President Obama celebrates Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month

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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_________________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release May 24, 2010

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT RECEPTION CELEBRATING ASIAN AMERICAN AND PACIFIC ISLANDER HERITAGE MONTH

East Room

3:50 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you so much. It is wonderful to see all of you — some of you back for the second time. Some of you work for me, so you’re here all the time. (Laughter.)

I want to, before I start off, acknowledge that we’ve got just some outstanding members of Congress who are always fighting the good fight for the AAPI community. It starts at the top, though, and I want to give a huge welcome and big round of applause for somebody who will go down as one of the greatest Speakers in our history — Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (Applause.)

I want to thank Father Vien for his introduction. He’s led Mary Queen of Vietnam Church in Louisiana through some pretty hard days. After Katrina, he served not only as a spiritual advisor but also as a community organizer, making sure his parishioners got the help that they needed. In fact, shortly after returning to New Orleans, when much of the city was dark, he convinced the utility company to divert electricity to the neighborhood around his church. So nobody messes with Father Vien. (Laughter.) He tends to get what he wants. Continue reading →

Margaret Kasahara’s pop art pokes at Asian stereotypes

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Americanese by Margaret Kasahara

Margaret Kasahara was almost half an hour late to the opening reception of her first Denver solo exhibit, at the Sandra Phillips Gallery along the Arts District on Santa Fe Drive. Her fans, friends and collectors milled around soaking in the art on the wall, and made chit-chat until she entered, flustered from being stuck in traffic on this rainy spring evening.

The Colorado Springs-based painter began making the rounds, and one acquaintance made slight of the fact that she was late — it’s no big deal, she told Margaret, who gave a wan smile in return. “No, I bet she’s mortified,” I said. “Japanese are supposed to be early to things. It’s in our DNA.”

I wondered if I had offended her by saying it, but the quip fit the exhibit — Kasahara’s work is a statement of her very Japaneseness, her Asian values on display in colorful two dimensions.

Besides, tardiness didn’t matter. Late or not, her opening was a hit, with a big crowd in spite of the lousy wet weather. The space is small, and her main pieces are 4 feet by 4 feet square, so there’s only room for 13 works in the gallery. But that’s enough to give you a scope of Kasahara’s ability with oil paint (and oil paint sticks) as well as her wit and clever vision, which infuses statements about race and identity in an engaging package of pop art and yes, politics, even though in her artist’s statement Kasahara says she’s not a particularly political artist: Continue reading →

Iron Man, Marvel-ous superheroes and Asian Americans

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I wanted to grow up to be a Marvel comics artist

Once upon a time, I went to art school. And although I graduated with a completely useless (career-wise, anyway) BFA in Painting, I chose art school because once upon a time, I wanted to work for Marvel Comics. Real bad. See above.

When I was a kid, I loved Marvel’s lineup of superheroes because they had all-too-human frailties when they weren’t busting up crime in their empowered alter-egos. Spider-man, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil, The Mighty Thor, The Avengers, The X-Men… I collected ’em all. I also had a few issues of Superman and Batman and other DC comics lying around, but I wasn’t a DC fanatic. I was, however, card-carrying member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society, the fan club started in 1964. I had posters (Thor against a psychedelic rainbow in black light in my room looked very cool), stickers, notepads and lots and lots of comics. I had a comic-fan penpal in Australia that I still think about now and then. And, I wrote letters to Marvel about every other month in the hopes of having one of my missives published. Alas, none of them ever ran.

I also drew comics. I wish I’d kept some of them, with dialogue, panels and all. They sucked of course, but they were drawn with the complete self-absorption of of a pre-teen, and that passion eventually turned into some bit of talent, enough to get me into Pratt Institute in New York… a few steps closer to Marvel than high school in Denver. The rest, as they say, is history.

Punk rock, college radio, guitar, big ol’ canvases, The Village and New York’s many distractions distracted me away from my commercial art career, and I eventually ended up a writer — go figger — much to my tuition-paying parents’ chagrin. Besides, my too-Japanese mom decided to eliminate my brother and my clutter when we went off to college, and threw out anything of consequence from our childhoods… including my remaining boxes of comics.

But I still have a soft spot for superheroes, especially ones of the Marvel variety.

So it’s been great over the past decade to watch the Merry Marvel Marching parade of comic-bound characters spring to glorious computer-animated life on the movie screen, with each new movie taking advantage of ever cooler, ever newer technology to create the best special effects ever. Of all of these, I have to say that I’ve enjoyed the smart, funny spectacularly entertaining Iron Man movies best. Continue reading →

Next on visualizAsian.com: Meet Naomi Hirahara, award-winning mystery author

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Naomi HiraharaErin and I are thrilled to announce the next call in our visualizAsian.com AAPI Empowerment Series, with Edgar Award-winning author Naomi Hirahara, whose fourth Mas Arai mystery, “Blood Hina,” was recently released. The Edgars, by the way, are the prestigious annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards for the best in mystery writing.

I fell in love with Hirahara’s ability to effortlessly capture the spirit and personality of the Japanese American community with her instantly engaging first book, “Summer of the Big Bachi.”

Her characters, starting with reluctant crime-solver Mas Arai, a retiring gardener in Los Angeles, speak and think and live in a culture rich with JA rhythms, from their speech to historical references. Arai is a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and he has a knack for stumbling into murder mysteries.

The plots of the Arai series, which also include “Gasa Gasa Girl,” in which Mas travels to New York, and “Snakeskin Shamisen,” in which Hirahara explores the rich culture of Okinawans in LA. “Snakeskin Shamisen” won Hirahara the prestigious Edgar Award for mystery writing.

Here’s Hirahara’s bio:

Naomi Hirahara’s fourth Mas Arai mystery, Blood Hina, was released in hardcover by St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne Books on March 2, 2010. Other books in the series, which features a Japanese American gardener and atomic-bomb survivor who solves crimes, includes Summer of the Big Bachi, Gasa-Gasa Girl, and the Edgar Award-winning Snakeskin Shamisen.

Her crime short stories are featured in Los Angeles Noir, Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics, A Hell of a Woman, and The Darker Mask. Her book for younger readers, 1001 Cranes, was chosen as an Honor Book for the Youth Literature of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in 2009. She also contributed a mystery serial, “Heist in Crown City” to an English-language weekly in Japan, Asahi Weekly.

A graduate of Stanford University with a degree in international relations, she is the president of the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America.

She’s also a former journalist, who was a reporter and editor for the Rafu Shimpo newspaper in Los Angeles, and she has written books for the Japanese American National Museum. Welcome Naomi Hirahara and join us when we interview her about her books, her characters, and how she comes up with her fast-paced, clever and exciting plotlines.

Tune in and meet her!

SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE LIVE INTERVIEW WITH NAOMI AT 6 PM PDT (9 PM EDT) TUESDAY, MAY 11! You can listen to the live interview over the phone (long distance charges may apply) or FREE via a webcast. You can also submit questions for Naomi before and during the interview. If you miss the live event, you can listen to the interview for a limited time online.

NH State Rep. hates on anime, says it’s a “prime example of why two nukes just wasn’t enough”

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Nick Levasseur, enemy of anime.

Holy cow, what was this guy thinking? New Hampshire State Rep. Nick Levasseur posted on his Facebook wall earlier this week that “Anime is a prime example of why two nukes just wasn’t enough…..”

Huh? That rates a WTF?! from any perspective.

Otaku Review, an anime fan blog first picked up the quote, then Levasseur confirmed he posted it on his personal Facebook account, and apologized for it. At least it was a real apology, not one of those “I’m sorry you were offended” non-apologies. Levasseur admits it was a stupid comment, in a response to a question from Otaku review’s L.B. Bryant:

I would like to deeply apologize for the insensitivity of this post. It was a poorly thought out comment, posted jest on my private facebook page. It was never intended to be viewed by anyone other than friends. This, of course, does not excuse the comment. This type of statement has no place in public or private discourse. It does not represent any true opinion, political or personal. My record in the New Hampshire House shows a commitment to equality and social justice. It is a record of which I am most proud. This comment is a disappointment not only to the people of New Hampshire, whom it has been my privilege to serve, but also to my own beliefs and moral code.

Huffington Post picked up on the gaff via a TV station, and other blogs and news media are spreading the comment and subsequent apology around. Good. But the apology begs some creepy questions that remain unanswered: Continue reading →