Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View | race
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January 15, 2018

Erin and I attended the opening performance of "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill," a moving tribute to the tragic life of jazz singer Billie Holiday, who is remembered today for classic renditions of "God Bless the Child" and the stark song condemning the racist lynching of black men she first recorded in 1939, "Strange Fruit." Holiday was one of the most influential singers ever, whose influence crossed over jazz and blues to folk, R&B, rock and pop music. "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill" is set in a bar in Philadelphia just months before her death in July 1959 from heart failure caused by cirrhosis.
March 19, 2014

[caption id="attachment_5550" align="aligncenter" width="520"]My brother Gary (on the right) and me at Kintai Bridge in Iwakuni, Japan circa 1965. My brother Gary (on the right) and me at Kintai Bridge in Iwakuni, Japan circa 1965. Note that my brother is wearing a Cub Scout (or Webelos) shirt -- we were both Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts starting in Japan, and I was even an Explorer Scout! How American can we get![/caption] This has been a good week for sometimes contentious but bracing conversations on Facebook. The latest one started when I posted a link to an excellent Forbes article by Ruchika Tulshyan titled "'Where Are You From?' And Other Big Networking Racial Faux Pas" The article raises the oft-aired complaint by Asian Americans that asking "Where are you from?" (sometimes linked to the even more irritating "You speak English so well...") is a social, racial no-no. I certainly can't argue with that. I've written plenty about this very topic. I once criticized Martha Stewart for pulling the "Where are you from?" card, and in the post also included the conversation from my book, "Being Japanese American" that so many Asian American are all too familiar with, which starts with "You speak English so well" and veers off into "where are you from?" territory. The Forbes piece quotes a South Asian news producer making a point that many Asian Americans should learn by heart and recite whenever we're asked the question:
November 21, 2012

PSY, the Korean pop sensation whose viral hit video, "Gangnam Style," has been viewed alomst 800 million times on YouTube (that's the official video, never mind the countless other users' uploads and all the spoofs and tributes), closed out the American Music Awards on Nov. 18. In a savvy, surprising and ultimately, ironic, collaboration, the 35-year-old PSY (real name: Park...

May 4, 2011

Geronimo, not Osama bin LadenThe message to everyone waiting with bated breath in the White House situation room was terse and to the point: "Geronimo-E KIA": "Geronimo," the Enemy, Killed in Action. Really? Osama bin Laden was codenamed "Geronimo?" Even if, as the White House later clarified, that "Geronimo" was the codename for the mission, not the target, the choice is ripe with symbolism that reeks of mid-18th century American imperialism and European American racial privilege. I know I'm going to hear from the folks who screech at the thought of political correctness overtaking American culture and spoiling pop references that used to be commonly used but now can be offensive. I'm going to hear from people who thought I didn't have a sense of humor when I got angry that Shaquille O'Neal, or Adam Carolla, or Rosie O'Donnell, or Rush Limbaugh pull out the "ching-chong" routine to mock Asians. I'm going to hear from people who think I'm over-sensitive about "yellowface" in Hollywood (the long and still-going history of white actors playing Asian parts) and the use of Asian stereotypes. I'm going to hear from people who defend racially offensive statements or behavior as OK because it wasn't "meant" to offend -- therefore leading to the non-apology apology that blames those who are offended for taking it wrong. The fact is, if something is offensive to someone, it's offensive. Period. It's not about the motivation, or the intent. It's about the impact. And the impact of the U.S. military's use of "Geronimo" -- either as the codename for Osama bib Laden, or the codename of the mission that took bin Laden out -- is definitely negative in the Native American community.
October 27, 2010

HapaVoice.com celebrates mixed-race Asians Erica Johnson is a woman on a mission. Earlier this year, she launched a blog called Hapa Voice where she posts submissions from hapas -- mixed-race Asians -- with photos and short autobiographies that explain a little about themselves. The titles of each post are a simple rundown of the submitter's ethnic mix. This elegant, straightforward approach to stating one's own identity is both powerful and moving, especially for hapas because their identities have been a central focus all their lives, even more so than other people of color. Being mixed adds a layer of richness for themselves, and too often a lare of confusion for others. So it's really cool to read entry after entry on "Hapa Voices" and see so many people who are finding their voice... and their identity. HapaVoice.com founder Erica Johnson Johnson has been inspired by the work of hapa writer, filmmaker, artist, activist, standup comic and lifeguard (really) Kip Fulbeck. His "Hapa Project" and books such as "Part Asian, 100% Hapa" are clear antecedents for "Hapa Voice." In the book, Fulbeck traveled the country shooting portraits of mixed-race Asians accompanied by statements of identity by the people posing. He recently published a new book of adorable portraits of little hapa kids, "Mixed." But as an ongoing website project, "Hapa Voice" takes Fulbeck's inspiration and breathes it more life. Johnson explains the origins of the "Hapa Voice" blog on its "About" page:
September 26, 2010

chibi anime -- do Japanese draw the characters to look "white"?I've written before about Japanese anime, or animation, as well as the genre's characters and their large eyes, and wondered if they symbolize a desire to look more Caucasian. But this brief guest post by Julian Abagond on the blog Sociological Images titled Why Do the Japanese Draw Themselves As White? that offers very interesting food for thought. Abagond makes the case that Americans (white people) think Japanese draw anime and manga characters to look Caucasian, but that's a Western construct, and that "Americans" (he conflates nationality with ethnicity, a common slip in race/culture conversations, even by well-intentioned people and often by Asians) see everything in terms of white unless there are stereotypical symbols that identify a character as another ethnicity.
June 19, 2009

Vincent Chin was murdered in 1982 by out-of-work auto workers in Detroit. His death marked the emergence of the pan-Asian community as a political force.Vincent Chin was beaten with a baseball bat 27 years ago today in a Detroit suburb, and died four days later. At the time, I was three years out of art school, managing a paint store, and was a budding young rock critic writing for Denver's alternative newspaper, Westword. I didn't follow any news coverage about the attack on Vincent Chin, and I was clueless about the importance of his tragic death. I was still a "banana" -- yellow on the outside, but white on the inside. Like the name of the 2008 documentary film about the impact of Chin's murder on the Asian American community, if you had asked me then about him, I would have said, "Vincent who?" Today, Vincent Chin is very much on my mind. I haven't seen director Tony Lam's "Vincent Who?" yet, but I definitely feel I'm a part of Chin's legacy. In the decades since, I've become aware and much more appreciative of my ethnic roots, culture and history as a Japanese American, which I used to take for granted. I've also become much more aware of my place in the much larger Asian American community.
May 1, 2009

Two 13-year-old boys in Boulder, Colorado have been arrested (police plan a to arrest a third boy, 10) for calling a 12-year-old girl's cell phone and threatening to rape and kill her because she's Asian. Here's the story from the Boulder Daily Camera. It's more evidence that race in America is still an unsettled issue, lying just below the placid surface of even politically-correct communities. According to Boulder police spokesperson Sarah Huntley, the three boys dialed the girl's phone and described a violent sexual attack using explicit language:
The girl hung up, Huntley said, and they called back and left two messages telling her that she would die because of what they were going to do to her. "The girl answered the first call, but her parents intercepted the other messages," Huntley said. "They didn't pick up the phone, but they listened to the messages and shielded their daughter from hearing them." The messages included details about damaging the girl's female organs, Huntley said. "In the messages, they indicated that they wanted to have sex with her because she was Asian," Huntley said. "That is the basis for charging them with a bias-motivated crime."
Boulder may be liberal politically and environmentally, but not always racially. In recent years, the University of Colorado -- where most of the city's Asians and other people of color can be found -- has suffered a series of embarrassing racial incidents that range from vioelnce against minorities to a campus news website columnist satirically declaring "war against Asians."