Category Archives: pop culture

Yuki Kokubo’s “Kasama-Yaki” documentary needs some last-minute help fundraising

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Yuki Kokubo, a talented filmmaker and photojournalist whom I met at the Asian American Journalists Association convention in Detroit last year, certainly has been busy. She’s been working on a documentary about her hometown of Kasama, Japan, which is not far south of Fukushima, in the part of Japan devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. Kasama was hit hard by the temblor but spared by the tsunami. But the town is close enough to the meltdown at the Fuskushima Dai Ichi nuclear power plant that although residents didn’t have to evacuate, they may suffer long-term after-effects of radiation.

The documentary, which translates to “Made in Kasama,” focuses on Katsuji and Shigeko Kokubo, the filmmaker’s parents, who are artists who yearn to live simple, timeless lives making pottery and sculptures. Kokubo is able to capture their stately lifestyle in unhurried, exquisitely detailed camera shots.

Here’s her explanation for why she wants to make this film:

My parents and I moved from Japan to the U.S. when I was eight years old, and they moved back to Japan when I was sixteen. In the weeks following the horrible disasters in Japan, I came face-to-face with the distance that had grown between my parents and myself over the past two decades, not just geographically but also personally. My personal motivation behind this film is to get to know my parents better. Another goal I have for this film is to bridge the gap between the culture that is now mine, and the one I left behind. Many of us have read articles about the “quiet strength” and “resilience” of the Japanese people. I hope to make a film that will provide a window through which the viewer will gain better understanding of the Japanese psyche, and learn how the disasters have emotionally affected the people of Japan.

Here’s the critical fact about the funding for the film: As of yesterday, Kokubo had surpassed the Kickstarter goal of $20,000, with $20,703. However, her largest backer, at the executive producer ($5000) level may reduce his or her pledge because of a family emergency. If the pledges fall below the goal by March 31 (Saturday), Kokubo will lose ALL her funding.

So please take a look at the beautiful video above, and click to the Kickstarter page for “Kasama-Yaki.”

It would be a crying shame if Kokubo weren’t able to finish her film because at the last minute, a donor fell through.

March 29, 2012 update: Yuki reports the supporter who was on the brink of pulling out is going to “make it work,” but now another donor who pledged at a high level may change his mind and keep her from making the Kickstarter funding goal. So, keep the pledges coming — her situation is still precarious.

Lynn Chen needs your help funding a movie she’s in, “The Man’s Guide to Love”

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Lynn Chen, one of our favorite actress/food bloggers, is working on a film and reaching out for supporters to donate towards the production. This is an indie project feature film (not a documentary), called “The Man’s Guide to Love,” written and directed by Chen’s cousins, Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett, based on a website of the same name launched by Chen’s husband and some friends two years ago. The website compiles a video each day of a different man answering this same question: “If you had one piece of advice that you’d give another man about love, what would it be?”

The video mosaic on the website is cool, and funny. The feature film promises to be even cooler and probably funnier. Chen is on the cast list, as is her terrific food blog, The Actor’s Diet.

This film is being funded (hopefully) by the public — that would be you — via Kickstarter, and Chen and her cousins are asking for donations starting from a mere $5 (which will entitle you to for special behind-the-scenes updates). There are lots of levels and lots of different premiums (posters, hats, “we love you” calls), including your name in the credits for $150, a cameo in a party scene for $1500, a chance to be a crew member for $2000 and this for $5000:
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We need this documentary about Corky Lee, the photographer who’s kept his lens on Asian America

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Corky Lee is the undisputed master photographer of Asian America. The New York-based journalist has criss-crossed the country for decades and manages to be where the action is, whether it’s a protest over racism or an Asian cultural celebration.

I’ve gotten to know Corky Lee over the last decade because of the Asian American Journalists Association. I know when I attend an AAJA convention or the larger Unity convention that includes AAJA every four years, that he’ll be there, networking and meeting and greeting — he knows everyone. He’s a photographer but he’s not there to chronicle the conventions. He’s there for the fundraising silent auction, where he helps out with the sale of photographs by member journalists, including his own work.

Erin and I have purchased several of his photographs at these auctions, because they’re terrific photojournalism, and because every cent goes toward AAJA. Corky donates his time and his images.

Erin and I also ran into Corky when he visited Denver for an OCA/JACL banquet where we served as emcees. Corky was there to unveil his now-famous photo of Chinese Americans posed at the facing locomotives at Promontory Point, Utah, where the transcontinental railroad met. That’s where Corky first used the term “photographic justice,” because he assembled the crowd and shot the photo as a response to the 1869 photo at the same spot, where a famous photo showed all Caucasians … and none of the thousands of Chinese laborers who helped lay the tracks were in the shot, because they were ordered to stay miles away from the celebration.

When I worked briefly in New Jersey, I next ran into Corky at an Asian festival in Manhattan. He was carrying his equipment, on the prowl for cool images, and we competed for the best shots of singer-songwriter Cynthia Lin. It was the first time I’d heard her, but Corky was familiar with her, of course.

We respect Corky’s work so much that we interviewed him on our visualizAsian.com show, and asked him to talk about some of his photos — as selected by fans, who voted for their favorites from this slideshow:
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We need to train young journalists (and people in general) about older racial epithets

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Pekin Chinks -- the high school school mascot name of Pekin, Ohio until 1980 In the midst of the media hullabaloo over ESPN’s “Chink in the armor” headline about Jeremy Lin, I had a conversation with a journalism professor at the University of Colorado, where I work as staff adviser to the CU Independent, the student-run news website for the Boulder campus. What the media need, we decided, is remedial lessons in racist imagery and epithets.

Both the editor and anchor who were disciplined by “the Worldwide leader in sports” claimed they didn’t mean anything racial by the use of the phrase with the “c-word.” OK, granted, the phrase is an old one used to describe a weakness in armor, but who would use the word today and NOT feel a twinge of conscience, a mental red flag, about its century of use as a racist slur? Why wouldn’t you use any number of other words?

Apparently, some people — especially young people — today don’t know or don’t remember that the “c-word” is the equivalent of the “n-word” to Asian Americans. That’s a good thing, because it means the word is seldom used as a slur these days. But that doesn’t mean we can start using it willy-nilly again.

I grew up having the word hurled in my direction as kids yelled at me to “go home.” I’ve been called every one of those words: “Jap,” “Nip,” “Gook,” “Slope,” “Chinaman,” “Ching-Chong,” Slant-Eye”… an entire dictionary of racist words. Some of them as you can see, have non-racial meanings, like slope or nip.

But call me over-sensitive, when I see the words “chink in the armor” or “nip in the air” in print my stomach clenches. And the same goes for an awful lot of other Asian Americans, although yes, not every Asian American agrees (you can call Michelle Malkin anything you want, I guess and it won’t bother her).

The Asian American Journalists Association released a Media Advsiory on covering Jeremy Lin last week, and hopefully that will help curb some of the national media’s dumber inclinations and make writers and editors think at least a moment before they blurt out something they’ll regret later.

But what can you do if some journalists (and people in general) don’t know that certain words or phrases have a racial connotation, perhaps a forgotten one from the past? I’ve met a few people who honestly didn’t know that “chink” is an offensive reference to Asians.

The fact is, words and their meanings evolve. The Pekin, Illinois high school team for many decades was called the “Chinks” even though their mascot was a dragon (see the graphic above). In 1980, after years of controversy and over the objection of the students, the team was changed to the Dragons. I’m sure they didn’t think the word was so bad because they didn’t mean it as a racial epithet.

Even the seemingly benign word “Oriental” has evolved. It originally referred to the Orient, or the Far East. Some Asians today still use the term to describe their grocery stores, and it’s still commonly used to describe rugs (from the Middle East). But it was used so often as a word to refer to negative stereotypes that today, the acceptable word in common usage is “Asian.” “Oriental” is for rugs, “Asian” is for people. The Asian American civil rights organization JACL has a series of pamphlets including this one, “Word can kill the spirit… ‘Jap’ is a derogatory term!” that lists some of the slurs that target Asians.

The JACL’s various pamphlets are available digitally on their website but they’re hard to find. The AAJA also is revising its APA Handbook for covering Asian Americans, with this addendum currently available (they’ll be combined in the new revised edition being published this summer).

Other than these, there aren’t a resource that I know of besides a few websites including this Wikipedia entry on ethnic slurs where people can go and learn about or check whether certain words are slurs or not. Maybe I should write a quick ebook.

But here’s one more example just this week of an innocent use of a word that made me feel uncomfortable, and I’m glad I acted on my instincts to reach out and educate a friend:
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Project Renew: Hip hop meets Asian traditional performances to benefit Lao Buddhist Temple rebuilding

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Project Renew was a night of cross-cultural splendor, with hip-hop dance groups alternating with traditional Asian cultural groups, including adorable little girls from the Lao Buddhist Temple; Denver Taiko’s thundering Japanese drums; a troupe that showed the Spirit of Cambodia; and Mudra Dance Studio, the energetic and dynamic group that mixes classical Indian dance with the flash and pop instincts of Bollywood choreography.

The event, organized by a pair of young Asian Americans, Joie Ha and Leo Tsuo, was a fundraiser for the Lao Buddhist Temple of Colorado, which burned to the ground in December.

The concert was a success, filling the Davis Auditorium on the University of Denver campus and raising over $4,300 for the Laotian community.

The fundraiser was a testament to the sense of community unity between young people who identity as Asian Americans as well as by their ethnic heritage. The two event organizers are Chinese American, not Laotian. The amiable and effective emcee, Ellis Min, is a b-boy who is Korean American. And the presence of Japanese, Indian and Cambodian traditional performers in addition to the Laotian community’s traditional dance group, plus the mix of ethnicity among the hip-hop groups, is a reflection of the diversity of Asian America today.

Project Renew was a powerful statement. I expect more powerful statements will come from the area’s next generation of AAPI leaders.

You can still donate to the Lao Buddhist Temple of Colorado’s rebuilding fund on their website.

Here’s the full performance by Hype 303, who I think are ready to audition for “America’s Best Dance Crew.” They closed out Project Renew with their rousing choreography: