Happy 10th birthday to Phil Yu’s landmark Angry Asian Man blog!

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Angry Asian ManErin and I are celebrating the second anniversary of our talk-show visualizAsian, and I’ve been writing my Nikkei View musings since 1998 (check out the Nikkei View archives). But it boggles my mind to think that Phil Yu has been writing his Angry Asian Man blog for 10 years. Why? Because he’s so frickin’ dedicated that he writes multiple times day — every day — week after week, month after month, year after… well, you get the idea.

visualizAsian is once or twice a month. Nikkei View can be several times a week, or sometimes once a month.

But writing sometimes more than 10 post per day? Yowsa. That’s some some serious blogging — blogging on steroids.

Last year, Phil took some time off and asked guest bloggers to fill in, but I know he felt guilty stepping away for a vacation (I’m sure his wife appreciated it, though). Phil is organized — he doesn’t spend his workday posting stuff. He writes at night and sets the posts to launch later. And, these days he gets tons of submissions via email and Facebook to write about, so he’s never lacking material to cover.

Still, it’s truly an amazing feat to keep up this level of productivity for a decade.

Angry Asian Man is the one site I tell everyone that is a must-read daily blog, if they care one whit about Asian America, in politics, pop culture, news or whatever. He calls out racism. He covers hate crimes that mainstream media either overlook as not newsworthy or have forgotten. He gives props to AAPIs doing great things in Hollywood, on the world stage, in pop music. And, he helps the careers of budding young artists who deserve a wider audience.

He gets a ton of traffic and is quoted by the national media when they need an Asian American perspective. He’s inspired a generation of bloggers to follow in his wake. Some Asian Americans, notably Nelson Wong of AA Risings, have been writing longer. And some Asian Americans have gotten their blogs turned into movie deals (yeah, I’m jealous).

But it’s hard to argue that Phil Yu isn’t the most influential Asian American voice out there. He represents us all, and is a national treasure for his efforts.

Thanks, Phil. Keep rocking.

2nd visualizAsian show for May: Meet Cheryl Tan, author of “A Tiger in the Kitchen”

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Meet Cheryl Tan on visualizAsian.com on May 24!We’re thrilled to announce that we’re celebrating the second anniversary of visualizAsian.com with TWO shows during Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month! We launbched visualizAsian in May of 2009 with a conversation with former Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, and we’ve had almost two dozen calls since then.

This month we have a show with Albert Kim, one of the writers and producers of the hit action series “Nikita” on Tuesday May 10, and we’re closing out the month with a conversation with journalist and author Cheryl Tan on Tuesday, May 24! Click here to register for the call and you’ll receive the dial-in and webcast information.

Cheryl Tan has written for bigtime publications including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and earlier this year published “A Tiger in the Kitchen” (not to be confused with that other “Tiger” book…). Here’s her biography from her website:
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Next visualizAsian show: Meet Albert Kim, writer and co-producer of CW action series “Nikita” starring Maggie Q

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Maggie Q and Albert Kim on the set of "Nikita"Wow, we’re excited to announce our Second Anniversary show in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month: A one-hour conversation with Albert Kim, a writer and co-producer for the hit CW network action series “Nikita” starring Maggie Q!

We’ll be speaking with Albert on TUESDAY, MAY 10 at 7 pm Pacific Time (10 PM ET). Just register with visualizAsian (it’s free) and you’ll get the information to dial in to our conference line, or listen on our live webcast. If you’ve already registered for visualizAsian calls in the past, you’ll automatically receive the dial-in information via email. Remember, you can always submit questions to our visualizAsian guests in advance and during the livecast.

You missed our show with Albert Kim! But for a limited time you can still register to hear the archived replay MP3 of the conversation.

You may not recognize the name, but if you watch “Nikita” or have watched “Leverage” in the past, you’ve seen him in the front credits.

Here’s Albert’s bio:

Albert Kim is a TV writer, producer, and award-winning journalist. Before his stint the staff of “Nikita,” Kim spent three seasons on the hit TNT show “Leverage,” and has also written episodes of FX’s “Dirt.” But his roots aren’t in television scriptwriting.
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“Unite for Japan”: Denver benefit concert featuring Denver Taiko, local rock & hip hop groups

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Unite for Japan BenefitIt’s great that so many local benefits in the Denver area are being held event for Japan disaster relief, but I wish some weren’t so ad-hoc and we had more time to promote them.

Here’s one you have a week to plan for, “Unite for Japan” next Friday, April 29 at the Aztlan Theater, 974 Santa Fe Dr. (doors open at 7 pm).

This one features some great local artists including Denver Taiko with their thunderous drumming. Also featured are dub rockers MEGA, rap and rock band ii kanji (Caucasian rapper putting it out in Japanese and English), the multicultural dance crew D2L and popular local Japanese American DJ, Ichiban.

Tickets cost $10, and 100% of all proceeds including from a silent auction to be held during the show will be donated to the Japan Red Cross (to avoid the admin fees of the American Red Cross).

The event also needs donations in advance, such as services, entertainment/sports tickets, Asian items, etc. for the silent auction.

If you can provide a donation or want to volunteer at this event, please Mike Ninomiya at 914-826-4991. “Unite for Japan” is sponsored by the Kaiser Permanente Asian Pacific Staff Association and Enshin Karate, the traditional martial arts dojo that brings literally kick-ass, full-contact Sabaki tournaments to the area.

Did the Tohoku Kanto Earthquake bring Japanese Americans closer to Japan?

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A couple of days after the tragic earthquake and tsunami struck the northeast coast of Japan’s main island on March 11, the Newark Star Ledger newspaper ran an article with a headline that promised Japanese Americans’ concerns for relatives in Japan: “Japanese-Americans in Fort Lee, Edgewater describe frantic calls to loved ones in quake’s wake.”

I was bemused — and a little disappointed — to find that the story wasn’t about Japanese Americans. The reporter went up to some shoppers in Mitsuwa, a Japanese supermarket in New Jersey, and from their names and their quotes, I could tell immediately that the people quoted were Japanese. You know, Japanese Japanese. Immigrants from Japan. Or more precisely, shin-Issei, or “new first-generation” Japanese. Or maybe even just Japanese families of business men (or women) or diplomats assigned for a year or three in the U.S. before rotating back to Japan or to another post elsewhere in the world.

There are fewer Japanese Japanese in America than other Asian populations, because fewer Japanese are immigrating to the U.S. than in the past. As of the 2000 census, about 7,000 new Japanese immigrants came to the U.S every year. In contrast, 50,900 Chinese and 17,900 Koreans per year came to the U.S.

So it’s not surprising that a mainstream news organization would mistake Japanese immigrants for Japanese Americans. (I should note that West Coast newspapers did better, and when they interviewed Japanese Americans they were indeed JAs, and when Japanese nationals were interviewed, they were identified as such.)

But still, it struck me that many Japanese Americans are not necessarily closely connected to Japan.
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