8 Asians

Lucy Liu recently discussed racism in Hollywood, the problem with not being American enough and not being Asian enough–the classic paradoxical existence every Asian American lives in. She’s tired of being the emotionless Asian girl or the Asian girl that kicks your butt. But her role in “Elementary“, a contemporary re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes in New York, throws a sizable wrench in the Asian female stereotypes by casting her as Dr. Joan Watson. What’s cool [...] Continue »

Tai Chi Zero and Tai Chi Hero are basically two halves of the same film. Zero came out in the U.S. last fall, and Hero just came out a couple weeks ago. These movies had kung fu, steam punk, and a video game rpg-like quality to it. It had so much promise to be a really awesome fusion of some really cool elements. The first half, Tai Chi Zero, seemed to start out okay. The [...] Continue »

Do you live on planet Earth and have a poetic streak? Well, here’s the chance of a lifetime, even if you are a terrible poet. Write up a haiku poem to Mars, submit it to the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), and voilà, your name will be on a DVD flying to Mars with the MAVEN. If you’re one of the top three that win the public vote, your whole haiku poem will [...] Continue »

When I first saw The Breakfast Club, as a clueless Asian American preteen, I immediately connected with this 80s brat pack teen flick. Throughout my evolution as an American high school teenager, I identified with almost all of the teen archetypes portrayed in the film. I started out high school as an awkward weirdo outcast (Ally Sheedy), quickly became a swim team jock (Emilio Estevez), fancied myself somewhat of a feminist non-conformist rebel (Judd Nelson), [...] Continue »

Yes, because that’s news when a CNN journalist eats an unborn fetal duck *rolls eyes*. I do like his speech at the end of this clip where he basically learns everyone there about cultural perspective, especially the host reading off the names of the “gross” foods Bourdain’s eating, the guy who’s like “who in their right mind would eat that?” A hungry one, duh. Bordain references the restaurant in New York that serves balut covered [...] Continue »

I’ve lived in LA’s Koreatown for a few years and driven up and down its streets on a daily basis for over a decade. I’ve got some of my own favorite little haunts on this corner and that strip mall, where the soondubu is mind-numbingly good, the bibimbap is to die for, and the karaoke selection includes awesome amazing songs like “Happy Birthday Dear My Friend”. So to see the streets where I have the [...] Continue »

So, if you haven’t read Joz’s post about the UC Irvine frat debacle, Lambda Theta Delta at UC Irvine, an Asian American Fraternity, has suspended its own status as a UC Irvine organization for one year, until fall 2014 because of the racist blackface video made to promote one of its school events. Clearly, those kids need to take responsibility for their egregiously stupid actions. However, I’m going to stretch this one and blame it [...] Continue »

Here at 8Asians, we’ve blogged about the Rise of Asian Majority Suburbs (Jeff) and the racial tensions in a super rich Southern California community transitioning from majority white to majority Asian in a single generation in The “Asianization” of Southern California’s San Marino (Koji). The First 626 Nightmarket (Mary) was an event that exploded beyond what anyone expected–I didn’t even go because on my way there, I saw the immediate tweets and facebook updates of [...] Continue »

David Chan hated Chinese food as a kid. He’s third generation Chinese American, and his parents refrained from sending him to Chinese school while cooking “American” food at home to help Chan fit in more into mainstream American culture in a Los Angeles city that barely had half a percent of its population APIA when Chan was a kid in the 50s. He still can’t use chopsticks. But there’s probably no one on the planet [...] Continue »

The U.S. Department of the Interior, The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and the White House Office of Public Engagement will be holding a White House Forum on Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage on May 9, 2013 at the U.S. Department of the Interior, appropriately during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This will be a gathering of national leaders and scholars as well as community members to move [...] Continue »

Chiura Obata had only planned to stop by in America before going to going on to Paris to continue his career as an artist. He ended up settling permanently in San Francisco, California. His list of accomplishments as an Asian American follow that great Old West tradition of trailblazing. He drew some of the few onsite sketches of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. He also co-founded the first Japanese American baseball team on the mainland [...] Continue »

Iwao and Hanaye Matsushita were a loving Japanese husband and wife. Their favorite passtime? Hiking the beautiful Mt. Ranier National Park. To them, it was not just their home away from home, not just a towering reminder of great Mt. Fuji in the land of their birth. If home is where the heart is, both of their linked hearts resided at Mt. Ranier. The Matsushitas hiked there every weekend they could and lovingly documented their [...] Continue »