8 Asians

A full house of V3con 2012 attendees listen as Frank Buckley of KTLA5 moderates a session about Asian Americans on YouTube, featuring panelists David Choi, Clara Chung, and Stephen Dypiangco. Photo credit: Steven Lam, on behalf of AAJA-Los Angeles

V3 Digital Media Conference is coming up right around the corner. The event kicks off, on Friday June 14th, with an Opening Awards Reception at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. Then, the all day conference takes place, on Saturday June 25th, at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo (LA). Here is the website for more info: http://v3con.com/.

Registration includes admission to Friday’s Opening Awards Reception and Saturday’s all day conference, including breakfast and lunch on Saturday. Check out the full schedule and the list of speakers.

On June 14-15, the Asian American Journalists Association‒Los Angeles presents its second annual V3 Digital Media Conference, dedicated to showcasing the “Vision. Visibility. Voice.” of the most pioneering, interesting and influential Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in today’s evolving digital media landscape.

We hope you’ll come along for our exciting and affordable V-Ticket ride. For as little as $40, you can meet, explore alongside and be inspired by hundreds of experts, thought leaders and fellow adventurers in creating or consuming blogs, social media and other new forms of communication. We’ll make sure to feed your appetites as well as your brains, with great food and drink, including Roy’s Hawaiian fusion classic dishes, the famous Kogi BBQ truck’s signature tacos and fare from McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Kirin, among others.

Did we mention pioneering? We’ll recognize four leading Asian American voices and visionaries — restaurateur Roy Choi of Kogi fame, civil rights hero Grace Lee Boggs and journalists Richard Lui and Gil Asakawa — at an evening awards reception at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena on June 14. We’ll reconvene the next morning at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles for an entire day of panels and workshops on the digital theme.

Did we mention interesting? Panel and plenary topics include “Asian Visibility in Hollywood and Globally Online,” “The Future of Journalism in the Digital World,” “Social Media Lessons From the 2012 Presidential Campaign,” “Creating Moving Messaging: Nonprofits and Digital Media Options” and “Sustainability: Success as a Woman in Digital Media.” Hands-on workshops will cover subjects as varied as taking better mobile photos, growing your digital footprint and giving a good interview, and with Verizon we’ll demonstrate the latest in smart accessories and devices.

Did we mention influential? Panelists include blogger Phil Yu (a.k.a. “Angry Asian Man”); marketing legend Bill Imada of IW Group; Elisa Camahort Page, co-founder of BlogHer; actor Parvesh Cheena; actress Lynn Chen; visual journalist Marilyn Chung; filmmaker Patrick Epino; digital editor Megan Garvey of the Los Angeles Times; tech editor Gregory Han; leading web journalist Robert Hernandez of USC; Pradeepa Jeeva, head of production at YOMYOMF; consumer Internet executive Harry Lin; and Canadian broadcaster Tetsuro Shigematsu.

Five lucky 8Asians’ readers will each win a pair of registrations to the upcoming V3con!

Ok, ok, so you think you’re ready to enter? Read on!
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Ever since I had a baby, I’m way more emotional than I have ever been. Put it this way, it’s not uncommon to find me tearing up during television sitcoms and romantic comedies. That’s why the first time I heard about Nina and what she is going through, I felt like crying and wanted to do everything I could to help her.

Here is a little bit more about Nina:

An extraordinary woman, mother, and wife is looking for a bone marrow donor.  Nina Polvanich Louie has been fighting lymphoma since September and now only has 2 months left to find a match for a bone marrow transplant.  Nina is of Chinese/Thai descent.

I realized the best way I could help is to help spread the word about bone marrow donors. I don’t think a lot of people know this but Asian Americans are underrepresented in the National Bone Marrow Registry. That’s why it’s important for everyone to register so that Nina (and many others) have a better chance at finding a match.

Registering is easy and doesn’t take much time. A3M will even send a home kit to you. (But please don’t request one unless you are really planning on sending it back, they are a nonprofit and sending out these kits can get quite expensive).

I have a simple question for you, dear reader: Have you registered yet? To find out more about Nina and to see how you can help go to, www.savenina.com. To request a home typing kit, click here.

Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) stories are pretty common, but of course, not all of them are done well. A Certain Scientific Railgun is done pretty well. Masaka Mikoto is a young girl who goes to school in Academy City where 80% of the population are students trying to gain or develop different types of ESPER powers. Some can control fire, others can teleport, and there are mind readers and telekinetics to boot. Mikoto is an Electromaster–she can control electricity, kind of a mini Asian-girl Magneto if you will, and she is one of the very rare high Level 5 ESPERs in the city. She’s nicknamed “Railgun” because of her signature ability to shoot metal objects at incredible speeds. It starts off as kind of lighthearted and fun with some adventurous and action-packed excitement, but as the mystery builds, the tale gets more convoluted and darker. It’s psychological science fiction but also keeps a sense of school girl camaraderie going on. And thank goodness she wears shorts under her skirt, because I’m tired of all the anime where they don’t and it’s just disturbing. -_-

Koji Steven Sakai is one of our 8Asians veteran writers. His posts not only get the most visits, it stays on the top of the list for a very, very, very long time. Here’s a chance to get to know this very prolific Asian American writer in just 8Questions:
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Only one month left until the submission deadline! The CAPE New Writers Fellowship (CNWF), formerly known as CAPE New Writers Awards (CNWA) has been elevated to include several exciting changes for 2013.

2 submission categories: Film and Television

Up to 10 Fellows will be selected.

Fellows will receive:

• $1,500 stipend per Fellow
• 8-week intensive curriculum with industry professionals who will help you polish your script and teach you how to sell your project.

CNWF provides all Fellows with one evening a week sessions in Los Angeles from September 2nd to November 1st, taught by a network or studio executive. This is an exclusive opportunities to meet with top industry professionals. Don’t miss out!

Submission Deadline: Friday, July 5th, 2013, 11:59PM PST

CNWF forms and guidelines are available below: capeusa.org

To reunite with his family members in North Korea, Korean Canadian filmmaker Jason Lee and his father went to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. His documentary Letter From Pyongyang featured his family’s efforts to enter the most isolated and heavily controlled country on earth.

Lee tried to explore the issue of family torn apart by the separation of North and South Korea in the film. The 38th parallel stands like a modern Berlin Wall, cutting off the connection and blood tie of family members on both sides. Lee used his own family as an example to illustrate the issue and painted a full picture of how one family was separated and reunited due to political conflicts.
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I grew up LOVING taiko drums. I remember trips with my family to festivals in LA’s Little Tokyo in the summers to watch taiko groups performing. My dad had taiko albums playing on our stereos at home all the time, and when he wasn’t playing them, I would borrow them so that I could listen to them on my own. So when my friends the band Random Ninjas started up as a rock band integrating taiko drums as a core part of their sound, I was ECSTATIC. Like our Bad 8Asian Mike, I love rock as much as I love taikos, and to have both in one sound is just a music lover’s dream come true. Add on top of that strong female vocals, and this is my favorite band in the universe, hands down.

They’ve got a free show at the Los Angeles Hard Rock Cafe at Hollywood and Highland right next to the Academy Award’s Dolby Theater this Friday June 7th @ 9pm. As expected for an American rock band with taiko drums, Random Ninjas has regularly performed at San Francisco’s Asian Heritage Street Celebration, LA’s Asian American Expo, Little Tokyo’s Nisei Week, LA’s Chinatown Summer Nights, and the Zenshuji Soto Mission’s Annual Obon Festival. The video above is of their performance at the LA’s Chinatown Summer Nights. Their awesome first full length album RANDOM HERO just got remixed and remastered. Here’s 8Questions with one of Random Ninja‘s taiko rock drummers (first ever?), The Yusuke:
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As a middle-aged gay Asian American, I tend to be rather circumspect when I get asked about my family life. I’m not the loud, out and proud gay activist that some of the younger gay Asian crowd tends to be. Instead, I let writing, such as the blog be my outlet for discussing human rights and discrimination issues. Anyone close to me knows my family situation, that I’m a same-sex married gay man with a 7 year old daughter, who we had through surrogacy. But for anyone new, and those unfamiliar with my background, the topic of family is something I tread lightly around. It’s sensitive for me, since in my job, I deal with customers from around the world, and while it might be okay to push human rights in the face of a stranger (who may not be inline with your viewpoint), it’s certainly not the case when you expect them to buy your company’s product.
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As a filmmaker, I am a big believer in the importance of API film festivals. I believe they are the incubator of API talent and help get our stories on the big screen. One of the first people to believe in me and my writing were the good folks at Visual Communications, who put on the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival every year. Through their Armed with a Camera (AWC) fellowship, they helped me develop not only my voice but also my passion for filmmaking.

That’s why I’m excited to help spread the word that Visual Communications is NOW accepting applications to be part of the next class of Armed with a Camera fellows. This year, recipients of the AWC Fellowship will receive $1,000 stipend with an additional $1,000 equipment fund sponsored by Camadeus Film Technologies.

Click here for more information.

By Jasmine Jia

June 4, 2013: It is raining in Beijing. It never fails to rain on June 4th, almost every year since 1989.

A Chinese idiom, 老天有眼 (lao3 tian1 you3 yan3) means that God has finally spoken out Himself. The idiom is used to express many citizens’ and students’ opinion on how the Chinese government handled the June 4th-led political demonstration.

Tiananmen Square was just a vague picture for me since I was in 6th grade when the movement took place in 1989. I recall that the only information source during that June was the CCTV (the Chinese Central Television), and it condemned the movement as a counter-revolution riot. Until I entered Peking University (北京大学) in 1996, a university remembered as a leading proponent of the June 4th movement, I knew very little about the incident.

At Peking University, my professors told us the stories of what happened to them when they were in class. Their narrative is spun and netted with sadness. Their sadness has since haunted me and it became a mission of mine to search for the truth, to uncover the facts and put together the real story for myself. There were no recorded documents, nothing in writing, and nothing in any of the libraries.

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So if you name your movie “CHINK“, someone’s bound to get upset right? And more likely than not, it’s going to be someone from the Asian American community. It wasn’t surprising, then for me to find out that Stanley Young, Quentin Lee, and our very own 8Asians Koji Steven Sakai, producers of the film, received a letter from the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition (APAMC) protesting the title of their movie CHINK. As seen on YouOffendMeYouOffendMyFamily.com, their reason for calling them out on the title was that having “chink” in the title was too de-contextualized and would end up spreading the derogatory term instead of educating people about it. I agree with the points in the response letter to APAMC the CHINK producers wrote. I also just think that it’s simply silly to censor the title of the movie because haters will be haters, racists will be racists, and if a movie entitled “chink” causes Americans and others to think it’s okay to use the term in a derogatory way to hurt and abuse others, then GOOD. I want them to do it, because I want such stupidity to show itself so that we can hold their feet to the fire. Let’s air the dirty laundry in the moldy corners of racist and ignorant minds so we can clean it up. Pass me a bottle of vinegar, I’m going to stock up for the cleansing.

h/t Joz

By Nithin Coca

“The undignified mania of trying to adapt and assimilate, which happens among many of my social standing, has always been very repulsive to me.” Albert Einstein

Einstein – a celebrity among Asians – is the most famous scientist in modern history, who used his splendid mind to destroy preconceptions. Among his many contributions to science are the discovery of the photoelectric effect, proof the existence of the atom, and the development of the special and general theories of relativity in early 1900′s Germany. He was also Jewish, a minority in an increasingly intolerant society.

His strengths came not from an addiction to study, but from his anti-authoritarian, anti-hierarchy beliefs that grew from his ability to think outside the box. Though he never followed any religion, creed, or joined a political movement, he was avidly pacifist and anti-nationalist. He never gave up his identity, unlike many of his fellow Jews who, like Einstein, were from families who had lived in Germany for many generations, and felt completely German. They served in World War I, converted to Christianity, changed their names to sound more Aryan, and consumed pork and beer like any proud Prussian.

Einstein was smarter than that. He saw that any society that pressures people, even covertly, to assimilate to fit the national identity, lacks genuine openness and tolerance. As Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Einstein left Germany, whereas many of his Jewish peers stayed, certain that the Germany they knew and loved would never persecute its most prosperous, proud minority.

Assimilation is the creed of modern America. It is the ingredients that go into our so-called melting pot.

Is it the choices our parents or grandparents made to educate us many of us in English, to not teach us to write or read our native languages, so that we could thrive in American society.

It is our acceptance of an economic system in which we are judged by how much we make, not how we make it, and only allows a narrow set of behaviors in identifying success.

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