8 Asians

A new study by the Economic Policy Institute shows that Asian Americans had poverty rates significantly higher than the white population in 2011. After adjusting for cost of living differences between regions (since most Asians live in large expensive cities in the west or east coast), Asian Americans had a poverty rate of 16.1% compared with 10.4% of whites. This shouldn’t be a surprise given 8Asians has already reported on Asian Americans being more adversely [...] Continue »

Johnny has talked about things that are uniquely Asian American, and one thing that comes to my mind in that category is Huy Fong Foods‘ Sriracha Chili sauce.  Sriracha was created by David Tran as a version of a hot sauce from Si Racha Thailand, and the green topped bottle with a rooster on it has become familiar to Asian Americans and many non Asian Americans.  It has become so popular that there is now [...] Continue »

Today I realized that five years ago, my mother-in-law valued me at $10,000.00. Louisa Lim’s piece on NPR, For Chinese Women, Marriage Depends On Right Bride Price, sheds light on that seemingly arbitrary check I received before my wedding day. Can’t really fault the Chinese. It’s evolutionary survival in its purest form. Today it isn’t about finding the biggest, strongest man who can hunt lions for you. It’s about finding the richest man who can [...] Continue »

Vietnamese Americans dominate the manicure business (thanks, Tippi Hedren!) and one nail salon owner in Fairview, Texas is letting her customers know that she’s not one of them. According to Steve Stoler of WFAA.com, Diana Casey, the owner of the St. Tropez Nail Spa posted a sign declaring her shop “American Owned, American Staffed,” which has caused controversy because of its racist undertones. Casey says that she is simply being “patriotic.” Ed Thayer said he [...] Continue »

This story and report came out last December, but I’ve only had time to get to this now. Asian Americans and Asian non-citizens 50.1% (versus 40.7 White, 4.2% Hispanic, 2.3% African American,  and 2.7% other) of the San Francisco Bay Area technology-related workforce (“Silicon Valley” for the sake of simplicity). According to the San Jose Mercury News’ analysis of the latest Census Bureau data:  ”An analysis of the Census data shows that among tech jobs [...] Continue »

The last National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) San Francisco event I had attended was the Gateway to Leadership regional conference last Fall. Last week, in celebration of the Lunar New Year, NAAAP-SF – in collaboration with Kollaboration SF, organized a fashion show along with some Asian American musical performances (along with a lion dance) held and sponsored by Macy’s near Union Square. Click to expand photo. If you haven’t heard of Kollaboration, Kollaboration [...] Continue »

George Aratani, a survivor of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and later successful businessman and philanthropist who founded Mikasa and Kenwood, passed away Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at the age of 95. His legacy in philanthropy through The Aratani Foundation has supported many Japanese American organizations, but especially in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. One literally cannot walk a block in Little Tokyo without passing by a space endowed by George and [...] Continue »

Superbowl-bound quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s tattoos became famous after Kaepernick was criticized for having them, but that bad publicity turned into good news for Asian American Tattoo artist Nes Andrion.  Business is way up for the Reno, Nevada resident’s tattoo shop, Endless Ink.   Andrion is really proud that his art work will be seen across the world in the Superbowl as the San Francisco 49ers play the Baltimore Ravens. “I wanted to spread my art [...] Continue »

By Shako Liu KCET recently reported that a trend of reversed immigration is undergoing in southern California. Many Americans are going overseas to find employment and pursue careers. In the video, it says about 3-6 million Americans are working overseas and a third of them are Asian Americans. The two examples they showed are both Asian Americans going back to the countries their parents emigrated from, and their careers are doing pretty well there. I [...] Continue »

In a move that surprised many Hollywood insiders, Kevin Tsujihara was been named successor to Barry Meyer as CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment. He will step into the job March 1, and Meyer will remain as chairman through 2013. Tsujihara was considered a dark horse candidate, after the heads of the television and film groups (Bruce Rosenblum and Jeff Robinov, respectively). (I couldn’t even find a Wikipedia entry for him!) A long time WB executive, [...] Continue »

Living in Silicon Valley, TechCrunch is one of those “must read” tech blogs to find out what’s going on in the Valley and the tech scene overall, especially related to tech startups. A week ago or so, Startup Grind (“a community of founders, entrepreneurs, and wantrapreneurs”) did a terrific guest blog post and video interview with Charles Huang, co-founder of Red Octane – the creators of Guitar Hero. The video interview is over an hour, [...] Continue »

A new study from Nielsen reveals that the influence of ads on social media sites, varies greatly between ethnicities, and it turns out Asian Americans are most likely to respond to ads they see on sites like Facebook. Nielsen rated each ethnicity (Hispanic, White, African American, Asian American) and the actions they took after seeing a social ad (Shared Ads, Liked Ads, Purchased Products). In every case, Asian Americans took more action in response to [...] Continue »