Edward Hong’s powerful declaration of identity, “I Am Korean American”

By | |
Leave a comment

Asian Americans as a group share identity issues being stuck between cultures — not quite accepted by the country of our heritage, and not quite always accepted as “American” either. We’re still finding our place in society. Each culture can have a specific spin that colors our identity. Japanese Americans carry baggage from internment and Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor. For Koreans, the LA riots and the Virginia Tech shootings have affected the community.

Edward Hong, a young Korean American who studied theater and Asian American studies, performs his powerful poem, “I Am Korean American,” in which he finds his voice and declares his identity, proudly.

It’s a terrific, stark production, shot by Steve Nguyen, a busy LA filmmaker whose YouTube channel chronicles Asian America on video.

I’d love to see other Asian Americans, including other Koreans, but also Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Vietnamese Americans, and so on, have enough guts and artistic presence — and talent — to write and record their own stories and statements of identity.

That would be a cool online project!

Support Asian American filmmakers by donating through Kickstarter.com website

By | | ,
Leave a comment

I’ve known about Kickstarter.com, the fundraising site for creative startups and projects in a variety of categories including film, art, dance, technology, design, journalism, comedy and others, but I’d never really looked into it. This week, though, I’ve come across several very cool films by Asian Americans that are using Kickstarter to ask for donations.

Here’s how it works:

Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavors.

We believe that…

• A good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide.
• A large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement.

Kickstarter is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.

Each project must set an amount needed and a deadline by which that amount must be raised. If you don’t get enough donations to reach the amount, you get none of the money that’s already been pledged. Each project offers different levels of thank-you gifts and rewards for donors, and donors can pledge as little as one dollar.

The submissions include a video pitch asking for donations, as well as written descriptions for the project. It’s a great way to generate crowd-sourced funding.

The three films I wrote about on my Posterous blog this week are all short films by Asian American filmmakers, and they’re all interesting ideas that I think are worth supporting. Here’s a little information about them, starting with the video at the top of this post, for “The Potential Wives of Norman Mao.”
Continue reading →

Justice Dept.: Philadelphia schools reaches agreement on harassment a year after Asian students were attacked

By | | ,
Leave a comment

Asian students may walk with a little less fear next semester, now that the US Justice Department reached an agreement with the Philadelphia School District over a series of assaults that occurred a year ago.

The agreement is similar to one that South Philadelphia High School reached with the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission, and requires Philadelphia schools to come up with a a plan to combat bullying, give multicultural training; and track incidents of harassment.

On Dec. 3, 2009, 26 Asian students were attacked and 13 were hospitalized after being attacked at school during the day. Some were pulled out of classes by African American students roaming the halls and assaukted, and others were attacked as they tried to leave the school cafeteria. Here’s one description from the complaint:

A group of Chinese students was escorted to the cafeteria by a school security guard. After entering the cafeteria, this same group of Chinese students saw that the cafeteria was chaotic and turned around to leave the room. However, as they were leaving, a group of students attacked them from behind and began punching and kicking the Chinese students. At least one student suffered a black eye, trauma to his head, and serious bruises on his hip, arms and hand.

These attacks led to a weeklong boycott of the school by Asian students, which made national headlines.

It’s sad that a major city’s school district had to be told by the Justice Department how to handle such horrible examples of racial hatred and discrimination. Last year, it felt like the school was close to collapsing in violent chaos to anyone following the story.
Continue reading →

Comcast & NBC sign Memo of Understanding to be more inclusive of Asian Americans

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

Comcast and NBCU will promote AAPIs in programming

JACL sent out an announcement this morning about an agreement that’s been reached between NBC Universal, Comcast (which is trying to get regulators’ blessings to buy NBCU) and a handful of Asian American Pacific Islander organizations: the Asian American Justice Center, East West Players, Japanese American Citizens League, OCA and Media Action Network for Asian Americans.

Although the past couple of years have led to a marked increase in the number of Asian faces on TV and in movies, it’s nice to see some high-level muscle put on both Comcast and NBCU to be more inclusive within their programming. The agreement’s been in the works for a while; Comcast last month announced its new on-demand channel, “Cinema Asian America,” which is great. I hope to see progress from other media companies and Hollywood giants too, until AAPIs are no longer invisible and are represented accurately as just another part of the quilt that makes up American society.

This probably seems like a trivial deal to some people, but as an Asian American who grew seeing very few people like me on TV and in movie, it’s a big deal. It’s slowly getting better, but I’ve written about this issue as early as 1998 in a column titled “Why Can’t I Be on TV?” and I’ve I’ve given speeches about the topic over the years.

When I no longer do a double-take or other take notice of an “Asian sighting” on a reality show, or in a commercial, or as a lead character on a TV series or Hollywood film, I’ll know we’ve finally arrived.

Here’s the full text of the JACL press release:
Continue reading →

Young people take over Chinese American Council of Colorado’s annual fuddy-duddy fundraiser, talk about identity

By | |
2 Comments

The Chinese American Council of Colorado usually hosts an annual year-end banquet in December, at which the umbrella organization notes the accomplishments of its many subsidiary community groups and projects, from the Chinese Language School to the annual Double 10 Celebration (to mark the founding of the Republic of China, currently in Taiwan), and recruiting volunteers for the annual Colorado Dragon Boat Festival to hosting free health screenings for the community. They even sponsor the Rocky Mountain Chinese Society of Science and Engineering.

The CACC’s year-end banquet usually is held at Palace Seafood restaurant, the place where 90% of Asian community banquets are held, and they’re usually the typical, staid events where everyone gets dressed up and claps politely at the awards and speeches.

Last year’s CACC banquet raised the issue of inspiring the next generation of leaders, and the organizations has taken that advice to heart.

This weekend, the CACC eschewed the usual banquet format for a more informal afternoon event at a ballroom at the Colorado Free University in the old Lowry Air Force Base complex, with food donated by several local Chinese restaurants. And instead of a stuffy affair run by the grownups, the event was organized and hosted by the Chinese Youth Foundation, highlighted by a pretty interesting panel of young Chinese Americans speaking out about their often conflicted identities.
Continue reading →