Morningside Heights campus early Sunday morning. Five out of the seven victims were Asian in their late twenties to early thirties: Seven Students Assaulted Near Campus.
The string of attacks took place between 12:15am and 12:30am Sunday morning, all within one block of the main campus. Police said victims were punched in the face or thrown to the ground, though property was removed only in one incident.
According to the Columbia Department of Public Safety, "a group of five to seven black males ranging in age from 20-25 years old" approached the students in each of the confrontation. Surveillance photos and video have been released by police, who are asking for the public's help in locating the perpetrators.
Five separate incidents, and five of the victims were Asian? What's up with that? That's racist! You can't tell me these guys decided to assault the five people walking down the street during this fifteen minute period who just happened to be Asian. One guy got something stolen, but it's obvious that robbery wasn't the primary motive. What the hell was going on here?
The busy film festival season rolls on... This one's for you, Boston friends. I recently learned that the Boston Asian American Film Festival kicks off this Saturday, October 18, and runs through the 26. Nine screening events over nine days, presented by the Boston Asian American Resource Workshop.
They've loaded up their schedule with lots of really wonderful films. Things get started this Saturday with the Opening Night screening of Benson Lee's hit documentary Planet B-Boy, which I've raved about here repeatedly. The screening will be followed by a VIP Afterparty, complete with a "gift bag." Oooh.
Other features at BAAFF include Arthur Dong's excellent documentary Hollywood Chinese, Amyn Kaderali's romantic comedy Kissing Cousins, Tony Lam and Curtis Chin's Vincent Chin documentary Vincent Who?, Michael Kang's Korean American gangster drama West 32nd, and Ron Morales' award-winning coming-of-age story Santa Mesa. And don't miss the kickass shorts programs either.
The Boston Asian American Film Festival runs October 18-26 at various venues throughout Boston. I know I've got a lot of readers in Boston, so make sure you check out a film and support Asian American cinema. For more information about schedules and tickets, visit the festival website here.
Speaking of corruption... I mentioned former San Francisco supervisor Ed Jew pleading guilty to corruption charges last week. Meanwhile, down in Los Angeles, a judge sentenced former LA city commissioner Leland Wong to five years in state prison. He was found guilty in July on 14 felony counts, including bribery, conflict of interest, perjury and embezzlement.
Wong was accused receiving monthly payments of $5,000, deposited into an off-shore bank account, from Evergreen Marine Corp., a Taiwanese shipping firm that was hoping to negotiate a lucrative new lease at the Port of Los Angeles.
Using his experience and influence in Mayor James K. Hahn's administration, Wong helped Evergreen gain "extraordinary access to city officials." He hid his financial relationship with Evergreen from harbor and airport officials and told Evergreen there was nothing unlawful about his actions.
Alas, it's all over, Leland. He could've actually gotten a longer jail sentence, but the judge apparently eased it down to five years after hearing testimonials from family and friends: Leland Wong gets 5 years in 'pay to play' corruption scandal.
Students are invited to take part in an inspirational weekend of networking, leadership and learning with fellow students from all around the midwest. But you have to act fast—the early registration deadline is this Sunday, October 19. Group registration is highly encouraged.
This year's Leadership Retreat theme is "Heroes: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things," designed to inspire leaders from among the Midwest's Asian American community. The conference includes a packed schedule of workshops covering a variety of topics and issues, led by an impressive list of speakers and facilitators.
I should add that the conference organizers at Mizzou have kindly invited me to the weekend's keynote speaker, so I'll be there next month to take part in the retreat and deliver what I hope will be a few words of inspiration. So get yourself signed up. For more information, and to register, visit the MAASU Leadership Retreat website here.
The New York Times has story on China's Yi Jianlian, who is entering his second season in the NBA, now playing with the New Jersey Nets: Counting on a 7-Footer to Reach New Fans.
The Nets are hoping the 7-foot forward from Guangdong will attract a new kind of fan base—the nearly 650,000 Chinese Americans in the New York area and beyond. That's probably quite a bit more than the Asian American fan base Yi could've counted on in Milwaukee.
Of course, the guy doesn't quite carry the same kind of name recognition as Yao Ming... yet. He's going to have to build a relationship with the community, who might just be willing to make the trip over the Hudson River to see their very own tall Chinese dude play some professional basketball.
Awwww yeah. Bay Area musician Goh Nakamura informs me that he's in the running for best Alt-Country/Folk/Singer-Songwriter in the 2008 SF Weekly Music Awards. Make sure you cast your vote Goh, because he's a talented musician and a very cool dude.
This year's big party to recognize excellence by local Bay Area artists and club night promoters is open to the public and goes down on Thursday, October 16, at Ruby Skye in San Francisco, with live sets from Lyrics Born and other guests. To buy tickets, go here.
To hear some of Goh's music, visit his website here, where he's got a bunch of cool video clips. Also visit his MySpace profile here, and his Facebook page here. And make sure you vote for Goh!
Yesterday on a conference call with reporters, AAPI leaders outlined how the Obama-Biden campaign will address the health insurance challenges of many AAPIs and discussed how an Obama-Biden administration will help millions of AAPIs looking for affordable health care. Here's the press release:
AAPI Leaders: Obama-Biden Plan Would Provide Health Care to Community
Over 2 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are currently uninsured
Chicago, IL - On a conference call with reporters on Monday, October 13, two Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) leaders outlined how the Obama-Biden campaign will address the health insurance challenges of many AAPIs and discussed how an Obama-Biden administration will help millions of AAPIs looking for affordable health care.
Congressman Mike Honda, Chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, spoke honestly about the challenges many people in the AAPI community face as it relates to health care. As Congressman Honda noted, the stakes for reforming America's broken health care system are particularly high for AAPI families. With more than 2 million AAPIs currently uninsured and nearly 12 percent of AAPI children without coverage, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are committed to providing affordable, accessible coverage to the AAPI community. "Under the Obama-Biden plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year. If do not have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance option," said Honda.
Unlike Barack Obama and Joe Biden's commitment to the AAPI community to provide affordable health care at the end of their first term in office, John McCain offers a starkly different approach. John McCain has opposed opportunities to insure more AAPIs. "Senator McCain's has continually exercised poor judgement in denying more AAPIs to access of affordable healthcare," said Dr. Jeannette Takamura, former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services under President Clinton. In the US Senate McCain voted against the expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program – which would provide many AAPI children with health insurance.
Senator Obama realizes that a major part of the reason AAPI's lack insurance is due to language and cultural barriers. Lack of appropriate language services result in impaired exchange of information and lower level of preventive care. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will expand outreach and educational efforts to improve the language and cultural skills of hospitals to better care for the growing Asian American and Pacific Islander community. Obama will also make sure health care providers - doctors, nurses, and hospitals - all have real experience with the communities that they are directing making language access that more critical.
For more information on the Obama-Biden plan to provide health care for the AAPI community, download the fact sheet PDF here.
Jose's got a really great story. He was 12 when his mother sent him to live with his grandparents in Mountain View, California, and apparently improved his English by watching movies from the public library. He got it in his head that he wanted to be a journalist, and with some help, he graduated from San Francisco State University in 2004 and landed a job at the Post.
Now, at age 27, Jose's already got a Pulitzer under his belt. Not bad. He was back in his hometown last week to speak at a fundraiser for MVLA Community Scholars, the scholarship program that got him through college. Personally, I've been a fan of Jose's work since he wrote this article back in 2005.
What the hell is going on in this video? It's apparently from a BBC show called Harry & Paul. Talk about objectification. I'm not really sure what's going on, or if I'm missing some context, but basically this "Filipino maid" is being used as some kind of awful punchline. That's racist!
The Los Angeles Times has an interesting story on an effort by thousands of Amerasians—the abandoned children of American soldiers and Vietnamese women, born during the Vietnam War—to lobby in Washington for the Amerasian Paternity Act, which would give automatic citizenship to Amerasians born during the Vietnam and Korean wars: Children of Vietnam War servicemen seek U.S. citizenship.
It hasn't been an easy road for many of these forgotten children of the Vietnam War, treated all their lives as outsiders in Vietnam, only to be treated like refugees by the country their fathers fought for.
Called Amerasians, many were left to grow up in the rough streets and rural rice fields of Vietnam where they stood out, looked different, were taunted as "dust of life." Most were brought to the United States 20 years ago after Congress passed the Amerasian Homecoming Act, which allowed the children of American soldiers living in Vietnam to immigrate. But citizenship was not guaranteed, and today about half of the estimated 25,000 Amerasians living in the U.S. are resident aliens.
The article focuses on the story of Randy Tran, a Vietnamese pop singer who currently lives in the Bay Area. He and 21 other Amerasians flew to Washington, DC, for three days in July to lobby for the Amerasian Paternity Act. It would give Amerasians born during the Vietnam and Korean wars automatic citizenship, rather than requiring them to pass tests in English.
So far, for these sons and daughters of America, the United States hasn't quite lived up to that American dream thing we like to brag about.
He was found dead in his jail cell at the Los Angeles Police Department's Parker Center headquarters on Friday by an officer during a routine inspection. He apparently used a piece of his shirt as a makeshift ligature around his neck.
Kazuma Miura's murder back in 1981 apparently caused an international uproar because her husband initially had blamed "two street criminals," reinforcing Japanese stereotypes about violence in Los Angeles and other American cities.
Later, suspicion turned to Kazuyoshi Miura, who was eventually put on trial in Japan for conspiracy to commit murder under a Japanese law that allows its citizens to be prosecuted for crimes committed in other countries. He was taken in custody earlier this year while visiting the U.S. territory of Saipan. (The fool told everybody on his blog that he'd be traveling there.)
Miura's case has aparently been a high-profile story in Japan, where he has been dubbed "the Japanese O.J. Simpson." His extradition had drawn journalists to Los Angeles from dozens of media outlets as far away as Bangkok, Tokyo and Saipan, and his defense attorney was none other than celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos.
After all these years, they finally get him back to Los Angeles, and the bastard does this. It's no small feat to resurrect a 27-year-old murder case. Justice will not be served. Miura's suicide finally brings all of this craziness to an end, but forever unsettled.
This weekend I've been chillin' at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Good times, but more on that later. I wanted to highlight this video, My Vote My Voice by Henry Ahn, which was selected as the winner of SDAFF's Reel in the Vote 2008 competition. As the winner, this spot is screening before every film program during the festival.
Speaking of voting, here's a video by Annabel Park and Eric Byler, featuring Annabel's mom talking about why, after voting Republican in the last two elections, she's now a supporter and volunteer for Barack Obama. Maybe some of you Korean Americans out there can relate to this, and can share this video with your first generation parents and grandparents. Annabel's mom should buy and wear this shirt.
And on sort of a related note, here's a New York Times story on Chinatown's Lin Sing Association, a 108-year-old fraternal club that has transformed in recent years into a political powerhouse for the community: Rocking the Vote Amid the Shrimp Dumplings.
This is largely due to the work of the association's leader, Eddie Chiu. Because of his significant success in encouraging political participation, a growing number of mainstream candidates have visited Mr. Chiu in the hope of gaining his support and, by extension, Chinatown's.
Forgot to mention that Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time Redux is playing in select theaters this weekend from Sony Pictures Classics. The famed Hong Kong auteur revisits his 1994 "martial arts epic," starring Tony Leung, Jackie Cheung, Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung, and re-edited, restored and remastered for the big screen.
I know there are a lot of crazy Wong Kar-wai fans out there, and many consider Ashes of Time—his only entry into the wuxia genre—one of his best. While I certainly appreciate the director's work (In the Mood for Love is one of my favorite films), I've never been one of those full-fledged Wong Kar-wai devotees. But I'm definitely curious to see this one.
Like a lot of people, I've only experienced Ashes of Time on the small screen, and off of a crappy VHS tape (remember those?) at that. I always felt like I was getting cheated out of the film's full impact. I have a feeling that Ashes of Time Redux is truly the way it was meant to be seen—in true, glorious, big screen glory.
Jew admitted to mail fraud, extortion and soliciting a bribe in connection with a scheme to shake down Chinese immigrant owners of tapioca drink shops in the Sunset District for $84,000 in bribes. That's right. The Boba Shop Shake Down. Now, he could spend decades in federal prison.
A grand jury indicted him 11 months ago, alleging that Jew extorted money from the Quickly tapioca drink chain. After a planning official told Jew that the chain's stores appeared to be violating a permit ordinance, Jew told the store operators he would help them stay in business in exchange for cash payments of $10,000 for each of the eight businesses.
Corruption sucks, Ed. And prison sucks even more.
He also still faces state charges alleging that he lied about where he lived to vote and run for office in San Francisco. Prosecutors say Jew lived in Burlingame while he campaigned for and represented District Four in the Sunset. A state court hearing is scheduled later this month.
Another story on Los Angeles Dodgers assistant general manager Kim Ng, who is interviewing for the Seattle Mariners general manager job: Mariners to interview Ng for GM job. No doubt, she's a top-notch, highly qualified candidate for the job. If hired, she'd be breaking down some major color and gender barriers.
The only problem is, she's interviewing while the Dodgers are still in the National League playoffs. Baseball protocol says candidates wait until their team's season is over before they interview for a job with another organization. Though, the way things are going for Los Angeles right now, it might not be a problem much longer...
Mr. Chan, who emigrated to the United States from the province of Canton, China, as a boy, discovered show business while working in his family's restaurant, the House of Chan, which was in the theater district of Manhattan.
He made his film debut in A Face in the Crowd in 1957, playing a radio announcer. He went on to play a theater cashier in The Owl and the Pussycat, a Korean flower vendor in Jumpin' Jack Flash, a dim sum cook in Cadillac Man, the Thai fast-food vendor Mr. Kim in The Fifth Element and Jackie Chan's father in Shanghai Knights.
I'll probably remember him best as the Chinese gangster patriarch Uncle Benny Chan in Lethal Weapon 4... or as the Chinese gangster patriarch Benny Wong in The Corrupter. As you can see, he kind of had the corner on playing Chinese gangster patriarchs named Benny. He will be missed.
I really really loathe TMZ (I prefer getting my celebrity gossip news from omg!), but this shocking item just came to my attention... Actor Joe Son, who you might remember as Random Task, the big Asian henchman guy from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, has been charged in connection with a gang rape: "Austin Powers" Star Charged in Gang Rape.
Back in May, Son pleaded guilty to felony vandalism. As requested by law, he had to give a DNA sample. But when authorities ran the sample through their database, it linked Son to a vicious 1990 gang rape incident, in which a woman was pistol-whipped, raped, blindfolded and released naked.
Son has been charged with five felony counts of rape, two felony counts of forcible sodomy, two felony counts of sodomy in concert by force, seven felony counts of forcible oral copulation, and one felony count of sexual penetration by foreign object by force.
That's an 18-year-old case! Justice has been a long time coming. But it seems that DNA has returned with a vengeance to kick this guy squarely in the nuts. If convicted, Son faces a maximum sentence of 275 years to life.
UPDATE: Several people have informed me that Joe "Rapist" Son actually used to be a fighter in the early days of UFC, back when the fighting was a lot dirtier. My "kick in the nuts" comment was apparently more appropriate than I realized. Here's an old fight video featuring Son getting punched repeatedly in the crotch: Keith Hackney vs Joe Son.
What the hell? In Maryland, a series of attacks have led police to believe that robbers might be targeting Asian residents in the area, following them to their homes and confronting them outside: Robbery Is Latest of Attacks That Appear to Target Asians. Someone out there appears to believe that Asians are easy targets.
The latest victims were two women who were robbed outside a home this week in Silver Spring. Three other Asian couples have been robbed in the past six weeks. Those incidents occurred in Bethesda, Wheaton and the Kensington area.
What's been particularly disturbing to local Asian American residents has been the age of the victims, half of whom are at least 70 years old. In Wednesday's attack, a 48-year-old woman was hit in the face and pushed to the ground. The other woman was 52. The ages of victims in the previous attacks ranged from 61 to 75.
The two assailants in the latest attack were described as black, 16 to 17 years old, 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-9, with dark hooded sweat shirts pulled down to partially cover their faces. Victims in the previous attacks gave similar descriptions. Here's more info from the Montgomery County Police: Police Investigate Robbery of Asian Women.
The New York Times has a fascinating article on the small Texas town of Euless, which has seen a significant influx of Tongan families, bringing a very unique kind of diversity to the area... and some serious power to the local football team: Polynesian Pipeline Feeds a Football Titan.
A pipeline from the Pacific Island kingdom of Tonga, thanks to the nearby Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, has delivered a Polynesian influence to the town's churches, markets and championship football team, the Trinity High Trojans, which won state titles in 2005 and 2007 among Texas' largest schools.
Thirteen of the 24 Trinity players who have made all-state since the 1980s, and 16 members of the current roster, are of Tongan descent. That is crazy awesome.
But it's not just the football team... According to the article, students at Trinity speak 53 languages, and the flags of 31 nations hang in the school's entrance. Half of Trinity's 2,189 students in grades 10 through 12 are white, with a roughly equal mix of black and Hispanics and about 275 Asians and Pacific Islanders.
This year's football team is represented by at least eight nations, from Laos to Rwanda. They're probably a pretty interesting sight on the field. It's definitely a stereotype-defying portrait of Texas small town high school football.
This week, Senator Barack Obama released his Blueprint for the Change We Need for Asian Americans & Pacific Islander. The document identifies issues affecting the AAPI community and describes Senator Obama's plans to address the issues, as well as his record on addressing those issues. It's apparently the most comprehensive planning document for the AAPI community from a presidential campaign. Ever. From Barack's Blueprint:
"By reaching out directly to the AAPI communities, we can ensure that AAPIs are well represented in this national conversation about our future and the movement to write our destiny. The story of the AAPI communities is quintessential the American story about drawing strength from our diversity to achieve extraordinary things. I will be a president who remembers that our separate struggles are really one. I will never walk away from the tough battles or the difficult work of bringing people together."
According to the press release, the Blueprint addresses a wide range of issues, including economic opportunity, education, immigration, health care, home ownership, seniors, women, civil rights, foreign policy, veterans and faith. That's cool, though honestly, I really wish this had been released months ago, rather than less than a month before the election. But I'll take it.
You can download and take a look at the Blueprint here. I haven't had the chance to read it through yet—if you print it out, it's over fifty pages long. But I like that Obama's campaign believed this was an important thing to do. I also kind of dig that it's called the "Blueprint," like it's a Jay-Z album or something.
All right, if you're headed to the San Diego asian Film Festival this weekend, make sure you check out Blowfish, the festival's popular Friday night party, featuring live musical performances from the Blue Scholars, Far East Movement, hip hip violinist Paul Dateh, and Ashley Robles. For more information, get all the event details here.
It's Friday, October 10 at Canes Bar & Grill in San Diego. Admission is $10 at the door and $7 with a festival ticket stub. Come check out some kickass music acts, as well as the fresh beats of DJ Icy Ice of the world famous Beat Junkies, and projected music video premieres from Asian American artists. Should be a pretty cool night.
Meanwhile, on the film front, check out today's schedule of screenings, featuring lots of cool features like Jennifer Phang's Half-Life, Arthur Dong's Hollywood Chinese, Prachya Pinkaew's Chocolate or Harry Kim's Dirty Hands: The Art and Crimes of David Choe. Also be sure to check out a shorts program or two. I've seen most of the films in I Heart U, and I can attest it's a fun program.
For more information on the San Diego Asian Film Festival, including tickets and the full schedule of films and events, visit the festival website here. Also check out this interesting San Diego Union-Tribune story about the festival: Three votes for enlightenment. See you there.
A little bit of news on Sandra Oh's next movie... According to the Hollywood Reporter, she'lll star alongside Kat Dennings and Woody Harrelson in Defendor: Kat Dennings negotiating to play 'Defendor'.
The film centers on a regular guy who believes he has a secret superhero ability. Sandra will apparently play his psychiatrist. I'm betting it's not a huge role, but anyway, there you go.
Here's a cool video from the Obama campaign about young supporters who are trying to get their families to vote for Barack Obama: The Talk. Gary Lee, who I know from a couple of years back, and Kinjal Mehta are among folks sharing their stories in the piece. Such youthful passion! I am proud to say that my siblings and I have also managed to turn our entire household into a pro-Obama family. Yes, Mom and Dad are down with Barack.
This excellent video by Adele Phan looks at the important pan-Asian vote in Virginia: Fresh Look at the Asian Vote in Falls Church, VA. Did you know that Asian Americans are the fastest growing college-going population? And yet Asian Americans aged 18 to 24 were the least likely to vote in the 2004 election. The least likely! Young Asian Americans are good at a lot of things... but so far, respresenting at the polls hasn't been one of them. Let's change that.
And, um... this has nothing to do the Obama campaign, but here's Bobby Lee lampooning John McCain again on MADtv: Bobby Lee Plays McCain Again on MADtv. It's kind of an awful impression—he's not even close. But it's still pretty hilarious.
I've been meaning to write about Wendy Lee's debut novel Happy Family for some time now. It's been sitting on my shelf for a few months (it was published back in June by Black Cat), but I only recently had the chance to read it... and it's good. The book tells the deceptively simple story of Hua, a Chinese immigrant who gets hired as nanny for Lily, a two-year-old adopted from China by a caucasian West Village couple. Here's the official book-jacket synopsis:
When Hua Wu arrives in New York City, her life seems destined to resemble that of countless immigrants before her. She spends her hectic days working in a restaurant, and her lonesome nights in a crowded tenement, yearning for those she left behind in Fuzhou, China.
But one day everything changes for Hua, when she meets Jane Templeton and her daughter Lily, a two-year-old adopted from China. Worried that Lily will know little about the country of her birth, or her native language, Jane eventually decides to hire Hua to be her nanny.
From the moment she steps into Jane's West Village brownstone, Hua finds herself in a world far removed from the cramped streets of Chinatown or her grandmother's home in Fuzhou. Soon she is deeply attached to Lily and her adoptive parents. But when cracks show in the beautiful facade, what will Hua do to protect the little girl who reminds her so much of her own past? An elegant and poignant debut novel, Happy Family is an entrancing exploration of love and loss, the familiar and the foreign, and the ties that bind strangers together.
It's a good read with some well-drawn characters and a quiet, engaging narrative that manages to touch upon some really timely and relevant underlying issues without being overwrought or preachy. It's a little predictable—I think I figured out where it was going pretty early on, but the book asks such interesting questions, it hardly matters.
Wendy informs me that she'll be doing a couple of readings of Happy Family in California this week, today at UC Irvine and Saturday at Eastwind Books in Berkeley. Here are the details:
Thursday, October 9, 2008 12 noon Cross-Cultural Center University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697 (949) 824-7215
Saturday, October 11th, 2008 3:30 p.m. Eastwind Books 2066 University Ave. Berkeley, CA 94704 (510) 548-2350
For more information about Wendy Lee and Happy Family, go to her website here. There's an excerpt from the book, a handy reading group guide, and a brief Q & A with Wendy about some of the intentions and insights that went into writing the novel. Check it out.
More Nobel Prize news... Two Americans and one Japanese won the Nobel Prize in chemistry today for the discovery and development of brightly glowing protein first seen in jellyfish, work that has helped scientists study how cancer cells spread: 1 Japanese, 2 Americans win Nobel chemistry prize.
Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien shared the prize with Japan's Osamu Shimomura for their research on green fluorescent protein, or GFP, which is widely used as a laboratory tool to illuminate processes in living organisms, such as the development of brain cells or the spread of cancer cells.
According to the Royal Swedish Academy, Shimomura first isolated GFP from a jellyfish found off the west coast of North America in 1962 and discovered that it glowed bright green under ultraviolet light.
In the 1990s, Chalfie showed GFP's value "as a luminous genetic tag," while Tsien contributed "to our general understanding of how GFP fluoresce." Their work has enabled "scientists to follow several different biological processes at the same time."
Collectively, their work has enabled "scientists to follow several different biological processes at the same time." Researchers have been able to use GFP to track nerve cell damage from Alzheimer's disease or see how insulin-producing beta-cells are created in the pancreas of a growing embryo.
Tsien, 56, is a professor of pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego. You better believe there was a wicked awesome party at UCSD tonight: UCSD'S Roger Tsien shares Nobel Prize in chemistry.
UPDATE: Here's another article on Professor Tsien and his distinguished research: Illuminating work honored.
Longtime readers are probably aware of my professed crush on Ann Curry. I start off each day tuning into NBC to see her co-host the Today show. It's a silly little ritual, but I'm an Ann fan, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Which is why I was kind of appalled to see her segment on doing standup comedy this morning.
As part of a semi-regular feature about conquering her biggest fears (last time, she bungee-jumped), Ann took up standup comedy. She took a class, consulted with some veteran comedians, wrote some material, which all culminated in her doing a five minute set in front of a live comedy club audience.
Not an easy feat for most people, and Ann isn't necessarily known for being "the funny one" among the Today co-host crew. But I had to hand it to her for trying. She started off okay enough... but then she started venturing into the bad Asian jokes (she's half Japanese) and just got on a roll.
Very groan-worthy. Turns out, the standard can't-fail, fallback strategy for all Asian comics is to make fun of your mother and their wacky accent. Margaret Cho perfected it in the nineties, and since then everything else, to varying degrees, has been a pale imitation. But non-Asians always seem to love it.
Ann totally goes for the wacky Japanese mom thing, and the audience just eats it up (granted, it was a crowd full of NBC ringers). Works every time. Bad accents = cheap laughs. There's not much more to say. One thing's for sure—she's not a comedian. Don't quit your day job, Ann. Watch the segment here: Ann's stand-up routine.
Tragic news out of Southern California. The financial crisis has taken its toll on a family in Porter Ranch, where Karthik Rajaram, a financial manager, was found dead in his home along with his wife, mother-in-law and 3 sons. Apparently distraught over losing his job, he killed his family, then took his own life: Father kills family and himself, despondent over financial losses.
When police entered the home on Monday, they first found the Rajaram's mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, dead in a downstairs bedroom. His wife and three sons—Krishna, 19, a sophomore at UCLA majoring in business economics; Ganesha, 12; and Arjuna, 7 —were discovered in various upstairs bedrooms, all shot in the head, some with multiple gunshot wounds. More here: 6 die in family murder-suicide in Los Angeles.
Rajaram was a financial manager who once made more than $1.2 million in a London-based venture fund. But in recent times he had lost his job, and saw his finances wiped out by the stock market collapse.
According to authorities, he left two suicide notes and a last will and testament. In a letter addressed to police, Rajaram blamed his actions on economic hardships. A second letter, labeled "personal and confidential," was addressed to family friends; the third contained a last will and testament.
The letter to police voiced two options: taking his own life, or killing himself and his entire family. It appears that he somehow talked himself into the second choice, because to him, it seemed to be the "honorable thing to do."
That's ridiculous. We've seen too many of these family multiple murder-suicides now, and it absolutely infuriates me. I understand that Rajaram had reached a very desperate place and his life, and it might have seemed to him that he had run out of options. But as with most of such cases, I have a hard time believing his only choice was to kill himself... and his entire family. To me, it's just one of the most selfish things you could do.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today that two Japanese citizens and an American scientist have won the 2008 Nobel prize in physics for discoveries in the world of subatomic physics: 3 win Nobel for subatomic physics research.
Yoichiro Nambu, 87, of the University of Chicago, won half of the prize for the discovery of a mechanism called spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics. Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan shared the other half of the prize for discovering the origin of the broken symmetry that predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature.
"Spontaneous broken symmetry conceals nature's order under an apparently jumbled surface," the academy said in its citation. "Nambu's theories permeate the standard model of elementary particle physics. The model unifies the smallest building blocks of all matter and three of nature's four forces in one single theory."
According to the citation, as early as 1960, Nambu apparently formulated his mathematical description of spontaneous broken symmetry in particle physics. What does that even mean? It must be Nobel Prize-winning mad science talk. You're blowing my mind with your brilliance, Professor Nambu.
Nambu, who was born in Japan, moved to the United States in 1952 and is a professor at the University of Chicago, where he has worked for 40 years. He became a U.S. citizen in 1970. Kobayashi, 64, works for the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, or KEK, in Tsukuba, Japan. Maskawa, 68, is with the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics at Kyoto University in Japan.
The trio will share the 10 million kronor (US$1.4 million) prize, a diploma and an invitation to the prize ceremonies in Stockholm on December 10. Sweet.
In Stop Me If You Have Heard This One Before, Yoo humorously captures that special mania that only your high-school crushes can induce. Yoo's debut Good Enough chronicles the journey of Patti, an over achieving Ivy-bound teen itching to rebel. After the reading, this young adult duo will discuss creativity among siblings and confess who hogged the bathroom the longest.
@ The Workshop 16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor (btwn Broadway & 5th Avenue)
$5 suggested donation; open to the public
It's happening Thursday, October 9 at the Workshop in New York. I'm not quite done with Stop Me yet, but I'm loving it so far. And I haven't written much about Good Enough, which I read earlier this year, but it's also a great, fun read. So much talent in one family!
Both books are actually geared by their publishers towards teens, so maybe that says something about me. I guess I just wish there were books like this when I was growing up. Anyway, for more information about the event, visit the Asian American Writers' Workshop website here.
This groundbreaking study, released at press conference this morning in Washington DC, was conducted by researchers from four leading universities: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Riverside; and University of Southern California.
The 2008 National Asian American Survey shows that 41 percent of Asian Americans are likely to favor Barack Obama, while 24 percent support John McCain. In battleground states, where either candidate could win on Election Day, Obama leads with 43 percent of Asian Americans supporting him and 22 percent favoring McCain.
But the key finding of the study is the high proportion of undecided Asian American likely voters: 34 percent. Among the general population, national polls conducted since the major party conventions show that undecided voters are approximately 8 percent of the electorate.
The multi-ethnic, multi-lingual survey of more than 4,000 Asian Americans likely to vote in the election was conducted from August 18 to September 26. It's the most comprehensive survey to date of the political views of Asian Americans, with interviews conducted in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
I haven't read over the study very carefully yet, so I'm not sure about the methodology, but I do like the fact that it was a multilingual study. Typically, many Asians aren't accounted for in mainstream surveys because they're usually conducted in English or Spanish... and well, they just don't talk to a lot of Asians.
As an Obama supporter, I'm pleased to hear that a large number of fellow Asian Americans plan on voting for him. And I get it—there's also a significant number of you out there supporting John "I Hate The Gooks" McCain. I get it. Sort of. No, actually, don't. I really don't. But you gotta do what you gotta do. We're not going to see eye to eye on this.
For more information about the National Asian American Survey, go here. Download the press release, which has a good summary of the survey and its findings, here. Or download the full report here in PDF form.
Some really sad news out of Williams, California... On Sunday night, a bus careened out of control and overturned on the way to a Colusa County casino, killing ten people and injuring 35 others. Most of the passengers were reportedly of Asian descent, in their 40-60s and from the Sacramento area: Witness: Bus driven erratically before fatal crash.
The bus, carrying 43 people, was seen swerving back and forth across the road before rolling and spilling many of its passengers into a field. The driver, 52-year-old Quintin Joey Watts of Stockton, was arrested and charged with suspicion of driving under the influence: Driver Charged With DUI In Fatal Bus Crash. It was apparently his first day on the job.
Among the dead, according to the California Highway Patrol, were bus owner Daniel Cobb, 68; Lou Her, 68; Muang Saephanh, 68; Khou Yang, 67; Meuay Saelee, 74 and Fin Saechae, 64—all from Sacramento. More here: Driver in crash that killed 10 on casino bus was drunk.
Well, it's October, and that means Halloween is coming. It also means we can expect to see the unending variety of typicallyracist Halloween costumes that pop up every year. You too can be Oriental, just for one night. Here a few ridiculous ones, with a hair-centric theme...
The above costume item was recently spotted at a Party City. Want to be a "China Man" this Halloween? Apparently, all it takes is a crappy-looking moustache. It's easy. Just affix this nasty piece of hair on your upper lip, and there you go, instant China Man! Adding some fu to your manchu. (Thanks, Brandon.)
But hey, why stop there? There are other fun and easy ways to be Chinese. Just try on the Chinese Man wig, "an ancient style with bald front and long pigtail in the back." But even at the low sale price of $41.48, the Chinese Man wig might just be a little outside your budget. That's okay, because the Bargain Chinese Man wig is also available for just $22.05. Because nobody should miss out on the racist mockery.
Speaking of bargains, how about this kickass Oriental Guy wig? The attention to detail is just tremendous. I swear, every Oriental Guy I know wears his hair just like this! That's amazing. Wearing this crappy piece of mess on your head, you will be the coolest Oriental Guy at the office Halloween party.
Finally, my favorite one. The Old Chinese Man wig! I have no idea what exactly makes this monstrosity "Chinese." But it apparently comes in white, gray, brown and black. And according to the website, this wig also works for "eccentric recluse" and "prospector." Yes, I'm scratching my head too. But the fun doesn't end there. There are just so many ways to get your Oriental Mystique on! It's going to be another great Halloween. That's racist!
Check it out. Mark your calendars for a very cool conference happening in the Bay Area next month... The Applied Research Center presents the Facing Race conference, the leading multi-racial national gathering of organizations and individuals committed to racial justice in the United States. It's happening November 13-15 at the Marriott City Center in Oakland, California.
Facing Race is a movement, with people of different races coming together from across the country to discuss a variety issues and to outline a vision for the future of racial justice. This year's conference is a two-day event featuring 100 presenters in some 50 workshop sessions and plenary panels, as well as a film series and two evenings of cultural entertainment.
Three thematic tracks guide issue- and skill-building workshops; including racial justice policy, strategic communication and media, and community organizing. Featured workshop topics include health equity, green economies, criminal justice, educational equity, immigrant rights, securing civil rights and liberties, racially equitable model policies, and media democracy.
No doubt, this sounds like it's going to be a kickass conference, and considering the current racial/cultural/political climate of our nation, more relevant than ever. I'm hoping that many Asian Americans will be at this conference to represent. For more information about the schedule, speakers, and to register for the conference, visit the Facing Race website here.
It may just high school, but the issues in Frontrunners sound particularly relevant during this important election year. Candidates in the film apparently choose their running mates to round out their demographic profile... which means, at Stuyvesant, that one of the two candidates on a given ticket had better be Asian, or at least in with that crowd. Fascinating.
The film opens on October 15 at the New York Film Forum, and expands to other cities later this month. I've been dying to see this movie since hearing about its premiere earlier this year at South by Southwest. To learn more about the film, visit website here.
The fall film festival season is in full swing, with a little something for everyone. The very first annual Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival launches this Thursday, October 9 with its Opening Night film Far North, starring Michelle Yeoh and Michelle Krusiec, at the Bridge: Cinema de Lux. I don't know anything about this movie, but hey, they're throwing a party.
It's awesome to see another Asian American film festival arrive on the scene, so go out and support it, good people of Philadelphia. The rest of the festival runs through Sunday, October 12 at the Asian Arts Initiative, just outside Chinatown. For more information, and to order tickets, go to the website here, and download the program guide here.
Elsewhere, the Austin Asian American Film Festival 2008 also begins this week. Screening more than forty films over four days, October 9-12 at the Alamo Draft House. If you're in Austin this Thursday, don't miss the Opening Night Film, Arthur Dong's excellent showbiz documentary Hollywood Chinese.
Other AAAFF highlights include the centerpiece Tribute to Vincent Chin, featuring both 1988's Who Killed Vincent Chin? and 2008's Vincent Who? Filmmakers Christine Choy and Curtis Chin will both be in attendance. It should be a really interesting screening and discussion. For more information about the festival, visit the website here.
Elsewhere, there's also the coolest festival around, the Hawaii International Film Festival, running October 9-19. If you're on the mainland, and haven't already made your plans to attend (damn), you're probably not going. HIFF isn't specifically an Asian/Asian American film festival, but its program always ends up being one of the premier U.S. showcases for Asian cinema. This year's Closing Night film is Ji-woon Kim's The Good, The Bad, The Weird, which I've been dying to see. Lucky!
And finally, the 9th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival kicks off this Thursday with the Opening Night screening/reception featuring Jessica Yu's Ping Pong Playa. Writer/star Jimmy Tsai and co-star Smith Cho are scheduled to attend. The festival runs October 9-16 in San Diego, and October 21-23 in Riverside. For more information, visit the festival website here. See you there.
Here's a great opportunity to check out an award-winning, landmark film... The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present Steven Okazaki's 1990 Oscar-winning documentary short Days of Waiting on the big screen for one night only on Monday, October 6 at 7:30pm at the Academy's Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. It'll be followed by Barbara Kopple's American Dream, which won the Oscar for documentary feature that same year.
Days of Waiting tells the story of Estelle Peck Ishigo, a Caucasian artist who refused to be separated from her Nisei when the government incarcerated 110,000 of Japanese Americans in 1942. Thus, she was one of the few Caucasians to be interned with Japanese Americans during World War II.
Through vivid use of Ishigo's own memoirs, photos, and paintings, as well as historic film footage, Okazaki crafts an intimate portrait of an extraordinary woman who may have otherwise been forgotten by history, and her experience in the Japanese American concentration camps.
The screening is part of an ongoing series of the documentary shorts and feature Oscar winners from 1988 to 1997, and features a new print of Days of Waiting made especially for the series. Tickets are $5 for non-Academy members and $3 for Academy members. For more information about the screening and the series, go here.
For those of you in Washington D.C., this is the last day of the 9th annual DC APA Film Festival. Don't miss your chance to see what's happening in the world of Asian and Asian American cinema, and support the nonprofit independent arts in your city. It's about the community.
The program includes the Korean documentary The House of Sharing, a look at the women in a communal home for aging "comfort women"; the D.C. premiere of Tony Lam's Vincent Who?, an examination of the impact of the Vincent Chin murder, twenty-five years later; and the Closing Night film presentation of Derek Shimoda's The Killing of a Chinese Cookie, a humorous documentary on everybody's favorite post-Chinese food dining ritual.
Tickets are still on sale for Closing Night online. Your ticket includes the film screening, Q&A with director, and the post-screening reception with free food and drinks at Civilian Art Projects. All attendees will receive a free gift from Harris Teeter and be entered into a raffle for a pair of Caps tickets and other great prizes.
Okay, Southern California friends. This weekend is your last chance to see my pal Kristina Wong's solo performance show Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. There are just two shows left in the run.
Mixing sharp humor and psychology, the show is described as "a swear-to-god-not-autobiographical, serio-comic portrayal of the high incidence of anxiety, depression and mental illness among Asian American women." It runs through tomorrow, October 5 at the Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica.
I actually received a text message from Kristina this morning, telling me in no uncertain terms, "come to my show or I'll kill you." You see? The woman is serious about her art. Buy tickets here.
Saw this on Daily Kos... Ashwin Madia, considered by many to be a rising star in the Democratic Party, is an Indian American candidate running for U.S. Congress in Minnesota. However, there are those in the Minnesota GOP who are trying to convince voters that Madia is not "one of them," whatever that means.
Here's some video of GOP members describing "holes" in Ashwin Madia's resume — most notably that "from a demographic standpoint," he's "not like us." Unlike Madia's (white) opponent Erik Paulsen, who apparently fits the "one of us" profile quite well.
From the video, it's obvious what these officials know exactly what ideas they're trying to get across, despite denying and dancing around the obvious xenophobic undertones of what they're saying. That's racist! More on this over at Sepia Mutiny: Minnesota Republicans on Ashwin Madia: "Not one of us."
Did you know that October is Filipino American Heritage Month? I had no idea, until I received this press release the other day from the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus:
CAPAC Celebrates Filipino American Heritage Month
Washington, D.C. - Rep. Mike Honda (CA-15), Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) released the following statement today in celebration of Filipino American Heritage Month, which begins on October 1:
"As Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), I am honored to join you in celebrating Filipino American Heritage Month and recognize the history, culture, and vast accomplishments of Filipino Americans.
"Dating back to 1763, Filipinos established their first permanent settlement in North America near New Orleans. Since then, Filipinos have migrated across the country settling mainly in Hawaii and California, and metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Washington, D.C. and Seattle. In 2007, the Filipino American community was estimated to be at 4 million, or 1.5% of the United States population.
"Many of our Filipino brothers and sisters have summoned the courage to leave their families and homeland to begin a new life in America. And with their hard work and contributions, they have provided new possibilities and opportunities for future generations. Individual leaders within the Filipino American community, like Philip Vera Cruz of the United Farm Workers of America, profoundly influenced the farm workers movement while contributing to the wider effort of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to fight for justice and equality.
"The Filipino American community has embraced and actively participated in American society. In addition to the tireless commitment of many Filipino American families to raise their children as positive contributors in their various communities – by investing in education, businesses, and opportunities for the future – individual Filipino Americans have distinguished themselves through their service and vision.
"This list of notables includes General Antonio Taguba, who authored the Taguba Report, an internal U.S. Army report on detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, leaked and published in 2004; Benjamin J. Cayetano, who in 1994 became the first Filipino American governor in the United States; and Rep. Bobby Scott, the only Filipino American member of Congress and Chair of CAPAC's Civil Rights Task Force. I am proud to work closely with Congressman Scott, a strong advocate protecting the civil rights of all Americans.
"During this month, we also recognize the sacrifices and active participation of the 250,000 Filipinos soldiers who fought side by side the United States army during World War II. Sixty one years ago, Congress broke a promise to Filipino World War II veterans by stripping these soldiers of United States veteran's status. The passage of the Rescission Acts of 1946 robbed these brave men of their veterans' benefits despite their courageous service in defending the Philippine Islands and aiding the United States military. In order to right this injustice and support our veterans, CAPAC is fighting to provide the full benefits promised to the surviving Filipino veterans who fought in WWII under the American flag.
"CAPAC is also working hard to unite Filipino American families who have been separated for far too long due to our immigration backlogs. Take for example, Francisco Villacrusis, an elderly U.S. citizen, who is a widower in poor health left alone without the care and support of his son and his daughter. They are in the Philippines, waiting in the U.S. family immigration backlogs since 1994, according to a report by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. These decades of separation are inhumane and unacceptable and fail to honor the contributions of Filipino families and all immigrant families who help to build our American economy.
"Once again, I congratulate the Filipino American community for all their contributions to this great nation. I look forward to continuing our work together as we celebrate how far we have come, and work toward a brighter future."
According to Wikipedia, Filipino American Heritage Month was established by the Filipino American National Historical Society in 1988, and is officially recognized by the California Department of Education. And now you know.
Asian Behaving Badly... bad campaign tactics edition. Tan Nguyen, a former Orange County congressional candidate, is accused to misleading investigators examining a controversial letter his campaign sent to people with Spanish surnames warning about the consequences of voting illegally. He was indicted by a federal grand jury this week obstruction of justice charges: Former candidate for Congress indicted on charges of obstructing justice.
Nguyen was running to unseat Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) in the November 2006 election. Three weeks before the election, his campaign sent letters to 14,000 voters in central Orange County that said, "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or if you are an immigrant, a vote in a federal election is a crime that can result in jail imprisonment or you will be deported for voting without the right to do so."
The letter, written to Spanish, also falsely said that the state had developed a tracking system that would allow new Latino voters' names to be handed over to anti-immigrant groups.
Last year, the state attorney general's office said it wouldn't file charges against Nguyen after a seven-month investigation found there was no criminal intent to intimidate voters in the letters. However, according to federal officials, Nguyen allegedly misled investigators who were looking into whether the letter violated election laws. Thus, the obstruction of justice charges.
If convicted, Nguyen could face up to 10 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. More here: Former candidate Tan Nguyen indicted over mailer sent to Latinos. It looks like Tan Nguyen will not be running for office again anytime soon.
Just a quick reminder for Bay Area friends... this weekend, don't miss an awesome night of hot Asian American men, "equal-opportunity all-in-good-fun ogling" and positive community building—a beautiful combination. It's the 3rd annual Mr. Hyphen competition.
Each year, Hyphen and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center celebrate Asian American men who devote themselves to worthy community causes with an all-out beauty pageant in the name of charity. The man who is crowned Mr. Hyphen wins a $1000 cash donation to his nonprofit organization.
It's all going down this Saturday, October 4 at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Advance tickets are $15, on sale through PayPal until noon on October 4. To buy tickets, or for more information on the event, and a look at the six Mr. Hyphen Finalists, go here.
There's a fight going on in Philadelphia's Chinatown. A couple of weeks ago, Governor Rendell and Mayor Nutter announced their master plan to reinvent one of the city's dreariest downtown thoroughfares and improve nearby neighborhoods... by building a casino: Rendell, Nutter hail casino plan.
The Foxwoods Casino would be a public-transit-friendly, 300,000 square feet, 5,000-machine slots parlor open 24/7 within the Gallery at Market East next to Chinatown. The community is not cool with this, with many calling the plan a "very, very, bad idea" for Chinatown. And they're gearing up for a fight: Chinatown Ready To Fight Casino Relocation.
As many know, and as research has shown, there have been consistently rising rates of gambling addiction within the Asian American community. Many feel that a casino within such close proximity of Chinatown will run the risk of feeding a gambling habit: Chinatown residents fear lure of gaming.
Of course, the casino people don't see a problem. Why would they? At a recent press conference, when confronted with concerns raised about gambling addiction, Foxwoods chair Michael Thomas apparently responded, "You call it a gambling addiction. I call it a client base." Ah, it all becomes clear, doesn't it?
For more information on the issue, visit the Asian Americans United website here. They've got a downloadable fact sheet on the direct impacts of the casino on Chinatown. Also visit Casino-Free Philadelphia. And the Facebook group Students Against the Gallery Casino. And finally, sign the online petition. Show your support and spread the word—we can make this issue extend beyond just Chinatown and Philadelphia.
This Saturday in New York, a number of high-profile South Asian writers are gathering for an event in support of Barack Obama: Writers Speak Out for Obama in New York on 10/4. Guest will include Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri and Kiran Desai, among others, who will share their thoughts on Obama and read from their work. Here are some details:
A Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens Presents:
(Writers will share their thoughts on Obama and read from their work.)
With filmmaker Mira Nair as emcee and jazz music provided by the AZA Jazz Collective
Saturday, October 4, 2008 6:00pm - 9:00 pm (Program will begin at 6:30pm.)
Le Poisson Rouge 158 Bleecker Street New York, NY 10012 www.lepoissonrouge.com
Tickets: $100 - General Admission $250 - VIP Admission (reception begins at 5:00pm) NOTE ON TICKET PRICES: On-line ticket sales will close at 3 pm this Friday, Oct. 3, after which tickets will be available only at the door. Ticket prices at the door will increase to $125 for general admission and $275 for VIP admission. Due to the turbulence in the financial markets, we have decided to postpone the ticket price increase to the day of the event rather than October 1 as originally announced.
It's happening Saturday evening, October 4 at Le Poisson Rouge in New York. Ticket prices are a bit steep, but if you're a literary head, it looks like it's going to be a pretty cool event. For more information, and to RSVP for the event, visit the South Asians for Obama website here.
Last week in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was where babies and children were being watched while their mothers were engaged in prayers: Muslim Children Gassed at Dayton Mosque After "Obsession" DVD Hits Ohio.
The attack came after thousands of DVD copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West—the fear-mongering anti-Muslim documentary being distributed in swing states by a pro-McCain group—were delivered by mail in Ohio. This is straight-up scare propaganda, and it looks like it worked with somebody out there.
A 10-year-old girl was watching other children when she noticed two men standing outside a basement window. One of the men sprayed something through the open window and into the girl's face from a can. According to a police report, the girl said she immediately felt burning on her face and felt "sick to her stomach." A can of pepper spray was later found near the mosque: Can of pepper spray found near mosque.
What the hell? A ten-year-old girl? What kind of coward-ass hate is this? Is this not a hate crime? The Dayton police don't seem to think so, because there's no evidence of bias: Police: No evidence of hate crime at local mosque. You apparently have to say something when you pepper spray a little girl for it to be a hate crime.
This has been all over the blogs this week, but I haven't heard it mentioned at all in mainstream media outside the Dayton Daily News stories. I would've thought something like this would get picked up by other news outlets, but without the official hate crime aspect, it's not a "real" story. Where's the outrage? So at the very least, I'm bringing it to your attention here.
A new pregnancy study looking at risk factors for interracial couples, Asian-white couples in particular, shows a unique risk profile for such couples, including a larger likelihood for gestational diabetes: Asian-white couples have distinct pregnancy risks.
The study, by researchers at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine, found that pregnant women who are part of an Asian-white couple have an increased risk of gestational diabetes (4% incidence) compared with couples in which both partners are white (1.6%). Gestational diabetes is a known risk factor for Asian-Asian couples: an incidence rate of 5.7%. That is thought to be linked to a genetic predisposition. But the new study found that interracial couples also had an increased risk no matter which partner is Asian.
The research, published today in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, points to the need for more evaluation of health risks unique to interracial couples or people of mixed race. Now you know.
In Seoul, Choi Jin-sil, one of South Korea's most popular actresses was found dead in a suspected suicide: S. Korean actress found dead in suspected suicide. According to police, she was found Thursday in the bathroom of her home, dead from apparent hanging. No suicide note has been found.
This will no doubt come as a shock to her fans. Choi made her debut in the late 1980s and quickly became one of South Korea's best-loved actresses, starring in movies like My Love, My Bride and How to Top My Wife. I probably remember her best from the TV drama Jealousy.
Choi reportedly was suffering mental stress in recent weeks amid unsubstantiated rumors that she had lent money to actor Ahn Jae-hwan, who was found dead in his car last month in an apparent suicide. There have apparently been rumors circulating that Ahn killed himself after Choi pressured him to repay the debt.
I can't say I was a huge fan, nor did I follow Choi's recent career very closely, but this new definitely still comes as a bit of a shock. More here: Top Actress Choi Found Dead at Home.
Slate has an article on the LEAP report and the often overlooked role of Asian American voters... but what's up with the headline: Chinese Democracy. Seriously, am I missing something? Is this some sort of expression that I'm unaware of? Or is Slate just totally off? Can they really be this stupid?
Perhaps the headline is a reference to Chinese Democracy, the upcoming sixth studio album by Guns N' Roses. Or maybe it refers to the actual Chinese democracy movement. But this article really has nothing to do with either of these things. I don't get it, and it's really bugging me...
If you're in Southern California, don't miss your chance to see Charlie Nguyen's kickass action film The Rebel on the big screen at two special promotional screening engagements this month, on October 3 in Santa Ana and October 23 in Alhambra. I've seen it twice on the big screen, and I can't recommend enough. It's one seriously badass movie.
Celebrated as the highest grossest Vietnamese film ever made, The Rebel stars Johnny Tri Nguyen, the greatest action star you've probably never heard of, and Vietnamese pop star/actress Ngo Thanh Van. Set in 1920s Vietnam, it's an action-packed tale of Vietnamese resistance forces rising up against long-standing French foreign control. Lots of asskicking is involved. That's all you really need to know.
I should mention that Dustin Nguyen also stars as the villain, in pretty much the coolest role I've ever seen him play... and there was a time when I honestly believed it didn't get much cooler than Dustin as Officer Harry T. Ioki on 21 Jump Street.
The Rebel will be presented on October 3, 7:00pm at the Bowers Museum's Norma Kershaw Auditorium in Santa Ana and October 23, 7:30pm at the Edwards Alhambra Renaissance 14 in Alhambra. Director Charlie Nguyen and lead actor Dustin Nguyen are slated to appear, and will participate in a Q & A session following each screening. For more information, go here.
For everybody else who can't make it to these screenings, you can now catch the movie on DVD. The 2-Disc Ultimate Edition DVD just hit stores this week. Buy it, rent it, put it on your Netflix queue. I leave you with this quote from online movie magazine Film Threat, which describes The Rebel as "So badass it hurts...but it hurts so good."
Here's an update on the Bloomingdale rape victim, the 18-year-old high school student in Tampa, Florida who was brutally beaten and raped while returning books to a public library last April. The attack left her with life-altering injuries that will require special care for the rest of her life, and her family needs help paying for it.
If you'd like to help, but couldn't make it out to the fundraiser, you can still contribute. A PayPal account for the Library Rape Assault Victim Fund has been set up under Michelle Phan at thericebunny@yahoo.com.
The report touches on issues such as the civic participation of immigrants and Asian American college students, the role of the internet in increasing Asian American civic engagement, and how civic engagement might serve as a pathway to political party identification. (Special shout-out to my pal Oiyan, one of the authors of the report.)
LEAP is presenting a limited series of roundtable discussions in several cities with writers to discuss findings from the report, discuss the issues, and Q&A.
Please save the date for a limited series of roundtable discussions about the release of LEAP's 5th public policy report: The State of Asian America: Trajectory of Civic and Political Engagement.
What: An engaging panel with writers to discuss findings from the report, discuss the issues, and Q&A
Panelists: -Paul Ong, UC Los Angeles (editor) -Taeku Lee, UC Berkeley -Richard Hung, UMass Boston -Yen Le Espiritu, UC San Diego -Jerry Kang, UC Los Angeles -Pei-te Lien, UC Santa Barbara -Julie Park, UC Los Angeles -Claire Jean Kim, UC Irvine -Terry Ao, Asian American Justice Center -Marlene Kim, UMass Boston
*Each roundtable will have 3-4 of the above writers present
*Please call 213-485-1422 for more details on the event near you!
Sorry, the one in D.C. was yesterday. For more information about the report and the panel events, visit the LEAP website here. I haven't actually looked at the report yet, but I'm sure it's pretty interesting and relevant, especially considering the historic, color-conscious nature of this election year.
Jenn Fang over at Reappropriate has an interview with one of the Dr. Paul Ong, professor of Urban Planning and Asian American Studies at UCLA and editor of The State of Asian America, about this report and the future of Asian American political involvement: Exploring The State of Asian America: Interview with Dr. Paul Ong, UCLA. Check it out.
You know I love a good film festival. I think it's the best way to see all the latest and greatest stuff happening in Asian American cinema. But sometimes, you just can't make it out to a film festival near you. So... Asian CineVision is bringing the film festival to you! ACV proudly presents the National Festival Tour 08/09, coming to a school/library/museum/community group near you.
The only traveling festival of its kind in the country, the National Festival Tour annually showcases carefully curated selections of this year's best narrative, documentary, short, and experimental films from the Asian American International Film Festival '08. You can rent a feature or shorts program for your classroom seminar or lecture, your student group event, or your corporate affinity group.
This is a really cool and rare opportunity to bring Asian American film programming to your community—perhaps something your community doesn't always get to experience. Organize an Asian American film festival in your living room! With a percentage of the rental fees going to the filmmakers, it's also a great way for your organization to directly support Asian American artists. For a full list of films and prices, go here.
Dr. Madduri's attempts to go to the bathroom apparently angered and frightened a flight attendant, who wouldn't tell him why he couldn't use the lavatory (the pilot was using it), despite Madduri's explanation that he was taking a medicine that acts as a diuretic. Listen to the urologist! When the plane landed he was arrested, spent the night in jail, and was told the next day to plead guilty and pay $2500 if he wanted a quick resolution.
Read about Dr. Madduri's crappy, humiliating ordeal here, in his own words. All this, for trying to go to the bathroom! I think it's pretty clear that the flight attendant overreacted, then proceeded to put this guy through hell. Having spent a long night in jail, to avoid a protracted and costly legal fight, Madduri actually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and paid the $2,500—a decision he now regrets: Doctor now regrets pleading guilty over incident on airplane.
The flight attendant's freak out wouldn't have anything to do with Dr. Madduri's skin color and ethnic background, would it? Because yeah, he just happens to be of Indian descent. Never mind the fact that he immigrated to the United States 38 years ago and has lived and worked here like any other respectable citizen. There was a brown man trying to go to the bathroom, and that just seemed a little shady. That's racist!
, is a compilation of his advice, interviews and musings on all aspects of entrepreneurship. 
