Click to expand. Source: Entertainment Weekly – Network breakdowns include only cast regulars (as of June 6, 2008) for scripted series airing in fall 2008.
I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly and in this past week’s issue, they had the story, “Diversity in Entertainment: Why Is TV So White?” and the lack of diversity of the television’s upcoming fall lineup of new shows.
Is it really that hard to fill television today with Asian Americans? I read the article, and some other postings on the web, and I still didn’t find any good answers. I have come to the conclusion that Hollywood is just plain lazy and not a priority. Well, with more choices in cable programming and the Internet, the major networks’ influence on entertainment is waining. Hopefully, in entertainment 2.0, there’ll be more Asian American representation reflective of our presence in this country, no matter how small it is relative to the general population.
With NBC supposedly having 9.7% of its cast members be Asian Americans, are we over-represented? How would that feel on the opposite end? And what kind of roles are these going to be? Are we ever going to see an Asian American male actor playing a regular role as a doctor? At least we got to see an Asian American couple kissing this year – LOL. I wonder if greater television actor diversity will occur once Senator Obama becomes president? 
. Maybe ‘24‘ then will have a white president.
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UPDATE: My brother informs me I have some details wrong in my monkey story, so I am editing for further accuracy.
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I have quite a few Taiwanese blogs showing up in my RSS reader and every so often a post will catch my eye. Over at IslaFormosa.com, there was an interesting post entitled Orangutan Alert and Other Strange House Pets
IslaFormosa teaches English in Taiwan and…
I was teaching apologies and excuses to my students. I gave an example of a lousy excuse: “I really wanted to but I had to look after my pet monkey.”
Being Canadian, I thought this was really ridiculous and far-fetched. One student looked perplexed though. I asked her what was up and she said that, in fact, her neighbor across the street actually had a monkey.
“Are you sure?”, I asked.
“Yeah, it’s orange.”
Orangutan immediately came to mind. I probed a little further but she started to become quiet after I mentioned that orangutans where banned as pets (and in Taipei city no less!!!).
The post goes on to mention that 1,000 baby orangutans were smuggled to Taiwan from Kalimantan on Borneo between 1985 and 1990 and sold as exotic pets.
The reason for this surge in orangutans as pets? A popular Taiwanese television program that featured a live orangutan as the perfect pet and companion!
Not surprisingly, smuggling and poaching was how baby orangutans got into Taiwanese homes. Also predictably, the cute and cuddly baby orangutans grow up and become not-so cute and totally unmanageable adult oranugtans. In 1990, the Taiwanese government made it illegal to have orangutans as pets, but I guess some of them are still around.
This reminds me of a story that my Mom told me about her older brother (my uncle) when they were growing up in Taipei. Mind you, this was a different time, so Taipei wasn’t as urban then as it is now, but basically, my uncle had a pet monkey (I don’t know what kind; my Mom just said it was a “猴子,” she didn’t say it was an orangutan “猩猩”). I guess my uncle LOVED this monkey and raised it from from it was baby. As it got bigger, no one could control this monkey and it would run around the house getting into everything and throwing its doody all over the place, but my uncle loved the monkey so much that he let it do whatever it wanted. And since my uncle was the oldest boy, anything he wanted went.
One day, the monkey was doing its usual uncontrollable thing and it got outside and some school kids (neighborhood kids?) were picking on the monkey… throwing rocks and stuff at it. The monkey freaked out and it tried to get away by climbing the electric pole. My uncle was yelling at the monkey to get down, but of course the monkey didn’t listen to him. It was jumping around and then swinging from place to place until it reached up and grabbed some electrical wires where it was promptly electrocuted to death and fell to ground into a lifeless pile in front of my uncle’s eyes.
My Mom said she had never seen her older brother cry over anything before and never forgot that monkey or how it died.
Anyway, I guess the point of all this is that people have different ideas about what animals are appropriate as pets. You would think in this day in age that people know that monkeys aren’t appropriate pets. But even in modern day in urbanized places like Taipei, some people still have wild boars chained up in front of their homes/stores.
What are some of the strange pets that you’ve encountered?
Shopping With GASP!
So Jeff Yang up and did it — he talked about interracial relationships among Asians, but added a twist and focused on straight Asian men. And while it’s all well and good, and talks about on a really peripheral level the varied issues that straight Asian men go through, like the issue of being a person of color and disenfranchised, yet taking advantage of heterosexual American male privilege and demanding to be with a white woman; the dearth of Asian men with women of color, particularly black women; and looking — finally — at the problems that mixed-race Asians have to go through, particularly in regards to ethnic identity, I find myself irritated because they’ve left me out. Again.
As someone who’s been romantically and sexually attracted to other Asian men since at least sixteen (when I had my first boyfriend, who happened to be Vietnamese), I found myself with relatively less psychological baggage than most other queer Asian men who happened to have dated white men. I wasn’t particularly looking for someone Asian, but my first boyfriend happened to be a transfer student from San Diego, a Vietnamese guy with something different, and so we started hanging out a lot. When we started holding hands, it seemed like the most natural thing to do, even though people were talking. The six months that we dated had all the trappings of puppy love and unrealistic expectations (moving in together at age seventeen, going to the same college, etc.) And while I ended up ending the relationship because of my own fucked up internalized homophobia and the threat of being disowned, he opened up the possibility of being proud of who I was as being Asian, and being Filipino. He was genuinely interested in my cultural background, asking questions about food, history, and my upbringing. My mom loved him and wondered what happened to “my friend” after I broke it off — the only other time she ever really liked a guy I dated was my current partner. I can safely say that thanks to him, he started me on a path to become relatively well adjusted in terms of how my ethnic and sexual identity came to play. Even though I totally fucked it up.
After coming out publicly in college, I began to meet other queer Asian men, whose preferences were more towards white men. What was annoying to me was that they always had to feel apologetic towards their preferences for me. One guy, who had also dated primarily white men, said in all sincerity, “Wow, that’s so cool that your first boyfriend was Vietnamese. That is so… so… revolutionary!” I remember looking at him and wondering what planet he stepped off of, and why he felt he had to justify his preferences to me, especially since there was no attraction between us. I can see where he was going — that he was going through the now oft-quoted adage (and I’m taking liberties with this) that “Loving Asian men is a revolutionary act,” especially if you’re another Asian American man who’s been taught to believe that white men are the pinnacle of desirability.
Needless to say, this has been a constant theme ever since. Coming out in the early to mid 1990s, there were very few out Asian American men for me to look up to, and I could count all the Asian men with other Asian partners on the fingers of one hand, and have fingers left over. I saw how Asian men were either completely ignored by the mainstream queer white media, or simply seen as sexual objects, like a male archetype of Suzie Wong, the dragon lady, but with a gay twist. Being unable to get a green card, Asian men were simply seen as gold-diggers, with small dicks who are exclusively bottoms, and most importantly, who can’t be trusted. Fuck with us and we’ll take all your shit. We couldn’t speak English fluently, nor be fluent in American culture.
No wonder so many queer Asian American men coming out at that time had so much baggage.
I’ve never seen my primary attraction towards Asian men as something political or particularly revolutionary — it was just part of who I was and what makes me tick. I’ve seen guys who felt a need to be called “sticky rice”, or be an Asian man attracted to other Asian man in order to be seen as politically acceptable, when in reality, they preferred white men, even though their politics was truly spot on. I’ve seen Asian men who’ve blindly preferred other Asian men, then spout off on the most racist stuff on non-Asian men (white, black, whatever), but automatically assumed that we were buddies because of our mutual preferences. I’ve been with guys who claimed to be “potato queens,” but only because they had never met another Asian guy who was Americanized as they were and suddenly realized that whole new dating opportunities existed to them.
It’s sad to see that the dialectic that exists among queer Asian men revolves around Asian and white, with very, very few Asian men dating other men of color, particularly black. Latino men are seen as being “almost white” and are seen as culturally acceptable, but I’ve only met 3 or 4 Asian-black male couples whose relationships lasted a long time and were not fraught with cultural expectations based on stereotypes.
That being said, personally, it’s never bothered me to see Asian men with other men, white, or of color. Given that the dating pool for us “sticky rice” is so limited to the point that we can be downright incestuous (10% of 3% of the total American population, you do the math) I have better things to do than to waste my time trying to regulate who my fellow Asians can date. I’m ecstatic to see couples get together and survive long enough to become long term, regardless of who their partner is. Given the outright homophobia that exists in many of our Asian communities, and the racism that both partners feel, particularly if they’re interracial, it’s a victory and a triumph to see couples survive.
Thankfully though, as the number of queer Asian men coming out has skyrocketed thanks to the ‘net, and also seeing that the young queer Asian men coming out have less racist baggage and internalized homophobia, it’s nice to see that there are more Asian-Asian (and Asian-men of color) male couples out there. And it’s funny to see that my partner and I are now one of the old-timers, having been together eleven years, gotten married, and then got really famous for being married. And it’s also nice to see Asian-white male couples who are acutely aware of their race politics… and live their lives out.
I remember when my partner and I were first dating, and we would hold hands in the Castro or in Union Square, and people would do double takes seeing two Asian guys together who obviously weren’t related. I remember getting the confused stares from fellow Asians with white partners who wondered what we were about — and the creepy, lust-filled looks from white guys trying to imagine us in bed. It’s nice to see that this is no longer such a novelty.
Hopefully, this post — however long-winded as it is — will put an end to my own personal frustration of seeing all the straight Asian people bitch and moan.
You all got it lucky. Look at my frickin’ dating pool.
When I heard that a Broadway musical based on Bruce Lee’s life was being created, I thought it was just a bad idea (similar to a deranged barber going on a murderous, revengful spree…a musical about the 4 seasons…Xanadu…need I say more?)…ok, I’ve been wrong before! I was most impressed to see the production team is quite impressive, with high class Broadway talent.
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David Henry Hwang is going to be writing the book for the musical of Bruce Lee’s life. David is such a stunning storyteller, he wrote the script for the Gwenyth Paltrow movie Posession, as well as many plays on Broadway, and won the Tony award as the first Asian American to win for Best Play, M Butterfly.
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Bartlett Sher will be director!! Just won the Tony award for Best Director for the current Broadway production of South Pacific…I am a *huge* fan! I loooved his productions of Light in the Piazza, and the Met Opera’s production of the Barber of Seville, as well as his quietly touching production of the Broadway play Awake and Sing. I can imagine a lush, minimalistically modern but beautiful production of…Bruce Lee’s life? I am only excited to see what Bartlett will think up!
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David Yazbeck is writing the music and lyrics. Previous fame from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (which I loved!!), the Full Monty musical (honestly, not my fave)…the music of Yazbeck plus Sher’s direction will definitely be worth seeing.
The Bruce Lee musical will be the story of his life intertwined with Chinese folklore of the Monkey King…mixing Chinese pop and culture, I can’t even imagine what this musical will be like.
For casting… B.D. Wong comes to mind…my personal pick would be Darren Lee because he is such an amazing dancer (anyone see an Asian guy dance in the background in the movie Chicago with Catherine Zeta-Jones? That’s Darren!). What do you think? Hokey or brilliant?
I need help.
I have zero experience in martial arts. Any kind of martial arts. I’m sure there’s ninja blood in me somewhere (cause what other perks of being Japanese are there?) but really, I’m like the least balanced, least swift, least flexible and least athletic person out there. Martial arts and I are not friends.
That being said, I do know how to differentiate between the different types of martial arts. It’s like being Asian–we can all categorize ourselves under one race, but you have to understand that we’re not all the same: China does not equal Japan, and you’re an idiot to think that people from Vietnam speak the same language as those from Korea. Right?
Hapkido and Aikido both originate from Japan, but they are not the same thing as Kung Fu. I know nothing about what goes on in between, but I can tell you that.
So why can’t people in America do the same thing with martial arts?
I first noticed this with the Foot Fist Way trailer, which Will Ferrell and the comedic world have been touting around as the funniest movie ever. I’m saving my judgement for when I see the movie (something whenever wherever), which follows a guy named Fred (Danny McBride), who is a world-class Tae Kwon Do instructor.
Here’s my question–is he or is he not wearing a Karate uniform throughout this movie?!
Karate isn’t the same as Tae Kwon Do, right? I mean, one comes from Japan (Okinawa, to be specific), and the other is the national sport of South Korea. Karate (apparently, according to Google) is a “striking art” and their uniform consists a kimono-like top with colored belts.
TKD, on the other hand, is uh…(let me check this)..something different, but includes a dobok uniform, modeled about the han bohk.
Right?
So why can’t other people tell the difference?
I thought that was the only incident, until I caught the ending of MTV’s show, MADE (best show ever!!!) where a fat lazy boy turned into a winning “Karate Kid.” Yay for fat white boys learning to exercise and fight! Except, if he’s a “karate kid,” then why is the emblem of the South Korean flag tied around his forehead? Why must he fight ninjas? He’s wearing a proper Karate uniform, but why is Chan Lee, his instructor, wearing a dobok? Can you really mix and match these two martial arts? Does he really learn how to fight karate, or is it really tae kwon do all along?
I’m so confused.
So please, tell me what’s going on, especially if you know more about this topic than me, because here’s my issue: THEY’RE DIFFERENT. WE’RE DIFFERENT AND YOU CAN’T JUST LUMP US ALL TOGETHER.
(I mean, I could totally ask my ex-boyfriend, who was a TKD fiend, but that would be kind of awkward, since we haven’t talked in forever and then that would launch this whole OTHER conversation about why we haven’t talked in forever…yeah. Please spare me that ordeal.)
Dear Amy,
I’ve always prided myself on being a fan of yours; my ex got me listening to your first album Frank when you weren’t anorexic and you didn’t have any tattoos or freaky beehive hairdos. When I learned you were working with Mark Ronson I was thrilled, and when you won a Grammy in the brief moment you were sober or not [noticeably] on crack I turned to my friends and said, “see? I could totally be an A&R guy,” even though I’m in tech and, let’s face it, I could NEVER be an A&R guy.
And then you became a mess. A hot, tragic mess.
Now I hear about the video about you going off doing some racist sing-song rant, singing about Paki’s, Chinks and Nips and pulling back your eyes in front of a video camera to your rockstar-lifestyle boyfriend. And here’s the thing: given that I’m writing this open letter on a website called 8asians.com, this is usually the part where I wave my arms at how outrageous and inappropriate a remark like that is, and how shocked and appalled I am as an Asian American to see entertainers engaging in this type of behavior, blah blah fuckity blah.
As an Asian, I’m kinda like, “yeah, that’s fucked.” As a Winehouse fan, I’m all, “Girl, YOU’RE SINGING THIS FROM A CRACKHOUSE.”
Making fun of Amy Winehouse nowadays is like making fun of Whitney Houston three or four years ago: the “crack is whack” meme was hilarious for a while, but the story would get more tragic in passing. When it gets to the point that you see photos of her cracked out in a fur coat at a gas station at two in the morning and all you can really say is something like, “man, I hope she finds Jesus.” And I’m Agnostic.
With Amy, it’s the same thing. I would say something like “I’m so offended I’ll never listen to your music again,” but that’s not really true, because you were probably so twacked out you have absolutely no recollection of saying it, and there are other perfectly legit reasons why I may never listen to your stuff again: you keep getting dropped from labels, and the stuff you HAVE been doing sounds a little lackluster. (Your cover of “Cupid” is still good, but seriously, it sounds like you’re hitting the bottle between takes.) I would keep writing, but it really just depresses the living hell out of me.
Amy Winehouse, from one non-religious person to another: you need to find Jesus. That is all.
Over at cracked.com, they like to do these lists.
Lo and behold their recent list: The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World
While 4 of the 5 most horrifying bugs in the world are found in South or Central America, a Japanese bug holds the #1 title.
I present to you the Japanese Giant Hornet (vespa mandarinia japonica) aka the Asian Giant Hornet or the Yak Killer Hornet
That’s right. The Yak Killer Hornet.
Actually, this scary thing is found in various parts of Asia: Korea, China, Taiwan (where it is called the “tiger bee”), Indochina, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka, but is most common in mountainous areas of Japan (where it is called suzumebachi スズメバチ, or the “sparrow bee”).*
Anyway, why is this critter so bad ass?
It’s the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for, you know, dramatic effect because goddamn, what a terrible thing a three-inch acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots it into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone cocktail in it that’ll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive?
Think you can outrun it? It can fly 50 miles in a day. It’d be nice to say something reassuring at this point, like “Don’t worry, they only live on top of really tall mountains where nobody wants to live,” but no, they live all over the goddamned place, including outside Tokyo.
Forty people die like that every year, each of them horribly.
And I thought the big-ass flying cockroaches in Taiwan were scary! (#2 – #5 on that horrifying bug list were pretty scary, too… much scarier than the flying cockroaches…)
Image courtesy of cracked.com
*Thanks, Wikipedia
“Obviously there are a lot of folk from Asian ancestry in Hawaii, generally the teams aren’t as tall…”
– Barack Obama
The quote begins at the 3:00 mark
Personally I don’t find this quote offensive at all. Despite the fact that he answered Kimmel’s question of “Can you dunk” with the response that Asians “aren’t as tall” — then saying thats why he “posted up,” thereby laying the groundwork that, in fact, he can’t dunk — I do find it disappointing. Duly noted, this is the Jimmy Kimmel Show, not Meet the Press but nevertheless, disappointing. Disappointing because he grew up around Asians as the Obama campaign has fully emphasized. His half sister is Asian and his brother-in-law even stated that Mr. Obama has been influenced by Asian culture, from views on family and faith to education and social welfare. But to me the most disappointing factor is that Barack Obama is a Black man and of all people he should know and understand the usage of sweeping generalizations when it comes to describing other cultures and ethnicities.
Note that this in no way should affect your vote, as it will have no affect on mine. I’m proud to say that the first vote for president I will cast ever as a legal-of-age citizen in the United States will be cast for Barack Obama, for the idea of HOPE and CHANGE that he has instilled inside my soul — not only with his words but with his overall demeanor, actions, and promises. For the 5% of the population of the U.S. who “aren’t as tall,” it’s hard to imagine a society where Asian jokes in the media and Hollywood are not taken so lightly; when we’re not being laughed at, but laughed with. It’s hard to imagine hope and change when it comes to that. But because of Barack Obama, I DO have hope that one day this will change, and that’s why his lighthearted joke to me was disappointing.
On the flip side, damn, Obama was tall as hell back in high school. And, HEY! he’s the ONLY non-asian on the team! (Insert sarcasm when needed)
“What are you?”
I’m sure every Asian-American has been asked that question at least once in their lifetime. A question asked innocently by a (presumably) well-intentioned colleague, acquaintance, or even stranger. In the mind of the asker, the question seems like nothing more than an easy way to start a conversation…something akin to talking about the weather, sports, or weekend activities. However, if you’re like me, the question feels like some loaded accusation of “foreign-ness” and difference. It usually takes every once of my self control not to smack the asker and instead semi-facetiously respond “I’m a New Yorker”.
Humans like to catalogue and categorize. It’s a trait route out of survival. Given the millions of bits of information hurled at us throughout our waking day, we try to simply the world we live in – apply heuristics and catalogue information into neat boxes that help make the world seem a lot more manageable than it truly is. Case in point, we generally catalogue expensive things into the “good quality” bucket even if this may or may not be true.
So, when someone tries to learn what I am, its there way of starting the cataloguing/simplification process – which they probably already started when they looked at my decidedly asian face or read my decidedly asian name on my resume.
But racial grouping has always carried with it a whole slew of baggage, bile, and resentment. What purpose does racial grouping serve…and more importantly how should society even begin to define the boundaries of race? That’s the question the WSJ attempts to address in their recent article Racial Identity’s Gray Area
When Barack Obama, whose mother was white, identifies himself as black, and when Bill Richardson, whose father was white, identifies himself as Hispanic, who is white?… The U.S. has never found it easy to assign race, although it certainly has tried. A century ago, the people who did the counting — demographers, sociologists, policy thinkers — divided whites into three strata. They considered Nordic whites, from England, Scandinavia and Germany, the most ethnically desirable and elite, followed by the Alpine whites, from eastern and central Europe, and finally the Mediterraneans. Everyone else was identified as black, red, yellow or brown, which included South Asians… Some minorities or multiracial Americans who were once counted as white are opting out of the category. The population calling itself Native American quadrupled when the Census Bureau began asking people to identify themselves by race rather than relying on its own enumerators to do the job.The number of Hawaiian dropped by half when the “two or more races” category was introduced.
Special thanks to Sam Dunn and Scot McFayden for taking the time to speak with me about their upcoming documentary, GLOBAL METAL.
GLOBAL METAL is the sequel to the successful documentary METAL: A Headbanger’s Journey about the evolution of Heavy Metal music. GLOBAL METAL is about the effect globalization has had on heavy metal music. I strongly recommend watching both documentaries regardless if you’re fan of the music or not.
GLOBAL METAL opens in Toronto and Vancouver June 20th and in Montreal June 27th. Look out for it at a film festival near you.
For comments, suggestions, feedbacks and requests, please leave a comment over at POP 88 or send an email to christine [at] popcast88.com.
Also, for anyone who has ever sent me an email – I just upgraded my computer and ended up wiping out all my POP 88 email – it would be greatly appreciated if you could resend – especially those whose requests I haven’t played yet!
As always, if you want to support the podcast, I ask that you support the artists by buying their CDs through the links provided. Continue Reading »
I admit it. I am concerned about my looks since I’m losing them so rapidly as I age. (sigh)
Although I’m not as vain as some others are, I will admit that I don’t like looking in the mirror and seeing lines under my eyes and that my skin is not as nice as it used to be.
Today my friend sent me a link to a story about women “flocking” to get bird poop facials… EW!
Now for everyone who got grossed out like I did, the stuff isn’t administered “fresh.” The bird droppings are “hygenically collected” and treated with UV radiation to kill the bacteria.
Uguisu no Fun is a Japanese powder made from the droppings of the Japanese Bush Warbler (Japanese: 鶯 uguisu) or nightengale and is rich in the amino acid guanine, said to brighten and cleanse skin. In the 18th century geishas and kabuki actors used the powder to clean heavy white makeup off their faces. It was also used to remove stains from kimono… awesome stuff!
I did some research and at naturaljapanesebeauty.com, a small (15gm) bottle of 30 applications is priced a very reasonable USD $10. The site says:
Uguisu is the name of the Japanese nightingale. Apart from being known for its beautiful song, its natural droppings are also used in Japan as a traditional application for silky white skin.
The powdered nightingale guano is a fine almost odourless powder that is mixed to form a paste and applied as a face pack. It is mildly lightening on the skin while smoothing the complexion and leaves the skin feeling soft and nourished.
The uguisu no fun is safely sold and hygienically collected for cosmetic skin purposes. The fun contains certain ammonic properties that appear to gently bleach the skin while smoothing and toning the complexion. For use as a natural face pack treatment for blemishes or smoothing the complexion. Non-fragranced 100%natural product
Well considering that the “Geisha Facial” at Shizuka salon is charging $180 for a facial with this stuff, $10 for a small bottle of bird guano sounds like a good deal!
Immortal Geisha chronicled her experience with the “fun” in great detail and describes a positive outcome, but left readers with the following:
Also – please keep in mind that it is a specific type of “fun” that is used for this product – so any old “fun” from the bottom of your bird cage, top of your car, or from your local pigeon colony just won’t cut it!
Now I was initially grossed out by all this poop talk, but after reading more about this “fun” stuff, I am curious. But according to “The Japanese Way of Beauty” by Michelle Dominique Leigh:
* It cleanses, lightens, nourishes, tones, smoothes, moisturizes and exfoliates.
* Not suitable for sensitive or allergy-prone skin.
* Suitable for aging, oily, blemished or rough skin or for those looking to clear their complexion
And unlucky me, I have very sensitive AND allergy-prone skin (hence my recent blotchiness). So I won’t be trying this anytime soon.
Will you?
Hoohokekyo… hoohokekyo… hoohokekyo!
Image taken from IEA
Click on image to enlarge.
I had the great honor of attending, by invitation only, a “Dialogue with the Democratic National Committee (DNC)” with the Chairman, Howard Dean, along with Rep. Mike Honda, U.S. House of Representatives, California 15th District (San Jose) (who is also Vice Chairman of the DNC) with local Asian American and Pacific Islander community leaders in San Jose today.
In attendance was a who’s who of Asian American politicians and community leaders, including:
- Julie Soo, chair of the California Democratic Party’s Asian and Pacific Islander Caucus (as well as former Co-Chair Of AAPIs For Hillary)
- Paul Fong, Community College Trustee/Professor and Democratic nominee for State Assembly in California’s 22nd District (as well as the ‘Godfather’ of Silicon Valley’s Asian American community.)
- Otto Lee, Sunnyvale City Council member
- Yiaway Yeh, City Council member, Palo Alto, CA
- Madison Nguyen, City Council member (District 7), San Jose, CA
- Mariko Yamada, Yolo County Board of Supervisors and Democratic candidate for California’s 8th Assembly District.
- Keith Kamisugi, hapihour.org blogger as well as director of communications at the Equal Justice Society.
- Sophia Yen, physician, active Democrat and blogger for AAPI for Hillary, along with her mother, Sandy Yen, former Taiwanese legislature.
- Henry Manayan, former mayor and city council member of Milpitas.
And a whole lot more whose names I missed. Since this event was closed to the press, I’m not too sure how much I should write, but it’s not like I am going to reveal any secrets about the hidden Democratic Asian American Army of Volunteers (TM) that the DNC is raising – LOL.
Dean talked about uniting the Democratic Party. I am sure he was all too aware that 75% of Asian Americans in California supported Hillary Clinton. Dean did discuss what an amazing year it has been and how the Democratic Party, when he first took charge in 2005, the Fifty State strategy wasn’t necessarily something that everyone agreed on. At the time, I was against such a strategy, but with the House and Senate gains in 2006, this proved not only right, but practical. And how in this Democratic primary, the Democrats have had a primary in all 50 states and have amassed a wealth of voters, new voters, knowledge contributions. However, Dean said that despite that the odds are in the Democrat’s favor to win The White House this November, it will be a very tough and close election (which I believe will be the case as well).
One of the things that Dean did say on race which I thought was really interesting was about how during this campaign, he observed a truly generational differences amongst the topic of race from his generation (i.e. older generation) and the under 30-to-35 year generation really saw race differently. The younger generation sees America as a much more multi-ethnic and inclusive party and are more united by age rather than divided by race.
Dean said Asian Americans in California could really make a big contribution in certain swing states, like in Nevada and Virgina, where there is a sizable Asian American community to make a difference. Dean said that without the Asian American vote, Jim Webb (D-Virginia) would not have been elected Senator, defeating incumbent Virginia Senator George Allen (an Indian American “tracker” S.R. Sidarth for the Webb campaign caught Allen using the racial epithat macaca to refer to Allen ; also I know Asian American activist and filmmaker, Eric Byler was quite active in the Webb campaign.)
Additionally, for Asian Americans of the younger generation, Dean said we could certainly help the older generation understand what was at stake in this and each and every election. And certainly for those of us that we bi-lingual, to help in every effort to help the community for the older generation who were not and discussed getting out into our communities and neighborhoods and discussed the DNC’s Neighborhood Volunteer Program.
Overall, Dean spent a good two hours with all of us to discuss his thoughts as well as hear our concerns and answer our questions. I’ve seen Howard Dean speak before at the first Democratic Asian American Pacific Islander national leadership conference in San Jose a few years ago, but this was the first time seeing him speak and answer questions at length.
8Asians is a non-partisan website, so if the Republican National Committee has had a similar outreach to the Asian American community, please let me know – I’d love to hear what has been going on – on the other side.
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- Manny Pacquiao, Filipino Homophobia And Masculinity
- The Mindy Project Makes Mindy Kaling Even More Hilarious
- Yes, We’re Open Review & Interview From LAAPFF 2012
- President Obama At Asian Pacific American Institute For Congressional Studies Annual Gala
Recent Comments
- : The referenced article interviews and talks with Chinese citizens who say they are reconsidering jobs in the U.S., and that's actually the point of the... – Suicide Prompts Chinese To Reconsider Coming To U.S.
- : I'm not sure if mr. wang's suicide has any correlation to chinese people in general being more cautious in coming to the US for jobs. wang picked his engineering... – Suicide Prompts Chinese To Reconsider Coming To U.S.
- : I usually think really hard when I decide on who to vote for at each presidential election, but this year is turning out more and... – President Obama At Asian Pacific American Institute For Congressional Studies Annual Gala
- : What about Jerry Sandusky? THAT OLD WHITE GUY IS FUCKING SICK! – Manny Pacquiao, Filipino Homophobia And Masculinity
- : Yeah I have the same feeling. However, I'll watch the first few episodes and hope I can be made into a believer. – The Mindy Project Makes Mindy Kaling Even More Hilarious
APA Events
Oct 14: (Seattle, WA) From Fields to Family: Asian Pacific Americans and Food
Mar 1: (Atlanta, GA) The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946
Apr 26: (New York, NY) June 4, 1989: Media and Mobilization Beyond Tiananmen Square
Apr 26: (New York, NY) America through a Chinese Lens
Apr 27: (Seattle, WA) SEX IN SEATTLE 20: HAPPILY EVER AFTER. . . (the series finale!)
May 16: (Seattle, WA) May SpamORama
May 24: (San Jose, CA) Sake San Jose
May 24: (New York, NY) A Conversation with artists Arthur Ou, Hai Zhang, and Julie Quon in Conjunction with America through a Chinese Lens
Staff and Contributors
- Editors
Moye Ishimoto
Co-Editor, Editorial
Jocelyn "Joz" Wang
Co-Editor, PR & APA Outreach
- Founder
Ernie Hsiung
Founder
