It’s been a busy start to the conference organized by the Japanese American National Museum. We worked from home, setting up media coverage including sending a reporter and photographer from The Denver Post on a bus trip to Amache, the WWII internment camp in southeast Colorado. The result this morning is a powerful, well-written A-1 — front page — story by Jordan Dresser, with photos by Helen Richardson (kudos to the DenverPost.com staff, who added a couple of the extra photos from the print edition onto the online story).
Last night Erin and I attended our first official conference event, because Erin wasn’t feeling 100% during the day. We went to a reception for the conference at the home of Kazuaki Kubo, and mingled with Denver’s Japanese American leadership, and the likes of former JANM Executive Director Irene Hirano (who recently married Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawai’i, who wasn’t at the reception but will be at the conference today for the veteran’s salute), former Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta and actor/JANM President George Takei. [Read more →]
The JANM conference that starts today in Denver has a whole bunch of interesting and important panels, workshops and discussions. I’m moderating one on Saturday, about Hapas — mixed-race Asian Americans. But some of the most powerful parts of the conference will be the ones that bring people together with their past.
Today and Sunday, caravans of buses will be taking conference attendees to southeast Colorado, to the Amache concentration camp near the town of Granada (the official name of the camp was Granada Relocation Center) where more than 7,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II.
Erin and I will be hosting one of the buses on Sunday. The day will begin at 6am and we’ll return in the evening — the drive to the camp takes about 3 1/2 hours through desolate eastern plains terrain.
I’ll blog about the trip afterwards, but I wanted to share a couple of links about Amache: [Read more →]
Considering that many — if not most — Asians are allergic to alcohol, it’s amazing how much the culture of alcohol is part of society in Japan. I guess it’s the same all over the world, but since I’m very allergic to alcohol, I’m just out of the loop when it comes to booze.
You’re probably familiar with the nightly practice of businessmen going out with their fellow “salarymen” after work and dining and drinking themselves into a stupor before trudging home to the families they hardly see. I can sip half a glass of beer and I turn bright red and splotchy, my eyes glow in the dark and I get dizzy as hell. It was hard to go out drinking in high school when my face gave myself away whenever I stumbled home and mom was up waiting for me. I guess if I were with co-workers who were all equally red, I wouldn’t have been so self-conscious.
Anyway, I recently came across what looked like a cool soft drink at Pacific Mercantile, the Japanese grocery store in downtown Denver, and I realized that Japan’s alcohol culture starts earlier than I thought, and in insidious ways.
I saw a display for bottles of a drink called “Kodomo no Nomimono,” with a cute retro 1930s illustration of a child on the label, and the words, which translate as “Children’s Drink” written out in hiragana, the simplified alphabet that’s familiar to Japanese school kids.
The bottles were on sale — buy one, get one free — so I bought one to try, and got one for my friend Jordan, the “Energy Examiner” for Examiner.com. He wrote about Kodomo no Nomimono, and found to his shock that the stuff is marketed as a beer for kids by its manufacturer, Sangaria, the makers of the popular lemonade-flavored pop, Ramune. [Read more →]
Erin and I are helping out the conference, and one of Erin’s main projects has been contacting and inviting Colorado Japanese American veterans to the conference’s Welcome Ceremony on July 4, during which the vets will be honored for their service. Many of them are elderly veterans of the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team, who fought in Europe during WWII even though many of them had family members living behind barbed wire in U.S. concentration camps.
These men, as well as their lesser-known Pacific campaign counterparts, the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) who fought in the Pacific, for the country that imprisoned them at the start of the war just to prove their patriotism, remain today the most highly-decorated combat unit for its size and length of service in U.S. military history. In one celebrated battle, the men of the 442nd, whose motto was “Go for Broke!,” suffered over 800 casualties to save 211 men of a Texas “Lost Battalion” in the Vosges mountains of France towards the end of the war.
It should be a moving tribute to these men, and the veterans will include both Hawai’i Sen. Daniel Inouye, who lost an arm as a member of the 442nd, and former Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, who served in the Army during the 1950s.
They’ll join over two dozen Colorado veterans as well as JA veterans from all over the country who are attending the conference. [Read more →]
Online people, myself included, have been saying for years that the Web should be first in news priority, and that journalists shouldn’t think that they work for newsPAPER companies, but instead NEWS companies. Maybe, coming from an august writer like Leonard Pitts, a world-class columnist at the Miami Herald, this idea will start to sink in with those of you who still have ink in your veins.
He sounds like speeches and conversations I heard going on a decade ago, but better late than never, I say:
We still tend to regard our websites as ancillary to our primary mission of producing newspapers. But I submit that our primary mission is to report and comment upon the news and that it is the newspaper itself that has become ancillary.
So maybe we should regard the Internet not as an extra thing we do, but as the core thing we do.
Growing up, I didn’t think much about it, but seeing old Westerns now, it’s amazing to me that movies got away with casting white people in the roles of American Indians or Mexicans — almost always as “bad guys.”
Seeing these movies today, you could tell they’re not ethnic actors, and could almost see the smudges from the makeup smeared over their faces and hands. It wasn’t any more sophisticated than the blackface makeup white actors wore to play African American roles in silent movies or the early talkies, wide-eyed, shiny black visages like masks, singing about “mammy.” You don’t see that any more, at least, not with blacks and Latinos.
Hollywood also has a long and tiresome tradition of “yellowface” — having Caucasian actors portray ethnic Asian roles. And, unfortunately, you can still see that on the big screen today.
The most famous early examples of yellowface are the various actors from Warner Oland and Boris Karloff to Peter Sellers who played the evil, inscrutable Fu Manchu; Oland and Sidney Toler as the detective Charlie Chan in a series of hit movies; and the German-born, diminutive Peter Lorre as the Japanese detective Mr. Moto in another string of movies.
Even the great Katharine Hepburn, one of my favorite actresses, put on yellowface, to play a Chinese woman in the 1944 movie “Dragon Seed.” [Read more →]
The study found that because Asians are not all high-achieving academic wiz-kids, and that the diversity of the Asian communities (we’re not just Japanese, Chinese and Koreans, but also Laotian, Hmong, Cambodian, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, and so on) and the range of generations from first-generation immigrants with poor English skills to fourth, fifth or sixth generations of Americans, leads to a reality that’s less modeled and more uneven. Not all Asian Americans go into the top Ivy-League schools, either: a growing number is opting to go to community colleges instead of major universities.
The article quotes CU professor Daryl Maeda, an assistant professor of ethnic studies:
Another part of the “model minority myth” — that Asian-American students should perform well in science, technology, engineering and math fields — also can be unfair to students, Maeda said.
“Some are great at music or English,” Maeda said. “And if they don’t live up to the model minority myth it puts an extra pressure on them, giving them the idea that they somehow aren’t good enough in their endeavors.”
It’s been a couple of weeks, but congratulations are in order for Amanda Igaki, the winner of the “Miss Asian American Colorado” pageant held in Denver May 31.
Now, before you recoil at the thought of a beauty pageant, rest assured that this pageant, organized by a crew of young people led by the energetic and entrepreneurial Annie Guo, whose family publishes Asian Avenue Magazine, was not a traditional beauty pageant. The most obvious proof that this wasn’t a typical pageant was the lack of a swimsuit competition.
In fact, although Igaki was crowned “Miss Asian American Colorado” at the end of the four-hour event (which felt much shorter because it was so interesting), it didn’t feel like a competition between the 26 contestants at all. These women had become close friends, like a small, tight sorority. [Read more →]
Update 18 June: News media are reporting Tiger Woods will miss the rest of this year’s golf season because he needs more surgery on his left knee. That’s a big bummer, but not surprising, given how he grimaced after many of his tee-offs. I almost winced with empathy pain as he twisted his knee each time.
Everyone’s favorite hapa/Asian American, Tiger Woods, is important enough news to accomplish a pretty impressive feat.
I’m not just talkin’ clinching the U.S. Open Championship in a nail-biting last round and sudden death match against Rocco Mediate. I’m talkin’ about pushing up the publication date of one of the most popular magazines in the country, Sports Illustrated.
MinOnline.com reports that the July 23 issue of the mag, which had been scheduled to hit the newsstands with a Woods cover on Wednesday, was rushed to the printers early, and is already out, one day after the golf superstar’s victory. [Read more →]
Here’s a blog post I just came cross, from AdAge.com, that adds to the dialogue on the use of the word “uppity” to describe African Americans.
Pepper Miller points out that some African Americans take the use of “elitist” to describe Barack Obama as code for “uppity”:
As another example, WVON-AM Chicago talk-show host Perri Small nailed the rationale for black frustration over charges of Sen. Obama’s “elitist” attitude during an appearance on CNN last month. Ms. Small explained that many in the black community took “elitist” to mean “uppity,” a particularly troublesome translation as the term “uppity” dates back to pre-Civil Rights and the Jim Crow era. Despite progress in the black community, “uppity” continues to be perceived as code for blacks who do not “stay their place.”
Stereotypes sometimes are based on a kernel of truth, but they’re twisted and blown out of proportion and used out of context. Sometimes, stereotypes can even be “good” in that they’re not negative images. But trust me, a stereotype is still a stereotype. It’s a generalization that’s not universally true, and even the good ones are impossible to live up to.
Asian Americans are very familiar with the stereotype of the “model minority.” It goes like this: Asian Americans are smart, quiet, dependable, hard-working and never complain. Asian American kids are smart, quiet, straight-A students, play classical music on instruments like piano, cello and violin, and never complain.
It’s all hogwash, of course… but it’s based on that kernel of truth.
Asian Americans were known for a hundred years for successfully assimilating into mainstream American society. It never completely worked because we could never be accepted racially into the mainstream like European Americans could, but Asian immigrants and their families worked hard to become economically successful in America.
But a brand-new report published by New York University, the College Board and Asian American educators and community leaders found that the idea of “model minority” is a myth, and that the APA (Asian Pacific American) population is as diverse and no more homogeneous than the rest of America.
“Certainly there’s a lot of Asians doing well, at the top of the curve, and that’s a point of pride, but there are just as many struggling at the bottom of the curve, and we wanted to draw attention to that,” said Robert T. Teranishi, the N.Y.U. education professor who wrote the report, “Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight.”
File this under “you’re too sensitive” if you want, but I think people of color notice these types of media mistakes because they reflect, deep-down, America’s lack of evolution on the diversity front.
From Gawker a few days ago: an MSNBC reporter described Spike Lee as “uppity” because of his back-and-forth spat with Clint Eastwood over the lack of African American soldiers represented on his two films about the World War II battle for Iwo Jima, “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima.” When Lee’s criticism, which he made when he was at the Cannes Film Festival in May, was published, Eastwood responded that Lee should “shut his face.”
I linked to the Gawker story in my Facebook page, and this morning I got an IM from a friend in New York, Peter V, who said he didn’t get what the fuss was about. “Forgive my ignorance - but is ‘uppity’ a racial slur? I missed that one,” he said.
I thought about it, because I had immediately linked to the Gawker piece, but upon reflection, he was right “uppity” in itself is not an offensive word. It’s the historical context that I was responding to.
“In itself, no,” I replied. “But someone in the national media should know the loaded nature of using the word when referring to a black man…. She may not have meant anything by it, but shame on her. It has hundreds of years of hate and hangings behind it…”
As I explained in a follow-up email, the parallel, for me, is that I grew up hearing the phrase “sneaky Japs” — all my life, from other kids in school, on the playground, at work (back in the day, when workplaces were less enlightened) and elsewhere, from all ages. [Read more →]
The characters Harold and Kumar, played by APA actors John Cho and Kal Penn, are like embarassing uncles who fart in public and cuss and tell stupid jokes. In fact, in lots of ways, Harold and Kumar are stupid jokes.
But like those uncles, you have to embrace them when you see them, even though you wince every time they walk in the room.
That’s because in their 2004 debut, Cho and Penn’s characters smashed Asian American stereotypes about being the model minority. Cho played Harold, an earnest numbers-cruncher by day who has the hots for a hot neighbor and has the internalized heart of a slacker; Penn’s Kumar is the slacker externalized. He’s a pot-hound and horndog and crude as he can be, always trying to drag Harold into his slackdom. Kumar is supposed to become a doctor, and it turns out he’s quite capable, except he’s pathologically incapable of following his ethnically preordained career path.
The two go on a marijuana binge and seek out a White Castle burger, or more accurately, a whole bunch of ‘em, to assuage their munchies. (It helps to understand the plot if you’ve enjoyed the strange pleasures of a tiny White Castle “slider.”) [Read more →]
We happened upon a two-hour special tonight for the final auditions before the second season debut of “America’s Best Dance Crew,” and got entranced by the amazing moves by the groups from all over the country that tried out for the series. These crews compete with incredible, acrobatic break-dancing and hip-hop popping, spins, leaps and tumbles. (The video above is from MTV.com, on its page of bonus videos from the auditions.)
This is the show that ended its first season by crowning JabbaWockeeZ, a mostly APA group from San Francisco, as the champions. One of the other first-season finalists, Kaba Modern was also APA. [Read more →]
Because it’s held every four years, and it happens to be an election year, UNITY attendees will be treated to a forum with Barack Obama and John McCain. It’s a powerful, electrifying sight: The candidates for the most powerful position on Earth coming to speak to a roomful of 10,000+ journalists who look like me, as well as other minorities — who are definitely the majority during UNITY.
The conference planners just announced that the Presidential Forum will be held during primetime and broadcast live on CNN. [Read more →]
I know exactly where I was the night of June 5, 1983: I was freezing my butt off, soaked to the bone but ignoring my discomfort because I was in musical heaven, surrounded by huge sandstone rocks on both sides, a stormy sky above and a hungry young band called U2 just hitting its stride in front of me, its members playing their hearts out despite the crappy weather.
That concert was captured on an EP (for you post-CD fans, “extended play” releases were vinyl records with fewer songs than a full album but more than just a single with a flipside) and a video, both titled “Under a Blood Red Sky.” The audio recording was actually a compilation of tracks recorded at Red Rocks and elsewhere during the same tour; the video was all filmed in Denver.
The combination of the two established U2 as world-class big-time rock stars, not the scrappy new-wavers who played clubs and small theaters. MTV loved the energetic performances amidst the dramatic, almost otherworldly, setting. Radio stations caught on to the band’s talent, and U2 hit their stride. In the years since, the concert was hailed as a seminal moment not just for U2, but for pop music: Rolling Stone magazine named it to its list of the “50 Moments that Changed Rock and Roll.” [Read more →]
Internet technology is such a great, rapidly evolving field, that we’re constantly being presented with new ways to tell stories — to do journalism. Who woulda thunk even just 10 years ago that the Internet would be many people’s main source of news and information? Who woulda predicted services such as Facebook, or Twitter, not to mention blogs? How about live streaming video?
All these elements were part of a cool historic moment tonight, when all three Presidential candidates took some time to connect with Asian American voters for a first-ever Town Hall sponsored by an organization called APIA Vote.
The event was held in an auditorium at the University of California at Irvine, an LA suburb, and included the expected speeches and some cool entertainment. JA actor Tamlyn Tomita kicked butt as an engaging, entertaining emcee. Hillary Clinton spoke first to the group via satellite, followed by Barack Obama over the phone, and then a surrogate stand-in for John McCain in person. The whole event was broadcast live over the Internet. A small — too small — group of us in Denver met in a meeting room at the Daniels Fund to watch the live feed. [Read more →]
We just snuck out after a couple of hours of Denver’s annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month celebration, an event sponsored by Colorado’s APA umbrella organization, Asian Roundtable. This free event has been going on for over a decade, and it’s held every May in a community auditorium at the Well Fargo Bank building in downtown Denver.
The Asian Roundtable represents two dozen APA organizations and for-profit companies as well as some individuals. Its member organizations sponsor the event, which runs from 11 am-4pm on a Saturday, kicking off with a buffet and then featuring several hours of performances.
I was involved with this event when I was the president of the Mile-Hi chapter of the JACL, almost 10 years ago. Back then, I appreciated the event because it brought Asian communities together to learn from each other. I was surprised at the time that Asians knew so little about each other’s cultures. One year the JACL brought some basic sushi for people to taste, and people kept asking me, “What is that?” (Sushi, or wasabi.) “What’s the soy sauce for?” (The sushi.) “What does this taste like?” (Try it and see, lady.)
Then it struck me — Asians are so tribal and insulated from each other, that they don’t know anything about the other Asian cultures. I admit, I didn’t exactly grow up eating Filipino or Thai or Vietnamese food. But I’ve embraced all those cuisines, and more, every chance I get. Many Asians (especially older Asians) don’t do this. [Read more →]
Erin and I attended a talk and book signing with 9News Political reporter Adam Schrager last night, and introduced him to her folks. It was the second time we’ve seen Adam speak since the publication of “The Principled Politician.” This talk was held at Simpson United Methodist Church, which serves the Japanese American community, and it was sponsored by various area Japanese and Japanese American organizations, including the Denver Buddhist Temple, Japanese Association and the JACL’s Mile-Hi chapter.
This was the first time Schrager spoke to a hometown crowd of JAs. Back on Feb. 19 — the Day of Remembrance, a date Schrager purposefully sought out for his first book signing at the Tattered Cover bookstore — the crowd was mostly non-Japanese, with a definite emphasis on Denver media and politicos (Mayor Hickenlooper made it). Since then, Schrager has spoken at the Japanese American National Museum in LA, but here in Denver, his appearances have been on the bookstore circuit. So he admitted during the Q&A when Erin asked him, that talking about his book to an almost all-JA crowd was “intimidating.”
He didn’t act it. Looking his usual boyish self, and speaking with an impassioned conviction, the tall, lanky Schrager reminded me of the young Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 Frank Capra film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” By the time he finished and everyone convened downstairs for surprisingly good food from Japon and a long line of people buying his book and getting personalized autographs, Schrager had been accepted as an honorary Japanese American. [Read more →]
The unfortunately small gathering was treated not only to good food and conversation, but a wonderful and entertaining presentation by Lee, a New York Times Metro reporter who has just published her first book, “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles,” which is a peek at the cross-cultural pollination that Americans think of as Chinese food.
First of all, change your idea of Chinese food. What most people in this country consider Chinese food is really Chinese American food. To underscore the point that Chinese food is more American than apple pie (as Lee asks, how often do Americans eat apple pie, and how often do they eat Chinese food?), the presentation begins with a startling fact: There are more Chinese restaurants in this country than McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken combined. [Read more →]
The most famous early examples of yellowface are the various actors from Warner Oland and Boris Karloff to Peter Sellers who played the evil, inscrutable Fu Manchu; Oland and Sidney Toler as the detective Charlie Chan in a series of hit movies; and the German-born, diminutive Peter Lorre as the Japanese detective Mr. Moto in another string of movies. 
Update 18 June: News media are reporting 
The characters Harold and Kumar, played by APA actors John Cho and Kal Penn, are like embarassing uncles who fart in public and cuss and tell stupid jokes. In fact, in lots of ways, Harold and Kumar are stupid jokes.
As members of the 
I know exactly where I was the night of June 5, 1983: I was freezing my butt off, soaked to the bone but ignoring my discomfort because I was in musical heaven, surrounded by huge sandstone rocks on both sides, a stormy sky above and a hungry young band called U2 just hitting its stride in front of me, its members playing their hearts out despite the crappy weather. 
Erin and I attended a talk and book signing with 9News Political reporter 
