There are very few non-fiction books that I would insist that anyone interested in Asian American history and culture must read. There are other important books, but these are the ones that have helped me form my sense of identity as an Asian American.
They include Helen Zia's "Asian American Dreams," Bill Hosokawa's "Nisei: The Quiet Americans," Phoebe Eng's "Warrior Lessons," Ben Fong-Torres' "The Rice Room" and Ronald Takaki's "Strangers from a Different Shore."
Ronald Takaki, who wrote or co-authored more than a dozen books about Asian American identity and race in America, passed away May 26, too young at the age of 70. His landmark book, "Strangers from a Different Shore" was the one that helped me understand the historical flow of Asians to the United States, ethnic group by ethnic groups, and their struggles to be accepted by their new country. If Bill Hosokawa's "Nisei" helped me realize who I was as a Japanese American, Takaki, along with Helen Zia's "Asian American Dreams," helped me figure out my place in a larger context.
It's been a few weeks since this happened; I meant to write about it earlier, but better late than never, right? Asian Americans are finally getting more exposure on the TV screen, both in roles that don't require FoB accents (that's "fresh of the boat," for those of you new to the expression), and also in reality TV shows. Apolo Anton Ohno and Kristi Yamaguchi were "Dancing with the Stars" champions (and Carrie Ann Inaba is the best of the show's three judges). Each of the three seasons of "America's Best Dance Crew" has seen groups with mostly Asian American members as its champions. Yul Kwon beat out competitors to win "Survivor: Cook Islands." (Yul will be a guest on visualizAsian.com's AAPI Empowerment Series on June 9.)
Now, congratulations are due to the Chinese American brother-and-sister team of Tammy and Victor Jih for being crowned champions of "The Amazing Race 14."
Erin and I are launching a new site this week, visualizAsian.com, that will celebrate the accomplishments of Asian American Pacific Islanders with live audio interviews conducted over a conference phone line that will also be streamed live on a webcast, and then will be playable online afterwards. We're pleased to announce the debut interview will be with Norman Mineta,...
Call him Cool Yul. If you're a fan of "Survivor," you know who Yul Kwon is. He's the Korean American attorney who won the "Cook Island" season (season 13), helping to chip away at the myth that Asian men are meek and mild-mannered geeks. He was a good student, all right, and he works hard, so he fulfills the "model minority" stereotype in those ways. But he's also buff, handsome, an eloquent speaker (even though he says he hates public speaking) an Asian American activist and just plain cool.
Kwon was in Colorado yesterday, as the main speaker for an APA Heritage Month celebration organized by the MillerCoors Asian Network, the beer-maker based in Golden just west of Denver. Also on the bill were traditional Filipino dances by members of the Filipino American Community of Colorado, and terrific Filipino food by local chef Leah Eveleigh's Tropical Grill Catering. The turnout was smaller than it should have been -- shame on the local Asian American community for not coming out to support this kind of event, which was free of charge and featured a nationally-known celebrity as a draw. But the crowd that was there about half Asian descent, and mostly curious Coors employees and their families, was appreciative of Kwon's speech, and the performances and food.
I thought Kwon's speech was especially notable. He'd been to Denver before, last year during the Democratic National Convention, to urge Asian Americans to register to vote. He's still passionate about having AAPIs involved in politics, but he's not so interested in running for office himself, as he explained to a fan who asked. But his speech was all about his experiences growing up Asian in America, and how important it is for our future to have AAPIs to look up to as role models.
He explained how he grew up without seeing anyone who looked like him on TV or in movies, except people who were subservient, foreign and exotic, or at the other end of the scale, martial arts masters.
Poor Google. They're in a tough spot this time. The Internet giant has hit some cultural snags in Japan before, over how it rolled out its products in the Land of the Rising Sun. This time, they're in trouble because Google used publicly available historical maps of Tokyo and Osaka in an overlay for its popular (and amazing) Google Earth program.
The problem is, the maps showed the locations of former villages where the "burakumin" used to live in feudal times. The locations have long since been developed with the concrete, steel and glass of modern Tokyo, but the antique map has dredged up centuries and shame, and a fresh spate of anger from the descendants of burakumin as well as government officials who'd just as soon forget that such prejudice ever existed -- and apparently still exists.
It's May. Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. I wonder, though, if this celebration of our heritage is an idea whose time has passed. I'm glad that we have our month every year, but I'm worried that we're emphasizing the wrong things year after year.
Erin and I are starting to feel that APA Heritage Month may be counter-productive. The Pacific Citizen published a well-written piece last week, "Time to Rethink Asian Pacific American Heritage Month?" and I agree, it's time to re-think the tradition even though it's only 31 years old.
Last year, I wrote about how a 10-year-old Denver event, an Asian community celebration held in downtown Denver every May, needed to evolve from just Asians performing for other Asians.
It was a useful educational display back when our many communities stayed cloistered and Japanese didn't know much about Vietnamese, and Vietnamese didn't know much about Filipinos, and Filipinos didn't know much about Cambodians and Cambodians didn't know much about Koreans... you get the idea. But today, with especially young people mixing a lot more outside their own communities, it seems like a closed celebration, like preaching to the choir about the richness of our heritage. If you attend the annual event, you've seen many of the same performers year after year.
Even if the audience was expanded outside the Asian community, though, to the wider non-Asian population, I wonder if that would be good or bad for Asian Americans.
