8 Asians

As a global nomad, I often wonder what part of me is truly Asian-American. I am Asian, yes, and I am also an American citizen by birthright. I have lived in the West Coast, the East Coast, the Midwest; I have lived in eight Asian countries, and through these experiences, I ask this question as both an outsider, one who does not “belong” to Asian America, and an insider, for the basic characteristics of (one [...] Continue »

This past Thursday, I had the honor and pleasure attending the premiere of LINSANITY, the documentary film, about Jeremy Lin that helped kickoff CAAMFest – the Center for Asian American Media Festival (“Film. Music. Food.”), formerly known as the San Francisco International Film Festival. Afterwards, I attended the Opening Night Gala held at the Asian Art Museum. When I arrived at the historic Castro Theater in San Francisco around 6:15 PM, there was already a [...] Continue »

With less than a week away, I am looking forward to attending the Center for Asian American Media’s Film Festival, better known as CAAMFest. As a Jeremy Lin fan, I’m of course looking forward to seeing LINSANITY, the documentary, which has been covered extensively with generally rave reviews. But I’m also looking forward to the open night party at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum as well. There is plenty going on, as CAAMFest 2013′s [...] Continue »

If you are looking for the full version of Samuel Hendrickson’s now infamous video about why he’d hate to be Asian, you’ll have to look someplace other than YouTube, which has been removing non-parody versions of this video for violations of their hate speech policy. YouTube’s policy states: We encourage free speech and defend everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view. But we don’t permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group [...] Continue »

UPDATE 3/9/2013 @ 10am: YouTube removed the original video for being hate speech, so I’ve updated the video embed with a mirror from LiveLeak. Thanks to commenter Aishi Yupi for providing the link. UPDATE 3/6/2013 @ 9:30pm Pacific Time: It looks like Sam Hendrickson has deleted his Facebook page. When I looked at it a few hours ago, his page was filled with lot of Asians calling him out for his racism and a bunch [...] Continue »

As mentioned earlier, on Valentine’s Day Houston Rockets basketball star Jeremy Lin launched his foundation, the Jeremy Lin Foundation, according to a report: “The Houston Rockets point guard hosted a gala Thursday night, the eve of All-Star Weekend, to unveil a foundation that will benefit three Houston organizations helping underprivileged children. Current NBA players Chandler Parsons, David Lee, Tyson Chandler, Stephen Curry, Steve Novak and Joakim Noah and retired Rockets center Yao Ming were among [...] Continue »

When I first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the first annual events I attended was the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF). Yes, that is quite a mouthful, so maybe that is why the San Francisco-based Center for Asian American Media – CAAM  (which used to be known by the archaic National Asian American Telecommunications Association) re-branded the traditionally February / March film festival as CAAMFest. CAAM also throws [...] Continue »

The body of missing Canadian tourist, Elisa Lam of Vancouver, British Columbia, was found in the water tank of the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Lam had traveled to California by herself on January 27, en route to Santa Cruz, and was last seen by workers at the hotel on January 31. Although Lam was scheduled to check out of the hotel on February 1, she had disappeared, despite being in daily contact with [...] Continue »

First there was Cabinet Secretary Chris Lu resigning after four years of service in The White House, now Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is retiring: “While I will always remain dedicated to the missions of the department, I informed the president of my decision a few days after the election that Jean and I were eager to return to California,” Chu wrote in a lengthy “Dear Colleagues” letter Friday morning. “I would like to return [...] Continue »

[In 2009, the decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka between the terrorist LTTE or Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan Government finally ended, but left behind a legacy of war that endures, further complicated by global climate change. In 2012, Johnny C traveled there to cover the forces of war, globalization, and climate change. Some names and organizations have been changed to protect the identities of those who participated in the events of this series.] The [...] Continue »

Last Saturday, February 2nd, I was able to attend the 2013 Lunar New Year Celebration in San Francisco sponsored by Verizon, which took place in Union Square and lasted all afternoon. The event was hosted by Nicki Sun and David So (who is very funny in person as well) kicked off by a traditional lion dance then several performances by different San Francisco Bay Area, including: Cheung Loong Lion Dance Troupe Hai Yan Dance Troupe [...] Continue »

A few weekends ago was the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that decided on the issue of abortion, allowing a woman the right to choose to have an abortion or not. To be honest, I did not know where Asian Americans fall on this issue until referencing the landmark Pew Research study on Asians Americans last year: “About half (54%) of Asian Americans say abortion should be legal in [...] Continue »